A Minstrel in France

by Sir Harry Lauder

I took the opportunity to look around at my audience. They didn't seem to be a bit excited. They all had their eyes fixed on me, and they weren't listening to the guns—only to me and my singing. And so, as they probably knew what was afoot, and took it so quietly, I managed to keep on singing as if I, too, were used to such a row, and thought no more of it than of the ordinary traffic noise of a London or a Glasgow street. But if I really managed to look that way my appearances were most deceptive, because I was nearer to being scared than I had been at any time yet!

But presently I began to get interested in the noise of the guns. They developed a certain regular rhythm. I had to allow for it, and make it fit the time of what I was singing. And as I realized that probably this was just a part of the regular day's work, a bit of ordinary strafing, and not a feature of a grand attack, I took note of the rhythm. It went something like this, as near as I can gie it to you in print:

"Roamin' in the—PUH—LAH—gloamin'—BAM!

"On the—WHUFF!—BOOM!—bonny—BR-R-R!—banks o'—BIFF—Clyde—ZOW!"

And so it went all through the rest of the concert. I had to adjust each song I sang to that odd rhythm of the guns, and I don't know but what it was just as well that Johnson wasn't there! He'd have had trouble staying with me with his wee bit piano, I'm thinkin'!

And, do you ken, I got to see, after a bit, that it was the gunners, all the time, havin' a bit of fun with me! For when I sang a verse the guns behaved themselves, but every time I came to the chorus they started up the same inferno of noise again. I think they wanted to see, at first, if they could no shake me enough to make me stop singing, and they liked me the better when they found I would no stop. The soldiers soon began to laugh, but the joke was not all on me, and I could see that they understood that, and were pleased. Indeed, it was all as amusing to me as to them.

I doubt if "Roamin' in the Gloamin'" or any other song was ever sung in such circumstances. I sang several more songs—they called, as every audience I have seems to do, for me to sing my "Wee Hoose Amang the Heather"—and then Captain Godfrey brought the concert to an end. It was getting along toward midafternoon, and he explained that we had another call to make before dark.

"Good-by, Harry—good luck to you! Thanks for the singing!"

Such cries rose from all sides, and the Canadians came crowding around to shake my hand. It was touching to see how pleased they were, and it made me rejoice that I had been able to come. I had thought, sometimes, that it might be a presumptuous thing, in a way, for me to want to go so near the front, but the way I had been able to cheer up the lonely, dull routine of that battery went far to justify me in coming, I thought.

I was sorry to be leaving the Canadians. And I was glad to see that they seemed as sorry to have me go as I was to be going. I have a very great fondness for the Canadian soldier. He is certainly one of the most picturesque and interesting of all the men who are fighting under the flags of the Allies, and it is certain that the world can never forget the record he has made in this war—a record of courage and heroism unexcelled by any and equaled by few.