This friendship with Taffy is worth special record, for it was indirectly the cause of a little revolution in Doggie’s regimental life. Taffy was an earnest though indifferent performer on the penny whistle. It was his constant companion, the solace of his leisure moments and one of the minor tortures of Doggie’s existence. His version of the Marseillaise was peculiarly excruciating.
One day, when Taffy was playing it with dreadful variations of his own to an admiring group in the Y.M.C.A. hut, Doggie, his nerves rasped to the raw by the false notes and maddening intervals, snatched it out of his hand and began to play himself. Hitherto, shrinking morbidly from any form of notoriety, he had shown no sign of musical accomplishment. But to-day the musician’s impulse was irresistible. He played the Marseillaise as no one there had heard it on penny whistle before. The hut recognized a master’s touch, for Doggie was a fine executant musician. When he stopped there was a roar: “Go on!” Doggie went on. They kept him whistling till the hut was crowded.
Thenceforward he was penny-whistler, by excellence, to the battalion. He whistled himself into quite a useful popularity.
CHAPTER XI
“We’re all very proud of you, Marmaduke,” said the Dean.
“I think you’re just splendid,” said Peggy.
They were sitting in Doggie’s rooms in Woburn Place, Doggie having been given his three days’ leave before going to France. Once again Durdlebury had come to Doggie and not Doggie to Durdlebury. Aunt Sophia, however, somewhat ailing, had stayed at home.
Doggie stood awkwardly before them, conscious of swollen hands and broken nails, shapeless ammunition boots and ill-fitting slacks; morbidly conscious, too, of his original failure.
“You’re about ten inches more round the chest than you were,” said the Dean admiringly.