THE MARRIED MAN
You'll like to hear it one and all, for what I say is true;
The turf is wet upon the bog, the snow is on the farm,
You'd better take a wife to bed, she's sure to keep you warm;
She will not want for golden chains from any pedlar's pack,
When she will have your two strong arms clasped tight around her
neck;
Believe me, all who hear these words, believe me young and old,
'Tis snug and warm to have a wife when Winter days are cold.
(_From an old "Come all ye."_)
"Where can I begin and tell everything?" said Fitzgerald, breaking a
piece of bread and bringing it up to within an inch of his mouth. "I
suppose that night when I was buried in the dug-out will do to start
with. 'Twas the devil's own night. I got lost first of all, and me
going up with a message to Captain Thorley. 'Twas very important, a
mine going up in the morning. So the young German prisoner whom we had
taken said. Therefore, our men holding the front line had to retire for
safety to the support trenches. So up I goes from Headquarters, running
like hell (I'm getting ungrammatically excited, Spudhole) and gets
lost. Took the wrong turning, flops into a trench that was full of
muck. I stuck there for goodness knows how long, holding on to the
piece of paper on which the message was scrawled. I thought I was a
permanent fixture, stuck in that trench for duration. But somehow I did
get free and eventually found myself in our front line. How I got there
I don't know. I mind seeing you, Spudhole."
"There was some dirt coming along our way at that time," said Bubb.
"'Twas that shell that did it," said Fitzgerald, gazing absently at his
piece of bread, which he still held between finger and thumb. "Someone
said 'Whoo! There she comes!' and there was a rush for the dug-out. I
got mixed up in the scramble and was carried in with the rest. But I
still clung on to my message. Then the shell came down on the dug-out
and I was out of the doings, just like a gutted sprat.
"As far as I can judge I was underground that night, the next day, the
night after, and got pulled out the day following at twelve o'clock.
Some men of the regiment that relieved us saw a bayonet that stuck up
through the roof of the fallen dug-out move as if someone was shaking
it."
"I saw that 'ere bay'net," said Bubb. "Stickin' up over the roof."
"Well, these fellows, when they saw the bayonet wobbling, guessed that
someone was alive under the ground, and they began to dig like hell,"
said Fitzgerald.
"Eventually they reached me, still alive, with a wound on the back of
my head, and they pulled me out. The air had got in somehow, I
suppose.... Well, I came to my senses in hospital in Versailles, and I
got up, so I was told, and rushed along the ward like hell, with a
nurse or two clinging to my shirt tail. 'Where are you running?' they
asked me. 'I'm going on a message to Captain Thorley,' I told them.
'There's a mine going up at dawn.' 'Oh, that's all right,' said the
nurses. 'Captain Thorley has got the message and everything's all
right.' And they wheedled me and coaxed me until I went back to bed.
"So I was told; but I didn't remember anything about it. Even now my
mind gets mazed at times when I'm excited, and queer ideas come into my
head."
"You haven't eaten one bite yet," said Bowdy Benners. "That bit of
bread hasn't gone into your mouth, and we've been sitting here for the
last ten minutes."
"Well, I'm not hungry," said Fitzgerald. "I'm feeding on the pleasure
of seeing you two here. Fifi, the wine!" he called to his wife.
The woman brought a large bottle, placed it on the table, and patted
her husband on the head with an affectionate hand.
"She's a divine creature," said Fitzgerald, when Fifi went. "How did it
happen that the gods were so good to me? I don't know.... But to get on
with my story," he continued. "After a while I found myself in England.
I don't even remember crossing the Channel. I was in a muddle all the
while. Sometimes I would think I was in the trenches and I would wake
up from my sleep, jump out on the floor and stand against the wall,
thinking that I was on the firestep on guard. I must have been a
troublesome patient.... And then one night when I was in a big bed in a
big house in England I thought that somebody put a cold hand over my
forehead. I shouted out 'Who's there?' I opened my eyes, looked up and
saw a man with a black beard standing at my bed.
"'Who are you ?' I asked.
"'Your Sergeant-major,' said the man. 'I want you to present arms,' he
said. 'At the word "one" you give the rifle a sharp cant up to the
right side, gripping it at the small of the butt with the right hand
and at the outer band with the left....' I stared at the fellow and
this seemed to annoy him. 'Dumb contempt!' he yelled. 'You'll be for
it!' and he raised his fist and made one smash at my face. I dodged the
blow and then a man in a warder's uniform rushed in and pulled the
sergeant-major away.
"Good God, Bowdy, where was I? Guess. I was in a lunatic asylum....
'Twas enough to turn my brain. And it's a difficult job to prove that
you're sane when you're in a madhouse. They won't believe you, for some
damned reason or another. I used to go up to the warder and say: 'Look
here, matey, I'm as right as rain,' and he would nod his head and say:
'Oh, yes, of course you are.' But 'twas easy enough to see that he
didn't believe you. God! I often felt like strangling the man.... It
wouldn't do me any good, I knew, to kick up a ruction; so I kept very
quiet and well-behaved.
"At the end of six weeks I was discharged and sent to a convalescent
camp; not as good as the one that Flanagan had been in when he got
wounded. Impossible to swing the lead there. I got sick of it in no
time, so I applied for a transfer to the B.E.F., somewhere in France.
"'Do you really want to go out there again?' my mates asked me.
"'Of course I do,' I told them.
"'Then you must be mad,' they said.
"But I had no luck with my application. 'Out to the trenches again,'
said the M.O. Tut, tut, man! I'll bring you before a Board and see what
it says.'
"The Board said 'Discharge' and I was discharged with a pension. So
there I was out on my own, a wash-out. Patrick Fitzgerald, pensioner,
non bon, one that had done his bit, who had been through the thick of
it, in the doings, a brave boy, lion-hearted, and so on. My friends
took me into their arms and made no end of a fuss of me. England had
reason to be proud of her sons, they said, and took me about to swell
dinners."
"Just like ole Flan when 'e was at 'ome," said Bubb.
"I hobnobbed with big bugs," Fitzgerald continued, "grand old men who
were in the know and who knew everything, having inside information;
well-dressed women who preached economy to the masses, who denied
themselves luxuries which they were healthier without, who rode on
common buses and advertised the fact, and who travelled by tube as an
example to those who always travel by tube. Nobody paid much heed to
them as far as I could see. The people with whom I stopped denied
themselves the services of a butler and took in his place an extra
female servant. They were very rich, and self-denial was their greatest
craze. In furthering their country's cause they displayed as much
ingenuity as a cautious billiard player who just misses the balls. I
grew tired of it all, wearied to death," said Fitzgerald, placing his
bread on the table and pulling the wine bottle towards him. He pulled
out the cork, filled his mates' glasses, but took no notice of his own.
"It doesn't do for me to take any now," he said, in an apologetic
voice. "It goes to here." He tapped his head with his fingers.
"There was once," said Bubb....
"Yes, but that's a thing of the past," said Fitzgerald. "I did go into
a pub when I was in London. I wanted to have a yarn with the Old Sweats
who frequented the taproom. I made them merry and they carried me home.
'Twasn't honey after that. Old Fitz, the boy who had been through the
thick of it and who had done his bit, was rather a burden to his
friends. He had wild ways; his manners were unbecoming, he had said
dreadful things when under the influence of alcohol. My friends took me
aside, lectured me and suggested that if I was placed in a little
cottage somewhere out of sight, given a few pounds in addition to my
pension, I would be much happier....
"I left them; the brave boy who had done his bit and who went through
the thick of it vamoosed. I didn't even wait for the additional few
pounds.... Then an uncle of mine died and left me six hundred pounds. I
collared this, wrote to Fifi, whom I had not forgotten.... She
remembered me.... Her father was killed at Verdun. What could I do but
come over and see her? 'Twas an easy matter then. I had some money, I
loved her; so we got married. She's a grand woman, Bowdy. I didn't
understand her when we were billeted here; I don't even understand her
yet.... Oh, how she misses her father, but she bears it as a
Frenchwoman can. I tried to console her at first, but I say nothing
about her loss now. First she used to say, when we spoke about her
father's death: 'C'est la guerre,' but now it's different. It's now:
'He died for France and it's an honour to die for one's country.'"
Bubb filled his glass, Bowdy did the same. The two soldiers looked at
one another, then at Fitzgerald. Fifi came up to the table.
Bowdy raised his glass in the air, Bubb followed suit.
"Here's to Fitzgerald," said Bowdy.
"And to Fifi," said Spudhole.
"Long life and happiness----"
"And no end of 'appy children----"
"Victory for the Allies!"
"And 'ell for the Boche!" said Spudhole, bringing the glass of wine to
his lips.
THE END
Transcriber Notes:
Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
Passages in bold were indicated by =equal signs=.
Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe".
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the
speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
unless otherwise noted.
The word "messtin" apparently is not a misspelling, since each instance
of the word was spelled as one word, not two.
On page 23, a closing quotation mark was added after "most in life is
Love.".
On page 221, a period was added after the last word.
On page 223, "fool" was replaced with "tool".
On page 267, a period was added after the last word.
On page 293, "Somewhere" was replaced with "somewhere".