“It’s too bad we haven’t a piano to play the accompaniments,” said someone.
“A piano! I’ll attend to that,” said the ever-resourceful Chevalier. “Four men in my bunch, and I’ll bring it at once.”
Some minutes later the party brought in an enormous harmonium which it had found in a room of the presbytery. That harmonium had been the silent witness of famous battles, had been taken and retaken with the village. It had played “Die Wacht am Rhein” under the German heel, the “Rêve Passe” with the artillery, “Sidi-Brahim” with our Blue Devils, and it was still in good condition and almost all the notes played.
“And now we have a piano, we must have a player.”
“Oh, there, ‘Father Music.’ You know this is your job. You played for us last summer in the church at Minaucourt.”
“Father Music” smiled gravely and pushed his way through the groups.
A candle stuck in the neck of a champagne bottle and placed on the harmonium lighted up his Christlike face with a golden light.
He seated himself, without stopping smiling, on a pile of ammunition caissons which served as a piano stool, and—honor to whom honor is due—since we are machine gunners, he begins the “Song of the Machine Gun,” with Gaix singing the first stanza.
“Father Music” stands out in the light in the middle of the dark night and this group of a hundred men who one surmises are there, rather than sees, squatting on the grass around the instrument.