A Padre in France Part 13

The least musical of us could a.s.sure ourselves that several notes made no sound at all, however hard you hit them. And the concert party was a very grand one.

It arrived in two motors, and we abased ourselves before it, babbling apologies. One after another the members of the party approached our piano and poked at it with their forefingers. One after another they turned away looking depressed. The only one of them who remained moderately cheerful was a man who did conjuring tricks. It was, I imagine, through his good offices that the party agreed to attempt its programme.

The audience, who knew the failings of our piano as well as we did, applauded the first song rapturously. Then without the slightest warning every lamp in the place went out. A dog, a well-beloved creature called Detail, who was accustomed to sit under Miss L.'s chair at concerts, began to bark furiously. That, I think, was what finally broke the temper of the concert party. We had an oil lamp ready for emergencies. It was lit, and I saw the leader of the party beckoning to me. His face was fearfully stern. I fully expected him to say that the whole party would leave at once.

But he did nothing so drastic. He demanded the instant expulsion of Detail. There was a scuffle at the far end of the room. The audience rose to its feet and cheered tumultuously. Detail, I am sorry to say, barked again. I saw eight men staggering through the crowded room bearing a piano. It was quite new, and, I am told, almost in tune.

The situation was saved. The singers were mollified and went on with their programme by the light of one lamp, two candles (on the piano), and three stable lanterns. An orderly with a screwdriver and a box of matches sought for the fused wire. Detail crept under her mistress's chair again unrebuked. She was an animal of cultivated tastes and hated missing concerts. She usually behaved with decorum, not barking except by way of applause when the audience shouted and noise of any kind was legitimate.

The camp is, I am told, very different now. There is a new canteen, large, well furnished, and beautiful. Concerts can be held in it and church services. No one is any longer crowded out of anything. The kitchen is a s.p.a.cious place in which it is possible to cook without great physical suffering. There are more flower beds, well-kept lines between the tents, an impressive entrance. No doubt even the electric light shines consistently. The days of makeshift are over and the camp is a credit to the Expeditionary Force.

But I should not like to go back there again. I should be haunted with memories of old days which were trying but pleasant. I should wish myself back at one of the cheery tea-parties in the old canteen kitchen, when we sat on packing-cases and biscuit-boxes, when we shifted our seats about to dodge the raindrops from the roof, when we drank out of three cracked cups and thick mugs borrowed from the canteen.

I should remember pay-nights when the men stood before the counter in a dense mob, all hungry, each holding in his hand a five-franc note, when we had no change, not a franc, not a sou; when, in desperation, I used to volunteer to collect change from any one who had it, giving chits in exchange for small coins. Such crises do not arise now, I suppose.

Sitting in comfort at a table in the fine new canteen I should remember sadly a wet afternoon in the Church Army hut when there was no room to move and the air was heavy with Woodbine smoke and the steam of drying cloth, when I perched on the corner of a window-sill and pitted myself against a chess player who challenged me suddenly and turned out to be a master of the game and the secretary of a chess club in Yorkshire.

I should remember, with how great regret! how, evening after evening, Miss S. left her pots and pans, smoothed her tousled overall, and came over to the Church Army hut to play a hymn for us at evening prayers; how the men, an ever-changing congregation, chose the same hymns night after night till we came to hate the sound of their tunes; how we, reserving Sunday evenings for our property, chose the hymn then and always chose the same one--which I shall never sing again without remembering Miss S. at the piano, smelling the air of that hut, and being troubled by a vision of the faces of the men who sang.

I should not find Miss S. there if I went back, or Captain L., or any one, almost, whom I knew. No doubt their successors are doing well, mine better than ever I did, which would be no difficult thing; but I could not bear to see them at their work. Ghosts of old days would haunt me.

And worst of all, Miss L. is gone. The rest of us have pa.s.sed and no one misses us much, I suppose. Our places are easily filled. Her place in that camp no one will ever quite fill. "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."

CHAPTER XVI

LEAVE

At last! I have the precious paper safe in my hand, in my pocket with a b.u.t.ton fastened tight to keep it there: my leave warrant, pa.s.sport to ten days' liberty, rest, and--other things much more desirable than liberty or rest. It is issued to me late on Sunday night for a start on Monday morning.

The authorities are desperately suspicious. They trust no man's honour. They treat even a padre as if he were a fraudulent cashier, bent on cheating them if he can. I do not blame them. In this matter of leave every man is a potential swindler. A bishop would cheat if he could. If I had got that leave warrant an hour or two sooner than I did, I should have made a push for the boat which left on Sunday evening. Thereby I should have deprived the army of my services during the night, a form of swindling not to be tolerated, though what use I am to the army or any one else when I am in bed and asleep it would be very difficult to say.

All that night the wind shrieked, rattling windows to the discomfort of those who were lucky enough to have roofs over their heads, threatening the dwellers in tents with the utter destruction of their shelters. Very early, before the dawn of the winter morning, the rain began, not to fall--the rain in a full gale of wind does not fall--but to sweep furiously across the town.

I heard it, but I did not care. I turned and snuggled close under my blankets. In an hour or two it would be time to get up. My day would begin, the glorious first day of leave. What does rain matter? or what do gales matter? unless--a horrid fear a.s.sailed me. Was it possible that in such a gale the steamer would fail to start. I turned and twisted, tortured by the thought. Every time the windows rattled and the house shook I sweated hot and cold.

In the end, tormented beyond endurance, I got up and dressed some time between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. I did more. Without the coffee which Madame had promised me I sallied forth and tramped through the deserted streets of the town, fording gutters which were brooks, skirting close by walls which promised what sailors call a "lee."

The long stretch of the quay was desolate. Water lay in deep pools between the railway lines among the sleepers. Water trickled from deserted waggons and fell in small cascades from the roofs of sheds.

The roadway, crossed and recrossed by the railway, had little muddy lakes on it and broad stretches of mud rather thicker than the water of the lakes.

Far down the quay lay a steamer with two raking funnels--the leave boat, the ship of heart's desire for many men. Clouds of smoke, issuing defiantly from her funnels, were immediately swept sideways by the wind and beaten down by the rain. The smoke ceased to be smoke, became a duller greyness added to the greyness of the air, dissolved into s.m.u.ts and was carried to earth--or to the faces and hands of wayfarers--by the rain.

Already at 7 o'clock there were men going along the quay--a steady stream of them, tramping, splashing, stumbling towards the steamer.

In the matter of the sailing of leave boats rumour is the sole informant, and rumour had it that this boat would start at 10 a.m.

Leave is a precious thing. He takes no risks who has secured the coveted pa.s.s to Blighty. It is a small matter to wait three hours on a rain-swept quay. It would be a disaster beyond imagining to miss the boat.

Officers make for the boat in twos or threes, their trench coats, b.u.t.toned tightly, flap round putteed or gaitered legs. Drenched haversacks hang from their shoulders.

Parties of men, fully burdened with rifles and kit, march down from the rest camp where they have spent the night. The mud of the trenches is still thick on them. One here and there wears his steel helmet. They carry all sorts of strange packages, sacks tied at the mouth, parcels sewed up in sacking, German helmets slung on knapsacks, valueless trophies of battlefields, loot from captured dug-outs, pathetically foolish souvenirs bought in French shops, all to be presented to the wives, mothers, sweethearts who wait at home.

A couple of army sisters, lugging suit-cases, clinging to the flying folds of their grey cloaks, walk, bent forward against the wind and rain. A blue-coated Canadian nurse, bra.s.s stars on her shoulder straps, has given an arm to a V.A.D. girl, a creature already terrified at the prospect of crossing the sea on such a day. The rain streams down their faces, but perhaps Canadians are accustomed to worse rain in their own country. Certainly this young woman does not seem to mind it. She is smiling and walks jauntily. Like many of our cousins from overseas she is rich in splendid vitality.

A heavy grey motor rushes along, splashing the walkers. Beside the driver is a pile of luggage. Inside, secure behind plate gla.s.s from any weather, sits a general. Another motor follows and still others.

British staff officers and military attaches from allied nations, the privileged cla.s.ses of the war, sweep by while humbler men splash and stumble.

But in front of the gangway of the leave boat, as at the gates of Paradise, there is no distinction of persons. The mean man and the mighty find the same treatment there. There comes a moment when the car must be left, when crossed sword and baton on the shoulder straps avail their wearer no more than a single star.

A sailor, relentless as Rhadamanthus, stands on the gangway and bars the way to the shelter of the ship. No one--so the order has gone forth--is to be allowed on board before 9 o'clock. There is shelter a few yards behind, a shed. A few seek it. I prefer to stand, with other early comers, in a cl.u.s.ter round the end of the gangway, determined, though we wait hours, to be among the first on board.

The crowd grows denser as time goes on. The Canadian sister, alert and competent, secures a seat on the rail of a disused gangway and plants two neat feet on the rail opposite. An Australian captain, gallant amid extreme adversity, offers the spare waterproof he carries to the shivering V.A.D. I find myself wedged tight against a general. He is elderly, grizzled, and looks fierce; but he accepts a light for his cigarette from the bowl of my pipe. It was his only chance of getting a light then and there. Now and then some one asks a neighbour whether it is likely that the boat will start on such a day.

A depressed major on the outskirts of the crowd says that he has it on the best authority that the port is closed and that there will be no sailings for a week. The news travels from mouth to mouth, but no one stirs. There is a horrid possibility that it may be true; but--well, most men know the reputation of that "best authority." He is the kind of liar of whose fate St. John speaks vigorously in the last chapter but one of his Apocalypse.

The ship rises slowly higher and higher, for the tide is flowing. The gangway grows steeper. From time to time two sailors shift it slightly, retying the ropes which fasten it to the ship's rail. The men on the quay watch the manoeuvre hopefully.

At 9 o'clock an officer appears on the outside fringe of the crowd.

With a civility which barely cloaks his air of patronage he demands way for himself to the ship. His bra.s.sard wins him all he asks at once. On it are the letters "A.M.L.O." He is the a.s.sistant Military Landing Officer, and for the moment is lord of all, the arbiter of things more important than life and death. In private life he is perhaps a banker's clerk or an insurance agent. On the battlefield his rank ent.i.tles him to such consideration only as is due to a captain. Here he may ignore colonels, may say to a brigadier, "Stop pushing." He has what all desire, the "Open Sesame" which clears the way to the ship.

He goes on board, acknowledging with careless grace the salute of one of the ship's officers. He stands on the shelter deck.

With calm dignity he surveys the swaying crowd beneath him. "There's no hurry, gentlemen," he says. There is no hurry for him. He has risen from his bed at a reasonable hour, has washed, shaved, bathed, breakfasted. He has not stood for hours in drenching rain. The look of him is too much for the general who is wedged beside me in the crowd. He speaks:

"What the----? Why the----? When the----? Where the----?" He is a man of fluent speech, this general. I thought as much when I first looked at him. Now it seems that his command of language is a great gift, more valuable than the eloquence of statesmen or the music of poets.

The Canadian sister leads the applause of the crowd. The general turns to me with a deprecating smile.

"Excuse me, padre, but really----"

The army respects the Church, knows that certain necessary forms of speech are not suited to clerical ears. But the Church is human and can sympathise with men's infirmities.

"If I were a general," I said, "I should say a lot more."

The general, encouraged by this absolution, does say more. He mentions the fact that he is going straight to the War Office when he reaches London. Once there he will--the threat vaporises into jets of language so terrific that the air round us grows sensibly warmer. I notice that the V.A.D. is holding tight to the hand of the Canadian sister.

The A.M.L.O., peering through the rain from the shelter deck of the steamer, recognises the rank of his a.s.sailant. The mention of the War Office reaches him. He wilts visibly. The stiffness goes out of him before the delighted eyes of the crowd. He admits us to the ship.

Another gangway is lowered. In two thin streams the damp men and draggled women struggle on board. Certain officers, the more helpless subalterns among us, are detailed for duty on the voyage. They parade on the upper deck. To them at least the A.M.L.O. can still speak with authority. He explains to the bewildered youths what their duties are. Each pa.s.senger, so it appears, must wear a life-belt. It is the business of the subalterns to see that every one ties round his chest one of those bandoliers of cork.

On the leave boat the spirit of democracy is triumphant. Sergeants jostle commissioned officers. Subalterns seize deck chairs desired by colonels of terrific dignity. Privates with muddy trousers crowd the sofas of the first-cla.s.s saloon. Discipline we may suppose survives.

If peril threatened, men would fall into their proper places and words of command would be obeyed. But the outward forms of discipline are for a time in abeyance. The spirit of goodfellowship prevails.

The common joy--an intensified form of the feeling of the schoolboy on the first day of the Christmas holidays--makes one family of all ranks and ages.

No doubt also the sea insists on the recognition of new standards of worth. The humblest private who is not seasick is visibly and unmistakably a better man than a field-marshal with his head over the bulwarks. Curious and ill-a.s.sorted groups are formed. Men who at other times would not speak to each other are drawn and even squeezed together by the pressure of circ.u.mstance.

Between two of the deckhouses on the lower deck of this steamer is a narrow pa.s.sage. Porters have packed valises and other luggage into it. It is sheltered from the rain and will be secure from showers of flying spray. Careless and inexperienced travellers, searching along the crowded decks for somewhere to sit down, pa.s.s this place by unnoticed. Others, accustomed in old days to luxurious travelling, scorn it and seek for comfort which they never find.

I come on this nook by accident; and at once perceive its value as a place of shelter and refuge. I sit down on the deck with my haversack beside me. I wedge myself securely, my feet against one side of the pa.s.sage, my back against the other. I tuck my waterproof round me and feel that I may defy fate to do its worst.