Strict on parade! When I'm on it I'm ready
To shove blokes about if they do not keep steady!
Comin' the acid! Stow it there! or it
Won't do with me and then you'll be for it!
Swingin' the lead! Them, the dowsiest rankers
That ne'er 'ad C.B. or a dose of the jankers,
Swing it on Snoggers! I'd like them to do it
And good God Awmighty then, I'll put them froo it!
Off it, I'm off. Then I'll brush up my putties,
Try and look posh and get off wiv my butties,
A drink at the Café, a joke wiv the wenches,
Last joke per'aps, for we're due for the trenches.
Then stick to wiv pride as our mateys have stuck it
When kissin' the wenches or kickin' the bucket.
(From "A Service Song.")
The night had fallen and the Café Belle Vue was crowded with soldiers in khaki. The day's work was at an end, and the men had left their billets to come out and spend a few hours in the wine-shop of Jean Lacroix. A whole division was quartered in the district; it had come back from the firing-line and was enjoying a brief period of rest prior to its departure for the trenches again.
Even here, back near the town of Cassel, the men were not free from the sights and sounds of the fighting. At night they could see the red agony of war painting the distant horizon, and hear the far-off rumbling of the big guns as the thunder and tumult of the conflict smote across the world. The men back from the line of slaughter tried not to think too clearly of what was happening out there. In the Café Belle Vue, where the wine was good, men could forget things.
The Café was crowded. Half-a-dozen soldiers stood at the bar and the patronne served out drinks with a speedy hand. Behind her was a number of shelves on which stood bottles of various sizes. Over the shelves were two photographs; one was her own, the other was that of her husband when he was a thinner man and a soldier in the army. In the house there was one child, a dirty, ragged little girl, who sat in a corner and fixed a dull meaningless stare on the soldiers as they entered the café.
Jean Lacroix sat beside the long-necked stove stroking his beard, a neat white little beard which stood perkily out from his fat chin. Jean Lacroix was fat, a jelly blob of a man with flesh hanging from his sides, from his cheeks and from his hands. He was a heap of blubber wrapped in cloth. When he changed his locality he shuffled instead of walking, when he laughed he shivered and shook his fat as if he wanted to fling it off. He was seldom serious, when he was, all those near him laughed. A serious Jean was a ridiculous figure.
His wife was an aggressive female with a dark moustache, the tongue of a shrew and the eye of a money-lender. She worked like an ant and seldom spoke to her husband. Jean, wise with the wisdom of a well-fed man, rarely said a word to her; he sat by the fire all day and spoke to anyone else who cared to listen.
A sergeant and three men entered and going up to the bar called for drinks. These soldiers were billeted at Y—— Farm which stood some three kilometres away from the Café Belle Vue. They belonged to the London Irish Regiment. The battalion had just come down from Hulluch for a rest. Having procured their drinks the four men sat down, lit their cigarettes and entered into a noisy conversation.
Before going any further it will be well to say a few words about these men, the principal personages of my story.