Chapter VII

Just contemplate the Billeting Officer’s parlous position. The briefest period of grace is conceded to him, in which he and his accomplices cycle furiously ahead of the Battalion to distribute the billets in the area allotted to them. Even as the Billeting Officer, dusty and damp-browed, receives, on arriving at his destination, from the Staff Captain of the Brigade, the list of billets set apart for his Battalion, he can hear, with the ears of his mind, the Battalion marching towards him with the leaden feet of inexorable destiny. Every minute brings them nearer; every minute shortens that brief breathing space in which he must complete all his arrangements and present himself, calm and unruffled, with a complete map of the locality in his mind, at the entrance of the village, to lead the incoming troops to their quarters.

The Billeting Officer must combine the organising genius of a William Whiteley with the quickness of decision of a Napoleon. He must be gentle as the dove, cunning as the serpent. He must be all things to all men--firm with recalcitrant peasants, persuasive with fussy beldames, glib with weary and fractious officers who look for beds when there are no beds.

The Billeting Officer must be an optimist, unfailing and uncompromising. He must survey the world through the rosy spectacles of the house agent. As in the house advertisements in the newspapers, so to him all residences must be “stately” or “well-appointed,” all villas “pretty” or “charming,” all rooms “lofty,” all barns “spacious.”

He and every man of his Billeting Party are cold and calculating egoists. The four Quartermaster-Sergeants of the Battalion who accompany him are, each and individually, solely concerned with securing the best billet for their own companies. The Pioneer Sergeant has come forth to seek the largest and roomiest barn in sight for the housing of the Quartermaster’s stores; the Drill-Sergeant is heart and soul devoted to the interests of the Orderly Room, the Guard Room, the Medical Inspection Room, and quarters for the signallers and the Drums; as for the poor Billeting Officer, tossed to and fro like a shuttlecock between all these conflicting currents, his dominant idea is to find some kind of decent billet for the Commanding Officer and Headquarters. Nor must he ever lose sight of the fact that, if he gives the officers of his own company anything like good quarters, he will unload upon his own devoted head all the lightnings of the other company messes.

The Billeting Party, headed by our Ensign, set off on bicycles on a delicious summer morning for the village of F----, the next half of the Brigade, on what some one called its “one night stands” about the country. The faithful Johnson had procured for his “master” from the Signalling Sergeant a bicycle, which, in consideration of a little cleaning and oiling, ran somewhat better than army machines generally do. On the road they fell in with billeting parties from the other battalions of the Brigade, and on the face of each Billeting Officer dull care had graven a deep furrow.

Outside the church of F----, an ugly bogus Gothic structure, red and staring, like the picture on a child’s box of bricks, the Staff Captain met them by appointment, and handed each Billeting Officer a list setting forth the numbers of the different billets at the disposal of the Battalion. Every house in the war zone in France bears a number stencilled on the door, and underneath, an entirely fabulous computation of the numbers of “Hommes” or “Chevaux” that can be lodged there.

Billeting at F---- was unusually easy. The barns were large and in good repair, and the local inhabitants, while somewhat resigned, were friendly. The four companies were allotted billets without difficulty, and even the Drill-Sergeant found quarters for all his different charges. But accommodation for the officers was a different matter. Our Ensign found lodgings for the four company commanders, _tant bien que mal_; the Interpreter, who was of the party, arranged with the local curé to put up the Chaplain; and our Ensign kept in his mind’s eye a certain _coquet_ little red-brick villa, marked down on his list as affording accommodation for five officers, for the Headquarters billet.

But at the very door of the villa disaster was lurking. Two dragoon officers met them in the garden.

“Is this billet free?” asked our Ensign with fear in his heart.

“No,” said one of the dragoons promptly; “there are five of us in here--Corps cavalry--been here for weeks.”

“But it’s down on my list as our billet,” objected our Ensign.

“I know,” was the calm reply; “we’ve had about six fellows before you after it--I’ve told the Mayor to scratch it off!”

Our Ensign looked at the list again. Then he saw a tiny smudge, which on closer investigation proved to be an asterisk. “Probably occupied” was the note he read at the foot of the page.

The list was exhausted--none of the rooms they had seen would do for Headquarters; so our Ensign, with the optimism of the Billeting Officer nascent in his breast, started to look for a clean bivouac where Headquarters might be accommodated in tents. They presently found a large grassy orchard which seemed suitable for the purpose. It lay behind a farm, where our Ensign duly demanded the requisite permission.

An extremely dirty, red-eyed old woman was the _propriétaire_. She had a large, bare, and very dilapidated room, swarming with flies, which she offered; but she resolutely set her face against letting the orchard be used.

She wagged her old head stubbornly.

“_Non, non, non!_” she croaked, “_j’n’veux pas! La dernière fois les soldats ont joué au ballon dans le verger ... ils ont tout abimé ... j’n’veux pas!_”

Our Ensign explained with much persuasiveness, but with a horrid fear in his mind that the Battalion would arrive any instant, that only officers would be lodged there who never played football, and who, by their very presence, would prevent the irruption of _ballon_-kicking soldiery.

Then the Interpreter took a hand and drew a superb word-picture of the innate courtliness and good behaviour of every British officer--of these officers in particular--and of the Commanding Officer most of all.

The old harridan began to yield.

“_Mais, bien sûr_,” she muttered irresolutely, “_ils vont casser mes arbres...._”

The Interpreter spoke again. These officers were rich and generous. They would do no damage, but any damage they might do would be paid for: of that she might rest assured. The officers would buy her chickens, her butter, her eggs: the noble young man at his side was even at that moment ready to invest five francs in the produce of the farm (this on a whispered suggestion from our Ensign). She would be reasonable; she would not regret it.

Then, at last, the old lady gave way.

“_Je veux bien, alors_,” she said, “_pourvu qu’on ne va pas jouer au ballon!_”

Thus it was settled, the double-company mess was installed in the old lady’s room in consideration of a _douceur_ of 2 francs 50 a day, and our Ensign rushed away to the entrance of the village to await the coming of the Brigade.

The Brigade arrived with its usual punctuality in a cloud of dust behind the Drums, each Battalion being taken charge of by its Billeting Officer as it marched in, the quartermaster-sergeants leading the different companies into their billets. The men swarmed into the farmyards and dumped their packs and rifles in the barns, then lined up in the yards of their billets for the customary foot inspection--in bare feet, their boots and socks in their hands. The cookers, all smoking, with their begrimed attendants trudging behind, lumbered into the billets, the little billet-boards appeared outside gateways and doors, the guards were mounted, and then the officers, dusty and hot, came streaming into the messes where the mess servants, surrounded by dogs and cats and poultry and small children, were unpacking the mess-boxes and getting lunch.

Our Ensign walked up to the Mess to receive congratulations on the success of his arrangements. He was given a chilly reception.

“I suppose we have the worst mess in the place,” said Roderick gloomily; “the cobbler’s children are always the worst shod, and the Billeting Officer’s mess always gets the rottenest accommodation!”

“I can’t imagine,” said El Capitan, one of the company commanders, “why you put me to sleep next door to X. I have to go through his room to get to mine, and you know how he hates being disturbed!”

“I suppose you’ve arranged for tents,” said somebody else darkly; “of course the simple life is very healthy and all that, but there’s the devil of a storm blowing up, and what sleeping out in the open in your beautiful orchard to-night will be like, the Lord only knows!”

Then the mess waiter, entering, informed our Ensign that there were no potatoes: could he get some anywhere? That Madame would not allow the cook to make a fire in the courtyard: would he speak to her? That they had sent up word from the medical inspection room to know whether the Heavies were entitled to be in the same billet: would the Billeting Officer mind stepping across there and seeing about it?

Our Ensign put down his drink untasted, and holding his head in his hands, staggered out into the hot sunshine. In the street he met an ensign of one of the other companies, dusty, doleful, and dejected.

“Got a good mess?” he asked our Ensign.

Our young man assumed an air of Christian resignation.

“Nobody could have a worse mess than we’ve got,” continued the other, and added pointedly, “but, _of course_, you’re all right!”

Our Ensign laughed bitterly and went his way. Black is the lot of the Billeting Officer.

But when he returned to his mess the soothing influence of luncheon had worked wonders. The gramophone was playing, and the mess beamed at its late victim over its coffee and cigarettes. The sun was shining brightly out of the blue sky; the tents were being pitched in the orchard; altogether life had assumed a fairer hue. The gust had passed. And our Ensign, eating his lunch, reflected that campaigning is, after all, but a series of gusts: a gust of pleasant days, a gust of bad ones; a gust of easy times, a gust of unfortunate incidents and “strafeing,” when everything seems to go wrong; a gust of peaceful wanderings like the present, and then a gust of war, of stern reality, the gust to come.

That afternoon some of them took horses and rode across to visit the adjacent “Grottoes,” which, according to the Interpreter, were the principal attraction in the way of sight-seeing in that part of the country. In the village outside which the Grottoes were situated, our Ensign came across The Lad, whose Battalion was billeted in the place. The Lad, with a party of his brother officers, was, to our Ensign’s intense delight, engaged in heated controversy with his Billeting Officer. As few things are harder to bear than the annoyance of a good example, so is nothing more consoling to the victim of injustice than to see his fellow in the same pass.

The Grottoes consisted of a series of high-roofed caves and narrow galleries cut out of the soft chalk, and running far into the bowels of the earth. To the archæologist or geologist they would doubtless have proved of enthralling interest, for the old gentleman who had made their exploration his life work had filled case upon case with those chipped and dusty fragments of flint in which the scientific mind rejoices. To our Ensign and his companions the main interest of the Grottoes consisted in the fact that they were beautifully cool, and also that the Germans were known to have made good use of similar caves in such fortified villages as Beaumont Hamel and Les Bœufs.

The young French girl who showed them round by the light of a candle informed them, with all the glib fluency of the professional guide, that in feudal times the Grottoes had been quarries in which the serfs quarried the chalk for local lordlings, and that at different periods of history the caves had afforded refuge to various bands of brigands, including some jolly fellows rejoicing in the name of the Flayers of the North. Refugees had found sanctuary there in the French Revolution, and at the time of the Prussian invasion of 1870 the civil population had likewise made the caves their hiding-place.

“The Grottoes extend for two kilometres,” wound up the young French lady; “one franc is the charge for the whole trip: fifty centimes for the shorter journey.”

“How far did she say?” asked one of the visitors.

“Two kilometres,” replied our Ensign.

“Tell her we’ll give her a franc and take the short trip,” came back the reply ... and Science hid her head.... “I want my tea!”

As they paid the girl at the entrance, before going away, our Ensign asked her if she were the regular guide.

“_Avant la guerre_,” she answered, “_c’était mon père qui faisait le guide. Mais lui et mes deux frères sont partis pour l’armée et depuis, il n’y a que moi et ma sœur qui restent!_”

“Are they all right, your father and brothers?” somebody asked.

“_Papa est tombé à Verdun_,” she replied; “_un de mes frères est prisonnier en Allemagne: l’autre est encore là-bas, au front!_” And she wiped her eyes.

You can’t move far in France to-day without stepping into the shadow of the people’s mourning.

Then they went back into the blinding sunshine, and, mounting their horses, clattered back to F----. At the horse-lines, where they left their horses, they learnt that “Retreat” was to be played in the main street of the village by the massed Drums of the Brigade. So they all strolled off to the main street and found retreat in full swing.

It was a good show. The broad street running between the long, low, white farmhouses, with big gateways opening into the square courtyards, was thronged with men from the different battalions of the Brigade. Tall and sunburnt and well brushed, with their cap-stars and buttons well burnished, they lined the sides of the street, leaving the centre of the road free for the passage of the Drums.

In F---- was quartered a labour company of Senegalese, extraordinary nightmare objects, loose-limbed, lanky negroes, with coal-black faces seamed with tribal cuts, grinning from beneath high yellow tarbooshes, round the edge of which their thick woolly hair was fuzzed out, huge pouting lips, and a highly comic attire consisting of voluminous jebbahs of coarse canvas, snowy white, reaching below the knee, baggy white trousers, and heavy marching boots. Parties of these weird-looking creatures were now scattered about among the thick lines of Guardsmen, jolly as only negroes can be at the sound of music, grinning with a white flash of teeth, and chattering volubly in their African lingo. They were an extraordinary company, and their morning parade with picks and shovels, before going out to work on the roads, was the most excruciatingly funny thing a man ever saw.

Down the centre alley, between the lines of men, came the Drums, four drum-majors with their staffs in front. Behind them came the side-drums, the drummers’ hands raised high and falling together, the tenor drums, the fifes and the brass drums. On reaching the top or the bottom of the street, as the case might be, the leading files turned and marched through the succeeding files, each rank following suit.

It was a great moment for the Drums. The whole Brigade was in the street, from the Brigadier downwards: every eye was on the Drums, and the Drums bore themselves right gallantly. They crashed through all the well-known marches, to which the Brigade had trudged many a weary mile in France, and then came the crowning moment, the march based on the regimental airs of the Brigade of Guards.

One after the other the old familiar tunes rang out, amid a roll of drums that made the very windows rattle,--“The British Grenadiers,” of the Grenadiers; “Milanello,” that quaint, jingling march which the Coldstream picked up in Spain, and of which tradition says the original Spanish words are unprintable; the Scots Guards’ “Hieland Laddie,” the frankly joyous “St Patrick’s Day” of the Irish Guards, and the sonorous “Men of Harlech” of the Welsh Guards.

After the fantasia had ended in an abrupt crash, the Senior Drum-Major marched stiffly across the street to the Brigadier, and, saluting, asked for permission to dismiss. Then every officer’s right hand went to his cap and every man stiffened to attention as the Drums played “God Save the King,” the tones of which, both on land and sea, announce to the fighting forces the coming of night.

* * * * *

The next day the Brigade moved on again.