Part 5

The brigade of infantry that is camped in front of my dug-out ("Mon Repos") is a Scots brigade. Not temporary Scots from the Highlands of Commissioner Street, Jo'burg, and Hastings Street, Vancouver (about whom I have nothing to say), but real _pukka_, law-abiding, kirk-going, God-fearing, bayonet-pushing Gaels, bred among the crags of the Grampians and reared on thistles and illicit whuskey. And every second man in this brigade is a confirmed bagpiper.

They have massed pipes for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner; pipes solos before, during, and after drinks. If one of them goes across the road to borrow a box of matches, a piper goes with him raising Cain. Their Officers' Mess is situated just behind "Mon Repos," so we live in the orchestra stalls, so to speak, and hear all there is to be heard.

One evening, while Sandy Macpherson's (or Hamish MacNish's) troubles were being very poignantly aired next door, Albert Edward came to the conclusion that the limit had been reached. "They've been killing the pig steadily for ten days and nights now," said he; "something's got to be done about it."

"I'm with you," said I; "but what are we two against a whole brigade? If they were to catch you pushing an impious pin into one of their sacred joy-bags there'd be another Second Lieutenant missing."

"Desist and let me think," said Albert Edward, and for the next hour he lay on his bed rolling and groaning--the usual signs that his so-called brain is active.

The following morning he rode over to the squadron, returning later with the Mess gramophone and a certain record. There are records and records, but for high velocity, armour-piercing and range this one bangs Banagher. It is a gem out of that "sparkling galaxy of melody, mirth and talent" (Press Agent speaking), "_I Don't Think_," which scintillates nightly at the Frivolity Theatre.

"When the Humming-birds are singing" is the title thereof, and Miss Birdie de Maie renders it--renders it as she alone can, in a voice like a file chafing corrugated iron.

We started the birds humming at 4 p.m., and let it rip steadily until 11.15 p.m., only stopping to change needles.

Albert Edward's batman unleashed the hub-bub again at six next morning; my batman relieved him at eight, and so on throughout the day in two-hour shifts. At night the line guards carried on. The following morning, as our batmen threatened to report sick, we crimed a trooper for "dumb insolence" and made him expiate his sin by tending the gramophone. O'Dwyer, of one of the neighbouring ammunition columns, came over in the afternoon to complain that his mules couldn't get a wink of sleep and were muttering among themselves; but we gave him a bottle of whiskey and he went away quietly.

Monk of the other column called an hour later to ask if we wanted to draw shell-fire; but we bought him off with a snaffle bit and a bottle of hair lotion.

The whole neighbourhood grew restive. Somebody under cover of the dark took a pot at the gramophone with a revolver and winged it in the trumpet. Even the placid observation balloon which floats above our camp grew nasty and dropped binoculars and sextants on us. We built a protective breastwork of sandbags about it and carried on. As for ourselves we didn't mind the racket in the least, having taken the precaution of corking our ears with gunners' wax.

Then one evening we discovered a Highland bomber worming up a drain on his stomach towards our instrument. Cornered, he excused himself on the plea that it was a form of Swedish exercise he always took at twilight for the benefit of his digestion. An ingenious explanation, but it hardly covered the live Mills bomb he was endeavouring to conceal in a fold of his kilt. We drove him away with a barrage of peg-mallets; but secretly we were very elated, for it was clear that the strain was telling on the hardy Scot.

As a precautionary measure we now surrounded the gramophone with a barbed-wire entanglement, and so we carried on.

Next day we saw a score of kiltie officers grouped outside their Mess, heads together, apparently in earnest consultation. Every now and again they would turn and glare darkly in our direction.

"The white chiefs hold heap big palaver over yonder," Albert Edward remarked. "They're tossing up now to decide who shall come over and beard us. The braw bairn with the astrakhan knees has lost; he's cocking his bonnet and asking his pals if he's got his sporran on straight. Behold he approacheth, stepping delicately. I leave it to you, partner."

I lay in the grass and waited for the deputation. The gramophone, safe behind its sandbags and wire, was doing business as usual, Miss Birdie yowling away like a wild cat on hot cinders. The deputation picked his way round the horse lines, nodded to me and sat down on the oil-drum we keep for the accommodation of guests. He nervously opened the ball by remarking that the weather was fine.

I did not agree with him, but refused to argue. That baffled him for some seconds, but he recovered by maintaining that it was anyway finer than it had been in 1915. After that outburst he seemed at a loss for a topic of conversation, and sat scratching his ear as if he expected to get inspiration out of it as a conjurer gets rabbits.

"Ye seem verra pairtial to music?" he ventured presently.

"Passionately," said I.

"Ah--hem! Ye seem verra pairtial to that one selection," he continued.

"Passionately devoted to it," said I. "Lovely little thing; I adore its sentiment, tempo, tremolo and timbre, its fortissimo and allegro. Just listen to the part that's coming now--

'When the humming birds are singing And the old church bells are ringing We'll canoodle, we'll canoodle 'neath the moon. Down in Alabama You'll be my starry-eyed charmer; On my white-haired kitten's grave we'll sit and spoon, spoon, spoo-oo-oon.'

Nifty bit of allegro work that--eh, what?"

He nodded politely. "Ay--of course, sairtainly; but--er--er--don't ye find it grows a wee monotonous in time?"

"Never," I retorted stoutly. "Not in the least. No more than you find the Lament or Dirge of Sandy Macpherson or Hamish MacNish monotonous."

He cocked his ears suddenly and stared at me. Then his chubby face split slowly from ear to ear in the widest grin I ever saw, and up went both his hands.

"Kamerad!" said he.

XV

THE MULE AND THE TANK

The ammunition columns on either flank provide us with plenty of amusement. They seem to live by stealing each other's mules. My line-guards tell me that stealthy figures leading shadowy donkeys are crossing to and fro all night long through my lines. The respective C.O.'s, an Australian and an Irishman, drop in on us from time to time and warn us against each other. I remain strictly neutral, and so far they have respected my neutrality. I have taken steps toward this end by surrounding my horses with barbed wire and spring guns, tying bells on them and doubling the guard.

Monk, the Australian, dropped in on us two or three days ago. "That darn Sinn Feiner is the limit," said he; "lifted my best moke off me last night while I was up at the batteries. He'd pinch Balaam's ass." We murmured condolences, but Monk waved them aside. "Oh, it's quite all right. I wasn't born yesterday, or the day before for that matter. I'll make that merry Fenian weep tears of blood before I've finished. Just you watch."

O'Dwyer, the merry Fenian, called next day.

"Give us a dhrink, brother-officers," said he. "I'm wake wid laughter."

We asked what had happened.

"Ye know that herrin'-gutted bushranger over yonder? He'd stale the milk out of your tea, he would, be the same token. Well, last night he got vicious and took a crack at my lines. I had rayson to suspect he'd be afther tryin' somethin' on, so I laid for him. I planted a certain mule where he could stale it an' guarded the rest four deep. Begob, will ye believe me, but he fell into the thrap head first--the poor simple divil."

"But he got your mule," said Albert Edward, perplexed.

"Shure an' he did, you bet he did--he got old Lyddite."

Albert Edward and I were still puzzled.

"Very high explosive--hence name," O'Dwyer explained.

"Dear hearrts," he went on, "he's got my stunt mule, my family assassin! That long-ear has twenty-three casualties to his credit, including a Brigadier. I have to twitch him to harness him, side-line him to groom him, throw him to clip him, and dhrug him to get him shod. Perceive the jest now? Esteemed comrade Monk is afther pinchin' an infallible packet o' sudden death, an' he don't know it--yet."

"What's the next move?" I inquired.

"I'm going to lave him there. Mind you I don't want to lose the old moke altogether, because, to tell the truth, I'm a biteen fond of him now that I know his thricks, but I figure Mr. Monk will be a severely cured character inside a week, an' return the beastie himself with tears an' apologies on vellum so long."

I met O'Dwyer again two days later on the mud track. He reined up his cob and begged a cigarette.

"Been havin' the fun o' the worrld down at the dressin'-station watchin' Monk's casualties rollin' in," said he. "Terrible spectacle, 'nough to make a sthrong man weep. Mutual friend Monk lookin' 'bout as genial as a wet hen. This is goin' to be a wondherful lesson to him. See you later." He nudged his plump cob and ambled off, whistling merrily.

But it was Monk we saw later. He wormed his long corpse into "Mon Repos" and sat on Albert Edward's bed laughing like a tickled hyena. "Funniest thing on earth," he spluttered. "A mule strayed into my lines t'other night and refused to leave. It was a rotten beast, a holy terror; it could kick a fly off its ears and bite a man in half. I don't mind admitting it played battledore and what's-'is-name with my organisation for a day or two, but out of respect for O'Dwyer, blackguard though he is, I..."

"Oh, so it was O'Dwyer's mule?" Albert Edward cut in innocently.

Monk nodded hastily. "Yes, so it turned out. Well, out of respect for O'Dwyer I looked after it as far as it would allow me, naturally expecting he'd come over and claim it--but he didn't. On the fourth day, after it had made a light breakfast off a bombardier's ear and kicked a gap in a farrier, I got absolutely fed up, turned the damn cannibal loose and gave it a cut with a whip for God-speed. It made off due east, cavorting and snorting until it reached the tank track; there it stopped and picked a bit of grass. Presently along comes a tank, proceeding to the fray, and gives the mule a poke in the rear. The mule lashes out, catching the tank in the chest, and then goes on with his grazing without looking round, leaving the tank for dead, as by all human standards it should have been, of course. But instead of being dead the box of tricks ups and gives the donk another butt and moves on. That roused the mule properly. He closed his eyes and laid into the tank for dear life; you could hear it clanging a mile away.

"After delivering two dozen of the best, the moke turned round to sniff the cold corpse, but the corpse was still warm and smiling. Then the mule went mad and set about the tank in earnest. He jabbed it in the eye, upper-cut it on the point, hooked it behind the ear, banged its slats, planted his left on the mark and his right on the solar plexus, but still the tank sat up and took nourishment.

"Then the donkey let a roar out of him and closed with it; tried the half Nelson, the back heel, the scissors, the roll, and the flying-mare; tried Westmorland and Cumberland style, collar and elbow, Cornish, Greece-Roman, scratch-as-scratch-can and Ju-jitsu. Nothing doing. Then as a last despairing effort he tried to charge it over on its back and rip the hide off it with his teeth.

"But the old tank gave a 'good-by-ee' cough of its exhaust and rumbled off as if nothing had happened, nothing at all. I have never seen such a look of surprise on any living creature's face as was on that donk's. He sank down on his tail, gave a hissing gasp and rolled over stone dead. Broken heart."

"Is that the end?" Albert Edward inquired.

"It is," said Monk; "and if you go outside and look half-right you'll see the bereaved Mr. O'Dwyer, all got up in sackcloth, cinders and _crêpe_ rosettes, mooning over the deceased like a dingo on an ash heap."

XVI

WAR PAINT

After the 53rd Lancers had been in the trenches for seven days--during which period the Boches hated them ceaselessly with whizz-bangs, tear-shells, snipers, coal-boxes, hand and rifle grenades, spring guns, rifle batteries, machine-guns, gas and liquid fire; and something celestial leaked badly so that the front line gave a muddy imitation of the Grand Canal, Venice--the infantry relieved them and they came out looking like nothing on earth.

They were marched into an ex-dye factory, boiled, fourteen in a vat, issued with a change of underclothes and marched on to billets.

The 53rd being a smart regiment, they were given twenty-four hours to lick and polish themselves like unto the stars of the firmament for brightness, or never hear the last of it.

In twenty-four hours they paraded again, according unto orders, and the stars of the firmament also ran.

At noon the same day the party proceeding on Blighty leave was paraded for inspection by the Orderly Officer.

Pending the arrival of the O.O., the Regimental Sergeant-Major gave them a preliminary look over.

They were dressed by the right in file, chests thrown in the air, faces shiny with soap and pink from razoring. Every badge, buckle and button twinkled a challenge back at the sun, every spur shone like a bar of silver, their leatherwork gleamed with the polish bloom of a plum, their puttees and tunics were without spot or blemish, every cap raked slightly over every right ear. They were smart men of a smart regiment, whose boast it was that they lived and died glitteringly.

The R.S.M. ran a grey foxy eye over and through them. At the sixth file from the right he paused, staggered, blanched, and broke into tears.

The Regiment was disgraced, the name gloriously won by dashing generations of light cavalry men was gone for ever. Here was a Fifty-third proposing to go home and swank about England practically naked. Blankety blankety blank. O Lord! The sixth file went pea-green under his tan, instinctively felt for his top left-hand pocket button and did it up.

The R.S.M. went on his way down the line, thrashing his leggings severely with his whip and shaking with emotion. Ten files further down he found a speck of brass polish lurking behind a belt-hook and didn't expect to survive it.

Sixteenth file rubbed it off with a handkerchief, trembling all over.

The O.O. came on the scene, inspected them with a swelling of pride tightening his tunic, found a few faults as a matter of principle, and ordered them away.

The R.S.M. escorted them to the road, dismissed them with his blessing, adjuring them to be good little boys generally, and pay his respects to a publican near the Elephant and Castle if they passed that way.

At 2 p.m. they entrained at the railhead along with carolling parties from the thousand-and-one units that go to make the B.E.F.

At 3 a.m. they detrained in the dim-lit vault of Victoria. As they tramped out of the gates a little man, wearing square clothes and an accent that twanged like a banjo, bored into the crowd.

He let some squads of mud-caked line infantry go by unmolested, threw but a cursory glance over a batch of rain-sodden gunners, then his bright eye caught the brighter buttons of the Fifty-thirds and he swooped upon them, thrusting pasteboards into every hand. The sixteenth file paused with his chum under a lamp and read his card.

It ran as follows:

OUR HEROES' SUPPLY DEPT.

Look the part and have your war-yarns believed at home. Put yourselves in our hands and then watch the girls gather round.

LIST OF CHARGES

Mud-spray (patent mud guaranteed to stick for five days) 1s. Bullet-holes (punched in cap or tunic) 3d. each. Blood-stains (indelible) 6d. Prayer-book (with embedded bullet) 2s. 6.

We have also a large stock of souvenirs--shell fragments, bullets, German caps, helmets, etc., at moderate charges. Call and see us right now. Depot just round the block.

The sixteenth file looked at his chum, fingering his card uneasily. "Well, Bob, what d'you say? My lassie is won'erful 'ard to convince."

"I'm with you," said his friend. "Mother is a fair terror too."

They tramped after the little man.

A quarter of an hour later they might have been seen tramping back down Victoria Street looking like nothing on earth.

XVII

THE PINCH OF WAR

I came across him on the rim of the bog. He stood before a whitewashed cabin glaring fiercely over the brown world.

A coal-black dudeen hung empty and bottom up from his puckered mouth, a rumpled frieze cap was perilously balanced atop of a fringe of white hair. His full figure, upholstered in a worn velvet waistcoat, was thrust well forward as if daring Fate to hit it another blow.

At the moment he was acting as a scratching-post to a large white billy-goat, which chafed itself luxuriously to and fro against his straddled legs. At the sound of my horse's hoofs he turned his head. At the sight of my uniform his eyes brightened, he withdrew a smutty hand from a corduroy pocket and made a travesty of a salute towards his cap, which almost lost its balance.

"Hey! Good day to ye, Captain!" (I am a second lieutenant, but in Ireland every lance-corporal has visionary batons on his shoulder-straps.)

I replied suitably, agreed that the weather was fine for the second and trusted, if we were good, we might have an hour of it.

"How is it wid the War this mornin', yer honour?"

I replied that, as far as I knew, it was still there, had passed a quiet night and was doing nicely, thanks.

"Was you ever at the Front, Captain?"

I nodded, and at that his eyes gleamed.

"Begob!--then 'tis yerself has the luck. Wait till I tell you a minute. I'm afther wishin' be all the Blessed Saints I was twinty year younger, 'tis meself would be the first afther them German Daygoes--I would so, the dirthy, desthroyin' blagyards! Tell me now, Captain dear, did you ever kill wan of them at all?"

He hung on my answer to such an extent that the white billy tore a tatter from his canvas coat and ate it unrebuked.

I wagged my head. "Don't know--couldn't say."

"Och, shure, no! What would a grand gentleman like yourself be wantin' wid such dirthy work--'tis a common private's job, so it is. But was meself twinty year younger 'twould be a job I would take great delight in the doin' of it. I would take great delight in landin' wan o' them blagyards a puck wid a bay'net that would let the daylight through him. I would have great courage an' delight in a war wid such as they be, that's the blessed truth, the dirthy, desthroyin', murdherin' divils! Arragh! I hate them!"

He shook a grimy fist in the general direction of America, and the billy, undisturbed, reached up and ate another ribbon off his coat.

"Beggin' yer pardon, but will yer honour be goin' back to the War?"

I said I hoped so some day.

"Listen, then--I'm wishin' ye would kill a German, two Germans, d'ye hear me now? Two Germans I'm afther wishin' ye."

Again he brandished a trembling fist aloft and again the billy, fearing naught, grazed its way up his back.

"Thanks, very good of you," said I. "I'll remember. Good day."

"Good day it is, an' God save yer honour!"

Then with an overwhelming burst of generosity he promoted me two ranks at once and wished again.

"Colonel," he said solemnly, though shaking with passion, "I'm afther wishin' ye three--ten--_fifteen_ Germans!"

"Thanks," I said again, and picked up the reins, wondering if tragedy had shadowed the bogside that morning, if some grey-eyed, black-haired boy would come home no more from Flanders to that whitewashed cabin.

As I turned a beshawled girl poked her head round the door lintel and smiled at me.

"Och, faith, don't be noticin' the granda', yer honour; himself was beyond to the town this mornin', an' they've riz the price o' porther on him wan ha'penny. He do be as mad as the Sivinteen Divils!"

XVIII

THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT

When his honour the Colonel took the owld rigiment to France, Herself came home bringin' the rigimental mascot with her. A big white long-haired billy-goat he was, the same.

"I'll not be afther lavin' him at the daypo," says Herself; "'tis no place for a domestic animal at all, the language them little drummer-boys uses, the dear knows," says she.

So me bowld mascot he stops up at the Castle and makes free with the flower-beds and the hall and the drawin'-room and the domestic maids the way he'd be the Lord-Lieutenant o' the land, and not jist a plain human Angory goat. A proud arrygent crature it is, be the powers! Steppin' about as disdainy as a Dublin gerrl in Ballydehob, and if, mebbe, you'd address him for to get off your flower-beds with the colour of anger in your mouth he'd let a roar out of him like a Sligo piper with poteen taken, and fetch you a skelp with his horns that would lay you out for dead.

And sorra the use is it of complainin' to Herself.

"Ah, Delaney, 'tis the marshal sperit widin him," she'd say; "we must be patient with him for the sake of the owld rigiment"; and with that she'd start hand-feedin' him with warmed-up sponge cake and playin' with his long silky hair.

"Far be it from me," I says to Mikeen, the herd, "to question the workings o' Providence, but were I the Colonel of a rigiment, which I am not, and had to have a mascot, it's not a raparee billy I'd be afther havin', but a nanny, or mebbe a cow, that would step along dacently with the rigiment and bring ye luck, and mebbe a dropeen o' milk for the orficers' tea as well. If it's such cratures that bring ye fortune may I die a peaceful death in a poor-house," says I.

"I'm wid ye," says Mikeen, groanin', he bein' spotted like a leopard with bruises by rason of him havin' to comb the mascot's silky hair twice daily, and the quick temper of the baste at the tangles.

The long of a summer the billy stops up at the Castle, archin' his neck at the wurrld and growin' prouder and prouder by dint of the standin' he had with the owld rigiment and the high feedin' he had from Herself. Faith, 'tis a great delight we servints had of him I'm tellin' ye! It was as much as your life's blood was worth to cross his path in the garden, and if the domestic maids would be meetin' him in the house they'd let him eat the dresses off them before they dare say a word.

In the autumn me bowld mascot gets a wee trifle powerful by dint o' the high feedin' and the natural nature of the crature. Herself, wid her iligant lady's nose, is afther noticin' it, and she sends wan o' the gerrls to tell meself and Mikeen to wash the baste.

"There will be murdher done this day," says I to the lad, "but 'tis the orders. Go get the cart rope and the chain off the bulldog, and we'll do it. Faith, it isn't all the bravery that's at the Front," says I.

"That's the true wurrd," says he, rubbin' the lumps on his shins, the poor boy.

"Oh, Delaney," says the domestic gerrl, drawin' a bottle from her apron pocket. "Herself says will ye plaze be so obligin' as to sprinkle the mascot wid a dropeen of this ody-koloney scent--mebbe it will quench his powerfulness, she says."

I put the bottle in me pocket. We tripped up me brave goat with the rope, got the bull's collar and chain, and dragged him away towards the pond, him buckin' and ragin' between us like a Tyrone Street lady in the arms of the poliss. To hear the roars he let out of him would turn your hearts cowld as lead, but we held on.