Chapter XXI: The Conquerors 345 (8)

“Wot’s the idea anyway?” asked one man. “Wot’s the good o’ this tour business?”

“We’ve come to see the facks,” said a deputy. “See ’em for ourselves, and go back home to tell ’em in the shops what you chaps is doing.”

“Wish they’d let some of us swap places wi’ them in the shops,” was the answer. “I’d tell ’em something, an’ they’d learn a bit too, doin’ my job here.”

“The workers, Labour, wants to know,” went on the deputy, ignoring this. “Some says finish the war, and some says get on with it, and——”

“Which are you doing?” came in swift reply, and “How many is on this deputation job?”

“There’s three hundred a week coming out,” said the deputy with a touch of pride, “and——”

“Three hundred!” said a loud voice at the back of the room. “Blimey, that’s boat an’ train room for three ’undred a week the less o’ us to go on leaf.”

The talk drifted off amongst the men themselves again, but the deputation caught snatches of it. “Same ol’ game as ol’ Blank did ... we’ll see their names in the papers makin’ speeches when they’re home ... wearin’ a tin ’at an’ a gas-mask an’ bein’ warned to keep their ’eads down cos this is the front line—at Vale-o’-tears. Oh Lord!”... “Square the Quarter-bloke an’ take the shrap helmet home as a souvenir to hang over the mantel——” (Here a listening deputy blushed faintly and hastily renounced a long-cherished secret idea.) “Will this trip entitle ’em to a war medal?” “Lord ’elp the one of ’em I meets wearing a medal that they gets for a week where they’re goin’, an’ that I’ve took years to earn, where we come from.”

The deputy began a long speech, worked himself up into a warmth befitting the subject, begged his hearers to “hold together,” not to forget they were workers before they were soldiers (“an’ will be after—with a vote apiece,” struck in a voice), and finally wound up with a triumphant period about “Union is Strength” and “Labor omnia vincit—Labour Conquers All,” which last he repeated several times and with emphasis.

Then the Corporal answered him, and after the first sentence or two the room stilled and the Company held its breath to listen, breaking at times into a running murmur of applause. The Corporal spoke well. He had the gift; still better he had the subject; and, best of all, he had an audience that understood and could not be shocked by blunt truths. He told the deputation some details of the work they had been doing and the conditions under which it was done; what the shell-fire was like, _and_ what some of the casualties were like; the hours of their labour and the hours of their rest; how they had made their road with the shells smashing in at times as fast as it could be made; how a waggon of timber, six-horse team, and driver had been hit fair by a five-nine on the road, and how the wreckage (and nothing else that they could help) had been used to begin fill in the hole; what their daily pay was and what their rations were, especially on nights when a shell wrecked the ration-carrying party; and, finally, their total of killed and wounded in the one day, yesterday.

“Union is strength,” he finished up. “But does their union at home help our strength here? What strength do we get when a strike wins and you get more pay—at ’ome, an’ we’re left short o’ the shells or airyplanes that might save us gettin’ shelled an’ air-bombed in the ruddy trenches. Labour Conquers All! Does it? Tell that to a five-nine H.E. droppin’ on you. Ask Black Harry an’ Joe Hullish an’ the rest o’ them we buried yesterday, if Labour Conquers All.”

The deputation had no answer, gave up the argument, and presently withdrew.

But actually, if they had seen it, and if Labour could see it, they were entirely right, and the Corporal himself unwittingly had proved it. Union _is_ strength—if it be the union of the workshops and the Front; Labour does conquer all—if Labour, Back and Front, pull together. There was no need to ask the question of Black Harry and Joe Hullish and the rest, because they themselves were the answer, lying in their shallow graves that shook and trembled about them to the roar and rumble of the traffic, the guns and limbers and ammunition waggons pouring up the road which they had helped to make. They were dead; but the road was through. Labour _had_ won; they were, are, and—if their mates, Back and Front, so decree—will be The Conquerors.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] M.O. Medical Officer

[2] Cushy—easy.

[3] A derisive nickname bestowed by other troops on the A.S.C.

[4] Telephone language for Bx—the technical name for certain shells.

[5] Observation Post.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.