Part 4

But I am not entirely of the vulgar opinion. The finished politician may not be a subject for odes, but a political education is a great asset to any man. Our Mess President, William, once assisted a friend to lose a parliamentary election, and his experience has been invaluable to us. The moment we are tired of fighting and want billets, the Squadron sits down where it is and the Skipper passes the word along for William. William dusts his boots, adjusts his tie and heads for the most prepossessing farm in sight. Arrived there, he takes off his hat to the dog, pats the pig, asks the cow after the calf, salutes the farmer, curtsies to the farmeress, then turning to the inevitable baby, exclaims in the language of the country, "Mong Jew, kell jolly ongfong" (Gosh, what a topping kid!), and bending tenderly over it imprints a lingering kiss upon its india-rubber features and wins the freedom of the farm. The Mess may make use of the kitchen; the spare bed is at the Skipper's disposal; the cow will move up and make room for the First Mate; the pig will be only too happy to welcome the Subalterns to its modest abode.

Ordinary billeting officers stand no chance against our William and his political education. "That fellow," I heard one disgruntled competitor remark to him, "would hug the devil for a knob of coke." Once only did he meet his match, and a battle of Titans resulted.

In pursuit of his business he entered a certain farmhouse, to find the baby already in possession of another officer, a heavy red creature with a monocle, who was rocking the infant's cradle seventy-five revolutions per minute and making dulcet noises on a moustache comb.

William's heart fell to his field boots; he recognised the red creature's markings immediately. This was another politician; no bloodless victory would be his; fur would fly first, powder burn--Wow!

The red person must have tumbled to William as well, for he increased the revolutions to one hundred and forty per minute and broke into a shrill lullaby of his own impromptu composition:

"Go to sleep, Mummy's liddle Did-ums; Go to sleep, Daddy's liddle Thing-me-jig."

Nevertheless this did not baffle our William. He approached from a flank, deftly twitched the infant out of its cradle by the scruff of its neck, and commenced to plaster it with tender kisses. However the red man tailed it as it went past and hung on, kissing any bits he could reach. When the mother reappeared they were worrying the baby between them as a couple of hound puppies worry the hind leg of a cub. She beat them faithfully with a broom and hove both of them out into the wide wet world, and we all slept in a bog that night, and William was much abused and loathed. But that was his only failure.

If getting billets is William's job, getting rid of them is the Babe's affair. William, like myself, has far too great a mastery of the patois to handle delicate situations with success. For instance, when the farmer approaches me with tidings that my troopers have burnt two ploughshares and a crowbar, and my troop-horses have masticated a brick wall, I engage him in palaver, with the result that we eventually part, I under the impression that the incident is closed, and he under the impression that I have promised to buy him a new farm. This leads to all sorts of international complications.

The Babe, on the other hand, regards a knowledge of French as immoral and only knows enough of it to order himself a drink. He is also gifted with a slight stutter, which under the stress of a foreign language becomes chronic. So when we evacuate a billet William furnishes the Babe with enough money to compensate the farmer for all damages we have not committed, and then effaces himself. Donning a bright smile the Babe approaches the farmer and presses the lucre into his honest palm.

"Hi," says the worthy fellow, "what is this, then? One hundred francs! Where is the seventy-four francs, six centimes for the fleas your dog stole? The two hundred francs, three centimes for the indigestion your rations gave my pig? The eight thousand and ninety-nine francs, five centimes insurance money I should have collected if your brigands had not stopped my barn from burning?--and all the other little damages, three million, eight hundred thousand and forty-four francs, one centime in all--where is it, hein?"

"Ec-c-coutez une moment," the Babe begins. "Jer p-p-poovay expliquay tut--tut--tut--tut--sh-sh-shiss----" says he, loosening his stammer at rapid fire, popping and hissing, rushing and hitching like a red-hot machine-gun with a siphon attachment. In five minutes the farmer is white in the face and imploring the Babe to let bygones be bygones. "N-n-not a b-bit of it, old t-top," says the Babe. "Jer p-p-poovay exp-p-pliquay b-b-bub-bub-bub----" and away it goes again like a combined steam riveter and shower bath, like the water coming down at Lodore. No farmer however hardy has been known to stand more than twenty minutes of this. A quarter of an hour usually sees him bolting and barring himself into the cellar, with the Babe blowing him kisses of fond farewell through the key-hole.

We are billeted on a farm at the present moment.

The Skipper occupies the best bed; the rest of us are doing the al fresco touch in tents and bivouacs scattered about the surrounding landscape. We are on very intimate terms with the genial farmyard folk. Every morning I awake to find half a dozen hens and their gentleman friend roosting along my anatomy. One of the hens laid an egg in my ear this morning. William says she mistook it for her nest, but I take it the hen, as an honest bird, was merely paying rent for the roost.

The Babe turned up at breakfast this morning wearing only half a moustache. He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he slept. The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since--a moustache must be very ticklish to digest.

Yesterday MacTavish, while engaged in taking his tub in the open, noticed that his bath-water was mysteriously sinking lower and lower. Turning round to investigate the cause of the phenomenon he beheld a gentle milch privily sucking it up behind his back. There was a strong flavour of Coal Tar soap in the _cafè au lait_ to-day.

This morning at dawn I was aroused by a cold foot pawing at my face. Blinking awake, I observed Albert Edward in rosy pyjamas capering beside my bed. "Show a leg, quick," he whispered. "Rouse out, and Uncle will show boysey pretty picture."

Brushing aside the coverlet of fowl, I followed him tiptoe across the dewy mead to the tarpaulin which he and MacTavish call "home."

Albert Edward lifted a flap and signed me to peep within. It was, as he had promised, a pretty picture.

At the foot of our MacTavish's mattress, under a spare blanket lifted from that warrior in his sleep, lay a large pink pig. Both were occupied in peaceful and stertorous repose.

"Heads of Angels, by Sir Joshua Reynolds," breathed Albert Edward in my ear.

XII

FUNNY CUTS

All the world has marvelled at "the irrepressible good humour" of old Atkins. Every distinguished tripper who comes Cook's touring to the Front for a couple of days devotes at least a chapter of his resultant book to it. "How in thunder does Thomas do it?" they ask. "What the mischief does he find to laugh at?" Listen.

Years ago, when the well-known War was young, a great man sat in his sanctum exercising his grey matter. He said to himself, "There is a war on. Men, amounting to several, will be prised loose from comfortable surroundings and condemned to get on with it for the term of their unnatural lives. They will be shelled, gassed, mined and bombed, smothered in mud, worked to the bone, bored stiff and scared silly. Fatigues will be unending, rations short, rum diluted, reliefs late and leave nil. Their girls will forsake them for diamond-studded munitioneers. Their wives will write saying, 'Little Jimmie has the mumps; and what about the rent? You aren't spending all of five bob a week on yourself, are you?' This is but a tithe (or else a tittle) of the things that will occur to them, and their sunny natures will sour and sicken if something isn't done about it."

The great man sat up all night chewing penholders and pondering on the problem. The Big Idea came with the end of the eighth penholder.

He sprang to his feet, fires of inspiration flashing from his eyes, and boomed, "Let there be _Funny Cuts!_"--then went to bed. Next morning he created "I." (which stands for Intelligence), carefully selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs of appropriate hue, and told them to go the limit. And they have been going it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of Hindenburg accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Boche tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of the green tabs will make of it. A hint is as good as a wink to them, a nudge ample. Under the genius of these imaginative artists the most trivial incident bourgeons forth into a Le Queux spell-binder, and the whole British Army, mustering about its Sergeant-Majors, gets selected cameos read to it every morning at roll-call, laughs brokenly into the jaws of dawn and continues chuckling to itself all day. Now you know.

Our Adjutant had a telephone call not long ago. "Army speaking," said a voice. "Will you send somebody over to Courcelles and see if there is a Town Major there?"

The Adjutant said he would, and a N.C.O. was despatched forthwith. He returned later, reporting no symptoms of one, so the Adjutant rang up Exchange and asked to be hooked on to Army Headquarters. "Which branch?" Exchange inquired. "Why, really I don't know--forgot to ask," the Adjutant confessed. "I'll have a try at 'A.''

"Hello," said "A." "There is no Town Major at Courcelles," said the Adjutant. "You astound me, Fair Unknown," said "A."; "but what about it, anyway?" The Adjutant apologised and asked Exchange for "Q." department, "Hello," said "Q." "There is no Town Major at Courcelles," said the Adjutant. "Sorry, old thing, whoever you are," said "Q.," "but we don't stock 'em. Rations, iron; perspirators, box; oil, whale, delivered with promptitude and civility, but not Town Majors--sorry." The Adjutant sighed and consulted with Exchange as to who possibly could have rung him up.

Exchange couldn't guess unless it was "I."--no harm in trying, anyhow.

"Hello!" said "I." "There is no Town Major at Courcelles," the Adjutant droned somewhat wearily. "Wha-t!" "I." exclaimed, suddenly interested. "Say it again, clearer." "Cour-celles--No--Town--Major," the Adjutant repeated. There was a pause; then he heard the somebody give off an awed "Good Lord!" and drop the receiver. Next morning in _Funny Cuts_ (the organ of Intelligence) we learned that "_Corps_ Headquarters was heavily _Shelled_ last night. The Town Major is missing. This is evidence that the enemy has brought long-range guns into the opposite sector." Followed masses of information as to the probable make of the guns, the size of shell they preferred, the life-story of the Battery Commander, his favourite flower and author.

The Boche, always on the alert to snaffle the paying devices of an opposition firm, now has his "I." staff and _Funny Cuts_ as well. From time to time we capture a copy and read this sort of thing:

"From agonised screeches heard by one of our intrepid airmen while patrolling over the enemy's lines yesterday, it is evident that the brutal and relentless British are bayoneting their prisoners."

A Highland Division, whose star pipers were holding a dirge and lament contest on that date, are now ticking off the hours to the next offensive.

The Antrims had a _cordon bleu_ by the name of Michael O'Callagan. He was a sturdy rogue, having retreated all the way from Mons, and subsequently advanced all the way back to the Yser with a huge stock-pot on his back, from which he had furnished mysterious stews to all comers, at all hours, under any conditions. For this, and for the fact that he could cook under water, and would turn out hot meals when other _chefs_ were committing suicide, much was forgiven him, but he was prone to look upon the _vin_ when it was _rouge_ and was habitually coated an inch thick with a varnish of soot and pot-black. One morning he calmly hove himself over the parapet and, in spite of the earnest attentions of Hun snipers, remained there long enough to collect sufficient débris to boil his dixies. Next day the Boche _Funny Cuts_ flared forth scareheads:

"SAVAGES ON THE SOMME.

"The desperate and unprincipled British are employing black cannibal Zulus in the defence of their system. Yesterday one of them, a chief of incredibly depraved appearance, was observed scouting in the open."

The communiqué ended with a treatise on the Zulu, its black man-eating habits, and an exhortation to "our old Brandenburgers" not to be dismayed.

XIII

LEAVE

The Babe went to England on leave. Not that this was any new experience for him; he usually pulled it off every twelve months--influence, and that sort of thing, you know. He went down to the coast in a carriage containing seventeen other men, but he got a fat sleepy youth to sit on, and was passably comfortable. He crossed over in a wobbly boat packed from cellar to attic with Red Tabs invalided with shell shock, Blue Tabs with trench fever, and Green Tabs with brain-fag; Mechanical Transporters in spurs and stocks, jam merchants in revolvers and bowie-knives, Military Police festooned with _pickelhaubes_, and here and there a furtive fighting man who had got away by mistake, and would be recalled as soon as he landed.

The leave train rolled into Victoria late in the afternoon. Cab touts buzzed about the Babe, but he would have none of them; he would go afoot the better to see the sights of the village--a leisurely sentimental pilgrimage. He had not covered one hundred yards when a ducky little thing pranced up to him, squeaking, "Where are your gloves, Sir?" "I always put 'em in cold storage during summer along with my muff and boa, dear," the Babe replied pleasantly. "Moreover, my mother doesn't like me to talk to strangers in the streets, so ta-ta." The little creature blushed like a tea-rose and stamped its little hoof. "Insolence!" it squeaked. "You--you go back to France by the next boat!" and the Babe perceived to his horror that he had been witty to an Assistant Provost-Marshal! He flung himself down on his knees, licking the A.P.M.'s boots and crying in a loud voice that he would be good and never do it again.

The A.P.M. pardoned the Babe (he wanted to save the polish on his boots) on condition that he immediately purchased a pair of gloves of the official cut and hue. The Babe did so forthwith and continued on his way. He had not continued ten yards when another A.P.M. tripped him up. "That cap is a disgrace, Sir!" he barked. "I know it, Sir," the Babe admitted, "and I'm awfully sorry about it; but that hole in it only arrived last night--shrapnel, you know--and I haven't had time to buy another yet. I don't care for the style they sell in those little French shops--do you?"

The A.P.M. didn't know anything about France or its little shops, and didn't intend to investigate; at any rate not while there was a war on there. "You will return to the Front to-morrow," said he. The Babe grasped his hand from him and shook it warmly. "Thank you--thank you, Sir," he gushed; "I didn't want to come, but they made me. I'm from Fiji; have no friends here, and London is somehow so different from Suva it makes my head ache. I am broke and couldn't afford leave, anyway. Thank you, Sir--thank you."

"Ahem--in that case I will revoke my decision," said the A.P.M. "Buy yourself an officially-sanctioned cap and carry on."

The Babe bought one with alacrity; then, having tasted enough of the dangers of the streets for one afternoon, took a taxi, and, lying in the bottom, well out of sight, sped to his old hotel. When he reached his old hotel he found it had changed during his absence, and was now headquarters of the Director of Bones and Dripping. He abused the taxi-driver, who said he was sorry, but there was no telling these days; a hotel was a hotel one moment, and the next it was something entirely different. Motion pictures weren't in it, he said.

Finally they discovered a hotel which was still behaving as such, and the Babe got a room. He remained in that room all the evening, beneath the bed, having his meals pushed in to him under the door. A prowling A.P.M. sniffed at the keyhole, but did not investigate further, which was fortunate for the Babe, who had no regulation pyjamas.

Next morning, crouched on the bottom boards of another taxi, he was taken to his tailor, poured himself into the faithful fellow's hands, and only departed when guaranteed to be absolutely A.P.M.-proof. He went to the "Bolero" for lunch, ordered some oysters for a start, polished them off and bade the waiter trot up the _consommé_. The waiter shook his head. "Can't be done, Sir. Subaltern gents are only allowed three and six-penceworth of food and you've already had that, Sir. If we was to serve you with a crumb more, we'd be persecuted under the Trading with the Enemy Act, Sir. There's an A.P.M. sitting in the corner this very moment, Sir, his eyeglass fixed on your every mouthful, very suspicious-like----"

"Good Lord!" said the Babe, and bolted. He bolted as far as the next restaurant, had a three-and-sixpenny _entrée_ there, went on to another for sweets, and yet another for coffee and trimmings. These short bursts between courses kept his appetite wonderfully alive.

That afternoon he ran across a lady friend in Bond Street, "a War Toiler enormously interested in the War" (see the current number of _Social Snaps_). She had been at Yvonne's trying on her gauze for the Boccaccio Tableaux in aid of the Armenians and needed some relaxation. So she engaged the Babe for the play, to be followed by supper with herself and her civilian husband. The play (a War drama) gave the Babe a fine hunger, but the Commissionaire (apparently a Major-General) who does odd jobs outside the Blitz took exception to him. "Can't go in, Sir." "Why not?" the Babe inquired; "my friends have gone in." "Yessir, but no hofficers are allowed to obtain nourishment after 10 p.m. under Defence of the Realm Act, footnote (_a_) to para. 14004." He leaned forward and whispered behind his glove, "There's a Hay Pee Hem under the portico watching your movements, Sir." The Babe needed no further warning; he dived into his friend's Limousine and burrowed under the rug.

Some time later the door of the car was opened cautiously and the moon-face of the Major-General inserted itself through the crack. "Hall clear for the moment, Sir; the Hay Pee Hem 'as gorn orf dahn the street, chasin' a young hofficer in low shoes. 'Ere, tyke this; I'm a hold soldier meself." He thrust a damp banana in the Babe's hand and closed the door softly.

Next morning the Babe dug up an old suit of 1914 "civies" and put them on. A woman in the Tube called him "Cuthbert" and informed him gratuitously that her husband, twice the Babe's age, had volunteered the moment Conscription was declared and had been fighting bravely in the Army Clothing Department ever since. Further she supposed the Babe's father was in Parliament and that he was a Conscientious Objector. In Hyde Park one urchin addressed him as "Daddy" and asked him what he was doing in the Great War; another gambolled round and round him making noises like a rabbit. In Knightsbridge a Military Policeman wanted to arrest him as a deserter. The Babe hailed a taxi and, cowering on the floor, fled back to his hotel and changed into uniform again.

That night, strolling homewards in the dark, immersed in thought, he inadvertently took a pipe out of his pocket and lit it. An A.P.M. who had been sleuthing him for half a mile leapt upon him, snatched the pipe and two or three teeth out of his mouth and returned him to France by the next boat.

* * * * * * * *

His groom, beaming welcome, met him at the rail-head with the horses.

"Hello, old thing, cheerio and all the rest of it," Huntsman whinnied lovingly.

Miss Muffet rubbed her velvet muzzle against his pocket. "Brought a lump of sugar for a little girl?" she rumbled.

He mounted her and headed across country, Miss Muffet pig-jumping and capering to show what excellent spirits she enjoyed.

Two brigades of infantry were under canvas in Mud Gully, their cook fires winking like red eyes. The guards clicked to attention and slapped their butts as the Babe went by. A subaltern bobbed out of a tent and shouted to him to stop to tea. "We've got cake," he lured, but the Babe went on.

A red-hat cantered across the stubble before him waving a friendly crop, "Pip" Vibart the A.P.M. homing to H.Q. "Evening, boy!" he holloaed; "come up and Bridge to-morrow night," and swept on over the hillside. A flight of aeroplanes, like flies in the amber of sunset, droned overhead _en route_ for Hunland. The Babe waved his official cap at them: "Good hunting, old dears."

They had just started feeding up in the regimental lines when he arrived; the excited neighing of five hundred horses was music to his ears. His brother subalterns hailed his return with loud and exuberant noises, made disparaging remarks about the smartness of his clothes, sat on him all over the floor and rumpled him. On sighting the Babe, The O'Murphy went mad and careered round the table wriggling like an Oriental dancer, uttering shrill yelps of delight; presently he bounced out of the window, to enter some minutes later by the same route, and lay the offering of a freshly slain rat at his best beloved's feet.

At this moment the skipper came in plastered thick with the mud of the line, nodded cheerfully to his junior sub and instantaneously fell upon the buttered toast.

"Have a good time, Son?" he mumbled. "How's merrie England?"

"Oh, England's all right, Sir," said the Babe, tickling The O'Murphy's upturned tummy--"quite all right; but it's jolly to be home again among one's ain folk."

XIV

"HARMONY, GENTS!"

No one, with the exception of the Boche, has a higher admiration for the scrapping abilities of the Scot than I have, but in matters musical we do not hear ear to ear. It is not that I have no soul; I have. I fairly throb with it. I rise in the mornings trilling trifles of Monckton and croon myself to sleep o' nights with snatches of Novello.

I do not wish to boast, but to hear me pick the "Moonlight Sonata" out of a piano with one hand (the other strapped behind my back) is an unforgettable experience.

I would not yield to Paderewski himself on the comb, bones or Jew's harp, and I could give A. Gabriel a run for his money on the coachhorn. But these bagpipes!

It is not so much the execution of the bagpiper that I object to as his restricted repertoire. He can only play one noise. It is quite useless a Scot explaining to me that this is the "Lament of Sandy Macpherson" and that the "Dirge of Hamish MacNish"; it all sounds the same to me.