Chapter 3

Taking advantage of this the Colonel, with one glance of concentrated hate in the direction of his opponent, grapples with his choler, and by the time that his ball is returned under escort, has partially recovered himself. He is determined to show to his subalterns the value of coolness in an emergency. He places his ball with infinite care and walks round the table to examine the position from every point of view. His next move is to mark out elaborate angles with the assistance of chalk marks on the cushions. Having finally formed all his plans, he encourages his artillery with a few more rounds of chalk, approaches the field with studied and dignified calm, delivers his attack, and retires to watch the effect from his O. Pip.

His command, flying desperately across the open, loses direction, blunders hopelessly into an obstruction on the flank, retires in confusion, and makes a blind despairing dash for a shell-crater. Missing this by a fraction it loses all interest in life, wanders pitifully off at an unnatural angle, runs into the hostile force of the Adjutant, and comes finally into contact with the red.

The Colonel hastens to remark to the enthusiastic audience that this cannon only proves the possibilities of the noble game when accuracy is achieved. It is calculated to improve their marksmanship, to teach them to grasp an opportunity, to apply their tactical training, and to render them cool in the hour of crisis.

Inspired by this truth he attempts to pull off an awkward losing hazard. This effort is ruined by an appalling miscue which affects the new cloth. The Colonel justly blames the chalk, removes the pet-dog of the battalion from his path with his foot, and makes for the scoring-board. The volunteer marker inadvertently puts the Colonel's modest score on to the large total of the Adjutant.

At this critical moment an orderly fortunately arrives with a note from the Brigade office. The Colonel secures the missive, tears the envelope to shreds, runs his eye over the trivial contents, and curses the War. He then assumes an air of enormous importance, excuses himself, and stamps out into the night.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"It may be the bravery of ignorance that induces us to take this point of view, but the locality excuses ignorance to some extent, and the bravery still exists: Ovid has a line that might be learnt with advantage by our readers--

"'Falliker augurio, spes bona saepe sus.'"--_Nigerian Pioneer_.

We do not recall this line in OVID; but the locality is notoriously unfavourable to Latin quotation. As HORACE says, _Hic Niger est; hunc tu, Romane, caveto_.

* * * * *

* * * * *

DR. SULLIVAN.

It had been decided that there never was such a resemblance as is to be traced between my homely features and those of a visitor to the same hotel last year--Dr. Sullivan of Wigley Street. This had become an established fact irrefutable like a proposition of Euclid and one of my new friends, who was also a friend of the Dr. Sullivan of Wigley Street who had so satisfyingly and minutely anticipated my countenance, made it the staple of his conversation. "Isn't Mr. Blank," he would say to this and that _habitué_ of the smoking-room as they dropped in from the neighbouring farms at night, "the very image of Dr. Sullivan of Wigley Street, who was here last year?" And they would subject my physiognomy to a searching study and agree that I was. Perhaps the nose--a little bigger, don't you think? or a shade of dissimilarity between the chins (he having, I suppose, only two, confound him!), but taking it all round the likeness was extraordinary.

This had been going on for some time, until I was accustomed, if not exactly inured, to it, and was really rather looking forward to the time when, on returning to London, I could trump up a sufficient ailment to call upon my double in Wigley Street and scrutinize him with my own eyes. But last night my friend had something of a set-back, which may possibly, by deflecting his conversation to other topics, give me relief. I hope so.

It happened like this. We were sitting in the smoking-room as usual, he and I, when another local acquaintance entered--one who, I gathered, had been away for a few weeks and whom I had therefore not yet seen, and who (for this was the really important thing to my friend) consequently had not yet seen me.

In course of time the inevitable occurred. "Don't you think," my friend asked, "that Mr. Blank is the very image of Dr. Sullivan of Wigley Street, who was here last summer?"

"What Dr. Sullivan's that?" the newcomer inquired.

"Dr. Sullivan of Wigley Street, who was fishing here last summer. Don't you remember him? The very image of Mr. Blank."

"The only Dr. Sullivan I know," replied the newcomer, "is Dr. Sullivan of Newcastle. He's a very old man by now. A very learned man too. He has a wonderful private museum. He--"

"No, no, the Dr. Sullivan I mean was From Wigley Street--a specialist--who took the Manor fishing last summer and stayed in the hotel."

"Dr. Sullivan of Newcastle is a very old man--much older than Mr. Blank here, and not a bit like him. He's a most interesting personality. He is the great authority on the South Sea Islanders. You should see his collection of Fiji war clubs."

"But that's not the Dr. Sullivan I mean. You must remember him," said my impresario; "we all used to meet evening after evening, just as we're doing now--Dr. Sullivan of Wigley Street, the specialist, a clean-shaven big man, exactly like Mr. Blank here. Everyone has noticed the likeness."

"Dr. Sullivan of Newcastle has a beard," said the newcomer. "And he's a very old man by now. A great receptacle of miscellaneous learning. He showed me once his collection of coins and medals. He's got coins back to the Roman Emperors and stories about every one of them. His collection--"

"Yes, but--"

"--of idols is amazing. You never saw such comic figures as those natives worship. There's nothing he doesn't collect. He's got a mummy covered with blue beads. He's got skulls from all over the world, showing different formations. It's some years--"

"Yes, but--"

"--since I saw him last, and of course he may be--"

"Yes, but--"

"--dead. But if not he's a man worth knowing. If ever you go to Newcastle don't forget about him. But he must be very old by now. He--"

At this point I finished my glass and slipped away to bed. Consulting the mirror as I undressed, I smiled at the reflection that confronted me. "You can sleep well to-night," I said, "for there are signs that you are about to have a rest."

* * * * *

HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.

(_DR. VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG AND HERR MICHAELIS._)

_Michaelis._ I have called partly because I desired to offer my most tactful condolences to my distinguished predecessor in the high office which I hold, and partly because I thought you might be willing to give me some hints as to my conduct, for I should like to leave nothing undone that might make me a successful Chancellor.

_Von Bethmann-Hollweg._ Upon my word you are even more kind and considerate than I had expected. Even to exchange a word with a fallen Chancellor is a sign both of kindness and courage. I wonder how you could screw yourself up to the pitch of being so daring.

_M._ I am glad you think so, for that is how I myself felt it.

_Von B.-H._ Well, we will leave your courage out of the question. It is sufficiently proved by your acceptance of the Chancellorship. As to such advice as I am able to give, I must ask you first whether you are ready to have the boots of the All-Highest constantly wiped upon various parts of your person?

_M._ A true Prussian endures that with difficulty.

_Von B.-H._ But a true Prussian, it seems, can accustom himself to this form of friendship and confidence as to many others.

_M._ What others do you speak of?

_Von B.-H._ My worthy Michaelis, you really must have covered your eyes and stopped your ears ever since you were born, otherwise you could not possibly be so ignorant. Do you not know that if your great and beloved says a foolish thing or does an indiscreet one it will be your duty to shoulder the responsibility for it? And you can easily calculate yourself during how many hours of the day your back is likely to be without a burden of some sort. And mind you, you are not to expect to receive any gratitude for your toil.

_M._ But he speaks a kind word now and then, doesn't he?

_Von B.-H._ A kind word? Ha-ha. When I think of all that I have done for that man, the acts I have defended, the stupidities I have tried to convert into statesmanship, the tempers I have been the butt of, the childish insults I have had to tolerate, the theatricalities I have been compelled to treat as if they were the most glorious manifestations of Imperial splendour--when I think of all this and realise that he and I are both still alive, I marvel at such a spectacle of human endurance.

_M._ I must confess you are not very cheerful or very encouraging.

_Von B.-H._ I did not set out to cheer you up or to encourage you, but I thought it just as well that someone should tell you the truth.

_M._ Why aren't you glad then at having dropped your burden?

_Von B.-H._ I own I ought to be, but, as you hint, I am not. There are ways of doing things, and there is a real difference in walking quietly through a door and being kicked out through it with all possible violence.

_M._ But you have had the Hohenzollern Order presented to you and the All-Highest has written you with his own gracious hand a letter.

_Von B.-H._ _Verbosa et grandis epistola venit a Capreïs._ As for the Hohenzollern Order I don't care a snap of the fingers for it. Nor will you when your time comes.

_M._ I hope that will not be for many years.

_Von B.-H._ For your sake I hope your time may be short. In any case I must thank you most warmly for your tactful condolences.

* * * * *

THE REST-RUMOUR.

I know not in what rodent-haunted caverns By what rough tongues the tale was first expressed, By choking fires or in the whispering taverns With wine and omelette lovingly caressed, Or what tired soul, o'erladen with a lump Of bombs and bags which someone _had_ to hump, Flung down his load indignant at the Dump And, cursing, cried, "_It's time we had a rest!_"

And so, maybe, began it. Some sly runner, Half-hearing, half-imagining, no doubt, Caught up the word and gave it to a gunner, And he, embroidering, 'twas noised about From lip to lip in many a trench's press Where working parties struggled to progress Or else go back, but both without success, "_Officer says Division's going out._"

It found the Front. It came up with the rations; The Corporals carried it from hole to hole; And scouts behaved in strange polemic fashions On what they thought would be their last patrol; While Fritz, of course, from whom few things are hid, Had the romance as soon as any did, And said, thank William, he would soon be rid Of yon condemned disturbers of his soul.

Nor were there few confirming little trifles, For James, rejoining from the Base, had scann'd Strange waiting infantry with brand-new rifles, In backward areas, but close at hand; And some had marked the D.A.Q.M.G. Approaching Railhead in the dusk, and he (Who, as a fact, was simply on the spree) Had gone, of course, to view the Promised Land.

And what a land! Who had not heard its promise? A land of quietude and no grenades, Soft beds for officers, fair barns for Tommies, And rich estaminets and gracious maids, And half-an-hour from Abbeville by the train A land of rivulets and golden grain (Where it would be impossible to train And even difficult to have parades)!

Then it appeared the groom of General Harrison Had news denied to ordinary men, How the Brigade was going home to garrison A restful corner of the Lincoln fen; But weeks have passed and we are as we were; And possibly, when Peace is in the air And these dear myths have died of sheer despair, They may come true--but not, I think, till then.

* * * * *

FELINE AMENITIES.

"Cats' Happy Holiday Home--Wired garden, Home comforts, References"--_Church Family Newspaper_.

* * * * *

From a notice of "Three Weeks":--

"The Queen of Croatia, one of those convenient operatic Balham royalties...."--_Liverpool Daily Post_.

Won't Tooting be jealous!

* * * * *

"To one who has been long enough away from the centre of things almost to forget what it is like, a walk along Pall Mall yesterday brought some curious reflections. From the Circus to Hyde Park Corner not a single luxurious private motor-car or horse-drawn carriage was to be seen. It was not the Pall Mall of old days."--_Evening Paper_.

No, it seems to have been much more like Piccadilly.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A SURPRISE PARTY.

"Five-and-thirty wounded Tommies coming to tea and one of them coming to his death, but he doesn't know it," moaned Emily, and waved a knife round her head.

I saw what had happened. All this bun-baking and cake-making had been too much for my poor wife. She had been living in the oven for a week.

"You're overdone. Lie down and try to get a little nap before they come," I said soothingly. "Everything's ready."

"Will he die without a sound, or will he gurgle?" said Emily, and brought the knife within an inch of my nose.

"No one is going to die at our tea-party, dear," I said, and ducked.

"Not after swallowing _that_?" shrieked Emily, and lunged at me with the knife again.

I got it firmly by the handle this time, and I recognised Emily's special cake-knife, an instrument wrought to perfection by long years of service, sharp as a razor down both sides, with a flexible tip that slithered round a basin and scooped up the last morsels of candied-peel.

But the flexible tip was gone. I understood Emily's distraught condition. You can replace a diamond tiara; money won't buy a twenty-year-old cake-knife.

"Try and bear it, dear," I said.

Emily pointed to the table weighed down with Madeiras and rocks and almonds and sultanas and gingers. "It's inside one of them," she said.

For the moment I failed to grasp her meaning. She explained. "I've made six dozen. The knife was all right when I started; a little bent, nothing more. It was when I was mixing the last that I noticed the tip was missing."

It was a difficult position. There was no time to submit the cakes to the X-rays; the advance party was streaming through the gate.

"Dear fellows! I wonder which one it will be," said Emily, and clung round my neck.

I put her on one side. "I'll manage it; leave it to me," I said, and went forward and welcomed our guests. My mind was working clearly and rapidly, as it always does in a crisis. When I had got them seated round the tea-table, "My dear friends," I said, "this isn't a Christmas party, but my wife couldn't help indulging in a little Christmas fun. She's just whispered to me that she's put a surprise in one of the cakes. I know her. It won't be an ordinary sort of surprise. I should advise you all to keep a sharp look-out. There's a pound" (it was worth a pound to save a hero's throat from being cut) "for the man who finds anything in his cake which hasn't any business to be there."

Within five minutes two pebbles, a tin-tack, a chunk of wood and a black-beetle were on the tablecloth....

"Do you know that flutter's cost me five pounds, and there wasn't a sign of your infernal knife after all?" I said to Emily when they'd gone.

"I've just found it under the kitchen table," said Emily. "I _am_ thankful."

* * * * *

"This company's year ended on the 40th June, and a good distribution is looked for by the market."--_Journal of Commerce_.

With such help from the calendar any company should do well.

* * * * *

THE SIGNAL SECTION.

You know how the great hunter who sleeps with his gun at his pillow is awake in an instant, with all his faculties alert, when the sacred spider breaks a twig in the jungle? You remember how the handsome highwayman, at the first far clatter of hoofs on the great North Road, is up and out on the scullery roof of the inn before you have turned the page, and is deep in Lonely Copse (wearing the serving-wench's stomacher) before his first fat pursuer has said, "Open in the name of the Law," below his window? Well, like Jimmy's bloodhound in _Punch_, I am very good at that.

But it is a telephone-bell that does it. You go down seventy-two steps--backwards, or you hit your head--to a German room, which smells German, and you will find my boudoir, furnished with sandbags, a shaving mirror and a telephone.

At eleven o'clock I lie on the sandbags and, like the great hunter, close my eyes immediately in dreamless sleep.

At five minutes past eleven the telephone-bell rings.

That is what I am good at. I leap to my feet and say "Hullo!"

Utter silence follows, save (as Mr. BEACH THOMAS would say) for the monotonous drone of the great shells bursting outside.

I repeat my original remark. "Hullo!" I say brightly, "Hullo!... Hullo!"

I shake the microphone. It sounds as though sand had got into it, and still there is silence. The minutes creep on and my voice begins to fail. Outside in the quiet night a solitary gas-alarm chirps a few quiet notes to the stars and is still. I continue to say "Hullo!"

At eleven-fifteen the operator at the other end finishes the story of what he said to her and what she, on the other hand, said to him, and turns refreshed to his instrument.

With a dexterous twist of his wrist he sounds a deafening peal in the bell at my ear, and says, "Hullo!"

I retaliate. When the score is vantage out, I put all the red tabs I can into my voice, and his tone changes. He is at once the cheerful and willing artisan, eager to please.

"Yes, Sir ... Yes, Sir ... Who do you want, Sir? This is Zed Esses Pip Ack five, Sir ..."

"You called me," I say.

He is more hurt than angry at that. "Oh, no, Sir. You rang me up, Sir. This is Zed Esses ..."

I nip that in the bud by saying "Hullo!" very loud. He realizes that the game is up.

"Speak to Division, Sir," he says curtly, and clicks before I can answer. A faint far gnat-voice says, "Is that Zed Ess?"

"No," I shout. "What the ..."

"Through to Division," says gnat-voice and clicks me off. Another voice carries on the good work. Upstairs the shells burst playfully on the parapet, and under the starlit sky a gas cloud drifts slowly across the fields, almost hiding the cattle who are grazing peacefully there in the long wet grass.

At midnight I am through to Division.

"Is that you?" says Division. "There is a list ..."

"Finished, please?" says the operator so near and loud that I jump.

Division and I are at one here--we are agreed that we have not finished. Like the Brothers Crosstalk, we say so simultaneously, using the same swearword.

The operator clicks off, baffled.

"That list of men for a bombing course," says Division.

"Yes, Sir," I reply brightly, though my heart sinks.

"You ought to have sent it in at 6 P.M.," says Division. "And it has not yet arrived."

I look at my wrist-watch, but realise too late that this graceful gesture is lost on him. "I am sorry, Sir," I reply with dignity, "but the delay was inevitable. It shall be with you on the breakfast-table. The difficulty of communication in this great War ..."

Division laughs sardonically.

At ten minutes past twelve I go to bed again, and at twelve-fifteen an orderly shines an electric torch in my eyes in order to prevent my reading a wire which he hands me. It says, "Ref. your S.C. 1985 please ask PIG if they have salvaged any German socks. A.A.A. urgent."

I stand up, and the orderly, completely unnerved by the sight of a Staff Captain in undress uniform, releases the button of his torch and retires under cover of darkness.

I twirl the handle of the telephone and listen. There is silence. I turn it again with vigour. For twenty minutes I behave like an organ-grinder. Towards dawn the bell rings and I receive an electric shock.

"Hullo!" says the operator.

I tell him what I think of him. When I have finished the sun is up and the first aeroplane is dropping its glad bombs on the dewy earth below.

I demand PIG. PIG is a Machine Gun Company. By breakfast-time I have discovered that PIG has salvaged socks, German, one.

I ring up Division ...

It is a splendid force, as they used to say in _The Message from Mars_--it is a splendid force, the Signal Service.

And men sleeping among the rats in the front line wake for their coffee and hot water and envy me my undisturbed nights.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"The Vienna _Die Zeit_ considers the political crisis in Germany as one of the chief consequences of the political utterances of English, American and French statesmen, demanding the demoralisation of Germany."--_Sunday Times_.

It seems superfluous.

* * * * *

"It is authoritatively announced that the American troops fighting in France will very shortly receive steel helmets, the design of the helmets being very similar to those worn by the French and British forces, but bearing, as insignia, the United States coat of mail."--_Daily Graphic_.

Head-protection is very necessary, but isn't this rather overdoing it?