I dined with him in his mess that evening, before going on with him
to spend an hour or two with Eileen O’Connor, who had a room in
some convent on the outskirts of Lille. The advanced headquarters
of this little group of officers had been established in one of
those big private houses which belong to the rich manufacturers and
business people of Lille (rich before the war, but with desolate
factories stripped of all machinery during the German occupation,
and afterwards), with large, heavily-furnished rooms built round a
courtyard and barred off from the street by the big front door. There
was a motor lorry inside the door, which was wide open, and some
orderlies were unloading camp-beds, boxes of maps, officers’ kit, a
mahogany gramophone, and other paraphernalia, under the direction of a
young Cockney sergeant who wanted to know why the blazes they didn’t
look slippy.
“Don’t you know there’s a war on?” he asked a stolid old soldier--one
of the heroes of Mons--who was sitting on a case of whiskey, with a
wistful look, as though reflecting on the unfair privileges of officers
with so much wealth of drink.
“War’s all right if you’re not too close to it,” said the Mons hero.
“I’ve seen enough. I’ve done my bleeding bit for Kin and Country. South
Africa, Egypt----”
“Shut your jaw,” said the sergeant. “’And down that blarsted
gramophone.”
“Ah!” said the Mons hero. “We didn’t ’ave no blarsted gramophones in
South Africa. This is a different kind of war. More comfort about it,
if you’re not in the trenches.”
Wickham Brand took me through the courtyard and mentioned that the
Colonel had come up from St. Omer.
“Now we’re sure to beat the Boche,” he said. “Listen!”
From a room to the left of the courtyard came the sound of a flute
playing one of Bach’s minuets, very sweetly, with an old-fashioned
grace.
“A wonderful Army of ours!” said Brand. “I can’t imagine a German
colonel of the Staff playing seventeenth-century music on a bit of
ivory, while the enemy is fighting like a tiger at bay.”
“Perhaps that’s our strength,” I answered. “Our amateurs refuse to take
the war too seriously. I know a young Gunner Major who travels a banjo
in his limber, and at Cambrai I saw fellows playing chuck-penny within
ten yards of their pals’ dead bodies--a pile of them.”
The Colonel saw us through his window and waved his flute at us. When
I went into the room, after a salute at the doorway, I saw that he had
already littered it with artistic untidiness--sheets of torn music,
water-colour sketches, books of poetry, and an array of splendid
shining boots; of which a pair stood on the mahogany sideboard.
“A beautiful little passage this,” said Colonel Lavington, smiling at
me over the flute, which he put to his lips again. He played a bar or
two of old world melody, and said, “Isn’t that perfect? Can’t you see
the little ladies in their puffed brocades and high-heeled shoes!”
He had his faun-like look, his clean-shaven face with long nose and
thin, humorous mouth, lighted up by his dark smiling eyes.
“Not a bad headquarters,” he said, putting down the flute again. “If
we can only stay here a little while, instead of having to jog on
again. There’s an excellent piano in the dining-room--German, thank
goodness--and Charles Fortune and I can really get down to some serious
music.”
“How’s the war?” I asked.
“War?” he said, absent-mindedly. “Oh, yes, the war! That’s going on all
right. They’ll be out of Tournai in a few days. Perhaps out of Maubeuge
and Mons. Oh, the game’s up! Very soon the Intellectuals will be
looking round for a living in dear old London. My goodness, some of us
will find peace a difficult job! I can see Boredom approaching with its
colossal shadow.... After all, it has been a great game, on the whole.”
I laughed, but something stuck in my throat. Colonel Lavington
played the flute, but he knew his job, and was in touch with General
Headquarters and all its secret information. It was obvious that he
believed the war was going to end--soon. Soon, O Lord, after all the
years of massacre.