STAGED UNDER FIRE
Three days after the incident just related our Company was relieved
from the front line and carried out. We stayed in reserve billets for
about two weeks when we received the welcome news that our division
would go back of the line "to rest billets." We would remain in these
billets for at least two months, this in order to be restored to our
full strength by drafts of recruits from Blighty.
Everyone was happy and contented at these tidings; all you could hear
around the billets was whistling and singing. The day after the
receipt of the order we hiked for five days, making an average of
about twelve kilos per day until we arrived at the small town of 0'--.
It took us about three days to get settled and from then on our cushy
time started. We would parade from 8.45 in the morning until 12 noon.
Then except for an occasional billet or brigade guard we were on our
own. For the first four or five afternoons I spent my time in bringing
up to date my neglected correspondence.
Tommy loves to be amused, and being a Yank, they turned to me for
something new in this line. I taught them how to pitch horseshoes, and
this game made a great hit for about ten days. Then Tommy turned to
America for a new diversion. I was up in the air until a happy thought
came to me. Why not write a sketch and break Tommy in as an actor?
One evening after "Lights out," when you are not supposed to talk, I
imparted my scheme in whispers to the section. They eagerly accepted
the idea of forming a Stock Company and could hardly wait until the
morning for further details.
After parade, the next afternoon I was almost mobbed. Everyone in the
section wanted a part in the proposed sketch. When I informed them
that it would take at least ten days of hard work to write the plot,
they were bitterly disappointed. I immediately got busy, made a desk
out of biscuit tins in the corner of the billet, and put up a sign
"Empey & Wallace Theatrical Co." About twenty of the section, upon
reading this sign, immediately applied for the position of office boy.
I accepted the twenty applicants, and sent them on scouting parties
throughout the deserted French village. These parties were to search
all the attics for discarded civilian clothes, and anything that we
could use in the props of our proposed Company.
About five that night they returned covered with grime and dust, but
loaded down with a miscellaneous assortment of everything under the
sun. They must have thought that I was going to start a department
store, judging from the different things they brought back from their
pillage.
After eight days' constant writing I completed a two-act farce comedy
which I called The Diamond Palace Saloon. Upon the suggestion of one
of the boys in the section I sent a proof of the program to a printing
house in London. Then I assigned the different parts and started
rehearsing. David Belasco would have thrown up his hands in despair at
the material which I had to use. Just imagine trying to teach a Tommy,
with a strong cockney accent, to impersonate a Bowery Tough or a
Southern Negro.
Adjacent to our billet was an open field. We got busy at one end of it
and constructed a stage. We secured the lumber for the stage by
demolishing an old wooden shack in the rear of our billet.
The first scene was supposed to represent a street on the Bowery in
New York. While the scene of the second act was the interior of the
Diamond Palace Saloon, also on the Bowery.
In the play I took the part of Abe Switch, a farmer, who had come from
Pumpkinville Center, Tennessee, to make his first visit to New York.
In the first scene Abe Switch meets the proprietor of the Diamond
Palace Saloon, a ramshackle affair which to the owner was a financial
loss.
The proprietor's name was Tom Twistem, his bartender being named
Fillem Up.
After meeting Abe, Tom and Fillem Up persuaded him to buy the place,
praising it to the skies and telling wondrous tales of the money taken
over the bar.
While they are talking, an old Jew named Ikey Cohenstein comes along,
and Abe engages him for cashier. After engaging Ikey they meet an old
Southern Negro called Sambo, and upon the suggestion of Ikey he is
engaged as porter. Then the three of them, arm in arm, leave to take
possession of this wonderful palace which Abe had just paid $6,000
for. (Curtain.)
{Illustration: Programme}
In the second act the curtain rises on the interior of the Diamond
Palace Saloon, and the audience gets its first shock. The saloon looks
like a pig-pen, two tramps lying drunk on the floor, and the bartender
in a dirty shirt with his sleeves rolled up, asleep with his head on
the bar.
Enter Abe, Sambo, and Ikey, and the fun commences.
One of the characters in the second act was named Broadway Kate, and I
had an awful job to break in one of the Tommies to act and talk like a
woman.
Another character was Alkali Ike, an Arizona cow-boy, who just before
the close of the play comes into the saloon and wrecks it with his
revolver.
We had eleven three-hour rehearsals before I thought it advisable to
present the sketch to the public.
The whole Brigade was crazy to witness the first performance. This
performance was scheduled for Friday night and everyone was full of
anticipation; when bang! orders came through that the Brigade would
move at two that afternoon. Cursing and blinding was the order of
things upon the receipt of this order, but we moved.
That night we reached the little village of S--and again went into
rest billets. We were to be there two weeks. Our Company immediately
got busy and scoured the village for a suitable place in which to
present our production. Then we received another shock.
A rival company was already established in the village. They called
themselves "The Bow Bells," and put on a sketch entitled 'Blighty--What
Hopes?' They were the Divisional Concert Party.
We hoped they all would be soon in Blighty to give us a chance.
This company charged an admission of a franc per head, and that night
our company went en masse to see their performance. It really was
good.
I had a sinking sensation when I thought of running my sketch in
opposition to it.
In one of their scenes they had a soubrette called Flossie. The
soldier that took this part was clever and made a fine appearing and
chic girl. We immediately fell in love with her until two days after,
while we were on a march, we passed Flossie with her sleeves rolled up
and the sweat pouring from her face unloading shells from a motor
lorry.
As our section passed her I yelled out: "Hello, Flossie, Blighty--What
Hopes?" Her reply made our love die out instantly.
"Ah, go to hell!"
This brought quite a laugh from the marching column directed at me,
and I instantly made up my mind that our sketch should immediately run
in opposition to 'Blighty--What Hopes?'
When we returned to our billet from the march, Curley Wallace, my
theatrical partner, came running over to me and said he had found a
swanky place in which to produce our show.
After taking off my equipment, and followed by the rest of the
section, I went over to the building he had picked out. It was a
monstrous barn with a platform at one end which would make an ideal
stage. The section got right on the job, and before night had that
place rigged out in apple-pie order.
The next day was Sunday and after church parade we put all our time on
a dress rehearsal, and it went fine.
I made four or five large signs announcing that our company would open
up that evening at the King George the Fifth Theatre, on the corner of
Ammo Street and Sandbag Terrace. General admission was one half franc.
First ten rows in orchestra one franc, and boxes two francs. By this
time our printed programs had returned from London, and I further
announced that on the night of the first performance a program would
be given free of charge to men holding tickets costing a franc or
over.
We had an orchestra of seven men and seven different instruments. This
orchestra was excellent, while they were not playing.
The performance was scheduled to start at 6 P.M.
At 5.15 there was a mob in front of our one entrance and it looked
like a big night. We had two boxes each accommodating four people, and
these we immediately sold out. Then a brilliant idea came to Ikey
Cohenstein. Why not use the rafters overhead, call them boxes, and
charge two francs for a seat on them? The only difficulty was how were
the men to reach these boxes, but to Ikey this was a mere detail.
He got long ropes and tied one end around each rafter and then tied a
lot of knots in the ropes. These ropes would take the place of
stairways.
We figured out that the rafters would seat about forty men and sold
that number of tickets accordingly,
When the ticket-holders for the boxes got a glimpse of the rafters and
were informed that they had to use the rope stairway, there was a howl
of indignation, but we had their money and told them that if they did
not like it they could write to the management later and their money
would be refunded; but under these conditions they would not be
allowed to witness the performance that night.
After a little grousing they accepted the situation with the promise
that if the show was rotten they certainly would let us know about it
during the performance,
Everything went lovely and it was a howling success, until Alkali Ike
appeared on the scene with his revolver loaded with blank cartridges.
Behind the bar on a shelf was a long line of bottles. Alkali Ike was
supposed to start on the left of this line and break six of the
bottles by firing at them with his revolver. Behind these bottles a
piece of painted canvas was supposed to represent the back of the bar,
at each shot from Alkali's pistol a man behind the scenes would hit
one of the bottles with his entrenching tool handle and smash it, to
give the impression that Alkali was a good shot.
Alkali Ike started in and aimed at the right of the line of bottles
instead of the left, and the poor boob behind the scenes started
breaking the bottles on the left, and then the box-holders turned
loose; but outside of this little fiasco the performance was a huge
success, and we decided to run it for a week. New troops were
constantly coming through, and for six performances we had the "S. R.
O." sign suspended outside.