Chapter 10

One for me.

"I have no doubt I should have done so in a moment more," I said. "The fact is"--what cowards we are!--"I was preoccupied when you came in."

Black Hair looked adorably as if she didn't believe it.

"But anyway," I went on, "we must be serious. What would your people say?"

"We left word," said Red Hair, "that we were going off to do something for our country. They won't worry. Oh, please be kind and help us!"

Here all four of their beautiful eyes grew moist.

I could have hugged both of them, especially perhaps Black Hair, but I kept an iron hand on myself.

"You nice absurd creatures," I said, "do be reasonable. To begin with, passing the doctor is an absolute necessity. That shuts you out. But even if you got through, how do you think you would be helping your country? All the men would be falling in love with you; and that's bad enough as it is after working hours; it would be the ruin of discipline. And you could not bear the fatigue. No, go back and learn to be nurses and let your lovely hair grow again."

They were very obstinate and very unwilling to entertain the thought of drudgery such as nursing after all their dreams of excitement; but at last they came to reason, and I sent for a cab and packed them off in it (I simply could not bear the idea of other people seeing them in that masquerade), and told them that the sooner they changed the better.

After they had gone the Sergeant came in about something.

I said nothing, and he said nothing, each of us waiting for the other.

He moved about absolutely silently, and I dared not meet his glance because I knew I should give myself away. The rascal has not been running his eye over young women all these years without being able to tell them in a moment, even in navvy's clothes.

At last I could stand it no longer. "Damn it," I said, "what are you doing? Why don't you go? I didn't send for you." But still I didn't dare look up.

"I thought perhaps you had something to say to me, sir," he said.

"No, I haven't," I replied. "Why should I? What about?"

"Only about those two young men, sir," he replied.

"Get out," I said; but before he could go I had burst into laughter.

"Better not mention it," I managed to say.

He promised.

There--won't you find that useful?

Yours, C. S.

A Manor in the Air

The stately homes of England have ever numbered some very odd names. Every one remembers that beautiful Southern retreat whither, to the delight of the wags, Mr. Balfour often journeyed for his week-end holiday--"Clouds," the seat of the Wyndhams. Could there be a much more fascinating name than "Clouds"? And then there is "Wrest," the late Lord Lucas's Bedfordshire home, afterwards transformed, how suitably, into a hospital for soldiers. And there is that Midland paradise which, in the days of placid, even life, the editors of illustrated weeklies always recollected with gratitude when they were short of other pictures--"Compton Wynyates."

But the new name which I have just discovered, and which fills the inward eye with joy, is a house on a smaller scale than these--a manor-house rather than a mansion, perhaps one of the smallest that can be described as a "gentleman's place," but assuredly that. Somewhere in Sussex, western Sussex.

It is not near the station, and to reach it you walk or drive along winding roads just now sodden with rain, but smelling of the good wet Sussex leaves and mast and soil, with the Downs rising not too many miles away in the South. Then a turn into a narrow lane, with the bare trees of a copse on either side and a scurrying pheasant in front of you, and behold the white gate! There is no lodge--the house is just too small for that, as you can now see for yourself, for there it is, under the protection of the wood that rises behind it, so quiet and self-contained that you almost gasp.

Very old it is, but good for many years more. The frame is of timber and plaster, and a Horsham stone roof. These stones are a little damp and moss-covered (for our ancestors insisted on building in a hole, or where would Friday's fish come from?), and the place is as Tudor as Queen Bess herself, in whose reign its foundations were dug. The chimney stacks, all smoking with the thin blue smoke of logs, are of tiny Tudor bricks, and the chimneys are set not square with the house but cornerways. A long low façade with the central door in a square porch; the whole grave but serene.

A path of more Horsham stone leads to the door, with thyme and lavender springing from the interstices undismayed by the feet of man, and smooth lawns on each side, and under the diamond-paned windows a bed where in summer would be night stock and lemon verbena and tobacco plant and mignonette. On the roof a few white fantails; a spaniel near the door; and a great business of rooks in the sky. Through the windows of the lower rooms you see the greenery at the back of the house and a suggestion here and there of books and pictures--everything that makes a house a home.

Beside the house on the right are the stables; and on the other side is a dark shrubbery, and beyond that are more lawns and gardens and the fish-pond.

Do you see it? Perhaps you have already seen it differently; for how could you help forming some mental picture of it when in every carriage on the L.B. & S.C.R. is posted up the notice, "Passengers to Lower Blinds"?

To me "Lower Blinds," whither all these fortunate passengers are journeying, is just such a manor-house as that.

Rivalry

When I sat down on the seat facing the Row there was already on it a soldier in the familiar blue clothes. He had the red moustache which inevitably leads to the nickname of "Ginger," or possibly "Carrots," and he was smoking a cigarette. By his side were his crutches. After a minute or so a very tall figure, also in blue, hobbled towards us and took the space between Ginger and myself.

The freemasonry of arms has, I suppose, always, among rankers, made any introduction needless; but there has unhappily come in a new and a super freemasonry which goes beyond anything that uniform could do. I mean the freemasonry of mutilation. By reason of their wounds these strangers were as brothers.

At first they talked hospitals. Then regiments. Then Haig, of whom it has so finely and finally been said, by another British hero: "'Aig 'e don't say much; 'e don't, so to say, say nothin'; but what 'e don't say don't mean nothin', not 'arf. But when 'e do say something--my Gawd!" Then they came to grips and mentioned the cause of their injuries--bullet or shrapnel. Then the time and the place. Both had been hit in the knee, and this coincidence, operating like all coincidences, added to their friendliness. Their cigarettes finishing simultaneously, Ginger gave Six-foot-two one of his; and Six-foot-two offered his little packet to Ginger in exchange.

"Do you often come here?" Ginger asked.

"Every fine day," said Six-foot-two, "unless there's a ride in a brake or a free matinee on the tappy."

"I must look you up again," said Ginger.

"Do," said Six-foot-two. "When do you expect to leave?"

"I can't say," replied Ginger. "There's no knowing. You see mine's a very extraordinary case." He smiled complacently.

"That's funny. So's mine," said Six-foot-two.

"How do you mean--extraordinary?" the other asked a little sharply.

"Why, the doctors have had so much difficulty with it. It's a unique, they say. How many operations did you have?"

"How many did you have?" Ginger replied, with the caution of the challenged.

"Go on--I asked you first," said Six-foot-two. "Was it more than eight, anyway?"

"It was ten," said Ginger.

"Well, I had eleven," said Six-foot-two proudly. "They went after those bullets eleven times. But they're all out now. I had every doctor in the place round me."

"So did I," said Ginger, "and one of my bullets isn't out yet. It's right in the bone. They're going to try again soon." He had quite recovered his good-humour.

"What about your patella?" Six-foot-two inquired after a pause.

"My what?"

"Your patella. Do you mean to say the doctors didn't talk about that?"

"I dare say they may have done, but I don't remember. Still, _our_ doctors don't talk much--they act."

"Well, so do ours. There aren't better doctors in the world than at our place, I can tell you. It's common knowledge. Why, Sir Rashleigh Hewitt is there every day--the great Sir Rashleigh Hewitt, the King's doctor."

"Well, the King has more than one. Sir Frank Carver is another, and he's at our place day and night. He's a masterpiece."

"I've always understood," said Six-foot-two, "that Sir Rashleigh is at the very head of his profession. The nurses say so."

"He may be for some things," Ginger conceded. "But not the knee. Sir Frank Carver is the crack knee man. Now if you'd been at our place I dare say that one operation would have been enough for you."

"Enough? What rot! How could it be enough, with all the complications? I tell you it's a unique, my case."

"Yes, it may be. But what I'm getting at is that it might not be if you'd had Sir Frank Carver, the great knee specialist, at it at once."

"Oh, give Sir Frank Carver a rest. Sir Rashleigh Hewitt's good enough for me and for anyone else who knows."

"All right," said Ginger. "Keep your hair on!"

"My hair's on right enough," said Six-foot-two. "It's you who are getting ratty."

There was a pause, and both lighted new cigarettes, each taking one of his own.

"What puzzles me," Six-foot-two began slowly, "is no one saying anything about your patella. That's the great marvel of my case--my patella. It's full of holes, like a sieve. There's never been one like it before. The profession's wild about it. That's what makes me so interesting to them."

"Where is it, anyway?" Ginger snapped out.

"In the knee, of course."

"In the knee! Well, if it's in the knee mine must be full of holes too. I've got everything you can have in the knee, I tell you. Everything."

"Have they written anything about you in the papers?" Six-foot-two asked. "No. Ah," he went on triumphantly, "they have about me. There's a medical paper with a piece in it all about my patella. I sent it home and they've framed it. It's the most astonishing thing in surgery that I should be able to be walking about at all."

"That's what they tell _me_," Ginger replied. "But, anyhow, your bullets are all out. I've got another one yet, and by the time that's out I dare say I shall have had twenty operations and a whole column in the papers. But as for articles in papers, they're nothing. Have you got your X-ray photograph?"

"No," Six-foot-two admitted.

"They gave me mine," said Ginger. "I sent it home. It's over the mantelpiece, my mother says. People come from miles to look at it. It's a pity you didn't get yours. That was foolish of you, if I may say so. Well, so long. I'm having tea to-day with one of our grand lady visitors in Rutland Gate. If you don't see me here when you come again, the chances are I shall be having my next operation. So long!"

"So long!" said Six-foot-two.

Ginger on his crutches moved away.

"Extraordinary," Six-foot-two murmured, either to me or to himself or to the Park at large, "how some blokes always want to be the most important things in the world."

A First Communion in the War Zone

Everyone who has made a stay in Paris or in any French town, and has been at all observant, must have noticed, either singly or in little groups, that prettiest of the flora and fauna of Roman Catholic countries, a "first communicant" in her radiant and spotless attire--from white shoes to white veil, and crown of innocence over all. One sees them usually after the ceremony, soberly marching through the streets, or flitting from this friend to that like runaway lilies. Prinking and preening a little in the shop windows, too; and no wonder, for it is something to be thus clad and thus important; and never will such clothes be worn by these wearers again. Meanwhile the younger children envy, and little attendant bodies of proud relations somewhere in the vicinity admire and exult.

If I write as if all "first communicants" are little girls, it is because it is the little girls who are the most noticeable. And who cares about little boys anyway? Yet boys communicate too, and in their broad white collars and with their knots of white ribbon they may also be seen, although less frankly delighted; indeed, often a little self-conscious and ashamed. But the little girls, who know instinctively that women are the backbone of the Roman Catholic Church, they are natural and full of happy pride; they carry it off with style.

In the spring of 1915 it was my fortune not only to know personally a bouquet of these eager little French pietists, but to be present as one of the congregation at the great event--their _première communion_. It was not in Paris, nor in a town at all, but far away in the country, in a village where the guns of Verdun could be heard in the lulls of the service. There were six little girls in all, and I saw them pass into the safe keeping of their new mother, the Church of Rome, and in visible token receive from the officiating hands a pictorial certificate so chromatically violent that it could not but satisfy any childish eyes and, under such conditions of emotional excitement, must ever remain as a symbol of their consecration. I heard, too, the curé's address to these lambs, in which he briefly outlined the life and character of Christ and of certain of the disciples, coming to each with much the same tender precision and ecstasy as a fastidious and enthusiastic collector to the choicest porcelain.

But what chiefly interested me was the form of the vow which the good curé--one of the best of men, who, in September 1914, saw his church reduced to ruins and most of his parish destroyed by fire by the invading Huns, and never budged from his post--had himself recently drawn up for such occasions. What the usual form of such documents is I cannot say, but in view of the serious plight of France and the renaissance of patriotic fervour in the brave and unconquerable French nation, the curé had infused into this one an element of public duty hitherto omitted.

At the end of the "jolie cérémonie," as in conversation he called it, and as it truly was, I asked him for a copy of this admirable catechism, and here are a few of its questions and answers.

The title is "A Promise to be a good Christian and a good Citizen of France":

_Q. What is the road to Heaven?_

_A. That which my mother, the Holy Roman Church, shows me. If I follow it, I am convinced that, while gaining happiness for myself, I shall increase the glory of my family and the honour of my country._

_Q. Does the Church command you to obey the legitimate laws of your country?_

_A. Yes; and I must be ready, if needful, to give my blood for her._ (Poor little white peacocks!)

_Q. On whom do you count to assist you?_

_A. Here, on earth, on my parents and on my instructors. Above, on God, on the angels and the saints, and principally on my guardian angel, on the holy Saint Peter, and on the blessed Joan of Arc._

_Q. Who are your enemies?_

_A. The enemies of France, and those who, all unenlightened, attack the Church._

_Q. What is your ambition?_

_A. To see France victorious and united in a bond of love with the Church, to see her add to the tricolour the Image of the Sacred Heart, and to see her take soon her place at the head of the nations._

Is not that rather fine? It must be to the good thus to blend religion and patriotism. I know that, especially on that soil over which the Germans had spread so devastatingly, one could not listen to these fresh young voices raised together in such idealism without a quickened heart.

The Ace of Diamonds

The French, always so quick to give things names--and so liberal about it that, to the embarrassment and undoing of the unhappy foreigner, they sometimes invent fifty names for one thing--have added so many words to the vocabulary since August 1914 that a glossary, and perhaps more than one, has been published to enshrine them. Without the assistance of this glossary it is almost impossible to understand some of the numerous novels of Poilu life.

By no means the least important of these creations is the infinitesimal word "as"--or rather, it is a case of adaptation. Yesterday "as des carreaux" (to give the full form) stood simply for ace of diamonds. To-day all France, with that swift assimilation which has ever been one of its many mysteries, knows its new meaning and applies it. And what is this new meaning?

Well "as" has two. Originally it was applied strictly to flying men, and it was reserved to signify an aviator who had brought down his fifth enemy machine. Had he brought down only four he was a gallant fellow enough, but he was not an "as." One more and he was an ace of diamonds, that card being the fifth honour in most French games as well as in Bridge.

So much for the first and exact meaning of the term. But later, as I gather from a number of _La Baïonnette_ devoted to its uses, the word has been extended to cover all kinds of obscure heroes, the men, and they are by no means rare, who do wonderful things but do not get into the papers or receive medals or any mention in dispatches. We all know that many of the finest deeds performed in war escape recognition. One does not want to suggest that V.C.'s and D.S.O.'s and Military Crosses and all the other desirable tokens of valour are conferred wrongly. Nothing of the kind. They are nobly deserved. But probably there never was a recipient of the V.C. or the D.S.O. or the Military Cross who could not--and did not wish to--tell his Sovereign, when the coveted honour was being pinned to his breast, of some other soldier not less worthy than himself of being decorated, whose deed of gallantry was performed under less noticeable conditions. The performer of such a deed is an "as" and it is his luck to be a not public hero.

The "as" can be found in every branch of the army, and he is recognized as one by his comrades, even although the world at large is ignorant. Perhaps we shall find a word for his British correlative, who must be numerically very strong too. The letter A alone might do it, signifying anonymous. "Voilà, un as!" says the French soldier, indicating one of these brave modest fellows who chances to be passing. "You see that chap," one of our soldiers would say; "he's an A."

That satirical child of the war, _La Baïonnette_ every week devotes itself, as its forerunner, _L'Assiette an Beurre_, used to do, to one theme at a time, one phase or facet of the struggle, usually in the army, but also in civil life, where changes due to the war steadily occur. In the number dedicated to the glory of the "as" I find recorded an incident of the French Army so moving that I want to tell it here, very freely, in English. It was, says the writer, before the attack at Carency--and he vouches for the accuracy of his report, for he was himself present. In the little village of Camblain-l'Abbé a regiment was assembled, and to them spoke their captain. The scene was the yard of a farm. I know so well what it was like. The great manure heap in the middle; the carts under cover, with perhaps one or two American reapers and binders among them; fowls pecking here and there; a thin predatory dog nosing about; a cart-horse peering from his stable and now and then scraping his hoofs; a very wide woman at the dwelling-house door; the old farmer in blue linen looking on; and there, drawn up, listening to their captain, row on row of blue-coated men, all hard-bitten, weary, all rather cynical, all weather-stained and frayed, and all ready to go on for ever.

This is what the captain said--a tall thin man of about thirty, speaking calmly and naturally as though he was reading a book. "I have just seen the Colonel," he said; "he has been in conference with the Commandant, and this is what has been settled. In a day or two it is up to us to attack. You know the place and what it all means. At such and such an hour we shall begin. Very well. Now this is what will happen. I shall be the first to leave the trench and go over the top, and I shall be killed at once. So far so good. I have arranged with the two lieutenants for the elder of them to take my place. He also will almost certainly be killed. Then the younger will lead, and after him the sergeants in turn, according to their age, beginning with the oldest who was with me at Saïda before the war. What will be left by the time you have reached the point I cannot say, but you must be prepared for trouble, as there is a lot of ground to cover, under fire. But you will take the point and hold it. Fall out."

That captain was an "as."

The Reward of our Brother the Poilu

We often talk of the best poem which the war has produced; and opinions usually vary. My own vote, so far as England is concerned, is still given to Julian Grenfell's lyric of the fighting man; but if France is to be included too, one must consider very seriously the claims of _La Passion de Notre Frère le Poilu_, by Marc Leclerc, which may be had in a little slender paper-covered book, at a cost, in France, where it has been selling in its thousands, of one franc twenty-five. This poem I have been reading with a pleasure that calls to be shared with others, for it is not only very touching and very beautiful, but it has also certain of those qualities which are more thoroughly appreciated in company. Beauty and tenderness can make their appeal alone; but humour demands two at least and does not resent a crowd, and the humour of this little masterpiece is very deep and true.

Did I say I had been reading it? That is to use words with unjustifiable looseness; rather should I say that I have been in part reading and in part guessing at it; for it is written in the Angevin patois, which is far beyond my linguistic capacity. Not that Captain Leclerc is a rustic; on the contrary, he is a man of culture and the author of several books, chiefly on and about Anjou, one of which has illustrations from his own hand; but it has amused him in this poem to employ his native dialect, while, since he, like so many French authors, is fighting, the soldierly part of it is authentic.

It was a poor devil of a Poilu--it begins--and he went to the war, automatically enough, knowing without any words about it that the soil which he cultivated must also be defended. That was his duty. After suffering the usual ills of the campaign, suddenly a 210 burst near him, and he never rallied. He just had time to give a few messages to the corporal before he died. "You must tell my wife," he said, "but do it gradually; say, I'm ill first. Give what money I have here to my pals," and so forth. Then, after repeating his testament, he passed quietly away.

On reaching the gate of Heaven the Poilu finds St. Peter beating the mats. "Wipe your shoes," St. Peter says, "and take the right-hand corridor. The Judgment Hall is at the end." All trembling, the poor fellow passes along the corridor, at the end of which an angel in white takes down particulars as to his name, his class, and so forth, and tells him that he is expected. Entering the Judgment Hall, the Poilu is bewildered by its austerity and splendour. The Good God is at the head, between Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin. All the saints are there, and the Poilu notices particularly the military ones--St. George, St. Hubert, St. Michael, St. Leonard, St. Marcel, St. Charlemagne, St. Martin, St. Sulpice, St. Barbe, St. Maurice, and St. Jeanne d'Arc. Seeing all these famous soldiers, he exclaims, "It's a Conseil de Guerre! Perhaps I can slip away." But escape is impossible, and at this moment the Good God tells him to begin his history.