II
It all seemed very strange and unreal to Second-Lieutenant Angus M'Lachlan, as he alighted from the train at railhead, and supervised the efforts of his solitary N.C.O. to arrange the members of his draft in a straight line. There were some thirty of them in all. Some were old hands—men from the First and Second Battalions, who had been home wounded, and had now been sent out to leaven "K(1)." Others were Special Reservists from the Third Battalion. These had been at the Dépôt for a long time, and some of them stood badly in need of a little active service. Others, again, were new hands altogether—the product of "K to the nth." Among these Angus M'Lachlan numbered himself, and he made no attempt to conceal the fact. The novelty of the sights around him was almost too much for his insouciant dignity as a commissioned officer.
Angus M'Lachlan was a son of the Manse, and incidentally a child of Nature. The Manse was a Highland Manse; and until a few months ago Angus had never, save for a rare visit to distant Edinburgh, penetrated beyond the small town which lay four miles from his native glen, and of whose local Academy he had been "dux." When the War broke out he had been upon the point of proceeding to Edinburgh University, where he had already laid siege to a bursary, and captured the same; but all these plans, together with the plans of countless more distinguished persons, had been swept to the winds by the invasion of Belgium. On that date Angus summoned up his entire stock of physical and moral courage and informed his reverend parent of his intention to enlist for a soldier. Permission was granted with quite stunning readiness. Neil M'Lachlan believed in straight hitting both in theology and war, and was by no means displeased at the martial aspirations of his only son. If he quitted himself like a man in the forefront of battle, the boy could safely look forward to being cock of his own Kirk-Session in the years that came afterwards. One reservation the old man made. His son, as a Highland gentleman, would lead men to battle, and not merely accompany them. So the impatient Angus was bidden to apply for a Commission—his attention during the period of waiting being directed by his parent to the study of the campaigns of Joshua, and the methods employed by that singular but successful strategist in dealing with the Philistine.
Angus had a long while to wait, for all the youth of England—and Scotland too—was on fire, and others nearer the fountain of honour had to be served first. But his turn came at last; and we now behold him, as typical a product of "K to the nth" as Bobby Little had been of "K(1)," standing at last upon the soil of France, and inquiring in a soft Highland voice for the Headquarters of our own particular Battalion.
He had half expected, half hoped, to alight from the train amidst a shower of shells, as he knew the Old Regiment had done many months before, just after the War broke out. But all he saw upon his arrival was an untidy goods yard, littered with military stores, and peopled by British privates in the déshabille affected by the British Army when engaged in menial tasks.
Being quite ignorant of the whereabouts of his regiment—when last heard of they had been in trenches near Ypres—and failing to recollect the existence of that autocratic but indispensable genius loci, the R.T.O., Angus took uneasy stock of his surroundings and wondered what to do next.
Suddenly a friendly voice at his elbow remarked—
"There's a queer lot o' bodies hereaboot, sirr."
Angus turned, to find that he was being addressed by a short, stout private of the draft, in a kilt much too big for him.
"Indeed, that is so," he replied politely. "What is your name?"
"Peter Bogle, sirr. I am frae oot of Kirkintilloch." Evidently gratified by the success of his conversational opening, the little man continued—
"I would like fine for tae get a contrack oot here after the War. This country is in a terrible state o' disrepair." Then he added confidentially—
"I'm a hoose-painter tae a trade."
"I should not like to be that myself," replied Angus, whose early training as a minister's son was always causing him to forget the social gulf which is fixed between officers and the rank-and-file. "Climbing ladders makes me dizzy."
"Och, it's naething! A body gets used tae it," Mr. Bogle assured him.
Angus was about to proceed further with the discussion, when the cold and disapproving voice of the Draft-Sergeant announced in his ear—
"An officer wishes to speak to you, sir."
Second-Lieutenant M'Lachlan, suddenly awake to the enormity of his conduct, turned guiltily to greet the officer, while the Sergeant abruptly hunted the genial Private Bogle back into the ranks.
Angus found himself confronted by an immaculate young gentleman wearing two stars. Angus, who only wore one, saluted hurriedly.
"Morning," observed the stranger. "You in charge of this draft?"
"Yes, sir," said Angus respectfully.
"Right-o! You are to march them to 'A' Company billets. I'll show you the way. My name's Cockerell. Your train is late. What time did you leave the Base?"
"Indeed," replied Angus meekly, "I am not quite sure. We had barely landed when they told me the train would start at seventeen-forty. What time would that be—sir?"
"About a quarter to ten: more likely about midnight! Well, get your bunch on to the road, and—Hallo, what's the matter? Let go!"
The new officer was gripping him excitedly by the arm, and as the new officer stood six-foot-four and was brawny in proportion, Master Cockerell's appeal was uttered in a tone of unusual sincerity.
"Look!" cried Angus excitedly. "The dogs, the dogs!"
A small cart was passing swiftly by, towed by two sturdy hounds of unknown degree. They were pulling with the feverish enthusiasm which distinguishes the Dog in the service of Man, and were being urged to further efforts by a small hatless girl carrying the inevitable large umbrella.
"All right!" explained Cockerell curtly. "Custom of the country, and all that."
The impulsive Angus apologised; and the draft, having been safely manoeuvred on to the road, formed fours and set out upon its march.
"Are the Battalion in the trenches at present, sir?" inquired Angus.
"No. Rest-billets two miles from here. About time, too! You'll get lots of work to do, though."
"I shall welcome that," said Angus simply. "In the dépôt at home we were terribly idle. There is a windmill!"
"Yes; one sees them occasionally out here," replied Cockerell drily.
"Everything is so strange!" confessed the open-hearted Angus. "Those dogs we saw just now—the people with their sabots—the country carts, like wheelbarrows with three wheels—the little shrines at the cross-roads—the very children talking French so glibly—"
"Wonderful how they pick it up!" agreed Cockerell. But the sarcasm was lost on his companion, whose attention was now riveted upon an approaching body of infantry, about fifty strong.
"What troops are those, please?"
Cockerell knitted his brows sardonically.
"It's rather hard to tell at this distance," he said; "but I rather think they are the Grenadier Guards."
Two minutes later the procession had been met and passed. It consisted entirely of elderly gentlemen in ill-fitting khaki, clumping along upon their flat feet and smoking clay pipes. They carried shovels on their shoulders, and made not the slightest response when called upon by the soldierly old corporal who led them to give Mr. Cockerell "eyes left!" On the contrary, engaged as they were in heated controversy or amiable conversation with one another, they cut him dead.
Angus M'Lachlan said nothing for quite five minutes. Then—
"I suppose," he said almost timidly, "that those were members of a Reserve Regiment of the Guards?"
Cockerell, who had never outgrown certain characteristics which most of us shed upon emerging from the Lower Fourth, laughed long and loud.
"That crowd? They belong to one of the Labour Battalions. They make roads, and dig support trenches, and sling mud about generally. Wonderful old sportsmen! Pleased as Punch when a shell falls within half a mile of them. Something to write home about. What? I say, I pulled your leg that time! Here we are at Headquarters. Come and report to the C.O. Grenadier Guards! My aunt!"
* * * * *
Angus, although his Celtic enthusiasm sometimes led him into traps, was no fool. He soon settled down in his new surroundings, and found favour with Colonel Kemp, which was no light achievement.
"You won't find that the War, in its present stage, calls for any display of genius," the Colonel explained to Angus at their first interview. "I don't expect my officers to exhibit any quality but the avoidance of sloppiness. If I detail you to be at a certain spot, at a certain hour, with a certain number of men—a ration-party, or a working-party, or a burial-party, or anything you like,—all I ask is that you will be there, at the appointed hour, with the whole of your following. That may not sound a very difficult feat, but experience has taught me that if a man can achieve it, and can be relied upon to achieve it, say, nine times out of ten—well, he is a pearl of price; and there is not a C.O. in the British Army who wouldn't scramble to get him! That's all, M'Lachlan. Good morning!"
By punctilious attention to this sound advice Angus soon began to build up a reputation. He treated war-worn veterans like Bobby Little with immense respect, and this, too, was counted to him for righteousness. He exercised his platoon with appalling vigour. Upon Company route-marches he had to be embedded in some safe place in the middle of the column; in fact, his enormous stride and pedestrian enthusiasm would have reduced his followers to pulp. At Mess he was mute: like a wise man, he was feeling for his feet.
But being, like Moses, slow of tongue, he provided himself with an Aaron. Quite inadvertently, be it said. Bidden to obtain a servant for his personal needs, he selected the only man in the Battalion whose name he knew—Private Bogle, the ci-devant painter of houses. That friendly creature obeyed the call with alacrity. If his house-painting was no better than his valeting, then his prospects of a "contrack" after the War were poor indeed; but as a Mess waiter he was a joy for ever. Despite the blood-curdling whispers of the Mess Corporal, his natural urbanity of disposition could not be stemmed. Of the comfort of others he was solicitous to the point of oppressiveness. A Mess waiter's idea of efficiency as a rule is to stand woodenly at attention in an obscure corner of the room. When called upon, he starts forward with a jerk, and usually trips over something—probably his own feet. Not so Private Bogle.
"Wull you try another cup o' tea, Major?" he would suggest at breakfast to Major Wagstaffe, leaning affectionately over the back of his chair.
"No, thank you, Bogle," Major Wagstaffe would reply gravely.
"Weel, it's cauld onyway," Bogle would rejoin, anxious to endorse his superior's decision.
Or—in the same spirit—
"Wull I luft the soup now, sir?"
"No!"
"Varra weel: I'll jist let it bide the way it is."
* * * * *
Lastly, Angus M'Lachlan proved himself a useful acquisition—especially in rest-billets—as an athlete. He arrived just in time to take part—no mean part, either—in a Rugby Football match played between the officers of two Brigades. Thanks very largely to his masterly leading of the forwards, our Brigade were preserved from defeat at the hands of their opponents, who on paper had appeared to be irresistible.
Rugby Football "oot here" is a rarity, though Association, being essentially the game of the rank-and-file, flourishes in every green field. But an Inverleith or Queen's Club crowd would have recognised more than one old friend among the thirty who took the field that day. There were those participating whose last game had been one of the spring "Internationals" in 1914, and who had been engaged in a prolonged and strenuous version of an even greater International ever since August of that fateful year. Every public school in Scotland was represented—sometimes three or four times over—and there were numerous doughty contributions from establishments south of the Tweed.
The lookers-on were in different case. They were to a man devoted—nay, frenzied—adherents of the rival code. In less spacious days they had surged in their thousands every Saturday afternoon to Ibrox, or Tynecastle, or Parkhead, there to yell themselves into convulsions—now exhorting a friend to hit some one a kick on the nose, now recommending the foe to play the game, now hoarsely consigning the referee to perdition. To these, Rugby Football—the greatest of all manly games—was a mere name. Their attitude when the officers appeared upon the field was one of indulgent superiority—the sort of superiority that a brawny pitman exhibits when his Platoon Commander steps down into a trench to lend a hand with the digging.
But in five minutes their mouths were agape with scandalised astonishment; in ten, the heavens were rent with their protesting cries. Accustomed to see football played with the feet, and to demand with one voice the instant execution of any player (on the other side) who laid so much as a finger upon the ball or the man who was playing it, the exhibition of savage and promiscuous brutality to which their superior officers now treated them shocked the assembled spectators to the roots of their sensitive souls. Howls of virtuous indignation burst forth upon all sides.
When the three-quarter-backs brought off a brilliant passing run, there were stern cries of "Haands, there, referee!" When Bobby Little stopped an ugly rush by hurling himself on the ball, the supporters of the other Brigade greeted his heroic devotion with yells of execration. When Angus M'Lachlan saved a certain try by tackling a speedy wing three-quarter low and bringing him down with a crash, a hundred voices demanded his removal from the field. And, when Mr. Waddell, playing a stuffy but useful game at half, gained fifty yards for his side by a series of judicious little kicks into touch, the spectators groaned aloud, and remarked caustically—
"This maun be a Cup-Tie, boys! They are playin' for a draw, for tae get a second gate!"
Altogether a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, both for players and spectators. And so home to tea, domesticity, and social intercourse. In this connection it may be noted that our relations with the inhabitants are of the friendliest. On the stroke of six—oh yes, we have our licensing restrictions out here too!—half a dozen kilted warriors stroll into the farm-kitchen, and mumble affably to Madame—
"Bone sworr! Beer?"
France boasts one enormous advantage over Scotland. At home, you have at least to walk to the corner of the street to obtain a drink: "oot here" you can purchase beer in practically every house in a village. The French licensing laws are a thing of mystery, but the system appears roughly to be this. Either you possess a license, or you do not. If you do you may sell beer, and nothing else. If you do not, you may—or at any rate do—sell anything you like, including beer.
However, we have left our friends thirsty.
Their wants are supplied with cheerful alacrity, and, having been accommodated with seats round the stove, they converse with the family. Heaven only knows what they talk about, but talk they do—in the throaty unintelligible Doric of the Clydeside, with an occasional Gallicism, like, "Allyman no bon!" or "Compree?" thrown in as a sop to foreign idiosyncracies. Madame and family respond, chattering French (or Flemish) at enormous speed. The amazing part of it all is that neither side appears to experience the slightest difficulty in understanding the other. One day Mr. Waddell, in the course of a friendly chat with his hostess of the moment—she was unable to speak a word of English—received her warm congratulations upon his contemplated union with a certain fair one of St. Andrew (to whom reference has previously been made in these pages). Mr. Waddell, a very fair linguist, replied in suitable but embarrassed terms, and asked for the source of the good lady's information.
"Mais votre ordonnance, m'sieur!" was the reply.
Tackled upon the subject, the "ordonnance" in question, Waddell's servant—a shock-headed youth from Dundee—admitted having communicated the information; and added—
"She's a decent body, sirr, the lady o' the hoose. She lost her husband, she was tellin' me, three years ago. She has twa sons in the Airmy. Her auld Auntie is up at the top o' the hoose—lyin' badly, and no expectin' tae rise."
And yet some people study Esperanto!
We also make ourselves useful. "K(1)" contains members of every craft. If the pig-sty door is broken, a carpenter is forthcoming to mend it. Somebody's elbow goes through a pane of glass in the farm-kitchen: straightway a glazier materialises from the nearest platoon, and puts in another. The ancestral eight-day clock of the household develops internal complications; and is forthwith dismembered and reassembled, "with punctuality, civility, and despatch," by a gentleman who until a few short months ago had done nothing else for fifteen years.
And it was in this connection that Corporal Mucklewame stumbled on to a rare and congenial job, and incidentally made the one joke of his life.
One afternoon a cow, the property of Madame la fermière, developed symptoms of some serious disorder. A period of dolorous bellowing was followed by an outburst of homicidal mania, during which "A" Company prudently barricaded itself into the barn, the sufferer having taken entire possession of the farmyard. Next, and finally—so rapidly did the malady run its course—a state of coma intervened; and finally the cow, collapsing upon the doorstep of the Officers' Mess, breathed her last before any one could be found to point out to her the liberty she was taking.
It was decided to hold a post-mortem—firstly, to ascertain the cause of death; secondly, because it is easier to remove a dead cow after dissection than before. Madame therefore announced her intention of sending for the butcher, and was upon the point of doing so when Corporal Mucklewame, in whose heart, at the spectacle of the stark and lifeless corpse, ancient and romantic memories were stirring—it may be remembered that before answering to the call of "K(1)" Mucklewame had followed the calling of butcher's assistant at Wishaw—volunteered for the job. His services were cordially accepted by thrifty Madame; and the Corporal, surrounded by a silent and admiring crowd, set to work.
The officers, leaving the Junior Subaltern in charge, went with one accord for a long country walk.
Half an hour later Mucklewame arrived at the seat of the deceased animal's trouble—the seat of most of the troubles of mankind—its stomach. After a brief investigation, he produced therefrom a small bag of nails, recently missed from the vicinity of a cook-house in course of construction in the corner of the yard.
Abandoning the rôle of surgical expert for that of coroner, Mucklewame held the trophy aloft, and delivered his verdict—
"There, boys! That's what comes of eating your iron ration without authority!"