So Private Wakeman sat down to a plate piled with stewed figs, swamped with a yellowish liquid called custard in canteens in France. Beside him were jam tarts and great slabs of cake. From a mouth never empty, though he swallowed fast, came in short gushes the story of the strafing of the Prussian Guard, told at last to ears which drank in greedily every word of it.
So Mrs. Jocelyn claimed and took at last her dearest right.
VI ~~ JOURNEY’S END
I had a long journey before me, and I looked forward to it with dread. It is my habit when forced to travel in France, the part of France chiefly affected by the war, to resign myself to a period of misery. I relapse into a condition of sulky torpor. Railway Transport Offices may amuse themselves by putting me into wrong trains. Officers in command of trains may detach the carriage in which I am and leave it for hours in a siding. My luggage may be—and generally is—hopelessly lost. I may arrive at my destination faint for want of food. But I bear all these things without protest or complaint. This is not because I am particularly virtuous or self-trained to turn the other cheek to the smiter. I am morally feeble, deficient in power of self-defence, a lover of peace with discomfort, rather than honourable strife.
I felt no small joy when I discovered that Thompson was to be my travelling companion on this particular journey. I had travelled with Thompson before. I knew that he always secured food, that he never lost his luggage, that he had an instinct for recognizing the right train when he saw it, and that he had a healthy disregard for the dignity of the official persons who clog the feet of wayfarers in France.
We met at the station. Thompson’s breezy good humour gave me fresh confidence at once. He looked energetic, hopeful and charged with vitality.
“Come along.” he said, “we’ll report to the R.T.O. at once and get it over.”
In France under existing conditions the traveller reports to the Railway Transport Officer when he starts his journey, when he finishes it and at all intervening opportunities. An R.T.O. must lead a harassed and distressful life. He sees to it that the traveller has a fair share of life’s trouble.
This particular R.T.O. began by trying to get us into a wrong train. I suppose that was the line of least resistance for him. It was easier to put us into the first train that came along. We should have been off his hands, and another R.T.O stationed somewhere else, would have had the job of getting us switched back on to our proper track again. The first man—and this was all he cared for—would have been rid of us. Thompson was equal to the situation. He talked vigorously to that R.T.O.. Thompson holds no very exalted rank in the army. I often wonder he is not tried by Court Martial for the things he says. But the R.T.O., so far from resenting Thompson’s remarks, offered us a sort of apology.