BILLETS
I. MORNING
“Two hours’ pack drill, and pay for a new handle,” I said.
“Right--Turn!” said the sergeant-major. “Right--Wheel--Quick--March!
Get your equipment on and join your platoon at once.”
This last sentence was spoken in a quick undertone, as the prisoner
stepped out of the door into the road. I was filling up the column
headed “Punishment awarded” on a buff-coloured Army Form, to which I
appended my signature. The case just dealt with was a very dull and
commonplace one, a man having “lost” his entrenching tool handle. Most
of these “losses” occurred in trenches, and were dealt with the first
morning in billets at company orderly-room. This man had been engaged
on special fatigue work the last few days; hence the reason why the
loss had not been checked before, and came up on this last morning in
billets.
“No more prisoners?” I asked the company sergeant-major.
“No more prisoners, sir,” he answered. I then rather hurriedly
signed several returns made out by Sergeant Roberts, the company
quartermaster-sergeant, and promised to come in later and sign the
acquittance rolls. These are the pay-lists, made out in triplicate,
which are signed by each man as he draws his pay. The original goes to
the Paymaster in England, one carbon copy to the adjutant, and one is
retained by the company-commander. We had paid out the first day in
billets. This time “working-parties” had been tolerable. We had arrived
back in billets about half-past three in the afternoon; the next
morning had been spent in a march to the divisional baths at Treux (two
miles away), in cleaning up, kit-inspection, and a little arm-drill and
musketry practice; in the afternoon we paid out. Then followed three
days of working-parties, up on the support line at Crawley Ridge; and
now, we had this last day in which to do a little company work. There
had been running parade at seven-thirty. Owen had taken this, and I
confess that I had not yet breakfasted. So I hurried off now at 9.10 to
gulp something down and be at battalion orderly-room at 9.30 sharp.
The company office was a house of two rooms; one was the “office”
itself, with a blanket-clad table and a couple of chairs in the middle,
and all around were strewn strange boxes, and bundles of papers and
equipment. On the walls were pictures from illustrated English papers;
one of Nurse Cavell, another of howitzers firing; and several graphic
bayonet-charges at Verdun, pictured by an artist who must have “glowed”
as he drew them in his room in Chelsea. In the other room slept the
C.S.M. and C.Q.M.S. (more familiar as the “sergeant-major” and the
“quartermaster”).
From this house, then, I stepped out into the glaring street. It was
the end of May, and the day promised to be really quite hot. I have
already explained how completely shut off from the trenches one felt in
Morlancourt, sheltered as it was in a cup of the hills and immune from
shelling. Now as I walked quickly along the street, past our battalion
“orderly-room,” and returned the immaculate salute of Sergeant-Major
Shandon, the regimental sergeant-major, who was already marshalling the
prisoners ready for the Colonel at half-past nine, I felt a lightness
and freshness of body that almost made me think I was free of the war
at last. My Sam Browne belt, my best tunic with its polished buttons,
and most of all, I suppose, the effect of a good sleep and a cold bath,
all contributed to this feeling, as well as the scent from the laburnum
and lilac that looked over the garden wall opposite the billet that was
our “Mess.”
I found Edwards just going off to inspect “B” Company Lewis gunners,
whom he was taking on the range the first part of the morning.
“Hullo!” he said, “you’ve not got much time.”
“No,” said I. “My own fault for getting up late. Got a case for the
C.O. too. Is my watch right? I make it seventeen minutes past.”
“Nineteen, I make it.”
“Wish I hadn’t asked you,” I laughed. “No porridge, Lewis. Bring the
eggs and bacon in at once. This tea’ll do. There’s no milk, though.
What?”
Edwards had asked something. He repeated his question, which was
whether I wanted Jim, the company horse, this afternoon. I thought
rapidly, and the scent of the lilac decided me.
“Yes,” I answered. “Sorry, but I do.”
“Oh, all right; I expect I can get old Muskett to let me have one.”
Muskett was the transport officer.
“Righto,” said I. “Go teach thy Lewis gunners how to drill little holes
in the chalk-bank.”
He clattered off over the cobbles of the garden path, and in a few
minutes I followed suit, running until I rounded a corner and came into
view of the orderly-room, when I altered my gait to a dignified walk
and arrived just as the Colonel appeared from the opposite direction.
“Parade! Tchern!!” shouted Sergeant-Major Shandon; and a moment later
the four company commanders came to attention and saluted as the
Colonel passed in, sprinkling “Good mornings” to right and left.
I had one very uninteresting case of drunkenness; “A” had a couple
of men who had overstayed their pass in England; “C” had a case held
over from the day before for further evidence, and was now dismissed as
not proven; while “D” had an unsatisfactory sergeant who was “severely
reprimanded.” All these cases were quickly and unerringly disposed of,
and we company commanders saluted again and clattered down the winding
staircase out into the sunshine.
I had to pass from one end of the village to the other. The
orderly-room was not far from our company “Mess” and was at a
cross-roads. Opposite, in one of the angles made by the junction of
the four roads, was a deep and usually muddy horse-pond. But even here
the mud was getting hard under this spell of warm May weather, and the
innumerable ruts and hoof-marks were crystallising into a permanent
pattern. As I walked along the streets I passed sundry Tommies acting
as road-scavengers; “permanent road fatigue” they were called, although
they were anything but permanent, being changed every day. Formerly
they had seemed to be engaged in a Herculean, though unromantic,
task of scraping great rolling puddings of mud to the side of the
road, in the vain hope that the mud would find an automatic exit into
neighbouring gardens and ponds; for Morlancourt did not boast such
modern things as gutters. To-day there were large pats of mud lining
the street, but these were now caked and hard, and even crumbling into
dust, that whisked about among the sparrows. The permanent road fatigue
was gathering waste-paper and tins in large quantities, but otherwise
was having a holiday.
Women were working, or gossiping at the doorsteps. The _estaminet_
doors were flung wide open, and the floors were being scrubbed and
sprinkled with sawdust. A little bare-legged girl, in a black cotton
dress, was hugging a great wide loaf; an old man sat blinking in the
sunshine; cats were basking, dogs nosing about lazily. A party of about
thirty bombers passed me, the sergeant giving “eyes right” and waking
me from meditations on the eternal calm of cats. Then I reached the
headquarter guard, and the sentry saluted with a rattling clap upon his
butt, and I did my best to emulate his smartness. So I passed along all
the length of the shuttered houses of Morlancourt.
“A great day, this,” I thought, as I came to the small field where
“B” Company was paraded; not two hundred and fifty men, as you will
doubtless assume from the text-books, but some thirty or forty men
only; one was lucky if one mustered forty. Where were the rest, you
ask? Well, bombers bombing; Lewis gunners under Edwards; some on
“permanent mining fatigue,” that is, carrying the sand-bags from the
mine-shafts to the dumps; transport, pioneers, stretcher-bearers, men
under bombing instruction, officers’ servants, headquarter orderlies,
men on leave, etc. etc. The company sergeant-major will make out a
parade slate for you if you want it, showing exactly where every man
is. But here are forty men. Let’s drill them.
Half were engaged in arm-drill under my best drill-sergeant; the other
half were doing musketry in gas-helmets, an unpleasant practice which
nothing would induce me to do on a sunny May morning. They lay on
their fronts, legs well apart, and were working the bolts of their
rifles fifteen times a minute. After a while they changed over and
did arm-drill, while the other half took over the gas-helmets, the
mouthpieces having first been dipped in a solution of carbolic brought
by one of the stretcher-bearers in a canteen. These gas-helmets were
marked D.P. (drill purposes), and each company had so many with which
to practise.
When both parties were duly exercised, I gave a short lecture on the
measures to be adopted against the use of _Flammenwerfer_, which is
the “Liquid Fire” of the official _communiqués_. I had just been to
a demonstration of this atrocity in the form of a captured German
apparatus, and my chief object in lecturing the men about it was to
make it quite clear that the flaming jets of burning gas cannot sink
into a trench, but, as a matter of fact, only keep level so long as
they are propelled by the driving power of the hose apparatus; as water
from a hose goes straight, and then curves down to the ground, so gas,
even though it be incandescent, goes straight and then rises. In the
trench you are unscathed, as we proved in the demonstration, when they
sprayed the flaming gas over a trench full of men. Indeed, the chief
effect of this _flammenwerfer_ is one of frightfulness, as the Germans
cannot come over until the flames have ceased. The men were rather
inclined to gape at all this, but I found the words had sunk in when
I asked what should be done if the enemy used this diabolical stuff
against us. “Get down at the bottom of the trench, sir, and as soon as
they stop it, give the ----’s ’ell!”
The rest of the morning we spent “on the range,” which meant firing
into a steep chalk bank at a hundred yards. Targets and paste-pot had
been procured from the pioneers’ shop, and after posting a couple
of “look-out” men on either side, we started range practice. The
men are always keen about firing on the range, and it is really the
most interesting and pleasant part of the infantryman’s training. I
watched these fellows, hugging their rifle-butt into their shoulder,
and feeling the smooth wood against their cheeks; they wriggled their
bodies about to get a comfortable position; sometimes they flinched as
they fired and jerked the rifle; sometimes they pressed the trigger as
softly, as softly.... And gradually, carefully, we tried to detect and
eliminate the faults. Then we ended up with fifteen rounds rapid in a
minute. The “mad minute” it used to be called at home. After which we
fell the men in, and Paul marched them back to the company “alarm post”
outside the company office, where “B” Company always fell in; while
Owen, Nicolson, and I walked back together.
II. AFTERNOON
“I still maintain,” said I, an hour later, as we finished lunch,
“that bully-beef, some sort of sauce or pickle, and salad, followed
by cheese, and ending with a cup of tea, is the proper lunch for an
officer. I don’t mind other officers having tinned fruit, though, if
they like it,” I added with a laugh.
Owen and Syme were newly joined officers for whom the sight of tinned
pears or apricots had not yet lost a certain glamour that disappeared
after months and months. They were just finishing the pear course.
Hence my last remark.
“I bet if we allowed you to have bully every day,” came from Edwards,
our Mess president, “you’d soon get sick of it.”
“Try,” said I, knowing that he never would. I always used to eat of the
hot things that would appear at lunch, to the detriment of a proper
appreciation of dinner; but I always maintained the position laid down
in the first sentence of this section.
I lit a pipe and strolled out into the garden. This was undoubtedly an
ideal billet, and a great improvement on the butcher’s shop, where they
used always to be killing pigs in the yard and letting the blood run
all over the place. It was a long, one-storied house, set back about
fifty yards from the road; this fifty yards was all garden, and, at
the end, completely shutting off the road, was a high brick wall. On
each side of the garden were also high walls formed by the sides of
stables and outhouses; the garden was thus completely walled round, and
the seclusion and peace thus entrapped were a very priceless possession
to us.
The garden itself was full of life. There were box-bordered paths up
both sides and down the centre, and on the inner side of the paths was
an herbaceous border smelling very sweet of wallflowers and primulas of
every variety. Although it was still May, there were already one or two
pink cabbage-roses out; later, the house itself would be covered with
them; already the buds were showing yellow streaks as they tried to
burst open their tight green sheaths. In the centre of the garden ran a
cross path with a summer-house of bamboo canes completely covered with
honeysuckle; that, too, was budding already. The rest of the garden
was filled with rows of young green things, peas, and cabbages, and I
know not what, suitably protected against the ravages of sparrows and
finches by the usual miniature telegraph system of sticks connected by
cotton decorated with feathers and bits of rag. Every bit of digging,
hoeing, weeding and sowing were performed by Madame and her two
black-dressed daughters in whose house we were now living, and who were
themselves putting up in the adjoining farmhouse, which belonged to
them.
I said that they had done all the digging in the garden. I should make
one reservation. All the potato-patch had been dug by our servants,
with the assistance of Gray, the cook. Nor did they do it in gratitude
to Madame, as, doubtless, ideal Tommies would have done. A quarter of
it was done by Lewis, for carelessness in losing my valise; nearly half
by the joint effort of the whole crew for a thoroughly dirty turn-out
on commanding officer’s inspection; and the rest for various other
defalcations! We never told Madame the reasons for their welcome help;
and I am quite sure they never did!
“The worst of this war,” said I to Edwards, puffing contentedly at a
pipeful of Chairman, “is this: it’s too comfortable. You could carry on
like this for years, and years, and years.”
“Wasn’t so jolly last time in,” muttered the wise Edwards.
“That’s exactly the point,” I answered; “life in the trenches we
all loathe, and no one makes any bones about it or pretends to like
it--except for a few rare exciting minutes, which are very few and far
between. But you come out into billets, and recover; and so you can
carry on. It’s not concentrated enough.”
“It’s more concentrated for the men than for us.”
“Well, yes, very often; but they haven’t the strain of responsibility.
Yes, you are right though; and it’s less concentrated for the
C.O., still less for the Brigadier, and so on back to the
Commander-in-Chief; and still further to men who have never seen a
trench at all.”
“I dare say,” said Edwards; “but, as the phrase goes, ‘What are you
going to do abaht it?’ Here’s Jim. Old Muskett’s going to send me a nag
at five, so I’m going out after tea. Will you be in to tea?”
“Don’t know.”
As I tightened my puttees preparatory to mounting the great Jim,
Edwards started his gramophone; so leaving them to the strains of
Tannhäuser, I bestrode my charger and steered him gracefully down the
garden path, under the brick archway, and out into the street.
Myself on a horse always amused me, especially when it was called an
“officer’s charger.” Jim was not fiery, yet he was not by any means
sluggish, and he went fast at a gallop. He suited me very well indeed
when I wanted to go for an afternoon’s ride; for he was quite content
to walk when I wanted to muse, and to gallop hard when I wanted
exhilaration. I hate a horse that will always be trotting. I know it is
best style to trot; but my rides were not for style, but for pleasure,
exercise, and solitude. And Jim fell in admirably with my requirements.
But, as I say, the idea that I was a company-commander on his charger
always amused me.
I rode, as I generally did, in a south-easterly direction, climbing at
a walk one of the many roads that led out of Morlancourt towards the
Bois des Tailles. When I reached the high ground I made Jim gallop
along the grass-border right up to the edge of the woods. There is
nothing like the exhilaration of flying along, you cannot imagine how,
with the great brown animal lengthening out under you for all he is
worth! I pulled him up and turned his head to the right, leaving the
road, and skirting the edge of the wood. At last I was alone.
In the clearings of the wood the ground was a sheet of blue hyacinths,
whose sweet scent came along on the breeze; their fragrance lifted my
spirit, and I drank in deep breaths of the early summer air. I took off
my cap to feel the sun full on my face. On the ground outside the wood
were still a few late primroses interspersed with cowslips, stubborn
and jolly; and as I rounded a bend in the wood-edge, I found myself
looking across a tiny valley, the opposite face of which was a wooded
slope, with all the trees banked up on it as gardeners bank geraniums
in tiers to give a good massed effect. So, climbing the hill-side, were
all these shimmering patches of green, yellow-green, pea-green, yellow,
massed together in delightful variety; and dotted about in the middle
of them were solitary patches of white cherry-blossom, like white foam
breaking over a reef, in the midst of a great green sea. And across
this perfect softness from time to time the bold black and white of
magpies cut with that vivid contrast with which Nature loves to baffle
the poor artist.
“Come on, old boy,” I said, as I reached the bottom of this little
valley; and trotting up the other side, and through a ride in the
wood, I came out on the edge of the Valley of the Somme. I then skirted
the south side of the wood until I reached a secluded corner with a
view across the valley: here I dismounted, fastened Jim to a tree,
loosened his girths, and left him pulling greedily at the grass at his
feet. Then I threw myself down on the grass to dream.
My thoughts ran back to my conversation with Edwards. Perhaps it was
best not to think too hard, but I could no more stifle my thoughts than
can a man his appetite. Responsibility. Responsibility. And those with
the greatest responsibility endure and see the least; no one has more
to endure than the private soldier in the infantry, and no one has less
responsibility or power of choice. I thought of our last six days in
the trenches. When “A” Company were in the line, the first three days,
we had been bombarded heavily at “stand-to” in the evening. In Maple
Redoubt it had been bad enough. There was one sentry-post a little way
up Old Kent Road; by some mistake a bomber had been put on duty there,
whereas it was a bayonet-man’s post, the bombers having a special rôle
in case of the enemy attacking. I found this mistake had been made, but
did not think it was worth altering. And that man was killed outright
by a shell.
In the front line “A” Company had had several killed and wounded, and I
had had to lend them half my bombers; as I had placed two men on one
post, a canister had burst quite a long way off, but the men cowered
down into the trench. I cursed them as hard as I could, and then I
saw that in the post were the two former occupants lying dead, killed
half an hour ago where they lay, and where I was placing my two men.
I stopped my curses, and inwardly directed them against myself. And
there I had to leave these fellows, looking after me and thinking,
“_He’s_ going back to his dug-out.” Ah! no, they knew me better than
to think like that. Yet I had to go back, leaving them there. I should
never forget that awful weight of responsibility that suddenly seemed
visualised before me. Could I not see their scared faces peering at me,
even as now I seemed to smell the scent of pear-drops with which the
trench was permeated, the Germans having sent over a few lachrymatory
shells along with the others that night?
Ah! Why was I living all this over again, just when I had come away to
get free of all this awhile, and dream? I had come out to enjoy the
sunshine and the peace, just as Jim was enjoying the grass behind me.
I listened. There was a slight jingle of the bit now and again, and a
creaking of leather, and always that drawing sound, with an occasional
purr, as the grass was torn up. I could not help looking round at
last. “You pig,” I said; but my tone did not altogether disapprove of
complacent piggishness.
In front of me lay the blue water of the Somme Canal, and the pools
between it and the river; long parallel rows of pale green poplars
stretched along either bank of the canal; and at my feet, half hidden
by the slope of the ground, lay the sleepy little village of Etinehem.
There was a Sunday afternoon slumber over everything. Was it Sunday? I
thought for a moment. No, it was Thursday, and to-morrow we went “in”
again. I deliberately switched my thoughts away from the trenches, and
they flew to the events of the morning. I could see my fellows lying,
so keen--I might almost say so happy--blazing away on the range. One I
remembered especially. Private Benjamin, a boy with a delicate eager
face, who came out with the last draft: he came from a village close up
to Snowdon; he was shooting badly, and very concerned about it. I lay
down beside him and showed him how to squeeze the trigger, gradually,
ever so gradually. Oh! these boys! Responsibility. Responsibility.
“This is no good,” I said to myself at last, and untied Jim and rode
again. I went down into the valley, and along the green track between
an avenue of poplars south of the canal until at last I came to
Sailly-Laurette, and so back and in to Morlancourt from the south-west.
It was six o’clock by the time I stooped my head under the gateway into
our garden, and for the last hour or so I had almost forgotten war at
last.
“Hullo,” was the greeting I received from Owen. “There’s no tea left.”
“I don’t want any tea,” I answered. “Has the post come?”
There were three letters for me. As I slept at a house a little
distance away, I took the letters along with me.
“I’m going over to my room to clean up,” I shouted to Owen, who was
reading inside the Mess-room. “What time’s old Jim coming in?”
“Seven o’clock!”
“All right,” I answered. “I’ll be over by seven.”
III. EVENING
As I walked up the garden path a few minutes before seven, I had to
pass the kitchen door, where the servants slept, lived, and cooked
our meals. I had a vision of Private Watson, the cook, busy at the
oven; he was in his shirt-sleeves, hair untidy, trousers very grimy,
and altogether a very unmartial figure. There seemed to be a dispute
in progress, to judge from the high pitch to which the voices had
attained. On these occasions Lewis’ piping voice reached an incredible
falsetto, while his face flushed redder than ever.
Watson, Owen’s servant, had superseded Gray as officers’ mess cook;
the latter had, unfortunately, drunk one or two glasses of beer last
time in billets, and, to give his own version, he “somehow felt very
sleepy, and went down and lay under a bank,” and could remember nothing
more until about ten o’clock, when he humbly reported his return to
me. Meanwhile Watson had cooked the dinner, which was, of course,
very late; and as he did it very well, and as Gray’s explanation
seemed somewhat vague, we decided to make Watson cook, let Gray try a
little work in the company for a change, and get the sergeant-major
to send Owen another man for servant. Watson had signalised the entry
to his new appointment by a quarrel with Madame (the Warwicks had
managed to “bag” this ideal billet of ours temporarily, and we were in
a much less comfortable one the last two occasions out of trenches);
eventually Madame had hurled the frying-pan at him, amid a torrent of
unintelligible French; neither could understand a word the other was
saying, of course. Gray had been wont, I believe, to “lie low and say
nuffin,” like Brer Fox, when Madame, who was old and half-crazed, came
up and threw water on the fire in a fit of unknown anger. But Watson’s
blood boiled at such insults from a Frenchwoman, and hence had followed
a sharp contention ending in the projection of the frying-pan. Luckily,
we were unmolested here: Watson could manage the dinner, anyway.
I entered our mess-room, which was large, light, and boasted a boarded
floor; it was a splendid summer-room, though it would have been very
cold in winter. There I found a pile of literature awaiting me;
operation orders for to-morrow, giving the hour at which each company
was to leave Morlancourt, and which company of the Manchesters it was
to relieve, and when, and where, and the route to be taken; there were
two typed documents “for your information and retention, please,” one
relating to prevention of fly-trouble in billets, the other giving a
new code of signals and marked “Secret” on the top, and lastly there
was _Comic Cuts_. Leaving the rest, I hastily skimmed through the
latter, which contained detailed information of operations carried out,
and intelligence gathered on the corps front during the last few days.
At first these were intensely interesting, but after seven months they
began to pall, and I grew expert at skimming through them rapidly.
Then Jim Potter came in, and _Comic Cuts_ faded into insignificance.
“Here, Owen,” said I, and threw them over to him.
Captain and Quartermaster Jim Potter was the Father of the battalion.
He had been in the battalion sixteen years, and had come out with them
in 1914; twice the battalion had been decimated, new officers had come
and disappeared, commanding officers had become brigadiers and new ones
taken their place, but “Old Jim” remained, calm, unaltered, steady
as a rock, good-natured, and an utter pessimist. I first introduced
him in Chapter I, when I spent the night in his billet prior to my
first advent into the trenches. I was a little perturbed then by his
pessimism. Now I should have been very alarmed if he had suddenly burst
into a fit of optimism.
“Well, Jim,” we said, “how are things going? When’s the war going to
end?”
“Oh! not so very long now.” We gaped at this unexpected reply.
“Because,” he added, “you know, Bill, it’s the unexpected that always
happens in this war. Hullo! You’ve got some pretty pictures, I see.”
We had been decorating the walls with the few unwarlike pictures that
were still to be found in the illustrated papers.
“Not a bad place, Blighty,” he resumed, gazing at a picture entitled
“Home, Sweet Home!” There had been a little dispute as to whether it
should go up, owing to its sentimental nature. At last “The Warwicks
will like it,” we had said, and up it had gone. The Warwicks had our
billet, when we were “in.”
“Tell us about your leave,” we said, and Jim began a series of
delightful sarcastic jerks about the way people in England seemed to
be getting now a faint glimmering conception that somewhere there was
a war on.
The joint was not quite ready, Edwards explained to me, drawing me
aside a minute; would old Jim mind? The idea of old Jim minding being
quite absurd, we decided on having a cooked joint a quarter of an hour
hence, rather than a semi-raw one now; and we told Jim our decision.
It seemed to suit him exactly, as he had had tea late. There never was
such an unruffled fellow as he; had we wanted to begin before the time
appointed, he would have been ravenous. So he continued the description
of his adventures on leave. Meanwhile I rescued _Comic Cuts_ from the
hands of Paul, and despatched them, duly initialled, by the trusty
Davies to “C” Company. Just as I had done so the sergeant-major
appeared at the door.
“You know the time we move off to-morrow?” I said.
Yes, he had known that long before I did, by means of the regimental
sergeant-major and the orderly sergeant.
“Fall in at 8.15,” I said. “Everything the same as usual. All the
officers’ servants, and Watson, are to fall in with the company; this
straggling in independently, before or after the company, will stop
once and for all.” Lewis’ face, as he laid the soup-plates, turned half
a degree redder than usual.
“There’s nothing more?” I said.
“No, that’s all, sir.”
The sergeant-major drained off his whiskey with a dash of Perrier, and
prepared to go. Now was the psychological moment when one learnt any
news there was to learn about the battalion.
“No news, I suppose?” I asked.
“The fellows are still talking about this ‘rest,’ sir. No news about
that, I suppose?” said the sergeant-major.
“Only that it’s slightly overdue,” I answered, with a laugh. “What do
you think, Jim? Any likelihood of this three weeks’ rest coming off?”
“Oh, yes; I should think so,” said the quartermaster. “Any time next
year.”
“Good night, sir,” said Sergeant-Major Brown, with a grin.
“Good night, Sergeant-Major,” came in a chorus as he disappeared into
the garden.
“Soup’s ready, sir,” said Lewis. And we sat down to dine.
The extraordinary thing about having Jim Potter in to dinner was that
an extra elaborate menu was always provided, and yet old Jim himself
always ate less than anyone else; still, he did his share nobly with
the whiskey, so that made up for it, I suppose. To-night Edwards
planned “sausages and mash” as an entrée; but, whether through superior
knowledge or a mere misunderstanding, the sausages arrived seated
carefully on the top of the round of beef, like _marrons-glacés_ stuck
on an iced cake. As the dish was placed, amid howls of execration, on
the table, one of the unsteadier sausages staggered and fell with a
splash into the gravy, much to everyone’s delight; Edwards, wiping the
gravy spots off his best tunic, seemed the only member of the party who
did not greet with approbation this novel dish.
After soup, sausages and beef, and rice-pudding and tinned fruit,
came Watson’s special dish--cheese _au gratin_ on toast. This was a
glutinous concoction, and a little went a long way. Then followed _café
au lait_ made in the teapot, which was the signal for cigarettes to
be lit up, and chairs to be moved a little to allow of a comfortable
expansion of legs. Owen proposed sitting out in the summer-house,
but on going outside reported that it was a little too chilly. So we
remained where we were.
Edwards was talking of Amiens: he had been there for the day yesterday,
and incidentally discovered that there was a cathedral there.
“I know it,” said I. “I used to go there every Saturday when I was at
the Army School.”
“You had a good time at the Army School, didn’t you?” asked Jim.
“Tip-top time,” said I. “It’s a really good show. The Commandant was
the most wonderful man we ever met. By the way, that concert Tuesday
night was a really good show.”
Jim Potter and Edwards had got it up; it had been an _al fresco_
affair, and the night had been ideally warm for it. Edwards had trained
a Welsh choir with some success. Several outsiders had contributed,
the star of the evening being Basil Hallam, the well-known music-hall
artist, whose dainty manner, reminding one of the art of Vesta Tilley,
and impeccable evening clothes had produced an unforgettably bizarre
effect in the middle of such an audience and within sound of the guns.
He was well known to most of the men as “the bloke that sits up in
the sausage.” For any fine day, coming out of trenches or going in,
you could see high suspended the “sausage,” whose home and “base”
was between Treux and Mericourt, and whose occupant and eye was Basil
Hallam. And so the “sausage bloke” was received enthusiastically at our
concert.
As we talked about the concert, Owen began singing “Now Florrie was a
Flapper,” which had been Basil Hallam’s most popular song, and as he
sang he rose from his chair and walked about the room; he was evidently
enjoying himself, though his imitation of Basil Hallam was very bad
indeed. As he sang, we went on talking.
“A good entry in _Comic Cuts_ to-night,” I remarked. “‘A dog was heard
barking in Fricourt at 11 p.m.’ Someone must have been hard up for
intelligence to put that in.”
“A dog barking in Fricourt,” said old Jim, warming up. “‘A dog barking
in Fricourt.’ What’s that--Corps stuff? I never read the thing;
good Lord, no! That’s what it is to have a Staff--‘A dog barking in
Fricourt!’”
“The Corps officer didn’t hear it,” said I. “It was some battalion
intelligence officer that was such a fool as to report it.”
“Fool?” said old Jim. “I’d like to meet the fellow. He’s the first
fellow I’ve ever met yet who has a just appreciation of the brain
capacity of the Staff. You or I might have thought of reporting a dog’s
mew, or roar, or bellow; but a dog’s bark we should have thought of no
interest whatever to the--er--fellows up there, you know, who plan our
destinies.” And he gave an obsequious flick of his hand to an imaginary
person too high up to see him at all.
“He’s a good fellow,” he repeated, “that intelligence officer. Ought to
get a D.S.O.”
Old Jim had two South African medals, a D.C.M. and a D.S.O.
“The Staff,” he went on, with the greatest contempt he could put into
his voice. “I saw three of them in a car to-day. I stood to attention:
saluted. A young fellow waved his hand, you know; graciously accepted
my salute, you know, and passed on leaning back in his limousin. The
‘Brains of the British Army,’ I thought. Pah!”
We waited. Jim on the Staff was the greatest entertainment the
battalion could offer. We tried to draw him out further, but he would
not be drawn. We tried cunningly, by indirect methods, enquiring his
views on whether there would be a push this year.
“Push!” he said. “Of course there will be a push. The Staff must have
something to show for themselves. ‘Shove ’em in,’ they say; ‘rather a
bigger front than last time.’ Strategy? Oh, no! That’s out of date, you
know. Five-mile front--frontal attack. Get a few hundred thousand mown
down, and then discover the Boche has got a second line. The Staff.
Pah!!” And no more would he say.
Then Clark came in, and the Manchester Stokes gun officer. Clark
immediately joined Owen in a duet on “Florrie.” Then we went through
the whole gamut of popular songs, with appropriate actions and
stamping of feet upon the floor. Meanwhile the table was cleared,
only the whiskey and Perrier remaining. Soon there were cries of
“Napoleon--Napoleon,” and Owen, who bears a remarkable resemblance
to that great personage, posed tragically again and again amid great
applause. And then, in natural sequence, I, as “Bill, the man wot
won the Battle of Waterloo,” attacked him with every species of
trench-mortar I could lay hands on, my head swathed in a remarkable
turban of _Daily Mail_. At last I drove him into a corner behind
a table, and bombarded him relentlessly with oranges until he
capitulated! All the time Edwards had been in fear and trembling for
the safety of his gramophone.
At length peace was signed, and we grew quiet again beneath the
soothing strains of the gramophone, until at last Jim Potter said he
must really go. Everyone reminding everyone else that breakfast was at
seven, we broke up the party, and Owen, Paul, Jim Potter and I departed
together. But anyone who knows the psychology of conviviality will
understand that we had first to pay a visit to a neighbouring Mess for
one last whiskey-and-soda before turning in.
As I opened the door of my billet, I heard a “strafe” getting up. There
was a lively cannonade up in the line; for several minutes I listened,
until it diminished a little, and began to die away. “In” to-morrow,
I thought. My valise was laid out on the floor, and my trench kit all
ready for packing first thing next morning. I lost no time in getting
into bed. And yet I could not sleep.
I could not help thinking of the jollity of the last few hours, the
humour, the apparently spontaneous outburst of good spirits; and most
of all I thought of old Jim, the mainspring somehow of it all. And
again I saw the picture of the concert a few nights ago, the bright
lights of the stage, the crowds of our fellows, all their bodies and
spirits for the moment relaxed, good-natured, happy, as they stood
laughing in the warm night air. And lastly I thought again of Private
Benjamin, that refined eager face, that rather delicate body, and
that warm hand as I placed mine over his, squeezing the trigger. He
was no more than a child really, a simple-minded child of Wales.
Somehow it was more terrible that these young boys should see this
war, than for the older men. Yet were we not all children wondering,
wondering, wondering?... Yes, we were like children faced by a wild
beast. “Sometimes I dislike you almost,” I thought; “your dulness, your
coarseness, your lack of romance, your unattractiveness. Yet that is
only physical. You, I love really. Oh, the dear, dear world!”
And in the darkness I buried my face in the pillow, and sobbed.