THE COMING OF THE WHIRLWIND
I
"It's come, mate."
"Go away, we're not up yet," cried the voice of Mrs. Bindle from inside
the tent.
"It's come, mate," repeated a lugubrious voice, which Bindle recognised
as that of the tall, despondent man with the stubbly chin.
"Who's come?" demanded Bindle, sitting up and throwing the bedclothes
from his chest, revealing a washed-out pink flannel night-shirt.
"The blinkin' field-kitchen," came the voice from without. "Comin' to
'ave a look at it?"
"Righto, ole sport. I'll be out in two ticks."
"I won't have that man coming up to the tent when--when we're not up,"
said Mrs. Bindle angrily.
"It's all right, Lizzie," reassured Bindle, "'e can't see through--an'
'e ain't that sort o' cove neither," he added.
Mrs. Bindle murmured an angry retort.
Five minutes later Bindle, with trailing braces, left the tent and
joined the group of men and children gazing at a battered object that
was strangely reminiscent of Stevenson's first steam-engine.
"That's it," said the man with the stubbly chin, whose name was Barnes,
known to his intimates as "'Arry," turning to greet Bindle and jerking a
dirt-grimed thumb in the direction of the travelling field-kitchen.
Dubious heads were shaken. Many of the men had already had practical
experience of the temperament possessed by an army field-kitchen.
"At Givenchy I see one of 'em cut in 'alf by a 'Crump,'" muttered a
little dark-haired man, with red-rimmed eyes that seemed to blink
automatically. "It wasn't 'alf a sight, neither," he added.
"Who's goin' to stoke?" demanded Barnes, rubbing his chin affectionately
with the pad of his right thumb.
"'Im wot's been the wickedest," suggested Bindle.
They were in no mood for lightness, however. None had yet breakfasted,
and all had suffered the acute inconvenience of camping under the
supreme direction of a benign but misguided cleric.
"Wot the 'ell I come 'ere for, I don't know," said a man with a moist,
dirty face. "Might a gone to Southend with my brother-in-law, I might,"
he added reminiscently.
"You wasn't 'alf a mug, was you?" remarked a wiry little man in a
singlet and khaki trousers.
"You're right there, mate," was the response. "Blinkin' barmy I must a'
been."
"I was goin' to Yarmouth," confided a third, "only my missis got this
ruddy camp on the streamin' brain. Jawed about it till I was sick and
give in for peace an' quietness. Now, look at me."
"It's all the ruddy Government, a-startin' these 'ere stutterin' camps,"
complained a red-headed man with the face of a Bolshevist.
"They 'as races at Yarmouth, too," grumbled the previous speaker.
"Not till September," put in another.
"August," said the first speaker aggressively, and the two proceeded
fiercely to discuss the date of the Yarmouth Races.
When the argument had gone as far as it could without blows, and had
quieted all other conversation, Bindle slipped away from the group and
returned to the tent to find Mrs. Bindle busy preparing breakfast.
He smacked his lips with the consciousness that of all the campers he
was the best fed.
"Gettin' a move on," he cried cheerily, and once more he smacked his
lips.
"Pity you can't do something to help," she retorted, "instead of loafing
about with that pack of lazy scamps."
Bindle retired to the interior of the tent and proceeded with his
toilet.
"That's right, take no notice when I speak to you," she snapped.
"Oh, my Gawd!" he groaned. "It's scratch all night an' scrap all day.
It's an 'oliday all right."
He strove to think of something tactful to say; but at the moment
nothing seemed to suggest itself, and Mrs. Bindle viciously broke three
eggs into the frying-pan in which bacon was already sizzling, like an
energetic wireless-plant.
The savoury smell of the frying eggs and bacon reached Bindle inside the
tent, inspiring him with feelings of benevolence and good-will.
"I'm sorry, Lizzie," he said contritely, "but I didn't 'ear you."
"You heard well enough what I said," was Mrs. Bindle's rejoinder, as she
broke a fourth egg into the pan.
"The kitchen's come," he said pleasantly.
"Oh, has it?" Mrs. Bindle did not raise her eyes from the frying-pan she
was holding over the scout-fire.
For a minute or two Bindle preserved silence, wondering what topic he
possessed that would soothe her obvious irritation.
"They say the big tent's down at the station," he remarked, repeating a
rumour he had heard when engaged in examining the field-kitchen.
Mrs. Bindle vouchsafed no reply.
"Did you sleep well, Lizzie?" he enquired.
"Sleep!" she repeated scornfully. "How was I to sleep on rough straw
like that. I ache all over."
He saw that he had made a false move in introducing the subject of
sleep.
"The milk hasn't come," she announced presently with the air of one
making a statement she knew would be unpopular. Bindle hated tea
without milk.
"You don't say so," he remarked. "I must 'ave a word with Daisy. She
didn't oughter be puttin' on 'er bloomin' frills."
"The paraffin's got into the sugar," was the next bombshell.
"Well, well," said Bindle. "I suppose you can't 'ave everythink as you
would like it."
"Another time, perhaps you'll get up yourself and help with the meals."
"I ain't much at them sort o' things," he replied, conscious that Mrs.
Bindle's anger was rising.
"You leave me to do everything, as if I was your slave instead of your
wife."
Bindle remained silent. He realized that there were times when it was
better to bow to the storm.
"Ain't it done yet?" he enquired, looking anxiously at the frying-pan.
"That's all you care about, your stomach," she cried, her voice rising
hysterically. "So long as you've got plenty to eat, nothing else
matters. I wonder I stand it. I--I----"
Bindle's eyes were still fixed anxiously upon the frying-pan, which, in
her excitement, Mrs. Bindle was moving from side to side of the fire.
"Look out!" he cried, "you'll upset it, an' I'm as 'ungry as an 'awk."
Suddenly the light of madness sprang into her eyes.
"Oh! you are, are you? Well, get somebody else to cook your meals," and
with that she inverted the frying-pan, tipping the contents into the
fire. As Bindle sprang up from the box on which he had been sitting, she
rubbed the frying-pan into the ashes, making a hideous mess of the
burning-wood, eggs and bacon.
With a scream that was half a sob, she fled to the shelter of the tent,
leaving Bindle to gaze down upon the wreck of what had been intended for
his breakfast.
Picking up a stick, charred at one end, he began to rake among the
embers in the vague hope of being able to disinter from the wreck
something that was eatable; but Mrs. Bindle's action in rubbing the
frying-pan into the ashes had removed from the contents all semblance of
food. With a sigh he rose to his feet to find the bishop gazing down at
him.
"Had a mishap?" he asked pleasantly.
"You've 'it it, sir," grinned Bindle. "Twenty years ago," he added in a
whisper.
"Twenty years ago!" murmured the bishop, a puzzled expression on his
face. "What was twenty years ago?"
"The little mis'ap wot you was talkin' about, sir," explained Bindle,
still in a whisper. "I married Mrs. B. then, an' she gets a bit jumpy
now and again."
"I see," whispered the bishop, "she upset the breakfast."
"Well, sir, you can put it that way; but personally myself, I think it
was the breakfast wot upset 'er."
"And you've got nothing to eat?"
"Not even a tin to lick out, sir."
"Dear me, dear me!" cried the bishop, genuinely distressed, and then,
suddenly catching sight of Barnes's lugubrious form appearing from
behind a neighbouring tent, he hailed him.
Barnes approached with all the deliberation and unconcern of a
pronounced fatalist.
"Our friend here has had a mishap," said the bishop, indicating the
fire. "Will you go round to my tent and get some eggs and bacon. Hurry
up, there's a good fellow."
Barnes turned on a deliberate heel, whilst Bindle and the bishop set
themselves to the reconstruction of the scout-fire.
A quarter of an hour later, when Mrs. Bindle peeped out of the tent, she
saw the bishop and Bindle engaged in frying eggs and bacon; whilst
Barnes stood gazing down at them with impassive pessimism.
Rising to stretch his cramped legs, the bishop caught sight of Mrs.
Bindle.
"Good morning, Mrs. Bindle. I hope your headache is better. Mr. Bindle
has been telling me that he has had a mishap with your breakfast, so I'm
helping him to cook it. I hope you won't mind if I join you in eating
it."
"Now that's wot I call tack," muttered Bindle under his breath, "but my!
ain't 'e a prize liar, 'im a parson too."
Mrs. Bindle came forward, an expression on her face that was generally
kept for the Rev. Mr. MacFie, of the Alton Road Chapel.
"It's very kind of you, sir. I'm sorry Bindle let you help with the
cooking."
"But I'm going to help with the eating," cried the bishop gaily.
"But it's not fit work for a----"
"I know what you're going to say," said the bishop, "and I don't want
you to say it. Here we are all friends, helping one another, and giving
a meal when the hungry appears. For this morning I'm going to fill the
role of the hungry. I wonder if you'll make the tea, Mrs. Bindle, Mr.
Bindle tells me your tea is wonderful."
"Oh, my Gawd!" murmured Bindle, casting up his eyes.
With what was almost a smile, Mrs. Bindle proceeded to do the bishop's
bidding.
During the meal Bindle was silent, leaving the conversation to Mrs.
Bindle and the bishop. By the time he had finished his third cup of tea,
Mrs. Bindle was almost gay.
The bishop talked household-management, touched on religion and
Christian charity, slid off again to summer-camps, thence on to
marriage, babies and the hundred and one other things dear to a woman's
heart.
When he finally rose to go, Bindle saw in Mrs. Bindle's eyes a smile
that almost reached her lips.
"I hope that if ever you honour us again, sir, you will let me know----"
"No, Mrs. Bindle, it's the unexpected that delights me, and I'm going to
be selfish. Thank you for your hospitality and our pleasant chat," and
with that he was gone.
"Well, I'm blowed!" muttered Bindle as he gazed after the figure of the
retreating bishop, "an' me always thinkin' that you 'ad to 'ave an 'ymn
an' a tin o' salmon to make love to Mrs. B."
"And now, I suppose, you'll go off and leave me to do all the
washing-up. Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth when the bishop was here.
You couldn't say a word before him," she snapped, and she proceeded to
gather together the dishes.
"No," muttered Bindle as he fetched some sticks for the fire. "'E can
talk tack all right; but when you wants it to last, it's better to 'ave
a tin o' salmon to fall back on."
That morning Daisy had a serious rival in the field-kitchen, which like
her was an unknown quantity, capable alike of ministering to the
happiness of all, or of withholding that which was expected of it.
It was soon obvious to the bishop that the field-kitchen was going to
prove as great a source of anxiety as Daisy. No one manifested any
marked inclination to act as stoker. Apart from this, the bishop had
entirely forgotten the important item of fuel, having omitted to order
either coal or coke. In addition there was a marked suspicion, on the
part of the wives, of what they regarded as a new-fangled way of cooking
a meal. Many of them had already heard of army field-kitchens from their
husbands, and were filled with foreboding.
It took all the bishop's tact and enthusiasm to modify their obvious
antagonism.
"I ain't a-goin' to trust anythink o' mine in a rusty old thing like
that," said a fat woman with a grimy skin and scanty hair.
"Same 'ere, they didn't ought to 'ave let us come down without making
proper pervision," complained a second, seizing an opportunity when the
bishop's head was in the stoke-hole to utter the heresy.
"Bless me!" he said, withdrawing his head, unconscious that there was a
black smudge on the right episcopal cheek. "It will take a dreadful lot
of fuel. Now, who will volunteer to stoke?" turning his most persuasive
smile upon the group of men, who had been keenly interested in his
examination of the contrivance.
The men shuffled their feet, looked at one another, as if each expected
to find in another the spirit of sacrifice lacking in himself.
Their disinclination was so marked that the bishop's face fell, until he
suddenly caught sight of Bindle approaching.
"Ah!" he cried. "Here's the man I want. Now, Bindle," he called out,
"you saved us from the bull, how would you like to become stoker?"
"Surely I ain't as bad as all that, sir," grinned Bindle.
"I'm not speaking professionally," laughed the bishop, who had already
ingratiated himself with the men because he did not "talk like a ruddy
parson." "I want somebody to take charge of this field-kitchen," he
continued. "I'd do it myself, only I've got such a lot of other things
to see to. I'll borrow some coal from Mr. Timkins."
Bindle gazed dubiously at the unattractive mass of iron, dabbed with the
weather-worn greens and browns of camouflage and war.
"It's quite simple," said the bishop. "You light the fire here, that's
the oven, and you boil things here, and--we shall soon get it going."
"I don't mind stokin', sir," said Bindle at length; "but I ain't a-goin'
to take charge of 'oo's dinner's wot. If there's goin' to be any
scrappin' with the ladies, well, I ain't in it."
Finally it was arranged that Bindle should start the fire and get the
field-kitchen into working order, and that the putting-in the oven and
taking-out again of the various dishes should be left to the discretion
of the campers themselves, who were to be responsible for the length of
time required to cook their own particular meals.
With astonishing energy, the bishop set the children to collect wood,
and soon Bindle, throwing himself into the work with enthusiasm, had the
fire well alight. There had arrived from the farm a good supply of coal
and coke.
"You ain't 'alf 'it it unlucky, mate," said the man with the bristly
chin. "'E ought to 'ave 'ired a cook," he added. "We come 'ere to enjoy
ourselves, not to be blinkin' stokers. That's like them ruddy parsons,"
he added, "always wantin' somethin' for nuffin."
"'Ere, come along, cheerful," cried Bindle, "give me a 'and with this
coke," and, a minute later, the lugubrious Barnes found himself
sweating like a horse, and shovelling fuel into the kitchen's voracious
maw.
"That's not the way!"
The man straightened his back and, with one hand on the spade, gazed at
Mrs. Bindle, who had approached unobserved. With the grubby thumb of his
other hand he rubbed his chin, giving to his unprepossessing features a
lopsided appearance.
"Wot ain't the way, missis?" he asked with the air of one quite prepared
to listen to reason.
"The coke should be damped," was the response, "and you're putting in
too much."
"But we want it to burn up," he protested.
Mrs. Bindle ostentatiously turned upon him a narrow back.
"_You_ ought to know better, at least, Bindle," she snapped, and
proceeded to give him instruction in the art of encouraging a fire.
"You'd better take some out," she said.
"'Ere ole sport," cried Bindle, "give us----" he stopped suddenly. His
assistant had disappeared.
"You mustn't let anyone put anything in until the oven's hot," continued
Mrs. Bindle, "and you mustn't open the door too often. You'd better fix
a time when they can bring the food, say eleven o'clock."
"Early doors threepence extra?" queried Bindle.
"We're going to have sausage-toad-in-the-hole, and mind you don't burn
it."
"I'll watch it as if it was my own cheeild," vowed Bindle.
"If the bishop knew you as I know you, he wouldn't have trusted you
with this," said Mrs. Bindle, as she walked away with indrawn lips and
head in the air, stepping with the self-consciousness of a bantam that
feels its spurs.
"Blowed if she don't think I volunteered for the bloomin' job," he
muttered, as he ceased extracting pieces of coke from the furnace.
"Well, if their dinner ain't done it's their fault, an' if it's overdone
it ain't mine," and with that he drew his pipe from his pocket and
filled it.
"No luck," he cried, as a grey-haired old woman with the dirt of other
years on her face hobbled up with a pie-dish. "Doors ain't open yet."
"But it's an onion pie," grumbled the old dame, "and onions takes a lot
o' cookin'."
"Can't 'elp it," grinned Bindle. "Doors ain't open till eleven."
"But----" began the woman.
"Nothin', doin' mother," said the obstinate Bindle. "You see this 'ere
is a religious kitchen. It's a different sort from an ordinary
blasphemious kitchen."
On the stroke of eleven Mrs. Bindle appeared with a large brown
pie-dish, the sight of which made Bindle's mouth water.
"Now then," he cried, "line up for the bakin'-queue. Shillin' a 'ead an'
all bad nuts changed. Oh! no, you don't," he cried, as one woman
proffered a basin. "I'm stoker, not cook. You shoves 'em in yourself,
an' you fetches 'em when you wants 'em. If there's any scrappin' to be
done, I'll be umpire."
One by one the dishes were inserted in the oven, and one by one their
owners retired, a feeling of greater confidence in their hearts now that
they could prepare a proper dinner. The men went off to get a drink, and
soon Bindle was alone.
During the first half-hour Mrs. Bindle paid three separate visits to the
field-kitchen. To her it was a new and puzzling contrivance, and she had
no means of gauging the heat of the oven. She regarded it distrustfully
and, on the occasion of the second visit, gave a special word of warning
to Bindle.
At 11.40 Barnes returned with a large black bottle, which he held out to
Bindle with an invitation to "'ave a drink."
Bindle removed the cork and put the bottle to his lips, and his Adam's
apple bobbed up and down joyously.
"Ah!" he cried, as he at length lowered the bottle and his head at the
same time. "That's the stuff to give 'em," and reluctantly he handed
back the bottle to its owner, who hastily withdrew at the sight of Mrs.
Bindle approaching.
When she had taken her departure, Bindle began to feel drowsy. The sun
was hot, the air was still, and the world was very good to live in.
Still, there was the field-kitchen to be looked after.
For some time he struggled against the call of sleep; but do what he
would, his head continued to nod, and his eyelids seemed weighted with
lead.
Suddenly he had an inspiration. If he stoked-up the field-kitchen, it
would look after itself, and he could have just the "forty winks" his
nature craved.
With feverish energy he set to work with the shovel, treating the two
stacks of coal and coke with entire impartiality. Then, when he had
filled the furnace, he closed the door with the air of the Roman sentry
relieving himself of responsibility by setting a burglar-alarm. Getting
well out of the radius of the heat caused by the furnace, he composed
himself to slumber behind the heap of coke.
Suddenly he was aroused from a dream in which he stood on the deck of a
wrecked steamer, surrounded by steam which was escaping with vicious
hisses from the damaged boilers.
He sat up and looked about him. The air seemed white with vapour, in and
out of which two figures could be seen moving. He struggled to his feet
and looked about him.
A few yards away he saw Mrs. Bindle engaged in throwing water at the
field-kitchen, and then dashing back quickly to escape the smother of
steam that resulted. The bishop, with a bucket and a pink-and-blue jug,
was dashing water on to the monster's back.
Bindle gazed at the scene in astonishment, then, making a detour, he
approached from the opposite side, to see what it was that had produced
the crisis. Just at that moment, the bishop decided that the pail had
been sufficiently lightened by the use of the pink-and-blue jug to
enable him to lift it.
A moment later Bindle was the centre of a cascade of water and a mantle
of spray.
"'Ere! wot the 'ell?" he bawled.
The bishop dodged round to the other side and apologised profusely,
explaining how Mrs. Bindle had discovered that the field-kitchen had
become overheated and that between them they were trying to lower its
temperature.
"Yes; but I ain't over'eated," protested Bindle.
"You put too much coal in, Bindle; the place would have been red-hot in
half an hour."
"Well; but look at all them dinners that----"
"Don't talk to him, my lord," said Mrs. Bindle, who from a fellow-camper
had learned how a bishop should be addressed. "He's done it on purpose."
"No, no, Mrs. Bindle," said the bishop genially. "I'm sure he didn't
mean to do it. It's really my fault."
And Mrs. Bindle left it at that.
From that point, however, she took charge of the operations, the bishop
and Bindle working under her direction. The news that the field-kitchen
was on fire, conveyed to their parents by the children, had brought up
the campers in full-force and at the double.
There had been a rush for the oven; but Mrs. Bindle soon showed that she
had the situation well in hand, and the sight of the bishop doing her
bidding had a reassuring effect.
Under her supervision, each dish and basin was withdrawn, and first aid
administered to such as required it. Those that were burnt, were tended
with a skill and expedition that commanded the admiration of every
housewife present. They were content to leave matters in hands that
they recognised were more capable than their own.
When the salvage work was ended, and the dishes and basins replaced in
an oven that had been reduced to a suitable temperature, the bishop
mopped his brow, whilst Mrs. Bindle stood back and gazed at the
field-kitchen as St. George might have regarded the conquered dragon.
Her face was flushed, and her hands were grimed; but in her eyes was a
keen satisfaction. For once in her life she had occupied the centre of
something larger than a domestic stage.
"My friends," cried the bishop, always ready to say a few words or point
the moral, "we are all under a very great obligation to our capable
friend Mrs. Bindle, a veritable Martha among women;" he indicated Mrs.
Bindle with a motion of what was probably the dirtiest episcopal hand in
the history of the Church. "She has saved the situation and, what is
more, she has saved our dinners. Now," he cried boyishly, "I call for
three cheers for Mrs. Bindle."
And they were given with a heartiness that caused Mrs. Bindle a queer
sensation at the back of her throat.
The campers flocked round her and found that she whom they had regarded
as "uppish," could be almost gracious. Anyhow, she had saved their
dinners.
It was Mrs. Bindle's hour.
"Fancy 'im a-callin' 'er Martha, when 'er name's Lizzie," muttered
Bindle, as he strolled off. He had taken no very prominent part in the
proceedings--he was a little ashamed of the part he had played in what
had proved almost a tragedy.
That day the Tired Workers dined because of Mrs. Bindle, and they knew
it. Various were the remarks exchanged among the groups collected
outside the tents.
"She didn't 'alf order the bishop about," remarked to his wife the man
who should have gone to Yarmouth.
"Any way, if it 'adn't been for 'er you'd 'ave 'ad cinders instead o'
baked chops and onions for yer dinner," was the rejoinder, as his wife,
a waspish little woman, rubbed a piece of bread round her plate. "She
ain't got much to learn about a kitchen stove, I'll say that for 'er,"
she added, with the air of one who sees virtue in unaccustomed places.
That afternoon when Bindle was lying down inside the tent, endeavouring
to digest some fifty per cent. more sausage-toad-in-the-hole than he was
licensed to carry, he was aroused from a doze by the sound of voices
without.
"We brought 'em for you, missis." It was the man with the stubbly chin
speaking.
"Must 'ave made you a bit firsty, all that 'eat," remarked another
voice.
Bindle sat up. Events were becoming interesting. He crept to the opening
of the tent and slightly pulled aside the flap.
"Best dinner we've 'ad yet." The speaker was the man who had seen a
field-kitchen dissected at Givenchy. He was just in the line of
Bindle's vision.
Pulling the flap still further aside, he saw half-a-dozen men standing
awkwardly before Mrs. Bindle who, with a bottle of Guinness' stout in
either hand, was actually smiling.
"It's very kind of you," she said. "Thank you very much."
In his astonishment, Bindle dropped the flap, and the picture was
blotted out.
"Come an' 'ave a look at Daisy," he heard the man with the stubbly chin
say. It was obviously his conception of terminating an awkward
interview.
"Good day," he heard a voice mumble, to which Mrs. Bindle replied with
almost cordiality.
Bindle scrambled back to his mattress, just as Mrs. Bindle pulled aside
the flap of the tent and entered, a bottle still in either hand. At the
sight, Bindle became aware of a thirst which until then had slumbered.
"I can do with a drop o' Guinness," he cried cheerily, his eyes upon the
bottles. "Nice o' them coves to think of us."
"It was me, not you," was Mrs. Bindle's rejoinder, as she stepped across
to her mattress.
"But you don't drink beer, Lizzie," he protested. "You're temperance.
I'll drink 'em for you."
"If you do, I'll kill you, Bindle." And the intensity with which she
uttered the threat decided him that it would be better to leave the
brace of Guinness severely alone; but he was sorely puzzled.
II
That evening, in the sanded tap-room of The Trowel and Turtle, the male
summer-campers expressed themselves for the twentieth time
uncompromisingly upon the subject of bishops and summer-camps. They were
"fed up to the ruddy neck," and would give not a little to be back in
London, where it was possible to find a pub "without gettin' a blinkin'
blister on your stutterin' 'eel."
It was true the field-kitchen had arrived, that they had eaten their
first decent meal, and there was every reason to believe that the
marquee was at the station; still they were "sick of the whole streamin'
business."
To add to their troubles the landlord of The Trowel and Turtle expressed
grave misgivings as to the weather. The glass was dropping, and there
was every indication of rain.
"Rain'll jest put the scarlet lid on this blinkin' beano," was the
opinion expressed by one of the party and endorsed by all, as, with the
landlord's advice to see that everything was made snug for the night,
they trooped out of the comfortable tap-room and turned their heads
towards the Summer-Camp.
At the entrance of the meadow they were met by Patrol-leader Smithers.
"You must slack the ropes of your tents," he announced, "there may be
rain. Only just slack them a bit; don't overdo it, or they'll come down
on the top of you if the wind gets up."
"Oh crikey!" moaned a long man with a straggling moustache, as he
watched Patrol-leader Smithers march briskly down the lane.
For some moments the men gazed at one another in consternation; each
visualised the desperate state of discomfort that would ensue as the
result of wind and rain.
"Let's go an' 'ave a look at Daisy," said Bindle inconsequently.
His companions stared at him in surprise. A shrill voice in the distance
calling "'Enery" seemed to lend to them decision, particularly to 'Enery
himself. They turned and strolled over to where Daisy was engaged in
preparing the morrow's milk supply. She had been milked and was content.
"Look 'ere, mates," began Bindle, having assured himself that there were
no eavesdroppers, "we're all fed up with Summer-Camps for tired
workers--that so?"
"Up to the blinkin' neck," said a big man with a dirt-grimed skin,
voicing the opinion of all.
"There ain't no pubs," said a burly man with black whiskers, "no
pictures, can't put a shillin' on an 'orse, can't do anythink----"
"But watch this ruddy cow," broke in the man with the stubbly chin.
"Well, well, p'raps you're right, only I couldn't 'ave said it 'alf as
politely," said Bindle, with a grin. "We're all for good ole Fulham
where a cove can lay the dust. Ain't that so, mates?"
The men expressed their agreement according to the intensity of their
feelings.
"Well, listen," said Bindle, "an' I'll tell you." They drew nearer and
listened.
Twenty minutes later, when the voice demanding 'Enery became too
insistent to be denied, the party broke up, and there was in the eyes of
all that which spoke of hope.
III
That night, as Patrol-leader Smithers had foretold, there arose a great
wind which smote vigorously the tents of the Surrey Summer-Camp for
Tired Workers. For a time the tents withstood the fury of the blast;
they swayed and bent before it, putting up a vigorous defence however.
Presently a shriek told of the first catastrophe; then followed another
and yet another, and soon the darkness was rent by cries, shrieks, and
lamentations, whilst somewhere near the Bindles' tent rose the voice of
one crying from a wilderness of canvas for 'Enery.
Mrs. Bindle was awakened by the loud slatting of the tent-flap.
Pandemonium seemed to have broken loose. The wind howled and whistled
through the tent-ropes, the rain swept against the canvas sides with an
ominous "swish," the pole bent as the tent swayed from side to side.
"Bindle," she cried, "get up!"
"'Ullo!" he responded sleepily. He had taken the precaution of not
removing his trousers, a circumstance that was subsequently used as
evidence against him.
"The tent's coming down," she cried. "Get up and hold the prop."
As she spoke, she scrambled from beneath the blankets and seized the
brown mackintosh, which she kept ready to hand in case of accidents.
Wrapping this about her, she clutched at the bending pole, whilst Bindle
struggled out from among the bedclothes.
Scrambling to his feet, he tripped over the tin-bath. Clutching wildly
as he fell, he got Mrs. Bindle just above the knees in approved rugger
style.
With a scream she relinquished the pole to free her legs from Bindle's
frenzied clutch and, losing her footing, she came down on top of him.
"Leave go," she cried.
"Get up orf my stomach then," he gasped.
At that moment, the wind gave a tremendous lift to the tent. Mrs. Bindle
was clutching wildly at the base of the pole, Bindle was striving to
wriggle from beneath her. The combination of forces caused the tent to
sway wildly. A moment later, it seemed to start angrily from the ground,
and she fell over backwards, whilst a mass of sopping canvas descended,
stifling alike her screams and Bindle's protests that he was being
killed.
It took Bindle nearly five minutes to find his way out from the heavy
folds of wet canvas. Then he had to go back into the darkness to fetch
Mrs. Bindle. In order to effect his own escape, Bindle had cut the
tent-ropes. Just as he had found Mrs. Bindle, a wild gust of wind
entered behind him, lifted the tent bodily and bore it off.
The suddenness of the catastrophe seemed to strike Mrs. Bindle dumb. To
be sitting in the middle of a meadow at dead of night, clothed only in a
nightdress and a mackintosh, with the rain drenching down, seemed to her
to border upon the indecent.
"You there, Lizzie?" came the voice of Bindle, like the shout of one
hailing a drowning person.
"Where's the tent?" demanded Mrs. Bindle inconsequently.
"Gawd knows!" he shouted back. "Probably it's at Yarmouth by now. 'Oly
ointment," he yelled.
"What's the matter?"
"I trodden on the marjarine."
"It's all we've got," she cried, her housewifely fears triumphing over
even the stress of wind and rain and her own intolerable situation.
From the surrounding darkness came shouts and enquiries as disaster
followed disaster. Heaving masses of canvas laboured and, one by one,
produced figures scanty of garment and full of protest; but mercifully
unseen.
Women cried, children shrieked, and men swore volubly.
"I'm sittin' in somethink sticky," cried Bindle presently.
"You've upset the marmalade. Why can't you keep still?"
Keep still! Bindle was searching for the two bottles of Guinness' stout
he knew to be somewhere among the debris, unconscious that Mrs. Bindle
had packed them away in the tin-bath.
As the other tents disgorged their human contents, the pandemonium
increased. In every key, appeals were being made for news of lost units.
By the side of the tin-bath Mrs. Bindle was praying for succour and the
lost bell-tent, which had sped towards the east as if in search of the
wise men, leaving all beneath it naked to the few stars that peeped from
the scudding clouds above, only to hide their faces a moment later as if
shocked at what they had seen.
Suddenly a brilliant light flashed across the meadow and began to bob
about like a hundred candle power will-o'-the-wisp. It dodged restlessly
from place to place, as if in search of something.
Behind a large acetylene motor-lamp, walked Patrol-leader Smithers,
searching for one single erect bell-tent--there was none.
Shrieks that had been of terror now became cries of alarm. Forms that
had struggled valiantly to escape from the billowing canvas, now began
desperately to wriggle back again to the seclusion that modesty
demanded. With heads still protruding they regarded the scene, praying
that the rudeness of the wind would not betray them.
Taking immediate charge, Patrol-leader Smithers collected the men and
gave his orders in a high treble, and his orders were obeyed.
By the time the dawn had begun nervously to finger the east, sufficient
tents to shelter the women and children had been re-erected, the cause
of the trouble discovered, and the men rebuked for an injudicious
slacking of the ropes.
"I ought to have seen to it myself," remarked Patrol-leader Smithers
with the air of one who knows he has to deal with fools. "You'll be all
right now," he added reassuringly.
"All right now," growled the man with the stubbly chin as he looked up
at the grey scudding clouds and then down at the rain-soaked grass. "We
would if we was ducks, or ruddy boy scouts; but we're men, we are--on
'oliday," he added with inspiration, and he withdrew to his tent,
conscious that he had voiced the opinion of all.
V
Later that morning three carts, laden with luggage, rumbled their way up
to West Boxton railway-station, followed by a straggling stream of men,
women, and children. Overhead heavy rainclouds swung threateningly
across the sky. Men were smoking their pipes contentedly, for theirs was
the peace which comes of full knowledge. Behind them they had left a
litter of bell-tents and the conviction that Daisy in all probability
would explode before dinner-time. What cared they? A few hours hence
they would be once more in their known and understood Fulham.
As they reached the station they saw two men struggling with a grey mass
that looked like a deflated balloon.
The men hailed the party and appealed for help.
"It's the ruddy marquee," cried a voice.
"The blinkin' tent," cried another, not to be outdone in speculative
intelligence.
"You can take it back with you," cried one of the men from the truck.
"We're demobbed, ole son," said Bindle cheerily. "We've struck."
"No more blinkin' camps for me," said the man with the stubbly chin.
"'Ear, 'ear," came from a number of voices.
"Are we down-hearted?" enquired a voice.
"Nooooooooo!"
And the voices of women and children were heard in the response.
Some half an hour later, as the train steamed out of the station, Bindle
called out to the porters:
"Tell the bishop not to forget to milk Daisy."
* * * * *
"Well, Mrs. B.," said Bindle that evening as he lighted his pipe after
an excellent supper of sausages, fried onions, and mashed potatoes, "you
'ad yer 'oliday."
"I believe you was at the bottom of those tents coming down, Bindle,"
she cried with conviction.
"Well, you was underneath, wasn't you?" was the response, and Bindle
winked knowingly at the white jug with the pink butterfly on the spout.