“I know it,” said I. “I used to go there every Saturday when I was at the Army School.”
“You had a good time at the Army School, didn’t you?” asked Jim.
“Tip-top time,” said I. “It’s a really good show. The Commandant was the most wonderful man we ever met. By the way, that concert Tuesday night was a really good show.”
Jim Potter and Edwards had got it up; it had been an al fresco affair, and the night had been ideally warm for it. Edwards had trained a Welsh choir with some success. Several outsiders had contributed, the star of the evening being Basil Hallam, the well-known music-hall artist, whose dainty manner, reminding one of the art of Vesta Tilley, and impeccable evening clothes had produced an unforgettably bizarre effect in the middle of such an audience and within sound of the guns. He was well known to most of the men as “the bloke that sits up in the sausage.” For any fine day, coming out of trenches or going in, you could see high suspended the “sausage,” whose home and “base” was between Treux and Mericourt, and whose occupant and eye was Basil Hallam. And so the “sausage bloke” was received enthusiastically at our concert.
As we talked about the concert, Owen began singing “Now Florrie was a Flapper,” which had been Basil Hallam’s most popular song, and as he sang he rose from his chair and walked about the room; he was evidently enjoying himself, though his imitation of Basil Hallam was very bad indeed. As he sang, we went on talking.
“A good entry in Comic Cuts to-night,” I remarked. “‘A dog was heard barking in Fricourt at 11 p.m.’ Someone must have been hard up for intelligence to put that in.”
“A dog barking in Fricourt,” said old Jim, warming up. “‘A dog barking in Fricourt.’ What’s that—Corps stuff? I never read the thing; good Lord, no! That’s what it is to have a Staff—‘A dog barking in Fricourt!’”
“The Corps officer didn’t hear it,” said I. “It was some battalion intelligence officer that was such a fool as to report it.”
“Fool?” said old Jim. “I’d like to meet the fellow. He’s the first fellow I’ve ever met yet who has a just appreciation of the brain capacity of the Staff. You or I might have thought of reporting a dog’s mew, or roar, or bellow; but a dog’s bark we should have thought of no interest whatever to the—er—fellows up there, you know, who plan our destinies.” And he gave an obsequious flick of his hand to an imaginary person too high up to see him at all.
“He’s a good fellow,” he repeated, “that intelligence officer. Ought to get a D.S.O.”