COMEDIES OF THE GREAT WAR
Tales of Humor on the Fighting Lines
Told by W. F. Martindale
In the Great War, as in everything else, comedy treads hard on the heels of tragedy, and all sorts of quaint and comical things happen. Here are some little stories, from a variety of reliable sources, which will serve to show that our fighting-men, both ashore and afloat, are still able to preserve a sense of humor. Narrated in the Wide World.
I—STORIES TOLD "ON THE SOLDIERS"
Human nature is whetted to a keep edge under the stress of warfare; that is why every war is rich in anecdote.
Character is the basis of all comedy, and the conditions of military life, whether on active service or not, are such that "character will out." In barracks, in camp, or in the field, soldiering applies a test which no man can evade. Ranker, non-com., or officer, he is bound soon or late (generally soon) to be "found out."
There is a pretty little comedy of character which concerns a young subaltern, fresh from an English public school, who found himself attached, through one of the unexpected chances of war, to a battalion of Colonial infantry. The subaltern was youthful—and looked it. His cheek was smooth and innocent of hair, the accents of his voice cultured and refined, his manner languid to the point of seeming boredom. He was slight of stature, and he wore a monocle permanently fixed in one eye. In short, he was a complete antithesis to the brawny brood of Anak which constituted his platoon, amongst whom his advent aroused no enthusiasm whatever. He was not popular.
There is little risk of offence at this time of day in observing that some of the Overseas troops are not remarkable for the strictness of their discipline. It is a little idiosyncrasy at which no one, with memories of Ypres and Anzac still fresh, will be disposed to cavil. This is not to say that they cannot be handled; on the contrary, there is ample evidence of their instant response to leadership of the sort which they understand. But one would hardly look for that particular sort from a beardless youth with an eye permanently glazed, and a refined taste in language and clothes. A manner which might be acceptable to the Guards is as little suited to Colonials as Colonial methods to the Household Brigade. There is a custom and usage in these matters.
So it came to pass that the platoon took counsel with itself and darkly determined to take its young subaltern down a peg or two. Is it necessary to observe that the prime offences of the latter, in the eyes of these critics, were his monocle and his accent—those traditional marks and insignia of the "dude"? It is strange that so often the dandy (whom history has shown to be invariably a man of spirit and courage) should be mistaken for the dude.
II—THE OFFICER WITH THE MONOCLE
On a certain morning, therefore, behold the platoon drawn up on parade, accoutred with meticulous care, aligned in the most precise formation—each man wearing his "identity disc" in his eye! For the benefit of any reader who has never seen an identity disc, it may be mentioned that the latter is the small plate of metal on which is stamped certain information concerning the wearer which enable his body, if necessary, to be identified. Being of the same shape, and about the same size, as an eyeglass, and, moreover, suspended from a cord worn round the neck, it can be made to form an admirable travesty of a monocle.
Not a twitch of a single muscle in the face of the young subaltern, not a flicker of his unmonocled eye, betrayed that he was aware of anything unusual in the appearance of his men. He took the situation in coolly, and when, in answer to routine questions, the sergeants answered smartly and respectfully but with a pointed imitation of his own "haw-haw" accent, he ignored the studied insult with equal nonchalance.
It was a good start, for an attempt at sarcasm when quietly ignored falls flatter even than when it is wholly unperceived. In the present case there was no possibility of an insult having been missed, and the platoon began to feel that things were not going quite as had been anticipated. Each man kept his identity disc firmly screwed in one eye, however, and stared fixedly out of the other in expectation of the officer's present discomfort. The latter could never afford to dismiss the parade without taking cognizance of what had occurred, and the platoon awaited the crux with interest.
But the moment of dismissal arrived and nothing had been said. Some of the men were covertly smiling.
As he gave the order, the subaltern let the monocle drop from his eye, and while the command was being obeyed, swung the glass round and round, with the cord between finger and thumb, in a rapid circle. Scanning the line narrowly and noting every glance upon him, he jerked the twirling glass suddenly into the air and with the neatness of a juggler caught it in his eye as it fell. Then he glared fiercely through it.
"See if you can do that!" he observed. "Dis-MISS!"
Thereafter no officer ever had men under him more ready to do whatever he asked them. And it was by a sure instinct that the latter "gave him best." As one of them remarked, "I've seen men take risks in my time, but that beat everything. Suppose he'd missed catchin' that glass?"
If wit is a Gallic prerogative, humor belongs to the British, and not a few comedies of the war pivot on that uniquely humorous character Thomas Atkins. Humor is an elusive and baffling quantity, as the wit discovered who mixed up all the boots in an hotel corridor one evening and learned the next morning that his friend (a humorist) had sorted them out again as soon as his back was turned. The humorist can sometimes understand the wit, but the compliment is seldom, if ever, returned; which is the reason why Mr. Atkins and his idiosyncrasies remain an inscrutable enigma to our French allies.
And if the British soldier appears incomprehensible to the nimble-minded French, one can readily perceive that to the slow and methodically-thinking German he must seem merely mad. The French marvel that he is never "serious"; the Boche is perplexed to find that Hymns of Hate and other laborious insults afford him the keenest possible enjoyment. The secret lies in Mr. Atkins's sense of humor, which is another way of saying his sense of proportion. He may be guilty of little aberrations such as dribbling a football in front of him as he advances with cold steel to the charge, but au fond he has a pretty just sense of values.
III—THE GERMANS WHO SANG "RULE BRITTANIA"
At all events, his humor has the dry quality which connotes an even mind and temper, as the following incident will show. In the earlier days of the war, before the opposing armies in the West had burrowed into the soil and some freedom of movement was still possible, a patrol of three British soldiers under a sergeant were prowling abroad one night. Within disputed territory they espied a lighted window in a lonely farmhouse which they knew had been deserted by its owners. They approached it stealthily. The house was surrounded without challenge, and having posted his men at points which commanded the exits the sergeant crept forward to reconnoitre. Music and sounds of revelry were audible within, and the sergeant had no difficulty in discovering the presence of four German soldiers in the farmer's best sitting-room. The cellar had been looted, the piano commandeered, and four Teutonic voices were upraised in melody.
The sergeant beckoned to the waiting figures outside, and four large but softly-treading men tiptoed delicately to the scene of the carousal. At a given signal the door was flung open and four rifles were levelled.
"Hands up!"
A chorus of "Deutschland, Deutschland, über Alles" was interrupted a shade abruptly, and four pairs of arms shot up into the air. The Boche does not shine in an emergency.
With a gesture the sergeant marshalled the captives against the wall, where they stood in a row, blinking and crestfallen. Their weapons having been collected and removed, they were allowed to put their hands down, and their captors regarded them quizzically.
"Any of you blokes speak English?" queried the sergeant, genially.
A smile of modest pride momentarily illumined one of the four wooden faces.
"Ja, I spik leedle English," ventured its owner.
"In-deed!" was the rejoinder; "and where did you learn it—in the Tottenham Court Road?"
The linguist simpered deprecatingly, with evident gratification over the good impression which he appeared to be making. It takes a lot to upset the complacence of the Boche.
"Been havin' a sing-song?" continued the sergeant, encouragingly.
The other nodded. "Der Shermans vas always der beoble of singing," he observed, in faintly patronizing tones.
"Ho, are they?" said the sergeant. "Then suppose you start in and sing us 'Rule Britannia' for a bit. Give us a tune, Bill."
Bill propped his rifle against the wall, and sat himself solemnly at the open piano. He was not a great performer, but rose to the occasion and produced a rendering of the familiar tune which was at least recognizable.
"Now, then," said the sergeant, warming to his work, "not bein' a blinkin' German I don't 'appen to be no singer, but just you listen, and if you don't know the words, say 'em after me. 'When Brit-ain fir-ir-ir-ir-irst at——'"
The musical evening was a great success, said the member of the party from whom the present writer had the story. "We kept 'em there for four hours, and by the time we'd finished with 'em they could sing it a fair treat. And we didn't spare 'em the encores neither. Course, they wasn't singin' all the time, 'cos we spent some of it in moppin' up the liquor and the food and the cigars they hadn't finished. But I reckon they did all the singin' they wanted. Then we fell 'em into line and drove 'em home as prisoners. They asked for it, you see!"
IV—STORY OF A FISHERMAN AND A MINE
The chief officer of a steamer under charter to the Admiralty tells a very amusing story concerning an encounter with a mine, though he candidly admits that he didn't see the humor of it until some time after the incident occurred.
His ship was lying alongside the quay at X——, taking in some hundreds of tons of explosives. He himself, having nothing particular to do at the moment, was leaning over the bridge-rails looking thoughtfully out to sea. All of a sudden he noticed an aged waterman rowing towards the ship, with some odd-looking object towing astern of his bluff-bowed craft. The old man seemed to have difficulty in getting along, and the officer watched him curiously, speculating as to what he was hauling. At first sight it looked like a mooring-buoy, but as the boat came nearer the watcher got the shock of his life. The fisherman was towing a German mine of the very largest type!
There flashed through the officer's mind the thought of the latent power stored away in that wicked-looking sphere, only needing a slight shock to set it free; he thought, too, of the vast store of explosives under his feet and on the quay. If that mine exploded against the steamer's side there would not be one stone of X—— left upon another!
"Hi, you!" he shouted to the oncoming rower. "Sheer off with that thing! We've got explosive aboard!"
By way of answer the old man—now scarce a dozen yards away—cupped his hand behind his ear.
"What d'yer say, sir?" he called back, mildly. "I found this 'ere in the tideway, an' I knew there was a bit of a reward offered, an' so——"
The big mine was now bobbing dangerously close to the steamer's side, and the officer, frantic with anxiety, literally bellowed orders for the man to remove himself and his prize. In his excitement he suggested regions where it is possible the temperature might have had a disastrous effect.
The fisherman looked up at him with a smile. "That's all right, sir," he replied. "He 'on't do no harm. I knocked the horns off he with a boat-hook."
And so it proved. The old man, in his ignorance, had taken a million to one chance, and it had come off. They say there is a special Providence that looks after fools, but it must be peculiarly irritating to the apostle of "frightfulness" to know that an aged waterman, encountering a drifting mine, can lightheartedly knock off the detonator-equipped "horns" or projections and live to bring his prize into port and receive a reward. The chief officer aforesaid, however is not anxious for another experience of the kind; he says they are too trying to the nerves.
V—THE COCKNEY AND HIS "SOOVENEER"
Comedy, it has been observed, turns upon character, and many little comedies of the war hinge upon the mere personality of Thomas Atkins himself, and the somewhat difficult adjustment of that uniquely stubborn thing to a new environment. The resulting incidents derive a great part of their humor from Mr. Atkins's manner of narrating them—especially if he chance to be from London. There is no wittier or more tersely vivid raconteur than the Cockney, and though one often hears the humor of the British soldier described as unconscious, it is really nothing of the kind. Spontaneous and unpremeditated it may be, but such penetrating acumen as his racy idiom reveals was never unconscious.
Half-a-dozen soldiers home from the Front on short leave found themselves in a railway carriage bound for Victoria. They were of different battalions, and fell naturally to the swapping of yarns. Soon the conversation drifted to "souvenirs," a topic of surpassing interest. Trophies were produced by each in turn, with the exception of one taciturn member of the party who sat in a corner seat morosely sucking at a short clay pipe.
"I ain't brought nothin' 'ome wiv me," was the curt response to a suggestion that the silent one should produce his little lot. There ensued a dialogue.
"Wot, nothin' at all?"
"No!"
"Well, I'm blowed! Fancy a bloke comin' 'ome on leave and not bringin' nothin' wiv 'im! Ain't you got no sooverneer?"
"Sooveneer! No, I ain't got no sooveneer—not unless you call this 'ere a sooverneer."
The morose one fumbled in his haversack and pulled forth a brass door-knob, which he displayed upon an extended palm. Its appearance excited derision.
"That's a perishin' fine sooveneer, I don't think! Why, it's only a ornery door-knob!"
"Well, wot abaht it? S'posin' it is only an ornery door-knob! Maybe you dunno 'ow I come by it!"
Pressed for the story, the owner of the unexpected article proceeded:—
"It was like this 'ere. I'd been two weeks on a stretch in the trenches, and never a drink—wot you might call a drink—the 'ole blinkin' time. Goin' back through the billets after we was relieved I seed a place where they had liquor for sale, and I goes up to the door to get a drink. Well, I 'adn't no more than took 'old o' the knob when a blinkin' Jack Johnson come over and blew the 'ole blinkin' 'ouse out of my 'and!"
And with an evident sense of personal grievance not yet allayed the speaker pouched his "sooveneer" and relapsed into gloomy taciturnity.
VI—THE COOK AND THE BOMB IN GREECE
Of comedies arising out of Mr. Atkins's imperturbable phlegm there is no end. One will suffice here—a little incident which occurred at Salonica. At the Greek port some of our troops, it seems, are encamped upon the hills above the town. One morning a covey of six enemy aeroplanes flew overhead and dropped three bombs in passing. The first exploded harmlessly, but the second fell plumb on a cook's tent, and blew it sky-high. Shirts, coats, and trousers went hurtling up into the air with a grim resemblance to mutilated bodies. Fortunately no one was inside the tent. The cook was only five yards away, however, busily marshalling an array of "dixies" (military camp-kettles) which had been newly filled at the distant water-supply below. The force of the explosion blew him off his feet, and likewise overturned the row of dixies.
Those near at hand feared their comrade had been hit by a fragment of the bomb and ran to his assistance. But as they approached a dishevelled figure rose from amidst the débris and wrathfully surveyed the wreckage of his "kitchen." At the spot where his tent had been two minutes previously he hardly glanced. "And now," was his indignant comment, "I serpose I'll 'ave to go down the —— 'ill and fill up the —— dixies again!"
VII—A SEA-TALE—THE LIEUTENANT'S STANCHIONS
By way of conclusion here is a little naval comedy. A minor unit of His Majesty's Navy was undergoing the process known as "fitting out." Her commander, one of the many good sportsmen who have placed their personal services and such seamanship as they have acquired as amateur yachtsmen and sailors at the disposal of the Admiralty, arrived one morning to find a score or two of dockyard workmen on board, all busy (in theory) with the multifarious tasks awaiting completion. In practice, something like half the number were, if not idle, at least less occupied than the immediate requirements of the vessel seemed to warrant.
The commander, being in private life a business man of considerable energy, with a habit of getting things done, regarded the scene with considerable disfavour, and set himself at once to remedy the state of affairs. But the dockyard workman is an individual with very definite ideas of his own as to how a job should be done, and a fixed determination to do it that way unless thwarted by an authority which he dare not evade.
Finding orders, though respectfully received, were inadequate to the occasion, the commander tried reason and persuasion. But though the latter was carried to the point of cajolery the result was the same. Baffled in the exercise of his own authority and a trifle nettled in consequence, the energetic lieutenant determined upon a desperate expedient. In his best sarcastic vein he wrote out a signal and requested its transmission to the flag-captain. The officer in whose discretion it lay to forward or suppress the message being likewise an amateur, not yet too deeply imbued with a respect for conventions, the signal was duly made. It was to the following effect:—
"Submitted: That as there are at present forty workmen on No. 001, of which number half are seated permanently on the ship's rail, a further working party be at once sent down to strengthen the stanchions, which will otherwise collapse under the strain."
Within half an hour a party of workmen reported themselves at No. 001 and gravely proceeded to strengthen the stanchions! Protests were unavailing: the men had their orders, and with bolts, rivets, rods, and who shall say what other contraptions, they proceeded to carry them out with a thoroughness almost menacing.
The commanding officer of No. 001 delights to tell this story to his friends as a shining example of the crass ineptitude of which the official mind, even in the Navy, is sometimes capable. It may be so; but his friends, observing those admirably buttressed stanchions, and noting the considerable inconvenience to which their immovable presence permanently condemns the maker of that rash signal, sometimes wonder whether the laugh is altogether on the latter's side.
Lieutenant X—— looks forward to some future day when he may meet the flag-captain in person, and there is no doubt he already has a very good notion of what he then intends to say. But suppose he should be greeted, before ever he can introduce the topic himself, with the genial inquiry, "And how are your stanchions lasting?"
They have a way of their own in the Navy.