The Red Horizon | Page 7

by intervals of idleness in rest-camps, where cigarettes could be obtained for the asking, and tots of rum would be served out ad infinitum. This rum would have a certain charm of its own, make everybody merry, and banish all discomforts due to frost and cold for ever. Thus the men thought, though most of our fellows are teetotallers. We get rum now, few (p. 035) drink it; we are sated with cigarettes, and smoke them as if in duty bound; the stolen delight of the last "fag-end" is a dream of the past. Parades are endless, we have never worked so hard since we joined the army; the minor offences of the cathedral city are full-grown crimes under long artillery range; a dirty rifle was only a matter for words of censure a month ago, a dirty rifle now will cause its owner to meditate in the guard-room.
Dinner consists of bully beef and biscuits; now and again we fry the bully beef on the farmhouse stove, and when cash is plentiful cook an egg with it. The afternoon is generally given up to practising bayonet-fighting, and our day's work comes to an end about six o'clock. In the evening we go into the nearest village and discuss matters of interest in some café. Here we meet all manner of men, Gurkhas fresh from the firing line; bus-drivers, exiles from London; men of the Army Service Corps; Engineers, kilted Highlanders, men recovering from wounds, who are almost fit to go to the trenches again; French soldiers, Canadian soldiers, and all sorts of people, helpers in some way or another of the Allies in the Great War.
We have to get back to our billets by eight o'clock, to stop out (p. 036) after that hour is a serious crime here. A soldier out of doors at midnight in the cathedral city was merely a minor offender. But under the range of long artillery fire all things are different for the soldier.
St. Patrick's Day was an event. We had a half holiday, and at night, with the aid of beer, we made merry as men can on St. Patrick's Day. We sang Irish songs, told stories, mostly Cockney, and laughed without restraint as merry men will, for to all St. Patrick was an admirable excuse for having a good and rousing time.
There is, however, one little backwater of rest and quiet into which we men of blood and iron drift at all too infrequent intervals--that is when we become what is known officially as "barn orderly." A barn orderly is the company unit who looks after the billets of the men out on parade. In due course my turn arrived, and the battalion marched away leaving me to the quiet of farmyard.
Having heaped up the straw, our bedding, in one corner of the barn, swept the concrete floor, rolled the blankets, explained to the gossipy farm servant that I did not "compree" her gibberish, and (p. 037) watched her waddle across the midden towards the house, my duties were ended. I was at liberty until the return of the battalion. It was all very quiet, little was to be heard save the gnawing of the rats in the corner of the barn and the muffled booming of guns from "out there"--"out there" is the oft repeated phrase that denotes the locality of the firing line.
There was sunlight and shade in the farmyard, the sun lit up the pump on the top of which a little bird with salmon-pink breast, white-tipped tail, and crimson head preened its feathers; in the shade where our barn and the stables form an angle an old lady in snowy sunbonnet and striped apron was sitting knitting. It was good to be there lying prone upon the barn straw near the door above the crazy ladder, writing letters. I had learned to love this place and these people whom I seem to know so very well from having read René Bazin, Daudet, Maupassant, Balzac and Marie Claire. High up and far away to the west a Zeppelin was to be seen travelling in a westerly direction; the farmer's wife, our landlady, had just rescued a tin of bully beef from one of her all-devouring pigs; at the barn door lay my recently cleaned rifle and ordered equipment--how incongruous it all was (p. 038) with the home of Marie Claire.
Suddenly I was brought back to realities by the recollection that the battalion was to have a bath that afternoon and towels and soap must be ready to take out on the next parade.
The next morning was beautifully clear; the sun rising over the firing line lit up wood and field, river and pond. The hens were noisy in the farmyard, the horse lines to the rear were full of