The War brought about no more awful clash of personalities than when
it threw David and myself into the same dug-out. Myself, I am the
normal man--the man who wishes he were dead when he is called in the
morning and who swears at his servant (1) for calling him; (2) for not
calling him. My batman has learnt, after three years of war, to subdue
feet which were intended by nature to be thunderous. His method of
calling me is the result of careful training. If I am to wake at 7
A.M. he flings himself flat on his face outside my dug-out at 6 A.M.
and wriggles snake-like towards my boots. He extracts these painlessly
from under last night's salvage dump of tin-hats, gas-masks and
deflated underclothes, noses out my jacket, detects my Sam Browne, and
in awful silence bears these to the outer air, where he emits, like a
whale, the breath which he has been holding for the last ten minutes.
And meanwhile I sleep.
At 6.55 A.M. he brings back boots, belt and jacket. This time he
breathes. He walks softly, but he walks. He places the boots down
firmly. He begins to make little noises. He purrs and coughs and
scratches his chin, and very gradually the air of the dug-out begins
to vibrate with life. It is like _Peer Gynt_--the "Morning" thing on
the gramophone, you know; he clinks a toothbrush against a mug, he
pours out water. It is all gradual, _crescendo_; and meanwhile I am
awakening. At 7 A.M., not being a perfect artist, he generally has to
drop something; but by that time I am only pretending to be asleep,
and I growl at him, ask him why he didn't call me an hour ago,
and then fall asleep again. I get up at eight o'clock and dress in
silence. If my batman speaks to me I cut myself, throw the razor at
him, and completely break down. In short, as I say, I am the normal
man.
With David it is otherwise. David is a big strong man. He blew into my
dug-out late one night and occupied the other bed--an affair of rude
beams and hard wire-netting. He spread himself there in sleep, and
silence fell. At dawn next morning an awful sound hurled me out of
dreams towards my revolver. I clutched it in sweating terror, and
stared round the dug-out with my heart going like a machine-gun. It
was not, however, a Hun counter-attack. It was David calling for his
servant. As the first ray of the sun lights the Eastern sky David
calls for his servant. His servant is a North-countryman. Sleeping far
off in some noxious haunt, he hears David's voice and instantly begins
to speak. His voice comes swelling towards us, talking of boots and
tunics. As he reaches the dug-out door he becomes deafening. He and
David have a shouting match. He kicks over a petrol-tin full of water,
smashes my shaving mirror, and sits on my feet while picking up the
bits.
Meanwhile David is standing on his bed and jodelling, while his batman
shrieks to him that his wife said in her last letter to him that if
he doesn't get a leaf soon the home'll be bruk up. Then David starts
slapping soap on to his face like a bill-sticker with a paste-brush.
His servant drops a field boot on to my stomach, trips over an empty
biscuit-tin and is heard grooming a boot without.
David now strops his razor. It is one of those self-binding safety
razors which is all covered with cog-wheels and steam-gauges and
levers and valves. You feed the strop into it like paper into
a printing-press, and it eats up the leather as low people eat
spaghetti, making all the time a noise like a mowing-machine. David
loves that. He whistles gay tunes while it happens. He whistles while
he shaves. He cannot whistle while brushing his teeth, but he brushes
his teeth as a man might wash down a cab in a large yard with plenty
of room.
The moment it is over he whistles again. Then he does deep breathing
at the door of the dug-out. (Aeroplanes passing overhead have had
narrow escapes from being dragged into the dug-out by sheer power of
suction, when David deep-breathes.) Then he does muscle exercises. He
crooks his finger and from behind you see a muscle like a mushroom
get up suddenly in the small of his back, run up his spine and hit
him under the left ear.
Meanwhile he is whistling, and his batman is making sparks fly out
of the buttons, which he cleans with glass-paper and gun-cotton just
outside the door.
At eight, when I get carefully out of bed, David is beginning to don
his shirt. At nine we move together towards breakfast.
I am training David to say "Rah! Rah!" against the day when he and
General ROOSEVELT meet in a communication trench. I am sure they will
take to each other at once.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Basil_. "MOTHER, I THINK SATAN MUST BE ABOUT."
_Mother_. "WHY, DEAR?"
_Basil_. "ISN'T IT SATAN THAT MAKES VERY GOOD PEOPLE FEEL BAD?"
_Mother_. "YES, DEAR."
_Basil_. "WELL, I FEEL AS IF I DIDN'T WANT TO GO AND WASH MY FACE."]
* * * * *