JOSHUA.
On July 1st, 1916, the regiment, in company with several other regiments and sundry pieces of ordnance, attacked the Hun in the neighbourhood of the river Somme. A fortnight later the officers of B Company found themselves in a dug-out in a certain wood. It is now time to introduce Joshua.
Joshua was at that time our junior subaltern, and we called him Joshua after Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS, on account of his artistic attainments, though portraits by the hand of our Joshua tended rather more in the direction of caricature than those I have seen by his illustrious namesake. Upon the wall of that dug-out in that wood, for instance, was displayed a crude though unmistakable portrait of our revered Brigadier, a fact of which we were but too conscious when our revered Brigadier paid us one night an unexpected visit.
A short conversation ensued, during which the Brigadier gave rein to a reprehensible passion he had for inquiring into the vie intime of junior officers. Just as he was leaving he turned to Joshua.
"Why do they call you 'Joshua'?" he asked. Joshua hesitated. His eyes rested for an infinitesimal moment on the portrait on the wall, then on the face of the Brigadier. He cursed me inwardly (as he told me afterwards) for having addressed him by this name in such strident tones just as the Brigadier was entering the dug-out; but for the credit of the British Officer I am happy to say that Joshua kept his head and showed that ready wit in an emergency which is the soldier's greatest virtue.
"Well, Sir," he said, "I—I think it's because JOSHUA was a great warrior."
"Ah, I hadn't thought of that," said the Brigadier as he took his departure, while I subsided in a fainting condition on to the floor of the dug-out and asked for brandy.
That night Joshua stopped a piece of shell with his head. We managed to get him back, but I did not like the look of him and I quite thought that his number was up. Before we pushed on next day I took down the portrait of the Brigadier and slipped it into my pocket-book. I had liked old Joshua well, and I thought I would keep this as a memento not only of his art but of his ability in spontaneous untruth.
That was, as I have said, in 1916. Much water had flowed between the banks of the river Somme before, in August, 1918, Joshua and I found ourselves in that neighbourhood once more.
But we did find ourselves there, for Joshua's head had proved tougher than we thought, and with an enthusiasm beyond praise he had recently wangled his return to the old regiment from a cushy Base job, and was helping to hasten what we hoped and firmly believed was Fritz's final "strategical retirement."
We had had three strenuous days, and now, while others carried on the good work, we were resting by chance in that very wood of which I have already spoken. I wandered forth at eventide over the familiar ground, which had lain for some time well within the German lines, and came suddenly upon the entrance to our old dug-out! I went down into it and found that, apart from a litter of empty ration-tins, it was unaltered. Then suddenly I bethought me of the caricature which still lay in my pocket-book. I had never told Joshua that I had kept it. It seemed a maudlin thing to have done and moreover might have given him an exaggerated idea of my opinion of his art. I took out the picture and looked at it. It had weathered two years of warfare fairly well. Then with an indelible pencil I scrawled below it—
"Sehr gute Bilde. F. Biermeister, 3 Preuss. Gard,"
a hazy recollection of school-German leading me to believe that "Sehr gute Bilde" meant "Very good picture." Then I pinned it up on the wall and went in search of Joshua.
"Do you remember that dug-out we used two years ago?" I asked when I had found him.
"I do," said Joshua. "It was there that I told old Turnips I was called Joshua after the O.C. Israelites at Jericho."
"That's the place," said I. "It's somewhere round here." And I led him unostentatiously in the right direction.
"There it is," he cried. "It all comes back to me. Got a flash-lamp?"
He disappeared below and I sat down and waited—waited for sounds of astonishment and joy from the bowels of the earth. But I waited in vain. Silence reigned. Then Joshua's head was thrust upwards.
"Biermeister!" he called. "You, Biermeister of the 3rd Prussian Guard, come away below here! There is one, Sir Joshua Reynolds, an artist, would have a word with you."
I shook my head sadly. Another of my little jokes had proved a dud. But I did not go below. Joshua is so rough sometimes.