The Red Horizon | Page 7

and proceeded to wash and
shave. All used the one pump, sometimes five or six heads were stuck
under it at the same moment, and an eager hand worked the handle, and
poured a plentiful supply of very cold water on the close cropped pates.
The panes of the farmhouse window made excellent shaving mirrors
and, incidentally, I may mention that rifle-slings generally serve the
purpose of razor strops. Breakfast followed toilet; most of the men

bought café-au-lait, at a penny a basin, and home-made bread, buttered
lavishly, at a penny a slice. A similar repast would cost sixpence in
London.
Parade then followed. In England we had cherished the illusion that life
abroad would be an easy business, merely consisting of firing practices
in the trenches, followed 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