Part 7

“Discipline, sir,” said the General, “discipline is lacking in your company! You have a sentry on duty at the head of Chelwyn Road. A sentry! What does he do when he sees me? Not a damn thing, sir! Not a damn thing!”

Of course the O.C. “AK” made a bad break; one always does under such circumstances.

“He may not have seen you, sir.”

G.S.O. one moved forward in support, so that if overcome the General could fall back on his centre.

A whizz-bang burst in 94--we were in 98--and the Staff ducked, taking the time from the front. The Aides carried out the movement particularly smartly, resuming the upright position in strict rotation.

The General fixed us with a twin Flammenwerfer gaze.

“What’s that? Not _see_ me? What the devil is he there for, sir? I shall remember this, Captain--ah, Roberts--I shall remember this!”

Pause.

“Where is your Vermoral sprayer?”

Like lambkins followed by voracious lions, we lead them to the Vermoral sprayer.

I was at the retaking of Hill 60, at Ypres long months ago, at Festubert and Givenchy, but never was I so inspired with dread as now.

Praise be to Zeus, the V.S. was full!

We passed on, until we reached a bomber cleaning bombs. The General paused. The bomber, stood to attention, firmly grasping a bomb in the right hand, knuckles down, forearm straight.

“Ha!” said the General. “Ha! Bombs, what?”

The bomber remained apparently petrified.

“What I always say about these bombs,” the General continued, turning to the Brigadier, “is that they’re so damn simple, what? A child can use them. You can throw them about, and, provided the pin is in, no harm will come of it. But”--looking sternly at me--“_always_ make sure the pin is safely imbedded in the base of the bomb. That is the first duty of a man handling bombs.”

We all murmured assent, faintly or otherwise, according to rank.

“Give me that bomb,” said the General to the bomber, waxing enthusiastic. The man hesitated. The General glared, the bomb became his.

We stood motionless around him. “You see, gentlemen,” the General continued jocularly. “I take this bomb, and I throw it on the ground--so! It does not explode, it cannot explode, the fuse is not lit, for the pin----”

Just then the bomber leapt like a fleeting deer round the corner, but the General was too engrossed to notice him.

“As I say, the pin----”

A frightened face appeared round the bay, and a small shaky voice broke in:

“Please, sir, it’s a five-second fuse--an’ _I ’ad took HOUT the pin_!”

* * * * *

After all the General reached the traverse in time and we were not shot at dawn. But G.S.O. one has gone to England “Wounded and shell-shock.”

SOFT JOBS

This war has produced a new type of military man--so-called--to wit: the seeker after soft jobs. He flourishes in large numbers in training areas; he grows luxuriantly around head-quarters staffs, and a certain kind of hybrid--a combination of a slacker and a soldier--is to be found a few miles to the rear of the firing-line in France and Flanders. There are some of him in every rank, from the top of the tree to the bottom. If he is a natural-born soft-jobber he never leaves his training area--not even on a Cook’s tour. Should the virus be latent, he will develop an attack, acute or mild, after one tour in the trenches, or when one of our own batteries has fired a salvo close by him.

If he is affected by very mild germs he may stand a month or two in the firing-line in some sector where fighting troops are sent for a rest and re-organisation. Broadly speaking, therefore, he belongs to one of three classes, of which the second class is perhaps the worst.

There are some men who join the army without the least intention of ever keeping less than the breadth of the English Channel between themselves and fighting territory. Not for them the “glorious” battle-fields, not for them the sweat and toil and purgatory of fighting for their country. Nothing at all for them in fact, save a ribbon and a barless medal, good quarters, perfect safety, staff pay, weekend leave, with a few extra days thrown in as a reward for their valuable services, and--a soft job!

They are the militaresques of our armies. The men who try hard to be soldiers, and who only succeed in being soldier-like beings erect upon two legs, with all the outward semblance of a soldier. Yet even _their_ lives are not safe. They run grave risks by day and by night in the service of their country.

Zeppelins!

There is an air of bustle and excitement around the officers’ quarters in the training camp to-day. Batmen--hoary-haired veterans with six ribbons, whom no M.O. could be induced to pass for active service, even by tears--rush madly hither and thither, parleying in odd moments of Ladysmith, Kabul to Kandahar, and “swoddies.” Head-quarters look grave, tense, strained.

In the ante-room to the mess stand soda syphons and much “B. & W.” There are gathered there most of the officers of two regiments--base battalions, with permanent training staffs. In the five seats of honour recline nonchalantly two majors, one captain, and two subalterns. (O.C. Lewis gun school, O.C. nothing in particular, Assistant O.C. Lewis gun school, Assistant Assistant Lewis gun school, Deputy Assistant Adjutant.) They are smoking large, fat cigars, and consuming many drinks. Are they not the heroes of the hour? When the sun rises well into the heavens to-morrow they will set forth on a desperate journey.

They are going on a Cook’s tour of two weeks’ duration to the trenches! (So that they can have the medal!) In the morning, with bad headaches, they depart. In Boulogne they spend twelve hours of riotous life. (“Let us eat and drink,” says the O.C. nothing in particular, “for to-morrow, dont-cher-know!”) They arrive in due course at Battalion battle H.Q. The majors have the best time, as they stay with the C.O., drink his Scotch, and do the bombing officer and the M.G.O. out of a bed.

The rest of them are right up among the companies, where they are an infernal nuisance. About 11 “pip emma” Fritz starts fire-works, and finishes up with a bombing attack on the left flank. The O.C. nothing in particular stops at B.H.Q. The O.C. Lewis gun school mistakes the first general head-quarters line (one kilometre in rear) for the front line, and goes back with shell-shock, having been in the centre of a barrage caused by one 5.9 two hundred yards north. The Assistant Assistant gets into the main bomb store in the front line, and stops there, and the Assistant O.C. Lewis gun school remains in Coy. H.Q. and looks after the batmen. The Deputy Assistant Adjutant gets out into the trench, finds some bombers doing nothing, gets hold of a couple of bombs, makes for the worst noise, and carries on as a soldier should.

After the show the O.C. nothing in particular tells the Colonel all _his_ theories on counter-attack, and goes sick in the morning for the remaining period of his tour; the other twain stand easy, and the Deputy Assistant Adjutant makes an application for transfer to the Battalion. Incidentally he is recommended for the military cross.

When the four previously mentioned return to England they all of them apply for better soft jobs, on the strength of recent experiences at the front. The one man who threw up his soft job to become junior subaltern in a fighting regiment is killed in the next “show” before his recommendation for a decoration has been finally approved.

_Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum._

“GROUSE”

We aren’t happy; our clothes don’t fit, and we ain’t got no friends! Rations are not up yet--confound the Transport Officer--it’s raining like the dickens, as dark as pitch, and we’ve only got one bit of candle. Some one has pinched a jar of rum, that idiot batman of mine can’t find a brazier, and young John has lost his raincoat. In fact it’s a rotten war.

We had lobster for lunch; it has never let us forget we had it! The Johnny we “took over” from _said_ there were 7698 million bombs in the Battalion grenade store, and there are only 6051. The Adjutant has just sent a “please explain,” which shows what you get for believing a fellow.

The little round fat chap has left his gumboots (thigh) “Somewhere in France,” and fell into the trench tramway trying to wear an odd six on the right foot, and an odd nine on the left. George has busted the D string of the mandoline, and A. P. has lost the only pack of cards we had to play poker with.

It’s a simply _rotten_ war!

John has a working-party out of sixty “other ranks” and says they are spread in two’s and three’s over a divisional frontage. He has made two trips to locate them, and meditates a third. His language is positively hair-raising. If he falls into any more shell-holes no one will let him in the dug-out.

Those confounded brigade machine gunners are firing every other second just in front of the dug-out. Heaven knows what they are firing at, or where, but how a man could be expected to sleep through the noise only a siege artillery man could tell you.

George went out on a “reconnaissance” recently. George is great on doing reconnaissances and drawing maps. This time the reconnaissance did _him_, and the only map he’s yet produced is mud tracings on his person. Incidentally he says that _all_ the communication trenches are impassable, and that no one but a cat could go over the top and keep on his feet for more than thirty seconds. (N.B.--George fell into the main support line and had to be pulled out by some of John’s working-party.) George says that if the Germans come over it’s all up. Cheerful sort of beggar, George.

My new smoke-helmet--the one you wear round your neck all the time, even in your dreams--is lost again. This is the third time in the course of six hours. The gas N.C.O. has calculated that with the wind at its present velocity we should be gassed in one and three-quarter seconds, not counting the recurring decimal.

John has just told a story about a bayonet. It would be funny at any other time. Now, it simply sticks!

The cook has just come in to say our rations have been left behind by mistake. Troubles never come singly. May heaven protect the man who is responsible if we get him! John has told another story, about an Engineer. It can’t be true, for he says this chap was out in No Man’s Land digging a trench. No one ever knew a Canadian Engineer do anything but tell the infantry how to work. It’s a rotten story, anyhow.

Just look at this dug-out; a bottle of rum on the table--empty. The odd steel helmet, some dirty old newspapers, and a cup or two (empty!), and a pile of strafes from the Adjutant six inches thick. My bed has a hole in it as big as a “Johnson ’ole,” and there are rats. Also the place is inhabited by what the men call “crumbs.” Poetic version of a painful fact.

John says this is the d--est outfit he has ever been in. John is right. My gumboots were worn by the Lance-Corporal in No. 2 platoon, and they are wet, beastly wet. Also my batman has forgotten to put any extra socks in my kit-bag. Also he’s lost my German rifle--the third I’ve bought for twenty francs and lost.

This is a _deuce_ of a war!

The mail has just arrived. George got five, the little round fat fellow _nine_, A. P. two, and John and me shake hands with a duck’s-egg. Still the second mentioned has his troubles. One of his many inamoratas has written to him in French. He knows French just about as well as he knows how to sing! Nuff said!

John has “parti’d” to his triple-starred working-party. The men have not got any letters either. You should hear them! The most expert “curser” of the Billingsgate fishmarket would turn heliotrope with envy. George is feeling badly too. He lent his flash-light to dish out rations with. That is to say, to illuminate what the best writers of nondescript fiction call the “Cimmerian gloom!”

A. P. has had letters from his wife. Lucky dog! She takes up four pages telling him how she adores him.

This is a _beastly_ rotten war.

Fritz is a rotter too. My dug-out is two hundred yards north by nor’-east. Every time I have to make the trip he never fails to keep the Cimmerian gloom strictly “Cim.” And the bath-mats are broken in two places, and I’ve found both of them every time.

Another strafe from the Adjutant. May jackals defile his grave, but he’ll never have one in France, anyhow. “Please render an account to Orderly Room of the number of men in your unit who are qualified plumbers.”

We haven’t any.

If we had we should have mended the hole in the roof, which leaks on John’s bed. It has only just begun to leak. It will be fun to hear what John says when he comes back. Only he may be speechless.

The little round fat fellow is still reading letters, and A. P. is hunting in his nether garments. “Kinder scratterin’ aroun’!” So far the bag numbers five killed and two badly winged, but still on the run.

Somebody has turned out the guard. Yells of fire. After due inspection proves to be the C.O.’s tunic. It was a new one! May his batman preserve himself in one piece.

More yells of “Guard turn out!” Support my tottering footsteps! Our--that is to say _my_ dug-out is on fire.... Confusion.... Calm.... I have no dug-out, no anything.... This is, pardonnez-moi, a Hell of a war!

PANSIES

There are some pansies on my table, arranged in a broken glass one of the men has picked up among the rubble and débris of this shattered town. Dark mauve and yellow pansies, pretty, innocent looking little things. “Pansies--that’s for thoughts.”

Transport is rattling up and down the street--guns, limbers, G.S. wagons, water-carts, God knows what, and there are men marching along, mud-caked, weary, straggling, clinging fast to some German souvenir as they come one way; jaunty, swinging, clean, with bands a-blowing as they go the other. It is a dull grey day. There is “something doing” up the line. I can hear the artillery, that ceaseless artillery, pounding and hammering, and watch the scout aeroplanes, dim grey hawks in the distance, from the windows of the room above--the broken-down room with the plasterless ceiling, and the clothes scattered all over the floor.

“Pansies--that’s for thoughts.”

The regiment is up yonder--the finest regiment God ever made. They are wallowing in the wet, sticky mud of the trenches they have dug themselves into, what is left of them. They are watching and waiting, always watching and waiting for the enemy to attack.

And they are being bombarded steadily, pitilessly, without cessation. Some will be leaning against the parapet, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion, some will be watching, some smoking, if they have got any smokes left. I know them. Until the spirit leaves their bodies they will grin and fight, fight and grin, but always “Carry On.”

Last night they went up to relieve the --th, after they had just come out of the line, and were themselves due to be relieved. Overdue, in fact, but the General knew that he could rely on them, knew that THEY would never give way, while there was a man left to fire a rifle. So he used them--as they have always been used, and as they always will be--to hold the line in adversity, to take the line when no one else could take it.

We have been almost wiped out five times, but the old spirit still lives, the Spirit of our mighty dead. There are always enough “old men” left, even though they number but a score, with whom to leaven the lump of raw, green rookies that come to us, and to turn them into soldiers worthy of the Regiment.

Dark mauve pansies.

I knew all the old soldiers of the Brigade, I have fought with them, shaken hands with them afterwards--those who survived--mourned with them our pals who were gone--buried many a one of them.

This time I am out of it. Alone with the pansies ... and my thoughts. Thomson was killed last night; Greaves, Nicholson, Townley, between then and now. Nearly all the rest are wounded. Those who come back will talk of this fight, they will speak of hours and events of which I shall know nothing. For the first time I shall be on the outer fringe, mute ... with only ears to hear, and no heart to speak.

Perhaps they will come out to-morrow night. Or, early, very early the following morning. They will be tired--so tired they are past feeling it--unshaven, unwashed, and covered with mud from their steel helmets down to the soles of their boots. But they will be fairly cheerful. They will try to sing on the long, long march back here, as I have heard them so many times before. When they reach the edge of the town they will try to square their weary shoulders, and to keep step--and they will do it, too, heaven only knows _how_, but they will do it. Their leader will feel very proud of them, which is only right and proper. He will call them “boys,” encourage the weak, inwardly admire and bless the strong. And he will be proud of the mud and dirt, proud of his six days’ growth of beard. Satisfied; because he has just done one more little bit, and the Good Lord has pulled him through it.

When they get to their billets they will cheer; discordantly, but cheer none the less. They will crowd into the place, and drop their kits and themselves on top of them, to sleep the sleep of the just--the well-earned sleep of utter fatigue.

In the morning they will feel better, and they will glance at you with an almost affectionate look in their eyes, for they know--as the men always know--whether you have proved yourself, whether you have made good--or failed.

“Pansies ... that’s for thoughts....”

And I am out of it--out of it _ALL_ ... preparing “To re-organise what is left of the regiment.”

For God’s sake, Holman, take away those flowers!

GOING BACK

A large crowd packed the wide platform, hemmed in on one side by a barrier, on the other by a line of soldiers two paces apart. The boat-train was leaving in five minutes. That a feeling of tension permeated the crowd was evident, from the forced smiles and laughter, and the painful endeavours of the departing ones to look preternaturally cheerful. In each little group there were sudden silences.

Almost at the last moment a tall, lean officer pressed through the crowd, made for a smoking-carriage, and got in. He surveyed the scene with a rather compassionate interest, while occasionally a wistful look passed over his face as he watched for a moment an officer talking with a very pretty girl, almost a child, who now and then mopped her eyes defiantly with a diminutive handkerchief.

“All aboard.”

The pretty girl lifted up her face, and the lonely one averted his eyes, pulled a newspaper hastily from his overcoat pocket, and proceeded to read it upside down!

As the train pulled out of the station a cheer went up and handkerchiefs fluttered. The sole other occupant of the carriage, a young--very young--subaltern who had just said good-bye to his mother, muttered to himself and blinked hard out of the window. The Lonely One shrugged himself more deeply into his seat, and abstractedly reversed the newspaper. A paragraph caught his eye: “Artillery activity developed yesterday in the sector south of Leuville St. Vaast. An enemy attempt to raid our trenches at this point was foiled.” He smiled a trifle, and putting down the paper fell to thinking. Unable to contain himself any longer, the boy in the corner spoke.

“Rotten job, this going back show,” he said. The other assented gravely, and they fell to talking, spasmodically, of the Front. Pure, undiluted shop, but very comforting.

Finally the train arrived at the port of embarkation. A crowd of officers of all ranks surged along the platform, glanced at the telegram board, and passed on towards the boat. The Lonely One stopped, however, for his name in white chalk stared at him. He got the telegram eventually and opened it. It contained only two words and no signature: “Good luck.” Flushing a trifle he walked down to the waiting mail-boat, and getting his disembarkation card passed up the gangway.

An air of impenetrable gloom hung over the dirty decks. Here and there a few men chatted together, but for the most part the passengers kept to themselves. The lonely man found the young lieutenant waiting for him, and together they mounted to the upper deck, and secured two chairs aft, hanging their life-belts on to them.

A little later the boat cast off, and they watched the land fade from sight as many others were watching with them. “Ave atque Vale.”

“I wonder ...” said the youngster, and then bit his lips.

“Come below and have some grub,” the other said cheerily. They ate, paid for it through the nose, and felt better. Half an hour later they were in Boulogne.

As they waited outside the M.L.O.’s office for their turn, the younger asked:

“I say, what Army are you?”

“First.”

“So’m I,” joyfully, “p’raps we’ll go up together.”

“I hope so, but we shall have to stop here the night, I expect.”

Even as he said so a notice was hung outside the little wooden office: “Officers of the First Army returning from leave will report to the R.T.O., Gare Centrale, at 10.00 A.M. to-morrow, Saturday, 17th instant.”

“That settles it,” said the elder man, “come along, and we’ll go to the Officers’ Club and bag a couple of beds.”

“Nineteen hours,” wailed the other, “in this beastly place! What on earth shall we find to do?”

“Don’t worry about that--there is usually some one to whom one can write.” It was both a hint and a question.

“Yes--ra--_ther_!”

They had tea, and afterwards the boy wrote a long letter, in which he said a great deal more to the mother who received it than was actually written on the paper. The Lonely One sat for some time in front of the fire, and finally scribbled a card. It was addressed to some place in the wilds of Scotland, and it bore the one word “Thanks.”

After dinner they sat and smoked awhile. The Lonely One knew much of the life-history of the other by now. It had burst from the boy, and the Lonely One had listened sympathetically and with little comment, and had liked to hear it. It is good to hear a boy talk about his mother.

“What shall we do now?”

“We might go to the cinema show; it used to be fairly good.”

“Right-oh! I say”--a little diffidently--“last time I was on leave, the first time too, I came back with some fellows who were pretty--well--pretty hot stuff. They wanted me to go to a--to a place up in the town, and I didn’t go. I think they thought I was an awful blighter, don’t-you-know, but----”

“What that kind of chap thinks doesn’t matter in the least, old man,” interposed the other. “You were at Cambridge, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you may have heard the old tag? Besides, I don’t think--some one--somebody ...” he hesitated and stopped. The youngster flushed.

“Yes, I know,” he said softly.

They boarded the train together, and shared the discomforts of the long tedious journey. Every hour, or less, the train stopped, for many minutes, and then with a creak and a groan wandered on again like an ancient snail. Rain beat on the window-panes, and the compartment was as drafty as a sieve.

It was not until the small hours that they reached their destination, a cold, bleak, storm-swept platform.

“This is where we say good-bye,” the youngster began regretfully, “thanks awf’ly for----”

“Rot,” broke in the other brusquely, taking the proffered hand in his big brown one. “Best of luck, old man, and don’t forget to drop me a card.”

“A nice boy, a _very_ nice boy,” he mused, as he climbed into the military bus, and was rattled off, back to the mud and slush and dreariness of it all.

“Have a good time?” asked the Transport Officer the next morning, as the Lonely One struggled into his fighting kit, preparatory to rejoining the battalion in the trenches.

“Yes, thanks. By the way, any mail for me?”

“One letter. Here you are.”