All in It : K(1) Carries On Part 17

"Of course we shall! And what's more, we are going to derive a national benefit out of this war which will in itself be worth the price of admission!"

"How?" asked several voices.

Wagstaffe looked round the table. The Battalion were for the moment in Divisional Reserve, and consequently out of the trenches. Some one had received a box of Coronas from home, and the mess president had achieved a bottle of port. Hence the present symposium at Headquarters Mess. Wagstaffe's eyes twinkled.

"Will each officer present," he said, "kindly name his pet aversion among his fellow-creatures?"

"A person or a type?" asked Mr. Waddell cautiously.

"A type."

Colonel Kemp led off.

"Male ballet-dancers," he said.

"Fat, s.h.i.+ny men," said Bobby Little, "with walrus mustaches!"

"All conscientious objectors, pa.s.sive resisters, pacifists, and other cranks!" continued the orthodox Waddell.

"All people who go on strike during war-time," said the Adjutant.

There was an approving murmur--then silence.

"Your contribution, M'Lachlan?" said Wagstaffe.

Angus, who had kept silence from shyness, suddenly blazed out:--

"I think," he said, "that the most contemptible people in the world to-day are those politicians and others who, in years gone by, systematically cried down anything in the shape of national defence or national inclination to personal service, because they saw there were no _votes_ in such a programme; and who _now_"--Angus's pa.s.sion rose to fever-heat,--"stand up and endeavour to cultivate popular favour by reviling the Ministry and the Army for want of preparedness and initiative. Such men do not deserve to live! Oh, sirs--"

But Angus's peroration was lost in a storm of applause.

"You are adjudged to have hit the bull's-eye, M'Lachlan," said Colonel Kemp. "But tell us, Wagstaffe, your exact object in compiling this horrible catalogue."

"Certainly. It is this. Universal Service is a _fait accompli_ at last, or is shortly going to be--and without anything very much in the way of exemption either. When it comes, just think of it! All these delightful people whom we have been enumerating will have to toe the line at last. For the first time in their little lives they will learn the meaning of discipline, and fresh air, and _esprit de corps_. Isn't that worth a war? If the present sc.r.a.p can only be prolonged for another year, our country will receive a tonic which will carry it on for another century. Think of it! Great Britain, populated by men who have actually been outside their own parish; men who know that the whole is greater than the part; men who are too wide awake to go on doing just what the _Bandar-log_ tell them, and allow themselves to be used as stalking-horses for low-down political ramps! When _we_, going round in bath-chairs and on crutches, see that sight--well, I don't think we shall regret our missing arms and legs quite so much, Colonel. War is h.e.l.l, and all that; but there is one worse thing than a long war, and that is a long peace!"

"I wonder!" said Colonel Kemp reflectively. He was thinking of his wife and four children in distant Argylls.h.i.+re.

But the rapt att.i.tude and quickened breath of Temporary Captain Bobby Little endorsed every word that Major Wagstaffe had spoken. As he rolled into his "flea-bag" that night, Bobby requoted to himself, for the hundredth time, a pa.s.sage from Shakespeare which had recently come to his notice. He was not a Shakespearian scholar, nor indeed a student of literature at all; but these lines had been sent to him, cut out of a daily almanac, by an equally unlettered and very adorable confidante at home:--

"And gentlemen in England now a-bed, Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day!"

Bobby was the sort of person who would thoroughly have enjoyed the Battle of Agincourt.

VIII

"THE NON-COMBATANT"

I

We will call the village St. Gregoire. That is not its real name; because the one thing you must not do in war-time is to call a thing by its real name. To take a hackneyed example, you do not call a spade a spade: you refer to it, officially, as _Shovels, General Service, One_. This helps to deceive, and ultimately to surprise, the enemy; and as we all know by this time, surprise is the essence of successful warfare. On the same principle, if your troops are forced back from their front-line trenches, you call this "successfully straightening out an awkward salient."

But this by the way. Let us get back to St. Gregoire. Hither, mud-splashed, ragged, hollow-cheeked, came our battalion--they call us the Seventh Hairy Jocks nowadays--after four months' continuous employment in the firing-line. Ypres was a household word to them; Plugstreet was familiar ground; Givenchy they knew intimately; Loos was their wash-pot--or rather, a collection of wash-pots, for in winter all the sh.e.l.l-craters are full to overflowing. In addition to their prolonged and strenuous labours in the trenches, the Hairy Jocks had taken part in a Push--a part not altogether unattended with glory, but prolific in casualties. They had not been "pulled out" to rest and refit for over six months, for Divisions on the Western Front were not at that period too numerous, the voluntary system being at its last gasp, while the legions of Lord Derby had not yet crystallised out of the ocean of public talk which held them in solution. So the Seventh Hairy Jocks were bone tired. But they were as hard as a rigorous winter in the open could make them, and--they were going back to rest at last. Had not their beloved C.O. told them so? And he had added, in a voice not altogether free from emotion, that if ever men deserved a solid rest and a good time, "you boys do!"

So the Hairy Jocks trudged along the long, straight, nubbly French road, well content, speculating with comfortable pessimism as to the character of the billets in which they would find themselves.

Meanwhile, ten miles ahead, the advance party were going round the town in quest of the billets.

Billet-hunting on the Western Front is not quite so desperate an affair as hunting for lodgings at Margate, because in the last extremity you can always compel the inhabitants to take you in--or at least, exert pressure to that end through the _Mairie_. But at the best one's course is strewn with obstacles, and fortunate is the Adjutant who has to his hand a subaltern capable of finding lodgings for a thousand men without making a mess of it.

The billeting officer on this, as on most occasions, was our friend c.o.c.kerell,--affectionately known to the entire Battalion as "Sparrow,"--and his qualifications for the post were derived from three well-marked and invaluable characteristics, namely, an imperious disposition, a thick skin, and an attractive _bonhomie_ of manner.

Behold him this morning dismounting from his horse in the _place_ of St. Gregoire. Around him are grouped his satellites--the Quartermaster-Sergeant, four Company Sergeants, some odd orderlies, and a forlorn little man in a neat drab uniform with light blue facings,--the regimental interpreter. The party have descended, with the delicate care of those who essay to perform acrobatic feats in kilts, from bicycles--serviceable but appallingly heavy machines of Government manufacture, the property of the "Buzzers," but commandeered for the occasion. The Quartermaster-Sergeant, who is not accustomed to strenuous exercise, mops his brow and glances expectantly round the _place_. His eye comes gently to rest upon a small but hospitable-looking _estaminet_.

Lieutenant c.o.c.kerell examines his wrist-watch.

"Half-past ten!" he announces. "Quartermaster-Sergeant!"

"Sirr!" The Quartermaster-Sergeant unglues his longing gaze from the _estaminet_ and comes woodenly to attention.

"I am going to see the Town Major about a billeting area. I will meet you and the party here in twenty minutes."

Master c.o.c.kerell trots off on his mud-splashed steed, followed by the respectful and appreciative salutes of his followers--appreciative, because a less considerate officer would have taken the whole party direct to the Town Major's office and kept them standing in the street, wasting moments which might have been better employed elsewhere, until it was time to proceed with the morning's work.

"How strong are you?" inquired the Town Major.

c.o.c.kerell told him. The Town Major whistled.

"That all? Been doing some job of work, haven't you?"

c.o.c.kerell nodded, and the Town Major proceeded to examine a large-scale plan of St. Gregoire, divided up into different-coloured plots.

"We are rather full up at present," he said; "but the Cemetery Area is vacant. The Seventeenth Geordies moved out yesterday. You can have that." He indicated a triangular section with his pencil.

Master c.o.c.kerell gave a deprecatory cough.

"We have come here, sir," he intimated dryly, "for a change of scene."

The stout Town Major--all Town Majors are stout--chuckled.

"Not bad for a Scot!" he conceded. "But it's quite a cheery district, really. You won't have to doss down in the cemetery itself, you know.

These two streets here--" he flicked a pencil--"will hold practically all your battalion, at its present strength. There's a capital house in the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau which will do for Battalion Headquarters. The corporal over there will give you your _billets de logement_."

"Are there any other troops in the area, sir?" asked c.o.c.kerell, who, as already indicated, was no child in these matters.