Owen and Syme were newly joined officers for whom the sight of tinned pears or apricots had not yet lost a certain glamour that disappeared after months and months. They were just finishing the pear course. Hence my last remark.
“I bet if we allowed you to have bully every day,” came from Edwards, our Mess president, “you’d soon get sick of it.”
“Try,” said I, knowing that he never would. I always used to eat of the hot things that would appear at lunch, to the detriment of a proper appreciation of dinner; but I always maintained the position laid down in the first sentence of this section.
I lit a pipe and strolled out into the garden. This was undoubtedly an ideal billet, and a great improvement on the butcher’s shop, where they used always to be killing pigs in the yard and letting the blood run all over the place. It was a long, one-storied house, set back about fifty yards from the road; this fifty yards was all garden, and, at the end, completely shutting off the road, was a high brick wall. On each side of the garden were also high walls formed by the sides of stables and outhouses; the garden was thus completely walled round, and the seclusion and peace thus entrapped were a very priceless possession to us.
The garden itself was full of life. There were box-bordered paths up both sides and down the centre, and on the inner side of the paths was an herbaceous border smelling very sweet of wallflowers and primulas of every variety. Although it was still May, there were already one or two pink cabbage-roses out; later, the house itself would be covered with them; already the buds were showing yellow streaks as they tried to burst open their tight green sheaths. In the centre of the garden ran a cross path with a summer-house of bamboo canes completely covered with honeysuckle; that, too, was budding already. The rest of the garden was filled with rows of young green things, peas, and cabbages, and I know not what, suitably protected against the ravages of sparrows and finches by the usual miniature telegraph system of sticks connected by cotton decorated with feathers and bits of rag. Every bit of digging, hoeing, weeding and sowing were performed by Madame and her two black-dressed daughters in whose house we were now living, and who were themselves putting up in the adjoining farmhouse, which belonged to them.
I said that they had done all the digging in the garden. I should make one reservation. All the potato-patch had been dug by our servants, with the assistance of Gray, the cook. Nor did they do it in gratitude to Madame, as, doubtless, ideal Tommies would have done. A quarter of it was done by Lewis, for carelessness in losing my valise; nearly half by the joint effort of the whole crew for a thoroughly dirty turn-out on commanding officer’s inspection; and the rest for various other defalcations! We never told Madame the reasons for their welcome help; and I am quite sure they never did!
“The worst of this war,” said I to Edwards, puffing contentedly at a pipeful of Chairman, “is this: it’s too comfortable. You could carry on like this for years, and years, and years.”
“Wasn’t so jolly last time in,” muttered the wise Edwards.
“That’s exactly the point,” I answered; “life in the trenches we all loathe, and no one makes any bones about it or pretends to like it—except for a few rare exciting minutes, which are very few and far between. But you come out into billets, and recover; and so you can carry on. It’s not concentrated enough.”
“It’s more concentrated for the men than for us.”