Part 7

As soon as their nosebags were on he commenced to move stealthily towards the lines, timing himself to arrive just as the nosebags came off and the hay-nets went up. He then glided softly between the horses and helped himself. Being tiny and very discreet he frequently passed unobserved, but should the line-guard spot him he had his plan of action.

Oft-times have I seen a perspiring and blasphemous trooper pursuing the winged Antonio Giuseppe round the lines with a stable broom; but when the broom descended Antonio Giuseppe was not there to receive it. He would nip under the breast-rope, slip in under one horse's belly and out between the legs of another, dodging through and round the astounded animals like a half-back through a loose scrum or a greased pig at a fair, snatching a generous contribution from each hay-net as he passed. Under this method Antonio throve and throve; but the tale of splintered brooms grew and grew and the Quartermaster loved me not.

Yesterday the General intimated that he'd like to inspect us. Always eager to oblige, we licked, polished, brushed and burnished ourselves, pipeclayed our head-ropes, pomaded our moustaches, powdered our noses and paraded.

We paraded to-day in regimental column in a field west of our palace-workhouse and sat stiff in our saddles, the cheerful sunshine glowing on leather-work, glinting on brass and steel, conscious that we could give any Beauty Chorus a run for its money.

There sounded a shrill fanfaronade of trumpets, tootling the salute, and a dazzle of gold and scarlet like a Turner sunset, blazed into view--the General and his Staff.

At the same moment Antonio Giuseppe espied us from his observation post and, getting it into his head that we were picnicing out (it was about lunch-time), hastened to join us. As the General reached the leading squadron Antonio Giuseppe reached the near squadron and, sliding unobtrusively into its ranks, looked about for the hay-nets.

However the Second in Command noticed his arrival and motioned to his trumpeter. The trumpeter spurned forward and pinked Antonio Giuseppe in the hindquarters with his sword-point as a hint to him to move on. Antonio, thinking the line-guards were upon him and with a new type of broom, loosed a squeal of agony and straightway commenced his puss-in-the-corner antics in and out and round about the horses' legs. They didn't like it at all; it tickled and upset them; they changed from the horizontal to the vertical, giggled and pawed the air.

Things were becoming serious. A hee-hawing tatterdemalion donkey, playing "ring o' roses" with a squadron of war-horses, tickling them into hysterics, detracts from the majesty of such occasions and is no fit spectacle for a General. A second trumpeter joined in the chase and scored a direct prick on the soft of Antonio Giuseppe's nose as he dived out under the tail of a plunging gun-mare. Antonio whipped about and fled towards the centre squadron, ears wobbling, braying anguished S.O.S.'s. The two trumpeters, young and ardent lads, thundered after him, swords at the engage, racing each other, knee to knee for first blood. They scored simultaneously on the butt of his tail, and Antonio, stung to the quick, shot clean through (or rather under) the centre squadron into the legs of the General's horse, tripping up that majestic animal and bringing the whole stately edifice down into a particularly muddy patch of Italy.

Tremendous and awful moment! As my groom and countryman expressed it, "Ye cud hear the silence for miles." The General did not break it. I think his mouth was too full of mud and loose teeth for words. He arose slowly out of the ooze like an old walrus lifting through a bed of seaweed black as death, slime dripping from his whiskers, and limped grimly from the field, followed by his pallid staff proffering handkerchiefs and smelling-salts. But I understand he became distinctly articulate when he got home, and the upshot of it is that we are to be put in the forefront of the nastiest battle that can be arranged for us.

And Antonio Giuseppe the donkey, author of all the trouble, what of him? you ask.

Antonio Giuseppe the donkey will never smile again, dear reader. With his edges trimmed and "Welcome" branded across his back he may serve as a mangy door-mat for some suburban maisonette, but at the present moment he lies in the mud of the parade-ground, as flat as a sole on a sand-bank, waiting for someone to roll him up and carry him away.

When a full-fed Major-General falls he falls heavily.

XXII

"I SPY"

I put my head into the Mess and discovered Albert Edward alone there cheating himself at Patience.

"My leave warrant has come and I'm off!" said I. "If Foch should ring up tell him he'll have to struggle along by himself for a fortnight. Cheeroh!"

"Cheeroh!" said Albert Edward. "Give my regards to Nero, Borgia and all the boys."

I shut the door upon him and took the road to Rome.

Arrived there I attempted to shed a card on the Pope, but was repulsed by a halbardier in fancy dress; visited the catacombs (by the way, in the art of catacombing we latter-day sinners have nothing to learn from the early saints. Why, at Arras in 1917 we---- Oh, well, never mind now!); kept a solemn face while bands solemnly intoned Tipperary (under the impression it was the British National Anthem); bought a bushel of mosaic brooches and several million picture postcards and acted the perfect little tripper throughout.

Then one day while stepping into a hotel lift I bumped full into Wilfrid Wilcox Wilbur, stepping forth.

You have all of you read the works of Wilfrid Wilcox Wilbur (_Passion Flowers_, _Purple Patches_, etc. Boost and Boom. 6s.); if you haven't you should, for Wilfrid is the lad to handle the soul-sob and the heart-throb and warm up cold print generally.

In pre-war days he was to be met with in London drawing-rooms about tea-time wearing his mane rather longer than is done in the best menageries, giving a very realistic imitation of a lap-dog. And now behold him in military disguise parading the Eternal City!

"What are you doing here?" I gasped.

He put a finger to his lips. "Psst!" Then pushing me into the lift, he ejected the attendant, turned a handle and we shot aloft. Half-way between heaven and earth he stopped the conveyance and having made quite sure we were not being overheard by either men or angels, leaned up against my ear and whispered, "Secret Service!"

I was amazed. "Not really!"

Wilbur nodded. "Yes, really! That's why I have to be so careful; they have their agents everywhere listening, watching, taking notes."

I felt for my pocket-case momentarily fearful that They (whoever They were) might have taken mine.

"And do you have agents also, listening, noting, taking watches?" I asked.

Wilbur said he had and went on to explain that so perfect was his system that a cat could hardly kitten anywhere between the Yildiz Kiosk and Wilhelmstrasse without his full knowledge and approval. I was very thrilled, for I had previously imagined all the cloak and dagger spy business to be an invention of the magazine writer, yet here was little Wilbur, according to himself, living a life of continuous yellow drama, more Queuxrious than fiction, rich beyond dreams of Garavice. (Publisher--"Tut-tut!" Author--"Peccavi!")

I thrilled and thrilled. "Look here," I implored, "if you are going to pull off a coup at any time, do let me come too!"

Wilbur demurred, the profession wasn't keen on amateurs, he explained; they were too impetuous, lacked subtlety--still if the opportunity occurred he might--perhaps---- I wrung his hand, then, seeing that bells on every landing had been in a state of uproar for some fifteen minutes and that the attendant was commencing to swarm the cable after his lift, we dropped back to earth again, returned it to him and went out to lunch.

"And now tell me something of your methods," said I, as we sat down to meat.

Wilbur promptly grabbed me by the collar and dragged me after him under the table.

"What's the matter now?" I gulped.

"Fool!" he hissed. "The waiter is a Bulgarian spy."

"Let's arrest him then," said I.

Wilbur groaned. "Oh, you amateurs, you would stampede everything and ruin all!"

I apologised meekly and we issued from cover again and resumed our meal, silently because (according to Wilbur) the peroxide blonde doing snake-charming tricks with spaghetti at the next table was a Hungarian agent, and there was a Turk concealed in the potted palms near by.

I thrilled and thrilled and thrilled.

Then followed stirring days. Rome at that time, I gathered, was the centre of the spy industry and at the height of the sleuthing season, for they hemmed us in on every hand--according to Wilbur. I was continually being dragged aside into the shadow of dark arcades to dodge Austrian Admirals disguised as dustmen, rushed up black alleys to escape the machinations of Bolshevick adventuresses parading as parish priests, and submerged in fountains to avoid the evil eyes of German diplomats camouflaged as flower girls--according to Wilbur.

I thrilled and thrilled and thrilled and thrilled, bought myself a stiletto and a false nose.

However, after about a week of playing trusty Watson to Wilbur's Sherlock without having effected a single arrest, drugged one courier, stilettoed a soul, or being allowed to wear my false nose once, my thrillings became less violent, and giving Wilbur the slip one afternoon, I went on the prowl alone. About four of the clock my investigations took me to Latour's. At a small marble table lapping up ices as a kitten laps cream, I beheld Temporary Second Lieut. Mervyn Esmond.

You all of you remember Mervyn Esmond, he of the spats, the eyeglass and grey top-hat, the Super-Knut of the Frivolity Theatre who used to gambol so gracefully before the many "twinkling toes" of the Super-Beauty Chorus, singing "Billy of Piccadilly." You must remember Mervyn Esmond!

But that was the Esmond of yore, for a long time past he has been doing sterling work in command of an Army Pierrot troupe.

I sat down beside him, stole his ice and finished it for him.

"And now what are you doing here?" I asked.

"I've come down from the line to get some new dresses for Queenie," he replied. "She--he, that is--is absolutely in rags, bursts a pair of corsets and a pair of silk stockings every performance, very expensive item."

I had better explain here and now that Queenie is the leading lady in Mervyn's troupe. She--he, that is--started her--his--military career as an artillery driver, but was discovered to be the possessor of a very shrill falsetto voice and dedicated to female impersonations forthwith.

"She--he--is round at the dressmaker's now," Mervyn went on, "wrestling with half a dozen _hysterical_ mannequins. I'm getting her--him, I should say--up regardless. Listen. Dainty ninon georgette outlined with chenile stitching. Charmeuse overtunic, embroidered with musquash and skunk pom-poms. Crêpe de Chine undies interwoven with blue baby ribbon, camis----"

"Stop!" I thundered. "Do you want me to blush myself to death? I am but a rough soldier."

Mervyn apologised, wrapped himself round another ice and asked me how I was amusing myself in Tiber-town.

Having first ascertained that there were no enemy agents secreted under the table or among the potted palms, I unburdened my soul to him concerning Wilbur and the coups that never came off.

He stared at me for a few moments, his eyes twinkling, then he leaned over the table.

"My active brain has evolved a be-autiful plan," said he. "It's yours for another ice."

I bought it.

* * * * * * * *

I found Wilbur sleuthing the crowd from behind a tall tumbler in the Excelsior lounge, and dragging him into the lift, hung it up half-way between here and hereafter, and whispered my great news.

"Where, when?" he cried, blench-blanching.

"In my hotel at midnight," I replied. "I hid in a clothes-basket and heard all. We will frustrate their knavish tricks, thou and I."

Wilbur did not appear to be as keen as I had expected, he hummed and hawed and chatted about my amateurishness and impetuosity; but I was obdurate, and taking him firmly by the arm led him off to dinner.

I hardly let go of his arm at all for the next five hours, judging it safer so.

Five minutes before midnight I led him up the stairs of my hotel and tip-toeing into a certain room, clicked on the light.

"See that door over there?" I whispered, pointing, "'tis the bathroom. Hide there. I shall be concealed in the wardrobe. In five minutes the conspirators will appear. The moment you hear me shout, 'Hands up, Otto von Schweinhund, _le jeu est fait_,' or words to that effect--burst out of the bathroom and collar the lady."

I pushed Wilbur into the bathroom (he was trembling slightly, excitement no doubt) and closed the door.

I had no sooner shut myself into the wardrobe when a man and a woman entered the room. They were both in full evening dress, the man was a handsome rascal, the woman a tall, languid beauty, gorgeously dressed. She flung herself down in a chair and lit a cigarette. The man carefully locked the door and crossed the room towards her.

"Hansa," he hissed, "did you get the plans of the fortress?"

She laughed and taking a packet of papers from the bosom of her dress, flung it on the table.

"'Twas easy, _mon cher_."

He caught it and held it aloft.

"Victory!" he cried. "The Vaterland is saved!"

He passed round the table and stood before her, his eyes glittering.

"You beautiful devil," he muttered, through clenched teeth. "I knew you could do it. I knew you would bewitch the young attaché. All men are puppets in your hands, beautiful, beautiful fiend!"

The moment had come. Hastily donning my false nose, I flung open the wardrobe, shouted the signal and covered the pair with my stiletto. The woman screamed and flung herself into the arms of her accomplice.

"Ah, ha, foiled again! Curse you!" He snarled and covered me with the plans of the fortress.

I grappled with him, he grappled with me, the beautiful devil grappled with both of us; we all grappled.

There was no movement from the bathroom door.

We grappled some more, we grappled all over the table, over the washstand and a brace of chairs. The villain lost his whiskers, the villainess lost her lovely golden wig, the hero (me) lost his false nose. I shouted the signal once more, the villain shouted it, the villainess shouted it, we all shouted it.

There was no movement from the bathroom door.

We grappled some more, we grappled over the chest of drawers, under the carpet and in and out of the towel-horse.

A muffled report rang out from somewhere about the beautiful devil.

"For God's sake, go easy!" she wheezed in my left ear. "My corsets have went!"

Then, as there was still no movement from the bathroom door, and we none of us had a grapple left in us, we called "time."

Mervyn sat up on the edge of the bed sourly regarding the bedraggled Queenie.

"In rags once more, twenty pounds' worth of georgette, charmeuse and ninon whatisname torn to shreds!" he groaned. "Oh, you tom-boy, you!"

"Come and dig these damn whalebones out of my ribs," said she.

I staggered across the room and opening the bathroom door, peered within.

"Any sign of our friend Sherlock, the spy-hound?" Mervyn enquired.

"Yes," said I. "He's tumbled in a dead faint into the bath!"

XXIII

A FAUX PAS

When we have finished slaying for the day, have stropped our gory sabres, hung our horses up to dry and are sitting about after mess, girths slackened and pipes aglow, it is a favourite pastime of ours to discuss what we are going to do after the War.

William, our mess president and transport officer, says frankly, "Nothing." Three years' continuous struggle to keep the mess going in whiskey and soda and the officers' kit down to two hundred and fifty pounds per officer has made an old man of him, once so full of bright quips and conundrums. The moment Hindenburg chucks up the sponge off goes William to Chelsea Hospital, there to spend the autumn of his days pitching the yarn and displaying his honourable scars gained in many a bloody battle in the mule lines.

So much for William. The Skipper, who is as sensitive to climate as a lily of the hot-house, prattles lovingly during the summer months of selling ice-creams to the Eskimos, and during the winter months of peddling roast chestnuts in Timbuctoo. MacTavish and the Babe propose, under the euphonious noms de commerce of Vavaseur and Montmorency, to open pawn-shops among ex-munition-workers, and thereby accumulate old masters, grand pianos and diamond tiaras to export to the United States. For myself I have another plan.

There is a certain historic wood up north through which bullets whine, shells rumble and no bird sings. After the War I am going to float a company, purchase that wood and turn it into a pleasure-resort for the accommodation of tourists.

There will be an entrance fee of ten francs, and everything else will be extra.

Tea in the dug-out--ten francs. Trips through trenches, accompanied by trained guides reciting selected passages from the outpourings of our special correspondents--ten francs. At night grand S.O.S. rocket and Very light display--ten francs. While for a further twenty francs the tourist will be allowed to pick up as many souvenirs in the way of rolls of barbed wire, dud bombs and blind crumps as he can stagger away with. By this means the country will be cleared of its explosive matter and I shall be able to spend my declining years in Park Lane, or, anyway, Tooting.

Our Albert Edward has not been making any plans as to his future lately, but just now it looks very much as if his future will be spent in gaol. It happened this way. He had been up forward doing some O. Pipping. While he was there he made friends with a battery and persuaded the poor fools into doing some shooting under his direction. He says it is great fun sitting up in your O. Pip, a pipe in your teeth, a telescope clapped to your blind eye, removing any parts of the landscape that you take a dislike to.

"I don't care for that tree at A 29.b.5.8"," you say to the telephone. "It's altogether too crooked (or too straight). Off with its head!" and, hey presto! the offending herb is not. Or, "That hill at C 39.d.7.4" is quite absurd; it's ridiculously lop-sided. I think we'll have a valley there instead." And lo! the absurd excrescence goes west in a puff of smoke.

Our Albert Edward spent a most enjoyable week altering the geography of Europe to suit his taste. Then one morning he made a trifling error of about thirty degrees and some few thousand yards and removed the wrong village.

"One village looks very much like another, and what are a few thousand yards this way or that in a war of world-wide dimensions? Gentlemen, let us not be trivial," said our Albert Edward to the red-hatted people who came weeping to his O. Pip. Nevertheless some unpleasantness resulted, and our Albert Edward came home to shelter in the bosom of us, his family.

The unpleasantness spread, for twenty-four hours later came a chit for our Albert Edward, saying if he had nothing better to do would he drop in and swop yarns with the General at noon that day? Our Albert Edward made his will, pulled on his parade boots, drank half a bottle of brandy neat, kissed us farewell and rode off to his doom. As he passed the borders of the camp The O'Murphy uncorked himself from a drain, and, seeing his boon-companion faring forth a-horse, abandoned the ratstrafe and trotted after him.

A word or two explaining The O'Murphy. Two years ago we were camped at one end of a certain damp dark gully up north. Thither came a party of big marines and a small Irish terrier, bringing with them a long naval gun, which they covered with a camouflage of sackcloth and ashes and let off at intervals. Whenever the long gun was about to fire the small dog went mad, bounced about behind the gun-trail like an indiarubber ball, in an ecstasy of expectation. When the great gun boomed he shrieked with joy and shot away up the gully looking for the rabbit. The poor little dog's hunt up and down the gully for the rabbit that never had been was one of the most pathetic sights I ever saw. That so many big men with such an enormous gun should miss the rabbit every time was gradually killing him with disgust and exasperation.

Meeting my groom one evening I spoke of the matter to him, casually mentioning that there was a small countryman of ours close at hand breaking his heart because there never was any rabbit. I clearly explained to my groom that I was suggesting nothing, dropping no hints, but I thought it a pity such a sportsman should waste his talents with those sea-soldiers when there were outfits like ours about, offering all kinds of opportunities to one of the right sort. I again repeated that I was making no suggestions and passed on to some other subject.

Imagine my astonishment when, on making our customary bi-weekly trek next day, I discovered the small terrier secured to our tool-limber by a piece of baling-wire, evidently enjoying the trip and abusing the limber-mules as if he had known them all his life. Since he had insisted on coming with us there was nothing further to be said, so we christened him "The O'Murphy," attached him to the strength for rations and discipline, and for two years he has shared our joys and sorrows, our billets and bully-beef, up and down the land of Somewheres.

But it was with our Albert Edward he got particularly chummy. They had the same dislike of felines and the same taste in biscuits. Thus when Albert Edward rode by, ears drooping, tail tucked in (so to speak), _en route_ to the shambles, The O'Murphy saw clearly that here was the time to prove his friendship, and trotted along behind. On arriving at H.Q. the comrades shook paws and licked each other good-bye. Then Albert Edward stumbled within and The O'Murphy hung about outside saucing the brass-collared Staff dogs and waiting to gather up what fragments remained of his chum's body after the General had done with it. His interview with the General our Albert Edward prefers not to describe; it was too painful, too humiliating, he says. That a man of the General's high position, advanced age and venerable appearance could lose his self-control to such a degree was a terrible revelation to Albert Edward. "Let us draw a veil over that episode," he said.

But what happened later on he did consent to tell us. When the General had burst all his blood vessels, and Albert Edward was congratulating himself that the worst was over, the old man suddenly grabbed a Manual of Military Law off his desk, hurled it into a corner and dived under a table, whence issued scuffling sounds, grunts and squeals. "See that?" came the voice of the General from under the table. "Of all confounded impudence!--did you see that?"

Albert Edward made noises in the negative. "A rat, by golly!" boomed the venerable warrior, "big as a calf, came out of his hole and stood staring at me. Damn his impudence! I cut off his retreat with the manual and he's somewhere about here now. Flank him, will you?"

As Albert Edward moved to a flank there came sounds of another violent scuffle under the table, followed by a glad whoop from, the General, who emerged rumpled but triumphant.

"Up-ended the waste-paper basket on him," he panted, dusting his knees with a handkerchief. "And now, me lad, what now, eh?"