Part 37

"And what then, sirr?"

"What then? We shall go on pushing them until another Division relieves us."

Bogle nodded comprehendingly. He now had firmly fixed in his mind the essential details of the projected great offensive of 1916. He was not interested to go further in the matter. And it is this very faculty--philosophic trust, coupled with absolute lack of imagination--which makes the British soldier the most invincible person in the world. The Frenchman is inspired to glorious deeds by his great spirit and passionate love of his own sacred soil; the German fights as he thinks, like a machine. But the British Tommy wins through owing to his entire indifference to the pros and cons of the tactical situation. He settles down to war like any other trade, and, as in time of peace, he is chiefly concerned with his holidays and his creature comforts. A battle is a mere incident between one set of billets and another. Consequently he does not allow the grim realities of war to obsess his mind when off duty. One might almost ascribe his success as a soldier to the fact that his domestic instincts are stronger than his military instincts.

Put the average Tommy into a trench under fire how does he comport himself? Does he begin by striking an attitude and hurling defiance at the foe? No, he begins by inquiring, in no uncertain voice, where his ---- dinner is? He then examines his new quarters. Before him stands a parapet, buttressed mayhap with hurdles or balks of timber, the whole being designed to preserve his life from hostile projectiles. How does he treat this bulwark? Unless closely watched, he will begin to chop it up for firewood. His next proceeding is to construct for himself a place of shelter. This sounds a sensible proceeding, but here again it is a case of "safety second." A British Tommy regards himself as completely protected from the assaults of his enemies if he can lay a sheet of corrugated-iron roofing across his bit of trench and sit underneath it. At any rate it keeps the rain off, and that is all that his instincts demand of him. An ounce of comfort is worth a pound of security.

He looks about him. The parapet here requires fresh sandbags; there the trench needs pumping out. Does he fill sandbags, or pump, of his own volition? Not at all. Unless remorselessly supervised, he will devote the rest of the morning to inventing and chalking up a title for his new dug-out--"Jock's Lodge," or "Burns' Cottage," or "Cyclists' Rest"--supplemented by a cautionary notice, such as--No Admittance. This Means You. Thereafter, with shells whistling over his head, he will decorate the parapet in his immediate vicinity with picture postcards and cigarette photographs. Then he leans back with a happy sigh. His work is done. His home from home is furnished. He is now at leisure to think about "they Gairmans" again. That may sound like an exaggeration; but "Comfort First" is the motto of that lovable but imprudent grasshopper, Thomas Atkins, all the time.

A sudden and pertinent thought occurred to Mr. Bogle, who possessed a Martha-like nature.

"What way, sir, will a body get his dinner, if we are to be fighting for twa-three days on end?"

"Every man," replied Angus, "will be issued, I expect, with two days' rations. But the Colonel tells me that during hard fighting a man does not feel the desire for food--or sleep either for that matter. Perhaps, during a lull, it may occur to him that he has not eaten since yesterday, and he may pull out a bit of biscuit or chocolate from his pocket, just to nibble. Or he may remember that he has had no sleep for twenty-four hours--so he just drops down and sleeps for ten minutes while there is time. But generally, matters of ordinary routine drop out of a man's thoughts altogether."

"That's a queer-like thing, a body forgetting his dinner!" murmured Bogle.

"Of course," continued Angus, warming to his theme like his own father in his pulpit, "if Nature is expelled with a pitchfork in this manner, for too long, tamen usque recurret."

"Is that a fact?" replied Bogle politely. He always adopted the line of least resistance when his master took to audible rumination. "Weel, I'll hae to be steppin', sir. I'll pit these twa blankets oot in the sun, in some place where the dooks frae the pond will no get dandering ower them. And if you'll sorrt your books, I'll hand ower the yins ye dinna require to the Y.M.C.A. hut ayont the village."

Bogle cherished a profound admiration for Lieutenant M'Lachlan both as a scholar and a strategist, and absorbed his deliverances with a care and attention which enabled him to misquote the same quite fluently to his own associates. That very evening he set forth the coming plan of campaign, as elucidated to him by his master, to a mixed assemblage at the Estaminet au Clef des Champs. Some of the party were duly impressed; but Mr. Spike Johnson, a resident in peaceful times of Stratford-atte-Bow, the recognised humourist of the Sappers' Field Company attached to the Brigade, was pleased to be facetious.

"It won't be no good you Jocks goin' over no parapet to attack no 'Uns," he said, "after what 'appened last week!"

This dark saying had the effect of rousing every Scottish soldier in the estaminet to a state of bristling attention.

"And what was it," inquired Private Cosh with heat, "that happened last week?"

"Why," replied Mr. Johnson, who had been compounding this jest for some days, and now saw his opportunity to deliver it with effect at short range, "your trenches got raided last Wednesday, when you was in' em. By the Brandyburgers, I think it was."

The entire symposium stared at the jester with undisguised amazement.

"Our--trenches," proclaimed Private Tosh with forced calm, "were never raided by no--Brandyburrrgerrs! Was they, Jimmie?"

Mr. Cosh corroborated, with three adjectives which Mr. Tosh had not thought of.

Spike Johnson merely smiled, with the easy assurance of a man who has the ace up his sleeve.

"Oh yes, they was!" he reiterated.

"They werre not!" shouted half a dozen voices.

The next stage of the discussion requires no description. It terminated, at the urgent request of Madame from behind the bar, and with the assistance of the Military Police, in the street outside.

"And now, Spike Johnson," inquired Private Cosh, breathing heavily but much refreshed, "can you tell me what way Gairmans could get intil the trenches of a guid Scots regiment withoot bein' seen?"

"I can," replied Mr. Johnson with relish, "and I will. They got in all right, but you didn't see them, because they was disguised."

Cosh and Tosh snorted disdainfully, and Private Nigg, who was present with his friend Buncle, inquired--

"What way was they disguised?"

Like lightning came the answer--