drinkers and womanizers if you will; the “proletariat,” product of shop
and Board School, of mill and mine, of farm and factory; those _men_ who
came voluntarily from all the earth, waving no flags, moved only by that
dumb blind Anglo-Saxon spirit which has made and unmade Kings since the
beginning of time! how shall one write of these?
They had, in those early days, neither leaders nor equipment. They
trained, grotesquely, with blocks of rough wood—hewn to the semblance
of a rifle. They were herded fourteen, sixteen and twenty together, in
leaking tents, with never a floor-board between their one blanket and
the mud below. They were flung out into our towns in suits of sloppy
blue, in overcoats cobbled together by sweated aliens—a mockery on the
public streets. They had scarcely any leave. Their wives and children
starved because their separation-allowances were not paid. Their own
food was cooked, weather permitting, in shallow trenches on the bare
ground—with civilian houses fifty yards away.
And when the sodden camps chosen for them stood two feet deep in greasy
slime, when neither their single blankets nor their single suits could
be dried, when the fires would not burn and the sick-parade marched
double-company-strong to the doctor’s tent half-a-mile away—then, they
were _vaccinated_, willy-nilly, and left to cure their swollen arms as
best they might, jostling against each other in their crowded styes!
Till gradually that first fine enthusiasm, which made them trainable
even by the untrained, oozed from their souls—even as the mud oozed up
through the ground on which they slept: till all the keenness, and all
the joy, and all the glory of the finest profession in the world
evaporated; leaving nothing save the dour stark spirit of Anglo-Saxondom
to carry them on.
And as, in mud and muddle and incompetence, these early volunteers began
their soldiering; so, in blood and incompetence and disaster, most of
them ended it. Yet though they grumbled, they never weakened; though the
song died on their lips and the jest from their eyes, neither their
hearts nor their limbs flinched from the tasks appointed.
Let library-historians give the palm to this Field-Marshal or that
Statesman if they will, we who did our best for him know that it was the
“common man,” “poor bloody Tommy”—on his lorry or his ration-cart, at
his telephone-station or his observation-post, in his trench or his
gun-pit—“poor bloody Tommy,” hungry sometimes, tired mostly, frightened
to the depths of his unimaginative soul, but _enduring always_, who
staved off every British defeat and won every British victory all the
way back from Mons to Compiègne and all the way forward from Compiègne
back to Mons again.
Pray God that he find honest leaders—for leaders he must have—in this
future he has won for us!
PART SEVEN
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
§ 1
“Take it from me, P.J.,” said Bromley, as he dumped himself down on the
untidy camp-bedstead and began re-winding his puttees, “this is a damn
good battalion—to get out of.”
It had rained during the night, making early parade impossible,
postponing the morning’s route-march for an hour so as to enable the men
to get some breakfast.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s quite as bad as that, old man. The Company’s
getting on all right,” said Peter, picking up the letters which Private
Priestley had deposited—according to custom—on his canvas pillow.
“I wasn’t talking about the Company. Nothing wrong there. Considering
the circumstances, the way they’ve come on is a miracle. I was talking
about the Battalion in general, its Adjutant in particular. You see this
isn’t a new game to me, P.J. I’ve seen bad fellows ruin the finest shows
before now.”
“Why can’t you leave Locksley-Jones alone? He’s not doing us any harm.
Besides the Colonel’s all right—although he did tell me at last night’s
lecture that ‘the machine-gun is not a weapon of precision.’”
“He wouldn’t say that if he’d been shot in the stomach by one, like I
was,” commented Bromley. “Not that he’s a bad chap, all the same. But he
leaves too much to Locksley. Locksley’s playing for his own hand all the
time. I don’t mind his rooking the youngsters at Bridge, or running them
over to Brighton in his car every night. If they’re fools enough to go
with him, that’s their hunt. But when it comes to his interfering with
Company Commanders in their recommendations for promotion. . . .”
“But he hasn’t done that, surely?”
“Yes, he has. I didn’t mean to tell you, but the Major put both of us in
for our second star”—(the Major had actually put Bromley’s name down
for a Captaincy and Bromley knew it)—“and Locksley blocked it with the
Colonel.”
“Well, I don’t care about promotion anyway,” said Peter, starting to
open his letters.
“Don’t be a fool, P.J. Everybody who’s any good wants to go _up_. And
can’t you follow what Locksley’s game is? _I_ can. He’s keeping the
Captaincies for his pals. Especially these new blighters who keep on
coming down to see him in mufti. You mark my words, they’ll all be
turning up as officers in a week or two. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the
men and the old Major, I’d apply for a transfer tomorrow.”
Such conversations were not unusual between them. Locksley-Jones,
confirmed in his Adjutancy, was all (and more) than Bromley had hinted.
But for the moment Peter had forgotten the Chalkshires.
He was reading, very carefully, a long letter written by his brother
Arthur—a letter from Java, which had been two months under way. Arthur
put his case very clearly. The tobacco-farm, newly established, carried
a mortgage of £2000. Arthur’s capital had gone in farm-implements, in
seedlings, in the cheese-cloth with which he was experimenting. He
couldn’t realize, owing to the drop in land values. The mortgage-money
had been lent by a Hun trading-house. Under the Dutch laws, they could
prevent his leaving the country. “I can’t even get to Singapore, unless
you’ll lend me the money,” wrote Arthur. “I’ve asked them to foreclose,
but they won’t. The interest is 8% and they say I can make it for them
as long as I stop here. Damn them!”
Peter knew enough about the tobacco-farming industry to realize that the
“mortgage” Arthur spoke of must include a lien on the growing crop;
enough about Hun methods of peaceful penetration to understand the
seriousness of the position: decided, after railing inwardly at the
untimeliness of the demand, that he would have to find the cash somehow.
“Fall in, ‘C’ Company,” boomed Sergeant-Major Gladeney’s voice. Peter
shuffled the remainder of his correspondence into his tunic-pocket;
pulled on his cap and gloves; switched stick under arm; and stalked out.
“Something’s upset P.J.,” thought Bromley, following at leisure.
§ 2
In those early days of “Kitchener’s Army” week-end leave for officers
was more of a habit than a privilege; and though Locksley-Jones demurred
slightly at the irregularity, Friday evening found Peter, haversack at
side, waiting for the 4:30 upon the bleak, dirty station of
Shoreham-on-Sea.
The human animal is amazingly adaptable, amazingly restricted. Peter had
been scarcely four weeks a soldier; but all the way up to town the old
life seemed almost a thing of the past. Only arrival at Victoria, bright
under its arc-lamps against the darkness outside, brought it back.
His mind, now concentrated on the question of whether to borrow the two
thousand from his own bank or overdraw it from Jameson’s, did not allow
of careless merrymaking. So that Patricia, although he fell in readily
enough with her suggestion of two stalls at the Palace Vaudeville, found
him curiously unaltered. He kissed her, but no more warmly than if he
had just returned from a business-trip. She had expected nothing else:
nevertheless she felt unreasonably disappointed. Physically, fresh air
and exercise had tanned his cheeks, hardened his muscles: mentally, she
could detect no change. And as they sat in the theatre, she could not
but envy the obvious good spirits, the excited affection of the other
couples about them.
He told her about Arthur; talked of “B” Company; answered questions
about his new life readily. Nirvana, she heard, went as well as could be
expected; Jameson’s sales had been rather disappointing. It was nice of
her to offer to drive him back on Sunday in the car; but he thought the
journey home, in the dark and without a chauffeur, might be too much for
her.
Simpson too, asked by wire to be in the office on Saturday, could not
see much difference in our Mr. Jameson. His grip of things did not seem
to have suffered. He enquired about customers by name; about Hartopp
(_geborener_ Hagenburg) in particular. He mentioned the partnership
deed; suggested a tentative renewal—say for two years or the
“duration”—on the old terms. The older man, warning him vaguely about
taking two thousand pounds out of the business at such a time, met with
a curt, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but a fellow must stand
by his own.” Mention of Beckmanns evoked another flash of temper.
Bramson, on the other hand, summoned peremptorily to give up the better
part of his Saturday afternoon off, found Peter rather overbearing:
confided the fact to his cousin Marcus with whom he dined that evening.
Said Marcus, “My boy, you forget that you’re a civilian to him now.”
Whereafter, the two settled down to piquet—with occasional references
to the stationary condition of Nirvana trade as compared with the
leaping canteen business of “Pullman Virginias.”
“Pretty” Bramson was perfectly straight: but after all “a fellow must
stand by his own!”
§ 3
In the crowded Pullman car of the last Sunday night train back to
Shoreham, Peter fell in with his Colonel. The diffident, kindly
man—usually shy with his subalterns—offered a whisky-and-soda; grew a
little talkative.
“I wish I were out in France,” he confided. “I’d rather be a Major out
there than a Colonel in England any day. But the powers-that-be won’t
hear of it. It looks like a long war, Jameson—a really long war. But of
course it might end tomorrow—and then one would never have had one’s
chance.”
“Do you think we shall be going out soon, sir?” Peter asked the
stock-question from pure habit.
Colonel Andrews began to talk the other side of war, the difficulties of
finding seasoned wood for rifle-stocks, the lack of dyes for khaki. His
outlook, if limited, was—except on the question of
machine-guns—extraordinarily sound: and Peter, when their homeward way
separated in the rain at the cross-roads by the cycle-shop, found
difficulty in realizing how so decent a chap could have let himself be
misled into taking Locksley-Jones for Adjutant. . . .
Turning into the Camp, Peter could see immediately that something must
be wrong. Although it was nearly one o’clock in the morning, lights
glowed in most of the officers’ tents. Across the blurr and rain drizzle
of the parade-ground, under the acetylene flares by the latrine-buckets,
figures moved, lanterns swayed. He heard voices calling.
“What’s up?” he asked the sentry.
“Trouble over in the lines, I’m afraid, sir. They do say as ’ow ‘D’
Company’s flooded out altogether.”
Peter stumbled across the darkness towards his own lines; nearly
collided with a dripping figure in gum-boots. A torch flashed in his
face.
“That you, P.J.?” said Bromley’s voice. “Been out on the tiles, and come
to have a look round at the picnic?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing much. Only most of the Camp flooded; about twenty tents
blown down; and half the men soaked to the skin. ‘A’ and ‘D’ have got it
worst. Hark at Mosely’s voice.”
They heard it, raised like a foghorn above the din: “Now, then, you
chaps, form up, will you? Never mind your blasted blankets.”
“Come and have a look-see. It’s worth while. Reminds me of a stampede in
South Africa.” Peter had never known Bromley speak so crisply.
They pashed back to the lines; found confusion indescribable. Mosely had
by now got his company into some sort of order; they stood there,
dripping and shivering, faces white under the big flare, unlaced boots
flopping as they stamped on the lime-washed slime: but Simcox’s lines
looked as if a tornado had struck them. Tents lay in writhing coils;
from under them, men crawled, mud-soaked and cursing; the stockbroker,
in gum-boots and pyjamas, a “British Warm” coat to complete the costume,
alternately damned their eyes and adjured them to “buck up”; his
subalterns scuttered about, still half asleep, laughing and quite
useless. “C” were already away, making for the railway-station. Peter
heard Bareton’s high voice shepherding them, “Don’t straggle there. Keep
together,” and a man in the rear four grousing, “Bloomin’ fine weather
for ducks. . . .”
“But what’s happened to _us_?” he asked Bromley—for “B” Company’s tents
stood dark and deserted.
Bromley chuckled: “Oh, they don’t catch _me_ that way, P.J. _Our_ men
are all tucked up comfy round a big stove in the Schoolhouse. _I_ saw
this coming at about half-past eight: so I sent Gladeney to find a good
billet; routed the chaps out; posted a sentry to tell the leave-men
where to make for. . . . And _we_ slacked our tent-ropes when the rain
started.”
“Why didn’t you warn the others?”
“I did; but they wouldn’t listen. I’m a quiet old stick, I am.” He
chuckled again, with all the “old soldier’s” delight at having scored
off his colleagues.
Far away, on the high road, they heard the roar of a car; saw the glare
of a single headlight; watched it nosing for the Camp gates.
“That’s our friend the Adjutant,” commented Bromley, “back from one of
his little jaunts to Brighton.”
The engine stopped; the headlight was cut off. A minute or two later,
Locksley-Jones’ bow-legged figure came waddling towards them. Bromley
flashed the torch in his face; and they saw his puffy eyes flinch as the
light struck them.
“Who are you?” he called.
“Friend.” Bromley, a little above his usual grave self, had gone clean
back to South African days. The amenities of home service were, for the
moment, completely in eclipse.
“Oh, it’s you, Bromley, is it? What’s all this skylarking?” blustered
Locksley.
The situation was curtly explained to him; and he turned for advice—as
weak men will in a crisis—to the stronger character.
“What do you think I ought to do?”
“_Do!_” said Bromley contemptuously. “_Do?_ Well, if I were you, I
should go to bed. This is a _man’s_ job.”
“He’ll never forgive you for that,” said Peter, snuggling gratefully
between his Jaeger blankets.
“My part!” chuckled Bromley across the darkness of the tent.
PART EIGHT
DISSENSION
§ 1
A man and his wife can occasionally (if they are very circumspect)
conceal matrimonial disturbances from their servants: but, in a
Regiment, the slightest tension between officers is known to the lower
ranks almost at the moment of its occurrence. Mess-waiters gossip;
batmen gossip; the Sergeant’s Mess gossips: between a parade and a
parade, twelve hundred men are taking sides in the quarrel of two. And
the Chalkshires were no ordinary peace-time regiment: volunteers to a
man; of different social gradings but almost every one a Londoner;
intensely curious about their new profession; it did not take them long
to discover—“B” Company especially—how matters stood between 2nd
Lieutenant Harold Bromley and Captain and Adjutant Locksley-Jones.
By the time that the late-November rains (and various hints in the Press
about “the scandalous state of some of our Camps”) drove the Chalkshires
out of the Shoreham slime into billets at Worthing Green, a suburb of
Worthing-on-Sea, bets were being freely laid (in beer) on the result.
“Bet any of you,” said Private Longstaffe, who had been a bookmaker’s
clerk before he joined, “that old Bromley downs the blighter before
we’re a month older.” He looked furtively round the snuggery of the “Dog
and Bun.”
“Well, per’aps he will; and per’aps he won’t,” said Peter’s batman
Priestley—an old soldier with curling moustaches and a roving eye.
“Anyway, I ’ope ‘P.J.’ won’t go if Bromley has to.”
“P.J.’s orlright.” The verdict came from a little man in the corner.
“’E’s orlright: though ’e does damn and swear like ’ell. My sister, she
works for ’im up in the Brixton Road. ‘’Addick,’ ’e says to me the other
dai—you know the wai ’e ’as of cockin’ ’is cigar up in the corner of
his mouf,—‘’Addick,’ ’e says, ‘’aven’t I told you a ’undred
bloodstained times not to crorss your bloodstained bootlices?’ ‘You
certainly ’ave, sir,’ I says. ‘Then why the ’ell,’ says ’e, ‘don’t you
do what you’re told?’ ’Ee don’t know I know ’e’s got a factory. . . .”
This secret knowledge seemed to give Private Haddock a peculiar
satisfaction.
Conversation meandered on.
§ 2
Meanwhile, Peter and Bromley—ignoring though quite conscious of
Locksley’s growing animosity—went on with their jobs.
The two friends billeted at a low white cottage in the village street,
about a hundred yards from the Mess—now established in two parlours and
a long, bare dining-room at “The Feathers.” Bromley’s prophecy about
Locksley bringing in his own pals was already coming true; they arrived
almost daily, and the War Office added aspirants of its own. By the
first week in December, officers numbered fifty.
Inevitably, cliques formed. The tiny differences of English “caste”
(imperceptible to a foreigner) drew these together, separated those.
Still, with few exceptions, all were keen. Without Locksley, Andrews
might have driven them comfortably; made his selection at leisure;
jettisoning the less trained when the Battalion proceeded overseas. But
Locksley-Jones, an intriguer by instinct rather than design, shrewd
without character, self-seeker and not patriot, made harmony impossible.
One by one, he succeeded in securing the promotion of his favourites,
posting them over the heads of men like Fanshawe and Bareton; who
grumbled but carried on—loyal to their men at all personal costs.
So far, however, Major Fox-Goodwin had prevented any such interference
with “B” Company. But the average Englishman’s distaste for trouble
prevented him from forcing-through Bromley’s promotion to Captain.
§ 3
Peter, who, unlike Bromley, had not quarrelled openly with Locksley, and
whose experience of bossing men did not include being bossed himself,
failed to realize the exact position. During the day, work occupied him:
through the long evenings when they sat together in the lamp-lit study,
his mind was busy with other problems.
He discovered himself, for the first time in his life, missing
Patricia—not the woman Patricia, but the pal Patricia: looking forward
eagerly to her letters. Murray had enlisted—she wrote. She herself was
busy; had taken up volunteer war-work; driving soldiers-on-leave across
London in the car. But she accepted his suggestion that they should
spend Christmas together at the Royal York.
But Patricia was not the main problem. Deliberately, Peter had postponed
decision on the Nirvana gamble till the completion of the year’s
trading. But instinct already warned him of the worst. Reid’s dissected
statistics revealed, all too clearly, a serious decline in the
export-business. Home-trade held stationary—but could hardly remain so
on their limited advertising. Bramson’s letters had lost “snap”: he
deplored, without suggesting remedies, the increase of
competition—especially from his cousin’s travellers. “The Pullman
business is going ahead. They’re not cutting down _their_
advertisements,” was the burden of his cry: a cry which did not deceive
our Mr. Jameson.
Peter realized perfectly, had done for some time, the danger of
employing a competitor’s relative. On the other hand, if it became vital
to sell out, that very danger might be turned to advantage. Marcus
Bramson would not let his cousin lose a good job (“_and_ the best part
of a thousand pounds,” argued Peter) if there were a chance of acquiring
Nirvana as a going concern.
But the ease with which, he felt, he could dispose of the business was
poor consolation at best. Although decision had been reached, and
reached irrevocably, before joining the Army, Peter could not
contemplate without emotion the cold fact of giving up his factory.
The thing had meant so much to him; meant much still. If only he could
save it! But Arthur’s two thousand precluded drawing another penny of
capital from Jamesons: and, though it was not impossible to secure money
in other ways—on his assurances for instance—the gamble would be too
dangerous. . . .
To Peter, considering these points over the wreckage of tea, and
Bromley, plunged as usual in a book, entered—on an afternoon early in
December—Jack Bareton of “C” Company; said, “Hallo, you chaps. Just
thought I’d look you up,” and dropped onto the horse-hair sofa in the
corner of the tiny sitting-room.
“Don’t see you round often,” commented Bromley. He pushed the cigarettes
across the table, and added: “What’s the matter?”
“Locksley.” The newcomer’s voice was curt; but his eyes, the eyes of a
fanatic, blazed. “Locksley, blast his dirty soul.”
“Oh, chuck it,” said Peter, “I’m sick of Locksley.”
“So am I; so’s Fanshawe; so’s every decent chap in this show. If you two
came into Mess a bit more often you’d know. But he’s gone too far this
time.” The tone became shrill. “Too damn far altogether; and I’m going
to have him out of this battalion or go myself. The man’s a blasted
traitor. A traitor, I tell you.”
“Easy on, Bareton,” Bromley spoke very calmly. “You can’t make
accusations like that about him.”
“I can. And I do. He said just now, over tea, right in front of
everybody, that we should lose this war.”
“We probably shall,” put in Peter.
“It depends how these things are said. He _meant_ it, I tell you. He
_meant_ it. And damn it, oh, _damn_ it”—there were tears in the man’s
eyes—“my governor was killed yesterday! Killed, I tell you. At Ypres.
And all these bastards here can do is to talk about their bloody
promotions. . . .”
Bromley got up; put his hand on Bareton’s shoulder. “I’m awfully sorry,
old chap,” he said gruffly, “but your governor wouldn’t want you to lose
your head, you know.”
The man pulled himself together with a huge effort; took a cigarette;
puffed at it in silence. Came a knock on the door, and Fanshawe, tall,
beetle-browed, obviously on the trail of his friend.
“Hallo, Fan,” said Peter.
“Hallo, P.J.” Then to Bareton, “Oh, here you are, are you? I’ve been
looking for you everywhere. Come down town and have a drink.”
“I’m going to see the Colonel first,” said Bareton stubbornly.
“No, you’re not. You’re coming to the Club with me.” Fanshawe walked
over, pulled his friend to his feet. “Come on, you old ass,” he said
kindly. . . .
They went out.
“Poor devil,” said Peter, “he must have bolted straight here from
Mess. . . .”
“And Fanshawe followed him.”
Both men, though neither would have admitted the fact to the other, were
on edge.
“Fanshawe was right not to leave him alone,” went on Bromley. “You never
know what a chap will do when he gets into that sort of state. Thank
goodness, I’m a quiet old stick, I am.”
He shook his big frame; tugged at his moustache; sat down again. Peter
lit a cigar. But neither Peter’s smoke nor Bromley’s book could keep
Bareton out of their minds. He seemed to be still on the sofa, blazing
tears in blazing eyes.
“Let’s call up a taxi and go into Brighton,” said Peter suddenly. “I
can’t stick this room any more tonight.”
Bromley looked up from “The Newcomes”—“We’ll share it, then.”
“No, we won’t. My taxi and my dinner. Go and get your slacks on. I’ll
run out and telephone for the car.”
§ 4
The Hotel Metropole at Brighton is a monstrous edifice of red-brick and
iron balconies, which leers stolidly across an asphalt “Front” to the
sea. The stone steps of its entrance, occupied of a morning by fat
couples in wicker chairs, lead under a glass-roofed portico, through a
revolving door past the mahogany “Reception Offices” to a narrow
hall—fire-placed and crowded with comfortable Maplesque upholstery.
Beyond, are marble corridors, lifts, and a dark lounge which opens out
into a vast conservatory of glass-and-iron work, wherein the band plays
and love-birds (some caged, some in coats and skirts) twitter behind
dusty palm-trees.
In front of the fire-place in the hall, cocktail in hand, looking down
on his wife’s blond head, stood “Weasel” Stark of the Gunners.