A Padre in France Part 12

"The dears," she said. "But I can't change my frock; I've nothing but what I stand up in. What shall I do?"

I glanced at the bottle of port; but she shrank from that.

"I must do something," she said. "I'll powder my nose." The shaving mirror, at least, was some use.

The entertainment began stiffly. We were not accustomed to entertainments and felt that we ought to behave with propriety. We clapped at the end of each song, but we displayed no enthusiasm. I began to fear for our success. But our lady--she did the whole thing herself--conquered us. We were laughing and cheering in half an hour.

In the end we rocked in our seats and howled tumultuously when the sergeant-major, a portly man of great dignity, was dragged over the footlights. Our lady pirouetted across the stage and back again, her arm round the sergeant-major's waist, her cheek on his shoulder, singing, "If I were the only girl in the world and you were the only boy."

We believed in doing what we could for those who came to entertain us. When we secured the services of a "Lena Ashwell" Concert Party we painted a large sign and hung it up in front of the stage: "Welcome to the Concert Party." We forgot the second "e" in Welcome and it had to be crammed in at the last moment above the "m" with a "^"

underneath it.

We made two dressing-rooms, one for ladies and one for gentlemen.

The fittings were the same--brown soap, cold water, shaving mirror, tumbler and siphon. But in the gentlemen's room we put whisky, in the ladies' port. The whole party had tea afterwards in the sergeants'

mess--strong tea and tinned tongue. A corporal stood at the door as we left holding a tray covered with cigarettes.

I learned to play cribbage while I was in that camp. I was pitted, by common consent, against an expert, a man who had been wounded at Le Cateau and had his teeth knocked out as he lay on the ground by a pa.s.sing German, who used the b.u.t.t of his rifle. Round me were a dozen men, who gave me advice and explained in whispers the finesse of the game. It was hot work, for the men sat close and we all smoked.

I also learned that the British soldier, when he gives his mind to it, plays a masterly game of draughts. There was a man--in civil life he sailed a Thames barge--who insulted me deeply over draughts. He used to allow me to win one game in three, and he managed so well that it was weeks before I found out what he was doing.

We had whist drives, and once a billiard tournament, run on what I believe is a novel principle. We had only one table, half sized and very dilapidated. We had about thirty entries. We gave each player five minutes and let him score as much as he could in the time, no opponent interfering with him. The highest score took the prize.

But all entertainments and games in that camp were liable to untimely interruption. Messages used to come through from some remote authority demanding stretcher-bearers. Then, though it were in the midst of a game of whist, every man present had to get up and go away.

There was one occasion on which such a summons arrived just as the men had a.s.sembled to welcome a concert party. The dining-room was empty in five minutes. We who remained were faced with the prospect of a concert without an audience. But our sergeant-major met the emergency. He hurried to a neighbouring camp and somehow managed to borrow two hundred men. The concert party was greatly pleased, but said that the Emergency Stretcher-bearers did not look as old and dilapidated as they had been led to expect.

There came a time when the camp changed and many old friends disappeared. At the beginning of the Somme battle there was a sudden demand for stretcher-bearers to serve at the advanced dressing-stations. Almost every day we were bidden to send men.

Little parties a.s.sembled on the parade ground and marched off to entrain for the front. I used to see them lined up on the parade ground, war-battered men, who looked old though they were young, with their kits spread out for inspection. The least unfit went first; but indeed there was little choice among them. Not a man of them but had been wounded grievously or mourned a const.i.tution broken by hardship.

Yet they went cheerfully, patient in their dumb devotion to duty, hopeful that the final victory for which they had striven in vain was near at hand at last.

"We'll have peace before Christmas." So they said to me as they went.

That "Peace before Christmas"! It has fluttered, a delusive vision, before our men since the start. "Is it true that the cavalry are through?" I suppose that was another delusion, that riding down of a flying foe by hors.e.m.e.n. But it was not only the stretcher-bearers who clung to it.

We saw our friends no more after they disappeared into the smoking furnace of the front. They were scattered here and there among the dressing-stations in the fighting area. Many of them, I suppose, stayed there, struck down at last, ending their days in France as they began them, with the sound of the guns in their ears. Others, perhaps, drifted back to England more hopelessly broken than ever.

They must be walking our streets now with silver badges on the lapels of their coats, and we, who are much meaner men, should take our hats off to them. A few may be toiling still, where the fighting is thickest, the last remnants of the "Old Contemptibles."

Their places in the camp and their work on the quays were taken by others, men disabled or broken in the later fights when the new armies won their glory. The character of the camp changed. We became more respectable than we were in the old days. No one any longer spoke of us as a "bad lot," or called us "a tough crowd." Perhaps we were not so tough. Certainly we cannot have been tougher than the men who made good in those first terrific days, who continued to make good long after they could fight no more, staggering through the Somme mud with laden stretchers. They grumbled and groused. They blasphemed constantly. They drank when they could. They wanted no "---- parson" among them. But they were men, unconquered and unconquerable.

CHAPTER XV

MY THIRD CAMP

At the front, the actual front where the fighting is, imagination runs riot in devising place names, and military maps recognise woods, hills, and roads by their new t.i.tles. At the bases a severer spirit holds sway. I recollect one curious and disagreeable camp which was called, colloquially and officially, Cinder City. Otherwise camps were known by numbers or at best by the French names of the districts in which they were situated. I thought I had hit on another exception to this rule when I first heard of this camp. It seemed natural to have called a camp after one of our generals. In fact nothing of the sort occurred. It was the French name for the place. We took over the name when we pitched our tents.

Indeed the camp was not the sort of place which gets a name given to it. It is only places which somebody loves or hates, in which somebody is one way or other interested, which get new names given them. n.o.body, or n.o.body in high authority, took an interest in this camp. It was a stepchild among camps, neither attractive enough to be loved nor disagreeable enough to be hated and reviled.

With a string of other dull camps, it was under the command of a colonel who, having much on his mind besides the care of this camp, lived elsewhere. Only one officer slept in the camp. He had a bedroom which was half office, decorated--he several times a.s.sured me that his predecessor was responsible for the decoration--with pictures from _La Vie Parisienne_. The proprietors of that journal must have profited enormously by the coming of the British military force. If there is any form of taxation of excess profits in France that editor must be paying heavily. Yet the paper is sufficiently monotonous, and it is difficult to imagine that any one wants to take it in regularly.

Except this bedroom, the officer in command had no habitation in the camp. He messed elsewhere and, as was natural, spent his spare time elsewhere. He did all he could for the camp, but he could not do very much. He was of subordinate rank and of no great military importance. It was very difficult to stir the authorities to any great interest in the camp. There was a certain amount of excuse for them. It never seemed worth while to take much trouble for the men there. The function of the camp was peculiar. Men were drafted into it from convalescent camps and hospitals when they were pa.s.sed "fit,"

and were ready to rejoin their units. The business of the camp authorities was to sort the men out, divide them into parties, and dispatch them to the depots of their regiments.

Every day men came into camp and were for the moment "details." They belonged to all possible regiments and branches of the service. Every day parties of men left the camp for the different base depots. At 10 a.m. the H. party for H., at 12 noon the E. party for E., no longer "details," but drafts consigned to their proper depots at H., E., or elsewhere. Their stay in the camp was usually very brief. It was scarcely worth while trying to make them comfortable or doing anything to make life pleasant for them.

It was, I think, rather hard on men to be sent straight from the comfort and warmth of a hospital or convalescent camp to a place as Spartan as this. Instead of having a bed to sleep on, the unfortunate "detail" found himself condemned to the floor boards of a bell tent, with a very meagre allowance of well-worn blankets. In cold weather the change was abrupt and trying, but of course it had to be made sooner or later, and I suppose the men had no reasonable excuse for grumbling.

Very much harder on them was the lack of accommodation in the camp.

Things are much better now in this respect; but when I knew the camp first, there was no recreation room except a small and inconvenient E.F. Canteen.

The Y.M.C.A. never established itself there. The Church Army put up a small hut, but sent no worker to look after it; and even that hut was not opened till the early summer of 1916. By a curious chance the E.F. Canteen was worked by ladies instead of the usual orderlies. The ladies were in fact there, running a small independent canteen, before the E.F. Canteen took over the place. Rather unwillingly, I think, the E.F. Canteen people took over these ladies. It was a most fortunate thing that they did so.

Miss L., the head of this little band of workers, was a lady of unusual ability, energy, and sympathy. I have said that no one in authority cared for the camp. Miss L., who had no military authority, not only cared for it--she loved it. It was to her and her a.s.sistants that the camp owed most of what was done for it. I have seen much splendid work done by our voluntary ladies in France, but I have never seen better work done under more difficult circ.u.mstances than was done by these ladies.

I suppose it is foolish to be surprised at any evidence of the blatant vulgarity of the men who earn their living by the horrid trade of politics. They speak and act after their kind; and it is probably true that silk purses cannot be made out of sows' ears. Yet I own to having experienced a shock when Mr. Macpherson in the House of Commons described our lady workers as "camp followers." Even for a politician, even in the House of Commons, that was bad.

Miss L. and her a.s.sistants had no great organisation behind them to which they could appeal, which would take their part and fight their battles. Like the men they worked for, they were "details." The E.F.

Canteen authorities, who employed but did not pay them, looked upon those ladies with suspicion. They were allowed to work. They were not welcomed. I think the E.F. Canteen people would have got rid of them if they could. Yet they did work which in quant.i.ty was at least equal to that of the orderlies usually employed, and in quality enormously superior.

The room which served as a canteen was singularly inconvenient. The part of it used by the men was far too small, and used to be disagreeably crowded in the evenings and on wet days. The s.p.a.ce behind the counter was narrow, gloomy, and ill ventilated. A worker serving there had the choice of being half choked or blown about by furious draughts. Miss L. preferred the draughts, which she called "fresh air." I sometimes found myself inclined to regard suffocation as the pleasanter alternative.

I have never seen a more inconvenient kitchen than that in which those ladies worked. It was small, low, and very gloomy. It had an uneven floor, on which it was quite possible to trip. The roof leaked badly in half a dozen places, and on wet days an incautious person splashed about. In summer with two fires burning that kitchen became fiercely hot. Even an electric fan, presented by a sympathetic visitor, did little to help. No self-respecting English kitchen maid would have stayed two hours in a house where she was given such a kitchen to work in.

Yet wonderful hot suppers were cooked there in long succession. Huge puddings and deep crocks of stewed fruit were prepared. A constant supply of tea, coffee, and cocoa was kept ready to replenish exhausted kettles on the counter outside, and all the washing up for hundreds of men was done in a very small sink.

The cooking and bar serving were the smallest part of the work those ladies did. Miss L. was active as a gardener. In most camps in France men take to gardening willingly, and require little help or encouragement. In this camp it was different. No one stayed there long enough to be interested in the garden. I have seen photographs of the camp before I knew it, as it was in 1915, a desolate stretch of trampled mud. I saw recently a photograph of the camp in 1917. It was then gay with flowers. I knew it in 1916, when Miss L. had begun her gardening and was gradually extending her flower-beds, creating new borders and fencing off small s.p.a.ces of waste ground with wooden palings.

Her enthusiasm stimulated men, who could never hope to see any result of their labours, to do something for the camp. One man, a miner from Northumberland, set out the name of the camp in large letters done in white stones on a green bank behind the canteen. He gave all his spare time for two days to the work, and when he had finished we discovered that he had left out a letter in the first syllable of the name. He was a patient as well as an enthusiastic man. He began all over again.

Miss L. went to great trouble in providing amus.e.m.e.nts for the men.

Here she worked against great difficulties. An organisation like the Y.M.C.A. has control of concert parties and lecturers who are sent round to various huts, thus greatly lightening the labour of the local workers. The camp canteen had no organisation behind it, and could command no ready-made entertainments. In the sweat of our brows we earned such concerts as we had, and any one who has ever got up a concert, even at home, knows how much sweating such activities involve. In the end, moved by pity at our plight, the Y.M.C.A. people used to lend us concert parties, especially "Lena Ashwell" parties, the best of their kind. I have always found the Y.M.C.A. generous in sharing their good things with those outside their organisation.

Another difficulty which faced Miss L. was the want of any suitable place for entertainments. The canteen was far too small. The Church Army hut, when we had got it opened, was a little better, but still not nearly large enough for the audience which a good concert party drew. We had to use the dining-hall. It was not always available and was seldom available at the exact time we wanted it. It had no stage and no piano. Each time a concert was held there, a stage had to be erected for the occasion, the piano hauled over from the canteen, and some kind of decoration arranged.

One of the minor inconveniences of the camp was the extraordinary uncertainty of the lighting. Other camps, even the Con. Camp occasionally, suffered from failure of the supply of electricity. For some reason the thing happened more often in this camp than elsewhere; and even when the current was running strongly we found ourselves in darkness because our wires fused in places difficult to get at, or branches fell from trees and broke wires. We got accustomed to these disasters when they happened at ordinary times.

Miss L. and her a.s.sistants were ladies of resource and indomitable spirit. It was a small thing to them to find the canteen suddenly plunged into total darkness while a crowd of men was clamouring for food and drink at the counter. A supply of candles was kept ready to hand. They were placed in mugs (candlesticks were lacking of course) and set on the counter. By the aid of their feeble gleam the ladies groped their way into the kitchen for tea, filled cups, and counted out change. The scene always reminded me of Gideon's attack on the Midianites when his soldiers carried lamps in pitchers. Occasionally some one knocked over a mug. There was a crash and a blaze, a very fair imitation of the battle in the Book of Judges.

It was worse when a whist drive or a singing compet.i.tion in the Church Army hut was interrupted by one of these Egyptian plagues of darkness. But even then we did not allow ourselves to be seriously embarra.s.sed. The men, responsive to the instinct of discipline, sat quiet at the whist tables with their cards in their hands. The glow of burning cigarettes could be seen, faint spots of light; nothing else.

Miss L. hurried to the canteen for candles. They were set in pools of their own grease on the tables and the games went on. A singing compet.i.tion scarcely even paused. The compet.i.tors sang on. The pianist managed to play. The audience applauded with extra vigour until candles were brought and set in rows, like footlights, in front of the stage.

Our worst experience of light failure occurred one evening when we had a visit from a very superior concert party. We had secured it only after much "w.a.n.gling." We made every possible preparation for its reception. One of Miss L.'s a.s.sistants drew out a most attractive advertis.e.m.e.nt of the performance with a picture of a beautiful lady in a red dress at the top of it. We posted this up in various parts of the camp; but we were not really anxious about the audience. It always "rolled up."

We set up a stage in the dining-room, a large high stage made out of dining-tables, a little rickety, but considered by good judges to be fairly safe. We spread a carpet, or something which looked like a carpet, on it. Only Miss L. could have got a carpet in the camp, and I do not know how she did it. We hung up a large Union Jack, Miss L.'s private property, which was used on all festive occasions and served as an altar cloth on Sundays. The E.F. Canteen authorities were worried for a week beforehand, and, lest they should be worried more, promised us a new piano, "same," so they put it, "to be delivered" in time for the concert. The promise was not kept.

That was our first misfortune. With deep misgiving we dragged our own piano out of the canteen and set it on the stage. The musical members of Miss L.'s staff a.s.sured us that it was desperately out of tune.