Nobody out here seems exactly infatuated with the politicians
nowadays. The Front Trenches have about as much use for the Front
Benches as a big-game hunter for mosquitoes. The bayonet professor
indicates his row of dummies and says to his lads, "Just imagine
they are Cabinet Ministers--go!" and in a clock-tick the heavens are
raining shreds of sacking and particles of straw. The demon bomber
fancies some prominent Parliamentarian is lurking in the opposite sap,
grits his teeth, and gets an extra five yards into his bowling.
But I am not entirely of the vulgar opinion. The finished politician
may not be a subject for odes, but a political education is a
great asset to any man. Our Mess President, William, once assisted
a friend to lose a parliamentary election, and his experience has
been invaluable to us. The moment we are tired of fighting and want
billets, the Squadron sits down where it is and the Skipper passes the
word along for William. William dusts his boots, adjusts his tie and
heads for the most prepossessing farm in sight. Arrived there he takes
off his hat to the dog, pats the pig, asks the cow after the calf,
salutes the farmer, curtseys to the farmeress, then turning to the
inevitable baby, exclaims in the language of the country, "Mong Jew,
kell jolly ong-fong" (Gosh, what a topping kid!), and bending tenderly
over it imprints a lingering kiss upon its indiarubber features and
wins the freedom of the farm. The Mess may make use of the kitchen;
the spare bed is at the Skipper's disposal; the cow will move up
and make room for the First Mate; the pig will be only too happy to
welcome the Subalterns to its modest abode.
Ordinary billeting officers stand no chance against our William and
his political education. "That fellow," I heard one disgruntled
competitor remark of him, "would hug the Devil for a knob of coke."
Once only did he meet his match, and a battle of Titans resulted.
In pursuit of his business he entered a certain farm-house, to
find the baby already in possession of another officer, a heavy
red creature with a monocle, who was rocking the infant's cradle
seventy-five revolutions per minute and making dulcet noises on a
moustache comb.
William's heart fell to his field boots; he recognised the red
creature's markings immediately. This was another politician; no
bloodless victory would be his; fur would fly first, powder burn--Wow!
The red person must have tumbled to William as well, for he increased
the revolutions to one hundred and forty per minute and broke into a
shrill lullaby of his own impromptu composition:--
"Go to sleep, Mummy's liddle Did-ums;
Go to sleep, Daddy's liddle Thing-ma-jig."
Nevertheless this did not baffle our William. He approached from a
flank, deftly twitched the infant out of its cradle by the scruff of
its neck, and commenced to plaster it with tender kisses. However the
red man tailed it as it went past and hung on, kissing any bits he
could reach. When the mother reappeared they were worrying the baby
between them as a couple of hound puppies worry the hind leg of a cub.
She beat them faithfully with a broom and hove both of them out into
the wide wet world, and we all slept in a bog that night, and William
was much abused and loathed. But that was his only failure.
If getting billets is William's job, getting rid of them is the Babe's
affair. William, like myself, has far too great a mastery of the
_patois_ to handle delicate situations with success. For instance,
when the fanner approaches me with tidings that my troopers have burnt
two ploughshares and a crowbar and my troop horses have masticated a
brick wall I engage him in palaver, with the result that we eventually
part, I under the impression that the incident is closed, and he under
the impression that I have promised to buy him a new farm. This leads
to all sorts of international complications.
The Babe, on the other hand, regards a knowledge of French as immoral
and only knows enough of it to order himself a drink. He is also
gifted with a slight stutter, which under the stress of a foreign
language becomes chronic. So when we evacuate a billet William
furnishes the Babe with enough money to compensate the farmer for all
damages we have not committed, and then effaces himself. Donning a
bright smile the Babe approaches the farmer and presses the lucre into
his honest palm.
"Hi," says the worthy fellow, "what is this, then? One hundred francs!
Where is the seventy-four francs, six centimes for the fleas your dog
stole? The two hundred francs, three centimes for the indigestion your
rations gave my pig? The eight thousand and ninety-nine francs, five
centimes insurance money I should have collected if your brigands had
not stopped my barn from burning?--and all the other little damages,
three million, eight hundred thousand and forty-four francs, one
centime in all--where is it, _hein_?"
"Ec-c-coutez une moment," the Babe begins, "Jer p-p-poovay expliquay
tut--tut--tut--tut--sh-sh-shiss--" says he, loosening his stammer at
rapid fire, popping and hissing, rushing and hitching like a red-hot
machine-gun with a siphon attachment. In five minutes the farmer is
white in the face and imploring the Babe to let by-gones be by-gones.
"N-n-not a b-bit of it, old t-top," says the Babe. "Jer p-p-poovay
exp-p-pliquay b-b-bub-bub-bub--" and away it goes again like a
combined steam-riveter and shower-bath, like the water coming down
at Lodore. No farmer however hardy has been known to stand more than
twenty minutes of this. A quarter-of-an-hour usually sees him bolting
and barring himself into the cellar, with the Babe blowing him kisses
of fond farewell through the keyhole.
We are billeted on a farm at the present moment. The Skipper occupies
the best bed; the rest of us are doing the _al fresco_ touch in tents
and bivouacs scattered about the surrounding landscape. We are on very
intimate terms with the genial farmyard folk. Every morning I awake to
find half-a-dozen hens and their gentleman-friend roosting along my
anatomy. One of the hens laid an egg in my ear this morning. William
says she mistook it for her nest, but I take it the hen, as an honest
bird, was merely paying rent for the roost.
The Babe turned up at breakfast this morning wearing only half a
moustache. He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he
slept. The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since--a
moustache must be very ticklish to digest.
Yesterday MacTavish, while engaged in taking his tub in the open,
noticed that his bath-water was mysteriously sinking lower and lower.
Turning round to investigate the cause of the phenomenon he beheld
a gentle milch privily sucking it up behind, his back. There was a
strong flavour of Coal Tar soap in the _café au lait_ to-day.
This morning at dawn I was aroused by a cold foot pawing at my face.
Blinking awake, I observed Albert Edward in rosy pyjamas capering
beside my bed. "Show a leg, quick," he whispered. "Rouse out, and
Uncle will show boysey pretty picture."
Brushing aside the coverlet of fowl I followed him tip-toe across the
dewy mead to the tarpaulin which he and MacTavish call "home."
Albert Edward lifted a flap and signed me to peep within. It was, as
he had promised, a pretty picture.
At the foot of our MacTavish's mattress, under a spare blanket lifted
from that warrior in his sleep, lay a large pink pig. Both were
occupied in peaceful and stertorous repose.
"Heads of Angels, by Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS," breathed Albert Edward in
my ear.