THE WATCH DOGS.
LX.
My dear CHARLES,—Those who insist that between the Higher Commands on either side there is a tacit understanding not to disregard each other's personal comfort and welfare must now modify their views. Recent movements show that there is no such bargain, or else that the lawless Hun has broken it. He has attained little else by his destructiveness save the discomfort of H.Q. Otherwise the War progresses as merrily as ever; more merrily, perhaps, owing to the difficulties to be overcome. Soldiers love difficulties to overcome. That is their business in life.
It was open to the Camp Commandant, when it became likely that H.Q. would move, to go sick, to retire from business, or else, locking, his front-door, shutting his shutters, disconnecting his telephone and confining to their billets all potential bearers of urgent messages, to isolate himself from the throbbing world around him. Being a soldier himself, however, he was undone by his own innate lust for overcoming difficulties. He was seen hovering about, as good as asking for the instructions he most dreaded. And he got them, short and sharp, as all good military instructions should be.
If I was called upon to move a busy community from one village to another, and if the other village was discovered, upon inquiry, not to be there, I should ask for ten to twelve months' time to do it in. The C.C. asked for a fortnight, hoping to get ten days; he got a week. "It is now the 31st. We should move to the new place about the 7th," said the Highest Authority. "Let it be April 7th." Thus April 7th became permanently and irrevocably fixed. For everybody except the C.C. and his accomplices the thing was as good as done.
The ultimatum went forth at 10 A.M. at noon on the same day; the period of unrest for the C.C. was well set in. Every department, learning by instinct what was forward, forthwith discovered what it had long suspected, its own immediate and paramount importance. Every department appointed a representative to go round and see the C.C. about it, another representative to write to him about it, and a third to ring him up on the telephone, and go on ringing him up on the telephone, about it. The only departments that kept modestly in the background were those upon which the execution of the move fell. The C.C., noting the queue of representatives at his front-door and the agitation of his telephone, slipped out by the back-door, and went to look for the workers, and, when he'd found them, he lived with them, night and day, here, there and everywhere.
Humanity is not constituted for such close friendships. As time passed the C.C. and his accomplices found relations becoming strained. They said things to each other which afterwards they regretted. Meanwhile also the departments with the paramount and immediate needs grew bitter and restless. Only the Highest Authorities remained tranquil.
I'm told it was an A.D.C. who called attention to the difficulty of milk supply. This was a popular suggestion; it was just the sort of difficulty a soldier loves. In the bare and arid circumstances of the new camp there was no milk supply. "Buy one," said the Highest Authority, and again the thing was as good as done, except for the C.C., who had to think out a cow, so to speak, with regard to its purchase, equipment, transport, housing, maintenance and education. A man of infinite variety, the arrival of the cow (in bulk) found the C.C. nonplussed. He could not even begin to solve the food question. To him it seemed there were only two alternatives for the beast: bully beef or ration allowance at three francs a day in lieu of rations. The cow, he was told, was entitled and likely to refuse both.
We all crowded round the C.C. to help. "As to a simple matter like food," said A. and Q., "the Lord will provide. But as to the more difficult and complicated matters of establishment we will issue your orders." These ran: "Reference COW: (1) This unit should be shown on your Weekly Strength Return, with a statement of all casualties affecting same. Casualties include admission to or evacuation from hospital; change of address; marriage, and leave to the United Kingdom. (2) To be brought on the proper establishment of H.Q., it should be shown as 'Officer's Charger, one,' and should be trained and employed by you as such. (3) Please report action taken, and whether by you or by the Cow."
Even as the C.C. was contemplating this communication and hearkening to the cow grumbling away in his front-garden, his old regiment took occasion to march through the village and, in so doing, added insult to injury. The regiment had a mascot; the mascot was a goat; the goat fell out on the march and went sick. It did this in that portion of the C.C.'s front garden which was not already occupied by the cow, and its orders from the Colonel, who was its C.O. and had once been the Camp Commandant's C.O., were to remain with the C.C. and upon his charge till called for. This is all a very true story, but it's poor rations I'll be getting from the C.C. during what remains of this War for divulging it.
Be anything in the military world you like, Charles, from a courtly General to a thrusting Loot in charge of some overwhelmingly important department or other, but do not be a Camp Commandant. As there is no terrible complication which may not occur in the life of such, so there is no bitter irony which may not follow all. The early afternoon of April 6th found the C.C. on the site of the now camp, surrounded by confusion and an angry crowd of experts. There had been words and more words; there had only just not been blows, and all with regard to this wretched and incessant subject of April 7th. The C.C., never broad-minded on the point, had become positively ridiculous and tiresome about that irrevocable date, April 7th. It was a dull subject in any case, said the experts, but in the circumstances it was inane and cruel to go on insisting on it. R.E., Lorries, Signals and all their suites, not having been on too friendly terms among themselves these latter days, were fast becoming united in their intense loathing of the C.C. and his everlasting and impossible April 7th.
At this moment the Highest Authority itself arrived on the scene to have a look at it. He was not in the least discontented with what he saw; he was inclined to congratulate the experts upon their expedition.
"We shall be hard put to it, Sir," said the C.C., "to be ready for to-morrow."
"To-morrow?" said the Highest Authority. "Why to-morrow particularly?"
"To-morrow is the 7th, Sir," said the C.C., with sinister emphasis.
"And what about it if it is?" asked the Highest Authority.
"We have to move in here on April 7th, Sir," said the C.C., with almost an injured note in his voice.
"Have you?" said the Highest Authority. "Why?"
The experts saluted and moved off, commenting quietly among themselves upon the good sense and magnanimity of the Highest Authority. As for that Camp Commandant—
Yours ever,
HENRY.