"I've heard tell of Bristol," he ruminated; "nice place, so my wife's cousin's husband used to say. He did tell as how——"
But I cut the soliloquy short and got the draft out of the castle again.
A few minutes later peaceable citizens fled into doorways and up courts, electric cars pulled up short with a grinding of brakes, policemen held up traffic. The R.F.A. draft approached at a steady double.
"Where's the fire?" yelled some.
"The Germans have captured the 'Hampshire Arms,'" said others.
"It's for a cinema show," screamed a ragged urchin. Everyone gave us kindly encouragement, and girls waved merrily as we flew past. The bombardier, who was on the pavement side, threw an arm gallantly round the waist of a stout matron of some forty summers and dragged her, not unwillingly, half a dozen yards before he could get home with a kiss on the cheek.
But we caught that train with five minutes to spare. The men were now beginning to see the joke. As yet it had escaped me. Of course it was not the first time I had seen "Tommy" at his cheeriest under misadventures; but this cheeriness now struck me vividly for the first time. To-day it is world-famous.
They certainly made that journey a lively one. Six hours in a slow train across country—it is apt to become somewhat tedious. I tried to look like the man who owns a dog which persists in nibbling the trousers of total strangers—to pretend they (the men, not the trousers) didn't belong to me. It was no good. They might have been Lancashire lads off to Blackpool for the "wakes."
So with imitations of Harry Tate, George Robey and other well-known favourites of the music-halls, the railway officials at the various stations being made the butt of the jokes; with a weird medley of harmony and melody, from "Hallo, hallo, who's your lady friend?" to "Sun of my Soul," the journey passed happily enough until the first of the Bristol stations was reached about 11.45 P.M.
As no one knew where the A.S.C. barracks were I got through on the telephone to H.Q.