I
The outstanding feature of to-day's intelligence is that spring is
coming--has come, in fact.
It arrived with a bump. March entered upon its second week with seven
degrees of frost and four inches of snow. We said what was natural and
inevitable to the occasion, wrapped our coats of skins more firmly
round us, and made a point of attending punctually when the rum ration
was issued.
Forty-eight hours later winter had disappeared. The sun was blazing
in a cloudless sky. Aeroplanes were battling for photographic rights
overhead; the brown earth beneath our feet was putting forth its
first blades of tender green. The muck-heap outside our rest-billet
displayed unmistakable signs of upheaval from its winter sleep.
Primroses appeared in Bunghole Wood; larks soared up into the sky
above No Man's Land, making music for the just and the unjust.
Snipers, smiling cheerfully over the improved atmospheric conditions,
polished up their telescopic sights. The artillery on each side hailed
the birth of yet another season of fruitfulness and natural
increase with some more than usually enthusiastic essays in mutual
extermination. Half the Mess caught colds in their heads.
Frankly, we are not sorry to see the end of winter. Caesar, when he
had concluded his summer campaign, went into winter quarters. Caesar,
as Colonel Kemp once huskily remarked, knew something!
Still, each man to his taste. Corporal Mucklewame, for one, greatly
prefers winter to summer.
"In the winter," he points out to Sergeant M'Snape, "a body can
breathe withoot swallowing a wheen bluebottles and bum-bees. A body
can aye streitch himself doon under a tree for a bit sleep withoot
getting wasps and wee beasties crawling up inside his kilt, and
puddocks craw-crawing in his ear! A body can keep himself frae
sweitin'--"
"He can that!" assents M'Snape, whose spare frame is more vulnerable
to the icy breeze than that of the stout corporal.
However, the balance of public opinion is against Mucklewame. Most
of us are unfeignedly glad to feel the warmth of the sun again.
That working-party, filling sandbags just behind the machine-gun
emplacement, are actually singing. Spring gets into the blood, even
in this stricken land. The Boche over the way resents our efforts at
harmony.
Sing us a song, a song of Bonnie Scotland!
Any old song will do.
By the old camp-fire, the rough-and-ready choir
Join in the chorus too.
"You'll tak' the high road and I'll tak' the low road"--
'Tis a song that we all know,
To bring back the days in Bonnie Scotland,
Where the heather and the bluebells--
_Whang_!
The Boche, a Wagnerian by birth and upbringing, cannot stand any more
of this, so he has fired a rifle-grenade at the glee-party--on the
whole a much more honest and direct method of condemnation than that
practiced by musical critics in time of peace. But he only elicits an
encore. Private Nigg perches a steel helmet on the point of a bayonet,
and patronisingly bobs the same up and down above the parapet.
These steel helmets have not previously been introduced to the
reader's notice. They are modelled upon those worn in the French
Army--and bear about as much resemblance to the original pattern as a
Thames barge to a racing yacht. When first issued, they were greeted
with profound suspicion. Though undoubtedly serviceable,--they saved
many a crown from cracking round The Bluff the other day,--they were
undeniably heavy, and they were certainly not becoming to the peculiar
type of beauty rampant in "K(1)." On issue, then, their recipients
elected to regard the wearing of them as a peculiarly noxious form
of "fatigue." Private M'A. deposited his upon the parapet, like a
foundling on a doorstep, and departed stealthily round the nearest
traverse, to report his new headpiece "lost through the exigencies of
military service." Private M'B. wore his insecurely perched upon the
top of his tam-o'-shanter bonnet, where it looked like a very large
ostrich egg in a very small khaki nest. Private M'C. set his up on
a convenient post, and opened rapid fire upon it at a range of six
yards, surveying the resulting holes with the gloomy satisfaction of
the vindicated pessimist. Private M'D. removed the lining from his,
and performed his ablutions in the inverted crown.
"This," said Colonel Kemp, "will never do. We must start wearing the
dashed things ourselves."
And it was so. Next day, to the joy of the Battalion, their officers
appeared in the trenches selfconsciously wearing what looked like
small sky-blue wash-hand basins balanced upon their heads. But
discipline was excellent. No one even smiled. In fact, there was a
slight reaction in favour of the helmets. Conversations like the
following were overheard:--
"I'm tellin' you, Jimmy, the C.O. is no the man for tae mak' a show of
himself like that for naething. These tin bunnets must be some use.
Wull we pit oors on?"
"Awa' hame, and bile your held!" replied the unresponsive James.
"They'll no stop a whish-bang," conceded the apostle of progress, "but
they would keep off splunters, and a wheen bullets, and--and--"
"And the rain!" supplied Jimmy sarcastically.
This gibe suddenly roused the temper of the other participant in the
debate.
"I tell you," he exclaimed, in a voice shrill with indignation, "that
these ---- helmets are some ---- use!"
"And I tell _you_," retorted James earnestly, "that these ---- helmets
are no ---- ---- use!"
When two reasonable persons arrive at a controversial _impasse_, they
usually agree to differ and go their several ways. But in "K(1)" we
prefer practical solutions. The upholder of helmets hastily thrust his
upon his head.
"I'll show you, Jimmy!" he announced, and clambered up on the
firing-step.
"And I'll ---- well show _you_, Wullie!" screamed James, doing
likewise.
Simultaneously the two zealots thrust their heads over the parapet,
and awaited results. These came. The rifles of two Boche snipers rang
out, and both demonstrators fell heavily backwards into the arms of
their supporters.
By all rights they ought to have been killed. But they were both very
much alive. Each turned to the other triumphantly, and exclaimed,--
"I tellt ye so!"
There was a hole right through the helmet of Jimmy, the unbeliever.
The fact that there was not also a hole through his head was due to
his forethought in having put on a tam-o'-shanter underneath. The net
result was a truncated "toorie." Wullie's bullet had struck his helmet
at a more obtuse angle, and had glanced off, as the designer of the
smooth exterior had intended it to do.
At first glance, the contest was a draw. But subsequent investigation
elicited the fact that Jimmy in his backward fall had bitten his
tongue to the effusion of blood. The verdict was therefore awarded, on
points, to Wullie, and the spectators dispersed in an orderly manner
just as the platoon sergeant came round the traverse to change the
sentry.