Our Casualty, and Other Stories Part 8

"Thank you, sir," said Wakeman. "Yes, sir, feel as if I could do with a bit of something to eat The way of it was this, sir. We strafed them proper, we did. The Prussian Guards they was, and----"

But the doctor had no time to listen to the story. "Get along now.

Get along. The sooner the dressing is done, the sooner you'll get your dinner."

The story, which the doctor would not hear, bubbled out into the ears of the nursing sister who picked the sc.r.a.ps of shrapnel out of Wakeman's leg. They were tiny fragments, most of them, but there were a great many, and it took the nurse twenty minutes to get through her job. The story was told twice over in jerks and s.n.a.t.c.hes, just as it had been told to the Canadian, only the obscene words were unuttered and the oaths, when they slipped out now and then, were followed by apologies.

Every soldier, even a Lancashire gutter snipe, has in him this curious instinct. His talk is commonly full of blasphemies and obscenities, devoid of all sense or meaning, efforts at futile emphasis, apparently necessary and inevitable. But if there is a woman within earshot, no such words pa.s.s his lips. A girl might sit all day among these men, and, if they knew she was there, her ears would never be sullied with the sound of a foul word.

Released at last from the dressing station, Wakeman and five or six others were taken to the bathhouse. The corporal who led the way, the bath orderly who provided soap and towels, and the wounded Irishman who was given the bath next to Wakeman's, all heard sc.r.a.ps of the story, learnt the essential fact that Wakeman and his pals had strafed the Prussian Guard. It was the Irishman who reduced the excited boy to silence for a few minutes.

"What do you want to be talking that way for?" he said. "Didn't we all give them h.e.l.l? Didn't I bring back three prisoners myself. Three? It's five I would have had, only for a stray sh.e.l.l that bursted alongside of the communication trench and lifted two of them off me. Bad luck to that same sh.e.l.l, for a bit of it took me under the knee. But what matter?

Only, mind this, what you did to the Prussian Guard wasn't in it with what that sh.e.l.l did to them two Boches. You'd have been sorry for the blighters, so you would, if so be you could have found a bit of either of them big enough to be sorry for."

Wakeman had no reply to make to that. It is not possible with a bayonet, or even with a Lewis gun, to cause the total disappearance of an enemy's body.

After his bath, with a clean shirt on him and a clean pair of socks, Wakeman dined. There is no lack of good food in Number 50 Convalescent Camp, and men recovering from wounds often have healthy appet.i.tes. But Wakeman ate, gorged himself, to the astonishment even of the kitchen orderlies. Plateful after plateful of stewed meat and potatoes, steaming and savoury, disappeared. Yet there was no sign about the boy of the la.s.situde of repletion. His eyes remained bright and glanced rapidly here and there. His body was still alert, the movements of his hands quick and decisive.

After dinner, rest Wakeman found himself with other new-comers in a tent in the corner of the camp. The Irishman was there, still lamenting in picturesque phrases the loss of his two prisoners.

"And the biggest of them--a fine figure of a man he was--had the beautifullest helmet on him that ever was seen; worth twenty francs it was, any day, and me without a penny in my pocket But where was it after the sh.e.l.l bursted? Tell me that if you can."

The Canadian was there, patiently ready to listen to any story, having apparently no story of his own to tell. Wakeman began again.

"It was the Prussian Guard," he said, "and we gave them proper h.e.l.l, we did, out in the open. No blasted machine guns. Just them and us with the bayonet And----"

He talked in vain. In the tent were beds, real beds with mattresses of woven wire, and pallia.s.ses stuffed with straw. Stretched flat on his back the Irishman snored. His head pillowed on his folded arm the Canadian slept peacefully, a quiet smile, like a child's, on his face.

Wakeman looked at them and snorted with contempt For him no sleep was possible. He pulled a bench to the door of the tent, and sat in the sunshine. He found the lid of a cigarette tin and set to work to sc.r.a.pe the mud off his clothes and boots. But the work wearied him. With a piece of string he laced up the long rent in his trousers, cutting holes in the material with the blade of a knife. Then, still obstinately disinclined for sleep, he went out to explore the camp.

At one end of the camp is a hut, a long, low building. It is one of those canteens and recreation huts, which, working through various organizations, the public at home provides for the men in France. They are familiar enough to everyone in France, and the men know that there is a welcome for them however often they pa.s.s the doors. In this hut Mrs. Jocelyn works all day long and every day.

Sometimes she cooks, making vast puddings, stewing cauldrons full of prunes or figs. Sometimes she stands behind the counter serving bowls of tea, coffee, cocoa, lemonade, to thirsty men. Sometimes, half asphyxiated with tobacco smoke, she sits at the piano and hammers out rag-time tunes, while the men crowd round her, their faces close to her as they peer at the music, their voices threatening her with deafness when they bellow in her ears. Sometimes she sits for an hour beside some dull-eyed victim of sh.e.l.l shock, patiently trying to coax or trick him back to some interest in life again, giving him, literally, her own vitality, until, "virtue gone out" of her, she must seek fresh strength for herself in the less exhausting toil of a scullery maid. Thus she pays to man the debt she owes to G.o.d for the cross over the grave of one son dead, and the unconquerable spirit of the other crippled.

It was a slack hour when Private Wakeman, in his grotesquely tattered clothes, limped through the door. Only a few men were in the hut, writing or playing draughts. A boy at the piano was laboriously beating out a discordant version of "Tennessee." Mrs. Jocelyn sat on a packing-case, a block of paper on her knee, writing a letter to a man who had left the camp to go up the line again. Another woman, a fellow worker, was arranging plates of cakes and biscuits on the counter, piling bowls ready to hand for the crowd of men who would come later, clamouring for tea.

Private Wakeman stood in the middle of the hut and looked around him. He sought companionship, longed to find some one to whom he could tell his story and make his boast about the Prussian Guard. His eyes wandered from one to another of the men who were writing or playing games. He found little encouragement. It seemed impossible to join himself to any one of them. He looked at the lady busy with the bowls and plates. His eyes rested at last on a great dish of stewed figs which stood on the counter. He had eaten an incredible quant.i.ty of food in the dining-hall two hours before, soup, beef, potatoes, cabbage, pudding, cheese. But he had not eaten stewed figs. His whole boy's nature rose in him in one fierce longing for stewed figs. He remembered. Before he went into the attack he had possessed half a franc and two sous. He thrust his hand into his one trouser pocket. It was empty. He tore at the string with which he had laced up the slit in his trousers. On that side there was not a pocket left. It and all it ever contained, were gone. He fumbled in the pockets of his tunic, found three mangled cigarettes, the stump of a pencil, a letter from his mother, and, at last, two English penny stamps, survivals of days which seemed years ago, when he had been in camp in England.

His eyes were fixed on the stewed figs. The longing in him grew fiercer, intolerable. He approached the counter slowly. He laid on it the two stamps, dirty almost beyond recognition. He smoothed them out carefully.

"Lady," he said, "I haven't got no money but----"

The worker laid down her bowls, looked at the two stamps, and then at the boy. She was a woman of experience and discernment She saw the muddy, tattered clothes. She read the look of desire in the eyes. She understood.

"What do you want?" she said.

"Stewed fruit, lady, and--and custard."

She turned from the boy to Mrs. Jocelyn.

"It's clean against all rules," she said. "I know I oughtn't to, but I must---I simply must give this boy something."

Mrs. Jocelyn looked up from her writing. She saw all that the other had seen. She had talked with many men. One glance was enough for her. She knew what the boy had been through. With swift intuition she guessed at what he felt and how he yearned. She saw the name of his regiment on his one remaining shoulder strap. It was her dead boy's regiment, and every man in it was dear to her. Already the other lady was at work, putting a spoonful of stewed figs on a soup plate. Mrs. Jocelyn seized her by the arm and dragged her roughly back from the counter.

"Don't dare to do it," she said, "it's my right No one else has so good a right to do it as I have."

So Private Wakeman sat down to a plate piled with stewed figs, swamped with a yellowish liquid called custard in canteens in France. Beside him were jam tarts and great slabs of cake. From a mouth never empty, though he swallowed fast, came in short gushes the story of the strafing of the Prussian Guard, told at last to ears which drank in greedily every word of it.

So Mrs. Jocelyn claimed and took at last her dearest right.

VI -- JOURNEY'S END

I had a long journey before me, and I looked forward to it with dread.

It is my habit when forced to travel in France, the part of France chiefly affected by the war, to resign myself to a period of misery. I relapse into a condition of sulky torpor. Railway Transport Offices may amuse themselves by putting me into wrong trains. Officers in command of trains may detach the carriage in which I am and leave it for hours in a siding. My luggage may be--and generally is--hopelessly lost. I may arrive at my destination faint for want of food. But I bear all these things without protest or complaint. This is not because I am particularly virtuous or self-trained to turn the other cheek to the smiter. I am morally feeble, deficient in power of self-defence, a lover of peace with discomfort, rather than honourable strife.

I felt no small joy when I discovered that Thompson was to be my travelling companion on this particular journey. I had travelled with Thompson before. I knew that he always secured food, that he never lost his luggage, that he had an instinct for recognizing the right train when he saw it, and that he had a healthy disregard for the dignity of the official persons who clog the feet of wayfarers in France.

We met at the station. Thompson's breezy good humour gave me fresh confidence at once. He looked energetic, hopeful and charged with vitality.

"Come along." he said, "we'll report to the R.T.O. at once and get it over."

In France under existing conditions the traveller reports to the Railway Transport Officer when he starts his journey, when he finishes it and at all intervening opportunities. An R.T.O. must lead a hara.s.sed and distressful life. He sees to it that the traveller has a fair share of life's trouble.

This particular R.T.O. began by trying to get us into a wrong train. I suppose that was the line of least resistance for him. It was easier to put us into the first train that came along. We should have been off his hands, and another R.T.O stationed somewhere else, would have had the job of getting us switched back on to our proper track again. The first man--and this was all he cared for--would have been rid of us. Thompson was equal to the situation. He talked vigorously to that R.T.O..

Thompson holds no very exalted rank in the army. I often wonder he is not tried by Court Martial for the things he says. But the R.T.O., so far from resenting Thompson's remarks, offered us a sort of apology.

"I've been on duty ten hours," he said, "and there's a whole battery of artillery lost somewhere along the line. It never was my fault; but every general in the whole army has been ringing me up about it. The telephone bell hasn't stopped all day. d.a.m.n! There it is again."

It was; loud, angry and horribly persistent. Even Thompson felt sorry for the R.T.O.

"Never mind," he said, "you'll get your Military Cross all right in the end. All you fellows do. Now buck up a bit and find our train for us.

It's X. we want to get to."

I mention this incident to show the kind of man Thompson is and his way of dealing with difficulties. Under his care I felt that I should travel safely and get to X. in the end. Comfort was not to be expected, but Thompson did all that could be done to mitigate our misery.

We made our start from a platform blocked with piles of officers'

luggage and crowded with confused and anxious men. Subalterns in charge of drafts asked other subalterns what they ought to do and received counter inquiries by way of reply. Sergeants stormed blasphemously at men who had disappeared in search of tea. Staff officers, red tabbed and glorious, tried to preserve an appearance of dignity while their own servants staggering under the weight of kit bags, b.u.mped into them.

Hilarious men, going home on leave, shouted sudden s.n.a.t.c.hes of song.

A decrepit Frenchman, patient in the performance of duty, blew feeble blasts on a small horn. Thompson, alert and competent, found a compartment. He put me in and then he bundled in my valise. After that he found his own luggage, an enormous kit bag, two sacks, a camp bedstead, a hammock chair and a number of small parcels.

"Get them in somehow," he said. "We'll settle down afterwards."

Thompson did the settling afterwards. He so arranged our belongings that we each had a seat The door by which anyone else might have to get in at another station was hopelessly blocked. The small parcels were put on the rack above our heads. Thompson gave me a list of their contents as he put them in their places. They contained bread, b.u.t.ter, meat, biscuits, cheese, a bottle of wine and a flask of brandy.

"We're here till two o'clock to-morrow morning--till two o'clock at best We must have something to eat."

A selfish traveller--I am profoundly selfish--would have been content to keep that compartment secure from intrusion. We had completely barricaded the door and no one could have got in if we had chosen to defend our position. But Thompson was not selfish. The train stopped at a station every quarter of an hour or so, and Thompson climbing up the barricade, opened the window and took a look out every time we stopped.