For some time the War Office would not allow military bands at the
front, not understanding that music was like water to parched souls.
By degrees divisional generals realized the utter need of entertainment
among men dulled and dazed by the routine of war, and encouraged
“variety” shows, organized by young officers who had been amateur actors
before the war, who searched around for likely talent. There was
plenty of it in the New Army, including professional “funny men,” trick
cyclists, conjurers, and singers of all kinds. So by the summer of '15
most of the divisions had their dramatic entertainments: “The Follies,”
“The Bow Bells,” “The Jocks,” “The Pip-Squeaks,” “The Whizz-Bangs,” “The
Diamonds,” “The Brass Hats,” “The Verey Lights,” and many others with
fancy names.
I remember going to one of the first of them in the village of Acheux,
a few miles from the German lines. It was held in an old sugar-factory,
and I shall long remember the impressions of the place, with seven or
eight hundred men sitting in the gloom of that big, broken, barn-like
building, where strange bits of machinery looked through the darkness,
and where through gashes in the walls stars twinkled.
There was a smell of clay and moist sugar and tarpaulins and damp khaki,
and chloride of lime, very pungent in one's nostrils, and when the
curtain went up on a well--fitted stage and “The Follies” began their
performance, the squalor of the place did not matter. What mattered
was the enormous whimsicality of the Bombardier at the piano, and the
outrageous comicality of a tousle-haired soldier with a red nose, who
described how he had run away from Mons “with the rest of you,” and the
light--heartedness of a performance which could have gone straight to a
London music-hall and brought down the house with jokes and songs made
up in dugouts and front--line trenches.
At first the audience sat silent, with glazed eyes. It was difficult to
get a laugh out of them. The mud of the trenches was still on them. They
stank of the trenches, and the stench was in their souls. Presently they
began to brighten up. Life came back into their eyes. They laughed!...
Later, from this audience of soldiers there were yells of laughter,
though the effect of shells arriving at unexpected moments, in untoward
circumstances, was a favorite theme of the jesters. Many of the men were
going into the trenches that night again, and there would be no fun
in the noise of the shells, but they went more gaily and with stronger
hearts, I am sure, because of the laughter which had roared through the
old sugar--factory.
A night or two later I went to another concert and heard the same gaiety
of men who had been through a year of war. It was in an open field,
under a velvety sky studded with innumerable stars. Nearly a thousand
soldiers trooped through the gates and massed before the little canvas
theater. In front a small crowd of Flemish children squatted on the
grass, not understanding a word of the jokes, but laughing in shrill
delight at the antics of soldier-Pierrots. The corner-man was a funny
fellow, and his by-play with a stout Flemish woman round the flap of the
canvas screen, to whom he made amorous advances while his comrades were
singing sentimental ballads, was truly comic. The hit of the evening was
when an Australian behind the stage gave an unexpected imitation of a
laughing-jackass.
There was something indescribably weird and wild and grotesque in that
prolonged cry of cackling, unnatural mirth. An Australian by my side
said: “Well done! Exactly right!” and the Flemish children shrieked
with joy, without understanding the meaning of the noise. Old, old songs
belonging to the early Victorian age were given by the soldiers, who had
great emotion and broke down sometimes in the middle of a verse. There
were funny men dressed in the Widow Twankey style, or in burlesque
uniforms, who were greeted with yells of laughter by their comrades. An
Australian giant played some clever card tricks, and another Australian
recited Kipling's “Gunga Din” with splendid fire. And between every
“turn” the soldiers in the field roared out a chorus:
“Jolly good song, Jolly well sung. If you can think of a better you're
welcome to try. But don't forget the singer is dry; Give the poor beggar
some beer!”
A touring company of mouth-organ musicians was having a great success
in the war zone. But, apart from all those organized methods of mirth,
there was a funny man in every billet who played the part of court
jester, and clowned it whatever the state of the weather or the risks
of war. The British soldier would have his game of “house” or “crown and
anchor” even on the edge of the shell-storm, and his little bit of
sport wherever there was room to stretch his legs. It was a jesting army
(though some of its jokes were very grim), and those who saw, as I did,
the daily tragedy of war, never ceasing, always adding to the sum of
human suffering, were not likely to discourage that sense of humor.
A successful concert with mouth-organs, combs, and tissue-paper and
penny whistles was given by the Guards in the front-line trenches near
Loos. They played old English melodies, harmonized with great emotion
and technical skill. It attracted an unexpected audience. The Germans
crowded into their front line--not far away--and applauded each number.
Presently, in good English, a German voice shouted across:
“Play 'Annie Laurie' and I will sing it.”
The Guards played “Annie Laurie,” and a German officer stood up on
the parapet--the evening sun was red behind him--and sang the old song
admirably, with great tenderness. There was applause on both sides.
“Let's have another concert to-morrow!” shouted the Germans.
But there was a different kind of concert next day, and the music
was played by trench-mortars, Mills bombs, rifle-grenades, and other
instruments of death in possession of the Guards. There were cries of
agony and terror from the German trenches, and young officers of the
Guards told the story as an amusing anecdote, with loud laughter.