Our Casualty, and Other Stories Part 5

The men left the hut, and Miss Willmot locked the door behind them.

The canteen was closed until it opened in all its glory on Christmas afternoon.

She pa.s.sed through a door at the back of the counter, slipped off her overall, stained and creased after a long day's work, then she went into the kitchen.

Miss Nelly Davis was bending over a packing-case which stood in the middle of the kitchen floor. It served as a table, and she was spreading a cloth on it In front of the stove stood a young man in uniform, wearing the badges of a fourth cla.s.s Chaplain to the Forces. This was Mr. Digby. Once he had been the popular curate of St Ethelburga's, the most fashionable of London churches. In those days Miss Willmot would have treated him with scorn. She did not care for curates.

Now he was a fellow-worker in the Camp. His waterproof hung dripping behind the kitchen door. Drops of rain ran down his gaiters. He was trying to dry the knees of his breeches before the stove. Miss Willmot greeted him warmly.

"Terrific night," he said; "rain coming down in buckets. Water running round the camp in rivers. I say, Miss Davis, you'll have to get out another cup. The Major's coming to tea."

"There isn't a fourth cup," said Miss Nelly. "You'll have to drink out of a mug."

"Right-o! Mugs hold more, anyway."

"All padres are greedy," said Miss Nelly. "What's bringing the Major here?"

"I've arranged a practice of the Christmas carols," said Digby.

"Bother your old carols," said Miss Nelly.

"Must have a practice," said Digby. "You and Miss Willmot are all right; but the Major is frightfully shaky over the ba.s.s. It won't do to break down to-morrow. By the way, Miss Willmot, there's something I want to speak to you about before the Major comes. There's----"

"Before the Major comes, Nelly," said Miss Willmot, "give me some tea.

He always looks shocked when I drink four cups, so let me get through the first two before he arrives."

"I wouldn't sit there if I were you," said Digby.

"There's a drip coming through the roof just there which will get you on the back of the neck every time you lean forward."

Miss Willmot shifted the biscuit-tin. It was not easy to find a spot to put it The roof of the kitchen leaked badly in several places.

"Look here, Miss Willmot," said Digby. "I wonder if you could do anything about this. I've just been round to the guard-room. There's a poor devil there----"

"Language! language!" said Miss Nelly.

She was on her knees beside the stove rescuing her plate of toast from danger. Drops of water were falling on it from the knees of Digby's breeches every time he moved.

"There is," said Digby, speaking with great precision, "an unfortunate man at this moment incarcerated in the cell behind the guard-room, under the stern keeping of the Provost Sergeant I hope that way of saying it satisfies you, Miss Davis."

"For goodness' sake, don't talk Camp shop," said Miss Davis. "Let's have our tea in peace."

"Drink, I suppose," said Miss Willmot "Why will they do it, just at Christmas, too?"

"This isn't a drunk," said Digby. "The wretched devil has been sent down here under arrest from No. 73 Hospital. He's to be court-martialled.

He's only a boy, and a decent-looking boy, too. I hate to think of his being shut up in that cell all by himself at Christmas with n.o.body to do anything for him."

"What can we do?" said Miss Willmot.

"I can't do anything, of course," said Digby, "but I thought you might."

"I don't see what I can do."

"Well, try," said Digby. "If you'd seen the poor fellow---- But you'll do something for him, won't you?"

Digby had a fine faith in Miss Willmot's power to do "something"

under any circ.u.mstances. Experience strengthened his faith instead of shattering it. Had not Miss Willmot on one occasion faced and routed a medical board which tried to seize the men's recreation-room for its own purposes? And in the whole hierarchy of the Army there is no power more una.s.sailable than that of a medical board. Had she not obtained leave for a man that he might go to see his dying mother, at a time when all leave was officially closed, pushing the application through office after office, till it reached, "noted and forwarded for your information, please," the remote General in Command of Lines of Communication? Had she not bent to her will two generals, several colonels, and once even a sergeant-major? A padre, fourth cla.s.s, though he had once been curate of St. Ethelburga's, was a feeble person. But Miss Willmot! Miss Willmot got things done, levelled entanglements of barbed red tape, captured the trenches of official persons by virtue of a quiet persistence, and--there is no denying it--because the things she wanted done were generally good things.

The Major opened the door of the kitchen. He stood for a moment on the threshold, the water dripping from his cap and running down his coat, great drops of it hanging from his white moustache. He was nearer sixty than fifty years of age. The beginning of the war found him settled very comfortably in a pleasant Worcestershire village. He had a house sufficiently large, a garden in which he grew wonderful vegetables, and a small circle of friends who liked a game of bridge in the evenings.

From these surroundings he had been dug out and sent to command a base camp in France. He was a professional soldier, trained in the school of the old Army, but he had enough wisdom to realize that our new citizen soldiers require special treatment and enough human sympathy to be keenly interested in the welfare of the men. He grudged neither time nor trouble in any matter which concerned the good of the Camp. He had very early come to regard Miss Willmot as a valuable fellow-worker.

"Padre," he said, "I put it to you as a Christian man, is this an evening on which anyone ought to be asked to practise Christmas carols?"

"Hear, hear," said Miss Nelly.

"We've only had one practice, sir," said Digby, "and I've put up notices all over the Camp that the carols will be sung to-morrow evening. It's awfully good of you to come."

"And of me," said Miss Nelly.

"You're here, in any case," said Digby. "The men are tremendously pleased, sir," he added, "that you're going to sing. They appreciate it."

"They won't appreciate it nearly so much when they hear me," said the Major. "I haven't sung a part for, I suppose, twenty years."

Christmas carols have been sung, and we may suppose practised beforehand, in odd places, amid curious surroundings. But it is doubtful whether even the records of missionaries in heathen lands tell of a choir practice so unconventional as that held on Christmas Eve in the kitchen of Miss Willmot's canteen.

The rain beat a tattoo on the corrugated iron roof. It dripped into a dozen pools on the soaking floor, it fell in drops which hissed on to the top of the stove. There was no musical instrument of any kind. The tea-tray was cleared away and laid in a corner. The Major, white-haired, lean-faced, smiling, sat on the packing-case in the middle of the room.

Miss Willmot sat on her biscuit-tin near the stove. Miss Nelly perched, with dangling feet, on a corner of the sink in which cups and dishes were washed Digby, choir-master and conductor, stood in front of the stove.

"Now then," he said, "we'll begin with 'Nowell.' Major, here's your note--La-a-a"--he boomed out a low note. "Got it?"

"La-a-a," growled the Major.

"Miss Willmot, alto," said Digby, "la-a-a. That's right Miss Davis, a third higher, la-a-a. My tenor is F. Here's the chord. La, la, la, la.

Now, one, two, three. 'The first Nowell the angels did say----'"

The rain hammered on the roof. The Major plodded conscientiously at his ba.s.s. Miss Nelly sang a shrill treble. Digby gave the high tenor notes in shameless shouts. "Good King Wenceslas" followed, and "G.o.d rest you merry, gentlemen." Then the Major declared that he could sing no more.

"I wish you'd get another ba.s.s, padre," he said. "I'm not trying to back out, but I'm no good by myself. If I'd somebody to help me, a second ba.s.s----"

"There's n.o.body," said Digby. "I've scoured the whole camp looking for a man."

"If only Tommy were here," said Miss Nelly.

"Tommy has a splendid voice. And I don't see why he mightn't be here instead of stuck in that silly old hospital He's quite well. He told me so yesterday. A bullet through the calf of the leg is nothing.

Major, couldn't you get them to send Tommy over to the Camp just for to-morrow?"

The Major shook his head. He had every sympathy with Miss Nelly. He knew all about Tommy. So did Miss Willmot. So did Digby. Miss Nelly made no secret of the fact that she was engaged to be married to Tommy Collins.

She was proud of the fact that he was serving as a private in the Wess.e.x Borderers, wishing to work his way up through the ranks to the commission that he might have had for the asking. No Wess.e.x man ever entered the canteen without being asked if he knew Private 7432 Collins, of the 8th Battalion. Every one--even the sergeant-major--had to listen to sc.r.a.ps read out from Tommy's letters, written in trenches or in billets. When Tommy was reported wounded, Miss Willmot had a bad day of it with an almost hysterical Nelly Davis. When the wound turned out to be nothing worse than a hole in the calf of the leg, made by a machine-gun bullet, Miss Nelly cried from sheer relief. When, by the greatest good luck in the world, Private 7432 Collins was sent down to 73 General Hospital, no more than a mile distant from the Camp, Miss Nelly went wild with joy.