The Path to Rome | Page 7

entrenched camp. One could see little or nothing of
its batteries, only its hundreds of feet of steep brushwood above the
vineyards, and at the summit a stunted wood purposely planted. Next to
it on the left, of equal height, was the hog back of the Cote Barine,
hiding a battery. Between the Cote Barine and my road and wall, I saw
the rising ground and the familiar Barracks that are called (I know not
why) the Barracks of Justice, but ought more properly to be called the
Barracks of petty tyrannies and good fellowship, in order to show the
philosophers that these two things are the life of armies; for of all the
virtues practised in that old compulsory home of mine Justice came
second at least if not third, while Discipline and Comradeship went first;
and the more I think of it the more I am convinced that of all the
suffering youth that was being there annealed and forged into soldiery
none can have suffered like the lawyers. On the right the high trees that
stand outside the ramparts of the town went dwindling in perspective
like a palisade, and above them, here and there, was a roof showing the
top of the towers of the Cathedral or of St Gengoult. All this I saw
looking backwards, and, when I had noticed it and drawn it, I turned
round again and took the road.

I had, in a small bag or pocket slung over my shoulder, a large piece of
bread, half a pound of smoked ham, a sketch-book, two Nationalist
papers, and a quart of the wine of Brule--which is the most famous
wine in the neighbourhood of the garrison, yet very cheap. And Brule is
a very good omen for men that are battered about and given to
despairing, since it is only called Brule on account of its having been
burnt so often by Romans, Frenchmen, Burgundians, Germans,
Flemings, Huns perhaps, and generally all those who in the last few
thousand years have taken a short cut at their enemies over the neck of
the Cote Barine. So you would imagine it to be a tumble-down, weak,
wretched, and disappearing place; but, so far from this, it is a rich and
proud village, growing, as I have said, better wine than any in the
garrison. Though Toul stands in a great cup or ring of hills, very high
and with steep slopes, and guns on all of them, and all these hills grow
wine, none is so good as Brule wine. And this reminds me of a thing
that happened in the Manoeuvres of 1891, _quorum pars magna_; for
there were two divisions employed in that glorious and fatiguing great
game, and more than a gross of guns--to be accurate, a hundred and
fifty-six--and of these one (the sixth piece of the tenth battery of the
eighth--I wonder where you all are now? I suppose I shall not see you
again; but you were the best companions in the world, my friends) was
driven by three drivers, of whom I was the middle one, and the worst,
having on my Livret the note 'conducteur mediocre'. But that is neither
here nor there; the story is as follows, and the moral is that the
commercial mind is illogical.
When we had gone some way, clattering through the dust, and were
well on on the Commercy road, there was a short halt, and during this
halt there passed us the largest Tun or Barrel that ever went on wheels.
You talk of the Great Tun of Heidelburg, or of those monstrous Vats
that stand in cool sheds in the Napa Valley, or of the vast barrels in the
Catacombs of Rheims; but all these are built in situ and meant to
remain steady, and there is no limit to the size of a Barrel that has not
to travel. The point about this enormous Receptacle of Bacchus and
cavernous huge Prison of Laughter, was that it could move, though
cumbrously, and it was drawn very slowly by stupid, patient oxen, who
would not be hurried. On the top of it sat a strong peasant, with a face
of determination, as though he were at war with his kind, and he kept

on calling to his oxen, 'Han', and 'Hu', in the tones of a sullen challenge,
as he went creaking past. Then the soldiers began calling out to him
singly, 'Where are you off to, Father, with that battery?' and 'Why carry
cold water to Commercy? They have only too much as it is;' and 'What
have you got in the little barrelkin, the barrellet, the cantiniere's
brandy-flask, the gourd, the firkin?' He stopped his oxen fiercely and
turned round to us and said: 'I will tell you