THE SUMMER CAMP FOR TIRED WORKERS
The Surrey Summer-Camp for Tired Workers had been planned by the Bishop
of Fulham out of the largeness of his heart and the plenitude of his
inexperience in such undertakings. He had borrowed a meadow, acquired a
cow, hired a marquee, and wangled fifty army bell-tents and a
field-kitchen, about which in all probability questions would be asked
in the House. Finally as the result of a brain-wave he had requisitioned
the local boy scouts. Later there would be the devil to pay with the
leaders of the Boys' Brigade; but the bishop abounded in tact.
When the time came, the meadow was there, the bell-tents, the cow, and
the boy scouts duly arrived; but of the marquee nothing had been seen or
heard, and as for the field-kitchen, the War Office could say little
beyond the fact that it had left Aldershot.
For days the bishop worked indefatigably with telephone and telegraph,
endeavouring to trace the errant field-kitchen and the missing marquee;
but so much of his time had been occupied in obtaining the necessary
assistance to ensure that the cow was properly and punctually milked,
that other things, being farther away, had seemed less insistent.
In those days the bishop had much to worry him; but his real cross was
Daisy, the cow. Everything else was of minor importance compared with
this bovine responsibility. Vaguely he had felt that if you had a cow
you had milk; but he was to discover that on occasion a cow could be as
unproductive of milk as a sea-serpent.
None of the campers had ever approached a cow in her professional
capacity. Night and morning she had to be relieved of a twelve hours'
accumulation of milk, all knew that; but how? That was a question which
had perturbed bishop and campers alike; for the whole camp shared the
ecclesiastical anxiety about Daisy. Somewhere at the back of the cockney
mind was the suspicion, amounting almost to a certainty, that, unless
regularly milked, cows exploded, like overcharged water-mains.
Daisy soon developed into something more than a cow. When other
occupations failed (amusements there were none), the campers would
collect round Daisy, examining her from every angle. She was a mystery,
just as a juggler or the three-card trick were mysteries, and as such
she commanded respect.
Each night and morning the bishop had to produce from somewhere a person
capable of ministering to the requirements of Daisy, and everyone in the
neighbourhood was extremely busy. Apart from this, West Boxton was a
hot-bed of Nonconformity, and some of the inhabitants were much
exercised in their minds as to the spiritual effect upon a Dissenter of
milking a church cow.
There were times when the bishop felt like a conjurer, billed to produce
a guinea-pig from a top-hat, who had left the guinea-pig at home.
Daisy was not without her uses, quite apart from those for which she had
been provided by Providence and the bishop. "Come an' 'ave a look at
Daisy," had become the conversational forlorn hope of the campers when
utterly bankrupt of all other interests. She was their shield against
boredom and the spear with which to slay the dragon of apathy.
"No beer, no pictures, only a ruddy cow," a cynic had remarked in
summing up the amusements provided by the Surrey Summer-Camp for Tired
Workers. "Enough to give a giddy flea the blinkin' 'ump," he had
concluded; but his was only an isolated view. For the most part these
shipwrecked cockneys were grateful to Daisy, and they never tired of
watching the milk spurt musically into the bright pail beneath her.
The bishop was well-meaning, but forgetful. In planning his camp he had
entirely overlooked the difficulty of food and water supplies. The one
was a mile distant and could not be brought nearer; the other had been
overcome by laying a pipe, at considerable expense.
In the natural order of disaster the campers had arrived, and in a very
few hours became tinctured with the heresy of anti-clericalism. Husbands
quarrelled with wives as to who should bear the responsibility for the
adventure to which they found themselves committed. One and all
questioned the right of a bishop to precipitate himself into the
domestic circle as a bearer of discord and summer-camps.
At the time of the arrival of the Bindles, everything seemed chaos.
There was a spatter of bell-tents on the face of the meadow, piles of
personal possessions at the entrance of the tents, whilst the "tired
workers" loitered about in their shirt sleeves, or strove to prepare
meals in spite of the handicaps with which they were surrounded. The
children stood about wide-eyed and grave, as if unable to play their
urban games in a bucolic setting.
When, under the able command of Patrol-leader Smithers, the Bindles'
belongings had been piled up just inside the meadow and Mrs. Bindle
helped down, sore in body and disturbed in temper, the indefatigable boy
scout led the way towards a tent. He carried the Japanese basket in one
hand, and the handleless bag under the other arm, whilst Bindle followed
with the tin-bath, and Mrs. Bindle made herself responsible for the
bundle of blankets, through the centre of which the parrot-headed
umbrella peeped out coyly.
Their guide paused at the entrance of a bell-tent, and deposited the
Japanese basket on the ground.
"This is your tent," he announced, "I'll send one of the patrol to help
you," and, with the air of one upon whose shoulders rests the destiny
of planets, he departed.
Bindle and Mrs. Bindle gazed after him, then at each other, finally at
the tent. Bindle stepped across and put his head inside; but quickly
withdrew it.
"Smells like a bus on a wet day," he muttered.
With an air of decision Mrs. Bindle entered the tent. As she did so
Bindle winked gravely at a little boy who had wandered up, and now stood
awaiting events with blue-eyed gravity. At Bindle's wink he turned and
trotted off to a neighbouring tent, from the shelter of which he
continued to watch the domestic tragedy of the new arrivals.
"There are no bedsteads." Mrs. Bindle's voice came from within the tent
in tones of muffled tragedy.
"You don't say so," said Bindle abstractedly, his attention concentrated
upon a diminutive knight of the pole, who was approaching their tent.
"Where's the feather beds, 'Orace?" he demanded when the lad was within
ear-shot.
"There's a waterproof ground-sheet and we supply mattresses of loose
straw," he announced as he halted sharply within two paces of where
Bindle stood.
"Oh! you do, do you?" said Bindle, "an' who 'appens to supply the brass
double-bedstead wot me and Mrs. B. is used to sleep on. P'raps you can
tell me that, young shaver?"
Before the lad had time to reply, Mrs. Bindle appeared at the entrance
of the tent, grimmer and more uncompromising than ever. For a moment she
eyed the lad severely.
"Where am I to sleep?" she demanded.
"Are you with this gentleman?" enquired the boy scout.
"She is, sonny," said Bindle, "been with me for twenty years now. Can't
lose 'er no'ow."
"Bindle, behave yourself!" Mrs. Bindle's jaws closed with a snap.
"We're going to 'ave some sacks of straw in place of that missionary's
bed you an' me sleeps on in Fulham," explained Bindle; but Mrs. Bindle
had disappeared once more into the tent.
For the next hour the Bindles and their assistant scout were engaged in
getting the bell-tent into habitable condition. During the process the
scout explained that the marquee was to have been used for the communal
meals, which the field-kitchen was to supply; but both had failed to
arrive, and the bishop had himself gone up to London to make enquiries.
"An' wot's goin' to 'appen to us till 'e runs acrost 'em?" enquired
Bindle. "I'm feelin' a bit peckish myself now--wot I'll be like in a
hour's time I don't know."
"I'll show you how to build a scout-fire," volunteered the lad.
"But I ain't a fire-eater," objected Bindle. "I want a bit o' steak, or
a rasher an' an egg."
"What's the use of a scout-fire to me with kippers to cook?" demanded
Mrs. Bindle, appearing once more at the entrance of the tent.
At that moment another "tired worker" drifted across to the Bindles'
tent. He was a long, lean man with a straggling moustache and three
days' growth of beard. He was in his shirt sleeves, collarless, with
unbuttoned waistcoat, and he wore a general air of despondency and
gloom.
"'Ow goes it, mate?" he enquired.
Bindle straightened himself from inspecting the interior of the tin-bath
which he was unpacking.
"Oh! mid; but I've known wot it is to be 'appier," said Bindle, with a
grin.
"Same 'ere," was the gloomy response.
"Things sort o' seem to 'ave gone wrong," suggested Bindle
conversationally.
"That's right," said the man, rubbing the bristles of his chin with a
meditative thumb.
"'Ow you gettin' on for grub?" asked Bindle.
The man shook his head lugubriously.
"What about a pub?"
"Mile away," gloomed the man.
"Gawd Almighty!" Bindle's exclamation was not concerned with the man's
remark, but with something he extracted from the bath. "Well, I'm
blowed," he muttered.
"'Ere, Lizzie," he called out.
Mrs. Bindle appeared at the entrance of the tent. Bindle held up an
elastic-sided boot from which marmalade fell solemnly and reluctantly.
Then the flood-gates of Mrs. Bindle's wrath burst apart, and she poured
down upon Bindle's head a deluge of reproach. He and he alone was
responsible for all the disasters that had befallen them. He had done it
on purpose because she wanted a holiday. He wasn't a husband, he was a
blasphemer, an atheist, a cumberer of the earth, and all that was evil.
She was interrupted in her tirade by the approach of a little man with a
round, bald, shiny head and a worried expression of countenance.
"D'yer know 'ow to milk a cow, mate?" he enquired of Bindle, apparently
quite unconscious that he had precipitated himself into the midst of a
domestic scene.
"Do I know 'ow to wot?" demanded Bindle, eyeing the man as if he had
asked a most unusual question.
"There's a bloomin' cow over there and nobody can't milk 'er, an' the
bishop's gone, and we wants our tea."
Bindle scratched his head through his cap, then, turning towards the
tent into which Mrs. Bindle had once more disappeared, he called out:
"Hi, Lizzie, jer know 'ow to milk a cow?"
"Don't be beastly," came the reply from the tent.
"It ain't one of them cows," he called back, "it's a milk cow, an'
'ere's a cove wot wants 'is tea."
Mrs. Bindle appeared at the entrance of the tent, and surveyed the group
of three men.
"How did you manage yesterday?" she demanded practically.
"A girl come over from the farm, missis," said the little man, "and she
didn't 'arf make it milk."
"Hold your tongue," snapped Mrs. Bindle.
The man gazed at her in surprise.
"Why don't you get the same girl?" asked Mrs. Bindle.
"She says she's too busy. I 'ad a try myself," said the man, "only it
was a washout."
"I'll 'ave a look at 'er," Bindle announced, and the three men moved off
across the meadow, picking their way among the tents with their piles of
bedding, blankets, and other impedimenta outside. All were getting ready
for the night.
When Bindle reached Daisy, he found the problem had been solved by one
of Mr. Timkins' farm-hands, who was busily at work, watched by an
interested group of campers.
During the next half-hour, Bindle strolled about among the tents
learning many things, foremost among which was that "the whole ruddy
camp was a washout." The commissariat had failed badly, and the nearest
drink was a mile away at The Trowel and Turtle. A great many things were
said about the bishop and the organisers of the camp.
When he returned to the tent, he found Mrs. Bindle engaged in boiling
water in a petrol-tin over a scout-fire. With the providence of a good
housewife she had brought with her emergency supplies, and Bindle was
soon enjoying a meal comprised of kipper, tea and bread and margarine.
When he had finished, he announced himself ready to face the terrors of
the night.
"I can't say as I likes it," he remarked, as he stood at the entrance to
the tent, struggling to undo his collar. "Seems to me sort o' draughty."
"That's right, go on," cried Mrs. Bindle, as she pushed past him. "What
did you expect?"
"Well, since you asks me, I'm like those coves in religion wot expects
nothink; but gets an 'ell of a lot."
"Don't blaspheme. It's Sunday to-morrow," was the rejoinder; but Bindle
had strolled away to commune with the man with a stubbly chin and
pessimistic soul.
"Do yer sleep well, mate?" he enquired, conversationally.
"Crikey! sleep is it? There ain't no blinkin' sleep in this 'ere ruddy
camp."
"Wot's up?" enquired Bindle.
"Up!" was the lugubrious response. "Awake all last night, I was."
"Wot was you doin'?" queried Bindle with interest.
"Scratchin'!" was the savage retort.
"Scratchin'! Who was you scratchin'?"
"Who was I scratchin'? Who the 'ell should I be scratchin' but myself?"
he demanded, his apathy momentarily falling from him. "I'd like to know
where they got that blinkin' straw from wot they give us to lie on. I
done a bit o' scratchin' in the trenches; but last night I 'adn't enough
fingers, damn 'em."
Bindle whistled.
"Then," continued the man with gloomy gusto, "there's them ruddy
chickens in the mornin', a-crowin' their guts out. Not a wink o' sleep
after three for anybody," he added, with all the hatred of the cockney
for farmyard sounds. "Oh! it's an 'oliday, all right," he added with
scathing sarcasm, "only it ain't ours."
"Seems like it," said Bindle drily, as he turned on his heel and made
for his own tent.
That night, he realised to the full the iniquities of the man who had
supplied the straw for the mattresses. By the sounds that came from the
other side of the tent-pole, he gathered that Mrs. Bindle was similarly
troubled.
Towards dawn, Bindle began to doze, just as the cocks were announcing
the coming of the sun. If the man with the stubbly chin were right in
his diagnosis, the birds, like Prometheus, had, during the night,
renewed their missing organisms.
"Well, I'm blowed!" muttered Bindle. "Ole six-foot-o'-melancholy wasn't
swinging the lead neither. 'Oly ointment! I never 'eard such a row in
all my puff. There ain't no doubt but wot Mrs. Bindle's gettin' a
country 'oliday," and with that he rose and proceeded to draw on his
trousers, deciding that it was folly to attempt further to seek sleep.
Outside the tent, he came across Patrol-leader Smithers.
"Mornin' Foch," said Bindle.
"Smithers," said the lad. "Patrol-leader Smithers of the Bear Patrol."
"My mistake," said Bindle; "but you an' Foch is jest as like as two
peas. You don't 'appen to 'ave seen a stray cock about, do you?"
"A cock," repeated the boy.
"Yes!" said Bindle, tilting his head on one side with the air of one
listening intently, whilst from all sides came the brazen blare of
ecstatic chanticleers. "I thought I 'eard one just now."
"They're Farmer Timkins' fowls," said Patrol-leader Smithers gravely.
"You don't say so," said Bindle. "Seem to be in good song this mornin'.
Reg'lar bunch o' canaries."
To this flippancy, Patrol-leader Smithers made no response.
"Does there 'appen to be any place where I can get a rinse, 'Indenberg?"
he enquired.
"There's a tap over there for men," said Patrol-leader Smithers,
pointing to the extreme right of the field, "and for ladies over there,"
he pointed in the opposite direction.
"No mixed bathin', I see," murmured Bindle. "Now, as man to man,
Ludendorff, which would you advise?"
The lad looked at him with grave eyes. "The men's tap is over there,"
and again he pointed.
"Well, well," said Bindle, "p'raps you're right; but I ain't fond o'
takin' a bath in the middle of a field," he muttered.
"The taps are screened off."
"Well, well, live an' learn," muttered Bindle, as he made for the men's
tap.
When Bindle returned to the tent, he found Patrol-leader Smithers
instructing Mrs. Bindle in how to coax a scout-fire into activity.
"You mustn't poke it, mum," said the lad. "It goes out if you do."
Mrs. Bindle drew in her lips, and folded the brown mackintosh she was
wearing more closely about her. She was not accustomed to criticism,
particularly in domestic matters, and her instinct was to disregard it;
but the boy's earnestness seemed to discourage retort, and she had
already seen the evil effect of attacking a scout-fire with a poker.
Suddenly her eye fell upon Bindle, standing in shirt and trousers, from
the back of which his braces dangled despondently.
"Why don't you go in and dress?" she demanded. "Walking about in that
state!"
"I been to get a rinse," he explained, as he walked across to the tent
and disappeared through the aperture.
Mrs. Bindle snorted angrily. She had experienced a bad night, added to
which the fire had resented her onslaught by incontinently going out,
necessitating an appeal to a mere child.
Having assumed a collar, a coat and waistcoat, Bindle strolled round
the camp exchanging a word here and a word there with his fellow
campers, who, in an atmosphere of intense profanity, were engaged in
getting breakfast.
"Never 'eard such language," muttered Bindle with a grin. "This 'ere
little camp'll send a rare lot o' people to a place where they won't
meet the bishop."
At the end of half-an-hour he returned and found tea, eggs and bacon,
and Mrs. Bindle waiting for him.
"So you've come at last," she snapped, as he seated himself on a wooden
box.
"Got it this time," he replied genially, sniffing the air
appreciatively. "'Ope you got somethink nice for yer little love-bird."
"Don't you love-bird me," cried Mrs. Bindle, who had been looking for
some one on whom to vent her displeasure. "I suppose you're going to
leave me to do all the work while you go gallivanting about playing the
gentleman."
"I don't needs to play it, Mrs. B., I'm IT. Vere de Vere with blood as
blue as 'Earty's stories."
"If you think I'm going to moil and toil and cook for you down here as I
do at home, you're mistaken. I came for a rest. I've hardly had a wink
of sleep all night," she sniffed ominously.
"I thought I 'eard you on the 'unt," said Bindle sympathetically.
"Bindle!" There was warning in her tone.
"But wasn't you?" He looked across at her in surprise, his mouth full of
eggs and bacon.
"I--I had a disturbed night," she drew in her lips primly.
"So did I," said Bindle gloomily. "I'd 'ave disturbed 'em if I could
'ave caught 'em. My God! There must 'ave been millions of 'em," he added
reminiscently.
"If you're going to talk like that, I shall go away," she announced.
"I'd like to meet the cove wot filled them mattresses," was Bindle's
sinister comment.
"It--it wasn't that," said Mrs. Bindle. "It was the----" She paused for
a moment.
"Them cocks," he suggested.
"Don't be disgusting, Bindle."
"Disgusting? I never see such a chap as me for bein' lood an' disgustin'
an' blasphemious. Wot jer call 'em if they ain't cocks?"
"They're roosters--the male birds."
"But they wasn't roostin', blow 'em. They was crowin', like giddy-o."
Mrs. Bindle made no comment; but continued to eat her breakfast.
"Personally, myself, I'm goin' to 'ave a little word with the bishop
about that little game I 'ad with wot 'appened before wot you call them
male birds started givin' tongue." He paused to take breath. "I don't
like to mention wot it was; but I shall itch for a month. 'Ullo Weary!"
he called out to the long man with the stubbly chin.
The man approached. He was wearing the same lugubrious look and the same
waistcoat, unbuttoned in just the same manner that it had been
unbuttoned the day before.
"You was right about them mattresses and the male birds," said Bindle,
with a glance at Mrs. Bindle.
"The wot?" demanded the man, gazing vacantly at Bindle.
"The male birds."
"'Oo the 'ell--sorry, mum," to Mrs. Bindle. Then turning once more to
Bindle he added, "Them cocks, you mean?"
"'Ush!" said Bindle. "They ain't cocks 'ere, they're male birds, an'
roosters on Sunday. You see, my missis----" but Mrs. Bindle had risen
and, with angry eyes, had disappeared into the tent.
"Got one of 'em?" queried Bindle, jerking his thumb in the direction of
the aperture of the tent.
The man with the stubbly chin nodded dolefully.
"Thought so," said Bindle. "You looks it."
Whilst Bindle was strolling round the camp with the man with the stubbly
chin, Mrs. Bindle was becoming better acquainted with the peculiar
temperament of a bell-tent. She had already realised its disadvantages
as a dressing-room. It was dark, it was small, it was stuffy. The two
mattresses occupied practically the whole floor-space and there was
nowhere to sit. It was impossible to move about freely, owing to the
restrictions of space in the upper area.
Having washed the breakfast-things, peeled the potatoes, supplied by Mr.
Timkins through Patrol-leader Smithers, and prepared for the oven a
small joint of beef she had brought with her, Mrs. Bindle once more
withdrew into the tent.
When she eventually re-appeared in brown alpaca with a bonnet to match,
upon which rested two purple pansies, Bindle had just returned from what
he called "a nose round," during which he had made friends with most of
the campers, men, women and children, who were not already his friends.
At the sight of Mrs. Bindle he whistled softly.
"You can show me where the bakers is," she said icily, as she proceeded
to draw on a pair of brown kid gloves. The inconveniences arising from
dressing in a bell-tent had sorely ruffled her temper.
"The bakers!" he repeated stupidly.
"Yes, the bakers," she repeated. "I suppose you don't want to eat your
dinner raw."
Then Bindle strove to explain the composite tragedy of the missing
field-kitchen and marquee, to say nothing of the bishop.
In small communities news travels quickly, and the Bindles soon found
themselves the centre of a group of men and women (with children holding
a watching brief), all anxious to volunteer information, mainly on the
subject of misguided bishops who got unsuspecting townsmen into the
country under false pretences.
Mrs. Bindle was a good housewife, and she had come prepared with rations
sufficient for the first two days. She had, however, depended upon the
statements contained in the prospectus of the S.C.T.W., that cooking
facilities would be provided by the committee.
She strove to control the anger that was rising within her. It was the
Sabbath, and she was among strangers.
Although ready and willing to volunteer information, the other campers
saw no reason to restrain their surprise and disapproval of Mrs.
Bindle's toilette. The other women were in their work-a-day attire, as
befitted housewives who had dinners to cook under severe handicaps, and
they resented what they regarded as a newcomer's "swank."
That first day of the holiday, for which she had fought with such grim
determination, lived long in Mrs. Bindle's memory. Dinner she contrived
with the aid of the frying-pan and the saucepan she had brought with
her. It would have taken something more than the absence of a
field-kitchen to prevent Mrs. Bindle from doing what she regarded as her
domestic duty.
The full sense of her tragedy, however, manifested itself when, dinner
over, she had washed-up.
There was nothing to do until tea-time. Bindle had disappeared with the
man with the stubbly chin and two others in search of the nearest
public-house, a mile away. Patrol-leader Smithers was at Sunday-school,
whilst her fellow-campers showed no inclination to make advances.
She walked for a little among the other tents; but her general demeanour
was not conducive to hasty friendships. She therefore returned to the
tent and wrote to Mr. Hearty, telling him, on the authority of
Patrol-leader Smithers, that Mr. Timkins had a large quantity of
excellent strawberries for sale.
Mr. Hearty was a greengrocer who had one eye on business and the other
eye on God, in case of accidents. On hearing that the Bindles were going
into the country, his mind had instinctively flown to fruit and
vegetables. He had asked Mrs. Bindle to "drop him a postcard" (Mr.
Hearty was always economical in the matter of postages, even other
people's postages) if she heard of anything that she thought might
interest him.
Mrs. Bindle told in glowing terms the story of Farmer Timkins' hoards of
strawberries, giving the impression that he was at a loss what to do
with them.
Three o'clock brought the bishop and a short open-air service, which was
attended by the entire band of campers, with the exception of Bindle and
his companions.
The bishop was full of apologies for the past and hope for the future.
In place of a sermon he gave an almost jovial address; but there were no
answering smiles. Everyone was wondering what they could do until it was
time for bed, the more imaginative going still further and speculating
what they were to do when they got there.
"My friends," the bishop concluded, "we must not allow trifling mishaps
to discourage us. We are here to enjoy ourselves."
And the campers returned to their tents as Achilles had done a few
thousand years before, dark of brow and gloomy of heart.