MY DEAR CHARLES,--The weather has changed and War has resumed a less
uncomfortable aspect. The last I heard of our friend Persius Adolphus
(now promoted to the giddy heights of Second-Lieutenant, but still
referred to, in the privacy of the traverse, as "Perse") he was living
_al fresco_ in his little bit of trench, leading the sinful life with
a pot of _páté de foie gras_ in the one hand and the latest number of
_La Vie Parisienne_ in the other. It takes a lot of H.E. to distract
a man's attention from these luxuries, which goes to show that, if
at times it is a short life, it is in spring a merry one, and a
twenty-franc note will in these parts provide a man with all the most
extravagant pleasures of the idle rich for a month.
To the officer in the trench, Battalion Headquarters, a few hundred
yards to the rear, is a veritable pleasaunce far removed from the din
and worry of battle. To the C.O. and his satellites, putting up with
their dangers and discomforts for a noble cause, Brigade Headquarters,
a mile down the road, is a palace of safety and ease, where any man
but a fool of a Brigadier would remain. To the Brigade Staff, grimly
holding on in its rough and perilous fortress, the Divisional villa
is the ideal of quiet residences. To the Divisional Staff, suffering
silently, the Corps Château is all that a man could ask in the way of
handsome furnished apartments. And to the Corps Staff it is ever a
matter of surprise that its miserable hovel can be contemplated without
a blush by the Army Staff, revelling, as the latter does, in every
modern convenience. The Army Staff says nothing but thinks bitterly
of those at G.H.Q., and by the time it gets to the War Office I
couldn't tell you what the grouse is or whose the envied lot. The real
wallower out here is, if we all did but know it, some little known and
unobtrusive C.O. of some special company, with a village to himself,
half-a-dozen châteaux to choose from, more motors than he knows what to
do with, and, wickedest and worst, a real bath to wash in.
Be that as it may, the eyes of all rest upon the same unwarlike
pictures torn from the same least bellicose journal. From dug-out to
palace, faded walls are decorated with the same three-colour process
divinities, whose expressions are as arch as arch and whose clothing
is typical of the wonderful economy of the French. Through the clamour
of bursting shells or the din of the military typewriter, turning out
its thousand "Pass Memos." to the hour, these fair Parisiennes continue
to smile unperturbed, until some officer, callous rather than modest,
hides their bright blue eyes and bright red cheeks under a pile of
official telegrams relating to picks and shovels, gas protectors and
other sordid and unromantic matter.
Meanwhile the motor lorries creep demurely along the country lanes,
coming nobody knows whence, going nobody knows whither. Now and then
they will pause in a convenient ditch, rubbing their wheels briskly
in the mud to restore the circulation. A less restful sight is the
military car, proceeding at a pace never exceeding twenty kilometres
per hour, the occupants of which have also, these days, adopted the
three-colour process, a sure sign that we are winning. Fortune favours
the brave, and the lightning despatch-rider as often as not will pass
through the lot, with the loss of little more than a couple of limbs
and half-a-dozen spare parts. Even so, he will not omit to salute you,
as you stand off the road, a sight which has a peculiar thrill of
its own, since the salute of a motor cyclist consists in his looking
fixedly in one direction and proceeding recklessly in another. You
cannot help appreciating his courtesy, but in your more nervous moments
you can't help wishing he wouldn't do it.
By way of contrast to the business of it all is the light-blue
Gendarme, unaffected by the entourage of war, ambling peacefully where
he will, greeting all and sundry with an expansive smile and growing
momentarily ruddier and more fat in his happy face. It is his work in
life to get in nobody's way and do no man any harm; it is his pleasure
to wear upon his head a helmet of the truest steel, of a type created
to ward off hostile shrapnel, but worn by him for the same good
reason for which a miller wears a white hat. I count amongst the best
of my newly-found friends a certain _chef_ of this merry and bright
_escadron_. An ex-Cavalry Officer, he fought through the earlier stages
of the War, undaunted by many misadventures. Since he took to the less
hazardous pastime of commanding _gendarmerie_, he has found life not so
precarious, may be, but a good deal more intricate.
He will tell you, if you ask him, the story of the sacred civilian
automobile which he once ventured to stop in order to satisfy himself
as to its contents. He did not recognise any significant halo
surrounding it, though this should have been discernible even in the
cloud of dust accompanying it. He had his written instructions to see
that the credentials of all who drove through his zone should be _en
règle_. Simple and ingenuous as he then was, written instructions
were enough for him. The car approached him menacingly, but he stood
his horse in the middle of the road and signed to it to stop. The car
hooted with hoarse and defiant anger, and a sinister bowler hat was
seen and angry words were heard at the window. None the less he stopped
it at the risk of his life, and in his best manner (always a nice one)
demanded credentials.
In wartime, one may interfere with Jupiter and be forgiven, but my
Commandant had gone too far. He was lucky to find himself, at the
conclusion of the correspondence, severely admonished and in receipt
of an order to place himself under arrest for six days (which he did,
choosing six wet ones).
The car contained a Deputy, no less.
The Commandant clings to the childlike belief that we manage these
things better in England. What would have happened, he asked me, if
he had been a British officer and the object of his attention merely
a Member of Parliament? "Merely," indeed! I answered that the thing
simply couldn't be conceived as happening with us. Our soldiers, I
admitted, were amongst the bravest of the brave, but I had never yet
met one reckless enough to dream of obstructing the slightest whim of a
politician.
Meanwhile, Charles, don't forget to forward to me, day by day, the
Official Communiqué from the Irish Front.
Yours ever,
HENRY.
* * * * *
[Illustration: LEST WE FORGET.
_"Combed-out" Gentleman (to pal, also about to be called up)._ "WHAT
ABOUT 'AVIN' OUR PHOTOS TOOK? WE SHALL BE IN KHAKI TO-MORROW, AND I
SHOULD LIKE TO FEEL I 'AD SOME RECORD OF WHAT I'VE LOOKED LIKE."]
* * * * *
Shakspeare on Daylight Saving.
"It shall be what o'clock I say it is."
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN MOMENT.
ERIN (_to Mr. REDMOND and Sir EDWARD CARSON_). "COME, MY FRIENDS,
YOU'RE BOTH IRISHMEN; WHY NOT BURY THE HATCHET----IN THE VITALS OF THE
COMMON ENEMY?"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT