When this war is over, and the glory and the praise are duly assigned, particularly honourable mention should be made of the inhabitants of a certain ancient French town with a Scottish name, which lies not far behind a particularly sultry stretch of the trenches. The town is subject to shell fire, as splintered walls and shattered windows testify; yet every shop stands open. The town, moreover, is the only considerable place in the district, and enjoys a monopoly of patronage from all the surrounding billeting areas; yet the keepers of the shops have heroically refrained from putting up their prices to any appreciable extent. This combination of courage and fair-dealing has had its reward. The town has become a local Mecca. British soldiers with an afternoon to spare and a few francs to spend come in from miles around. Mess presidents send in their mess-sergeants, and fearful and wonderful is the marketing which ensues.
In remote and rural billets catering is a simple matter. We take what we can get, and leave it at that. The following business-card, which Bobby Little once found attached to an outhouse door in one of his billets, puts the resources of a French hamlet into a nutshell:--
HÉRE
SMOKING ROM
BEER
WINE {WITHE
{RAID
COFFE
EGS
But in town the shopper has a wider range. Behold Sergeant Goffin, a true-born Londoner, with the Londoner's faculty of never being at a loss for a word, at the grocer's, purchasing comforts for our officers' mess.
"Bong jooer, Mrs. Pankhurst!" he observes breezily to the plump épicière. This is his invariable greeting to French ladies who display any tendency to volubility--and they are many.
"Bon jour, M'sieu le Caporal!" replies the épicière, smiling. "M'sieu le Caporal désire?"
The sergeant allows his reduction in rank to pass unnoticed. He does not understand the French tongue, though he speaks it with great fluency and incredible success. He holds up a warning hand.
"Now, keep your 'and off the tap of the gas-meter for one minute if you please," he rejoins, "and let me get a word in edgeways. I want"--with great emphasis--"vinblank one, vinrooge two, bogeys six, Dom one. Compree?"
By some miracle the smiling lady does "compree," and produces white wine, red wine, candles, and--a bottle of Benedictine! (Sergeant Goffin always names wines after the most boldly printed word upon the label. He once handed round some champagne, which he insisted on calling "a bottle of brute.")
"Combine?" is the next observation.
The épicière utters the series of short sharp sibilants of which all French numerals appear to be composed. It sounds like "song-song-song." The resourceful Goffin lays down a twenty-franc note.
"Take it out of that," he says grandly.
He receives his change, and counts it with a great air of wisdom. The épicière breaks into a rapid recital--it sounds rather like our curate at home getting to work on When the wicked man--of the beauty and succulence of her other wares. Up goes Goffin's hand again.
"Na pooh!" he exclaims.. "Bong jooer!" And he stumps out to the mess-cart.
"Na pooh!" is a mysterious but invaluable expression. Possibly it is derived from "Il n'y a plus." It means, "All over!" You say "Na pooh!" when you push your plate away after dinner. It also means, "Not likely!" or "Nothing doing!" By a further development it has come to mean "done for," "finished," and in extreme cases, "dead." "Poor Bill got na-poohed by a rifle-grenade yesterday," says one mourner to another.
The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language will have to be revised and enlarged when this war is over.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, a few doors away, a host of officers is sitting in the Café de la Terre. Cafés are as plentiful as blackberries in this, as in most other French provincial towns, and they are usually filled to overflowing with privates of the British Army heroically drinking beer upon which they know it is impossible to get intoxicated. But the proprietor of the Café de la Terre is a long-headed citizen. By the simple expedient of labelling his premises "Officers Only," and making a minimum charge of one franc per drink, he has at a single stroke ensured the presence of the élite and increased his profits tenfold.
Many arms of the Service are grouped round the little marble-topped tables, for the district is stiff with British troops, and promises to grow stiffer. In fact, so persistently are the eagles gathering together upon this, the edge of the fighting line, that rumour is busier than ever. The Big Push holds redoubled sway in our thoughts. The First Hundred Thousand are well represented, for the whole Scottish Division is in the neighbourhood. Beside the glengarries there are countless flat caps--line regiments, territorials, gunners, and sappers. The Army Service Corps is there in force, recruiting exhausted nature from the strain of dashing about the countryside in motor-cars. The R.A.M.C. is strongly represented, doubtless to test the purity of the refreshment provided. Even the Staff has torn itself away from its arduous duties for the moment, as sundry red tabs testify. In one corner sit four stout French civilians, playing a mysterious card-game.
At the very next table we find ourselves among friends. Here are Major Kemp, also Captain Blaikie. They are accompanied by Ayling, Bobby Little, and Mr. Waddell. The battalion came out of trenches yesterday, and for the first time found itself in urban billets. For the moment haylofts and wash-houses are things of the dim past. We are living in real houses, sleeping in real beds, some with sheets.
To this group enters unexpectedly Captain Wagstaffe.
"Hallo, Wagger!" says Blaikie. "Back already?"
"Your surmise is correct," replies Wagstaffe, who has been home on leave. "I got a wire yesterday at lunch-time--in the Savoy, of all places! Every one on leave has been recalled. We were packed like herrings on the boat. Garçon, bière--the brunette kind!"
"Tell us all about London," says Ayling hungrily. "What does it look like? Tell us!"
We have been out here for the best part of five months now. Leave opened a fortnight ago, amid acclamations--only to be closed again within a few days. Wagstaffe was one of the lucky few who slipped through the blessed portals. He now sips his beer and delivers his report.
"London is much as usual. A bit rattled over Zeppelins--they have turned out even more street lamps--but nothing to signify. Country districts crawling with troops. All the officers appear to be colonels. Promotion at home is more rapid than out here. Chin, chin!" Wagstaffe buries his face in his glass mug.
"What is the general attitude," asked Mr. Waddell, "towards the war?"
"Well, one's own friends are down in the dumps. Of course it's only natural, because most of them are in mourning. Our losses are much more noticeable at home than abroad, somehow. People seemed quite surprised when I told them that things out here are as right as rain, and that our troops are simply tumbling over one another, and that we don't require any comic M.P.'s sent out to cheer us up. The fact is, some people read the papers too much. At the present moment the London press is, not to put too fine a point on it, making a holy show of itself. I suppose there's some low-down political rig at the back of it all, but the whole business must be perfect jam for the Bosches in Berlin."
"What's the trouble?" inquired Major Kemp.
"Conscription, mostly. (Though why they should worry their little heads about it, I don't know. If K. wants it we'll have it: if not, we won't; so that's that!) Both sides are trying to drag the great British Public into the scrap by the back of the neck. The Conscription crowd, with whom one would naturally side if they would play the game, seem to be out to unseat the Government as a preliminary. They support their arguments by stating that the British Army on the Western front is reduced to a few platoons, and that they are allowed to fire one shell per day. At least, that's what I gathered."
"What do the other side say?" inquired Kemp.
"Oh, theirs is a very simple line of argument. They state, quite simply, that if the personal liberty of Britain's workers--that doesn't mean you and me, as you might think: we are the Overbearing Militarist Oligarchy: a worker is a man who goes on strike,--they say that if the personal liberty of these sacred perishers is interfered with by the Overbearing Militarist Oligarchy aforesaid, there will be a Revolution. That's all! Oh, they're a sweet lot, the British newspaper bosses!"
"But what," inquired that earnest seeker after knowledge, Mr. Waddell, "is the general attitude of the country at large upon this grave question?"
Captain Wagstaffe chuckled.
"The dear old country at large," he replied, "is its dear old self, as usual. It is not worrying one jot about Conscription, or us, or anything like that. The one topic of conversation at present is--Charlie Chaplin."
"Who is Charlie Chaplin?" inquired several voices.
Wagstaffe shook his head.
"I haven't the faintest idea," he said. "All I know is that you can't go anywhere in London without running up against him. He is It. The mention of his name in a revue is greeted with thunders of applause. At one place I went to, twenty young men came upon the stage at once, all got up as Charlie Chaplin."
"But who is he?"
"That I can't tell you. I made several attempts to find out; but whenever I asked the question people simply stared at me in amazement. I felt quite ashamed: it was plain that I ought to have known. I have a vague idea that he is some tremendous new boss whom the Government have appointed to make shells, or something. Anyhow, the great British Nation is far too much engrossed with Charles to worry about a little thing like Conscription. Still, I should like to know. I feel I have been rather unpatriotic about it all."
"I can tell you," said Bobby Little. "My servant is a great admirer of his. He is the latest cinema star. Falls off roofs, and gets run over by motors--"
"And keeps the police at bay with a firehose," added Wagstaffe. "That's him! I know the type. Thank you, Bobby!"
Major Kemp put down his glass with a gentle sigh, and rose to go.
"We are a great nation," he remarked contentedly. "I was a bit anxious about things at home, but I see now there was nothing to worry about. We shall win all right. Well, I am off to the Mess. See you later, everybody!"
"Meanwhile," inquired Wagstaffe, as the party settled down again, "what is brewing here! I haven't seen the adjutant yet."
"You'll see him soon enough," replied Blaikie grimly. He glanced over his shoulder towards the four civilian card-players. They looked bourgeois enough and patriotic enough, but it is wise to take no risks in a café, as a printed notice upon the war, signed by the Provost-Marshal, was careful to point out. "Come for a stroll," he said.
Presently the two captains found themselves in a shady boulevard leading to the outskirts of the town. Darkness was falling, and soon would be intense; for lights are taboo in the neighbourhood of the firing line.
"Have we finished that new trench in front of our wire?" asked Wagstaffe.
"Yes. It is the best thing we have done yet. Divisional Headquarters are rightly pleased about it."
Blaikie gave details. The order had gone forth that a new trench was to be constructed in front of our present line--a hundred yards in front. Accordingly, when night fell, two hundred unconcerned heroes went forth, under their subalterns, and, squatting down in line along a white tape (laid earlier in the evening by our imperturbable friends, Lieutenants Box and Cox, of the Royal Engineers), proceeded to dig the trench. Thirty yards ahead of them, facing the curious eyes of countless Bosches, lay a covering party in extended order, ready to repel a rush. Hour by hour the work went on--skilfully, silently. On these occasions it is impossible to say what will happen. The enemy knows we are there: he can see us quite plainly. But he has his own night-work to do, and if he interferes with us he knows that our machine-guns will interfere with him. So, provided that our labours are conducted in a manner which is neither ostentatious nor contemptuous--that is to say, provided we do not talk, whistle, or smoke--he leaves us more or less alone.
But this particular task was not accomplished without loss: it was too obviously important. Several times the German machine-guns sputtered into flame, and each time the stretcher-bearers were called upon to do their duty. Yet the work went on to its accomplishment, without question, without slackening. The men were nearly all experts: they had handled pick and shovel from boyhood. Soldiers of the line would have worked quite as hard, maybe, but they would have taken twice as long. But these dour sons of Scotland worked like giants--trained giants. In four nights the trench, with traverses and approaches, was complete. The men who had made it fell back to their dug-outs, and shortly afterwards to their billets--there to spend the few odd francs which their separation allotments had left them, upon extremely hard-earned glasses of extremely small beer.
At home, several thousand patriotic Welshmen, fellows of the same craft, were upholding the dignity of Labour, and the reputation of the British Nation, by going out on strike for a further increase of pay--an increase which they knew a helpless Government would grant them. It was one of the strangest contrasts that the world has ever seen. But the explanation thereof, as proffered by Private Mucklewame, was quite simple and eminently sound.
"All the decent lads," he observed briefly, "are oot here."
"Good work!" said Wagstaffe, when Blaikie's tale was told. "What is the new trench for, exactly?"
Blaikie told him.
"Tell me more!" urged Wagstaffe, deeply interested.
Blaikie's statement cannot be set down here, though the substance of it may be common property to-day. When he had finished Wagstaffe whistled softly.
"And it's to be the day after to-morrow?" he said.
"Yes, if all goes well."
It was quite dark now. The horizon was brilliantly lit by the flashes of big guns, and a continuous roar came throbbing through the soft autumn darkness.
"If this thing goes with a click, as it ought to do," said Wagstaffe, "it will be the biggest thing that ever happened--bigger even than Charlie Chaplin."
"Yes--if!" assented the cautious Blaikie.
"It's a tremendous opportunity for our section of 'K(1),'" continued Wagstaffe. "We shall have a chance of making history over this, old man."
"Whatever we make--history or a bloomer--we'll do our level best," replied Blaikie. "At least, I hope 'A' Company will."
Then suddenly his reserved, undemonstrative Scottish tongue found utterance.
"Scotland for Ever!" he cried softly.