A Padre in France

by George A. Birmingham

Her enthusiasm stimulated men, who could never hope to see any result of their labours, to do something for the camp. One man, a miner from Northumberland, set out the name of the camp in large letters done in white stones on a green bank behind the canteen. He gave all his spare time for two days to the work, and when he had finished we discovered that he had left out a letter in the first syllable of the name. He was a patient as well as an enthusiastic man. He began all over again.

Miss L. went to great trouble in providing amusements for the men. Here she worked against great difficulties. An organisation like the Y.M.C.A. has control of concert parties and lecturers who are sent round to various huts, thus greatly lightening the labour of the local workers. The camp canteen had no organisation behind it, and could command no ready-made entertainments. In the sweat of our brows we earned such concerts as we had, and any one who has ever got up a concert, even at home, knows how much sweating such activities involve. In the end, moved by pity at our plight, the Y.M.C.A. people used to lend us concert parties, especially “Lena Ashwell” parties, the best of their kind. I have always found the Y.M.C.A. generous in sharing their good things with those outside their organisation.

Another difficulty which faced Miss L. was the want of any suitable place for entertainments. The canteen was far too small. The Church Army hut, when we had got it opened, was a little better, but still not nearly large enough for the audience which a good concert party drew. We had to use the dining-hall. It was not always available and was seldom available at the exact time we wanted it. It had no stage and no piano. Each time a concert was held there, a stage had to be erected for the occasion, the piano hauled over from the canteen, and some kind of decoration arranged.

One of the minor inconveniences of the camp was the extraordinary uncertainty of the lighting. Other camps, even the Con. Camp occasionally, suffered from failure of the supply of electricity. For some reason the thing happened more often in this camp than elsewhere; and even when the current was running strongly we found ourselves in darkness because our wires fused in places difficult to get at, or branches fell from trees and broke wires. We got accustomed to these disasters when they happened at ordinary times.

Miss L. and her assistants were ladies of resource and indomitable spirit. It was a small thing to them to find the canteen suddenly plunged into total darkness while a crowd of men was clamouring for food and drink at the counter. A supply of candles was kept ready to hand. They were placed in mugs (candlesticks were lacking of course) and set on the counter. By the aid of their feeble gleam the ladies groped their way into the kitchen for tea, filled cups, and counted out change. The scene always reminded me of Gideon’s attack on the Midianites when his soldiers carried lamps in pitchers. Occasionally some one knocked over a mug. There was a crash and a blaze, a very fair imitation of the battle in the Book of Judges.

It was worse when a whist drive or a singing competition in the Church Army hut was interrupted by one of these Egyptian plagues of darkness. But even then we did not allow ourselves to be seriously embarrassed. The men, responsive to the instinct of discipline, sat quiet at the whist tables with their cards in their hands. The glow of burning cigarettes could be seen, faint spots of light; nothing else.

Miss L. hurried to the canteen for candles. They were set in pools of their own grease on the tables and the games went on. A singing competition scarcely even paused. The competitors sang on. The pianist managed to play. The audience applauded with extra vigour until candles were brought and set in rows, like footlights, in front of the stage.

Our worst experience of light failure occurred one evening when we had a visit from a very superior concert party. We had secured it only after much “wangling.” We made every possible preparation for its reception. One of Miss L.’s assistants drew out a most attractive advertisement of the performance with a picture of a beautiful lady in a red dress at the top of it. We posted this up in various parts of the camp; but we were not really anxious about the audience. It always “rolled up.”

We set up a stage in the dining-room, a large high stage made out of dining-tables, a little rickety, but considered by good judges to be fairly safe. We spread a carpet, or something which looked like a carpet, on it. Only Miss L. could have got a carpet in the camp, and I do not know how she did it. We hung up a large Union Jack, Miss L.’s private property, which was used on all festive occasions and served as an altar cloth on Sundays. The E.F. Canteen authorities were worried for a week beforehand, and, lest they should be worried more, promised us a new piano, “same,” so they put it, “to be delivered” in time for the concert. The promise was not kept.

That was our first misfortune. With deep misgiving we dragged our own piano out of the canteen and set it on the stage. The musical members of Miss L.’s staff assured us that it was desperately out of tune. The least musical of us could assure ourselves that several notes made no sound at all, however hard you hit them. And the concert party was a very grand one.