[In the following article all actual names, personal, geographical
and regimental, have been duly camouflaged.]
The carp that live in the moat of the Château de Miramel (in the zone
of the armies in France) are of an age and ugliness incredible and
of a superlative cynicism. One of them--local tradition pointed to a
one-eyed old reprobate with a yellow face--is the richer these hundred
years past by an English peeress's diamond ring.
From the bottom of the moat one world-war is like another, and none
of them very different from peace. It is but a row of grinning red
healthy faces over the coping and a shower of bread and biscuit.
When the nightmare of BONAPARTE was ended in the Autumn of 1815, the
22nd K.R. Lancers, commanded by an English peer, billeted themselves
in and around the Château de Miramel. The English peer, finding time
hang heavy on his hands, or my lady's letters proving insistent, sent
for her to come out to him at Miramel. You could do that sort of
homely thing in 1815.
So my lady comes to Miramel, and the very first day, as she leans out
of window in the round tower, mishandles her diamond ring (gift of my
lord) and drops it into the moat. Her host, the good Comte de Miramel,
dredged and drained, but no trace of the diamond ring was ever found.
But old Cyclops, the carp, grinned horribly.
In due course my lord and lady went home to the Isle of Fogs, and
thence they sent their portraits to their host as a souvenir of their
stay. Here indeed the portraits still hang, very graceful in the style
of the period. And to the appreciative visitor Madame de Miramel (of
to-day) shows a missive of thanks, written in indifferent bad French,
in which my lady refers sorrowfully to "_ma bague diamantée_."
* * * * *
Once again the 22nd K.R. Lancers are billeted in Miramel. The other
day I noticed on a worn stone pillar at the great door the following
half-obliterated words:--
"ED. WYNN, pikeman of the dashing 22nd King's Ryol ridgemet of
lanciers. Sept. 1815";
and freshly scratched above the inscription:--
"Better at piking than at speling.
22nd K.R. Lancers. JAS. BARNET. Sept. 1917."
The old carp seems to be right, and one war is very like another.
There is no radical change in the orthography of the 22nd King's
Royal Lancers, and some-one else's wall is still the medium for
self-expression.
Old Cyclops must be throwing his mind back a hundred years or so.
There is a rain of bread and biscuits into the moat and a ring of
red grinning faces above the coping. Yesterday I threw a disused
safety-razor blade over the old scoundrel's nose. And "Bless my soul!"
he said, as he lazily bolted it, "there hasn't been such a year for
minnows since 1815."
But Armageddon 1917 holds surprises even for those who live at the
bottom of a moat. For very early this morning a bauble fell into the
moat that Cyclops himself couldn't digest. The old cynic was found
floating, scarred belly upwards, on the surface of the water.
The mess-waiter took charge of the _post-mortem_. Like the _Duke of
Plaza Toro_, he "likes an interment" and rarely misses a last rite.
A keen fisherman, he had little difficulty in extracting an exhibit
for the Court's inspection, which he unhesitatingly pronounced to be
a diamond ring in an advanced state of decomposition.
The mess-cook, on the other hand, identified the relic as the
stopping, recently mislaid, from one of his back teeth.
In any case there seems little room for doubt that a Hun airman has
avenged the long-dead lady.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ENIGMA.