"Wull I luft the soup now, sir?"
"_No!_"
"Varra weel: I'll jist let it bide the way it is."
* * * * *
Lastly, Angus M'Lachlan proved himself a useful
acquisition--especially in rest-billets--as an athlete. He arrived
just in time to take part--no mean part, either--in a Rugby Football
match played between the officers of two Brigades. Thanks very largely
to his masterly leading of the forwards, our Brigade were preserved
from defeat at the hands of their opponents, who on paper had appeared
to be irresistible.
Rugby Football "oot here" is a rarity, though Association, being
essentially the game of the rank-and-file, flourishes in every green
field. But an Inverleith or Queen's Club crowd would have recognised
more than one old friend among the thirty who took the field that day.
There were those participating whose last game had been one of the
spring "Internationals" in 1914, and who had been engaged in a
prolonged and strenuous version of an even greater International ever
since August of that fateful year. Every public school in Scotland
was represented--sometimes three or four times over--and there were
numerous doughty contributions from establishments south of the Tweed.
The lookers-on were in different case. They were to a man
devoted--nay, frenzied--adherents of the rival code. In less spacious
days they had surged in their thousands every Saturday afternoon to
Ibrox, or Tynecastle, or Parkhead, there to yell themselves into
convulsions--now exhorting a friend to hit some one a kick on the
nose, now recommending the foe to play the game, now hoarsely
consigning the referee to perdition. To these, Rugby Football--the
greatest of all manly games--was a mere name. Their attitude when the
officers appeared upon the field was one of indulgent superiority--the
sort of superiority that a brawny pitman exhibits when his Platoon
Commander steps down into a trench to lend a hand with the digging.
But in five minutes their mouths were agape with scandalised
astonishment; in ten, the heavens were rent with their protesting
cries. Accustomed to see football played with the feet, and to demand
with one voice the instant execution of any player (on the other side)
who laid so much as a finger upon the ball or the man who was playing
it, the exhibition of savage and promiscuous brutality to which their
superior officers now treated them shocked the assembled spectators
to the roots of their sensitive souls. Howls of virtuous indignation
burst forth upon all sides.
When the three-quarter-backs brought off a brilliant passing run,
there were stern cries of "Haands, there, referee!" When Bobby Little
stopped an ugly rush by hurling himself on the ball, the supporters
of the other Brigade greeted his heroic devotion with yells of
execration. When Angus M'Lachlan saved a certain try by tackling a
speedy wing three-quarter low and bringing him down with a crash, a
hundred voices demanded his removal from the field. And, when Mr.
Waddell, playing a stuffy but useful game at half, gained fifty yards
for his side by a series of judicious little kicks into touch, the
spectators groaned aloud, and remarked caustically--
"This maun be a Cup-Tie, boys! They are playin' for a draw, for tae
get a second gate!"
Altogether a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, both for players and
spectators. And so home to tea, domesticity, and social intercourse.
In this connection it may be noted that our relations with the
inhabitants are of the friendliest. On the stroke of six--oh yes, we
have our licensing restrictions out here too!--half a dozen kilted
warriors stroll into the farm-kitchen, and mumble affably to Madame--
"Bone sworr! Beer?"
France boasts one enormous advantage over Scotland. At home, you have
at least to walk to the corner of the street to obtain a drink: "oot
here" you can purchase beer in practically every house in a village.
The French licensing laws are a thing of mystery, but the system
appears roughly to be this. Either you possess a license, or you do
not. If you do you may sell beer, and nothing else. If you do not, you
may--or at any rate do--sell anything you like, including beer.
However, we have left our friends thirsty.
Their wants are supplied with cheerful alacrity, and, having been
accommodated with seats round the stove, they converse with the
family. Heaven only knows what they talk about, but talk they do--in
the throaty unintelligible Doric of the Clydeside, with an occasional
Gallicism, like, "Allyman no bon!" or "Compree?" thrown in as a sop to
foreign idiosyncracies. Madame and family respond, chattering French
(or Flemish) at enormous speed. The amazing part of it all is that
neither side appears to experience the slightest difficulty in
understanding the other. One day Mr. Waddell, in the course of a
friendly chat with his hostess of the moment--she was unable to
speak a word of English--received her warm congratulations upon his
contemplated union with a certain fair one of St. Andrew (to whom
reference has previously been made in these pages). Mr. Waddell, a
very fair linguist, replied in suitable but embarrassed terms, and
asked for the source of the good lady's information.
"Mais votre ordonnance, m'sieur!" was the reply.
Tackled upon the subject, the "ordonnance" in question, Waddell's
servant--a shock-headed youth from Dundee--admitted having
communicated the information; and added--
"She's a decent body, sirr, the lady o' the hoose. She lost her
husband, she was tellin' me, three years ago. She has twa sons in the
Airmy. Her auld Auntie is up at the top o' the hoose--lyin' badly, and
no expectin' tae rise."
And yet some people study Esperanto!
We also make ourselves useful. "K(1)" contains members of every craft.
If the pig-sty door is broken, a carpenter is forthcoming to mend it.
Somebody's elbow goes through a pane of glass in the farm-kitchen:
straightway a glazier materialises from the nearest platoon, and puts
in another. The ancestral eight-day clock of the household develops
internal complications; and is forthwith dismembered and reassembled,
"with punctuality, civility, and despatch," by a gentleman who until a
few short months ago had done nothing else for fifteen years.
And it was in this connection that Corporal Mucklewame stumbled on to
a rare and congenial job, and incidentally made the one joke of his
life.
One afternoon a cow, the property of Madame _la fermière_, developed
symptoms of some serious disorder. A period of dolorous bellowing was
followed by an outburst of homicidal mania, during which "A" Company
prudently barricaded itself into the barn, the sufferer having taken
entire possession of the farmyard. Next, and finally--so rapidly did
the malady run its course--a state of coma intervened; and finally the
cow, collapsing upon the doorstep of the Officers' Mess, breathed her
last before any one could be found to point out to her the liberty she
was taking.
It was decided to hold a _post-mortem_--firstly, to ascertain the
cause of death; secondly, because it is easier to remove a dead cow
after dissection than before. Madame therefore announced her intention
of sending for the butcher, and was upon the point of doing so when
Corporal Mucklewame, in whose heart, at the spectacle of the stark and
lifeless corpse, ancient and romantic memories were stirring--it may
be remembered that before answering to the call of "K(1)" Mucklewame
had followed the calling of butcher's assistant at Wishaw--volunteered
for the job. His services were cordially accepted by thrifty Madame;
and the Corporal, surrounded by a silent and admiring crowd, set to
work.
The officers, leaving the Junior Subaltern in charge, went with one
accord for a long country walk.
Half an hour later Mucklewame arrived at the seat of the deceased
animal's trouble--the seat of most of the troubles of mankind--its
stomach. After a brief investigation, he produced therefrom a small
bag of nails, recently missed from the vicinity of a cook-house in
course of construction in the corner of the yard.
Abandoning the rôle of surgical expert for that of coroner, Mucklewame
held the trophy aloft, and delivered his verdict--
"There, boys! That's what comes of eating your iron ration without
authority!"