Chapter II: Part 2

[_From William Wheezle, K.G. (Keeper of Game), addressed to our own
Subaltern at the Front, and describing the operations of the Allied
Forces in and round the West Wood and the Middle Planting, November,
1914._]

Sir,--I have the honour to report that on Saturday last the Allied Forces advanced, as soon as they could be got out of bed, in the direction of the West Wood. The troops under my command, or supposed to be under my command, were drawn chiefly from the Old Fogey Division. In addition to the Household Extremely Heavy Infantry, there were two battalions of the 160th London Potterers (the "Puff Hards"), specially summoned from Pall Mall to act with us. These battalions, under the command of Colonel Bowindow, D.S.O., fully maintained the noble traditions that attach to their name. There were also two regiments of unmounted cavalry, the 210th (Flannel Feet) and the 306th Purple Lancers (Buster's Own). These sections declined to co-operate unless provided with shooting ponies.

Circumstances unfortunately deprived me of the assistance of other contingents, such as the Dog-potters, upon which I had in previous years been able to depend. At Westwood our troops deployed, and a hostile demonstration on the part of the enemy, signalled by loud von clucks, kept us thoroughly on the alert. They found our range very quickly, a good deal more quickly, indeed, than we found theirs; but as they advanced closer their casualties became more numerous. On the whole the result of this action was not unsatisfactory. After a short march through the bracken we occupied a well-chosen position in open country, our troops availing themselves of such cover as offered, though some of them took a good deal of concealing. A violent general engagement ensued, and for some time the firing was continuous. The enemy's losses were serious, a frontal attack in close formation and at a moderate pace being attended with great disaster. The Potterers, after taking some time to bring their guns into action, kept up a constant and, as they assured me, effective fire.

Reports having been received that the enemy were holding the Middle Planting in strength, I decided to manoeuvre in that direction. There was an affair of outposts in the course of the march, Colonel Bowindow bravely engaging a strongly entrenched rabbit. There was no actual loss of life, the rabbit retiring in good order, but its _moral_ is, I understand, seriously shaken if not completely shattered. It subsequently succeeded in digging itself deeper in, and took no further part in the day's operations.

Before attempting to dislodge the main body of the enemy our forces took cover in open order under an adjacent hedge. With scarcely any delay large numbers of the enemy appeared above the top of the wire entanglements, the rapidity of their movements taking our artillery by surprise. Our gunners, however, served their pieces with regularity and determination until the enemy were reported to be in full retreat. Their casualties were few, chiefly owing to the speed at which their movements were conducted, and only amounted to one wounded, or said to be. Two more were alleged to be missing, but have probably by this time rejoined their regiments. The expenditure of ammunition during this skirmish was great.

At the battle of Middle Planting, which followed, the enemy suffered severely. Our encircling movement was capably carried out and our high-angle fire was very effective. On our left flank Colonel Buster found himself at one time almost completely enveloped by hares, but in this critical situation he handled his guns promptly, and in repulsing the adversary suffered no loss except that of his temper. That he did not inflict more damage was, according to his own statement, due to the fact that the opposing forces, when they saw him preparing to develop his attack, kept at a prudent distance. During this engagement numerous wood-taubes were sighted flying over our position, but at such a height that it was impossible, or appeared to be impossible, to bring them down.

Rations were then served out, the commissariat being under the able direction of Major Domo. The quality of the supplies was satisfactory, nor was there any real shortage, if I may judge from the report (received by me after lunch from General Torpor, in temporary command) that our troops were incapable of advancing, or indeed of any movement at all.

Later.--On waking up we made a forced march in the direction of Mudford Village and occupied a wide front, the considerable spaces between units rendering our operations less hazardous to each other. A flanking movement upon the line Stubblefield-Tenacre-Turniptops was attended with some success, though several entire Army Corps of the enemy succeeded in extricating themselves without disaster. Nor were we able to come in touch with them again before darkness set in, and the Allied Forces retired, highly pleased with themselves, to their base, in the immediate neighbourhood of Auction Bridge.

I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
WILLIAM WHEEZLE.

* * * * *

WAR'S REVENGES.

(_A True Story._)

This War has done many wonderful things;
It has altered our views of Kaisers and Kings,
And quite discounted the stern rebukes
Of those who anathematized Grand Dukes.
It has hurled from many a lofty pinnacle
The self-sufficient and the cynical;
And revised the judgments we once held true
In various ways that are strange and new.
For instance, the other day there came
To see me, the same yet not the same,
A former office boy, whom once
I wholly misread as a Cockney dunce,
Who only cared for music-hall tunes--
And who went and 'listed in the Dragoons.
His khaki was much the worse for wear,
Soiled and crumpled and needing repair,
And he hadn't unlearned since his office days
His gruff laconic turn of phrase.
So I had to drag it out by degrees
That he hadn't been in the lap of ease,
But from Mons to Ypres, out at the Front,
Had helped to bear the battle's brunt.
Rest? Well, they had to do without it;
But he didn't make a song about it.
Last three weeks he'd never been dry;
A sniper had shot him through the thigh;
But his wound had healed, he was right as rain
And anxious to get to the Front again.
So there he stood, erect, serene,
Unshaken by all he had suffered and seen,
And ready once more at his Country's call
To leave his wife, his home, his all.
And I, as I thought of what he had done,
And the arm-chair band (of which I am one),
Elderly scribblers, who can't even drill,
And are only good at driving a quill--
Humbled and shamed to my inmost core
I wished I could drop clean through the floor.
For the tables were turned; I stood at zero,
And the office boy was a full-blown hero.

* * * * *

Illustration: _Inspector._ "WELL, WHAT'S YOUR LITTLE GRUMBLE?"

_Constable._ "BEG PARDON, SIR, BUT JUST BECAUSE I LOOK A BIT LIKE A GERMAN ME LIFE 'AS BECOME A BURDEN. PEOPLE SAY, 'I SHOULDN'T WONDER IF 'E WASN'T A SHEEP IN LION'S CLOTHES.'"

* * * * *

ANOTHER MISJUDGED ALIEN.

Clarence (who pulls the path roller) says there's a Society for the Maintenance of Horses' Rights. I wish there was one for the Abolition of Eagles' Wrongs. I am an eagle, the handsomest eagle in the Zoo, and I sometimes wish I were a sparrow. Moult me, but I've even wished I were stuffed. And all because the authorities won't change my label. It's true the notice they've put on my cage telling people to keep their children from the bars has stopped the young brutes from shooting me with peas and monkey nuts, but it can't save my feelings, and all because--but there! this is how my own particular official label runs:--

IMPERIAL EAGLE.
SCHODDERSTOGHARDTMEISSEN. DEPOSITED.

You can imagine the situation. How in the firmament am I to tell the public that Schodderstoghardtmeissen is a craggy headland on the coast of Norway, and not in the least associated with Germany or Austria--places I never heard of till but recently. But ever since the men in khaki first made their appearance in the Gardens some four months ago a most extraordinary undercurrent of opprobrious criticism has crept into the public's conversation, that public once so full of admiration for my noble bearing--unless it saw me walk; for which reason I don't come off my pedestal in public hours if I can help it. But now the mildest visitors seem to hold themselves under a moral obligation to connect me in some manner with what Clarence calls the "present crisis."

Sixpenny days are my worst. "_There's_ the German eagle!" says the crowd. I can't even sit in my water trough without being told I'm "entrenching" myself.

Only last chicken's-neck day (we dine alternately on poultry and--er--the joint) an old lady paused before my quarters and, her head on one side, murmured musingly: "Yet I always thought the Austrian eagle had two heads, but perhaps I'm thinking of the unicorn." Half an hour later a party stopped in front of me, and one of them says: "Them Jermins didn't deserve a noble-looking bird like 'im to represent 'em, did they, Hemelie? Something with scales and bat's wings 'ud be more appropriate, I _don't_ think." "Yes, an' a drunkard's liver," chimes in another, and then they all laughed. Scr-e-e-e-e-e-ak!!

Even the regular visitors are no better. The stout old gentleman--an editor and an F.Z.S., if you please--who used to get Michael, my valet, to let him see me from the private window, just glares at me over the top of his newspaper and mutters, "Hah! my fine bird, you're coming off your perch head-first before many months are over." And the newspaper cameraman, who used to take my portrait whilst Michael fed me with tit-bits--last week he caught me warming my spread wings in a little patch of sunlight. "Just the stuff," he twittered, as he struggled with his camera. "Great wheeze! Splendid snap for a full-page--'HIS PLACE IN THE SUN.'" It wasn't my fault if I didn't spoil the photograph.

The very latest is a rumour that my right wing is likely to be crumpled up. And the griffin vulture next door, who saw something of the sanatorium when he swallowed a lighted cigar-end in mistake for a glow-worm, hopes they'll give me chloroform. It's also whispered that I'm moulting, but that, I _know_, isn't true.

Well, I suppose it must all end one day. As it is, I find myself looking back longingly to the time when to the public I was just an eagle and a king of birds. I can even remember with toleration the two simple souls who once perched upon a garden-seat before my apartments. Said one, "There y' are, M'ria. _There's_ one of them armerdillers young Bert was tellin' us about." And the other replied: "Why, don't you know no more nat'ral 'ist'ry than that, Elfrid? _That_ ain't a armadiller; that's a 'ummin'-bird!"

* * * * *

TOMMY BROWN, AUCTIONEER.

Tommy Brown knows all about India. You see his father served out there, and that is how Tommy knows so much. He says that everybody in India has to have a bath once a year in the Ganges, and that there is a delta at the mouth of the Ganges as big as Ireland.

Tommy says it is very hot in the shade in India, but you needn't walk in the shade unless you like. He showed me how an idol looked--it is like when you come to the castor oil under the ginger wine.

But it is about the Indian troops that I want to tell you. Tommy was very pleased when they came, because he knows all about them. He likes the Gherkins best, he says, because they are so hardy. Tommy says the Gherkins can hold their breath for five minutes without going red in the face, and that's why they can fight so well.

He says they never want anything to eat, because they have a kind of a twig that they chew, and then all they have to do is to keep tightening their belts. Tommy gave me some of the twig they chew; it tasted like cabbage. I didn't want anything more to eat all that day. Tommy had some himself; he says now he doesn't think it was the right kind of twig. Tommy told me that the Gherkins' mothers teach them to prowl when they are very young, and that they are always prowling. Tommy showed me how to prowl. You have to lie flat on your stomach, and wriggle about as if you were swimming. He says it makes the Gherkins very hardy. They always do it, Tommy says, even when they have a half-holiday. To do it properly you have to breathe through the back of your throat and move your ears.

When the KING went to India, Tommy says he was surprised at the Gherkins. They used to prowl before him, and he was very glad. He said they were very hardy.

Tommy says they are very brave because they don't know what fear is; his father told him that. He says no one has ever seen a Gherkin blub; if they have to, they go and do it somewhere else.

There is only one way you can kill them. Tommy knows the way, but he daren't tell anyone.

Tommy says that when they want to kill a man they prowl after him for five miles, and then come back as silently as they went. He says it is no good shooting at them, because they are not there.

He showed me how they killed people. They come up behind you and catch you round the neck, and it's no good saying, "Shut up," because they don't understand English; then you make a noise like gargling for sore throats, and that's how they know you are dead. It makes the people very angry, Tommy says.

If they take a dislike to anyone, you are sure to get killed, because they prowl after you until they do. And when you come to look at the dead man, you can see he has died a horrible death, and if you turn him over there isn't a mark on him. You see he didn't hear them coming. That's what Tommy Brown told me.

Tommy says a Gherkin once saved his father's life by killing a snake. Tommy's father gave the Gherkin a lot of money to put in his pocket, but he wouldn't take it. The Gherkins don't have pockets, Tommy says.

Tommy says, that if two Germans stood back to back to see who was the taller, a Gherkin could cut through both of them with his two-handled knife, and it would be done so quickly that neither of the Germans would know which was killed first. They do it by practice, Tommy told me. They always use two-handled knives, so that when they are tired with using one handle they can use the other.

You can never catch a Gherkin because on the slightest movement in the bushes they throw a rope up into the air and climb up it, then they pull the rope up after them.

Tommy says that Gherkins wear turbots on their heads. He says that they wear very few clothes, but they don't catch rheumatism because it is not known there.

When Tommy's mother told him that people were sending presents to the Indian troops we had a meeting about it. We dug a deep trench in Tommy's garden and held the meeting there; Tommy didn't want the Germans to know.

When we had dug the trench Tommy stood at one end, and I had to come up to him and give him the sign we had arranged. You had to move your ears and say "Gherkin," then you were admitted to the trench. It was because of the German spies.

We decided to get money for the Indian troops by selling Tommy's white rats, and I was to lend Tommy my Jew's harp for a week as my share.

Tommy sold the white rats in the playground after school. He stood on a box near the fence. The man who lives next door thought Tommy was going to climb over into his garden after a ball, and he said to Tommy, "My steemy friend, you stay where you are."

Tommy took no notice because his mother said the man had been to India and brought back his liver and Tommy wasn't to listen.

I bid fourpence for the two white rats; we had arranged that in the trench.

Tommy Brown said with lots of scorn, "Fourpence!!"--just like that. Then he said the money was to go to buy things for the Indian troops, and what would they think of fourpence? Old Jones minimus said sixpence when he got his pocket-money on Saturday; then the Head came out to see what the row was about. When Tommy Brown told him all about it, the Head bid half-a-crown in a loud voice. We cheered, and just then the man who lives next door and who brought his liver home from India shouted out five shillings. Then the Headmaster said ten shillings. Tommy Brown had to clutch hold of the rails. The man who lives next door went red in the neck and bid a sovereign. Jones minimus began to blub when the Head bid two pounds.

The man who had been to India said: "My steemy Sir, it is no use; I bid four pounds." I could see old Tommy Brown moving his ears like anything. The Headmaster said: "The Gurkhas are some of the finest troops in the world"--he meant Gherkins, but he was excited; then he said: "Five Pounds, Tommy White, for the brown rats." The man who likes liver said something we haven't got to listen to, and then Tommy fell off the box.

"Knocked down at six pounds!" said the Headmaster, laughing; "we will have one each." They both gave Tommy Brown three pounds and then shook hands over the fence. Tommy says I needn't lend him my Jew's harp now.

* * * * *

FAINT PRAISE.

"The House of Commons was seen at its best to-day. The benches, it
is true, were more than all empty."--_Cork Constitution._

* * * * *

From a letter to a school-teacher:--

"I think as Eliza as the mumps. Pleas look at her throte and if she
as rub her jor well to tak away the stif feeling and oblig."

* * * * *

From War News in _The Peshawur Daily News_:--

"The 'Langford' knocked out the gunboat 'Smith' in three rounds."

How like a German gunboat (obviously "Schmidt") to disguise itself with an English name.

* * * * *

"MISS JEFFERSON RECALLED IN BREACH SUIT."

_"Evening News" Headline._

Although the defendant in this case was a cycle-dealer, we think that these sudden changes of costume are liable to lead to confusion and should, therefore, be forbidden.

* * * * *

Illustration: _Officer_ (_on rounds near revolving light_). "ANYTHING TO REPORT?"

_Sentry._ "NO, SIR; THERE'S NO MUCKLE TA RIPORRT; BUT YON FOLKS HAE BEEN HAVIN' A HEAP O' TROUBLE WI' THEIR LIGHT: IT'S GONE OOT TWENTY TIMES IN THE LAST OOR."

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

STEVENSON, in one of his Fables, imagines a court presided over by the Great White Magistrate. It was a very brief session, and the novelist did not again use the idea. Mr. HUGH CARTON, whose name, we are informed by the wrapper of the book, that new and most trustworthy medium of communication between the candid publisher (unwilling that merit should shine unobserved) and the hesitating purchaser (who needs only the truth to send his hand to his purse) is a pseudonym covering the identity of "one of the leading clerics of our day," has however made a whole book of it. In _The Grand Assize_ (HEINEMANN) Mr. CARTON imagines a Day of Judgment, on which the careers and influences of a number of social types are weighed and punishment inflicted--for all are guilty. The Plutocrat, the Daughter of Joy, the Bookmaker, the Party Politician, the Musical Comedy entrepreneur, the Agitator, even the Cleric (although not, I am sure, he of the wrapper) are called to justice. Everything for and against them is then said, either by themselves or the advocate, and sentence is passed. The result is a book curiously rich in sympathy, fearless and fine, and provocative of much thought. That it is in essence a tract is nothing against it; for many of the best novels belong to that genus, and HOGARTH, of whom now and then the reader is forced to think, was a tractarian to the core. I take off my hat to "HUGH CARTON" and wish that more parsons were as humane and understanding as he.

* * *

Mr. ALGERNON BLACKWOOD seems as a writer to possess two quite distinct literary methods. There is his style high-fantastical, which at its best touches a kind of fairylike inspiration, unique and charming--the style, for example, of _Jimbo_. Then, on a lower plane, there is the frankly bogie creepiness of _John Silence_. Between the two he has created a position for himself, half trickster, half wizard, that none else in modern literature could fill. His new book, _Incredible Adventures_ (MACMILLAN), is a combination of both methods. Four of the five adventures are of the mystically gruesome kind, removed however from being commonplace ghost-stories by a certain dignity of conception. It is to be admitted that but for this dignity two at least would fall into some peril of bathos. Take the first, _The Regeneration of Lord Ernie_, in which a young tutor, bear-leading a spiritless scion of nobility through Europe, brings his bored charge to a strange mountain village where the inhabitants worship the forces of fire and wind. If you know Mr. BLACKWOOD'S work, as you surely do, I need not detail to you what happens. Told as he tells it, at considerable, even undue, length, but with a wonderful sense of the mysterious, of the feeling of the wind-swept mountain and its roaring fires, the thing is undeniably impressive. But in other less expert hands it would become ludicrous. There is one tale of finer texture than the others. It is called _Wayfarers_, and is a quite beautiful little fantasy on the old theme that love is longer than life. This is what Mr. BLACKWOOD can do to perfection. It redeems a volume that, for all its originality, does not otherwise display his art quite at its best.

* * *

_Antarctic Adventure_ (FISHER UNWIN), by RAYMOND E. PRIESTLEY, tells the story of SCOTT'S Northern party. That party, as you probably remember, spent an unexpected winter underground, owing to the failure of the ship to relieve it. Its story was shortly told by its leader, Lieutenant CAMPBELL, in _Scott's Last Expedition_--the official report of a sailor to his commanding officer. Mr. PRIESTLEY is more communicative. As one of the famous six who went through it, he gives us, from his comfortable rooms in Cambridge, the full tale of that extraordinary adventure. He had a good angle of observation in the igloo, for it was he who doled out the eight birthday lumps of sugar and the other few ridiculous luxuries which relieved the monotony of seal. He was, in fact, the commissariat officer. How he must have been loved--and hated! To what a large extent also (one begins to realise) the ultimate safety of the party must have been due to his management. I recommend to boys and grown-ups a story as absorbing as _Robinson Crusoe_, and as heartening to the pride of Englishmen as the other stories which we are hearing now from places less remote. For boys in particular _The Voyages of Captain Scott_ (SMITH ELDER) has been written by CHARLES TURLEY, a compilation excellently made from the original diaries; to which Sir J. M. BARRIE has written a true BARRIE preface describing the boyhood of SCOTT. I can think of no better present for a nephew.

* * *

_The Woman in the Bazaar_ (CASSELL), by Mrs. PERRIN, is a story of the Anglo-Indian life in which she always moves at ease. It is _Captain George Coventry's_ first wife, the golden-haired and "phenomenally" (as the newspaper-men will go on saying) innocent _Rafella_ of the high-perched Cotswold vicarage, who eventually finds her deplorable way down to the Bazaar. If _George_ (that beastly prig) at the psychological moment of their first serious quarrel, instead of threatening and laughing like a drunken man and reeling back into the room, had reeled forward and gone into the matter quietly, the entirely virtuous, if idiotic, _Rafella_ would not have flown into the practised arms of that unscrupulous barrister, _Kennard_, who, as everybody knew, had left a mournful trail of dishonoured wives all over India, his legal knowledge presumably saving him at once from the inconvenience of marrying his victims and from the physical violence of outraged Anglo-Indian chivalry. And when _George_, now a colonel and on the verge of a quarrel with the second _Mrs. Coventry_ about a young ass of a _tertium quid_, caught sight of poor _Rafella_ at a window in the Bazaar, he was so genuinely upset that he rushed back to his wife, forgave her (nothing in particular) and lived happily ever after. Which, of course, is just one of those things that thrusts the avenging hatchet into the hand of the Militant.

* * *

I suppose that the "culture" (using this word in the strictly English sense) of Streatham Hill may perhaps be a trifle thinner than that of certain other suburbs, and, keeping this well in mind, I must try to believe that _Candytuft--I mean Veronica_ (HUTCHINSON) is meant for romantic comedy and is not a one-Act farce hastily expanded by its author into three-hundred-page fiction form. The plot turns on a not very serious marital estrangement. _C. I. M. V._ (she had called herself _Veronica_ suddenly one day after reading RUSKIN) decided that she must have an intellectual companion and (rather daringly) that he must be of the male sex. So her husband's best friend dressed himself up as a fantastic and extremely repulsive-looking poet with a red wig and padded waistcoat and indulged in fantastic rhodomantades in order to disillusionise her. Well enough on the knock-about stage, of course. But, if I am to treat _C. I. M. V._ from the mildly satiric standpoint, which I fancy that MABEL BARNES-GRUNDY would prefer me to adopt, _Mr. Shakespeare Waddilove_ is rather a big mouthful to swallow, even if I can accommodate my throat to the supposition that the lady would have allowed her husband to choose her Platonic friend for her and promise beforehand to give him a two months' trial. She did come from Streatham, I know, before she went to live in the country; but still the trams run all the way from Streatham to Charing Cross--and that padded waistcoat! However there are some amusing passages in _Candytuft--I mean Veronica_, and so I shut both eyes and gulped as hard as I could.

* * *

Do you know _Mrs. Shovell? Violet Ashwin_ she was, and married young _Charlie Shovell_, some sort of a publisher and really rather a nice fool. She is an absolute dear. Gay and loyal and adorably kind. No, not a bit sentimental. Shy and yet has a way with her, and, thank Heaven, not the least bit of a scalp-hunter. We did think that _Master Charles_, who was distinctly by way of being a philanderer, mightn't perhaps run quite straight. But she's done wonders with him. Might I introduce you? Certainly? Then get _Duke Jones_ (SIDGWICK AND JACKSON), by ETHEL SIDGWICK. She's entirely responsible for these nice people, and for _Lady Ashwin, Violet's_ utter beast of a mother, and _Sir Claude_, that brick of a man and doctor, and insufferable _Honoria_ and naughty bewitching _Lisette_, who came badly to grief and was pulled out of a really rotten hole by _Jones. E. M. Jones_ (_M_ for _Marmaduke_) was the fellow who worshipped _Violet_ at sight and was ever after her faithful dog.... I've put down this book with real regret. I can't help worrying as to whether there really is such a person as _Violet_ because I might have the fortune to meet her. Really, Miss SIDGWICK has an extraordinary power of making you feel friends (or bitter enemies) with her puppets, who aren't puppets at all. I've had the bad luck to miss _A Lady of Leisure_, to which _Duke Jones_ is a sequel, but I'll readily take the responsibility of advising you to get it first.

* * *

Those who do not accept Archbishop LANG'S view that the KAISER is too sacred a subject for mirth should spend sixpence and a quarter of an hour on _Keep Smiling_ (NASH). In dealing with the inexhaustible theme of WILLIAM'S Lie Factory, Messrs. WALTER EMANUEL and JOHN HASSALL are at their best.

* * * * *

Illustration:

_Sergeant Instructor._ "WHAT'S YER NAME?"

_Sir Angelo Frampington, R.A._ "FRAMPINGTON."

_Sergeant._ "WELL, 'OLD YER 'EAD UP, FRAMPINGTON."

* * * * *