IV THE FRONT AGAIN (continued 2)

The prisoner gets all the assistance he may require from a "prisoner's friend" if he asks for one, and the prosecutor never presses a charge—he merely unfolds it. Moreover, officers are pretty good judges of character, and if the accused meets the charge fairly and squarely, justice will be tempered with mercy. I remember the case of a young subaltern at the Base who was charged with drunkenness. His defence was as straightforward as it was brief:

I had just been ordered up to the Front. So I stood my friends a dinner; I had a bottle of Burgundy, two liqueurs, and a brandy and soda, and—I am just nineteen.

This ingenuous plea in confession and avoidance pleased the Court. He got off with a reprimand.

The liaison officers deserve a chapter to themselves. Their name alone is so endearing. Their mission is not, as might be supposed, to promote mariages de convenance between English Staff officers and French ladies, but to transmit billets-doux between the two Armies and, generally, to promote the amenities of military intercourse. As a rule they are charming fellows, chosen with a very proper eye to their personal qualities as well as their proficiency in the English language. Among them I met a Count belonging to one of the oldest families in France, an Oriental scholar of European reputation, and a Professor of English literature. The younger ones studied our peculiarities with the most ingratiating zeal, and one of them, in particular, played and sang "Tipperary" with masterly technique at an uproarious tea-party in a pâtisserie at Bethune. Also they smoothed over little misunderstandings about délits de chasse, gently forbore to smile at our French, and assisted in the issue of the laisser-passer. Doubtless they performed many much more weighty and mysterious duties, but I only speak of what I know. To me they were more than kind; they gave me introductions to their families when I went on official visits to Paris and to the French lines; zealously assisted me to hunt down evidence, and sometimes accompanied me on my tour of investigation. Among the many agreeable memories I cherish of the camaraderie at G.H.Q. the recollection of their constant kindness and courtesy is not the least.

One word before I leave the subject of the Staff. There has been of late a good deal of pestilential gossip by luxurious gentlemen at home about the Staff and its work. It is, they say, very bad—mostly beer and skittles. I have already referred to these charges elsewhere; here I will only add one word. A Staff is known by its chief. He it is who sets the pace. During the time I was attached to it, the G.H.Q. Staff had two chiefs in succession. The first was a brilliant soldier of high intellectual gifts, now chief of the Imperial Staff at home, who, although embarrassed by indifferent health, worked at great pressure night and day. His successor at G.H.Q. is a man of stupendous energy, commanding ability, and great force of character, who has risen from the ranks to the great position he now holds. By their chiefs ye shall know them. Under such as these there was and is no room for the "slacker" at G.H.Q. He got short shrift. There were very few of that undesirable species at G.H.Q., and as soon as they were discovered they were sent home. I sometimes wonder whether one could not trace, if it were worth while (which it isn't), these ignoble slanders to their origin in the querulous lamentations of these deported gentlemen, whence they have percolated into Parliamentary channels. But it really isn't worth while. The public has, I believe, taken the thing at its true valuation. In plain speech it is "all rot."

Note.—The last paragraph was written before the recent changes at G.H.Q. and at the War Office, but the reader will not need any assistance in the identification of the two distinguished Chiefs of Staff here referred to.—J.H.M.

FOOTNOTES:

XXX

HOME AGAIN

Sykes had finished packing my kit and had succeeded with some difficulty in re-establishing the truth of the axiom that a whole is greater than its parts. When I contemplated my valise and its original constituents, it seemed to me that the parts would prove greater than the whole, and I had in despair abandoned the problem to Sykes. He succeeded, as he always did. One of the first things that an officer's servant learns is that, as regards the regulation Field Service allowance of luggage, nothing succeeds like excess.

Sykes had not only stowed away my original impedimenta but had also managed to find room for various articles of vertu which had enriched my private collection, to wit:

(1) One Bavarian bayonet of Solingen steel.

(2) Two German time-fuses with fetishistic-looking brass heads.

(3) A clip of German cartridges with the bullets villainously reversed.

(4) A copper loving-cup—i.e., an empty shell-case presented to me with a florid speech by Major S—— on behalf of the ——th Battery of the R.F.A.

(5) An autograph copy of The Green Curve bestowed on me by my friend "Ole Luk-Oie" (to whom long life and princely royalties).

(6) The sodden Field Note-book of a dead Hun given me by Major C—— of the Intelligence, with a graceful note expressing the hope that, as a man of letters, I would accept this gift of belles-lettres.

(7) A duplicate of a certain priceless "chit" about the uses of Ammonal[30] (original very scarce, and believed to be in the muniment-room of the C.-in-C., who is said to contemplate putting it up to auction at Sotheby's for the benefit of the Red Cross Fund).

(8) An autograph copy of a learned Essay on English political philosophers presented to me by the author, one of the liaison officers, who in the prehistoric times of peace was a University professor at Avignon.

(9) A cigarette-case (Army pattern), of the finest Britannia metal, bestowed on me with much ceremony by a Field Ambulance at Bethune, and prized beyond rubies and fine gold.

(10) A pair of socks knitted by Jeanne.[31]

To these Madame[32] had added her visiting-card—it was nearly as big as the illuminated address presented to me by the electors of a Scottish constituency which I once wooed and never won—wherewith she reminded me that my billet at No. 131 rue Robert le Frisson would always be waiting for me, the night-light burning as for a prodigal son, and steam up in the hot-water bottle.

I had said my farewells the night before to the senior officers on the Staff, in particular that distinguished soldier and gallant gentleman the A.G., to whose staff I had been attached (in more senses than one), and who had treated me with a kindness and hospitality I can never forget. The senior officers had done me the honour of expressing a hope that I should soon return; their juniors had expressed the same sentiments less formally and more vociferously by an uproarious song at their mess overnight.

The latter had also, with an appearance of great seriousness, laden me with messages for His Majesty the King, the Prime Minister, Lord Kitchener, the two Houses of Parliament, and the ministers and clergy of all denominations: all of which I promised faithfully to remember and to deliver in person. Sykes, with more modesty, had asked me if I would send a photograph, when the film was developed of the snapshot I had taken of him, to his wife and the twins at Norwich.

My car, upon whose carburettor an operation for appendicitis had been successfully performed by the handy men up at the H.Q. of the Troop Supply Column, stood at the door. I held out my hand to Sykes, who was in the act of saluting; he took it with some hesitation, and then gave me a grip that paralysed it for about a quarter of an hour.

"If you be coming back again, will you ask for me to be de-tailed to you, sir? My number is ——. Sergeant Pope at the Infantry Barracks sees to them things, sir."

I nodded.

"Bon voyage, monsieur," cried Madame in a shrill voice.

"Bon voyage," echoed Jeanne.

I waved my hand, and the next moment I had seen the last of two noble women who had never looked upon me except with kindness, and who, from my rising up till my lying down, had ministered to me with unfailing solicitude.

At the Base I boarded the leave-boat. Several officers were already on board, their boots still bearing the mud of Flanders upon them. It was squally weather, and as we headed for the open sea I saw a dark object gambolling upon the waves with the fluency of a porpoise. A sailor stopped near me and passed the time of day.

"Had any trouble with German submarines?" I asked.

"Only once, sir. A torpedo missed us by 'bout a hund-erd yards."

"Only once! How's that?"

For answer the sailor removed a quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other by a surprisingly alert act of stowage and nodded in the direction of the dark object whose outlines were now plain and salient. It was riding the sea like a cork.

"Them," he said briefly. It was a t.b.d.

At the port of our arrival the sheep were segregated from the goats. The unofficial people formed a long queue to go through the smoking-room, where two quiet men awaited them, one of whom, I believe, always says, "Take your hat off," looks into the pupil of your eyes, and lingers lovingly over your pulse; the other, as though anxious to oblige you, says, "Any letters to post?" But his inquiries are not so disinterested as they would seem.

The rest of us, being highly favoured persons, got off without ceremony, and made for the Pullman. As the train drew out of the station and gathered speed I looked out upon the countryside as it raced past us. England! Past weald and down, past field and hedgerow, croft and orchard, cottage and mansion, now over the chalk with its spinneys of beech and fir, now over the clay with its forests of oak and elm. The friends of one's childhood, purple scabious and yellow toad-flax, seemed to nod their heads in welcome; and the hedgerows were festive with garlands of bryony and Old Man's Beard. The blanching willows rippled in the breeze, and the tall poplars whispered with every wind. I looked down the length of the saloon, and everywhere I saw the blithe and eager faces of England's gallant sons who had fought, and would fight again, to preserve this heritage from the fire and sword of bloody sacrilege. Fairer than the cedars of Lebanon were these russet beeches, nobler than the rivers of Damascus these amber streams; and the France of our new affections was not more dear.

Twilight was falling as the guard came round and adjured us to shut out the prospect by drawing the blinds. As we glided over the Thames I drew the blind an inch or two aside and caught a vision of the mighty city steeped in shadows, and the river gleaming dully under the stars like a wet oilskin. At a word from the attendant I released the blind and shut out the unfamiliar nocturne. Men rose to their feet, and there was a chorus of farewells.

"So long, old chap, see you again at battalion headquarters."

"Good-bye, old thing, we meet next week at H.Q."

"To-morrow night at the Savoy—rather! You must meet my sister."

As I alighted on the platform I saw a crowd of waiting women. "Hullo, Mother!" "Oh, darling!" I turned away. I was thinking of that platform next week when these brief days, snatched from the very jaws of death, would have run their all too brief career and the greetings of joy would be exchanged for heart-searching farewells.

I was dining at my club with two friends, one of them a young Dutch attaché, the other a barrister of my Inn. We did ourselves pretty well, and took our cigars into the smoking-room, which was crowded. Some men in a corner were playing chess; the club bore, decent enough in peace but positively lethal in war, was demonstrating to a group of impatient listeners that the Staff work at G.H.Q. was all wrong, when, catching sight of me, he came up and said, "Hullo, old man, back from the Front? When will the war end?" I returned the same answer as a certain D.A.A.G. used to provide for similar otiose questions: "Never!"

"Never! Hullo, what's that?"

Every one in the room suddenly rose to their feet, the chess players rising so suddenly that they overturned the board. "Damn it, and it was my move, I could have taken your queen," said one of them. Outside there was a noise like the roaring of the lion-house at the Zoo; your anti-aircraft gun has a growl of its own. "They're here," said some one, and we all made for the terrace.

I looked up and saw in the dim altitudes a long silvery object among the stars. As the searchlights played upon it, it seemed almost diaphanous, and the body appeared to undulate like a trout seen in a clear stream. Jupiter shone hard and bright in the southern hemisphere, and suddenly a number of new planets appeared in the firmament as though certain stars shot madly from their spheres. Round and about the monster came and went these exploding satellites. Then another appeared close under her, and like a frightened fish she swerved sharply and was lost to view among the Pleiades.

"Let's go and see what's happened," said one of my friends. "I hear she's dropped a lot of bombs down——."

As we went down the street I saw that for about two hundred yards ahead it was sparkling as with hoar-frost. Suddenly the soles of our boots "scrunched" something underfoot. I looked down. The ground was covered with splinters of glass. As we drew nearer we caught sight of a cordon of police, and behind them a great fire springing infernally from the earth, and behind the fire a group of soldiers, whose figures were silhouetted against the background. Our way was impeded by curious crowds, among whom one heard the familiar chant of "Pass along, please!"

We stopped. Close to us two men were stooping with heads almost knocking together and searching the ground, while one of them husbanded a lighted match against the wind.

"Blimey, Bill," said one to the other, "I've found 'un!"

"What have you found?" we asked of him.

"A souvenir, sir!"

Truly, they know not the stomach of this people.

FOOTNOTES:

THE END

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