Part 9

"2. Tear the sponge-bag out of the knapsack (what-not or satchel) and slap it boldly on the face as you would a mustard-plaster.

"3. Pin it to your nose by means of the clothes-peg.

"4. Work the elastics well into the back hair.

"5. Swallow the teether and carry on with deep breathing exercises, as done by Swedes, sea-lions and such-like.

"The respirator once in position, pass the good news on to your comrades by performing _fortissimo_ on one of the numerous alarums with which every nice front line is liberally provided. But please remember that gas alarms are for gas only, and do not let your natural exuberance or love of music carry you away, as it is liable to create a false impression; witness the case of some of our high-spirited Colonials, who, celebrating a national festival (the opening of the whippet racing-season in New South Wales) with a full orchestra of Klaxon and Strombos horns, rattles, gongs, shell-cases, tin-cans, sackbuts, psalteries and other instruments of musick, sent every living soul in an entire army area stampeding into their smell-hats, there to remain for forty-eight hours without food, drink or benefit of clergy.

"Having given you full instructions as to the correct method of entering your respirators I will now tell you how to extricate yourselves. You must first be careful to ascertain that there is no gas left about. Tests are usually made (1) with a white mouse, (2) with a canary.

"If the white mouse turns green there is gas present; if it don't there ain't. If the canary wags his tail and whistles 'Gee! ain't it dandy down in Dixie!' all is well, but if it wheezes 'The End of a Perfect Day' and moults violently, beware, beware! If through the negligence of the Quartermastering Department you have not been equipped with either mice or canaries do not start sniffing for gas yourselves, but remember that your lives are of value to your King and country and send for an officer. To have first sniff of all gas is one of an officer's privileges; he hasn't many, but this is one of them and very jealously guarded as such. If an officer should catch you snuffing up all the gas in the neighbourhood he will be justifiably annoyed and peevish.

"Now; having given you all the theory of anti-gas precautions, we will indulge in a little practice. When I shout the word 'Gas!' my assistants will distribute a few smoke bombs among you, and every man will don his respirator in five motions and wend his way towards the gas-chamber, entering it by the south door and leaving it by the north. Is that quite clear? Then get ready. Gas!"

* * * * * * * *

Four or five N.C.O. Instructors suddenly pop up out of the gravel pit and bombard the congregation with hissing smoke grenades. The front ranks wake up, spring to their feet in terror and leg it for safety at a stretched gallop, shedding their respirators for lightness' sake as they flee. The rear ranks, who, in spite of themselves, have heard something of the lecture, burrow laboriously into their masks. Some wear them as hats, some as ear-muffs, some as chest-protectors.

The smoke rolls over them in heavy yellow billows.

Shadow shapes, hooded like Spanish inquisitors, may be seen here and there crouched as in prayer, struggling together or groping blindly for the way out. One unfortunate has his head down a rabbit-hole, several blunder over the edge of the gravel pit and are seen no more.

There is a noise of painful laboured breathing as of grampuses in deep water or pigs with asthma.

The starchy N.C.O. Instructors close on the helpless mob and with muffled yelps and wild waving of arms herd them towards the south door of the gas-chamber, push them inside and shoot the bolts.

The R.A.M.C. Orderlies are busy hauling the bodies out of the north door, loading them on stretchers and trotting them across to the cemetery, at the gates of which stands the Base Burial Officer beaming welcome.

The lecturer, seeing the game well in progress, lights a pipe and strolls home to tea.

XXVIII

THE CONVERT

I found No. 764, Trooper Hartley, W.J., in the horse lines, sitting on a hay-bale perusing a letter which seemed to give him some amusement. On seeing me he arose, clicked his spurs and saluted. I returned the salute, graciously bidding him carry on. We go through the motions of officer and man very punctiliously, William and I. In other days, in other lands, our relative positions were easier.

The ceremonies over I sat down beside him on the hay-bale, and we became Bill and Jim to each other.

"Did you ever run across Gustav Müller in the old days?" William inquired, thumbing a fistful of dark Magliesburg tobacco into his corn-cob incinerator. "'Mafoota,' the niggers called him, a beefy man with an underdone complexion."

"Yes," I said, "he turned up in my district on the Wallaby in 1913 or thereabouts, with nothing in the world but a topee, an army overcoat and a box of parlour magic. Set up as a wizard in Chala's kraal. Used to produce yards of ribbon out of the mouths of the afflicted, and collapsible flower-pots out of their nostrils--casting out devils, you understand. Was scratching together a very comfortable practice; but he began to dabble in black politics, so I moved him on. An entertaining old rogue; I don't know what became of him."

William winked at me through a cloud of blue tobacco smoke. "I do. He went chasing a rainbow's end North of the Lakes, and I went along with him. You see, Gustav's great-aunt Gretchen appeared to him in a dream and told him there was alluvial gold in a certain river bed, tons of it, easy washing, so we went after it. We didn't find it; but that's neither here nor there; a man must take a chance now and again, and this was the first time Gustav's great-aunt had let him down. She'd given him the straight tip for two Melbourne Cups and a Portugoose lottery in her time. Some girl, great-aunt Gretchen! Anyway there was Gustav and me away up at the tail-end of Nowhere, with the boys yapping for six months' back pay, and we couldn't have bought a feed of hay for a nightmare between us. We just naturally had to do something, so----"

"So you just naturally took to poaching ivory," said I. "I know you. Go on."

William grinned. "Well, a man must live, you know. How'msodever we struck a bonanza vein of _m'jufu_ right away and piled up the long white nuggets in a way that would drive you to poetry. A Somali Arab took the stuff from us on the spot, paying us in cattle at a fifty-per-cent discount, which was reasonable enough, seeing that he ran ninety per cent of the risks. Everything sailed along like a beautiful dream. The elephants was that tame they'd eat out of your hand, and you could stroll out and bowl over a dozen of the silly blighters before breakfast if you felt in the mood. The police hadn't got our address as yet. The only competitor that threatened got buckshot in his breeches, which changed his mind and direction for him very precipitous. The industry boomed and boomed.

"'Another year of this,' says I to myself, 'and I'll retire home and grow roses, drive a pony-trap and be a churchwarden.'

"Then one day the Arab headman blows into camp, and squatting outside our tent, commences to lamentate and pipe his eye in a way that would make you think he'd ate a skinful of prickly pears.

"'What's biting you, Bluebell?' I asked.

"'_Allah akbar_! God is good but business is rotten,' says he, and pitches a woeful yarn how that columns of Askaris was marching thither and thence, poking their flat noses in where they wasn't invited; Inglische gunboats were riding every wave, scaring seven bells out of the coast dhows, and consequently commerce was sent to blazes and a poor man couldn't get an honest living no-how. The long and short of it was that ivory smuggling was off for the period of the War.

"'What war, you scum?' says Gustav, pricking his freckled ears. 'Who's warring?'

"'The Inglische and Germans, of course,' says the Arab. 'Didn't the B'wana know?'

"'No, the B'wana doesn't,' says I; 'our private Marconi outfit is broke down owing to the monkeys swinging on the wires. Now trot home, you barbarous ape, while me and my colleague throws a ray of pure intellect on the problem. _Bassi_.'

"So he soon dismisses at the double and is seen no more in them vicinities.

"'Well, partner,' says I to Gustav, 'this is a fair knock-out--what?'

"But Gustav, he grumbles something I couldn't catch and walks off into the bush with his head down, afflicted with thought.

"He didn't come in for supper, so I scoffed his share and turned in.

"At moonrise I thought I heard a bull elephant trumpeting like he was love-sick, but it wasn't. It was Gustav coming home singing the _Wacht am Rhein_. He brings up opposite my bed.

"'Oh, give over and let the poor lions and leopards snatch some sleep,' says I.

"'I was born in Shermany,' says he.

"'Don't let that keep you awake, ole man,' says I. 'What saith the prophet? "If a cat kittens on a fish-plate they ain't necessarily herrings."'

"'I'm a Sherman,' says he.

"'You've been so long with white men that nobody'd know it,' says I. 'Forget it, and I won't tell on you. Why, you ain't seen Shermany these thirty years, and you wouldn't know a squarehead if you was to trip over one. Go to bed, Mr. Caruso.'

"'Well, I'm going to be a mighty good Sherman now, to make up for lost time,' says he grim-like, 'and in case you got any objections I'll point out that you've the double express proximitous to your stomach.'

"He had me bailed up all right. Arguments weren't no use with the cuss. 'I'm a Sherman' was all he'd say; and next day we starts to hoof it to Germany territory, me promenading in front calling Gustav every name but his proper one, and him marching behind, prodding me in the back with the blunderbuss. He disenjoyed that trip even more than I did; he had to step behind me all day for fear I'd dodge him into the bush; and he sat up all night for fear the boys would rescue me. He got as red-eyed as a bear and his figure dropped off him in bucketfuls.

"At the end of a month we crossed the border and hit the trail of the Deutscher--burnt villages everywhere, with the mutilated bodies of women and picaninnies lying about, stakes driven through 'em, Waugh!

"'Are you still a Sherman?' I asks; but Gustav says nothing; he'd gone a bit white about the gills all the same. Then one morning we tumbles into one of their columns and the game is up. I was given a few swipes with a _kiboko_ for welcome and hauled before the Commander, a little short cove with yellow hair, a hand-carved jaw and spectacles. He diagnosed my case as serious, prescribed me some more _kiboko_, and I was hove into a grass hut under guard, pending the obsequies.

"The Officers called Gustav a good sport, gave him a six-by-four cigar and took him off to dinner. I noticed he looked back at me once or twice. So I sits down in the hut and meditates on some persons' sense of humour, with a big Askari buck padding it up and down outside, whiling away the sunny hours with a bit of disembowelling practice on his bayonet.

"A couple of days flits by while the column is away spreading the good word with fire and stake. Then on the third night I hears a scuffle outside the hut, and the Askari comes somersaulting backwards through the grass wall like as if an earthquake had butted him in the brisket. He gave a couple of kicks and stretched out like as if he was tired.

"'Whist! Is that you, Bill?' comes a whisper through the hole.

"'What's left of me,' says I. 'Who are you?'

"'Me--Gustav,' says the whisperer.

"'What's the antic this time? Capturing me again?' says I.

"'No, I'm rescuing you now,' says he.

"'The devil you are,' says I, and with that I glided out through the hole and followed him on my stomach. A sentry gave tongue at the scrub-edge, but Gustav rose up out of the grass and bumped him behind the ear and we went on.

"'Well, you're a lovely quick-change artist, capturing a bloke one moment and rescuing him the next,' says I presently. 'What's come over you? Ain't you a Sherman no more?'

"Gustav groans as if his heart was broke. 'I've been away thirty years. I didn't know they was like that; I'd forgotten. Oh, my Gawd, what swine!' He spits like a man that has bit sour beer, and we ran on again."

"Didn't they chase you?" I asked.

William nodded.

"But they couldn't catch two old bush-bucks like us, and the next day we fell in with a British column that was out hunting them. 'Twas a merry meeting. Gustav enlisted with the Britishers on the spot."

William tapped the travel-soiled letter in his hand. "This is from him. He's down in Nairobi, wounded. He says he's sitting up taking nourishment, and that great-aunt Gretchen has appeared to him again and showed him a diamond pipe in the Khali Hari, which will require a bit of looking into _après la guerre_--if there ever is any _après_."

XIX

A REST CURE

Not long ago a notice appeared in Part II Orders to the effect that our Army had established a Rest Home at X where invalid officers might be sent for a week's recuperation.

Now X is a very pleasant place, consisting of a crowd of doll's-house châlets set between cool pine-woods and the sea.

The châlets are labelled variously "Villa des Roses," "Les Hirondelles," "Sans Souci," and so on, and in the summertimes of happier years swarmed with comfortable bourgeois, bare-legged children and Breton nannas; but in these stern days a board above the gate of "Villa des Roses" announces that the Assistant-Director of Agriculture may be found within meditating on the mustard-and-cress crop, while "Les Hirondelles" and "Sans Souci" harbour respectively the Base Press Censor (whose tar-brush hovered over this perfectly priceless article) and a platoon of the D.L.O.L.R.R.V.R. (Duchess of Loamshire's Own Ladies' Rabbit Rearing Volunteer Reserve).

X, as I said before, is an exceedingly pleasant place; you may lean out of the window o' mornings and watch the D.L.O.L.R.R.V.R.'s Sergeant-Majoress putting her platoon through Swedish monkey motions, and in the afternoons you can recline on the sands and watch them sporting in the glad sea-waves (telescopes protruding from the upper windows of "Villa des Roses" and "Sans Souci" suggesting that the A.D.A. and the B.P.C. are similarly employed).

The between-whiles may be spent lapping up ozone from the sea, resin from the pine-woods, and champagne cocktails which Marie-Louise mixes so cunningly in the little café round the corner; and what with one thing and another the invalid officer goes pig-jumping back to the line fit to mince whole brigades of Huns with his bare teeth.

X, you will understand, is a very admirable institution, and when we heard about this Rest Home we were all for it and tried to cultivate fur on the tongue, capped hocks and cerebral meningitis; but the Skipper hardened his heart against us and there was nothing doing.

Then one morning MacTavish came over all dithery-like in the lines, fell up against a post, smashed his wrist-watch and would have brained himself had that been possible.

He picked himself up, apologised for making a fool of himself before the horses, patched his scalp with plaster from his respirator, borrowed my reserve watch "Pretty Polly," and carried on.

"Pretty Polly" can do two laps to any other watch's one without turning a hair-spring. Externally she looks very much like any other mechanical pup the Ordnance sells you for eleven francs net; her secret lies in her spring, which, I imagine, must have been intended for "Big Ben," but sprang into the wrong chassis by mistake.

At all events as soon as it is wound up it lashes out left and right with such violence that the whole machine leaps with the shock of its internal strife and hops about on the table after the manner of a Mexican dancing bean, clucking like an ostrich that has laid twins.

It will be gathered that my "Pretty Polly" is not the ultimate syllable in the way of accuracy, but as MacTavish seemed to want her and had been kind to me in the way of polo-sticks, I handed her over without a murmur.

The same afternoon MacTavish came over dithery again, dived into a heap of bricks and knocked himself out for the full count.

We put him to bed and signalled the Vet. The Vet reported that MacTavish's temperature was well above par and booming. He went on to state that MacTavish was suffering from P.U.O. (which is Spanish for "flu") and that he probably wouldn't weather the night.

The Skipper promptly 'phoned O.C. Burials, inviting him to dine next evening, and Albert Edward wired his tailor, asking what was being worn in headstones.

William, our Mess President, took up a position by the sick man's side in hopes he would regain consciousness for long enough to settle his mess-bill, and the rest of us spent the evening recalling memories of poor old Mac, his many sterling qualities, etc.

However, next morning a batman poked his head into the Mess and said could Mr. MacTavish have a little whisky, please, he was fancying it, and anyway you couldn't force none of that there grool down him not if you was to use a drenching bit.

At noon the batman was back to say that Mr. MacTavish was fancying a cigarette now, also a loan of the gramophone and a few cheerful records.

The Skipper promptly 'phoned postponing O.C. Burials, and Albert Edward wired his tailor, changing his order to that of a canary waistcoat.

That evening MacTavish tottered into the Mess and managed to surround a little soup, a brace of cutlets and a bottle of white wine without coming over dithery again.

But for all that he was not looking his best; he weaved in his walk, his eye was dull, his nose hot, his ear cold and drooping, and the Skipper, gazing upon him, remembered the passage in Part II Orders and straightway sat down and applied that MacTavish be sent to X at once, adding such a graphic pen-picture of the invalid (most of it copied from a testimonial to somebody's backache pills) as to reduce us to tears and send MacTavish back to his bed badly shaken to hear how ill he'd been.

The Skipper despatched his pen-picture to H.Q. and forgot all about it, and so did H.Q. apparently, for we heard nothing further, and in due course forgot all about it ourselves, and in the meanwhile MacTavish got back into form, and MacTavish in form is no shrinking lily be it said.

He has a figure which tests every stitch in his Sam Browne, a bright blue eye and a complexion which an external application of mixed weather and an internal application of tawny port has painted the hue of the beetroot.

Then suddenly, like a bomb from the blue, an ambulance panted up to the door and presented a H.Q. chit to the effect that the body of MacTavish be delivered to it at once to bear off to X.

The Skipper at the time was out hacking and Albert Edward was in charge; he sent an orderly flying to MacTavish, who rolled in from his tent singing "My Friend John" at the top of his voice and looking more like an over-fed beetroot than ever.

"Dash it all, I don't want to go to their confounded mortuary," he shouted; "never felt fitter in my life. I can't go; I won't go!"

"You'll have to," said Albert Edward; "can't let the Skipper down after that pen-picture he wrote; the Staff would never believe another word he said. No, MacTavish, my son, you'll have to play the game and go."

"But, you ass, look at him," wailed the Babe; "look at his ruddy, ruby, tomato-ketchup, plum-and-apple complexion. What are you going to do about that?"

"I'll settle his complexion," replied Albert Edward grimly; "tell his man to toss his tooth-brush into the meat-waggon; and you, Mac, come with me."

He led the violently protesting MacTavish into the kitchen. The cook tells me Albert Edward pounded two handfuls of flour into MacTavish's complexion and filled his eye-sockets up with coal-dust, and I quite believe the cook, for in five minutes' time I came on Albert Edward dragging what I at first took to be the body of a dead Pierrot down the passage towards the waiting ambulance, at the same time exhorting it to play the game and wobble for the Skipper's sake.

The wretched MacTavish, choking with flour and blinded with coal-dust, wobbled like a Clydesdale with the staggers.

I saw a scared R.A.M.C. orderly bound out of the car and assist Albert Edward to hoist MacTavish aboard, trip him up and pin him down on a stretcher. Then the ambulance coughed swiftly out of sight.

The allotted week passed but no MacTavish came bounding back to us like a giant refreshed with great draughts of resin, and we grew anxious; which anxiety did not abate when, in reply to the Skipper's inquiries, the Rest Home authorities wired denying all knowledge of him.

Goodness knows what we should have done if a letter from MacTavish himself had not arrived next morning, to say that he had lain on his back in the ambulance digging coal-dust out of his eyes and coughing up flour till the car stopped, not, to his surprise, at the Rest Home, but at a Casualty Clearing Station.

Some snuffling R.A.M.C. orderlies bore him tenderly to a tent and a doctor entered, also snuffling. MacTavish is of the opinion that the whole of the medical staff had P.U.O., and the doctor was the sickest of the lot and far from reliable.

At all events, on seeing MacTavish's face, he ejaculated a bronchial "Good Lord!" and tearing MacTavish's tunic open, stuck a trumpet against his tummy and listened for the ticks.

Apparently he heard something sensational, for he wheezed another "Good Lord!" and decorated MacTavish with a scarlet label.

Within an hour our hero found himself on board a Red Cross train _en route_ for the coast.

There were a lot of cheerful wounded on the bus, getting all the soup and jelly they wanted; but MacTavish got only lukewarm milk and precious little of that. From scraps of hushed conversation he caught here and there he gathered that his life hung by a thread.

He was feeling very bewildered and depressed, he said, but, remembering his duty to the Skipper, played the game and kept body and soul together on drips of jelly surreptitiously begged from the cheerful wounded.

Next morning he found himself in hospital in England, where he still remains. He says he has been promoted from warm milk to cold slops, but is still liable to die at any moment, he understands.

He has discovered that he was sent home with "galloping heart disease," but nobody in the hospital can get even a trot out of it, and boards of learned physicians sit on him all day long, their trumpets planted on his tummy listening for the ticks.

MacTavish says he thinks it improbable that they ever will hear any ticks now, for the excellent reason that he threw the cause thereof--my "Pretty Polly," to wit--out of the window the day he arrived.

In a postscript he adds that he considers he has played the game far enough, and that if the Skipper doesn't come and bail him out soon he'll bite the learned physicians, kiss the nurses, sing "My Friend John" and disgrace the Regiment for ever.

XXX

THE HARRIERS (I)

The Boche having lately done a retreat--"strategic retirement," "tactical adjustment," "elastic evasion," or whatever Ludendorff is calling it this week--in plain words the Boche, having gloriously trotted backwards off a certain slice of France, Albert Edward and I found ourselves attached to a Corps H.Q. operating in a wilderness of grass-grown fields, ruined villages and smoking châteaux.

One evening Albert Edward loitered up to the hen-house I was occupying at the time and chatted to me through the wires as I shaved.