Chapter 7

In every regiment in every army you will find a little group of men who were tramps and beggars and thieves, and, almost without exception, they have "made good." For the first time in their lives they have been accepted as members of great society, and not driven away as outcasts. The Army has welcomed them, disciplined them, and taught them the elements of self-respect--a quality whose very existence they ignored before the war.

There is an Italian proverb--"Tutto il mondo è paese"--which means, in its broadest sense, "All the world is ruled by the same passion and qualities." In the old days it needed a Dickens, and, later, a Neil Lyons to discover the qualities of the criminal classes; now war has brought us all together--the erstwhile city merchant warms himself before the same brazier as the man who would have picked his pocket three years before--and we suddenly find that we are no better than the beggar, and that a man who stole apples from a stall is no worse at heart than the inhabitant of Mayfair.

It is not that our ideas of greatness have degenerated when we call these men heroes; it is not that war is entirely a thing of evil, so that the criminal shines as a warrior--it is that these "outcasts" have changed. Statistics prove that crime has decreased since the war began, and crime will continue to decrease, for that indefinable instinct we call patriotism has seized on all classes alike, so that the criminal can make the supreme sacrifice just as magnificently as the man who has "kept straight" all his life.

And the best of it is that this reform among burglars and beggars is not for the "duration of the war only." War has lost us our sons and our fathers, it has brought appalling sorrow and suffering into the world, but it has given the very poor a chance they have never had before. No more are they outcasts; they are members of society, and such they will remain. If this were all the good that war could do, it would still be our ultimate gain that the great scourge is passing over the world.

XIX

"PONGO" SIMPSON ON OFFICERS

"Orficers," said "Pongo" Simpson, "is rum blokes. I've got a fam'ly of six kids back at 'ome, not counting Emma what's in service, an' I reckon my orficer's more trouble to look after nor all the lot of 'em put together. It's always: 'Simpson, where the dooce is my puttees?' or 'Simpson, you've sewed this 'ere button on in the wrong place,' or 'Simpson, the soup tastes like cocoa and the cocoa tastes like soup'--does 'e expect me to kerry a bloomin' collection of canteens? Don't 'e think it better to 'ave cocoa what's got a bit o' soup in it than to 'ave a canteen what's been washed in a shell 'ole along of a dead 'Un? Why, if we was goin' to charge to Berlin to-morrer I'd 'ave to spend 'arf the night cleanin' 'is boots and buttons.

"Yes, 'e's a funny sort o' bloke, my orficer, but, my Gawd!"--and here Simpson expectorated to give emphasis to his statement--"I'd foller 'im against a crowd of 'Uns, or a lot of wimmen what's waiting for their 'usbands what ain't come 'ome at three in the morning, or anythink else you like. 'E's an 'elpless sort of chap, an' 'e's got funny ideas about shavin' and washin'--sort of disease, you know--but 'e's a good sort when you knows 'is little ways.

"Do you remember that young Mr. Wilkinson?" asked "Pongo," and a few of the "old hands" in the dug-out nodded affirmatively. "'E was a one, 'e was," resumed "Pongo." "Do you remember the day we was gassed on 'Ill 60? 'E used to be my bloke then, and I was with 'im all the time. 'E was a proper lad! When the gas 'ad gone over there was only five of A Company left, with 'im in charge, and we knew as 'ow the 'Uns would attack as soon as they thought we was properly wiped out. And Mr. Wilkinson was fine. All down the trench 'e put blokes' rifles on the parapet, and the 'ole bloomin' six of us ran up an' down the trench like a lot of rabbits, firin' off rifle after rifle till the Alleymans must 'ave thought we was an 'ole battalion. The only times when Mr. Wilkinson wasn't firin' rifles, 'e was fusin' bombs, jest as busy as that little girl be'ind the counter of the Nag's 'Ead of a Saturday night. 'E must 'ave sent a good number of 'Uns 'ome that day with bits of bombs inside of them.

"And you should 'a' seen Mr. Wilkinson when the Sergeant wos for givin' in and goin' back to the second line! We'd all the gas in us more or less, and 'e could 'ardly talk, 'e was that bad, but when 'e 'eard the Sergeant say as 'ow 'e was goin' back, 'e shouted like the Colonel on a battalion parade. 'Curse you, Sergeant!' 'e yelled, 'what's the good of goin' back? We've got to 'old this trench or 'op it. If you don't like the air down there, come up on the parapet with me.' And up 'e jumps on to the parapet with the gas clearin' away, and the Fritzes only 30 or 40 yards off.

"'It? Why, of course 'e was 'it. 'E was laughin' like a kid what's stealin' apples--all excited like--when they got 'im right through the 'ead, and 'e fell down on the other side of the parapet. But 'e'd done what 'e wanted to, for the Sergeant wasn't talkin' any more about goin' back. 'E crawled out over the parapet and brought poor Mr. Wilkinson back, and got 'it in the leg while 'e was doin' it, too. But that didn't matter to 'im, for 'e was out to 'ave 'is own back, was the Sergeant, and we 'eld that bloomin' trench for another hour until the blokes got up the communication trench to 'elp us. There's a lot of medals what ought to go to blokes as don't get them, and it might 'ave 'elped Mr. Wilkinson's mother if they'd given 'im the V.C., but there weren't no other orficers about, and they didn't take any notice of us chaps."

"Talkin' of 'Ill 60," said Bert Potter, "there was that Captain--I misremember 'is name--you know, that bloke what got into trouble at the ole farm for giving a cow a tin o' bully beef, and the cow died next day. I was in 'is trench with a machine gun when 'e got 'is little bit. A chunk out of an 'and grenade 'it 'im in the thigh, and 'e laughed like 'ell becos 'e'd got a 'cushy' wound. Why, 'e even said as 'ow 'e could walk down to the dressing station, and we envied 'im like 'ell and thought it was only a flesh wound. I got 'it the next day and went to the same 'orspital where 'e was. 'E'd 'ad 'is thigh bone smashed all to bits, and they'd jest taken 'is leg off when I saw 'im. 'E was weak as a kid and chirpy as a sparrer, and only cursin' becos 'e was out of things for the rest of the war. I never 'eard what 'appened to 'im, but the nurse told me as 'ow they was afraid 'e wouldn't recover becos of emmyridge, or something with a name like that. And 'e wasn't more nor twenty-one years old neither, pore bloke."

"But you won't beat the Medical Orficer anywhere," said Jones, one of the stretcher-bearers who was on duty in the trenches. "'E don't 'ave to fight, but you should see 'im when things is busy up 'ere. Coat off an' sleeves up, workin' for 'ours on end till any man what wasn't an 'orse would drop dead. 'E's 'ard on the shirkers and scrimshankers--e's the sort of bloke what would give you a dose o' castor oil for earache or frost-bitten feet, but 'e's like a mother with the wounded. I've seen 'im, too, goin' along the cutting when the whizz-bangs was burstin' all the way down it, carryin' some wounded fellow in 'is arms as calmly as if 'e were an ole girl carryin' a parcel along Regent Street. And then," said Jones, as he named the greatest point in the M.O.'s favour, "'e's the best forward on a wet day as ever I seed."

Just at that moment a voice sounded from farther up the trench. "Simpson," it said, "where the deuce is my toothbrush?"

"Jest comin', sir. I've got 'un," answered "Pongo" Simpson as he produced a greasy-looking toothbrush from his pocket. "'Ere, give us that canteen of 'ot water," he said quietly, "I used 'is toothbrush to grease 'is boots with yesterday--didn't think 'e'd miss it, for you don't come out 'ere to wash your teeth. They 'ave got funny ways, these 'ere orficers. 'Owever," he continued as he wiped the brush dry on the sleeve of his tunic, "what the eye don't see, the 'eart don't grieve over. 'E'll only think as 'ow it's the water what's greasy."

"Simpson," came the voice from farther along the trench, a moment or so later, "this is the greasiest water I've ever tasted. What the deuce you've done to it I don't know."

XX

THE HAND OF SHADOW

"Come in," said Margery Debenham, as she opened her eyes lazily to the sunlight. "Put my tea on the table, please, Mary. I'm too sleepy to drink it yet.

"There's a letter from the front, miss," said Mary with emphasis, as she went out of the room.

Margery was awake in a second. She jumped out of bed, slipped on a dressing-gown, and, letter in hand, ran over to the window to read it in the morning sunshine. As she tore open the envelope and found only a small sheet of paper inside, she made a little _moue_ of disappointment, but the first words of the letter changed it into a sigh of joy. It was dated September 13th and ran:

"MY DARLING,

"At last I have got my leave, and am coming home to be married. Our months of waiting are over. I leave here to-morrow afternoon, shall spend the night on the way somewhere, and shall arrive in London late on the 15th, or during the morning of the 16th. I must spend the day in town to do a little shopping (I couldn't be seen at my own wedding very well in the clothes I have on now) and expect to get down to Silton at 3.20 on the 17th. I have to be back in this hole on the 24th, so that if we get married on Saturday we shall have quite a nice little honeymoon. Darling little one! Isn't it too good to be true? I can hardly realise that within a week I shall be

"Your devoted and hen-pecked husband

RONALD."

"P.S.--I have written to father, and he will make all arrangements for Saturday.

"P.P.S.--Shall I be allowed to smoke in the drawing-room?"

* * * * *

Margery Debenham leant out of the window and gazed at the garden and the orchard beyond. The light flickered through the trees of the old flagged path along which she and Ronald had so often wandered, and she could just see the tall grass waving down at the bottom of the orchard, where they used to sit and discuss the future. Everything reminded her of her lover who was coming back to her, who would be with her again to-morrow afternoon. At the thought of the five long, weary months of waiting that were passed, and of the eight days of happiness that were coming, two little tears crept out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She brushed them impatiently away, for she was too busy to cry. She must run and tell her parents; she must hurry over to talk to Ronald's father; she must write to her friends; she must run down to the bottom of the orchard and watch for a while the trout that lay in the little stream; she must laugh and sing until the whole village of Silton knew that her waiting was over, and that Ronald was in England again.

* * * * *

Captain Ronald Carr hoisted his pack on his shoulder, and turned to three officers who were looking at him enviously. "Cheer oh, you fellows," he said, "think of me in two days' time, while you are being 'strafed' by the Hun, rushing about town in a taxi," and, with a wave of his hand, he marched off to battalion headquarters, followed by Butler, his servant. From battalion headquarters he had a distance of two miles to walk to the cross roads where he was to meet his groom with his horse, but the day was hot and progress was rather slow. His first quarter of a mile was along a narrow and winding communicating trench; after that the way was along a hidden road, but huge shell craters all along told that the German artillery had it well marked.

Away to the right a bombardment was in progress, and the dull thuds of the guns came sleepily through the September haze; above him, a skylark sang lustily; the long grass by the roadside smelt sweet and lush. As Ronald Carr strode down the road, he laughed to himself at the fairness of the world.

Of a sudden, a shell burst over some trees a few hundred yards away, and, as the white smoke rolled away, he felt aware of a change.

Supposing he were to get wounded on the way down! With the next warning whine of a coming shell he found himself ducking as never before, for Captain Carr was not a man who often crouched for nothing.

Another shell came, and another, and with each his feeling grew. Just so must a mouse feel, he thought, when a cat plays with it. He felt as though he were at the mercy of an enormous giant, and that, each time he thought to escape, the shadow of a huge hand fell on the ground around him, and he knew that the hand above was waiting to crush him. At the thought, the hair on his forehead grew damp; time after time he checked his mad impulse to quicken his pace, and caught himself glancing covertly at his servant to see if he noticed his captain's strange behaviour. Suppose the hand should crush him before he could get back to England, to his home, to his marriage!

Suddenly there were four short, loud hisses, and four shells burst along the road close in front of them.

"They're searching the road. Quick, into the ditch," shouted Carr to his servant, as he jumped into an old trench that ran along the roadside. Butler turned to do the same, slipped on the _pavé_, and fell heavily, his ankle badly sprained. Those hateful hisses would come again before the man could crawl into safety, and this time they would probably be nearer, and escape almost miraculous. Captain Carr leaped out of the trench again and helped his servant to his feet.

"Cling on to me, man!" and, a moment after, he shouted, "down, here they come again!" and they flung themselves on their faces scarce two feet from the ditch and probable safety.

When Butler raised his head again after the four explosions, Captain Ronald Carr lay at his side, dead. The hand had grasped its prey.

* * * * *

Margery Debenham was standing in front of her mirror, getting ready to go to meet Ronald by the 3.20 train, when Mr. Carr came to announce the receipt of the War Office telegram.

She could find no tears when she heard the news; she felt stunned, and vaguely bored by the platitudes of consolation people uttered. When she could escape, she went slowly down the flagged path, where they used to walk to the orchard, where the future had been planned by two people full of the happy confidence of the young. She flung herself down in the long grass by the stream, and buried her hot face in her hands.

"What does it all mean?" she said to herself. Then, a minute later, she thought of all the other women who had to bear the same pain, and all for no reason. "There is no God," she cried passionately. "No one can help me, for there is no God." Day after day, night after night of waiting, and all for nothing. All those hours of agony, when the papers talked of "diversions" on the British front, rewarded by the supreme agony, by the sudden loss of all hope. No more need to hunt for a loved but dreaded name through the casualty lists every morning; all that was finished now.

The splash of a jumping trout in the pool under the willow tree took her thoughts away from her pain for the fraction of a second--just sufficient time to allow the soothing tears to come.

"O God," she murmured, "help me to see why. Help me, God, help me!" and she burst into sobs, her face pressed down into the cool, long grass.

XXI

THE VETERAN

Old Jules Lemaire, ex-sergeant in the 3rd regiment of the line, raised his wine glass.

"Bonne chance," he said, "and may you fight the devils as we did in 1870 and 1871, and with more success too."

"Enough of you and your 1870," said someone roughly. "We go out to win where you lost; there will be no Woerth or Sedan in this war. We will drive the Prussians back to Berlin; you let them march to Paris. We are going to act, whereas you can only talk--you are much too old, you see, Père Lemaire."

The ex-sergeant put down his glass with a jerk as though he had been struck. He looked around on the company that filled the front room of the Faisan d'Or, and on the faces of the men who had looked up to him for years as the hero of 1870 he now saw only the keenness to fight. He was old, forgotten, and no longer respected, and the blow was a hard one to bear.

The cloud of war was drifting up from the east, and the French Army was mobilising for the Great War. The peasants of the village had just been called up, and within half an hour they would be on their way to the depots of their different regiments, while Jules Lemaire, sergeant of the line, would be left at home with the cripples and the women and the children.

"I will serve France as well as any of you," he said defiantly. "I will find a way." But his voice was unheeded in the general bustle and noise, and Madame Nolan, the only person who appeared to hear him, sniffed with contempt.

Men destined for different regiments were saying good-bye to each other; Georges Simon, the blacksmith, with his arm round his fiancée's waist, was joking with Madame Nolan, who hurried about behind her little zinc counter; the door slammed noisily at each departure--and Jules Lemaire sat unheeded in the corner by the old clock.

And presently, when the front room was quiet and Madame Nolan was using her dirty apron to wipe away her tears, the ex-sergeant crept out quietly into the street and hobbled along to his cottage. He reached up and took his old Chassepot rifle down from the wall where it had hung these many years, and, while the other inhabitants thronged the road, cheering, weeping, laughing, Jules Lemaire sat before his little wooden table, with his rifle in his hands and a pile of cartridges before him.

"There will be a way," he murmured. "I will help my country; there will be a way."

* * * * *

The grey invaders swept on through the village, and Jules Lemaire, from his hiding-place on the church tower, watched them come with tears of impotent rage on his cheeks. Battalion after battalion they passed by--big, confident Germans who jeered at the peasants, and who sang as they plodded over the _pavé_. Once, when a company was halted beneath him, while the officers went in to the Faisan d'Or across the road, to see what they could loot in the way of drinks, the ex-sergeant aimed carefully at the captain, but he put down his rifle without firing.

At last, late in the afternoon when the dusk was beginning to hide the southern hills, Jules Lemaire's waiting came to an end. A large motor car drew up outside the inn, and a general with three officers of his staff got out into the road. One of the officers spread a map on the old door bench--where Jules Lemaire had so often sat of an evening and told of his adventures in the war--and, while an orderly went to procure wine for them, the four Germans bent over the plan of the country they thought to conquer.

Suddenly a shot rang out from the church tower above them. The general fell forward on to the bench, while his blood and his wine mingled in a staining stream that ran across the map of invincible France, and dripped down on to the dust below.

* * * * *

They met Jules Lemaire coming down the spiral steps of the church tower, his rifle still in his hand. They hit him with their rifle butts, they tied him up with part of the bell rope, and propped him up against the church wall.

Just before they fired, Jules Lemaire caught sight of Madame Nolan, who stood, terrified and weeping, at the doorway of the inn.

"You see," he shouted to her, "I also, I have helped my country. I was not too old after all."

And he died with a smile on his face.

XXII

THE SING-SONG

As soon as the battalion marches back from the trenches to the village in the first light of the morning, everyone turns his mind to methods which will help the few days of rest to pass as pleasantly as war and the limited amusements afforded by two estaminets and a row of cottages will permit.

"Chacun son goût." As he tramps along the street, B Company Sergeant-Major challenges Corporal Rogers to a boxing match on the morrow; Second Lieutenant White, who is new to war, sits in his billet and, by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, traces the distance to the nearest town on the off chance that he will get leave to visit it; the doctor demands of his new landlady, in the most execrable French, where he can find a field suitable for "le football"; and Private Wilson, as he "dosses down" on the floor, suggests sleepily to Private Jones that he will be thirsty in the afternoon and that Private Jones has been owing him a drink since that day in Ouderdom three weeks ago.

Besides such methods of passing the time, there are baths to be had in the great brewery vats of the village, there is an inter-company hockey tournament to be played with a Tickler's jam tin in lieu of a ball, and, best of all, there is the "sing-song."

Be it in a trench, or in a barn, or out in the open fields where the battalion lies bivouacked under rows of waterproof sheets strung up as inadequate tents, the sing-song is sure of success, and a man with a voice like a mowing machine will receive as good a reception as would Caruso or Melba at Covent Garden. There is a French Territorial regiment which has a notice up at the entrance of its "music hall"--"Entrée pour Messieurs les Poilus. Prix un sourire." Admission a smile! There is never a man turned away from its doors, for where is the "poilu" or where is the "Tommy" who is not always ready with a smile and a laugh and a song?

There are little incidents in life that engrave themselves deep in the memory. Of all the sing-songs I have attended, there is one that is still vivid--the brush of time has washed away the outlines and edges of the others.

We were billeted, I remember, in Eliza's farm--Eliza, for the benefit of those who do not know her, is fair, fat, fifty, and Flemish; a lady who shakes everyone in the farm into wakefulness at five o'clock each morning by the simple process of stepping out of bed--when the Captain decided that we wanted "taking out of ourselves." "We'll have a sing-song," he announced.

So the Company Sergeant-Major was called in to make arrangements, and at eight o'clock that evening we wandered into the Orchestra Stalls. The concert hall was a large barn with a double door in the middle which had been opened wide to allow the admittance of a cart, which was placed in the entrance to act as a stage. All around the high barn, and perched precariously on the beams, were the men, while we of the Orchestra Stalls were accommodated on chairs placed near the stage. Behind the cart was a background consisting of Eliza and her numerous gentlemen friends, her daughter, an old lady aged roughly a hundred, and a cow that had no right to be there at all, but had wandered in from the nearest field to see the show. An orchestral accompaniment was kept up, even during the saddest recitation, by dozens of little pigs that scrambled about in the farmyard and under the stage. And beyond the farm swayed the tall poplars that stood along the road which led straight away into the distance, whence came sudden flashes of light and the long, dull rumble of the guns.

Of the programme itself, I have but the vaguest recollection, for the programmes are the least interesting part of these performances. The first item, I remember, was a dreadful sentimental song by Private Higgs which accident converted from comparative failure into howling success. Just as he was rendering the most affecting passage, Private Higgs stepped back too far, the cart--of the two-wheeled variety--overbalanced, and the sad singer was dropped down amongst the little pigs below, to the great joy of the crowd.