RAGOÛT À LA MODE DE GUERRE
(Trench Stew)
Usually hunting partridge or grouse
is the pleasure only of those who remain
at home; but one day, while sitting in a
dugout, I enjoyed a wonderful meal.
Our dugout was in a communication trench
some five hundred yards from the front line,
and probably six hundred from the German.
The dugout was one of those steel-roofed
affairs, the roof forming a graceful semicircle
of one-eighth-inch metal, covered with sand a
foot thick, carelessly shoveled on. My
orderlies were Corporal Roy, a Canadian boy of
twenty; Private Jock whose well-developed
sense of dry Scotch humor showed itself by
his irritating the men about him by any
method of teasing which came easiest, but whose
personal good nature and loyal love of doing
his duty, be it the most arduous and
dangerous, made everyone forgive him any of his
annoying tricks; and my batman, Private
John, a decent, clean and brave Canadian boy
who, by the way, was one of the best men I
ever had to look after my comforts, or lessen
my discomforts, whichever way you choose to
put it.
This fine, cool winter day we had been
standing at the door of our dugout peeping
over a comparatively safe bit of parapet,
watching some of our sixty-pound trench
mortars hurtle through the air and burst in the
German lines. At last, tiring of the performance,
I went inside and sat down to read one
of Jeffrey Farnol's latest books. A few
minutes later Roy came hurrying in, grabbed his
rifle, and went racing out again. Wondering
what was the cause of this strange behavior,
and hearing a shot, I went out.
Turning into the main communication
trench, I was just in time to see Corporal Roy
climbing back over the parapet with a plump,
dead partridge in his hand. Only those of you
who have been living for some months on army
rations can appreciate the glorious
anticipations which a fat, plump partridge can conjure
up in one's imagination. His rifle was leaning
against the parados, and Roy explained to us
that he had seen two partridges, but had only
succeeded in getting one. His impatience
getting the better of his judgment, he did not wait
till dark to go out and get his prize, but went
over the parapet in plain view of German
snipers only six hundred yards away, and
brought in his bag of game.
The partridge was cleaned by John and
Jock and with the addition of a little mutton
and carrots from last night's rations, I made a
stew of it. All agreed--perhaps my boys
didn't dare to disagree--that it was delicious.
This is the recipe for _Ragoût à la mode de
guerre_: Shoot a partridge over the parapet
on a bright day; take your life in your hands
to go out and get the victim; clean it--but
not too clean; mix with it a little mutton and
carrots; stew it in a canteen or dixie over a
charcoal brazier, with plenty of the penetrating
charcoal fumes entering your lungs; and
perform all these rites in a dugout with enemy
shells popping about in the neighborhood. If
you have carefully carried out all these
directions, then, being sufficiently hungry, add a
goodly portion of that most savory of
sauces--appetite--to the dish. I promise you that,
though your tastes are _blasé_ to the last degree,
you will admit that _Ragoût à la mode de
guerre_ makes a meal fit for the discriminating
palate of a king.