General Bramble Part 10

CHAPTER XI

JUSTICE

The D.M.S. had sent round a note to all A.D.M.S.'s reminding them that all officers and men were to be inoculated against typhoid fever. So the A.D.M.S. of the Scottish Division ordered the different units to send in a nominal roll of all those who had not been inoculated. Most of the negligent confessed their sin; many of them were believers, and those who were not, respected the customs of their times and piously submitted to the ceremony.

Only the 113th Battery, R.F.A., sent in the following roll:

| Names. | Condition. | Reason given for | | | | exemption. | | | | | | Capt. c.o.c.kell | | Do not believe in | | Lieut. Little | Not yet inoculated. | the efficacy of | | Lieut. M'Cracken | Refuse inoculation. | the operation. | | | | |

The A.D.M.S. in high dudgeon complained to the Staff and requested the temporal powers to deliver the heretics over to the lancet. The temporal powers, while paying due reverence to medical infallibility, requested the A.D.M.S. to attempt a conversion.

The 113th Battery was famous for its courage and its daring deeds.

Dr. O'Grady was entrusted with the mission of visiting Captain c.o.c.kell and bringing that erring soul back to the fold.

The gunners gave the doctor a warm welcome. Their dug-out was comfortable, their arm-chairs, made by the men out of the branches of fir-trees, were luxuriously low and deep. O'Grady dropped into one, and looked about him anxiously.

"It is a remarkable fact," he said, "that thirst and hunger should make themselves felt by sensations in the mouth and stomach only, and not in the rest of the body. At this very moment, when all my organs are quite dry for lack of decent whisky, I am only warned by the mucous membrane in my mouth----"

"Orderly! The whisky! Quick!" shouted Captain c.o.c.kell.

Whereupon the doctor, his mind set at rest, was able to explain the object of his mission.

"Doctor," answered Captain c.o.c.kell, "there is nothing I would not do for you. But I consider anti-typhoid inoculation, next to poison-gas, to be the most dangerous practice in this war."

The doctor, who was a skilful reader of character, saw at once that only liberal doctrines would help him to success.

"Oh," he exclaimed genially, "you needn't think I share the usual medical superst.i.tions. But I do believe that inoculation has practically done away with deaths caused by typhoid. Statistics show----"

"Doctor, you know as well as I do that statistics may be made to say anything one likes. There are fewer cases of typhoid in this war than in former wars simply because the general sanitary conditions are much better. Besides, when a fellow who has been inoculated is silly enough to be ill--and that _has_ been known to occur--you simply say, 'It isn't typhoid--it's para-typhoid.'"

"Which is perfectly true," said the doctor; "the pseudo-bacillus----"

"Oh, that stunt about the pseudo-bacillus! Next time you're wounded, doctor, I'll say it was by a pseudo-sh.e.l.l!"

"Very well, very well," said the doctor, somewhat nettled. "I'll just wait till next time you're ill. Then we'll see whether you despise doctors or not."

"That's a poor argument, doctor, very poor indeed. I'm quite ready to acknowledge that a sick man is in need of moral support and requires the illusion of a remedy, just like a woman in love. Therefore doctors are necessary, just like thought-readers. I simply submit it should be recognized that both professions are of a similar order."

The energetic c.o.c.kell had inspired his two young lieutenants with respectful admiration. They remained as firm as he in their refusal; and after an excellent lunch Dr. O'Grady returned to H.Q. and informed his chief of the cynicism of the 113th Battery and the obstinacy of the heretical sect in those parts.

The A.D.M.S. sent the names of the three officers up to H.Q., and demanded the general's authority to put a stop to this scandal; and Colonel Parker promised to let the Corps know of the matter.

Some time before this, the French Government had placed at the disposal of the British authorities a certain number of "Legion of Honour" decorations--to wit, two Grand Officer's badges, twelve Commander's cravats, twenty-four Officer's rosettes, and a considerable number of Knight's crosses.

The two Governments were in the habit of exchanging armfuls of ribbons at regular intervals in this way, and the apportioning of these trifles created a useful occupation for the numerous members of all staffs and their still more numerous clerks.

The distribution was performed according to wisely appointed rules.

Of each batch of decorations G.H.Q. took one half for its own members, and pa.s.sed on the other half to the Army Staffs. The Army Staffs kept half of what they received, and pa.s.sed on the remainder to the Corps Staffs. The same method was applied right down to the Battalion Staffs, and it will readily be observed (with the help of an elementary arithmetical calculation) that the likelihood of the men in the line ever receiving a foreign decoration was practically nonexistent.

The Scottish Division received as its share on this occasion three crosses. Colonel Parker and the other demi-G.o.ds of the divisional Olympus being already provided for, these were allotted to dignitaries of minor importance. It was decided that one should be given to Dr. O'Grady, who had done great service to the French population (he had a.s.sisted a Belgian refugee in childbirth and she had survived his ministrations). The second was marked down for the D.A.D.O.S., and the third for the A.D.V.S., a genial fellow who was very popular in the mess.

The names of the three lucky men were handed by a Staff officer to an intelligent clerk with orders to draw up immediately a set of nominal rolls for the Corps.

Unfortunately the clerk happened to be the very same man to whom Colonel Parker had given the list of the three heretics of the 113th Battery the day before. But who can blame him for having confused two groups of three names? And who can blame the officer on duty for having signed two nominal rolls without reading them?

A month later, the Division was surprised to hear that Captain c.o.c.kell and Lieutenants Little and M'Cracken had been made Knights of the Legion of Honour. As they really deserved it, the choice caused considerable astonishment and general rejoicing; and the three warriors, happy to see three decorations reach them intact after having pa.s.sed through so many covetous hands, were loud in praise of their superior officers' discrimination.

CHAPTER XII

VARIATIONS

"I have no illusions left but the Archbishop of Canterbury."--Sydney Smith.

"When I was attached to a field ambulance," said the doctor, "we had three padres with us in the mess."

"That was rather a large order," said the Rev. Mr. Jeffries.

"It _was_ a large order," agreed the doctor, "but one of them anyway was quite harmless. The R.C. padre spoke very little, ate an enormous amount, and listened with infinite contempt to the discussions of his colleagues.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings, padre, but Catholicism is _the_ only religion. A faith is only justified if it carries conviction.

What's the use of a creed or a dogma which is as transient as a philosophy? Being condemned by my profession to study beings whose moral balance is unstable, I am in a position to a.s.sert that the Roman Church has a complete understanding of human nature. As a psychologist and a doctor, I admire the uncompromising att.i.tude of the Councils. So much weakness and stupidity requires the firm support of an authority without the slightest tolerance. The curative value of a doctrine lies not in its logical truth, but in its permanency."

"It is quite true," said Colonel Parker, "that nothing short of the rigid dictates of Catholicism could have prevented the Irish from going completely mad. But don't judge every one from your own case, O'Grady; the Saxons possess a solid, Protestant intelligence."

"Well," the doctor continued, "our other two padres spent their evenings trying to swallow each other up. One of them was Church of England and the other Presbyterian; and they employed the most modern commercial methods in their compet.i.tion. Church of England found an old gipsy cart which he set up at d.i.c.kebusch and from which he sold chocolate to the Jocks; whereupon Church of Scotland installed a telescope at Kruystraete to show them the stars. If the one formed a cigar-trust, the other made a corner in cigarettes. If one of them introduced a magic lantern, the other chartered a cinema. But the permanent threat to the peace of the mess was undoubtedly the Baptist question.

"As we had no Baptist padre, the unfortunate soldiers of that persuasion (of whom there were seven in the Division) could attend no service. The astonishing thing was that they never seemed to realize the extent of their misfortune.

"On one point at any rate our two padres agreed: men could not be left, in the dangerous zone in which we were then living, without the consolations of religion. But both Church of England and Church of Scotland each claimed the right to annex this tiny neutral congregation.

"'Excuse me,' said Church of Scotland; 'the Baptist, it is true, only performs the immersion ceremony when the adult's faith is confirmed, but on all other points he resembles the Presbyterian. His Church is a democratic one and is opposed to episcopacy, like ours.'

"'Pardon me,' said Church of England; 'the Baptist, in demanding a return to the primitive form of the Sacrament, proves himself to be the most conservative of all British Christians. Now every one--including yourself--admits that the Church of England is the most conservative of all the Reformed Churches. Besides----'

"For hours at a time they used to go on like this, and the futile discussion became even more annoying as I got to know the different arguments as well as either of them.

"One day I was sent up to the ambulance's advance post at Maple Copse--you know, that little wood in front of Ypres."