Contemptible | Page 4

in buckets. The Officers were treated like the best friends of the families with whom they were billeted. The fatted calf was not spared, and this in a land where there were not too many fatted calves.
The Company "struck a particularly soft spot." The miller had gone to the war leaving behind him his wife, his mother and two children. Nothing they could do for the five officers of the Company was too much trouble. Madame M��re resigned her bedroom to the Major and his second in command, while Madame herself slew the fattest of her chickens and rabbits for the meals of her hungry Officers.
The talk that was indulged in must have been interesting, even though the French was halting and ungrammatical. Of all the companies' Messes, this one took the most serious view of the future, and earned for itself the nickname of "Les Mis��rables." The Senior Subaltern said openly that this calm preceded a storm. The papers they got--Le Petit Parisian and such like--talked vaguely of a successful offensive on the extreme right: M��lhouse, it was said, had been taken. But of the left, of Belgium, there was silence. Such ideas as the Subaltern himself had on the strategical situation were but crude. The line of battle, he fancied, would stretch north and south, from M��lhouse to Li��ge. If it were true that Li��ge had fallen, he thought the left would rest successfully on Namur. The English Army, he imagined, was acting as "general reserve," behind the French line, and would not be employed until the time had arrived to hurl the last reserve into the m��l��e, at the most critical point.
And all the while, never a sound of firing, never a sight of the red and blue of the French uniforms. The war might have been two hundred miles away!
Meanwhile Tommy on his marches was discovering things. Wonder of wonders, this curious people called "baccy" tabac! "And if yer wants a bit of bread yer awsks for pain, strewth!" He loved to hear the French gabble to him in their excited way; he never thought that reciprocally his talk was just as funny. The French matches earned unprintable names. But on the whole he admired sunny France with its squares of golden corn and vegetables, and when he passed a painted Crucifix with its cluster of flowering graves, he would say: "Golly, Bill, ain't it pretty? We oughter 'ave them at 'ome, yer know." And of course he kept on saying what he was going to do with "Kayser Bill."
One night after the evening meal, the men of the Company gave a little concert outside the mill. The flower-scented twilight was fragrantly beautiful, and the mill stream gurgled a lullaby accompaniment as it swept past the trailing grass. Nor was there any lack of talent. One reservist, a miner since he had left the army, roared out several songs concerning the feminine element at the sea-side, or voicing an inquiry as to a gentleman's companion on the previous night. Then, with an entire lack of appropriateness, another got up and recited "The Wreck of the Titanic" in a most touching and dramatic manner. Followed a song with a much appreciated chorus--
"Though your heart may ache awhile, Never mind! Though your face may lose its smile, Never mind! For there's sunshine after rain, And then gladness follows pain, You'll be happy once again, Never mind!"
The ditty deals with broken vows, and faithless hearts, and blighted lives; just the sort of song that Tommy loves to warble after a good meal in the evening. It conjured to the Subaltern's eyes the picture of the dainty little star who had sung it on the boards of the Coliseum. And to conclude, Madame's voice, French, and sonorously metallic, was heard in the dining-room striking up the "Marseillaise." Tommy did not know a word of it, but he yelled "March on" (a very good translation of "Marchons") and sang "lar lar" to the rest of the tune.
Thus passed peacefully enough those five days--the calm before the storm.

CHAPTER III
THE ADVANCE TO MONS
The Battalion had arrived at Iron on a Sunday morning. It had rested there, while the remainder of the British Army was being concentrated, until Friday morning. On Thursday night the Battalion Orders made it clear that a start was to be made. Parade was to be earlier than usual, and nothing was to be left behind. Every one was very sorry to be leaving their French friends, and there were great doings that night. Champagne was produced, and a horrible sort of liquor called "alcahol" was introduced into the coffee. Such was the generosity of the miller's people that it was only with the greatest difficulty that the Captain induced Madame to accept any payment for her kindness. And so