parade these nine men in heavy marching order and send them on a
nine-mile route march, under an officer.”
“Very good, sir!”
Next day there were no representatives of “A” Coy. on sick parade!
BATMEN
This war has produced a new breed of mankind, something that the army
has never seen before, although they have formed a part of it, under
the same name, since Noah was a boy. They are alike in name only.
Batmen, the regular army type, are professionals. What they don’t know
about cleaning brass, leather, steel, and general valeting simply isn’t
worth knowing. They are super-servants, and they respect their position
as reverently as an English butler respects his. With the new batman it
is different. Usually the difficulty is not so much to discover what
they do not know, as what they do! A new officer arrives at the front,
or elsewhere, and he has to have a batman. It is a rather coveted
job, and applicants are not slow in coming forward. Some man who is
tired of doing sentry duty gets the position, and his “boss” spends
anxious weeks bringing him up in the way he should go, losing, in the
interval, socks, handkerchiefs, underwear, gloves, ties, shirts, and
collars galore! What can be said to the wretched man when in answer to
“Where the ---- is my new pair of socks?” he looks faint and replies:
“I’ve lost them, sir!” Verily, as the “professional” scornfully
remarks, are these “Saturday night batmen!”
Yet even batmen are born, not made. Lucky is he who strikes on one
of the former; only the man is sure to get killed, or wounded, or go
sick! There is always a fly in the ointment somewhere. The best kind
of batman to have is a kleptomaniac. Treat him well and he will never
touch a thing of your own, but he will, equally, never leave a thing
belonging to any one else!
“Cozens, where did you get this pair of pants?”
“Found them, sir!”
“Where did you find them?”
“Lying on the floor, sir,” with an air of injured surprise.
“_Where!_”
“I don’t justly remember, sir.”
Voice from right rear: “The Major’s compliments, sir, and have you
seen his new pants?”
“Cozens!”
“Yessir.”
“Give me those pants.... Are those the Major’s?”
“Yes, sir, them’s them.”
Cozens watches the pants disappear with a sad, retrospective air of
gloom.
“You ain’t got but the _one_ pair now, sir.” This with reproach.
“How many times have I got to tell you to leave other people’s clothes
alone? The other day it was pyjamas, now it’s pants. You’ll be taking
somebody’s boots next. Confound it. I’ll--I’ll return you to duty if
you do it again!... How about all those handkerchiefs? Where did _they_
come from?”
“All yours, sir, back from the wash!” With a sigh, one is forced to
give up the unequal contest.
Albeit as valets the batmen of the present day compare feebly with the
old type, in certain other ways they are head and shoulders above them.
The old “pro” refuses to do a single thing beyond looking after the
clothing and accoutrements of his master. The new kind of batman can
be impressed to do almost anything. He will turn into a runner, wait
at table, or seize a rifle with gusto and help get Fritz’s wind up. Go
long journeys to find souvenirs, and make himself generally useful. He
will even “bat” for the odd officer, when occasion arises, as well as
for his own particular boss.
No man is a hero in the eyes of his own batman. He knows everything
about you, even to the times when your banking account is nil. He knows
when you last had a bath, and when you last changed your underwear. He
knows how much you eat, and also how much you drink; he knows all your
friends with whom you correspond, and most of your family affairs as
revealed by that correspondence, and nothing can hide from his eagle
eye the fact that you are--lousy! Yet he is a pretty good sort, after
all; he never tells. We once had a rather agéd sub. in the Company
whose teeth were not his own, not a single one of them. One night,
after a somewhat heavy soirée and general meeting of friends, he
went to bed--or, to be more accurate, was tucked in by his faithful
henchman--and lost both the upper and lower sets in the silent watches.
The following morning he had a fearfully worried look, and spake not at
all, except in whispers to his batman. Finally, the O.C. Company asked
him a question, and he _had_ to say something. It sounded like “A out
mo,” so we all instantly realised something was lacking. He refused
to eat anything at all, but took a little nourishment in the form of
tea. His batman was to be observed crawling round the floor, perspiring
at every pore, searching with his ears aslant and his mouth wide open
for hidden ivory. We all knew it; poor old Gerrard knew we knew it,
but the batman was faithful to the last, even when he pounced on the
quarry with the light of triumph in his eye. He came to his master
after breakfast was over and asked if he could speak to him. Poor
Gerrard moved into the other room, and you could have heard a pin drop.
“Please, sir,” in a stage whisper from his batman, “please, sir, I’ve
got hold of them TEETH, sir! But the front ones is habsent, sir, ’aving
bin trod on!”
The biggest nuisance on God’s earth is a batman who spends all his
spare moments getting drunk! Usually, however, he is a first-class
batman during his sober moments! He will come in “plastered to the
eyes” about eleven o’clock, and begin to hone your razors by the pallid
rays of a candle, or else clean your revolver and see if the cartridges
fit! In his cups he is equal to anything at all. Unless the case is
really grave the man wins every time, for no one hates the idea of
changing his servant more than an officer who has had the same man for
a month or so and found him efficient.
Not infrequently batmen are touchingly faithful. They will do anything
on earth for their “boss” at any time of the day or night, and never
desert him in the direst extremity. More than one batman has fallen
side by side with his officer, whom he had followed into the fray,
close on his heels.
Once, after a charge, a conversation ensued between the sergeant of a
certain officer’s platoon and that officer’s batman, in this fashion:
“What were _you_ doin’ out there, Tommy?”
“Follerin’.”
“And why was you close up on his heels, so clost I could ’ardly see
’im?”
“Follerin’ ’im up.”
“And why wasn’t you back somewhere _safe_?” (This with a touch of
sarcasm.)
“Lord, Sargint, you couldn’t expect me to let _’im_ go out by ’isself!
’E might ha’ got hurt!”
RATIONS
“Bully-beef an’ ’ard-tack,” said Private Boddy disgustedly. “Bully-beef
that’s canned dog or ’orse, or may be cats, an’ biscuits that’s _fit_
for dawgs.... This is a ’ell of a war. W’y did I ever leave little old
Walkerville, w’ere the whiskey comes from? Me an’ ’Iram we was almost
pals, as you may say. I worked a ’ole fortnight in ’is place, at $1.75
per, an’ then I----” Mr. Boddy broke off abruptly, but not soon enough.
“Huh!” broke in a disgusted voice from a remote corner of the dug-out,
“then I guess you went bummin’ your way till the bulls got you in
Windsor. To hear you talk a chap would think you didn’t know what
pan-handlin’ was, or going out on the stem.”
“Look ’ere,” said Boddy with heat, “you comeralong outside, you great
long rubberneck, you, an’ I’ll teach you to call me a pan-’andler, I
will. You low-life Chicago bum, wot never _did_ ’ave a better meal
than you could steal f’m a Chink Chop Suey.”
“Say, fellers,” a quiet voice interposed, “cut it out. This ain’t a
Parliament Buildings nor a Montreal cabaret. There’s a war on. If youse
guys wants to talk about rations, then go ahead, shoot, but cut out the
rough stuff!”
“Dat’s what _I_ say, Corporal,” interrupted a French-Canadian. “I’m a
funny sort of a guy, I am. I likes to hear a good spiel, widout any
of dis here free cussin’ an’ argumentation. Dat ain’t no good, fer it
don’t cut no ice, _no’ d’un ch’en_!”
“Talkin’ of rations,” drawled a Western voice, “when I was up to
Calgary in ’08, an’ was done gone busted, save for two bits, I tuk a
flop in one of them houses at 15 cents per, an’ bot a cow’s heel with
the dime. You kin b’lieve me or you needn’t, but I _tell_ you a can of
that bully you’re shootin’ off about would ha’ seemed mighty good to
_me_, right then, an’ it aren’t so dusty naow.”
Private Boddy snorted his contempt. “An’ the jam they gives you,” he
said, “w’y at ’ome you couldn’t _give_ it away! Plum an’ happle! Or
wot they call plain happle! It ain’t never seed a plum, bar the stone,
nor a happle, bar the core. It’s just colourin’ mixed up wiv boiled
down turnups, that’s what it is.”
“De bread’s all right, anyways,” said Lamontagne, “but dey don’t never
git you more’n a slice a man! An dat cheese. Pouff! It stink like a
Fritz wot’s laid dead since de British takes Pozières.”
Scottie broke in.
“Aye, but hold yerr maunderin’. Ye canna verra weel have aught to clack
aboot when ’tis the Rum ye speak of.”
“Dat’s all right,” Lamontagne responded, “de rum’s all right. But
who gets it? What youse gets is one ting. A little mouthful down de
brook wot don’t do no more than make you drier as you was before. What
does de Sargents get? So much dey all is so rambunctious mad after a
feller he dasn’t look dem in de face or dey puts him up for office!
Dat’s a fine ways, dat is! An’ dem awficers! De limit, dat’s what
dat is. I was up to de cook-house wid a--wid a rifle----”--“a dirty
rifle too, on inspection, by Heck,” the Corporal supplemented--“wid
a rifle, as I was sayin’,” continued Lamontagne, with a reproachful
look in the direction of his section commander, “an’ I sees wot was
in de cook-house a cookin’ for de awficers” (his voice sunk to an
impressive whisper). “D’ere was eeggs, wid de sunny side up, an’ dere
was bif-steaks all floatin’ in gravy, an’ pottitters an’ _beans_, an’
peaches an’ peyers.”
“Quit yer fool gabbin’,” said Chicago. “H’aint you got no sense in that
mutt-head o’ yourn? That’s food them ginks BUYS!”
Boddy had been silent so long he could bear it no longer.
“’Ave a ’eart,” he said, “it gives me a pain ter fink of all that
food the horficers heats. Pure ’oggery, I calls it. An’ ter fink of
th’ little bit o’ bread an’ biscuit an’ bacon--wot’s all fat--wot we
fellers gets to eat. _We_ does the work, an’ the horficers sits in easy
chairs an’ Heats!! Oh _w’y_ did I join the Harmy?”
At this moment, Private Graham, who had been slumbering peacefully
until Lamontagne, in his excitement, put a foot in the midst of his
anatomy, added his quota to the discussion. Private Graham wore the
King and Queen’s South African medal and also the Somaliland. Before
drink reduced him, he had been a company Q.M.S. in a crack regiment.
His words were usually respected. “Strike me pink if you Saturday night
soldiers don’t give me the guts-ache,” he remarked with some acerbity.
“In Afriky you’d ha’ bin dead an’ buried months ago, judgin’ by the way
you talks! There it was march, march, march, an’ no fallin’ out. Little
water, a ’an’ful o’ flour, an’ a tin of bully wot was fly-blowed two
minutes after you opened it, unless you ’ad eat it a’ready. An’ you
talks about food! S’elp me if it ain’t a crime. Rations! W’y, never in
the ’ole ’istory of the world ’as a Army bin better fed nor we are. You
young soldiers sh’d learn a thing or two afore you starts talkin’ abaht
yer elders an’ betters. Lord, in th’ old days a hofficers’ mess was
somethin’ to dream abaht. Nowadays they can’t ’old a candle to it. Wot
d’yer expec’? D’yer think a horficer is goin’ to deny ’is stummick if
’e can buy food ter put in it? ’E ain’t so blame stark starin’ mad as
all that. You makes me sick, you do!”
“Dat’s what _I_ say,” commented Lamontagne!
From afar came a voice crying, “Turn out for your rations.”
In thirty seconds the dug-out was empty!
OUR SCOUT OFFICER
We have a certain admiration for our scout officer; not so much for his
sleuth-hound propensities, as for his completely _dégagé_ air. He is a
Holmes-Watson individual, in whom the Holmes is usually subservient to
the Watson.
Without a map--he either has several dozen or none at all--he is purely
Watson. With a map he is transformed into a Sherlock, instanter. The
effect of a _new_ map on him is like that of a new build of aeroplane
on an aviator. He pores over it, he reverses the north and south gear,
and gets the magnetic differential on the move; with a sweep of the
eye he climbs up hills and goes down into valleys, he encircles a wood
with a pencil-marked forefinger--and asks in an almost pained way for
nail-scissors. Finally, he sends out his Scout Corporal and two men,
armed to the teeth with spy-glasses and compasses (magnetic, mark
VIII), to reconnoitre. When they come back (having walked seventeen
kilometres to get to a point six miles away) and report, he says,
wagging his head sagely: “Ah! I knew it. According to this map, 81×D
(parts of), 82 GN, south-west (parts of), 32 B^1, N.W. (parts of), and
19 CF, East (parts of), the only available route is the main road,
marked quite clearly on the map, and running due east-north-east by
east from Bn. H.Q.”
But he is a cheerful soul. The other day, when we were romancing around
in the Somme, we had to take over a new line; one of those “lines”
that genial old beggar Fritz makes for us with 5.9’s. He--the Scout
Officer--rose to the occasion. He went to the Commanding Officer, and
in his most ingratiating manner, his whole earnest soul in his pale
blue eyes, offered to take him up to his battle head-quarters.
This offer was accepted, albeit the then Adjutant had a baleful glitter
in _his_ eye.
After he had led us by ways that were strange and peculiar through the
gathering darkness, and after the Colonel had fallen over some barbed
wire into a very damp shell-hole, he began to look worried. We struck
a very famous road--along which even the worms dare not venture--and
our Intelligence Officer led us for several hundred yards along it.
An occasional high explosive shrapnel shell burst in front and to rear
of us, but, map grasped firmly in the right hand, our Scout Officer
led us fearlessly onwards. He did not march, he did not even walk, he
sauntered. Then with a dramatic gesture wholly unsuited to the time
and circumstances, he turned and said: “Do you mind waiting a minute,
sir, while I look at the map?” After a few brief comments the C.O. went
to earth in a shell-hole. The Scout Officer sat down in the road, and
examined his map by the aid of a flash-light until the Colonel threw a
clod of earth at him accompanied by some very uncomplimentary remarks.
“I think, sir,” said the Scout Officer, his gaunt frame and placid
countenance illumined by shell-bursts, “that if we cross the road and
go North by East we may perhaps strike the communication trench leading
to the Brewery. _Personally_, I would suggest going overland, but----”
His last words were drowned by the explosion of four 8.1’s 50 yards
rear right. “Get out of this, sir! Get out of this DAMN quick,” roared
the C.O. The Scout Officer stood to attention slowly, and saluted with
a deprecating air.
He led.
We followed.
He took us straight into one of the heaviest barrages it had ever been
our misfortune to encounter, and when we had got there he said he was
lost. So for twenty minutes the C.O., the Adjutant, nine runners, and,
last but not least, the Scout Officer, sat under a barrage in various
shell-holes, and prayed inwardly--with the exception of the Scout
Officer--that _he_ (the S.O.) would be hit plump in the centre of his
maps by a 17-inch shell.
It were well to draw a veil over what followed. Even Holmes-Watson
does not like to hear it mentioned. Suffice to say that the C.O. (with
party) left at 5.30 P.M. and arrived at battle head-quarters at 11.35
P.M. The Scout Officer was then engaged in discovering a route between
Battle H.Q. and the front line. He reported back at noon the following
day, and slept in a shell-hole for thirteen hours. No one could live
near the C.O. for a week, and he threatened the S.O. with a short-stick
MILLS.
If there is one thing which the Scout Officer does not like, it is
riding a horse. He almost admits that he cannot ride! The other day he
met a friend. The friend had one quart bottle of Hennessey, three star.
The Scout Officer made a thorough reconnaissance of the said bottle,
and reported on same.
A spirited report.
Unhappily the C.O. ordered a road reconnaissance an hour later, and our
Scout Officer had to ride a horse. The entire H.Q. sub-staff assisted
him to mount, and the last we saw of Holmes-Watson, he was galloping
down the road, sitting well on the horse’s neck, hands grasping the
saddle tightly, rear and aft. Adown the cold November wind we heard his
dulcet voice carolling:
“I put my money on a bob-tailed nag!...
Doo-dah ... Doo-dah!
_I_ put my money on a bob-tailed nag;
... Doo-dah! ... Doo-dah!! ... _DEY!!!_”
MARTHA OF DRANVOORDE
Martha Beduys, in Belgium, was considered pretty, even handsome. Of
that sturdy Flemish build so characteristic of Belgian women, in whom
the soil seems to induce embonpoint, she was plump to stoutness. She
was no mere girl; twenty-seven years had passed over her head when the
war broke out, and she saw for the first time English soldiers in the
little village that had always been her home. There was a great deal
of excitement. As the oldest of seven sisters, Martha was the least
excited, but the most calculating.
The little baker’s shop behind the dull old church had always been a
source of income, but never a means to the attainment of wealth. Martha
had the soul of a shop-keeper, a thing which, in her father’s eyes,
made her the pride of his household.
Old Hans Beduys was a man of some strength of mind. His features
were sharp and keen, his small, blue eyes had a glitter in them
which seemed to accentuate their closeness to each other, and his
hands--lean, knotted, claw-like--betokened his chief desire in life.
Born of a German mother and a Belgian father, he had no particular love
for the English.
When the first British Tommy entered his shop and asked for bread, old
Beduys looked him over as a butcher eyes a lamb led to the slaughter.
He was calculating the weight in sous and francs.
That night Beduys laid down the law to his family.
“The girls will all buy new clothes,” he said, “for which I shall
pay. They will make themselves agreeable to the English mercenaries,
but”--with a snap of his blue eyes--“nothing more. The good God has
sent us a harvest to reap; I say we shall reap it.”
During the six months that followed the little shop behind the church
teemed with life. The Beduys girls were glad enough to find men to
talk to for the linguistic difficulty was soon overcome--to flirt with
mildly, and in front of whom to show off their newly-acquired finery.
From morn till dewy eve the shop was crowded, and occasionally an
officer or two would dine in the back parlour, kiss Martha if they felt
like it, and not worry much over a few sous change.
In the meantime old Hans waxed financially fat, bought a new Sunday
suit, worked the life out of his girls, and prayed nightly that the
Canadians would arrive in the vicinity of his particular “Somewhere in
Belgium.”
In a little while they came.
Blossoming forth like a vine well fertilised at the roots, the little
shop became more and more pretentious as the weekly turnover increased.
Any day that the receipts fell below a certain level old Beduys raised
such a storm that his bevy of daughters redoubled their efforts.
Martha had become an enthusiastic business woman. Her fair head with
its golden curls was bent for many hours in the day over a crude
kind of ledger, and she thought in terms of pickles, canned fruits,
chocolate, and cigarettes. The spirit of commerce had bitten deep into
Martha’s soul.
More and more officers held impromptu dinners in the back parlour.
Martha knew most of them, but only one interested her. Had he not
shown her the system of double entry, and how to balance her accounts?
He was a commercial asset.
As for Jefferson, it was a relief to him, after a tour in the trenches,
to have an occasional chat with a moderately pretty girl.
One rain-sodden, murky January night, very weary, wet, and muddy,
Jefferson dropped in to see, as he would have put it, “the baker’s
daughter.”
Martha happened to be alone, and welcomed “Monsieur Jeff” beamingly.
Perhaps the dim light of the one small lamp, perhaps his utter war
weariness, induced Jefferson to overlook the coarseness of the girl’s
skin, her ugly hands, and large feet. Perhaps Martha was looking
unusually pretty.
At all events he suddenly decided that she was desirable. Putting
his arm around her waist as she brought him his coffee, he drew her,
unresisting, on to his knee. Then he kissed her.
Heaven knows what possessed Martha that evening. She not only allowed
his kisses, but returned them, stroking his curly hair with a
tenderness that surprised herself as much as it surprised him.
Thereafter Martha had two souls. A soul for business and a soul for
Jefferson.
The bleak winter rolled on and spring came.
About the beginning of April old Beduys received, secretly, a letter
from a relative in Frankfurt. The contents of the letter were such
that the small pupils of the old man’s eyes dilated with fear. He hid
the document away, and his temper for that day was execrable. That
night he slept but little. Beduys lay in bed and pictured the sails of
a windmill--HIS windmill--and he thought also of ten thousand francs
and his own safety. He thought of the distance to the mill--a full two
kilometres--and of the martial law which dictated, among other things,
that he be in his home after a certain hour at night, and that his
mill’s sails be set at a certain angle when at rest. Then he thought
of Martha. Martha of the commercial mind. Martha the obedient. Yes!
That was it, obedient! Hans Beduys rose from his bed softly, without
disturbing his heavily-sleeping wife, and read and re-read his
brother’s letter. One page he kept, and the rest he tore to shreds, and
burned, bit by bit, in the candle flame.
High up on the hill stood the windmill--the Beduys windmill. Far
over in the German lines an Intelligence Officer peered at it in the
gathering dusk through a night-glass. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the
sails of the mill turned, and stopped for a full minute. Slowly, almost
imperceptibly, they turned again, and stopped again. This happened
perhaps twenty times. The German made some notes and went to the
nearest signalling station.
Five minutes later a salvo of great shells trundled, with a noise like
distant express trains, over to the left of the mill.
There were heavy casualties in a newly-arrived battalion bivouacked not
half a mile from the baker’s shop. The inhabitants of the village awoke
and trembled. “Hurrumph-umph!” Again the big shells trundled over the
village, and again. There was confusion, and death and wounding.
In his bed lay Hans Beduys, sweating from head to foot, while his brain
hammered out with ever-increasing force: “Ten thousand francs--Ten
Thousand Francs.”
In the small hours a shadow disengaged itself from the old mill,
cautiously. Then it began to run, and resolved itself into a woman.
By little paths, by ditches, by side-tracks, Martha reached home. She
panted heavily, her face was white and haggard. When she reached her
room she flung herself on her bed, and lay there wide-eyed, dumb,
horror-stricken, until the dawn broke.
Jefferson’s Battalion finished a tour in the trenches on the following
night. Jefferson marched back to billet with a resolve in his mind.
He had happened to notice the windmill moving the night before, as he
stood outside Company head-quarters in the trenches. He had heard the
shells go over--away back--and had seen the sails move again. The two
things connected themselves instantly in his mind. Perhaps he should
have reported the matter at once, but Jefferson did not do so. He meant
to investigate for himself.
Two days later Jefferson got leave to spend the day in the nearest
town. He returned early in the afternoon, put his revolver in the
pocket of his British warm coat, and set out for the windmill. He did
not know to whom the mill belonged, nor did that trouble him.