A Padre in France

by George A. Birmingham

But at first they were not thinking of tobacco. They meant to make a little pun on their own name like the pun of the herald who gave “Ver non semper viret” to the Vernons for a motto; associating themselves thus modestly and shyly with the building they had given, in which they served. Also they meant the name to call up in the minds of the soldiers who used the hut all sorts of thoughts of home, of English gardens, of old-fashioned flowers, of mothers’ smiles and kisses—the kisses perhaps not always mother’s. The idea is a pretty one, and the English soldier, like most cheerful people, is a sentimentalist, yet I doubt if ten of the many thousands of men who used that hut ever associated it with honeysuckle.

When I first saw “Woodbine” over the door of that hut, the name filled me with astonishment. I knew of a Paradise Court in a grimy city slum, and a dilapidated whitewashed house on the edge of a Connaught bog which has somehow got itself called Monte Carlo. But these misfits of names moved me only to mirth mingled with a certain sadness. “Woodbine” is a sheer astonishment. I hear the word and think of the rustic arches in cottage gardens, of old tree trunks climbed over by delightful flowers. I think of open lattice windows, of sweet summer air. Nothing in the whole long train of thought prepares me for or tends in any way to suggest this Woodbine.

It is a building. In the language of the army—the official language—it is a hut; but hardly more like the hut of civil life than it is like the flower from which it takes its name. The walls are thin wood. The roof is corrugated iron. It contains two long, low halls. Glaring electric lights hang from the rafters. They must glare if they are to shine at all, for the air is thick with tobacco smoke.

Inside the halls are gathered hundreds of soldiers. In one corner, that which we enter first, the men are sitting, packed close together at small tables. They turn over the pages of illustrated papers. They drink tea, cocoa, and hot milk. They eat buns and slices of bread-and-butter. They write those letters home which express so little, and to those who understand mean so much. Of the letters written home from camp, half at least are on paper which bear the stamp of the Y.M.C.A.—paper given to all who ask in this hut and scores of others. Reading, eating, drinking, writing, chatting, or playing draughts, everybody smokes. Everybody, such is the climate, reeks with damp. Everybody is hot. The last thing that the air suggests to the nose of one who enters is the smell of woodbine.

In the other, the inner hall, there are more men, still more closely packed together, smoking more persistently, and the air is even denser. Here no one is eating, no one reading. Few attempt to write. The evening entertainment is about to begin. On a narrow platform at one end of the hall is the piano. A pianist has taken possession of it. He has been selected by no one in authority, elected by no committee. He has occurred, emerged from the mass of men; by virtue of some energy within him has made good his position in front of the instrument. He flogs the keys, and above the babel of talk sounds some rag-time melody, once popular, now forgotten or despised at home. Here or there a voice takes up the tune and sings or chants it.

The audience begin to catch the spirit of the entertainment. Some one calls the name of Corporal Smith. A man struggles to his feet and leaps on to the platform. He is greeted with applauding cheers. There is a short consultation between him and the pianist. A tentative chord is struck. Corporal Smith nods approval and turns to the audience. His song begins. If it is the kind of song that has a chorus the audience shouts it and Corporal Smith conducts the singing with waving of his arms.

Corporal Smith is a popular favourite. We know his worth as a singer, demand and applaud him. But there are other candidates for favour. Before the applause has died away, while still acknowledgments are being bowed, another man takes his place on the platform. He is a stranger and no one knows what he will sing. But the pianist is a man of genius. Whisper to him the name of the song, give even a hint of its nature, let him guess at the kind of voice, bass, baritone, tenor, and he will vamp an accompaniment. He has his difficulties. A singer will start at the wrong time, will for a whole verse, perhaps, make noises in a different key; the pianist never fails. Somehow, before very long, instrument and singer get together—more or less.

There is no dearth of singers, no bashful hanging back, no waiting for polite pressure. Every one who can sing, or thinks he can, is eager to display his talent. There is no monotony. A boisterous comic song is succeeded by one about summer roses, autumn leaves, and the kiss of a maiden at a stile. The vagaries of a ventriloquist are a matter for roars of laughter. A song about the beauties of the rising moon pleases us all equally well. An original genius sings a song of his own composition, rough-hewn verses set to a familiar tune, about the difficulty of obtaining leave and the longing that is in all our hearts for a return to “Blighty, dear old Blighty.” Did ever men before fix such a name on the country for which they fight?

Now and again some one comes forward with a long narrative song, a kind of ballad chanted to a tune very difficult to catch. It is about as hard to keep track with the story as to pick up the tune. Words—better singers fail in the same way—are not easily distinguished, though the man does his best, clears his throat carefully between each verse and spits over the edge of the platform to improve his enunciation. No one objects to that.

About manners and dress the audience is very little critical. But about the merits of the songs and the singers the men express their opinions with the utmost frankness. The applause is genuine, and the singer who wins it is under no doubt about its reality. The song which makes no appeal is simply drowned by loud talk, and the unfortunate singer will crack his voice in vain in an endeavour to regain the attention he has lost.