DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG.
One day things went wrong; they are always going wrong in the
army,--that is part of the game. It takes a considerable portion of an
officer's time correcting mistakes of brother officers; otherwise
there wouldn't be much to do in peace times.
Well, as I was saying, things went wrong. We had been on the _qui
vive_ for two weeks, expecting a telegram from the war office to leave
for France. We had everything ready to pack aboard the motor truck in
one hour. Then, by diligent enquiry, we discovered that our truck was
to go to France when a spare convoy of trucks went over.
The Colonel in charge at Bulford Camp said it would not be this
week--there might possibly be a convoy going over the next week or the
week after--or next month--he could not really say when. He had a
letter from the war office on his desk about the matter and would
notify us at the earliest possible moment.
We went away tearing our hair out, and we have no superfluous hair to
lose. We held a council of war. We leaped into our trusty car and sped
swiftly into Salisbury. The Canadian General, the object of our quest,
had just left for Shorncliff and would be back, perhaps, in two or
three days. We hunted for the A.A. & Q.M.G. of the 2nd Canadian
Division. After searching the register of three hotels we ran across
an officer who said that the A.A. & Q.M.G. had also gone to
Shorncliff. We had arrived too late to obtain assistance from this
quarter.
As it was now after 7 o'clock we had to have dinner. This was an
ordeal for we hated the Salisbury hotels; they had been so crowded
that winter with Canadian officers and their wives that the
proprietors had lost their heads. They didn't care whether they served
you or not. One of them even paid a "boots" to stand at the door and
insult possible guests, the idea being to turn as many away as
possible. The hotel keepers must have heaped up untold wealth that
winter, and the abundance of custom had ruined their sense of
hospitality.
So we discarded the idea of a hotel dinner. We referred to our
chauffeur, who was "some chauffeur, believe me." "What about that
little chop house ('The Silver Grill') which he had frequently lauded
with fulsome praise?" He did not now wax enthusiastic--a point we
noted, and of which we found the explanation--but he drove us there.
The Silver Grill was a curious old place, with winding stair-case,
ancient beamed ceilings in the smoking-room, and a general appearance
indicating that it had seen service at least two hundred years.
Climbing to the attic, we entered a little dining room, perhaps twenty
feet long, with room for about sixteen diners. The tables were
occupied chiefly by officers, and we took the settee next the wall and
ordered the chef d'oeuvre--a steak smothered in onions, and French
fried potatoes.
Norah, the one serving maid, a pretty little thing, was evidently a
great favorite with the habituees of the place. The wife of the
proprietor was a handsome big woman dressed in a close fitting black
frock, with the figure of a Venus de Milo. She hovered about talking
to the men and acting "mother" to them all. One officer was plainly
"overseas". The landlady watched him like a sister, got him to put his
hat and coat on properly and steered him past the smoking-room and bar
to the front door, and she was careful to explain to us two, knowing
we were Canadians, "I have never seen Captain X like that before. You
know we have become very fond of the Canadians. Poor Lt.--who was
killed last week came to wish me good-bye." And, dropping into a chair
beside us, she talked of this and that Canadian officer; of how nearly
all the medical men and veterinary officers had dined at the Grill;
she told us also about her three children, including the baby which
was now eight months old and could talk.
By this time all the diners had gone except one, a civilian, sitting
in the farthest corner of the room. The land-lady had again begun to
talk about the Canadians, when the civilian suddenly interrupted
sneeringly "The Canadians! what good are they? An expense to the
country. What have they done? If I had my way I'd hang every one of
them."
For a moment we were petrified with anger. "What do you mean?" I
finally managed to demand.
"Oh! you know" he sneered.
"No I don't" I returned; "that is strange talk; you will have to
explain yourself."
"I don't need to explain anything" he said.
"Then allow me to tell you that you are a d---- liar" put in Captain
E---- glaring at the man ferociously; "I say you are a d---- liar"
repeated the Captain with greater emphasis and deliberation.
But the cad was very thick-skinned; he made not the slightest show of
resentment at the opprobrious epithet. So we got up and walked over to
him.
"You miserable shrimp" said Captain E---- as he stood over the fellow
with hands a-twitching to take hold of him. "You mean, skulking
coward, to talk like that of men who have come over to fight in the
place of wretched gutter-snipes and quitters like you."
"Three of us here are Canadians" I added, "and if you will be so
accommodating as to step outside, any one of us will be delighted to
give you the darnedest licking you ever got in your life."
The skulker didn't even move. Captain E---- got worked up to the point
of explosion as he watched the fellow unconcernedly keep on eating.
"You snivelling cur I've a good mind to rub your face in that gravy,
by G-- I will rub it in that gravy!" exploded the Captain, and in the
instant he seized the dinner-plate in one hand and the fellow's head
in the other and brought them quickly together, rubbing the man's chin
and nose briskly round and round in the mixture of congealing gravy
and potatoes.
"Be very careful what you are about" sputtered the creature, looking
up when Captain E---- had desisted, and wiping the streaming grease
from his face with his pocket-handkerchief.
It was tremendously ludicrous; the utter spinelessness of the creature
so at variance with the boastful scorn of his previous words and tone
so obviously showed him to be a coward that all we could do was laugh
and turn away. You could no more think of striking that weak,
backboneless poltroon than of hitting a six months' old baby.
We tendered the landlady a sovereign in payment for our dinner, but
she only kept eyeing with intense anger and disgust and shame this
wretched specimen of a fellow-countryman who had wantonly insulted two
of her colonial guests in her house and in her presence. During the
gravy-rubbing performance she had run downstairs to tell her husband
in case there should be a "scene," and he had retailed the story to
the crowd of "select patrons" gathered in the little smoking-room.
Again we called the lady's attention to the proffered coin, but in her
agitation, it took her at least five minutes to total our bill
correctly.
We offered our apologies for our forcible language, but she considered
no apology necessary. "You were insulted in my house" she said, "and I
admire you for the stand you took. That man will never enter this
place again." Following us downstairs she begged us to step into the
smoking-room "just a minute, to see that all our customers are not
like that one" and when she thought we were not going to accede to her
request she laid a hand on my arm and almost beseeched me to come back
and have a cup of coffee or something to drink.
Her husband, a fine looking, tall, curly-headed Englishman, seconded
her invitation, and we went back to the smoking-room. As we entered,
every man stood up and bowed, and several made room for us. They had
heard the story, and, by their reception of us they tried to show that
they strongly disapproved of their countryman's insult to the
colonials.
A few minutes afterwards, the clock struck nine, and the doors were
closed upon all but Captain Ellis and myself. Nothing was too good for
us, and to the accompaniment of numerous cups of coffee, brought by
Norah, we talked away till ten o'clock. Both the landlord and his wife
walked out to our car with us, and continued to offer their regrets
for the treatment which we had received.
By the time we got "home" we were fairly cooled off, and we went to
bed that night with the proud feeling that we had saved the name of
Canada.
Another time "things went wrong" was one Saturday afternoon when we
took a half-day off. It was not that we needed the holiday from
overwork, because, for two weeks, three of the four of us had been
doing nothing. The fourth man, a captain of Highland descent, had,
unlike the rest of us, really been working hard. Yet we all needed the
holiday, for loafing anywhere is usually the hardest work in the
world; but loafing on the edge of Salisbury Plain with little to see
was work even harder than the hardest. Napoleon is said to have
remarked that "war is made up of short periods of intense activity
followed by much longer periods of enforced idleness" or something to
that effect. Of the "intense activity" of war we as yet had had no
experience but with "enforced idleness," we were all too distressingly
familiar. In civilian life we had been very busy men; and here we had
been plunged into a world where for months at a time there was almost
nothing to do--and what was worse, there was no place to go to and
forget about it.
So, after a hard two-week's work doing nothing, we studied the map and
decided that the sea was within easy range of our four-cylinder
thirty. Accordingly we struck out for the sea, followed the track of
the little river Avon, which flows past Salisbury Plain, through
Amesbury and the ancient city of Salisbury and empties into the
British channel at Christchurch.
It was a glorious March afternoon, with intervals of brilliant
sunshine; the roads were good, and we rolled along through the little
English villages with their thatched-roofs, at a speed which quickly
brought us to the New Forest. All of a sudden a strange, familiar tang
in the air thrilled us. Every man sat instantly erect and gulped down,
in wonderment at his own action, a succession of great, deep
satisfying breaths: And then the explanation broke from two of us at
the same moment, "Canada!" It was the familiar Canadian smell of the
autumn forest fires that had for the moment penetrated from the
outward senses to the inmost soul of each and it left us for the
moment just the least bit homesick.
Less than an hour and a half brought us to the prosperous city of
Bournemouth, filled with the omnipresent "Tommy." The sea looked
mighty good to us, for we hadn't seen it since our landing in
October, though we had seen plenty of water--rain water--since. We
raced our car along the beach, got out and snapshotted one another,
admired the views, and cut up generally like a gang of boys let loose
from school. Then somebody said "tea," and we drove to a little rather
suspicious looking "Pub" on the beach.
There we got tea and toast but we didn't stay long, for out of the
window we could see the chauffeur under-cross-fire of a policeman, and
in England that always means trouble.
An itinerant dog fancier had two diminutive "Norwegian truffle
'unters" which he was anxious to part with, but we couldn't wait to
talk to him. Nor had we time to ask him whether truffle growing was an
industry in Norway, or whether the substituting of dogs for pigs in
hunting truffles was a recent innovation.
The Cop had been watching for us from across the way, and we were
hardly out when he was already upon us. "Excuse me, sir, but you
'aven't a hidentification number on your car" said the Cop.
"We have not" I replied, "what is the sense of having a number?"
"To hidentify the car, sir," said the Cop.
"Can't you identify the car with that label on" I queried, pointing to
the bonnet upon which was a label reading: _Canadian Government_; the
car also had three O.H.M.S. signs upon it.
"Our orders is, sir, to see that all cars on 'is Majesty's service
'ave Hidentification numbers" persisted the Cop.
"We are very sorry," I replied, "that we had our identification all
printed out so that you could read it, instead of getting a number; it
was stupid of us."
"Orders is orders" said the Cop.
"You people make me sick" suddenly broke in Mac. "We came over here to
fight for you and all you do for us is make it as damned disagreeable
as possible; you are a miserable people."
"Pardon me, sir" said the Cop softly, "I thought I was speaking to a
gentleman." During the controversy we had got into our car and without
ceremony we drove off, leaving behind us a discomfited policeman.
Fortunately Mac had not heard the parting remark of the policeman. Had
he done so it is doubtful if we would have left Bournemouth that
night, for heaven only knows what would have happened to that
policeman. When I chaffed him by repeating the policeman's sally when
we were a mile away, Mac was for a moment knocked speechless with
anger, then he begged us to go back and help him find the policeman.
Having escaped the arm of the law we went for a little drive about
town, with its wonderful shops: the shops of Bournemouth are the best
I have seen in England, and are rivalled only by those of Glasgow.
Then we drew up at the best hotel in town--"The Royal Bath Hotel,"
which, with its long low facade and its lack of upper stories looked
more like a luxurious club house than a modern hotel.
The main lounge was something to marvel at. Apparently it had been
given over to a band of decorators and furnishers gone delirious, for
the evidence of their delirium was to be seen on every side. The
walls were all broken up: One wall was covered with hangings; two
parts of the remainder had an upper border of hand-painted men in
battle array; a glass wall through which the dining-room could be seen
made a third; and the fourth was occupied by a balcony from which one
descended scarlet carpeted stairways into the room.
The woodwork was a hideous golden-oak. The ceiling was broken by a
series of beams radiating unevenly from one annular space, in all
directions, and with no apparent design. The furniture was rattan and
plush, upholstered and plain, and was crowded together with a few
writing tables scattered here and there. It was a discordant orgie of
decorative effects and the result was unutterably depressing.
We sank into chairs and gazed about us in awe. No hotel had ever
affected any of us like this before. At first we talked in whispers;
then as our courage revived, we became critical. Then somebody thought
of having a "Scoot"; tremulously he pressed the button for the waiter.
The waiter came and they had two "Scoots" each. Then somebody made a
funny remark and one of us laughed out loud. Suddenly the laugher
stopped and said, "I feel as if I ought not to laugh; I feel that
nobody ever laughed in this place before."
Dinner time approached. Old ladies in wonderful dresses began to
appear, followed by old English gentlemen in dress clothes. The
dining-room began to fill up. We decided to wait till the room was
nearly full before going in so that we could get an idea of the
fashionable watering place people of England. Somebody thought that
it would be as well to reserve a table, and Captain R---- was deputed
to do so. In fifteen minutes he came back twisting his black moustache
and looking depressed.
"Nothing doing," he reported in disappointment.
"What!" we cried.
"Nothing doing" he repeated mechanically. "We may possibly get a table
after 8.30."
"Do you mean to say" cried Mac, jumping from his chair in a rage,
"that we can't get anything to eat?" Captain R---- nodded. "Let's
leave this d---- morgue; I hate it anyway" stormed Mac, and we filed
sadly out.
In the hall we had a try with the head clerk, and another with the
head waiter, but it was no use. "Guests must be served first" was the
only argument; pointing out that there were a dozen tables yet unset
made no difference. Our chauffeur had gone, so we left our address for
him, ordered a taxi, and drove to the Burlington Hotel two miles away.
Before dismissing the taxi we took the precaution of seeing that we
could get dinner, and finding that the hotel authorities agreed to
furnish us with a meal we clambered out; after divesting ourselves of
our overcoats we were ushered into a dining room crowded with
beautiful women and, mostly, ugly men. There were some hummers among
the women.
The relief at the change from the dismal, deliriously-decorated hotel
to this bright, cheery room, was so great that we suddenly grew
exceedingly gay and enjoyed ourselves hugely. A little concert
afterwards added to the enjoyment, which was only slightly marred by
a bill for forty-two shillings.
Our homeward journey was through little villages all asleep, and
silent as the adjacent churchyards; and as we two tumbled into our
cots at midnight we voted that we had spent "a fine day" in spite of
the mischievous tendency of things "to go wrong."
Another of these "days" came later. We had been waiting at Bulford
Cottage for three weeks for orders from the war office to leave for
France, and we were growing decidedly fidgety. The fine weather
feeling of Spring in the air may have had something to do with our
restlessness. The buds were swelling on the great trees near by, and
the leaves had actually broken from their bonds on some of the hedges.
The air was full of bird songs; the lark in particular seemed to be
mad with the joy of springtime. At Bulford Manor I had picked the
first wall-flowers in bloom in the open garden; Roman Hyacinths,
Daffodils, Snowdrops, English daisies, and another little unfamiliar
white flower were in blossom, and even the Japonica was bursting into
scarlet against the sunny walls.
It was a pleasant time for loafing and under any other circumstances
we would have enjoyed it; but this was war time. Already our Canadian
Division had been at the front for four weeks and here were we doing
nothing, when we might have been making ourselves useful at the front.
The war office was advertising for "one hundred sanitary officers who
would be of vital service to the force in the field" and here were two
of us, with long experience in practical sanitation and eager to make
use of that experience, idling in the valley of the Avon on Salisbury
Plain.
Our chief was in France, and in our impatience we concluded that
something had gone wrong at the war office in regard to our little
unit. The only way to find out was to go to London; so we set
out,--the Medical Officer of Health of Ottawa, Captain Lomer; the
provincial bacteriologist of Alberta, Captain Rankin; and myself. We
left Bulford at eleven o'clock, or to be precise, at five minutes to
eleven. We stopped twenty minutes at Andover to send a cablegram, and
were held up at a level crossing for five minutes. At one thirty we
passed the official centre of London, Hyde Park corner, and were
having our dinner in the Marguereta Restaurant in Oxford Street at a
quarter to two. We therefore had covered the distance of ninety-eight
miles in two hours and fifteen minutes actual travelling time, or at
an average speed of nearly forty-four miles an hour. At one time our
indicator registered sixty-five miles an hour and for quite a number
of miles we travelled steadily at fifty-six miles an hour. Of course
this was in England, where roads are as smooth as asphalt and where
raised or sunken culverts, the curse of motorists, are unknown.
We did enjoy that Bohemian dinner. We had all the things that one does
not have in a military mess on Salisbury Plain. Hors d'oeuvres, salad,
fish, duck, and so forth. We were just finishing, and had lit our
cigarettes while waiting for coffee, when the door porter came in and
whispered to Captain Rankin that a policeman had our chauffeur in
charge and wanted to see one of us. The doughty Captain went out, and
came back in a minute to say that the cop wanted him to go to the
police station and explain why we did not have a number on our motor.
He also added that there was a number of people around the car. "What
did you tell him?" I asked. "I said I would go after I had finished my
dinner," said the Captain, which seemed to me quite Canadian and
reasonable.
He had not raised his cup to his lips when the same porter tapped him
a second time on the shoulder, with "Beg pardon, sir, but the officer
says he can't wait." We were grieved, and looked it.
"It's very unreasonable," said the Captain, "to disturb us at dinner
like this."
"If we don't go now I guess it will take a good deal longer to get the
car away from the police station," I said. "Besides, supposing Rad has
cheeked them and they lock him up, we won't be able to get back till
tomorrow. None of us can run the car well enough to get out of London
without getting into a smash up." So saying, I put on my coat and
sallied forth.
Before I got to the front door I could tell there was something doing,
for the restaurant windows were filled with diners standing on chairs.
Through a vacant space I could see a great crowd and two policemen's
helmets standing up above the middle of the throng. They considerately
opened a passage up for me to the two policemen who were standing
beside the car with Rad at the wheel looking quite unconcerned.
"What is the matter?" I demanded.
"Your car has no number on it," said a policeman.
It was so similar to our experience the week before at Bournemouth
that I smiled inwardly, and went through the same formula.
"Why should a government car have a number?" I asked.
"To identify it, sir, those are our orders, sir."
"Can't you identify that car?" I asked. "It says, written in big
letters on the front, "Canadian Government, Divisional Headquarters,"
in case you can't read! The car belongs to the Canadian Government. We
are waiting to go to France; we came into London less than an hour ago
on business to the War Office. Is there anything more you want?"
"We would like the chauffeur's name," said the cub policeman, who had
caused the trouble. I spelled it out to him three times; it sounded
very German, but he said nothing.
Then in turn I took out my note book and took the numbers of the
policemen. The crowd had listened with great interest, and were
evidently against the policemen. A boy looked under a policeman's arm
and grinned; I winked at him covertly, and he went into a paroxysm of
laughter. Then with dignity I got into the car and we drove off to the
bank, leaving behind the discomfited policemen and a crowd of several
hundred people.
"Where did the cop get hold of you, Rad?" I enquired.
"Over on Bond Street," he said, "he insisted on my going to the police
station with him. "All right," I said, "jump in," and he did so. I
knew where the police station was in a street off Oxford Street, but
when we got to the street I passed it. The officer called out, but I
didn't hear him. At the next corner he yelled again, but I got in
front of a convenient bus."
"Why didn't you turn there," he said.
"Then you would have had a real charge against me," I said, "for
breaking the rules of traffic."
Finally he asked "Are you going to turn or not?" and I said "I guess
we will turn here" and turned around, stopping in front of the
Marguereta Restaurant.
"What are you stopping for?" he asked.
"The officers who are in charge of the car are in there at their
dinner," I said, "you had better speak to them." Gee, he was mad."
All the rest of the afternoon I chuckled with delight at the picture
of the anger of that cub six foot two policeman as he was being
whirled along Oxford Street against his will, to a restaurant he did
not want to go to, to meet people he didn't want to see.