Chapter III: Part 3

He filed a carbon copy on another pin, and handed the original to an operator, who, in his turn, read it into the machine.

Inflexibly and monotonously the white and pink messages slowly accumulated. One brigade was in the enemy’s first line trenches, the other had stopped before a concreted nest of machine-guns. The general reinforced them with details from the 3rd Brigade, then rang up the artillery several times to tell them to destroy the pill box. And these orders were transcribed on to the pink and white forms. An officer, standing before the huge map, carefully manoeuvred small coloured flags, and all this methodical agitation reminded Aurelle of a large banking house on the Stock Exchange.

Towards six o’clock in the morning, a Staff officer beckoned to him, and, leading him up to the map, showed him the emplacement of a French .155 and asked him to go and see the officer, and tell him to destroy at all costs a certain railway cutting in which one or two enemy machine guns were still firing. The telephone was no longer working.

Outside everything was calm; it was raining and the road was a river of yellow mud. The noise of the guns seemed farther off, but it was only an illusion, because one could see the wicked red light of the shells as they burst over the village in front of the house.

A few wounded, in hasty field-dressings, bleeding and muddy, were coming slowly up to the ambulance in small groups. Aurelle entered a little fir wood; the wet pine-needles seemed delightful walking after the mud. He heard the guns of the French battery quite close, but could not find it. He had been told: "North-east corner of the wood." But where the devil was the north-east? All at once a blue uniform moved among the trees. At the same moment a gun went off quite close to him, and, turning to the right, he saw the gunners on the edge of the wood well hidden by some thick bushes. An adjutant, astride a chair, tunic undone, _képi_ pushed back, was in command. The men served the gun cleverly and without hurrying, like skilled workmen. One might have thought it a peaceful, open-air factory.

"_Mon adjudant_," said one of the men, "here is an interpreter."

"Ah, now, perhaps, we shall find out why we can’t get an answer from the English," said the adjutant.

Aurelle gave him the orders, as the captain was at the observation post, and the lieutenant trying to repair the telephone.

"Right," said the adjutant, a native of Lorraine with a quiet, sing-song voice. "We will demolish it for you, young man."

He telephoned to the captain; then, having found the cutting on the map, began his calculations. Aurelle stayed a few moments, glad to find this corner of the battlefield with no false romance, and also to hear French spoken again at last.

Then he took the path back to the château. Cutting across a meadow to find the high road, he approached the battle-field. A brigade of reinforcements was going up in line; he passed it in a contrary direction, with a few wounded to whom he offered a little brandy. The men who were going up to fight looked at the wounded in silence.

A shell whistled above the column; the heads bent like poplars in a wind. The shell burst in a deserted field. Then Aurelle, having passed the brigade, found himself on the road with the informal procession of wounded men. They had fever, they were dirty, they were bloody; but, thankful to be out of it, they hurried at the best pace they could muster towards the haven of white beds.

A company of German prisoners passed, guarded by a few Highlanders. Their terrified eyes, like those of trained animals, seemed to be looking for officers to salute.

As Aurelle arrived at the house, he saw two men in front of him carrying an officer on a stretcher. The officer evidently had some terrible wound, for his body was covered with dressings through which the blood had soaked, and was dripping slowly on to the muddy road.

"Yes, Aurelle, it’s I," said the dying man in a strange voice, and Aurelle recognized Captain Warburton. His good-looking, merry face had become grave. "O’Grady will not send me to the Duchess’ hospital this time, messiou," he gasped painfully. "Will you say good-bye to the colonel for me—and let him write home that I did not suffer much. Hope that won’t bother you. Thanks very much indeed."

Aurelle, without being able to get out a word, pressed the hand of this maimed boy who had been so fond of War, and the stretcher-bearers carried him gently away.

On arriving at the château he found every one as calm as ever, but very serious. He gave in a report of his mission to the Staff officer, who thanked him absently.

"How is it going?" he asked an operator in a low voice.

"All right," growled the man. "All objectives attained, but the general killed. Would go himself to see why the Second Brigade did not come up—a shell buried him with Major Hall."

Aurelle thought of the grey, smooth hair and fine features of the general, the gold and scarlet of his facings all soiled by the ignoble mud of battles. So much easy dignity, he thought, so much courteous authority, and to-morrow carrion, which the soldiers will trample under foot without knowing. But already, all round him, they were anxiously discussing who would be his successor.

In the evening, he went over to the Lennox with the regiment that was going to relieve them. The first person he saw was the doctor, who was working in a dug-out.

"I don’t think the regiment did badly," he said. "I have not seen the colonel yet, but all the men tell me he was a marvel of courage and presence of mind. It appears, messiou, that we have the record number of Germans killed by one man. Private Kemble bayoneted twenty-four. Not bad, is it?"

"No," said Aurelle, "but it’s horrible. Have you looked at Warburton, doctor? I met him on the road and he seemed very bad."

"Done for," said the doctor. "And his friend Gibbons died here this afternoon, both legs blown off."

"Oh, Gibbons too. Poor Gibbons! Do you remember, doctor, his talking about his plump little wife? No doubt at this very moment she is playing tennis with her sisters in some lovely English garden. And the bleeding limbs of her husband are there, in that blanket. It’s terrible, doctor, all this."

"Pooh!" answered the doctor, going to wash his hands, which were covered with blood. "In three months you will see her portrait in the _Tatler_: ’The beautiful widow of Captain Gibbons, M.C., who is shortly to be married to——’"

*CHAPTER XV*

The Lennox Highlanders, when the brigade was relieved, were sent for six days to a muddy field near Dickebusch. Dr. O’Grady and Aurelle shared a tent, and dined together, the first evening, at the inn of the _Trois Amis_.

On their return, the stars shone brightly in a dark blue velvet sky. The soft moonlight lay on the grass of the meadows. A few tents in which a light was burning resembled great white lanterns; round the bivouac fires, blown about by the wind, the men sat swearing and singing.

"War makes light of time," said the doctor, "it is eternal and unalterable. This camp might be Cæsar’s, the Tommies round their fires, talking of their wives and their dangers, their boots and their horses, like the legionaries of Fabius or the veterans of the Grand Army. And, as in those days, on the other side of the hill, repose the barbarous Germans by their unyoked chariots."

The burgundy of the _Trois Amis_ inspired the doctor to hold forth like this.

"This tent is six thousand years old," he said, "it belongs to the warlike Bedouins who founded the empires of Babylon and Carthage. The restlessness of the ancient migrating people inspired them with a longing for the desert every year, and sent them forth from the city walls on profitable raids. It is this same force, Aurelle, which each summer, before the war, covered the deserted shores of Europe with nomadic tents, and it is the dim recollection of ancestral raids which, on August 1, 1914 holiday time, Aurelle, the time of migrations—incited the youngest of the barbarians to let loose their Emperor on the world. It is an old comedy which has been played for two thousand years, but the public still seem to take an interest in it. It is because there is always a fresh audience."

"You are pessimistic this evening," said Aurelle.

"What do you call pessimism?" said the doctor, painfully pulling off his stiff boots. "I think that men will always have passions, and that they will never cease to go for one another at regular intervals with the most energetic means which the science of their time can procure for them, and the best chosen weapons with which to break each other’s bones. I think that one sex will always try to please the other, and that from this elementary desire will eternally be born the need to vanquish rivals. With this object, nightingales, grasshoppers, prima donnas and statesmen will make use of their voices; peacocks, niggers and soldiers, of bright colours; rats, deer, tortoises and kings will go on fighting. All that is not pessimism, it is natural history!"

While talking the doctor had got into his sleeping-bag, and had seized a little book from a shelf made out of a biscuit box.

"Listen to this, Aurelle," said he, "and guess who wrote it.

"’My regrets about the War are unceasing, and I shall consent to admire your invincible general when I see the fight ended under honourable conditions. It is true that the brilliant successes which are your delight are also mine, because these victories, if we would use fortune wisely, will procure for us an advantageous peace. But if we let the moment pass when we might appear to give peace rather than receive it, I much fear that this splendid achievement will vanish in smoke. And if fate sends us reverses I tremble to think of the peace which will be imposed on the conquered by an enemy who has the courage to refuse it to the conquerors?’"

"I don’t know," said Aurelle, yawning. "Maximilian Harden?"

"Senator Hanno at the Senate of Carthage." said the doctor triumphantly. "And in two thousand three hundred years some negro doctor, finding after the Great African War a speech by Lloyd George, will say, ’These old sayings are sometimes very true.’ Your formidable European War is about as important, Aurelle, as the fights between two ant-heaps in the corner of my garden in Ireland."

"It is much more than that to us," said Aurelle, "and it appears to me that the sort of sentiments it gives rise to are not animal. Do you think that ants are patriotic?"

"Most certainly," replied the doctor, "the ants must be extremely patriotic. With them the warriors are highly fed by a race of servitors. Every season their armies set out to steal the eggs of the weaker species. Workers are hatched from them, born slaves in a foreign country. The military citizens are thus delivered from the slavery of work and these soldiers cannot even feed themselves. Shut up with honey, and without their nurse-slaves, they die of hunger. That is what is called civil mobilization. And if this war lasts long enough, one day, Aurelle, you will see a new human species appear: soldier-men. They will be born with helmets and armour, impervious to bullets and provided with natural weapons; the Suffragettes will be the sexless slaves who will feed these warriors, while a few queens will, in special institutions, bring national infants into the world."

Thus discoursed the doctor, in the friendly silence of the camp by the soft light of the moon; and Aurelle, who had gone to sleep, saw visions of enormous ants in khaki marching by, commanded by the little doctor.

*CHAPTER XVI*

The orderlies brought the rum, sugar, and boiling water. The padre began patience, the colonel played "Destiny Waltz," and Dr. O’Grady, who in times of peace was doctor at an asylum, talked about lunatics.

"I had the care of a rich American who thought he was surrounded by a belt of poisoned gas," he said. "In order to save his life, he had a special bed made for himself surrounded by a cage of white wood. He passed his days in this safe shelter, dressed in nothing but a red bathing suit, writing a book in twenty thousand chapters on the life and works of Adam. His room had a triple door on which he had carved, ’Gas carriers are warned that there are wolf-traps inside.’ He sent for me every day, and when I went in he always said, ’I have never seen any creatures so stupid,’ so wicked, so rotten, or so dense as English doctors.’"

"’I have never seen,’" repeated the padre with great satisfaction, "’any creatures so stupid, so wicked, or so dense as English doctors.’"

"Upon which," continued the doctor, "he turned his back on me, and, clothed in his red bathing suit, set to work again at the twenty-thousandth chapter on the works of Adam."

"Here, messiou," interrupted the colonel, who was examining some official papers, "is some work for you," and he passed over to Aurelle a thick bundle of papers covered with multi-coloured seals.

It commenced thus:

"From the Stationmaster at B—— to the Military Superintendent of the Station at B——

"I have the honour to inform you that Mademoiselle Héninghem, gate-keeper at Hondezeele, complains of the following facts: the English soldiers camped along the railway line are in the habit of performing their ablutions in the open air, which is a shocking sight for the lady in question, who, from the nature of her work, cannot avoid seeing them. I shall be obliged if you will give orders that this regrettable state of affairs shall be put a stop to as soon as possible."

(Signature.)
(Seal.)

"From the Military Superintendent of the Station at B—— to the Superintendent W——

"Transmitted to the proper quarter."

(Signed.)
(Seal.)

"The Superintendent W—— to the D.A.D.R.T.

"I shall be obliged if you will give orders that the camp in question be surrounded with a fence of sufficient thickness to render the visibility at fifty yards’ distance practically nil."

"That last man," said Aurelle, "is a polytechnician."

The padre asked what that was.

"A polytechnician is a man who believes that all beings, alive or dead, can be precisely defined and submitted to an algebraic calculation. A polytechnician puts, on the same plane, victory, a tempest, and love. I knew one who, commanding a fortress and having to draw up some orders in case of aerial attack, began thus: ’The Fortress of X—— will be attacked by an aerial engine when a vertical line from the engine to the earth finds the centre of the fortification,’ and so on."

"Do not abuse the Polytechnic, Aurelle," said the doctor. "It is the most original of your institutions and the best. The personal cult of Napoleon is so well preserved that each year France presents two hundred Lieutenant Bonapartes to the astonished Government."

"Go on translating, messiou," said the colonel.

"D.A.D.R.T. to the Superintendent.

"This does not concern me but a division that is resting. You must address your claim to the A.G. by the intermediary of the French Mission."

(Signed.)
(Seal.)

"Superintendent —— to the Base Commandant G.H.Q.

"I have the honour to forward herewith, for any action you consider necessary, a Memorandum concerning a complaint from Mademoiselle Héninghem of Hondezeele."

(Signed.)
(Seal.)

And so it went on: Base Commandant to the French Mission; French Mission to the Adjutant-General; A.G. to the Army; Army to the Corps; Division to the Brigade; Brigade to the Colonel of the Lennox Highlanders. And it was signed with illustrious names, Colonel, Chief Staff Officer for the General, Brigadier, Major-General; thus the modest scruples of Mademoiselle Héninghem of Hondezeele were clothed, in the course of a long journey, with purple, gold and glory.

"This is a tiresome business," said Colonel Bramble solemnly. "Parker, answer it, will you, like a good chap."

The major wrote for several minutes, then read out:

"This regiment having left the Camp at Hondezeele two months and a half ago, it is unfortunately impossible to take the measures desired in the matter. Moreover, having ascertained the great cost of a fence of sufficient height, I beg to suggest that it would be more advantageous to the allied Governments to replace the gate-keeper at Hondezeele by a person of mature age and proved experience, to whom the spectacle described herewith would be inoffensive and even agreeable."

"No, Parker, no," said the colonel firmly, "I shall not sign that. Give me a piece of paper. I will answer myself."

He wrote simply:

"Noted and returned.
"BRAMBLE,
"Colonel."

"You are a wise man, sir," said Parker.

"I know the game," said the colonel. "I have played it for thirty years."

"Once upon a time," said the doctor, "there were two officers who, on the same day, each lost something belonging to His Majesty’s Government. The first one mislaid a coal-bucket; the second a motor-lorry. Now you must know, Aurelle, that in our army an officer has to pay for anything which he may lose by negligence out of his own pocket. The two officers, therefore, received notices from the War Office advising one that he would have to pay three shillings, and the other that a thousand pounds would be stopped from his pay. The first one wished to defend himself; he had never had any coal-buckets, and tried to prove it. He stopped his promotion, and in the end had to pay the three bob. The second, who knew a thing or two, just wrote at the bottom of the paper, ’Noted and returned,’ and sent it back to the War Office. There, following an old and wise rule, a clerk lost the correspondence and the officer never heard anything more of _that_ little matter."

"That isn’t a bad story, doctor," said Major Parker; "but in the case of the loss of property belonging to the Government there is a much better method than yours—Colonel Boulton’s method.

"Colonel Boulton commanded an ammunition depot. He was responsible, among other things, for fifty machine-guns. One day he noticed that there were only forty-nine in the depot. All the inquiries, and punishment of the sentries, failed to restore the missing machine-gun.

"Colonel Boulton was an old fox and had never acknowledged himself in the wrong. He simply mentioned in his monthly return that the tripod of a machine-gun had been broken. They sent him a tripod to replace the other without any comment.

"A month later, on some pretext or other, he reported the sighting apparatus of a machine-gun as out of order; the following month he asked for three screw-nuts; then a recoil plate, and bit by bit in two years he entirely destroyed his machine-gun. And correspondingly, bit by bit, the Army Ordnance Department reconstructed it for him without attaching any importance to the requisitions for the separate pieces.

"Then Colonel Boulton, satisfied at last, inspected his machine-guns, and found fifty-one.

"While he had been patiently reconstructing the lost gun, some damned idiot had found it in a corner. And Boulton had to spend two years of clever manipulation of his books to account for the new gun which had been evolved out of nothing."

"Messiou," said the colonel, "do you remember the gate-keeper at Hondezeele? I should not have thought it of her."

"No more should I," said Aurelle. "She was very pretty."

"Messiou!" said the padre.

*CHAPTER XVII*

"Doctor," said the padre, "give me a cigar."

"Are you aware, padre, that my cigars were rolled on the bare thighs of the young girls of Havana?"

"O’Grady," said the colonel severely, "I consider that remark out of place."

"Give me one all the same," said the padre. "I must smoke a cigar to help me find a text for my sermon. The quartermaster made me promise to go and see the motor-drivers who are at the back, and I don’t know what to talk to them about."

"Look here, padre, I will give you an appropriate text; lend me your Bible a moment. Ah, here it is. Listen! ’But David said, Ye shall not do so, my brethren, with that which the Lord hath given us ... but as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff; they shall part alike.’"

"Admirable," said the padre, "admirable! But tell me, O’Grady, how is it that an old sinner like you knows the Holy Scriptures so well?"

"I studied the Book of Samuel a good deal from an asylum doctor’s point of view," said the doctor. "Saul’s neurasthenia interested me. His attacks are very well described. I have also diagnosed the madness of Nebuchadnezzar. They were two very different types. Saul was apathetic and Nebuchadnezzar violent."

"I wish you would leave Nebuchadnezzar alone," said the colonel.

"I am very much afraid of asylum doctors," said Major Parker. "Violent, depressed, or apathetic, we are all mad, according to them."

"What do you call mad?" said the doctor. "I certainly can see in you, and in the colonel, and Aurelle, all the phenomena which I observed in the asylum."

"Ugh!" said the colonel, horrified.

"But I do, sir. Between Aurelle, who forgets the war by reading Tolstoi, and some of my old friends who thought they were Napoleon or Mahomet, there is a difference in degree but not in nature. Aurelle browses on novels from a morbid desire to live the life of someone else; my patients substitute for their miserable life that of some great personage whose history they have read and whose lot they envy.

"Oh, I know your objections, Aurelle. You know, all the time you are dreaming of the loves of Prince Bolkonsky, that you are the Interpreter Aurelle, attached to the Lennox Highlanders, but when Queen Elizabeth is scrubbing the floor of my office, she does not know that she is Mrs. Jones, charwoman, of Hammersmith. But incoherence is not the monopoly of madness: all the main ideas of a sane man are irrational erections built up, for better or worse, to express his deepest feelings."

"Parker," said the colonel, "can you think of anything to stop him?"

"A No. 5 grenade, sir," said the major.

But the doctor went on imperturbably:

"One of my patients was a country gentleman, who after being a model of piety for the first part of his life suddenly became an atheist. He gave carefully thought out reasons for it, and discoursed with a good deal of erudition on questions of doctrine, but the only true cause of his conversion to the wrong side was because his wife ran away with the clergyman of his village. Oh, I beg your pardon, padre, you don’t mind, do you?"

"I? I have not been listening to you for ages," said the padre, who was dealing out patience.

"It is just the same thing," continued the doctor, turning to the docile Aurelle, "with a man who is too refined for the class in which chance has placed him. At first he is simply jealous and unhappy. Influenced by these feelings, he becomes violently critical of society in order to account for his hate and disappointment.

"Nietzsche was a genius because he delighted in persecution. Karl Marx was a dangerous maniac. It is only when the feelings of discontent which he tries to explain coincide with those of a whole class, or a whole nation, that the impassioned theorist becomes a prophet, or a hero; while, if he confines himself to explaining that he would rather have been born an Emperor, they shut him up."

"Moral," said the major, "shut up all theorists."

"And the doctor," said the colonel.

"No, not all," said the doctor. "We treat the subject just as the ancients did. All primitive people thought that a lunatic was possessed by a spirit. When his incoherent words more or less accord with the moral prejudices of the time, the spirit is a good one, and the man is a saint. In the opposite case, the spirit is evil and the man must be suppressed. It is just according to the time and place and the doctors, whether a prophetess would be worshipped as a priestess or ducked as a witch. Innumerable violent lunatics have escaped the cells, thanks to the War, and their very violence has made heroes of them. And in every Parliament there are at least five or six undisputed idiots who got elected for their madness, through the admiration of their constituents."

"Say five or six hundred," said Major Parker, "and it will be the first sensible thing you have said to-night."

"That’s because my madness agrees with yours on that subject," said the doctor.

"Doctor," said the colonel, "you understand treatment by suggestion, don’t you? I wish you would calm down your hospital sergeant a bit. He is so nervous that he begins to tremble and becomes perfectly speechless if I speak to him. I really believe I terrify him. See what you can do, like a good fellow."

Next morning, Dr. O’Grady sent for Sergeant Freshwater to his tent and talked kindly to him.

Freshwater, a lean Albino with heavy stupid eyes, owned that he lost his head whenever the colonel came near him.

"Well, my friend," said the doctor, "we will cure you of that in five minutes. Sit down there."

He made some passes to create an atmosphere favourable to suggestion, then began:

"You are not afraid of the colonel, you know he is a man just like you and me—you rather like talking to him. Look closely at his face when he speaks to you. His moustache is always cut a little too short on the left side."

The doctor went on like this for a quarter of an hour describing the rugged features and funny ways of the colonel, then sent away the sergeant, telling him that he was cured, and not to forget it the first time he met his commanding officer.

A few hours later, Colonel Bramble, going out for his lunch, met the hospital sergeant on one of the duck-boards used for going through the camp. Freshwater stepped on one side, saluted, and began to laugh silently.

"Whatever is the matter, sergeant?" said the astonished colonel.

"Oh, sir," replied Freshwater in fits of laughter, "I cannot help laughing when I look at you, you have such a funny face!"

The colonel, in a few well-chosen words, destroyed the doctor’s learned suggestions for ever; then, establishing himself in front of the tinned lobster, he complimented O’Grady on his miraculous cure.

"I have never seen," said the padre, "any creatures so stupid, so wicked, so rotten, or so dense as English doctors."

"Medicine is a very old joke," said Major Parker, "but it still goes on. Now, doctor, tell the truth for once: what do you know more than we do about illnesses and their remedies?"

"That’s right," said the padre, "attack his religion; he often attacks mine."

"When I was in India," said the colonel, "an old army doctor gave me for every malady the remedy which just suited me. For palpitations of the heart, a large glass of brandy; for insomnia, three or four glasses of port after dinner; for stomachic disorders, a bottle of dry champagne at each meal. And, as long as one was feeling well, whisky and soda."

"Excellent, sir," said Aurelle. "Before the War I drank nothing but water and I was always ill; since I have been with you I have adopted whisky and I feel much better."

"Yes, you look it," said the colonel. "I had a friend, Major Fetherstonhaugh, who began to have fits of dizziness when he was about forty; he went to see a doctor who thought it was the whisky and advised him to drink milk for a time; well, in ten days he was dead."

"And a good thing too," said the padre.

"But I expect——" began the doctor.

"Happy are those who expect nothing," said the padre, "for they shall not be disappointed."

"What, you too, padre!" said the doctor. "Take care; if you ruin doctors by your malevolent remarks, I shall found a society for the exportation to the Colonies of mechanical idols and ovens for cooking missionaries."

"That is an excellent idea," said the padre. "I must see about it."

*CHAPTER XVIII*

The brigade, kept in reserve for the division, was ordered to go and camp at H——. As a dentist measures the extent of a cavity at a glance, the men of the Lennox, expert in bombardments, cast a professional eye over the village. Round the château and the church it was done for: houses in ruins, pavements torn up, trees smashed. The weaving factory had been badly damaged. The rest was not so unhealthy, a little knocked about, perhaps, but habitable.

The house where Colonel Bramble had established his Mess had already been hit by a shell. It had burst in the garden, breaking the window-panes and marking the walls. Madame, a dear little old lady, made light of these blemishes, which had depreciated her house in value.

"Oh, just a shell, _monsieur l’officier_!" she said. "Quite a small shell; I put the base of it there on my mantelpiece. It’s nothing, as you can see. True, they make a mess of everything, but I am not afraid of them!"

The colonel asked her how many windows had been broken.

"I don’t like this house," said the padre, as they sat down to dinner.

"The life of a soldier," replied the colonel, "is one of great hardship, not infrequently mingled with moments of real danger."

"Be not dismayed, padre," said the doctor. "Shells fall like drops of water: if it rains much the whole pavement gets wet."

"The Lennox Mess has always been lucky," said Major Parker.

"Luck is nothing," said the doctor.

"One can see you are not a gambler," remarked Aurelle.

"One can see that you are not a mathematician," said the doctor.

The padre expostulated:

"What? Luck nothing? How about little Taylor, killed by a shell in Poperinghe Station at the very moment that he was arriving at the front for the first time! You don’t call that bad luck?"

"Not more than if an old habitué like me was wiped out by a whizz-bang, padre. You are astonished at Taylor being killed the first minute, just as you would be surprised if, in a lottery of a million tickets, Number One should win, although that number had obviously as much chance as, say, 327,645. Someone must be the last man killed in this war, but you will see that his family will not think it ordinary."

"You are a fanatic, O’Grady," said Parker, "you must have an explanation for everything; there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I believe, myself, in good luck and bad luck because I have noticed it: I believe in presentiments because I have had them, and events have confirmed them. When I was being sent home, after the Transvaal War, I got an order to embark on a certain ship. Well, two days before it started I suddenly had a presentiment that I must avoid sailing in that ship at all costs. I went sick and waited a fortnight longer. The transport I missed was completely lost and no one ever knew how. Then again, why are you so certain, doctor, that aspirin will cure your headache? Because aspirin has cured it before. Where’s the difference?"

"The major is right," said Aurelle. "To say that you do not believe in a man’s bad luck because you cannot find it at his autopsy, is like saying that the tuner has taken the piano to pieces, and therefore Mozart had no soul."

The quartermaster, who was dining with them that evening, threw his weight into discussion:

"There _are_ things that cannot be explained, doctor. For instance, I hit you in the face: you shut your eye—why?"

There was an astounded silence.

"Another instance," remarked the padre at last. "Why is it that if there is a pause in the conversation, it is always twenty minutes to, or twenty minutes past, the hour?"

"But that’s not true," said the doctor.

"It was true this time, anyhow," said Aurelle, looking at his watch.

"It may be once or twice," said the doctor irritably, "but it cannot always happen."

"All right, doctor, all right," said the padre. "You notice it for several days and I think you will change your mind."

The colonel said:

"My men tell me that if a shell falls on a dug-out where there are gunners and infantry, the latter are killed and the gunners are spared. Why?"

"But it is not true, sir."

"And why must one never light three cigarettes with the same match?"

"But you may, sir, it does not matter a bit."

"Ah, there I disagree with you, doctor," said the colonel. "I am not superstitious, but I would not do that for anything in the world."

"Why do people dressed in green always lose at Monte Carlo?" said Aurelle.

"But it is not true!" roared the doctor, exasperated.

"It is easy to argue like you," said Parker. "Everything you do not agree with is not true."

"There are," said the padre, "no creatures so wicked and so dense as English doctors."

"Messiou," said the colonel, "are the gunners equally lucky in the French Army?"

"I have often remarked it," said Aurelle, who liked Colonel Bramble very much.

The colonel therefore triumphed, and tried to put an end to the discussion, which bored him.

"I am so very sorry," he said, "I cannot give you the gramophone to-night. I have no more needles."

"That _is_ a pity," said the padre.

The window-panes shook; a big gun went off close to the house. Aurelle went to the window and saw behind a farm, silhouetted in black against the orange twilight of the sky, a yellowish smoke, slowly dispersing.

"There’s the old man beginning to strafe again," said the padre. "I don’t like this house."

"You will have to put up with it, padre; the Staff captain won’t give us another; he’s a boy who knows his own mind."

"Yes," said the colonel, "he is a very nice boy too; he is one of Lord Bamford’s sons."

"His father, the old Lord, was a fine rider," said Parker.

"His sister," replied the colonel, "married a cousin of Graham, who was a major in our first battalion at the beginning of the War, and is now a brigadier-general."

Aurelle, foreseeing that such an interesting subject, so rich in the possibility of unexpected developments, would occupy the entire evening, tried to scribble some verses, still meditating on luck and chance.

"Tu l’as dit, ô Pascal, le nez de Cléopâtre,
S’il eût été plus court ... nous n’en serions pas là."

A new and formidable detonation put the subtle metre of rhyme out of his head; discouraged, he tried another:

"Croyez pas que je moralise,
Si je vous envoie ces bobards,
C’est que notre mess analyse
Ce soir la question du hasard..."

Another shell fell so close that the colonel got up suddenly.

"They are beginning to bombard the château again," he said. "I am going to see where that one fell."

Major Parker and the doctor followed him into the street, but Aurelle, who was again rhyming, stayed with the padre, who had just begun the same patience for the fourteenth time that evening. The three officers had gone about a hundred yards when another explosion took place behind them.

"That one was not far from the Mess," said the doctor. "I am going to tell Madame to go down into the cellar."

He retraced his steps and found a new shell-hole in front of the house. The house seemed all right; through the broken window the doctor saw the padre and called out to him:

"A near thing that time, padre. Are you all right? Where is Aurelle?"

But the padre did not move: with his head leaning on his arms crossed over the scattered cards, he appeared to be gazing vaguely at the doctor, who entered at a bound and touched the padre on the shoulder.

He was dead. A piece of shell had entered his temple, which was bleeding slowly. Aurelle had fallen on the floor. He was unconscious and covered with blood, but the doctor, bending over him, found that he still breathed. As he was unfastening his tunic and shirt, the colonel and Parker arrived with their measured tread and stopped abruptly at the door.

"The padre has been killed, sir," said the doctor simply. "Aurelle is hit, too, but I don’t think it is serious. No, it’s his shoulder—nothing much."

The colonel groaned sympathetically.

Parker helped O’Grady to lay the Frenchman on a table; a crumpled piece of paper attracted the colonel’s attention; he picked it up and read with difficulty:

"Pourquoi me fermes-tu les yeux
Lorsque tu me baises la bouche?"

"What is it all about?" he said.

"It belongs to Aurelle," said the doctor.

The colonel carefully folded the little sheet of paper and slid it respectfully into the young Frenchman’s pocket. Then, after the doctor had finished dressing the wound and had sent for an ambulance, they laid the padre on Madame’s humble bed. They all took their hats off and stood silent for some time contemplating the strangely softened features of the childlike old man.

The doctor looked at his watch; it was twenty minutes past nine.

*CHAPTER XIX*

Aurelle, on leaving hospital, was attached, while convalescent, to the English colonel, Musgrave, who commanded a supply depot at Estrées, a little village well behind the line. He missed the evenings with the Lennox Mess, but buying fodder and wood took him some way out into the pretty undulating country with its clear streams, and he loved Estrées, hiding its innumerable belfries among the flowery hills.

It was a very antique city, and in its youth, in the time of the _seigneurs_ of Estrées, had played an important part in the affairs of France. For several hundred years she had defended her ramparts against the troops of the Kings of England, and from her walls she could see those same soldiers to-day camped about her, this time as familiar and courteous guests. Her tenacious burghers had repulsed both Leaguers and Spaniards with equal success. She now slept in smiling old age, having seen too many things to be surprised any more, while still retaining from the times of her glory her casket of beautiful mansions, built among courts and gardens with the noble simplicity of line dating from the best periods.

Colonel Musgrave and his officers inhabited the large and handsome house of the Dutch merchant, Van Mopez, whom Colbert had established at Estrées to introduce the art of weaving and dyeing cloth. Aurelle liked to go and sit in the garden and read a History of Estrées written by Monsieur Jean Valines, correspondence member of the Amiens Academy, and author of "Nouvelles observations sur les miracles de la chapelle d’Estrées."

This excellent work contained accounts of the great rejoicings and high festivals with which Estrées the Faithful had received the Kings, when they came to kneel and worship at the feet of the miraculous image in the Chapel of St. Ferréol.

The municipal worthies, between the royal visits, prudently and carefully preserved the white and blue draperies embroidered with fleurs-de-lis, and the decorations of painted scenery.

The Revolution had rather upset these domestic arrangements; the fleurs-de-lis had to be removed and a red fringe sewn along the blue and white draperies, so that the square of Saint-Ferréol could be decorated at a small cost for the fête of the Supreme Being. Aurelle loved the description:

"The cortège, preceded by music and drums, consisted first of a half-company of the National Guard carrying a banner on which was inscribed: ’Up with the People, down with Tyrants.’

"Then came the mothers of families carrying their infants in their arms; children of both sexes clothed in the most beautiful ornaments of their age—innocence and candour; young girls adorned with their charms and virtues; and the members of that Society so dreaded by traitors, in which were united the defenders of the truth, the upholders of public opinion, and the indefatigable guardians of the people.

"The whole cortège gathered at the foot of a mound erected in the square of Saint-Ferréol. There, the people of Estrées swore fidelity to the laws of nature and humanity, and subsequently a group of figures representing Despotism and Imposture were consumed by flames; Wisdom arose out of the ashes and on his shield was written: ’I guard the Republic.’"

Aurelle turned over some pages, very few, for, as Monsieur Jean Valines said, the happy sterility of the archives of Estrées during the Revolution recorded no other facts worthy of notice than two fêtes, a fire, and a flood. Next came the visit of the First Consul. He came to Estrées accompanied by his wife and several general officers, and was received by the authorities under a triumphal arch, erected at the Saint-Ferréol Gate, adorned with this inscription: "The Grateful Inhabitants of this City swear Allegiance and Fidelity to the Conqueror of Marengo."

The Mayor presented the keys of the town on a silver dish covered with bay leaves. "I take them, _citoyen maire_, and I return them to you," replied Bonaparte.

"The National Guard lined the route and cries of ’Long live Bonaparte! Long live the First Consul!’ were repeated enthusiastically a thousand times. The First Consul visited the Van Mopez factory and distributed a day’s pay among the workmen. The day ended with illuminations and a brilliant ball.

"A short time after his marriage with Marie-Louise, Napoleon came back, accompanied by the Empress. The square of Saint-Ferréol was a magnificent spectacle, decorated with red and white draperies and garlands of green leaves. A triumphal arch had been erected with the inscription: ’_Augusto Napoleoni Augustæque Mariæ Ludovicæ Strataville semper fidelis_.’"

A few more pages further on and it was March, 1814; for six days no couriers got through to Estrées from Paris, and then she heard of the fall of the Emperor.

"At three o’clock in the afternoon, the magistrates, assembled in the Town Hall, summoned the inhabitants with the ringing of bells. The Mayor appeared on the balcony of the large hall and proclaimed the allegiance of the town to the restored Bourbons. The spectators received this speech with oft-repeated cries of ’Long live the King!’ ’Long live Louis XVIII!’ and all put on the white cockade.

"The news soon came that Louis XVIII had landed at Calais and that he would pass through Estrées. A guard of honour was formed and a triumphal arch was erected at the Saint-Ferréol gate. It bore this inscription: ’_Regibus usque suis urbs Stratavilla fidelis_.’

"The clergy from every parish approached to compliment the King, and the Mayor presented the keys of the town on a silver dish adorned with fleurs-de-lis. The King replied, ’Monsieur le maire, I take the flowers, and give you back the keys.’ Then the sailors and footmen unharnessed the horses from the carriage, and drew him themselves into the town. The excitement of the crowd was impossible to describe; every house was decorated with blue and white draperies and green garlands, mottoes and white flags, covered with fleurs-de-lis.

"The King was present at a _Te Deum_ sung in Saint-Ferréol, and repaired, still drawn by sailors, to the Abbey of Saint-Pierre, where he was to lodge the night."

The evening drew slowly in; the quaint, thick lettering of the old book was becoming indistinct, but Aurelle wanted to finish the melancholy history of these inconstant people. Skipping the triumphal entry of Charles X, he came to the July insurrection.

"On the 29th of July, 1830, there were no newspapers; but letters and a few travellers arriving from Paris announced that the tricolour flag had been hoisted on the towers of Notre-Dame. A few days later they learnt that the fighting had stopped, and that the heroic population of the capital remained in possession of all their outposts.

"Louis-Philippe, accompanied by the Dukes of Orleans and Nemours, soon after passed Estrées on his way to Lille. He was received under a triumphal arch by the Mayor and Corporation. Every house was hung with draperies in the three colours. An immense crowd filled the air with their acclamations. The King arrived at the square of Saint-Ferréol, where the National Guard and several companies of _douaniers_ awaited him.

"The various corps of the urban guards in their best clothes; the strangeness of the rural guards, with a large number of Napoleon’s old soldiers in their ranks with their original uniforms; the intrepid seamen of Cayeux carrying in triumph their fishing prizes, ten old tricolour banners; the sailors, with their carbines, bandoliers and cutlasses in their hands, all made the gayest of spectacles, and the picturesque fête delighted the King and the officers of his staff."

There Jean Valines’ book concluded, but Aurelle, while watching the garden fading slowly in the twilight, amused himself by imagining what followed. A visit from Lamartine, no doubt; then one from Napoleon III, the triumphal arches and inscriptions, and quite lately, perhaps, Carnot or Fallières receiving from the mayor, in the square of Saint-Ferréol, the assurance of the unalterable devotion of the faithful people of Estrées to the Republic. Then in the future: unknown governors, the decorations, perhaps red, perhaps blue, until the day when some blind god would come and crush with his heel this venerable human ant-hill.

"And each time," he mused, "the enthusiasm is sincere and the vows loyal, and these honest tradesmen rejoice to see passing through their ancient portals the new rulers, in the choice of whom they have had no part.

"Happy province! You quietly accept the Empires which Paris brings forth with pain, and the downfall of a government means no more to you than changing the words of a speech or the flowers on a silver dish. If Dr. O’Grady were here he would quote Ecclesiastes to me."

He tried to remember it:

"What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever.

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

"Aurelle," said Colonel Musgrave, who had quietly approached, "if you want to see the bombardment after dinner, go up to the top of the hill. The sky is all lit up. We attack to-morrow morning."

And a distant muffled thundering floated on the calm evening air. A melancholy and ancient peal of bells rang out from the Spanish belfry in the market-place. The first stars twinkled above the two ironical towers of the church of Saint-Ferréol and the proud old town fell asleep to the familiar sound of battle.

*CHAPTER XX*

Colonel Musgrave was drinking his coffee in the handsome _salon_ of the merchant, Van Mopez; he opened a pink official telegram and read:

"Director of Commissariat to Colonel Musgrave. Marseilles Indian Depot overcrowded meet special train 1000 goats with native goatherds find suitable quarters and organize temporary farm."

"Damn the goats!" he said.

His job being to feed Australians, he thought it hard that he had to bear in addition the consequences of the religious laws of the Hindoos. But nothing troubled Colonel Musgrave long; he sent for his interpreter.

"Aurelle," he said, "I am expecting a thousand goats this evening; you will take my motor and scour the country. I must have a suitable piece of ground in five hours and a small building for the shepherds. If the owner refuses to let you hire them, you will commandeer them. Have a cigar? Good-bye."

Having thus disposed of this first anxiety, he turned to his adjutant.

"We now want an O.C Goats!" he said. "It will be an excellent reason for getting rid of Captain Cassell, who arrived yesterday. _Captain_! I asked him what he did in peace-time—musical critic of the _Morning Leader_!"

So that is how Captain Cassell, musical critic, was promoted goatherd-in-chief. Aurelle found a farmer’s wife whose husband had been called up, and he persuaded her, at the cost of much eloquence, that the presence of a thousand goats in her orchards would be the beginning of all sorts of prosperity. He went in the evening to the station with Cassell to fetch the goats, and they both passed through the town at the head of the picturesque flock, herded by ancient Indians, who looked exactly like the shepherds in the Bible.

Colonel Musgrave ordered Cassell to send him a hundred goats per day for the front. After the fourth day Cassell sent over a short note by one of the children from the farm, announcing, as if it were quite a natural thing, that his flock would be exhausted the next day and asking for another contingent of goats.

On opening this extraordinary missive, the colonel was so choked with rage that he forgot to proclaim, according to custom, that Cassell was a damned fool. The numbers were too simple for an error to be possible. Cassell had received one thousand goats; he had sent off four hundred, he ought to have six hundred left.

The colonel ordered his car and commanded Aurelle to take him to the farm. A pretty, deeply cut road led them there. The buildings were in the rustic, solid style of the end of the eighteenth century.

"It is a charming spot," said the interpreter, proud of his find.

"Where is that damned fellow Cassell?" said the colonel.

They found him in the kitchen having a French lesson from the farmer’s daughter. He got up with the easy grace of a rural gentleman whom friends from town had surprised in his hermitage.

"Hullo, colonel," he said, "I am very glad to see you."

The colonel went straight to the point:

"What’s this damned letter that you sent me this morning? You received a thousand goats; you sent me four hundred of them. Show me the others."

The ground behind the farm sloped gently down to a wooded valley; it was planted with apple-trees. Near a stable, sitting in the mud, the Hindoo shepherds tasted prematurely the joys of Nirvana.

A horrible smell arose from the valley, and, coming nearer, the colonel saw about a hundred swollen and rotting carcases of goats scattered about the enclosure. A few thin kids dismally gnawed the bark of the apple-trees. In the distance, among the copses which covered the other side of the valley, one could see goats which had escaped browsing on the young trees. At this lamentable sight, Aurelle pitied the unfortunate Cassell.

The colonel maintained a hostile and dangerous silence.

"Isn’t it beautiful, colonel," said the musical critic with soft and stilted speech, "to see all those little white spots among the green?"

* * * * *

"Could not one," suggested Aurelle on the return journey, "ask the advice of a competent man? Perhaps goats cannot stand sleeping out of doors in this damp climate, and perhaps also they are not being fed properly."

The colonel frowned.

"In the South African war," he said after a silence, "we used a large number of oxen for our transport. One day these damned oxen started dying by hundreds, and no one knew why. Great excitement at headquarters. Some general found an expert, who, after boring the whole army with his questions, ended by declaring that the oxen were cold. He had noticed the same sickness in the north of India. There they protected the beasts by making them wear special clothing. Any normal individual with common sense could see that the oxen were simply overworked. But the report followed its course, and arrived at general headquarters, and from there they wired to India for a few thousand rugs for cattle.

"So far all went well, the oxen died as fast as ever, the well-paid expert had a damned good time—up to the arrival of the rugs. It is very easy to put clothing on an Indian cow who waits patiently with lowered head. But an African bullock—you try, and see what it’s like. After several trials, our drivers refused to do it. They sent for the expert and said to him, ’You asked for rugs for the beasts: here they are. Show us how to put them on.’ He was damned lucky to get out of hospital in six months."

That same evening another pink telegram arrived from the Director of Commissariat:

"Goats arrive at the front half dead pray take steps that these animals may have some wish to live."

Colonel Musgrave then decided to telegraph to Marseilles and ask for an expert on goats.

The expert arrived two days later, a fat farmer from the South, sergeant of Territorials. With the help of Aurelle, he had a long conversation with the colonel.