Chapter 2

"Salmon? You're through, Sir," boomed a voice apparently within a foot of his ear.

"OO!" An earsplitting crack was followed by a mosquito-like voice singing in the wilderness.

"Hullo!"

"Hullo!"

"This is Pike."

"This is Possum. H-hullo, Pike!"

"Hullo, Possum!"

"I say, look here, the General w-wants to know" (here he paused to throw a dark hidden meaning into the word) "what time--_it_--is."

"What time it is?"

"Yes, what time _it_ is! _It_. Yes, what time it is"--repeated _fortissimo ad lib_.

"Eleven thirty-five."

"Eleven thirty-five? Why, it's on now. I don't hear anything on the Front?"

"No, you wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because it's all quiet."

"But you said s-something was on?"

"No, I didn't. You asked me what time it was and I told you."

Swallowing hard several times, Possum girded up his loins, so to speak, gripped the telephone firmly in the right hand this time, and jumped off again. His "Hullo" sent a thrill through even the Bosch listening apparatus in the next sector.

"Hullo! L-look here, Pike, we--want--to--know--what time _it_ is."

"Eleven thir--"

"No, no, _it_--_it_"

"What?"

"It! You _know_ what I mean. Damit, what can I call it? Oh--er, _sports_; what time is your _high jump_?" he added, nodding and winking knowingly. "Well, what time's the circus? When do you start for Berlin?"

"I say, Possum, are you all right, old chap?" said a voice full of concern.

A crop of full-bodied beads appeared on the Brigade Major's brow. His right hand was paralysed by the unceasing grip of the receiver. There was a strained look in his eyes as of a man watching for the ration-party.

"S-something," he said, calmly and surely mastering his fate--"s-something is happening to-night."

"You're a cheery sort of bloke, aren't you?"

"Good God, are you cracked or what? There's a--"

"Careful, careful!" called the General from his comfortable chair in the other room.

"O-oh!" sang the mosquito voice, "_now_ I know what you mean. You want to know what time our--er--ha! ha! you know--the--er--don't you?"

"The--ha! ha! yes"--they leered frightfully at each other; it was a horrible spectacle. No one would think that Possum had so much latent evil in him.

"We sent you the time mid-day."

"Well, we haven't had it. C-can you give me any indication, w-without actually s-saying it, you know?"

"Well now," said the mosquito, "You know how many years' service I've got? Multiply by two and add the map square of this headquarters."

"Well, look here," it sang again, "you remember the number of the billet where I had dinner with you three weeks ago? Well, halve that and add two."

"Half nine and add two" (_aside_: "These midnight mathematics will be the death of me--ah! that's between six and seven?"). _Aloud_: "But that's daylight."

"No, it isn't. Which dinner are you thinking of?"

With the sweat pouring down his face, both hands now clasping the telephone--his right being completely numbed--he called upon the gods to witness the foolishness of mortals. Suddenly a hideous cackle of mosquito-laughter filtered through and, by some diabolical contrivance of the signals, the tiny voice swelled into a bellow close to his ear.

"If you really want to know, old Possum," it said, "the raid took place two hours ago!"

"I hope," said Possum, much relieved, but speaking with concentrated venom, "I h-hope you may be strafed with boiling-- Are you there?" Being assured that he was he slapped his receiver twice, and, much gratified at the unprintable expression of the twice-stunned-one at the other end, went to tell the General--who, he found, had gone to bed and was fast asleep.

* * * * *

"The customary oats were administered to the new Judge."--_Perthshire Constitutional_.

There had been some fear, we understand, that owing to the food shortage he would have to be content with thistles.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE OLD FORMULA.

Private Brown lay upon his pillows thoughtfully sucking the new pencil given him by his mate in the next bed. Propped against the cradle that covered his shattered knee was a pad, to which a sheet of paper had been fixed, and he was about to write a letter to his wife.

It was plainly to be an effort, for apart from the fact that he was never a scholar there was the added uncertainty of his long disused right hand to be reckoned with; but at last he grasped the pencil with all the firmness he could muster and began:--

"DEAR WIFE,--I got your letter about Jim he ought to gone long ago, shirking I calls it. This hospital is very nice and when you come down from London youll see all the flowers and the gramophone which is a fair treat. My wounds is slow and I often gets cramp."

No sooner was the fatal word written than the fingers of his right hand began to stiffen, the pencil fell upon the bed, then rolled dejectedly to the floor, where the writer said it might stay for all he cared.

"You must let me finish the letter," said I, when his hand had been rubbed and tucked away in a warm mitten.

"Thank you, Miss; I was getting on nicely, and there's not much more to say," he returned ruefully, scanning the wavering lines before him.

"Well, shall I go on for a bit and let you wind up," said I, unscrewing my pen and taking the pad on my knee.

"Me telling you what to put like?" he asked with a look of pleased relief.

"That's it. Just say what you would write down yourself."

He cleared his throat.

"DEAR WIFE," he resumed, "the wounds is ... awful, not letting me write at all. The one in my back is as long as your arm, and they says it will heal quicker than the one in my knee, which has two tubes in which they squirts strong-smelling stuff through. The foot is a pretty sight, as big as half a melon, and I doubts ever being able to put it to the ground again, though they says I shall. I gets very stiff at nights and the pain sometimes is cruel, but they gives me a prick with the morphia needle then which makes me dream something beautiful...."

There was a pause while he indulged in a smiling reverie.

"Perhaps we have said enough about your pains," I ventured, when, returning from his visions, he puckered his brows in fresh thought. "Your wife might be frightened if--"

"Not her," he interrupted proudly. "She's a rare good nurse herself, and it would take more than that to turn _her_ up."

I shook my pen; he shifted his head a little and continued:--

"DEAR WIFE,--If you could see my shoulder dressed of a morning you would laugh. They cuts out little pieces of lint like a picture puzzle to fit the places, and I've got a regular map of Blighty all down my arm; but that's not so bad as my back, which I cannot see and which the wound is as long--"

I blotted the sheet and turned over, and Private Brown eyed the space left for further cheerful communications.

"Shall I leave this for you to finish?" I suggested, thinking of tender messages difficult to dictate. "Your fingers may be better after tea, or perhaps to-morrow morning."

"That's all right, Miss. There's nothing more to put except my name, if you'll just say, "Good-bye, dear wife, hoping this finds you well as it leaves me at present."

* * * * *

FAIR WARNING.

"A POPULAR CONCERT WILL BE HELL IN THE PORTEOUS HALL, On Friday, 2nd November."--_Scotch Paper_.

* * * * *

CURRAGH MEETING.

Judea . . . . . . . . . . . E.M. Quirke 1 Elfterion . . . . . . . . . . . M. Wing 2 Tut Ttlddddddrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr aY Tut Tut . . . . . . . . . . . . J. Dines 3

_Provincial Paper_.

From which it is to be inferred The angry printer backed the third.

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* * * * *

THE ULTIMATE OUTRAGE.

I had a favourite shirt for many moons, Soft, silken, soothing and of tenderest tone, Gossamer-light withal. The Subs., my peers, Envied the garment, ransacking the land To find a shirt its equal--all in vain. For, when we tired of shooting at the Hun And other Batteries clamoured for their share And we resigned positions at the front To dally for a space behind the line, To shed my war-worn vesture I was wont-- The G.S. boots, the puttees and the pants That mock at cut and mar the neatest leg, The battle-jacket with its elbows patched And bands of leather, round its hard-used cuffs, And, worst of all, the fuggy flannel shirt, Rough and uncouth, that suffocates the soul; And in their stead I donned habiliments Cadets might dream of--serges with a waist, And breeches cut by Blank (you know the man, Or dare not say you don't), long lustrous boots, And gloves canary-hued, bright primrose ties Undimmed by shadows of Sir FRANCIS LLOYD-- And, like a happy mood, I wore the shirt. It was a woven breeze, a melody Constrained by seams from melting in the air, A summer perfume tethered to a stud, The cool of evening cut to lit my form-- And I shall wear it now no more, no more!

There came a day we took it to be washed, I and my batman, after due debate. A little cottage stood hard by the road Whose one small window said, in manuscript, "Wasching for soldiers and for officers," And there we left my shirt with anxious fears And fond injunctions to the Belgian dame. So it was washed. I marked it as I passed Waving svelte arms beneath the kindly sun As if it semaphored to its own shade That answered from the grass. I saw it fill And plunge against its bonds--methought it yearned To join its tameless kin, the airy clouds. And as I saw it so, I sang aloud, "To-morrow I shall wear thee! Haste, O Time!" Fond, futile dream! That very afternoon, Her washing taken in and folded up (My shirt, my shirt I mourn for, with the rest), The frugal creature locked and left her cot To cut a cabbage from a neighbour's field. Then, without warning, from the empurpled sky, Swift with grim dreadful purpose, swooped a shell (Perishing Percy was the name he bore Amongst, the irreverent soldiery), ah me! And where the cottage stood there gaped a gulf; The jewel and the casket vanished both.

* * * * *

Were there no other humble homes but that For the vile Hun to fire at? Did some spy, In bitter jealousy, betray my shirt? What boots it to lament? The shirt is gone. It was not meant for such an one as I, A plain rough gunner with one only pip. No doubt 'twas destined for some lofty soul Who in a deck-chair lolls, and marks the map And says, "Push here," while I and all my kind Scrabble and slaughter in the appointed slough. But I, presumptuous, wore it, till the gods Called for my laundry with a thunderbolt.

* * * * *

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Monday, October 22nd._--The fact that a couple of German raiders contrived to slip through the North Sea patrol the other night was made the excuse for an attack upon the Admiralty. Sir Eric Geddes came down specially to assure the House that if it viewed things "in the right perspective" it would realise that such isolated incidents were unavoidable. Members generally were convinced, I think, by the sight of the First Lord's bulldog jaw, even more than by his words, that the Navy would not loose its grip on the enemy's throat.

If "darkness and composure" are, as we have been told, the best antidotes to an air-raid, where would you be more likely to find them than in a CAVE? The HOME SECRETARY'S explanation did not, of course, satisfy "P.B."--initials now standing for "Pull Baker"--who, in a voice of extra raucosity, caused by his _al-fresco_ oratory in East Islington, demanded that protection should be afforded to--ballot-boxes. But he and Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS and Mr. DILLON--whose sudden solicitude for the inhabitants of London was gently chaffed by Mr. CHAMBERLAIN--were deservedly trounced by Mr. BONAR LAW, who declared that if their craven squealings were typical he should despair of victory.

Who says that the removal of the grille has had no effect upon politics? Exposed to the unimpeded gaze of the ladies in the Gallery the House decided with great promptitude that the female voter should not be called upon to state her exact age, but need only furnish a statutory declaration that she was over thirty.

_Tuesday, October 23rd._--So far as I know, the duties of a Junior Lord of the Treasury have never been exactly defined. Apparently those of Mr. PRATT include the compilation of a "London Letter," to be sent to certain favoured newspapers. In one of them he appears to have stated that Mr. ASQUITH'S condition of health was so precarious that there was little likelihood of his resuming an active part in politics. It was pleasant, therefore, to see the ex-Premier in his place again, and able to contribute to the Irish debate a speech showing no conspicuous failure either of intellect or verbal felicity.

Both Mr. REDMOND and Mr. DUKE had drawn a very gloomy picture of present-day Ireland--the former, of course, attributing it entirely to the ineptitudes of the "Castle," and being careful to say little or nothing to hurt the feelings of the Sinn Feiners, while the latter ascribed it to the rebellious speeches and actions of Mr. DE VALERA and the other hillside orators whom for some inscrutable reason he leaves at large.

I hope Mr. ASQUITH was justified in assuming that the Sinn Fein excesses were only an expression of the "rhetorical and contingent belligerency" always present in Ireland, and that in spite of them the Convention would make all things right.

Meanwhile the Sinn Feiners have refused to take part in it. And not a single Nationalist Member dared to denounce them to-night. Mr. T.M. HEALY even gave them his blessing, for whatever that may be worth.

_Wednesday, October 24_.--The strange case of Mrs. BESANT and Mr. MONTAGU was brought before the Upper House by Lord SYDENHAM, who hoped the Government were not going to make concessions to the noisy people who wanted to set up a little oligarchy in India. The speeches of Lord ISLINGTON and Lord CURZON did not entirely remove the impression that the Government are a little afraid of Mrs. BESANT and her power of "creating an atmosphere" by the emission of "hot air." Apparently there is room for only one orator in India at a time, for it was expressly stated that Mr. MONTAGU, who got back into office shortly after the delivery of what Lord LANSDOWNE characterised as an "intemperate" speech on Indian affairs, has given an undertaking not to make any speech at all during his progress through the Peninsula.

_Thursday, October 25th_.--Irish Members have first cut at the Question-time cake on Thursdays, and employ their opportunity to advertise their national grievances. Mr. O'LEARY, for example, drew a moving picture of a poor old man occupying a single room, and dependent for his subsistence on the grazing of a hypothetical cow; he had been refused a pension by a hard-hearted Board. Translated into prosaic English by the CHIEF SECRETARY it resolved itself into the case of a farmer who had deliberately divested himself of his property in the hope of "wangling" five shillings a week out of the Treasury.

According to Mr. BYRNE the Lord Mayor of DUBLIN has been grossly insulted by a high Irish official, who must be made to apologise or resign. Again Mr. DUKE was unreceptive. He had seen the LORD MAYOR, who disclaimed any responsibility for his self-constituted champion. Mr. BYRNE should now be known as "the cuckoo in the mare's nest."

An attack upon the Petroleum Royalties was led by Mr. ADAMSON, the new Chairman of the Labour Party, who was cordially congratulated by the COLONIAL SECRETARY on his appointment. Mr. LONG might have been a shade less enthusiastic if he had foreseen the sequel. His assurance that there was "nothing behind the Bill" was only too true. There was not even a majority behind it; for the hostile amendment was carried by 44 votes to 35, and the LLOYD GEORGE Administration sustained its first defeat. "Nasty slippery stuff, oil," muttered the Government Whip.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"Wanted, at once, three Slack Carters; constant employment."--_Lancaster Observer_.

We fear that intending applicants may be put off by the conditions.

* * * * *

"WHERE MY CARAVAN HAS RESTED--in A flat."--_Advt. in Provincial Paper_.

And, in the recent weather, a very good place for it.

* * * * *

WAR-TIME TAGS FROM "JULIUS CÆSAR."

A "TAKE COVER" CONSTABLE TO A "SPECIAL."

"I'll about, And drive away the vulgar from the streets; So do you too, where you perceive them thick."--_Act I. Sc. 1_.

A WISE MAN.

"Good night, then, Casca: this disturbéd sky Is not to walk in."--_Act I. Sc. 3_.

A RASH MAN.

"For my part, I have walked about the streets... Even in the aim and very flash of it."--_Act I. Sc. 3_.

TO A MUNITION STRIKER.

"But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day?"--_Act I. Sc. 1_.

TO A LADY CLERK.

"Is this a holiday? What dost thou with thy best apparel on?"--_Act I. Sc. 1_.

TO LORD RHONDDA (_with a whear and potato war-loaf_).

"Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this."--_Act I. Sc. 2_.

* * * * *

THE TRANSLATOR SEES THROUGH IT.

Announcement by a French publisher:--

"Vient de paraitre:--'M. Britling commence à voir clair.'"

* * * * *

"MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

A Large Quantity of Old Bricks for Sale."--_Dublin Evening Herald_.

Do not shoot the pianist. Throw a brick at him instead.

* * * * *

Regarding a certain judge:--

"Hence so many reversals by the Court of Appeal that suitors were often more uneasy if they lost their case before him than if they won it."--_Irish Times_.

We assume that they were Irishmen.

* * * * *

"Elderly Lady Requires Post, as companion, Secretary or any position of trust, would keep clergyman's wife in Parish, etc."--_Church Family Newspaper_.

But the difficulty with the parson's wife in some parishes, we are told, is just the reverse of this.

* * * * *

"Duck and drake (wild) wanted; must be tame."--_Scotsman_.

We dislike this frivolity in a serious paper.

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* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

Albert Edward and I are on detachment just now. I can't mention what job we are on because HINDENBURG is listening. He watches every move made by Albert Edward and me and disposes his forces accordingly. Now and again he forestalls us, now and again he don't. On the former occasions he rings up LUDENDORFF, and they make a night of it with beer and song; on the latter he pushes the bell violently for the old German god.

The spot Albert Edward and I inhabit just now is very interesting; things happen all round us. There is a tame balloon tied by a string to the back garden, an ammunition column on either flank and an infantry battalion camped in front. Aeroplanes buzz overhead in flocks and there is a regular tank service past the door. One way and another our present location fairly teems with life; Albert Edward says it reminds him of London. To heighten the similarity we get bombed every night.

Promptly after Mess the song of the bomb-bird is heard. The searchlights stab and slash about the sky like tin swords in a stage duel; presently they pick up the bomb-bird--a glittering flake of tinsel--and the racket begins. Archibalds pop, machine guns chatter, rifles crack, and here and there some optimistic sportsman browns the Milky Way with a revolver. As Sir I. NEWTON'S law of gravity is still in force and all that goes up must come down again, it is advisable to wear a parasol on one's walks abroad.

In view of the heavy lead-fall Albert Edward and I decided to have a dug-out. We dug down six inches and struck water in massed formation. I poked a finger into the water and licked it. "Tastes odd," said I, "brackish or salt or something."

"We've uncorked the blooming Atlantic, that's what," said Albert Edward; "cork it up again quickly or it'll bob up and swamp us." That done, we looked about for something that would stand digging into. The only thing we could find was a molehill, so we delved our way into that. We are residing in it now, Albert Edward, Maurice and I. We have called it "_Mon Repos_," and stuck up a notice saying we are inside, otherwise visitors would walk over it and miss us.

The chief drawback to "_Mon Repos_" is Maurice. Maurice is the proprietor by priority, a mole by nature. Our advent has more or less driven him into the hinterland of his home and he is most unpleasant about it. He sits in the basement and sulks by day, issuing at night to scrabble about among our boots, falling over things and keeping us awake. If we say "Boo! Shoo!" or any harsh word to him he doubles up the backstairs to the attic and kicks earth over our faces at three-minute intervals all night.

Albert Edward says he is annoyed about the rent, but I call that absurd. Maurice is perfectly aware that there is a war on, and to demand rent from soldiers who are defending his molehill with their lives is the most ridiculous proposition I ever heard of. As I said before, the situation is most unpleasant, but I don't see what we can do about it, for digging out Maurice means digging down "_Mon Repos_," and there's no sense in that. Albert Edward had a theory that the mole is a carnivorous animal, so he smeared a worm with carbolic tooth-paste and left it lying about. It lay about for days. Albert now admits his theory was wrong; the mole is a vegetarian, he says; he was confusing it with trout. He is in the throes of inventing an explosive potato for Maurice on the lines of a percussion grenade, but in the meanwhile that gentleman remains in complete mastery of the situation.

The balloon attached to our back garden is very tame. Every morning its keepers lead it forth from its abode by strings, tie it to a longer string and let it go. All day it remains aloft, tugging gently at its leash and keeping an eye on the War. In the evening the keepers appear once more, haul it down and lead it home for the night. It reminds me for all the world of a huge docile elephant being bossed about by the mahout's infant family. I always feel like giving the gentle creature a bun.