A Padre in France Part 2

It is a great advantage when in France not to know any French. M. is wholly unaffected when the proprietor of an hotel, the proprietor's wife, the head waiter, and several housemaids a.s.sure him with one voice that a bath is _tout a fait impossible_. He merely smiles and says: "Very well then, bring it along or show me where it is." In the end he gets it, and, fortunate in his companions.h.i.+p, so do I.

CHAPTER IV

SETTLING DOWN

There are, or used to be, people who believe that you can best teach a boy to swim by throwing him into deep water from the end of a pier and leaving him there. If he survives, he has learned to swim and the method has proved its value. If he drowns, his parents have no further anxiety about him. The authorities who are responsible for the religion of the army believe in this plan for teaching chaplains their business. Having accepted a civilian parson as a volunteer, they dump him down in a camp without instruction or advice, without even so much as a small red handbook on field tactics to guide him.

There he splutters about, makes an a.s.s of himself in various ways, and either hammers out some plan for getting at his job by many bitter failures, or subsides into the kind of man who sits in the mess-room with his feet on the stove, reading novels and smoking cigarettes--either learns to swim after a fas.h.i.+on or drowns unlamented.

M., who had at all events three months' English experience behind him, found himself on the top of a steep hill, the controller of a wooden church planted in the middle of a sea of sticky mud. He ministered to a curiously mixed a.s.sortment of people, veterinary men, instructors in all kind of military arts, A.S.C. men, and the men of a camp known as Base Horse Transport.

The army authorities have been laughed at since the war began on account of their pa.s.sion for inverting the names of things. You must not, if you want such a thing, say one pot of raspberry jam. You say, instead, jam, raspberry, pot, one. It is odd that in the few cases in which such inversion is really desirable the authorities refuse to practise it. Horse Transport, Base, would be intelligible after thought. Base Horse Transport, till you get accustomed to it, seems a gratuitous insult to a number of worthy animals, not perhaps highly bred but strong and active.

Base Detail is another example of the same thing. To describe a man as a detail is bad enough. To call him a Base Detail must lower his self-respect, and as a rule these poor fellows have done nothing to deserve it. A Base Details Camp contains, for the most part, men who have just recovered from wounds received in the service of King and Country. "Details" perhaps is unavoidable, but it would surely be possible to conform to the ordinary army usage and call the place Camp, Details, Base.

My fate was more fortunate than M.'s. I had no church--he had the better of me there--but I was put into a h.o.m.ogeneous camp, an Infantry Base. (Our colonel was a masterful man. He would not have allowed us to be called Base Infantry.) There was a small permanent staff in the camp, the colonel, the adjutant, the doctor, and myself among the officers, a sergeant-major, an orderly-room staff, and a few others among the men. Every one else pa.s.sed in and out of the camp, coming to us from England in drafts, or from hospitals as details, going from us as drafts into the mists of the front. Our camp occupied the place of a reservoir in a city's water supply. The men and officers flowed in to us from many sources, stayed a while and flowed out again through the conduits of troop trains when the insatiable fighting army, perpetually using and losing men, turned on its taps, demanding fresh supply.

It happened, I do not know why, that there had never been a chaplain specially attached to that camp before. I have no reason to suppose that a chaplain had been asked for or was specially desired. I expected, at best, to be tolerated as a necessary evil; at worst to be made to feel that I was a nuisance.

I was, in fact, extremely kindly received. My experience is that a chaplain is almost always well received both by officers and men in France, and is very much less a stranger than a parson at home who finds himself in a club where he is not well known. But I do not pretend that my first evening in that mess was a particularly comfortable one. As it happened, neither the colonel nor the adjutant was there. I had as companions half a dozen officers, any one of whom was young enough to be my son. They were laboriously polite and appallingly respectful. We talked to each other in restrained whispers and I do not think that any one laughed during the whole course of dinner.

My discomfort lasted far beyond that evening, and I do not wonder that it took me some time to settle down. I came, for the first time in my life, under military discipline. I lived in a mess, a strange kind of life for me. I had to obey rules which I did not know and conform to an etiquette which was utterly strange to me. Looking back over it all now I realise that I must have blundered horribly, and trodden, without intending to, on all sorts of tender feet. Yet, from the moment I entered the camp I received nothing but kindness and consideration.

The officers of our old army are wonderful. Every one, I think, agrees about this. To me it seems that one of the most wonderful things about them is the way they have treated civilians, amateurs, always ignorant, often conceited, who suddenly burst into their highly organised profession. Now and then, though rarely, I came across senior officers set temporarily in positions of command who were objectionable or silly, who "a.s.sumed the G.o.d" and made themselves ridiculous. But these were seldom regular soldiers. And perhaps what I resented arose from too much zeal, was an attempt, by wrong ways, to achieve a kind of dignity which every one respects.

Looking back over the period of my service I do not know that I met more than two or three of this kind, tyrants to their men, insolent to officers of lower rank. The regular soldier, who has given his life to his profession and has generally served and fought in various corners of the world, is amazingly considerate and helpful to outsiders even when they are gauche and awkward.

The adjutant received me in the orderly-room when I reached the camp, some time after dark. I was as respectful as possible for I thought he was the colonel. Even if I had known him for an adjutant I should still have been respectful, for I like to be on the safe side of things and I had not the remotest idea what the position and functions of an adjutant are. I know now that he is something like an archdeacon, a man of enormous importance whose duties it is a little difficult to define exactly. He expected me. With the help of the sergeant-major he had found a servant for me and a.s.signed a hut to me.

For the servant I have nothing but praise. He could and did darn socks well. Indeed he confided to me that when at home he darned his wife's stockings, being much better at the job than she was. He could talk to French people in a language that was neither theirs nor his, but which they understood without difficulty. He was very punctual and he did not like the kind of tobacco which I smoke. His one fault was that he did not know whether an oil stove was smoking or not and could not learn. I am often haunted by the recollection of one snowy night on which I arrived at my hut to find the whole air inside dense with fine black s.m.u.ts. I had to drag everything I possessed out of the hut into the snow. It took me hours to get myself clean after that night, and I still find traces of lampblack on some of the garments which suffered with me.

But that inability to deal with lamps was my servant's one failing.

In every other respect I was satisfied with him. I hope he was equally satisfied with me. He was at first. I know that; for he asked for the congratulations of a friend on his appointment. "I have got a soft job at last," he said. "I'm an officer's servant, and a chaplain's at that." The job, I imagine, continued to be a soft one all the time I was in France; but I am not sure that he would have said "and a chaplain's at that" quite so complacently the morning after my scene with the oil stove in the snow storm. Chaplains do not, of course, swear; but any one who studies the Psalms gains a certain command of language which can be used effectively and without scandal.

For the hut I cannot say anything good. This was in no way the adjutant's fault. He had nothing else except that hut to offer me. It was made of brown canvas, stretched over a wooden frame. It was lit by small square patches of oiled canvas let into its walls at inconvenient places. It had a wooden door which was blown open and shut on windy nights and could not be securely fastened in either position. There was a corrugated-iron roof--apparently not part of the original plan of the hut--on which pouring rain made an abominable noise. The floor bent and swayed when walked on. Small objects, studs and coins, slipped between the boards of the floor and became the property of the rats which held revel there night and day.

The hut was cold in winter and stiflingly hot in summer. Draughts whistled through its walls and up between its boards when the wind blew. On calm nights it was impossible to get any fresh air into it at all. The canvas was liable to catch fire on the smallest provocation. I do not think there can be in the world any more detestable form of human habitation than huts like that. Mine was not unique. There were hundreds of them in those camps. They were, I am told, the invention of a man who succeeded in palming off these fruits of stupidity and malice on the War Office. They were called by his name. If I knew how to spell it I should set it down here for public execration. I expect he made a fortune out of his huts.

My first few nights in that hut were cold and unhappy, for I slept on the floor in a "flea bag." Then, with the help of the quartermaster, I secured a camp bedstead and was much less uncomfortable. The quartermaster came from Galway and was sympathetic with a particularly helpless fellow-countryman. He served me out blankets until I was ashamed to accept any more. He supplied the oil stove, and it kept my bath water from freezing during the night when it could be got to burn without smoking.

My servant "acquired" packing-cases and arranged them as washstand and dressing-table. He hung cords like clothes lines across the corners of the hut and suspended my kit on them. He watched the comings and goings of other officers and looted from vacant huts a whole collection of useful articles--a lantern which held a candle, a nest of pigeon-holes, three bookshelves, a chair without a back, a tin mug for shaving water, and a galvanised iron pot which made an excellent basin. He spent a whole morning making and fixing up outside my door a wooden boot-sc.r.a.per. I suppose he hoped in this way to prevent my covering the floor of the hut with mud. But the effort was wasted. The sc.r.a.per lay down flat on its side whenever I touched it with my foot. It remained a distinguis.h.i.+ng ornament of my hut, useful as a guide to any one who wanted to know where I lived, but no good for any other purpose. In this way I gradually became possessed of a kind of Robinson Crusoe outfit of household furniture.

I cannot say that I was ever comfortable in that hut. Yet the life agreed with me. It is evidently a mistake to suppose that damp beds, damp clothes, and s.h.i.+vering fits at night are injurious to health. It is most unpleasant but it is not unwholesome to have to rise at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. and run up and down in the rain to get warm enough to go to sleep.

Yet I escaped without even a cold in my head. I should be most ungrateful if I wished any real harm to the inventor of those huts.

But perhaps some day his health will give way and he will find himself suffering from rheumatism, congestion of the lungs, or frost bite. Then I hope he will try a winter in one of his own huts. He will not like it, but he will be a healthy man again before spring--if he is not dead.

CHAPTER V

KHAKI

War must always have been a miserable business; but our fathers and grandfathers had the sense to give it an outward semblance of gaiety.

They went forth to battle dressed in the brightest colours they could find. They put feathers in their hats. They sewed gold braid on their coats. They hung sparkling metal about their persons. They had bra.s.s bands to march in front of them. While engaged in the business of killing their enemies they no doubt wallowed in mud, just as we do; went hungry, sweated, s.h.i.+vered, were parched or soaked, grumbled and cursed. But they made a gallant effort at pretending to enjoy themselves. They valued the properties of romantic drama, though they must have recognised soon enough that the piece in which they played was the sordidest of tragedies.

We are realists. Not for us the scarlet coats, the tossing plumes, the s.h.i.+ning helmets or tall busbies. War is muddy, monotonous, dull, infinitely toilsome. We have staged it with a just appreciation of its nature. We have banished colour. As far as possible we have banished music.

I suppose we are right. If it is really true that a soldier is more likely to be killed when wearing a scarlet coat, it is plain common sense to dress him in mud colour. If music attracts the enemy's fire, then bands should be left at home to play for nursemaids in parks and on piers. Yet there is something to be said for the practice of our ancestors. The soldier's business is to kill the enemy as well as to avoid being killed himself. Indeed killing is his first duty, and he only tries to avoid being killed for the sake of being efficient.

A cheerful soldier is a much more effective fighter than a depressed soldier. Our ancestors knew this and designed uniforms with a view to keeping up men's spirits. We have ignored their wisdom and decked ourselves in khaki. I can imagine nothing better calculated to depress the spirits, to induce despondency, and to lower vitality than khaki. The British soldier remains cheerful--indeed it is largely his unfailing cheerfulness which makes him the splendid fighting man he is--but he has had to keep up his spirits without help from the authorities who have coloured his whole life khaki and deprived him of music.

I was placed in a camp which was one of a series of camps stretching along a winding valley. To right and left of us were steep hills, and off the side of one of them, that on which M. lived, the gra.s.s had been sc.r.a.ped and hacked. There remained mud which harmonised tonelessly with our uniforms. Under our feet as we walked along the roads and paths which led from end to end of the valley there was mud. The parade grounds--each camp had one--were mud. The tents were mud-coloured or dirty grey. The orderly-rooms, mess-rooms, recreation huts and all the rest were mud coloured and had soiled grey roofs.

Men mud-coloured from head to foot paraded in lines, marched, or strolled about or sat on mud banks smoking.

Even the women who served in the canteens and recreation huts refused to wear bright frocks, succ.u.mbing to the prevailing oppression of mud. The authorities have put even these women into khaki now, but that has made little difference. Before that order came out the ladies had failed to realise that it was their duty to deck themselves in scarlet, green, and gold, to save the rest of us from depression.

Mr. Wells went out to see the war at one time, and returned to make merry, rather ponderously, over the fact that some officers still wear spurs. Perhaps if Mr. Wells had lived for two months in a large camp wholly given over to the devil of khaki he would have taken a different view of spurs. They are almost the only things left in war which glitter. They are of incalculable value. So far from stripping them from the boots of officers supposed to be mounted, additional spurs should be worn on other parts of the uniform, on shoulder straps for instance, with a view to improving the spirits, and therefore the _moral_, of the army.

It does not in the least matter that spurs are seldom driven into the sides of horses. No one now uses spurs as goads. They are worn for the sake of the s.h.i.+ne and glitter of them. In the fortunate owner they are an inspiriting evidence of "sw.a.n.k." To every one else they are, as Ireland used to be, "the one bright spot" in a desperately drab world. M., a wiser man than I, always wore spurs, though I do not think he ever used them on his horses. He was naturally a man of buoyant cheerfulness, and I daresay would not have succ.u.mbed to khaki depression even if he had worn no spurs. But I think the spurs helped him. I know the sight of them helped me when they glittered on the heels of his boots as he tramped along, or glanced in the firelight when he crossed his legs in front of the mess-room stove.

For a long time after settling down in that camp I was vaguely uneasy without being able to discover what was the matter with me. I was thoroughly healthy. I was well fed. I was a.s.sociating with kindly and agreeable men. I had plenty of interesting work to do. Yet I was conscious of something wrong. It was not homesickness, a feeling I know well and can recognise. It was not fear. I was as safe as if I had been in England.

I discovered, by accident, that I was suffering from an unsatisfied yearning for colour. Drafts of a Scottish regiment came out from home wearing bright-red hackles in their caps; unmistakable spots of colour amid our drab surroundings. I found my eyes following these men about the camp with a curious pleasure, and I realised that what I wanted was to see red, or blue, or green, or anything else except khaki.

Later on an order came out that camp commandants should wear coloured cap-bands and coloured tabs on their coat. It suddenly became a joy to meet a colonel. Certain camps flew flags in front of their orderly-rooms. Very often the weather had faded the colours, but it was a satisfaction to feel that once, at all events, the things had not been drab. The Y.M.C.A., adding without meaning to another to its long list of good deeds, kept its bright-red triangle before our eyes. It seems absurd to mention such things; but I suppose that a starving man will count a few crumbs a feast.

I am not a painter. If any one had talked to me before I went to France of the value of colour, I should have laughed at him. Now, having lived for months without colour, I know better. Men want colour just as they want liquid and warmth. They are not at their best without it.

Nothing seemed stranger to me at first, nothing seems more pathetic now than the pains which men took to introduce a little colour into the drab world in which we were condemned to live. Outside orderly-rooms and other important places men made arrangements of coloured stones. Sometimes a regimental crest was worked out, with elaborate attention to detail, in pebbles, painted yellow, blue, and green. Sometimes the stones were arranged in meaningless geometrical patterns. They were always brightly coloured.

There was a widespread enthusiasm for gardening. Every square yard of unused mud in that great series of camps was seized and turned into flower-beds. Men laboured at them, putting in voluntarily an amount of work which they would have grudged bitterly for any other purpose.

They wanted flowers, not vegetables, though any eatable green thing would have been a treat to them.

When spring and early summer came to us we rejoiced in the result of our labours, frequently fantastic, sometimes as nearly ridiculous as flowers can be. There were beds of daffodils and hyacinths in which it was possible, when the designer acted as showman, to recognise regimental crests. The French flag came out well, if the flowers of the tricolour consented to bloom at the same time. A sergeant, who professed to be an expert, arranged a bed for me which he said would look like a Union Jack in June. Unfortunately I left the place early in May, and I have heard nothing since about that Union Jack. I suppose it failed in some way. If it had succeeded, some one would have told me about it. A fellow-countryman of mine designed a shamrock in blue lobelia. The medical Red Cross looked well in geraniums imported from England at great expense.

Generally our efforts were along more conventional lines. I remember a rose-garden with a sundial in the middle of it. The roses, to preserve them from frost, were carefully wrapped in sacking during severe weather, and an irreverent soldier, fresh from the trenches, commented on the fact that "These blighters at the base are growing sandbags."

We were short of implements, but we dug. I have seen table forks and broken dinner knives used effectively. I have seen gra.s.s, when there was gra.s.s, clipped with a pair of scissors. Kindly people in England sent us out packets of seeds, but we were very often beaten by the names on them. We sowed in faith and hope, not knowing what manner of thing an antirrhinum might be.

I do not believe that it was any form of nostalgia, any longing for home surroundings, which made gardeners of the most unlikely of us.

Heaven knows the results we achieved were unlike anything we had ever seen at home. It was not love of gardening which set us digging and planting. Men gardened in those camps who never gardened before, and perhaps never will again. At the bottom of it all was an instinctive, unrealised longing for colour. We knew that flowers, if we could only grow them, would not have khaki petals, that, war or no war, we should feast our eyes on red and blue.

Newspapers and politicians used to talk about this as "the war to end war," the last war. Perhaps they were right. We may at least fairly hope that this is the world's last khaki war. It is not indeed likely that when men next fight they will revert to scarlet coats and s.h.i.+ning breastplates. We have grown out of these crude attempts at romanticism.