ARMY-BARMY.
Presently she came to a big grass plot sprinkled with rows of little
beds in which flowers were growing. Round one of the beds were three
people, who were apparently gardeners, though they were all armed with
big paste-pots and huge brushes, and were busily whitewashing the red
flowers on a very dishevelled lily.
[Illustration: “_They were all armed with big paste-pots and huge
brushes._”]
Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch
them. As she came up to them she heard one of them say: “I’m sick to
death of this Louvain lily! It’s given us more trouble than all the
others put together.”
“What about the Rheims rose?” said the second gardener.
“Not as bad as _this_,” remarked the third. “The red still shows
through after a dozen coats of whitewash.”
“Would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, “why you are
painting those flowers?”
“Why, the fact is, you see, Miss,” said the first gardener, “the Kaiser
says that these flowers ought to be white, or anyhow ought to be made
to look white. And the head-gardener says they _are_ white, and it’s
only a ‘psychological phenomenon in hysteria’ that makes ’em look red.
And the Kaiser says that he doesn’t know about that, but if they are
not whitewashed in double-quick time, we shall all be cultured.”
“Yes,” said the second gardener, “and Army-Barmy has fallen on the
plant, and made it worse than ever, and _we_ shall be blamed.”
“Who is Army-Barmy?” Alice enquired.
“You’d better ask him,” said the third gardener. “He’s just there,” and
he pointed over Alice’s shoulder.
Army-Barmy was sitting on the top of a high pinnacle, such a narrow and
pointed one that Alice quite wondered how he could keep his balance,
and, while his eyes were continually rolling round in an effort to look
both ways at once, he didn’t take the least notice of her, so that she
began to think he was nothing but a mechanical toy after all.
“And how exactly like a balloon he is!” she said aloud, standing with
her hands ready to catch him in case he fell.
“It’s _very_ provoking,” Army-Barmy said, after a long silence, “to be
mistaken for a gas-bag--_very_.”
“I said you _looked_ like a balloon, Sir,” Alice gently explained. “And
some balloons are very useful, you know,” she added, hoping to turn her
remark into a sort of compliment.
“Civilians,” said Army-Barmy, staring haughtily over her head, “have no
sense of decency or respect for authority.”
Alice didn’t know what to say to this, so she stood and softly repeated
to herself:
“_Army-Barmy climbed to the top;
Army-Barmy had a great drop;
All William’s horses and all William’s men
Couldn’t make Army-Barmy a favourite again._”
“Don’t stand there muttering to yourself,” said Army-Barmy, staring at
her rudely, “but tell me your name and rank.”
“My _name_ is Alice, but I haven’t any rank.”
“Then how dare you walk on the footpath?” Army-Barmy asked impatiently.
“There isn’t any footpath,” said Alice mildly.
“Then how dare you mean to walk on it if there was one?” Army-Barmy
retaliated angrily.
He was getting more and more annoyed, and more and more inflated, and
Alice thought that if someone were to prick him with a pin he would go
off like a bubble.
“Put your feet together, salute when you speak, and don’t attempt to
answer your superior officer,” cried Army-Barmy.
“What am I to say if I don’t answer?” Alice asked, smiling.
This made Army-Barmy choke with rage.
“If you smile at me,” he stuttered, “you shall be imprisoned! You shall
be beheaded!! You shall be cultured!!! Do you know who I am? Do you
know what inflates me so?”
“Please tell me,” said Alice.
“It is the spirit of militarism,” he growled. “It’s _me_,” he went on,
regardless of grammar, “that has made the German nation the greatest
thing on earth. It’s _me_ that inspires the Kaiser. Think of that,
now, _the Kaiser has promised me_--ah, you may turn pale, if you like!
You didn’t think I was going to say that, did you? _The Kaiser has
promised me--with his very own mouth----to----to--_”
“I know,” Alice interrupted, “to send all his horses and all his men.”
“Now I declare that’s too bad!” Army-Barmy cried, breaking into a
sudden passion; “you’ve been spying at Dockyards--you’ve been bribing
my agents--you’ve been purloining official reports, or you couldn’t
have known it!”
“I haven’t, indeed!” Alice said very gently, “it’s in a book.”
“It’s that Bernhardi again,” Army-Barmy said in a calmer tone. “He’s
always giving the game away. It’s a great mistake to go explaining just
what you mean to do before it’s done. Now _I’ve_ had a plan for forty
years, but nobody has even _guessed_ what it was. They can’t draw _me_
out,” he added proudly.
“What is it?” Alice asked innocently.
“Well, it’s like this,” said Army-Barmy, quite carried away with
excitement; “when the day comes----”
“What day?” Alice inquired.
“_The_ day, and don’t interrupt,” he answered brusquely, “or I shan’t
tell you about it. When the day comes, I shall have a bonfire and burn
all the treaties I don’t like, and keep all the ones I do, and then I
shall send ultimatums--ever so many--and then I shall get moving, and I
shall go up and up and up until--until--”
“Until you disappear altogether,” Alice suggested.
“Not at all,” said Army-Barmy hurriedly. “Until everyone sees how
beautiful I am, and they all worship me and want to be like me.”
“But suppose they don’t want?” said Alice.
“If they don’t want, I shall make them. It’s part of my policy. I will
tell you all about it,” he went on. “Sit down, fold your hands, and
prepare to receive cavalry--I mean poetry.”
Alice felt that she really _ought_ to listen to it, so she sat down and
said, “Thank you,” rather sadly.
“_In summer, when the fields are green,
I mean to teach you what I mean--_
“If I can find out myself,” he added as an explanation.
“I understand,” said Alice.
“And _I_ overstand,” said Army-Barmy, “because I’m more important than
you.” Alice was silent.
“_In autumn, when the leaves are brown,
I’ll batter half of Europe down._
_In winter, when the fields are white,
I’ll kick you out to sleep at night._
_In spring, if you’ve survived the storm,
I’ll murder you to keep you warm._
_And, in the manner I have stated,
I’ll get you truly cultivated._”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand the system,” said Alice.
“Then I’ll teach it you,” Army-Barmy replied.
“_I sent a message to Brabant;
I told them, ‘This is what I want.’_
_The little Belgians, rude and free,
They sent an answer back to me._
_The little Belgians’ answer was:
‘We cannot do it, Sir, because--’_”
“I’m afraid it’s very difficult,” said Alice.
“That’s because it’s only diplomacy up to now,” Army-Barmy replied; “it
gets easier further on.”
“_I sent to them again to say,
‘It will be better to obey.’_
_The Belgians answered with a grin
‘Why, what a temper you are in!’_
_I told them once, I told them twice:
They would not listen to advice._
_I took a cannon, large and new,
Fit for the deed I had to do._
_My pulses thumped, my eyes went red;
I filled the barrel full of lead._
_A Grey man came and said: ‘You know,
Your treaty guarantees them, so--’_
_I said to him, I said it plain,
‘Then we must tear it up again.’_
_I said it very loud and clear;
I went and shouted in his ear._”
[Illustration:
“_I said it very loud and clear;
I went and shouted in his ear._”
]
Army-Barmy raised his voice almost to a scream as he repeated this
verse, and Alice thought, with a shudder, “I wouldn’t have been the
Grey man for _anything_!”
“_But he was very stiff and proud;
He said: ‘You needn’t shout so loud.’_
_And he was very proud and stiff;
He said: ‘You’d better try it, if--’_
_I took a maxim from the shelf;
I went to stir them up myself._
_And when I found the door was locked,
I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked._
_And when I found the door was shut,
I tried to turn the handle, but----_”
There was a long pause.
“Is that all?” Alice timidly asked.
“That’s all, up to date,” said Army-Barmy. “Call on me next month in
Paris, and I’ll tell you the rest. Good-bye.”
This was rather sudden, Alice thought; but, after such a _very_ strong
hint, she felt that it would be hardly civil to stay. So she got up and
held out her hand.
“Good-bye, till we meet again!” she said.
“I shouldn’t know you if we ever _did_ meet,” Army-Barmy replied in a
supercilious tone. “All civilians look alike to me.”
“You needn’t be proud,” Alice complained.
“Proud!” said Army-Barmy, growing bigger and more inflated every
moment. “Do you know what it is that puffs me up? It is the spirit
of the super-man; the strength of the super-soldier. Do you know what
this pinnacle is on which I am based? It is the legend of Prussian
invincibility. Do you think it worth _my_ while to bother about
civilians?”
“You’re not very polite, anyhow,” Alice retorted.
“I’m not paid to be polite,” Army-Barmy shouted. “It’s the business
of civilians to be civil and of army men to be army-so!” And, without
any provocation, he suddenly stretched out his arm and boxed her ears
violently.
This was _too_ insulting, and, besides, it hurt, and made Alice very
angry, so she reached up and hit at him as hard as she could. She could
not reach very well, so she only hit the pinnacle, which came down with
a run; there was a noise like a lot of paper bags all bursting at once;
and, when she looked up, Army-Barmy had quite disappeared.
“Well, I’m glad he’s gone,” said Alice to herself; “of all the
unsatisfactory people I _ever_ met----”
She never finished the sentence, for that very moment soldiers came
running through the wood, at first in two’s and three’s, then in
hundreds, and at last in such crowds that they seemed to fill the
whole forest. Alice got behind a tree, and watched them go by.
She thought that in all her life she had never seen soldiers so clumsy
or inconsiderate. They were always putting their feet into it, and,
if anything very harmless or beautiful was in their road, they were
certain to stamp on it and spoil it.
Then came the horses. Having four feet, these managed to do even more
harm than the men. It seemed to be a regular rule for them to trample
on everything in their way, and even to go out of their way to be cruel
and destructive.
The confusion got worse every moment, and Alice was very pleased to get
out of the wood into an open place, where there were no soldiers in
sight.
“Well, whatever they do,” she said to herself, “their silly old bubble
has burst, and they’ll never be able to get him up on to his pinnacle
again.”