Chapter 3

Anyhow, Bases are not what they were in my young days. Of course there were always parades; but you obviously couldn't parade while you were busy over some Alternative Necessary Duty. Alternative Necessary Duties were always my strongest suit. On the evening of my arrival in camp I would summon the Band Sergeant and provide him with my programme of work. On Monday he would please arrange for a criminal in my detail. On Tuesday I would use my influence in the matter of obtaining clothing for my detail. This would be a very laborious task, involving three signatures in ink or indelible pencil; but no matter, to a good officer the comfort of his men comes before everything. On Wednesday I would pay my men. Rotten job, paying out, but ensures Generous Glow, and no expense unless you lose the Acquittance Roll. On Thursday I would read Standing Orders to the latest arrived draft; maybe they had had this done to them once already, but one cannot be too particular. A private I know of who had only had Standing Orders read to him once got into awful trouble through carelessly kicking a recalcitrant corporal on the head. That just shows you. On Friday--but I weary you, if that be possible. Suffice it that the Base went very well then.

The trouble began, as usual, high up. The G.O. Commanding something most frightfully important inspected one of our parades one morning and found 7,528 other ranks under one Second-Lieutenant. All might have been well if the Second-Lieutenant had not forgotten to fire the correct salute of fourteen bombs (or whatever was the correct salute). The G.O.C. investigated. He searched the woods and delved in the instructional trenches, but never another officer came to light. So he went home and, after a bad lunch--we surmise--set himself to abolish Alternative Necessary Duties in a formal edict. No officer is to absent himself from a parade except by the express orders of an O.C. Base Depôt.

This happened several days ago, and the ruling is probably obsolete by now, but I am wondering how I shall break the news to the G.O.C. if I should happen to meet him on one of my morning walks into town; and in my heart of heart I know that one fine morning I shall be cowardly, and wake before nine, and attend my first parade at army Base. Some zealous despatch rider will dash hot-foot to the G.O.C. with the news, and he will come and rub his hands and chuckle and gloat. It will be a Black Day.

Here too there are minor points of etiquette that vex one. Is it correct for me, having bought half a kilo of chocolates while waiting for a train, to kill further time by eating them out of a paper bag under the surveillance of an A.S.C. sergeant? or ought I to offer a few to the sergeant with some _jeu d'esprit_--never coarse and never cruel--about bully beef? Of such are the complexities with which a Base harasses the soul of an officer nurtured in the genial simplicity of trench life.

* * * * *

From an account of the Peace demonstration in Berlin:--

"The people simply turned up themselves, and everyone was highly turned up themselves, and everyone was highly pleased with the result."--_Egyptian Mail._

It seems to have been a complete revolution.

* * * * *

LITERARY LISPINGS.

The "motive" of Mrs. Pumfrey Lord's new novel is Christian Science, and the hero, the Duke of Southminster, is understood to be a composite portrait of Lord ROSEBERY and Mr. GLADSTONE. The character of the evil genius of the plot, Lord Rufus Doldrum, is partly modelled on ALCIBIADES, but in its main lines is reminiscent of Mrs. EDDY and Major WINSTON CHURCHILL. On the other hand the eccentric Lord Wymondham, who creates a sensation by appearing at a Cabinet meeting in accordion-pleated pyjamas, is understood to be an entirely imaginary personage. The novel, which has been running in _Wanamaker's Weekly_, will shortly be published by the Strongmans.

A Poet who Counts.

Mr. Ouseley Pampfield, who has been recuperating at Buxton after spraining his ankle while getting out of his magnificent motor, is now seeing his new volume of poems through the press. Under the arresting title of _The Soul of a Passivist_ they will shortly be published by the firm of Coddler and Slack.

The Jimmisons Again.

The Long Lanes will shortly publish a new "Jimmison" novel, The _Factota_. The heroine is a young lady enamoured of the doctrine of the economic independence of women. She enters a Draper's Emporium in Manchester and works her way up to the post of manager, but heads a strike of the work-girls. The claims of romance, however, are not overlooked, for in the long run _Retta Carboy_--for that is her charming name--wins the hand and heart of the junior partner's chauffeur, who turns out to be son of the Earl of Ancoats. The scene in which the Rolls-Royce, frightened by the sight of some Highland cattle, executes a cross-cut counter-rocking skid, is one of the finest things the Jimmisons have ever done.

Armageddon in the Making.

Governesses, so long the butt of unkindly satire, have at last come by their own. Miss Bertha Bowlong, who was governess to the KAISER in the late "sixties," is shortly about to publish her reminiscences of her now all-too-notorious pupil. Strange to say it never occurred to her to set them down till quite recently, nearly fifty years after the event. The book, which is now announced by the Talboys, is rich in illuminating anecdotes of the future WAR LORD, as well as vivid portraits of MOLTKE, BISMARCK, TREITSCHKE, MÜNCHHAUSEN, Eulenspiegel, Dudelsack and other luminaries of the Prussian capital.

The Charm of Cannibalism.

Miss Ermyntrude Stuggy (Mrs. Raymond Blott), whose extraordinary novel, _The Lurid Lady_, was described by Father BERNARD VAUGHAN as the most "precipitous" book he had ever preached on, has returned to England after two years' residence among the cannibals of the Solomon Islands. Hence the title of her forthcoming volume, _The Adorable Anthropophagi_, which is already announced by Messrs. Hybrow and Garbidge. The contents explain why Mr. Blott has heroically preferred to remain with the cannibals.

Major Finch's Great Discovery.

Major Hector Finch, the famous Nationalist M.P., philosopher, psychologist and scholar, has made a remarkable literary discovery. It is that _Johnson's Dictionary_ is not, as is generally supposed, the work of BEN JONSON, but of SAMUEL JOHNSON, the son of a Lichfield bookseller. This epoch-making revelation, briefly and modestly outlined in a letter to _The Daily Chronicle_, will be set forth in detail in a massive volume of 1,000 pages, with a portrait of the author, to be issued shortly by the House of Swallow and Gull.

Odds and Ends.

_The Vegetarians_, a novel with a strong dietetic interest by Janet Melinda Didham, is announced by the firm of Gherkin Mark.

_The Molly Monologues_ is the alluring title of a volume of sketches by Richard Turpin, shortly appearing with Pincher and Steel.

Miss Loofah Windsor, who wrote _The Washpot_, a successful story of last summer, has just finished a new one of a humorous type, called _What--no Soap_? which the Dinwiddies will publish in a month or two.

* * * * *

"A few lucky corps actually had geese to pave the way for the Christmas pudding; they were quartered in some place where a whip round among the officers and a ride to the nearest town or village secured enough geese to feed a battalion."

_Jersey Morning News_.

Somehow we feel that this might have been more tactfully expressed.

* * * * *

"Mr. Dillon harangued the House for three-quarters of an hour on militarism, _The Daily Mail_, Suvla BaBy, and sundry other topics."

_Daily Mail_.

An extended report of his remarks on this interesting infant would have been welcome.

* * * * *

ON THE CARDS.

To many people wholly free from superstition, except that, after spilling the salt, they are careful to throw a little over the left shoulder, and do not go out of their way to walk under ladders, and are not improved in appetite by sitting thirteen at table, and much prefer that may should not be brought into the house--to these people, otherwise so free from superstition, it would perhaps be surprising to know what great numbers of their fellow-creatures resort daily to such black arts as fortune-telling by the cards.

Yet quite respectable, God-fearing, church-going old ladies, and probably old gentlemen too, treasure this practice, to say nothing of younger and therefore naturally more frivolous folk; and many make the consultation of the two and fifty oracles a morning habit.

And particularly women. Those well-thumbed packs of cards that we know so well are not wholly dedicated to "Patience," I can assure you.

All want to be told the same thing: what the day will bring forth. But each searcher into the dim and dangerous future has, of course, individual methods--some shuffling seven times and some ten, and so forth, and all intent upon placating the elfish goddess, Caprice. There is little Miss Banks, for example, but I must tell you about her.

Nothing would induce little Miss Banks to leave the house in the morning without seeing what the cards promised her, and so open and impressionable are her mind and heart that she is still interested in the colour of the romantic fellow whom the day, if kind, is to fling across her path. The cards, as you know, are great on colours, all men being divided into three groups: dark (which has the preference), fair, and middling. Similarly for you, if you can get little Miss Banks to read your fate (but you must of course shuffle the pack yourself) there are but three kinds of charmers: dark (again the most fascinating and to be desired), fair, and middling.

It is great fun to watch little Miss Banks at her necromancy. She takes it so earnestly, literally wrenching the future's secrets from their lair.

"A letter is coming to you from some one," she says. "An important letter."

And again, "I see a voyage over water."

Or very seriously, "There's a death."

You gasp.

"No, it's not yours. A fair woman's."

You laugh. "Only a fair woman's!" you say. "Go on."

But the cards have not only ambiguities, but strange reticences.

"Oh," little Miss Banks will say, her eyes large with excitement, "there's a payment of money and a dark man."

"Good," you say.

"But I can't tell," she goes on, "whether you pay it to him or he pays it to you."

"That's a nice state of things," you say, becoming indignant. "Surely you can tell."

"No, I can't."

You begin to go over your dark acquaintances who might owe you money, and can think of none.

You then think of your dark acquaintances to whom you owe money, and are horrified at their number.

"Oh, well," you say, "the whole thing's rubbish, anyway."

Little Miss Banks's eyes dilate with pained astonishment. "Rubbish!"--and she begins to shuffle again.

* * * * *

* * * * *

From "Notes for the Use of New Chaplains," by an Indian Archdeacon:

"I have only given advice on matters where, to my own knowledge, an ignorance of procedure has led to adverse criticism with regard to breeches of etiquette."

Somebody seems to have been making fun of the venerable gentleman's continuations.

* * * * *

UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.

No. XXXIII.

(_From Theodore Roosevelt, U.S.A._)

It's bully to live in a country where you can say what you like about the bosses, and that, Sir, is what I've been doing and mean to go on doing to you. There's no manner of question about it, you're the biggest boss and the most dangerous that we in this country have ever come up against, and if our Government had only got a right idea of its bounden duty we should have protested against your conduct, yes, and backed our protest by our deeds long before this; but the fact is there's too much milk and water in the blood of some of our big fellows. They whine when they ought to be up and denouncing, and they crouch and crawl instead of standing upright like free and fearless men, and giving the devil's agent the straightest eye-puncher of which the human arm is capable. I thank Heaven, Sir, that I'm not made on that plan. I'm out to fight humbug and hypocrisy, even when they masquerade as friendship and benevolence; and when I see a fellow coming along with hundreds of pious texts in his mouth, and his hands dripping with the blood of innocent women and children, why, I've got to say what I think of him or die. For my own part--

"On Bible stilts I don't affect to stalk, Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk; For man may pious texts repeat And yet religion have no inward seat."

A man called HOOD wrote that nearly eighty years ago, but it's quite true still. I wonder what he would have written if he'd had the bad luck to know about you and your disgusting appeals to the Almighty, whom you treat as if He were always waiting round the corner to be decorated with the Iron Cross.

Now mind, I don't want you to deceive yourself. If I dislike you and feel as if I'd sooner kick you than shake hands with you, it isn't because I'm a peace-at-any-price man. No man can say that about me without qualifying for a place within easy reach of ANANIAS; but when I decide to take part in a scrap--and there's few scraps going that I don't butt into sooner or later--I like to feel that I've got a bit of right on my side. But how can _you_ feel that when you over-run Belgium and burn down Louvain--that's the place that made your heart bleed, bah!--and when you shoot down Belgian hostages and do to death an English nurse? All that never seems to strike you. You go on thinking of yourself as a holy humble man whom everybody wilfully mistakes for a bully and a tyrant. Well, you can't fool everybody all the time, you know, and in this case it happens that everybody has got some sound horse-sense in his head. Who wanted to hurt you? You'd put together a great army and your commercial prosperity was a pretty good business proposition. You'd got a navy and you'd got a very meek and submissive people, which didn't prevent them from being harsh and domineering and cruel so far as other peoples were concerned. If you wanted to have folk afraid of you there were plenty to humour you by pretending to tremble when you frowned and shook your head. But you weren't going to be satisfied. You must have a war so as to show what a great general you were, and you shoved on the old man FRANCIS JOSEPH and kept urging him from behind until everyone got tired by the impossibility of making you come out fair and square on the side of peace.

Well, you've got your war, and I hope you like it. This isn't one of your military promenades. This is hard, long fighting against men whose only wish was to be left alone. You've forced them to form a trust for the purpose of trust-busting, and in the end they'll wear you out and have you beaten to a frazzle in spite of all you can do. You've lost millions of men and millions of money, and you don't seem to get on with your final and decisive victory, and you're still the vainest and the loudest man on earth. Isn't it just about time you saw yourself as the rest of us see you, an irritable lime-light hero, whose favourite effort is to sink a _Lusitania_ and pretend he had to do it because he didn't think she'd go down or because there were too many women and just enough children in the world? All I can say is that I've had more than enough of you.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

* * * * *

BEYOND THE LIMIT.

[The German General Staff declares that for air-warfare there are still lacking international laws of any kind.]

When Peace lured the Powers to her House at the Hague With promises specious and welcome though vague Of a time when the terrors of war should lie hid And the leopard fall headlong in love with the kid, She drew up a set of Utopian rules For the guidance of all the best bellicose schools.

Among the more notable schemes that she planned She fashioned them bounds to their methods on land, Taught the whole of them, too, how humane they could be If a scrap should occur, as it might, on the sea-- In a word, pruned the pinions of war everywhere Save the one place that war could fly into--the air.

But the Hun, he forswore what he vowed at her shrine, And behaved like a fiend on the soil and the brine; Then he turned to his Zepps, and remarked, "I can fly, And she never laid down any law for the sky; Here's a chance for some real dirty work to be done;" And he did it by simply out-Hunning the Hun.

* * * * *

How to Save Your Teeth.

From the Soldiers and Sailors Dental Aid Fund (43, Leicester Square), which has done exceptional service during the War, comes the story of an old lady who applied for a set of teeth for her soldier grandson. When asked if he would know how to take care of them, she replied that she would give him the benefit of her own experience, having always made it a rule to remove her artificial teeth at meal times.

* * * * *

Two cuttings from one issue of _The Egyptian Mail_:--

"TREMENDOUS INCREASE IN RECRUITING.

ANOTHER 1,000,000,000 MEN WANTED."

"WANTED proof-reader for the Egyptian Mail."

It certainly does want one; but for the sake of the gaiety of nations we trust it won't get him.

* * * * *

"With regard to the expeditionary force, the unexampled heroism and determination of our troops enabled them to establish a foothold on the tip of the peninsula, but photographs confirm the reports of eye-witnesses that they were literally holding on by their eyelids to the positions they had occupied."--_Sunday Times._

And the subsequent abandonment was performed like winking.

* * * * *

From a draper's notice:--

"On Friday and Saturday the shops will be open until the usual hours, although lights will not be visible outside. Customers are requested to open the doors to obtain admittance."

_Rugby Advertiser._

And not to climb through the windows, or come down the chimney, please.

* * * * *

TOUJOURS LA POLITESSE.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

I forget just how long it is since Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT united _Edwin Clayhanger_ and _Hilda Lessways_ in the bonds of matrimony. Time goes so fast these days that I met them again, and _Auntie Hamps_, and _Maggie_, and _Clara_, and the rest of the Three Towns company, as after an enormous interval. They themselves however have changed in nothing, except perhaps that the habit of introspection and their phenomenal capacity for self-astonishment have become more pronounced. "He thought, 'I am I; this wife is my wife; and if I put one foot before the other I shall go inevitably forward.' And it seemed to him stupendous." I do not say that this is a quotation, but it represents a habit of mind that is in danger of growing, upon _Edwin_ especially. He seems never able to share my own entire confidence in Mr. BENNETT'S efficiency as creator. Of course nothing very much happens in the course of _These Twain_ (METHUEN). It is simply a study of conjugal existence in its effect upon character; briefly, how to be happy though married. In the end _Edwin_ seems to hit upon a sort of solution with the discovery that injustice is a natural condition to be accepted rather than resented. So one leaves the two with some prospect, a little insecure, of happiness. Needless to say the study of both _Edwin_ and _Hilda_ is marvellously penetrating and minute, almost to the point of defeating its own end. I had, not for the first time with Mr. BENNETT'S characters, a feeling that I knew them too well to have complete belief in them. They become not portraits but anatomical diagrams. But for all that the accuracy of his observation is undeniable. One sees it in those minor personalities of the tale whom he is content to record from without. _Auntie Hamps_, for example, and Clara are two masterpieces of portraiture. You must read _These Twain_; but if possible take time over it.

* * * * *

American improvements are the wonder of the world. America seems to have the knack of taking hold of old stuff and turning it into something full of pep and punch. You remember a play called _Hamlet_? No? Well, there is a scene in it, rather an impressive scene, where a man chats with his father's ghost. Mr. ROBERT W. CHAMBERS, America's brightest novelist, has taken much the same idea and put a bit of zip in it. In his latest work, _Athalie_ (APPLETON), the heroine, who is clairvoyant, sees the ghost of the hero's mother, who prevented the hero from marrying her, and cuts it. "A hot proud colour flared in her cheeks as she drew quietly aside and stood with averted head to let her pass." In all my researches in modern fiction I cannot recall a more dramatic and satisfying situation. It is, I believe, the first instance on record of a spectre being snubbed. SHAKSPEARE never thought of anything like that. As regards the other aspects of _Athalie_, the book, I cannot see what else a reviewer can say but that it is written by Mr. CHAMBERS. The world is divided into those who read every line Mr. CHAMBERS writes, irrespective of its merits, and those who would require to be handsomely paid before reading a paragraph by him. A million eager shop-girls, school-girls, chorus-girls, factory-girls and stenographers throughout America are probably devouring _Athalie_ at this moment. My personal opinion that the book is a potboiler, turned out on a definite formula, like all of Mr. CHAMBERS' recent work, to meet a definite demand, cannot deter a single one of them from sobbing over it. As for that section of the public which remembers _The King in Yellow_ and _Cardigan_, it has long ago become resigned to Mr. CHAMBERS' decision to take the cash and let the credit go, and has ceased to hope for a return on his part to the artistic work of his earlier period, when he wrote novels as opposed to Best Sellers.

* * * * *

Let me heartily commend to you a book of stories by doughty penmen turned swordsmen for the period of the War--A. E. W. MASON, of the Manchester Regiment; A. A. M., of the Royal Warwicks; W. B. MAXWELL, Royal Fusilier; IAN HAY, A. and S. HIGHLANDER; COMPTON MACKENZIE, R.N.; "Q.," of the Duke of Cornwall's L.I.; OLIVER ONIONS, A.S.C.; BARRY PAIN, R.N.A.S.; and just short of a dozen others. Published by Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON, under title, _The Red Cross Story Book_, to be sold for the benefit of _The Times_ Fund. It's the sort of book about which even the most conscientious reviewer feels he can honestly say nice things without any too thorough examination of the contents. With that thought I started turning over the pages casually, but found myself dipping deeper and deeper, until, becoming entirely absorbed, I abandoned all pretence of professional detachment and had a thoroughly good time. I should like to be able to state that the quality of these stories of humour, adventure and sentiment was uniform, if only for the sake of this appropriate word. But I can say that the best are excellent, the average is high, and the tenor so varied as to suit almost any age and taste.