Private Peter Galbraith, of the 3rd Lennox Highlanders, awoke with a
splitting headache and the consciousness of an intolerable din. At first
he thought it was the whistle from the forge, which a year ago had
pulled him from his bed when he was a puddler in Motherwell. He
scrambled to his feet, and nearly cracked his skull against a low roof.
That, and a sound which suggested that the heavens were made of canvas
which a giant hand was rending, cleared his wits and recalled him to the
disagreeable present. He lit the dottle in his pipe, and began to piece
out his whereabouts.
Late the night before, the remnants of his battalion had been brought in
from the Gheluvelt trenches to billets in Ypres. That last week he had
gone clean off his sleep. He had not been dry for a fortnight, his
puttees had rotted away, his greatcoat had disappeared in a mud-hole,
and he had had no stomach for what food could be got. He had seen half
his battalion die before his eyes, and day and night the shells had
burst round him till the place looked like the ironworks at Motherwell
on a foggy night. The worst of it was that he had never come to grips
with the Boches, which he had long decided was the one pleasure left to
him in life. He had got far beyond cursing, though he had once had a
talent that way. His mind was as sodden as his body, and his thoughts
had been focussed on the penetrating power of a bayonet when directed
against a plump Teutonic chest. There had been a German barber in
Motherwell called Schultz, and he imagined the enemy as a million
Schultzes--large, round men who talked with the back of their throat.
In billets he had scraped off the worst part of the mud, and drunk half
a bottle of wine which a woman had given him. It tasted like red ink,
but anything liquid was better than food. Sleep was what he longed for,
but he could not get it. The Boches were shelling the town, and the room
he shared with six others seemed as noisy as the Gallowgate on a
Saturday night. He wanted to get deep down into the earth where there
was no sound; so, while the others snored, he started out to look for a
cellar. In the black darkness, while the house rocked to the shell
reverberations, he had groped his way down the stairs, found a door
which led to another flight, and, slipping and stumbling, had come to a
narrow, stuffy chamber which smelt of potatoes. There he had lain down
on some sacks and fallen into a frowsty slumber.
His head was spinning, but the hours of sleep had done him good. He felt
a slight appetite for breakfast, as well as an intolerable thirst. He
groped his way up the stairs, and came out in a dilapidated hall lit by
a dim November morning.
There was no sign of the packs which had been stacked there the night
before. He looked for a Boche's helmet which he had brought in as a
souvenir, but that was gone. Then he found the room where he had been
billeted. It was empty, and only the stale smell of tobacco told of its
occupants.
Lonely, disconsolate, and oppressed with thoughts of future punishment,
he moved towards the street door. Suddenly the door of a side room
opened and a man came out, a furtive figure with a large, pasty face.
His pockets bulged, and in one hand was a silver candlestick. At the
sight of Galbraith he jumped back and held up a pistol.
"Pit it down, man, and tell's what's come ower this place?" said the
soldier. For answer, a bullet sang past his ear and shivered a plaster
Venus.
Galbraith gave his enemy the butt of his rifle and laid him out. From
his pockets he shook out a mixed collection of loot. He took possession
of his pistol, and kicked him with some vehemence into a cupboard.
"That yin's a thief," was his spoken reflection. "There's something
michty wrong wi' Wipers the day."
His head was clearing, and he was getting very wroth. His battalion had
gone off and left him in a cellar, and miscreants were abroad. It was
time for a respectable man to be up and doing. Besides, he wanted his
breakfast. He fixed his bayonet, put the pistol in his pocket, and
emerged into the November drizzle.
The streets suddenly were curiously still. The occasional shell-fire
came to his ears as if through layers of cotton-wool. He put this down
to dizziness from lack of food, and made his way to what looked like an
_estaminet_. The place was full of riotous people who were helping
themselves to drinks, while a distracted landlord wrung his hands. He
flew to Galbraith, the tears running down his cheeks, and implored him
in broken words.
"Vere ze Engleesh?" he cried. "Ze méchants rob me. Zere is une émeute.
Vere ze officers?"
"That's what I'm wantin' to ken mysel'," said Galbraith.
"Zey are gone," wailed the innkeeper. "Zere is no gendarme or anyzing,
and I am rob."
"Where's the polis? Get the Provost, man. D'ye tell me there's no polis
left?"
"I am rob," the wail continued. "Ze méchants rob ze magasins and ve vill
be assassinés."
Light was dawning upon Private Galbraith. The British troops had left
Ypres for some reason which he could not fathom, and there was no law or
order in the little city. At other times he had hated the law as much as
any man, and his relations with the police had often been strained. Now
he realised that he had done them an injustice. Disorder suddenly seemed
to him the one thing intolerable. Here had he been undergoing a stiff
discipline for weeks, and if that was his fate no civilian should be
allowed on the loose. He was a British soldier--marooned here by no
fault of his own--and it was his business to keep up the end of the
British Army and impose the King's peace upon the unruly. His temper was
getting hot, but he was curiously happy. He marched into the
_estaminet_. "Oot o' here, ye scum!" he bellowed. "Sortez, ye cochons!"
The revellers were silent before the apparition. Then one, drunker than
the rest, flung a bottle which grazed his right ear. That put the
finishing touch to his temper. Roaring like a bull, he was among them,
prodding their hinder parts with his bayonet, and now and then reversing
his rifle to crack a head. He had not played centre-forward in the old
days at Celtic Park for nothing. The place emptied in a twinkling--all
but one man whose legs could not support him. Him Private Galbraith
seized by the scruff and the slack of his trousers, and tossed into the
street.
"Now I'll hae my breakfast," he said to the trembling landlord.
Private Galbraith, much the better for his exercise, made a hearty meal
of bread and cold ham, and quenched his thirst with two bottles of
Hazebrouck beer. He had also a little brandy, and pocketed the flask,
for which the landlord refused all payment. Then, feeling a giant
refreshed, he sallied into the street.
"I'm off to look for your Provost," he said. "If ye have ony mair
trouble, ye'll find me at the Toun Hall."
A shell had plumped into the middle of the causeway, and the place was
empty. Private Galbraith, despising shells, swaggered up the open, his
disreputable kilt swinging about his putteeless legs, the remnant of a
bonnet set well on the side of his shaggy red head, and the light of
battle in his eyes. For once he was arrayed on the side of the angels,
and the thought encouraged him mightily. The brandy had fired his
imagination.
Adventure faced him at the next corner. A woman was struggling with two
men--a slim pale girl with dark hair. No sound came from her lips, but
her eyes were bright with terror. Galbraith started to run, shouting
sound British oaths. The men let the woman go, and turned to face him.
One had a pistol, and for the second time that day a bullet just missed
its mark. An instant later a clean bayonet thrust had ended the mortal
career of the marksman, and the other had taken to his heels.
"I'll learn thae lads to be sae free wi' their popguns," said the irate
soldier. "Haud up, Mem. It's a' by wi' noo. Losh! The wumman's fentit!"
Private Galbraith was as shy of women as of his Commanding Officer, and
he had not bargained for this duty. She was clearly a lady from her
dress and appearance, and this did not make it easier. He supported her
manfully, addressing to her the kind of encouragements which a groom
gives to a horse. "Canny now, Mem. Haud up! Ye've no cause to be
feared."
Then he remembered the brandy in his pocket, and with much awkwardness
managed to force some drops between her lips. To his vast relief she
began to come to. Her eyes opened and stared uncomprehendingly at her
preserver. Then she found her voice.
"Thank God, the British have come back!" she said in excellent English.
"No, Mem; not yet. It's just me, Private Galbraith, 'C' Company, 3rd
Battalion, Lennox Highlanders. Ye keep some bad lots in this toun."
"Alas! what can we do? The place is full of spies, and they will stir up
the dregs of the people and make Ypres a hell. Oh, why did the British
go? Our good men are all with the army, and there are only old folk and
wastrels left."
"Rely upon me, Mem," said Galbraith stoutly. "I was just settin' off to
find your Provost."
She puzzled at the word, and then understood.
"He has gone!" she cried. "The Maire went to Dunkirk a week ago, and
there is no authority in Ypres."
"Then we'll make yin. Here's the minister. We'll speir at him."
An old priest, with a lean, grave face, had come up.
"Ah, Mam'selle Omèrine," he cried, "the devil in our city is unchained.
Who is this soldier?"
The two talked in French, while Galbraith whistled and looked at the
sky. A shrapnel shell was bursting behind the cathedral, making a splash
of colour in the November fog. Then the priest spoke in careful and
constrained English.
"There is yet a chance for a strong man. But he must be very strong.
Mam'selle will summon her father, Monsieur le Procureur, and we will
meet at the Mairie. I will guide you there, _mon brave_."
The Grande Place was deserted, and in the middle there was a new gaping
shell-hole. At the door of a great building, which Galbraith assumed to
be the Town Hall, a feeble old porter was struggling with a man.
Galbraith scragged the latter and pitched him into the shell-hole. There
was a riot going on in a café on the far side which he itched to have a
hand in, but he postponed that pleasure to a more convenient season.
Twenty minutes later, in a noble room with frescoed and tapestried
walls, there was a strange conference. The priest was there, and
Galbraith, and Mam'selle Omèrine, and her father, M. St Marais. There
was a doctor too, and three elderly citizens, and an old warrior who had
left an arm on the Yser. Galbraith took charge, with Mam'selle as his
interpreter, and in half an hour had constituted a Committee of Public
Safety. He had nervous folk to deal with.
"The Germans may enter at any moment, and then we will all be hanged,"
said one.
"Nae doot," said Galbraith; "but ye needna get your throats cut afore
they come."
"The city is full of the ill-disposed," said another. "The Boches have
their spies in every alley. We who are so few cannot control them."
"If it's spies," said Galbraith firmly, "I'll take on the job my lone.
D'ye think a terrier dowg's feared of a wheen rottens?"[5]
In the end he had his way, with Mam'selle's help, and had put some
confidence into civic breasts. It took him the best part of the
afternoon to collect his posse. He got every wounded Belgian that had
the use of his legs, some well-grown boys, one or two ancients, and
several dozen robust women. There was no lack of weapons, and he armed
the lot with a strange collection of French and English rifles, giving
pistols to the section leaders. With the help of the Procureur, he
divided the city into beats and gave his followers instructions. They
were drastic orders, for the situation craved for violence.
He spent the evening of his life. So far as he remembered afterwards, he
was in seventeen different scraps. Strayed revellers were leniently
dealt with--the canal was a cooling experience. Looters were rounded up,
and, if they showed fight, summarily disposed of. One band of bullies
made a stout resistance, killed two of his guards, and lost half a dozen
dead. He got a black eye, a pistol-bullet through his sleeve, a wipe on
the cheek from a carving-knife, and he lost the remnants of his bonnet.
Fifty-two prisoners spent the night in the cellars of the Mairie.
About midnight he found himself in the tapestried chamber. "We'll hae to
get a Proclamation," he had announced; "a gude strong yin, for we maun
conduct this job according to the rules." So the Procureur had a
document drawn up bidding all inhabitants of Ypres keep indoors except
between the hours of 10 a. m. and noon, and 3 and 5 p. m.; forbidding
the sale of alcohol in all forms; and making theft and violence and the
carrying of arms punishable by death. There was a host of other
provisions which Galbraith imperfectly understood, but when the thing
was translated to him he approved its spirit. He signed the document in
his large sprawling hand--"Peter Galbraith, 1473, Pte., 3rd Lennox
Highlanders, Acting Provost of Wipers."
"Get that prentit," he said, "and pit up copies at every street corner
and on a' the public-hooses. And see that the doors o' the publics are
boardit up. That'll do for the day. I'm feelin' verra like my bed."
Mam'selle Omèrine watched him with a smile. She caught his eye and
dropped him a curtsey.
"Monsieur le Roi d'Ypres," she said.
He blushed hotly.
For the next few days Private Galbraith worked harder than ever before
in his existence. For the first time he knew responsibility, and that
toil which brings honour with it. He tasted the sweets of office; and
he, whose aim in life had been to scrape through with the minimum of
exertion, now found himself the inspirer of the maximum in others.
At first he scorned advice, being shy and nervous. Gradually, as he felt
his feet, he became glad of other people's wisdom. Especially he leaned
on two, Mam'selle Omèrine and her father. Likewise the priest, whom he
called the minister.
By the second day the order in Ypres was remarkable. By the third day it
was phenomenal; and by the fourth a tyranny. The little city for the
first time for seven hundred years fell under the sway of a despot. A
citizen had to be on his best behaviour, for the Acting Provost's eye
was on him. Never was seen so sober a place. Three permits for alcohol
and no more were issued, and then only on the plea of medical
necessity. Peter handed over to the doctor the flask of brandy he had
carried off from the _estaminet_--Provosts must set an example.
The Draconian code promulgated the first night was not adhered to.
Looters and violent fellows went to gaol instead of the gallows. But
three spies were taken and shot after a full trial. That trial was the
master effort of Private Galbraith--based on his own regimental
experience and memories of a Sheriff Court in Lanarkshire, where he had
twice appeared for poaching. He was extraordinarily punctilious about
forms, and the three criminals--their guilt was clear, and they were the
scum of creation--had something more than justice. The Acting Provost
pronounced sentence, which the priest translated, and a file of
_mutilés_ in the yard did the rest.
"If the Boches get in here we'll pay for this day's work," said the
judge cheerfully; "but I'll gang easier to the grave for havin' got rid
o' thae swine."
On the fourth day he had a sudden sense of dignity. He examined his
apparel, and found it very bad. He needed a new bonnet, a new kilt, and
puttees, and he would be the better of a new shirt. Being aware that
commandeering for personal use ill suited with his office, he put the
case before the Procureur, and a _Commission de Ravitaillement_ was
appointed. Shirts and puttees were easily got, but the kilt and bonnet
were difficulties. But next morning Mam'selle Omèrine brought a gift. It
was a bonnet with such a dicing round the rim as no Jock ever wore, and
a skirt--it is the truest word--of that pattern which graces the persons
of small girls in France. It was not the Lennox tartan, it was not any
kind of tartan, but Private Galbraith did not laugh. He accepted the
garments with a stammer of thanks--"They're awfu' braw, and I'm much
obliged, Mem"--and, what is more, he put them on. The Ypriotes saw his
splendour with approval. It was a proof of his new frame of mind that he
did not even trouble to reflect what his comrades would think of his
costume, and that he kissed the bonnet affectionately before he went to
bed.
That night he had evil dreams. He suddenly saw the upshot of it
all--himself degraded and shot as a deserter, and his brief glory
pricked like a bubble. Grim forebodings of court-martials assailed him.
What would Mam'selle think of him when he was led away in disgrace--he
who for a little had been a king? He walked about the floor in a frenzy
of disquiet, and stood long at the window peering over the Place, lit by
a sudden blink of moonlight. It could never be, he decided. Something
desperate would happen first. The crash of a shell a quarter of a mile
off reminded him that he was in the midst of war--war with all its
chances of cutting knots.
Next morning no Procureur appeared. Then came the priest with a sad face
and a sadder tale. Mam'selle had been out late the night before on an
errand of mercy, and a shell, crashing through a gable, had sent an
avalanche of masonry into the street. She was dead, without pain, said
the priest, and in the sure hope of Heaven.
The others wept, but Private Galbraith strode from the room, and in a
very little time was at the house of the Procureur. He saw his little
colleague laid out for death after the fashion of her Church, and his
head suddenly grew very clear and his heart hotter than fire.
"I maun resign this job," he told the Committee of Public Safety. "I've
been forgettin' that I'm a sodger and no a Provost. It's my duty to get
a nick at thae Boches."
They tried to dissuade him, but he was adamant. His rule was over, and
he was going back to serve.
But he was not allowed to resign. For that afternoon, after a week's
absence, the British troops came again into Ypres.
They found a decorous little city, and many people who spoke of "le
Roi"--which they assumed to signify the good King Albert. Also, in a
corner of the cathedral yard, sitting disconsolately on the edge of a
fallen monument, Company Sergeant-Major Macvittie of the 3rd Lennox
Highlanders found Private Peter Galbraith.
"Ma God, Galbraith, ye've done it this time! _You'll_ catch it in the
neck! Absent for a week wi'out leave, and gettin' yoursel' up to look
like Harry Lauder! You come along wi' me!"
"I'll come quiet," said Galbraith with strange meekness. He was
wondering how to spell Omèrine St Marais in case he wanted to write it
in his Bible.
The events of the next week were confusing to a plain man. Galbraith was
very silent, and made no reply to the chaff with which at first he was
greeted. Soon his fellows forbore to chaff him, regarding him as a
doomed man who had come well within the pale of the ultimate penalties.
He was examined by his Commanding Officer, and interviewed by still more
exalted personages. The story he told was so bare as to be
unintelligible. He asked for no mercy, and gave no explanations. But
there were other witnesses besides him--the priest, for example, and
Monsieur St Marais, in a sober suit of black and very dark under the
eyes.
By-and-by the court gave its verdict. Private Peter Galbraith was found
guilty of riding roughshod over the King's Regulations; he had absented
himself from his battalion without permission; he had neglected his own
duties and usurped without authority a number of superior functions; he
had been the cause of the death or maltreatment of various persons who,
whatever their moral deficiencies, must be regarded for the purposes of
the case as civilian Allies. The Court, however, taking into
consideration the exceptional circumstances in which Private Galbraith
had been placed, inflicted no penalty and summarily discharged the
prisoner.
Privately, his Commanding Officer and the still more exalted personages
shook hands with him, and told him that he was a devilish good fellow
and a credit to the British Army.
But Peter Galbraith cared for none of these things. As he sat again in
the trenches at St Eloi in six inches of water and a foot of mud, he
asked his neighbour how many Germans were opposite them.
"I was hearin' that there was maybe fifty thoosand," was the answer.
Private Galbraith was content. He thought that the whole fifty thousand
would scarcely atone for the death of one slim, dark-eyed girl.