He winked at me, as I passed, over the heads of the girls.
“The fruits of victory!” he called out. “There is a little Miss Brown-Eyes here who is quite enchanting.”
It was rather caddish of me to say:
“Have you forgotten Marguérite Aubigny?”
He thought so too, and reddened, angrily.
“Go to blazes!” he said.
His greatest chum, and one of mine,—Charles Fortune—was standing outside a café in the big Place, not far from the Vieille Bourse with its richly-carved Renaissance front. Here there was a dense crowd, but they kept at a respectful distance from Fortune who, with his red tabs and red-and-blue arm-band and row of ribbons (all gained by heroic service over a blotting-pad in a Nissen hut) looked to them, no doubt, like a great General. He had his “heroic” face on, rather mystical and saintly. He had a variety of faces for divers occasions—such as the “sheep’s face” in the presence of Generals who disliked brilliant men, the “intelligent” face—bright and enquiring—for senior officers who liked easy questions to which they could give portentous answers, the noble face for the benefit of military chaplains, foreign visitors to the war-zone, and batmen before they discovered his sense of humour; and the old-English-gentleman face at times for young Harding, who belonged to a county family with all its traditions, politics, and instincts, and permitted Fortune to pull his leg, to criticise Generals, and denounce the British Empire, as a licensed jester.
Fortune was addressing four gentlemen of the Town Council of Lille who stood before him, holding ancient top-hats.
“Gentlemen,” said Charles Fortune in deliberate French, with an exaggerated accent, “I appreciate very much the honour you have just paid me by singing that heroic old song, ‘It’s a long, long way to Tipperary.’ I desire, however, to explain to you that it is not as yet the National Anthem of the British People, and that personally I have never been to Tipperary, that I should find some difficulty in finding that place on the map, and that I never want to go there. This, however, is of small importance, except to British Generals, to whom all small things are of great importance—revealing therefore their minute attention to detail, even when it does not matter—which, I may say, is the true test of the military mind which is so gloriously winning the war, after many glorious defeats (I mean victories) and——” (Here Fortune became rather tangled in his French grammar, but rescued himself after a still more heroic look) “and it is with the deepest satisfaction, the most profound emotion, that I find myself in this great city of Lille on the day of liberation, and on behalf of the British Army, of which I am a humble representative, in spite of these ribbons which I wear on my somewhat expansive chest, I thank you from my heart, with the words, Vive la France!”
Here Fortune heaved a deep sigh, and looked like a Field Marshal while he waited for the roar of cheers which greeted his words. The mystical look on his face became intensified as he stood there, a fine heroic figure (a trifle stout, for lack of exercise), until he suddenly caught sight of a nice-looking girl in the crowd nearest to him, and gave her an elaborate wink, as much as to say, “You and I understand each other, my pretty one! Beneath this heroic pose I am really human.”