Chapter 5

THE COFFEE-SHOP AND WANKIN

What the pump is to the villager, so the coffee-shop is to the soldier of the New Army. Here the men crowd nightly and live over again the incidents of the day. Our particular coffee-shop is situated in our corner of the town; our men patronise it; there are three assistants, plump, merry girls, and three of our men have fallen in love with them; in short, it is our very own restaurant, opened when we came here, and adapted to our needs; the waitresses wear our hat-badges, sing our songs, and make us welcome when we cross the door to take up our usual chairs and yarn over the cosy tables. The Jersey youth with the blue eyes, the Oxford man, who speaks of things that humble waitresses do not understand, the company drummer, the platoon sergeants, and the Cockney who vows that water is spoilt in making every cup of coffee he drinks, all come here, and all love the place.

I have come to like the place and do most of my writing there, catching snatches of conversation and reminiscence as they float across to me.

"I wasn't meanin' to 'urt ole Ginger Nobby nohow, but the muck I throwed took 'im dead on the jor. 'Wot's yer gime?' 'e 'ollers at me. 'Wot's my gime?' I says back to 'im. 'Nuffin', if ye want ter know!' I says. 'I was just shyin' at squidges.'"

Thus spoke the bright-eyed Cockney at the table next me, gazing regretfully at his empty coffee-cup and cutting away a fringe of rag-nails from his finger with a clasp-knife. The time was eight o'clock of the evening, and the youth was recounting an adventure which he had had in the morning when throwing mud at sparrows on the parade ground. A lump of clay had struck a red-haired non-commissioned officer on the jaw, and the officer became angry. The above was the Cockney version of the story. One of my friends, an army unit with the Oxford drawl, was voluble on another subject.

"Russian writers have had a great effect on our literature," he said, deep in a favourite topic. "They have stripped bare the soul of man with a realism that shrivels up our civilisation and proves--Two coffees, please."

A tall, well-set waitress, with several rings on her fingers, took the order as gravely as if she were performing some religious function; then she turned to the Cockney.

"Cup of cawfee, birdie!" he cried, leaning over the table and trying to grip her hand. "Not like the last, mind; it was good water spoilt. I'll never come in 'ere again."

"So you say!" said the girl, moving out of his way and laughing loudly.

"Strike me balmy if I do!"

"Where'll yer go then?"

"Round the corner, of course," was the answer. "There's another bird there--and cawfee! It's some stuff too, not like 'ere."

"All right; don't come in again if yer don't want ter."

The Cockney got his second cup of coffee and pronounced it inferior to the first; then looked at an evening paper which Oxford handed to him, and studied a photograph of a battleship on the front page.

"Can't stand these 'ere papers," he said, after a moment, as he got to his feet and lit a cigarette. "Nuffink but war in them always; I'm sick readin' about war! I saw your bit in one a couple of nights ago," he said, turning to me.

"What did you think of it?" I asked, anxious to hear his opinion on an article dealing with the life of his own regiment.

"Nuffink much," he answered, honestly and frankly. "Everything you say is about things we all know; who wants to 'ear about them? D'ye get paid for writin' that?"

One of his mates, a youth named Bill, who came in at that moment, overheard the remark.

"Paid! Of course 'e gets paid," said the newcomer. "Bet you he gets 'arf a crown for every time 'e writes for the paper."

All sorts and conditions of soldiers drift into the place and discuss various matters over coffee and mince pies; they are men of all classes, who had been as far apart as the poles in civil life, and are now knit together in the common brotherhood of war. Caste and estate seem to have been forgotten; all are engaged in a common business, full of similar risks, and rewarded by a similar wage.

In one corner of the room a game of cards was in progress, some soldiers were reading, and a few writing letters. Now and again a song was heard, and a score of voices joined in the chorus. The scene was one of indescribable gaiety; the temperament of the assembly was like a hearty laugh, infectious and healthy. Now and then a discussion took place, and towards the close of the evening hot words were exchanged between Bill and his friend, the bright-eyed Cockney.

"I'll give old Ginger Nobby what for one day!" said the latter.

"Will you? I don't think!"

"Bet yer a bob I will!"

"You'd lose it."

"Would I?"

"Straight you would!"

"Strike me pink if I would!"

"You know nothin' of what you're sayin'."

"Don't I?"

"Git!"

"Shut!"

In the coffee-shop Wankin is invariably the centre of an interested group. As the company scapegrace and black sheep of the battalion he occupies in his mates' eyes a position of considerable importance. His repartees are famous, and none knows better than he how to score off an unpopular officer or N.C.O. He has the distinction also of having spent more days in the guard-room than any other man in the battalion.

On the occasion when identity discs were being served out to the men and a momentary stir pervaded the battalion, it was Wankin who first became involved in trouble.

He employed the disc string to fasten the water-bottle of the man on his left to the haversack of the man on his right, and the colour-sergeant, livid with rage, vowed to chasten him by confining him eternally to barracks. But the undaunted company scapegrace was not to be beaten. Fastening the identity disc on his left eye he fixed a stern look on the sergeant.

"My deah fellah," he drawled out, imitating the voice of the company lieutenant who wears an eyeglass, "your remarks are uncalled for, really. By Jove! one would think that a scrap of string was a gold bracelet or a diamond necklace. I could buy the disc and the string for a bloomin' 'apenny."

"You'll pay dearly for it this time," said the colour with fine irony. "Three days C.B.[2] your muckin' about'll cost you." And before Wankin could reply the sergeant was reporting the matter to the captain.

[Footnote 2: Confinement to Barracks.]

Wankin is eternally in trouble, although his agility in dodging pickets and his skill in making a week's C.B. a veritable holiday are the talk of the regiment. All the officers know him, and many of them who have been victims of his smart repartee fear him more than they care to acknowledge. The subaltern with the eyeglass is a bad route-marcher, and Wankin once remarked in an audible whisper that the officer had learned his company drill with a drove of haltered pack-horses, and the officer bears the name of "Pack-horse" ever since.

On another occasion the major suffered when a battalion kit inspection took place early one December morning. Wankin had sold his spare pair of boots, the pair that is always kept on top of the kit-bag; but when the major inspected Wankin's kit the boots were there, newly polished and freed from the most microscopic speck of dust. Someone tittered during the inspection, then another, and the major smelt a rat. He lifted Wankin's kit-bag in his hand and found Wankin's feet tucked under it--Wankin's feet in stockinged soles. The major was justly indignant. "One step to the front, left turn," he roared. "March in front of every rank in the battalion and see what you think of it!"

With stockinged feet, cold, but still wearing an inscrutable smile of impudence, Wankin paraded in front of a thousand grinning faces and in due course got back to his kit and beside the sarcastic major.

"What do you think of it?" asked the latter.

"I don't think much of it, sir," Wankin replied. "It's the dirtiest regiment I ever inspected."

Wankin was sometimes unlucky; fortune refused to favour him when he took up the work of picket on the road between St. Albans and London. No unit of his regiment is supposed to go more than two miles beyond St. Albans without a written permit, and guards are placed at different points of the two-mile radius to intercept the regimental rakes whose feet are inclined to roving. Wankin learned that the London road was not to be guarded on a certain Sunday. The regiment was to parade for a long route-march, and all units were to be in attendance. Wankin pondered over things for a moment, girt on his belt and sword and took up his position on the London road within a hundred yards of a wayside public-house. At this tavern a traveller from St. Albans may obtain a drink on a Sabbath day.

Soldiers, like most mortals, are sometimes dry and like to drink; Wankin was often dry and Wankin had seldom much money to spend. The first soldier who came out from the town wanted to get to the tavern.

"Can't pass here!" the mock-picket told him.

"But I'm dry and I've a cold that catches me awful in the throat."

"Them colds are dangerous," Wankin remarked in a contemplative voice, tinged with compassion. "Used to have them bad myself an' I feel one coming on. I think gin, same as they have in the trenches, is the stuff to put a cold away. But I'm on the rocks."

"If you'll let me through I'll stand on my hands."

"It's risky," said Wankin, then in a brave burst of bravado he said, "Damn it all! I'll let you go by. It's hard to stew dry so near the bar!" An hour later the young man set off towards home, and on his way he met two of his comrades-in-arms on the road.

"Going to ---- pub?" he inquired.

"Going to see that no one does go near it," was the answer. "Picket duty for the rest of the day, we are."

"But Wankin--"

"What?"

The young man explained, and shortly afterwards Wankin went to headquarters under an armed escort. Three days later I saw his head sticking out through the guard-room window, and at that time I had not heard of the London road escapade.

"Here on account of drink?" I asked him.

"You fool," he roared at me. "Do you think I mistook this damned place for the canteen?"

I like Wankin and most of his mates like him. We feel that when detention, barrack confinement and English taverns will be things of yesterday, Wankin will make a good and trustworthy friend in the trenches.