On the morning after he had been shot, his platoon sergeant sat before a brazier and talked to a corporal. "'E ain't no bloomin' loss, 'e ain't. 'E gave me too much trouble, and I got fair sick of 'aving to report 'im absent. It serves 'im blamed well right, that's what I say."
The corporal sipped his tea out of an extremely dirty canteen. "Well," he said at length, "I 'ope as the poor devil don't find it so warm where 'e's gone as what it is 'ere. I quite liked un, though 'e were a bit free with 'is fists, and always dreamin' like," which was probably the only appreciation ever uttered in memory of John Williams, tramp and soldier.
XXVI
THE CLEARING HOUSE
You collect your belongings, you stretch and yawn, you rub your eyes to rid them of sleep—and incidentally you leave great black marks all down your face—you struggle to get on your equipment in a filthy second-class carriage where are three other officers struggling to get on their equipment, and waving their arms about like the sails of windmills. Then you obtain a half share of the window and gaze out as the train crawls round the outskirts of the town, that lies still and quiet in the dusk of the morning. You have arrived at your destination—you are at the base.
This quaint old town, with its streets running up the hill from the river, with its beautiful spires and queer old houses, is the great clearing house of the British Army. Here the new troops arrive; here they leave for the front; here, muddy and wounded, they are driven in motor chars-à-bancs and ambulances from the station to the hospitals; here they are driven down to the river-side and carried on to the hospital ships that are bound for England.
And this gigantic clearing house buzzes with soldiers in khaki. There are the hotels where the generals and staff officers take their tea; there are the cafés haunted by subalterns; there are little "Débits de Vins" where "Tommies" go and explain, in "pidgin" English, that they are dying for glasses of beer. In all the streets, great motor lorries lumber by, laden with blackened soldiers who have been down on the quay, unloading shells, food, hay, oil, anything and everything that can be needed for the British Expeditionary Force. And, in the two main thoroughfares of an afternoon, there flows an unceasing crowd—generals and privates, French men and women, officers hunting through the shops for comforts to take up the line, people winding their busy way through the throng, and people strolling along with the tide, intent on snatching all they can of pleasure and amusement while they have the opportunity.
And a few years ago these same streets would lie sleepily in the sun, dreaming of the days of splendour long by. In the square before the wonderful cathedral there would be stillness—here and there, perhaps, a pigeon would come fluttering down from the ledges and cornices of the Gothic façade; sometimes a nondescript dog would raise a lazy head to snap at the flies; occasionally the streets would send back a nasal echo as a group of American tourists, with their Baedekers and maps, came hurrying along to "do" the town before the next train left for Paris—beyond that ... nothing.
Now, in the early morning, the Base seems almost to have relapsed into its slumber of yore. As yet, the work of the day has not begun, and the whole town seems to stir sleepily as the screeching brakes bring your train to a standstill. As you stumble out of the carriage, the only living person in the place appears to be a sentry, who tramps up and down in the distance, on guard over a few empty trucks and a huge pile of bundles of straw.