Chapter III · THE TOWER OF BABEL

"Des barques romaines, disais-je.—Non, disais-tu, portugaises."—Jean Giraudoux.

"Wot you require, sir," interrupted Private Brommit, "is a glass o' boilin' 'ot milk an' whisky, with lots o' cinnamon."

Aurelle, who was suffering from an attack of influenza, was at Estrées, under the care of Dr. O'Grady, who tirelessly prescribed ammoniated quinine.

"I say, doctor," said the young Frenchman, "this is a drug that's utterly unknown in France. It seems strange that medicines should have a nationality."

"Why shouldn't they?" said the doctor. "Many diseases are national.

"No," said Aurelle; "he is drowned all the same, but his friends say he had cramp, and the honour of Britain is saved."

Private Brommit knocked at the door and showed in Colonel Parker, who sat down by the bed and asked Aurelle how he was getting on.

"He is much better," said the doctor; "a few more doses of quinine——"

"I am glad to hear that," replied the colonel, "because I shall want you, Aurelle. G.H.Q. is sending me on a mission for a fortnight to one of your Brittany ports; I am to organize the training of the Portuguese Division. I have orders to take an interpreter with me. I thought of you for the job."

"But," Aurelle put in, "I don't know a word of Portuguese."

"What does that matter?" said the colonel. "You're an interpreter, aren't you? Isn't that enough?"

The following day Aurelle told his servant to try and find a Portuguese in the little town of Estrées.

"Brommit is an admirable fellow," said Colonel Parker, "he found whisky for me in the middle of the bush, and quite drinkable beer in France. If I say to him, 'Don't come back without a Portuguese,' he is sure to bring one with him, dead or alive."

As a matter of fact, that very evening he brought back with him a nervous, talkative little man.

"Ze Poortooguez in fifteen days," exclaimed the little man, gesticulating freely with his small plump hands "A language so rich, so flexible, in fifteen days! Ah, you have ze luck, young man, to 'ave found in zis town Juan Garretos, of

Aurelle confessed his ignorance.

"Never mind," said Juan Garretos indulgently; "ze shape of your 'ead inspire me wiz confidence: for ten francs ze hour I accept you. Only, mind, no chattering; ze Latins always talk too much. Not a single word of ze English between us now. Faz favor d'fallar Portuguez—do me ze favour of speaking ze Poortooguez. Know first zat, in ze Poortooguez, one speak in ze zird person. You must call your speaker Excellency.'"

"What's that?" Aurelle interrupted. "I thought you had just had a democratic revolution."

"Precisely," said the positivist philosopher, rapachos, and zose of ze aristocracy were meninos: now zey are all meninos. Zat is a revoluçaoung! Faz favor d'fallar Portuguez. Ze Latins always talk too much."

Having thus earned his ten francs by an hour's unceasing eloquence, he made a fairer proposal to Aurelle next day.

"I will arrange with you for a fixed sum," he said. "If I teach you two souzand words, you give me fifty francs."

"Very well," replied Aurelle, "two thousand words will be a sufficient vocabulary to begin with."

"All right," said Juan Garretos; "now listen to me. All ze words which in ze English end with 'tion' are ze same in ze Poortooguez wiz ze ending 'çaoung.' Revolution—revoluçaoung; constitution—constituçaoung; inquisition—inquisiçaoung. Now zere are in ze English two souzand words ending in 'tion.' Your Excellency owes me fifty francs. Faz favor d'fallar Portuguez."

A fortnight later Colonel Parker and Aurelle stepped on to the platform at B——, where they were met by Major Baraquin, the officer commanding the garrison, and Captain Pereira, the Portuguese liaison officer.

Major Baraquin was a very old soldier. He had seen service—in the 1870 campaign. All strangers, Allies included, inspired him with a distrust which even his respect for his superiors failed to remove. When the French War Office

"After all, sir," said Aurelle to Parker, "his grandfather was at Waterloo."

"Are you quite sure," asked the colonel, "that he was not there himself?"

Above all things, Major Baraquin would never admit that the armies of other nations might have different habits from his own. That the British soldier should eat jam and drink tea filled him with generous indignation.

"The colonel," Aurelle translated, "requests me to ask you ..."

"No, no, no," replied Major Baraquin in stentorian tones, without troubling to listen any further.

"But it will be necessary, sir, for the Portuguese who are going to land...."

"No, no, no, I tell you," Major

Next day several large British transports arrived, and disgorged upon the quay thousands of small, black-haired men who gazed mournfully upon the alien soil. It was snowing, and most of them were seeing snow for the first time in their lives. They wandered about in the mud, shivering in their spotted blue cotton uniforms and dreaming, no doubt, of sunny Alemtejo.

"They'll fight well," said Captain Pereira, "they'll fight well. Wellington called them his fighting cocks, and Napoleon said his Portuguese legion made the best troops in the world. But can you wonder they are sad?"

Each of them had brought with him a

Major Baraquin, with unconscious and sinister humour, had quartered them in the shambles.

"It would be better——" began Colonel Parker.

"Il vaudrait peut-être mieux——" Aurelle attempted to translate.

"Vossa Excellencia——" began Captain Pereira.

"No, no, no," said the old warrior passionately.

The Portuguese went to the shambles.