Blanquart put in: “Mister the Mayor was insulted by the troops. We wrote to our Deputy!”
Major Stevenage fidgeted. He had found it most difficult to go through this sort of thing, day after day, for years. He had been trained to deal with Asiatics. He turned on Blanquart:
“Why didn’t you write to me first?” but the Mayor cut in again. His general outlook on life was about that of an English agricultural labourer plus the dignity of Beadledom. This latter had been injured, and the man, who seldom spoke a dozen sentences a day, now was voluble. He understood more English than one gave him credit for.
“Why write to you, officer, you are all of the same colour!” (By this time not a German attack could have stopped him.) “My Garde Champêtre comes to tell me that there is a crime of violence at Vanderlynden’s. They demand that I go to make procès-verbal. I put on my tricolour sash. I take my official notebook. I arrive. I demand the officer. Il s’est foutu de moi! (Untranslatable.) He says he has orders to march to the trenches. His troops hold me in derision. They sing laughable songs of me in my official capacity——”
“It is very well, Monsieur the Maire,” Dormer broke in. “We go to make an arrestation. Can you indicate the culpable?”
“But I believe you, I can indicate him,” cried the old man.
Dormer waited breathlessly for some fatal name or number which would drag a poor wretch through the slow exasperation of Court-Martial proceedings.
“It was a small brown man!”
“That does not lead us very far!” said Dormer icily.
“Wait!” The old man raised his voice. “Achille!” The door opened, and Achille Quaghebeur, the Garde Champêtre, in attendance on the Maire, stepped in and closed it behind him. He had, in his dark green and sulphur-coloured uniform, with his assumption of importance, the air of a comic soldier out of “Madame Angot.” “Produce the corroborative article!”