VI
AFTER writing my prophecy concerning Driver Trottrot, I lay down to snatch a few hours sleep. My batman had spread my sleeping-sack on the tiled floor of the cottage bedroom in which I and three of my brother officers were billeted. The other three had been breathing heavily for some hours, wearied by the night’s march. They had not removed more than their boots and tunics for fear we should receive hurried orders to take to the road again. They lay curled up like dogs, with their knees drawn to their chins, for all the world like aborigines who had scooped a hole in the leaves of a forest. One learns to sleep that way on active service and to lose no time in tumbling off. My last memory was of wide-open lattice-windows, the heavy listlessness of garden-flowers and the perfumed stillness of trees drowsing in the sultry August sun.
I was wakened by someone shaking my arm, and opened my eyes to find Driver Trottrot bending over me. His expression was a little alarmed at the liberty he was taking. “I wasn’t told to come to you, sir,” he explained quickly; “but I thought you ought to know. The boys were paid after morning stables, before they’d had anything to eat. A lot of these Frenchies started selling them vin blink. What with having had no sleep and then getting that stuff on their empty stomachs, they’re getting fighting drunk. It’s none of my business, but I thought you ought to stop it.”
“Good for you, Trottrot,” I said. “Chuck me over my boots; I’ll be with you in half a second.”
For a moment I had a mind to rouse the other, officers, but they looked so fagged that I determined to let them sleep on. I finished buttoning my tunic and buckling my Sam Browne as I hurried across the common. We passed over the little bridge, consisting of a single plank, and struck the road which led towards the horse-lines and the centre of the village. As we walked I questioned Trottrot, trying to tap the experience he possessed as the exprofessional “bad man” of the Canadian Corps. “Why do the chaps do things like this? Getting drunk isn’t enjoyable and the after effects must be rotten.”
“Chaps get drunk for various reasons.” he answered. “They do it to forget; it isn’t all honey being a gunner or a driver, and kicked around by everybody. They do it because some N. C. O. or officer has got a grouch against them, and picks on them so that they can’t do anything right. They do it because they get tired of going straight; polishing harness and grooming horses three times a day is monotonous. They do it because there’s nothing else to do, and they do it because they’re lonely. Some does it because they likes it—it makes them feel that they own the world for a little while and are as good as anybody. And then there’s those that does it because they’re frightened.”
“How do you mean, frightened?”
“Well, sir, the war’s been going on for four years and it looks as though it might go on for twenty. A good many of us chaps have been wounded several times; we’ve not been killed yet, but we feel that our luck can’t last. Each new attack that we come through lessens our chances. We know that sooner or later we’re going to get it—and then it’s pushing daisies for us, with nobody caring much. This new attack is worse than the others; we’re told nothing and can only imagine. It isn’t good to imagine. It’s the suspense and the guessing that wears one. It’s different for you, sir, than it is for us—you have to set an example. It’s much harder just to follow. One has an awful lot of time for thinking on a long night march—he sees himself all messed up. It’s to stop thinking that most chaps get drunk.”
We were in the village by now, approaching the horse-lines. From the pretty cottages, which had looked so innocent in the early morning, came sounds of coarse laughter and discordant singing. Groups of men, swaying on their feet and arguing with uncouth, threatening gestures, tried to stand absurdly to attention and salute as we passed. “Vin blink,” as the Tommies call the poisonous concoction which is sold them as “white wine,” was doing its worst. No poilu would pour it down his gullet. Whatever it is made of, it acts like acid and works like poison in. the blood; especially is this the case with men who have been free from alcohol up front and are wearied in mind and body. A good deal of the traffic is carried on during prohibited hours and by unlicensed persons, at exorbitant rates and with a criminal disregard for consequences. Yet if property is damaged or a civilian assaulted the last centime of indemnity is exacted, the claims being pressed against defendants who are again in the line, making life safe for the relentless plaintiffs. Temptation is made easy for the Tommy; under the influence of “vin blink” he causes most of his trouble. A girl is usually the bait; she stands woodenly smiling in the doorway of her particular estaminet that he may see her as his unit enters a village. During all the four years of fighting this peculiarly cowardly form of profiteering has been going on. Nothing effectual has been done to stop it.