December 30th. Our Sunday evening services are more enthusiastically attended since we organised a male voice choir, with our best pianist as president, and an erstwhile Sheffield photographer, who has sung at the musical festivals, as vice. Quite a number of undreamt-of denominations are drawn together by the bond of music.
One might almost classify music over here under three heads—extemporary, local, and imported; and it is not until one has stood in a crowded hall, or seen the enthusiastic reception accorded to every effort in that direction, that one realises the large rôle music plays in the existence of the average Briton, usually accredited with lack of artistic appreciation.
Some there are whose hunger for music is such that, all untutored in the art of playing, they are constrained to sit down to any tin kettle of a piano in a vain attempt to pick out some well-loved melody with one finger for hours at a time. At these moments the listeners are not altogether sorry that half the notes have grown dumb from disuse and dampness!
I wonder if there is anything in all billet, trench or Base existence to equal an extemporary concert? Whether the means at hand consist of a penny whistle and comb, a number of lusty voices, or the now almost obsolete Made-in-Germany mouth-organ, it matters not.
Invariably a leader of men arises (usually a pianist), and as invariably he shows a genius for discovering local talent. Maybe he has heard a pal engaged in trench-digging whistle an air from the "Messiah," maybe a deep voice bellows a few notes of "Till the Boys Come Home." As sure as he is there, the leader will collect his material for an impromptu "sing-song."
Then the fun begins. Private Jones, the silent, is discovered to be the possessor of a magnificent tenor voice, whilst Corporal Rawlinson, whose buffoonery is the joy of his company, displays extraordinary aptitude for comic songs and anecdotes, or a newly joined recruit, hitherto dubbed "Snowball" on account of his pallor, is discovered to have been a professional clog-dancer in pre-war days.
The leader realises that here is material for a really good Christmas concert to which every C.O. in the vicinity may be invited with impunity. "A pantomime," someone suggests, and a pantomime is evolved. Solos, duets, choruses, all original, are worked up to a perfection that is incredible, and the neighbourhood is invited to "the Christmas Pantomime in Three Spasms," for which "carriages and stretchers" are to be ordered at nine o'clock.
At least, this is how the sergeant responsible for our splendid Christmas pantomime tells me it originated. Costumiers and wigmakers from home "come up to the scratch," as the men have it, and supply not only complete suits for Robinson Crusoe, Man Friday, Dick Whittington, and Fair Damsels, but make-ups for clowns and harlequins and all the other paraphernalia of pantomime.
Topical allusions and catchwords are the joy of the audience for many days to come, and in the intervals of the performance Sergeant Topham, as a coon, gives humorous anecdotes, and Sapper Hall sings solos, of which the refrains as a chorus are encored at least a dozen times.