THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN
"But the Glory of the Garden
Lies in more than meets the eye."
R. Kipling.
A farewell dinner was being given to Aurelle by the officers of
the Scottish Division, with whom he had spent four years of danger
and hardship.
Before they sat down, they made him drink a cocktail and a glass of
sherry, and then an Italian vermouth tuned up with a drop of gin.
Their eager affection, and this curiously un-British mixing of
drinks, made him feel that on this last evening he was no longer a
member of the mess, but its guest.
"I hope," said Colonel Parker, "that you will be a credit to the
education we have given you, and that you will at last manage to
empty your bottle of champagne without assistance."
"I'll try," said Aurelle, "but the war has ended too soon, and I've
still a lot to learn."
"That's a fact," grumbled the colonel. "This damned peace has come at
a most unfortunate moment. Everything was just beginning to get into
shape. I had just bought a cinema for the men; our gunners were
working better every day; there was a chance of my becoming a
general, and Dundas was teaching me jazz. And then the politicians
poke their noses in and go and make peace, and Clemenceau demobs
Aurelle! Life's just one damned thing after another!"
"_Wee, Messiou_," sighed General Bramble, "it's a pity to see you
leaving us. Can't you stay another week?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm to be demobbed with the third batch, and
I've got my warrant in my pocket. I'm to report to-morrow at
Montreuil-sur-Mer; from there I shall be sent to Arras, and then
dispatched to Versailles, after which, if I survive the journey, I
shall be at liberty to return to Paris. I should be delighted to stay
a few days, but I suppose I must obey the pompous military maxim and
'share the fortunes of my comrades.'"
"Why," said Colonel Parker, "are people so idiotic as to discharge
soldiers whose return is dreaded by civilians and whose presence is
necessary to the comfort of the Staff? We English adopted a much more
intelligent plan for _our_ demobilization. The men were to be
classified according to their professions, and were only to be
released when workmen of their occupation were required in England.
In this way we were to avoid unemployment trouble. All the details
were most clearly explained in a bulky volume; it was really an
excellent plan. Well, when it came to be actually worked, everything
went as badly as could be. Every one complained; there were small
riots which were dramatized in the newspapers; and after some weeks'
trial we returned to your system of classes, Aurelle, which makes for
equality and is idiotic."
"It was easy to foresee," said the doctor, "that any regulation which
neglected human nature was bound to fail. Man, that absurd and
passionate animal, cannot thrive under an intelligent system. To be
acceptable to the majority a law must be unjust. The French
demobilization system is inane, and that is why it is so good."
"Doctor," said the general, "I cannot allow you to say that the
French method is inane; this is the last evening Messiou is spending
with us, and I will not have him annoyed."
"It doesn't matter a bit," said Aurelle; "neither of them knows what
he's talking about. It is quite true that things are going rather
better in France than elsewhere, in spite of absurd decrees and
orders. But that's not because our laws are unjust; it's because no
one takes them seriously. In England your weakness is that if you are
ordered to demobilize men by classes, you'll do it. We _say_ we're
doing it, but by means of all sorts of reprieves, small
irregularities and reasonable injustices, we manage _not_ to do it.
Some barbarous bureaucrat has decreed that the interpreter Aurelle
should, in order to be demobilized, accomplish the circuit
Montreuil-Arras-Versailles in a cattle-truck. It is futile and
vexatious; but do you suppose I shall do it? Never in your life!
Tomorrow morning I shall calmly proceed to Paris by the express. I
shall exhibit a paper covered with seals to a scribe at the G.M.P.,
who will utter a few lamentations as a matter of form, and demobilize
me with much grumbling. With us the great principle of public justice
is that no one is supposed to respect the laws; this is what has
enabled us to beat Germany."
"Humph!" muttered the general, much taken aback.
"Doctor," said Colonel Parker, "help Messiou Aurelle to some
champagne; his mind is far too clear."
Corks began to pop with the rapidity of machine guns. Colonel Parker
began a speech about the charming, kind and affectionate disposition
of the women of Burma; the doctor preferred Japanese women for
technical reasons.
"French women are also very beautiful," said General Bramble
politely; for he could not forget this was Aurelle's farewell dinner.
When the orderlies had brought the port, he struck the table twice
sharply with the handle of his knife, and said, with a pleasant
mixture of solemnity and geniality:
"Now, gentlemen, as our friend is leaving us after having so
excellently represented his country amongst us for the last four
years, I propose that we drink his health with musical honours."
All the officers stood up, glass in hand. Aurelle was about to follow
their example, when Colonel Parker crushed him with a whispered,
"_Assee, Messiou, poor l'amoor de Dee-er!_" And the Staff of the
Scottish Division proceeded to sing with the utmost solemnity,
keeping their eyes fixed upon the young Frenchman:
"For he's a jolly good fellow,
And so say all of us...."
Aurelle was deeply moved as he gazed at the friendly faces round him,
and reflected sadly that he was about to leave for ever the little
world in which he had been so happy. General Bramble was standing
gravely at attention, and singing as solemnly as if he were in his
pew in church:
"For he's a jolly good fellow,
And so say all of us...."
Then came much cheering, glasses were drained at a gulp, and young,
rosy-cheeked Dundas shouted, "Speech, Messiou, speech!"
"Come, Aurelle," said Colonel Parker, "don't you believe you're going
to get out of it as easily as all that! You must get on your hind
legs, my boy, and do your bit."
* * * * *
"Ah, Messiou," said the general when the ceremony was over and the
brandy had followed the port, "I hope our two nations will remain
friends after this war."
"How could it possibly be otherwise, sir? We cannot forget----"
"The duration of our friendship," Colonel Parker put in, "depends
neither on you, Aurelle, nor on us. The Englishman as an individual
is sentimental and loyal, but he can only afford the luxury of these
noble sentiments because the British nation is imbued with a holy
selfishness. Albion is not perfidious, in spite of what your
countrymen used to say; but she cannot tolerate the existence of a
dominant power on the Continent. We love you dearly and sincerely,
but if you were to discover another Napoleon...."
"Humph!" grunted the general, greatly shocked. "Have some more
brandy, Messiou?"
"Everything will be all right," said the doctor cynically. "Your
cotton goods will always cost more than ours, and that is the surest
guarantee of friendship."
"Why should they cost more?" carelessly asked Aurelle, in whose brain
the brandy was beginning to produce a pleasant misty feeling.
"My boy," said the doctor, "your Napoleon, of whom Parker is so
afraid, said we were a nation of shopkeepers. We accept the
compliment, and our only regret is that we are unable to return it.
You have three national failings which will always prevent you from
being dangerous commercial competitors: you are economical, you are
simple and you are hard-working. That is what makes you a great
military people; the French soldiers got accustomed to the hardship
of trench life far more readily than ours. But in peace-time your
very virtues betray you. In that famous woollen stocking of yours you
hoard not only your francs but your initiative; and your upper
classes, being content with bathrooms which our farmers would
disdain, feel no call to go out and cultivate Indo-China. We never
invest a penny; so our children have no alternative but to go out
Empire-building. We must have comfort, which compels us to be
audacious; and we are extremely lazy, which makes us ingenious."
At this point General Bramble began to emit the series of grunting
noises which invariably preceded his favourite anecdotes.
"It is quite true," he said proudly, "that we are lazy. One day, just
after we had made an advance near Cambrai, and the position was still
uncertain, I sent out an aviator to fly over a little wood and report
whether the troops that occupied it were French, British or German. I
watched him executing my order, and when he came back he told me the
troops were British. 'Are you quite certain?' I asked, 'you didn't go
very low.' 'It was not necessary, sir. I knew if those men had been
busy digging trenches, I should have been uncertain whether they
were French or German; but as they were sitting on the grass, I'm
sure they are British.'"
It was ten o'clock. The aide-de-camp poured out a whisky and soda for
his general. A silence ensued, and in the kitchen close by the
orderlies were heard singing the old war ditties, from "Tipperary" to
"The Yanks are coming," as was their nightly custom. They made a fine
bass chorus, in which the officers joined unconsciously.
The singing excited Dundas, who began to yell "view-halloos" and
smack a whip he took down from the wall. The doctor found a Swiss
cowbell on the mantelpiece and rang it wildly. Colonel Parker took up
the tongs and began rapping out a furious fox-trot on the
mantelshelf, which the general accompanied from his armchair with a
beatific whistle.
Of the end of the evening Aurelle had but a blurred remembrance.
Towards one o'clock in the morning he found himself squatting on the
floor drinking stout beside a little major, who was explaining to him
that he had never met more respectable women than at Port Said.
Meanwhile Dundas started to chant a ditty about the virtues of one
notorious Molly O'Morgan; Colonel Parker repeated several times,
"Aurelle, my boy, don't forget that if Englishmen can afford to make
fools of themselves, it is only because England is such a devilishly
serious nation;" and Dr. O'Grady, who was getting to the sentimental
stage, sang many songs of his native land in a voice that was full of
tears.