I went out to the Officers’ Club which had been established in Lille,
and found Brand there, and Fortune, and young Clatworthy, who made a
place for me at their table.
Two large rooms which had been the dining- and drawing-rooms of a
private mansion, were crowded with officers, mostly English, but with
here and there a few Americans and French, seated at small tables,
waited on by the girls we call Waacs (of the Women’s Army Auxiliary
Corps). Two old-fashioned candelabra of cut-glass gave light to each
room, and I remember that the walls were panelled with wood painted
a greyish-white, below a moulding of fruit and flowers. Above the
table where my friends sat was the portrait of a French lady of the
eighteenth century, in an oval frame of tarnished gilt.
I was late for the meal on Armistice night, and many bottles of
champagne had already been opened and drunk. The atmosphere reeked with
the smell of food, the fumes of wine and cigarette-smoke, and there
was the noise of many men talking and laughing. I looked about the
tables and saw familiar faces. There were a good many cavalry officers
in the room where I sat, and among them officers of the Guards and
the Tank Corps, aviators, machine-gunners, staff-officers of infantry
divisions, French interpreters, American liaison officers, A.P.M.’s,
Town Majors, and others. The lid was off at last. All these men were
intoxicated with the thought of the victory we had won--complete,
annihilating--and of this Armistice which had ended the war and made
them sure of life. Some of them were a little drunk with wine, but not
enough at this hour to spoil their sense of joy.
Officers rose at various tables to make speeches, cheered by their own
groups, who laughed and shouted and did not listen.
“The good old British Army has done the trick at last----”
“The old Hun is down and out.”
“Gentlemen, it has been a damned tough job----”
Another group had burst into song.
“Here’s to good old beer, put it down, put it down!”
“The cavalry came into its own in the last lap. We’ve fought mounted,
and fought dismounted. We’ve rounded up innumerable Huns. We’ve ridden
down machine-guns----”
Another group was singing independently:
“There’s a long, long trail a-winding
To the land of my dreams.”
A toast was being pledged at the next table by a Tank officer who stood
on a chair, with a glass of champagne raised high above his head:
“Gentlemen, I give you the toast of the Tank Corps. This war was won by
the Tanks----”
“Pull him down!” shouted two lads at the same table. “Tanks be damned!
It was the poor old bloody infantry, all the time.”
One of them pulled down the little Tank officer with a crash, and stood
on his own chair.
“Here’s to the foot-sloggers--the infantry battalions, Tommy Atkins and
his company officer, who did all the dirty work, and got none of the
_kudos_, and did most of the dying.”
A cavalry officer with a monocle immovably screwed in his right eye
demanded the attention of the company, and failed to get it.
“We all know what we have done ourselves, and what we failed to do. I
give you the toast of our noble Allies, without whom there would be no
Armistice to-night. I drink to the glory of France----”
The words were heard at several tables, and for once there was a
general acknowledgment of the toast.
“_Vive la France!_”
The shout thundered out from all the tables, so that the candelabra
rattled. Five French interpreters in various parts of the room rose to
respond.
There were shouts of “The Stars and Stripes--good old Yanks--Well done,
the U.S.A.!” and I was sorry Dr. Small was still at Valenciennes. I
should like him to have heard those shouts. An American staff-officer
was on his feet, raising his glass to “England.”
Charles Fortune stood up at my table. He reminded me exceedingly at
that moment of old prints portraying George IV in his youth--“the First
Gentleman of Europe”--slightly flushed, with an air of noble dignity,
and a roguish eye.
“Go to it, Fortune,” said Brand. “Nobody’s listening, so you can say
what you like.”
“Gentlemen,” said Fortune, “I venture to propose the health of our late
enemy, the Germans.”
Young Clatworthy gave an hysterical guffaw.
“We owe them a very great debt,” said Fortune. “But for their
simplicity of nature and amiability of character, the British
Empire--that glorious conglomeration of races upon which the sun
utterly declines to set--would have fallen into decay and debility, as
a second-class Power. Before the war the German Empire was gaining our
trade, capturing all the markets of the world, waiting at table in all
the best hotels, and providing all the music in the cafés-chantants
of the universe.... With that immense unselfishness so characteristic
of their race, the Germans threw away these advantages and sacrificed
themselves for the benefit of the British. By declaring war they
enabled all the ancient virtues of our race to be revived. Generals
sprang up in every direction--especially in Whitehall, Boulogne and
Rouen. Staff-officers multiplied exceedingly. British indigestion--the
curse of our race--became subject to a Sam Brown belt. Business
men, mostly bankrupt, were enriched enormously. Clergymen thundered
joyfully from their pulpits and went back to the Old Testament for
that fine old law, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ Elderly
virgins married the youngest subalterns. The youngest flapper caught
the eldest and wiliest of bachelors. Our people were revivified,
gentlemen--revivified----”
“Go easy,” growled Brand. “This is not a night for irony.”
“Even I,” said Charles Fortune, with a sob of pride in his voice,
“Even I, a simple piano-tuner, a man of music, a child of peace and
melody--Shut up, Brand!--became Every Inch a Soldier!”
He drew himself up in a heroic pose and, raising his glass, cried out:
“Here’s to our late enemy--poor old Fritz!”
A number of glasses were raised amidst a roar of laughter.
“Here’s to Fritz--and may the Kaiser roast at Christmas!”
“And they say we haven’t a sense of humour!” said Charles Fortune,
modestly, and opened a new bottle of champagne.
Brand had a sense of humour, and had laughed during Fortune’s oration,
knowing that beneath its mockery there was no malice. But I noticed
that he had no spontaneous gaiety on this night of Armistice and sat
rather silent, with a far-away look in his eyes, and that hag-ridden
melancholy of his.
Young Clatworthy was between me and Brand, drinking too heavily, I
thought. Brand thought so too, and gave him a word of caution.
“That champagne is pretty bad. I’d ’ware headaches, if I were you,
young ’un.”
“It’s good enough,” said Clatworthy. “Anything to put me in the right
spirit.”
There was an unnatural glitter in his eyes; and he laughed, too easily,
at any joke of Fortune’s. Presently he turned his attention to me, and
began talking, excitedly, in a low monologue.
“Funny to think it’s the last night! Can you believe it? It seems a
lifetime since I came out in ’14. I remember the first night, when
I was sent up to Ypres to take the place of a subaltern who’d been
knocked out. It was Christmas Eve, and my battalion was up in the line
round Hooge. I detrained at Vlamertinghe. ‘Can any one tell me the way
to Hooge?’ I asked one of the traffic men. Just like a country cousin
at Piccadilly Circus. He looked at me in a queer way, and said, ‘It’s
the same way to Hell, sir. Straight on until you get to Ypres, then out
of the Menin gate and along the road to Hell-fire Corner. After that
you trust to luck. Some young gentlemen never get no further.’ I damned
his impertinence and went on, till I came to the Grande Place in Ypres,
where I just missed an eight-inch shell. It knocked out a gun-team.
Shocking mess it made. ‘The same way to Hell,’ I kept saying, until
I fell into a shell-hole along the Menin Road. But, d’you know, the
fellow was wrong, after all!”
“How?” I asked.
Young Clatworthy drank up his wine, and laughed, as though very much
amused.
“Why, _that_ wasn’t the way to Hell. It was the other way.”