Part 15

There is one street in Ypres that I knew in peace time. It wound in and out between the stiff, white houses, and the little Flemish children would make it echo to their shouts and laughter, until you could scarcely hear the rumble and the rattle of the carts on the cobbles of the main street, near by. And I passed along the same winding way during the second battle of Ypres. The shattered houses stretched jagged edges of brickwork towards the sky, the road was torn up, and the paving stones were piled up grotesquely against each other. Outside the convent, where I seemed to catch the dim echo of children's laughter, lay a smashed limber--the horse was on its back, with its legs stuck up stiffly; and, just touching the broken stone cross that had fallen from above the convent door, lay the figure of the dead driver.

And, of all that I remember of Ypres, it is of this that I think most often, for it is a symbol of the place itself--the dead man lying by the cross, sign of suffering that leads to another life. The agony of Ypres will render it immortal; for if ever a town deserved immortality, it is surely this old, ruined city on the plains of Flanders.

XII

"PONGO" SIMPSON ON GRUMBLERS

I was in my dug-out, trying to write a letter by the intermittent light of a candle which was extinguished from time to time by the rain drops that came through the roof, when I suddenly heard the squelching of mud, the sound of slipping, and an appalling splash. Someone had fallen into the shell hole just outside.

I waited a moment, and I heard the well-known voice of "Pongo" Simpson. "Strike me pink!" he spluttered, as he scrambled up the steep bank out of the water. "An' I gone an' forgot me soap. The first bath as I've 'ad for six weeks, too." And he blundered into my dug-out, a terrible object covered in slimy mud from head to foot, and when he breathed little showers of mud flew off his moustache.

"Hullo," I said, "you seem to be wet."

"Sorry, sir," said "Pongo," "I thought as 'ow this was my dug-out. Wet, sir? Gawd! Yes, I should think I was wet," and he doubled up to show me, while a thin stream of muddy water trickled from his hair on to my letter. "'Owever, it ain't no good to grumble, an' it's better to fall in a shell hole than to 'ave a shell fall on me. I've got some 'ot tea in me own dug-out, too."

When he had gone, I crumpled up my muddy letter, and I confess that I purposely listened to his conversation, for his dug-out was only separated from mine by a few horizontal logs piled up on each other.

"Well, you see, it ain't no good to grouse," he was saying to someone. "I've got mud up me nose an' in me eyes, and all down me neck, but it won't go away 'owever much I grumbles. Now, there's some blokes as grouses all the time--'ere, Bert, you might 'and over your knife a moment to scrape the mud off me face, it all cracks, like, when I talk--if they've got a Maconochie ration they wants bully beef, an' if they've got bully beef they carn't abear nothink but Maconochie. If you told 'em as 'ow the war was goin' to end to-morrow they'd either call you a bloomin' liar, or grouse like 'ell becos they 'adn't 'ad the time to win the V.C.

"There was young Alf Cobb. 'E wasn't arf a grouser, an' 'e 'ad good luck all the bloomin' time. When 'e came to the front they put 'im along o' the transport becos 'e'd been a jockey before the war, an' 'e groused all the time that 'e didn't 'ave none of the fun of the fightin'. Fun of the fightin', indeed, when 'e'd got that little gal what we used to call Gertie less than ten minutes from the stables! She was a nice little bit of stuff, was Gertie, an', if only she'd spoke English instead of this bloomin' lingo what sounds like swearin' ..." and here "Pongo" wandered off into a series of reminiscences of Gertie that have little to do with war and nothing to do with grumbling.

"'Owever, as I was sayin'," he continued at last, "that there Alf Cobb used to fair aggryvate me with 'is grousin'. When 'e got sent up for a spell in the trenches, and 'ad all 'the fun of the fightin',' 'e groused because 'e couldn't go off to some ole estaminet an' order 'is glass o' bitters like a dook. 'E groused becos 'e 'adn't got a feather bed, 'e groused becos 'e 'ad to cook 'is own food, an' 'e groused becos 'e didn't like the 'Uns. An' then when a whizz-bang landed on the parapet an' gave 'im a nice Blighty one in the arm, 'e groused becos 'e was afraid the sea'd be rough when 'e crossed over, an' 'e groused becos 'e couldn't light 'is own pipe. 'E's the sort of bloke what I don't like.

"What I like is a bloke like ole Lewis, who was always chirpy. 'E 'ad the rheumatics something fearful, but 'e never grumbled. Then 'e'd jest gone an' got spliced afore the war, an' 'is missis got 'im into debt an' then ran off with a fellow what works in the munitions. 'No good grousin',' says ole Joe Lewis, an' 'e still stayed cheerful, an' the night 'e 'eard as 'ow 'is young woman 'ad gone off 'e played away on 'is ole mouth-organ as 'appily as a fellow what's on 'is way to the Green Dragon with five bob in 'is pocket. The other blokes what knew about it thought as 'ow Joe didn't care at all, but I was 'is mate an' I knew as 'ow it 'urt a lot. When 'e got knocked over in that attack down Lee Bassey way, I jest stopped by 'im for a minute. 'Don't you worry about me, Pongo,' says 'e, 'I couldn't stand 'ome without 'er'--meanin' 'is missis, you see--'an' I'd rather 'op it like this. If I 'ad me ole mouth-organ 'ere, I'd give you chaps a tune to 'elp you on like.' That's the sort of bloke 'e was, chirpy up to the end. I 'ad to go on to the 'Un trenches, an' I never saw 'im again, for a big shell came along an' buried 'im.

"After all," continued "Pongo" after a pause, "it's a life what 'as its advantages. I ain't got to put on a 'ard collar o' Sundays out 'ere like me ole woman makes me do at 'ome. Then, I might 'ave stuck in that shell 'ole and 'ave been drowned; I might not 'ave 'ad a clean shirt to dry meself with; I might 'ave been 'it by a 'crump' yesterday. Yes, it might be worse, an' I ain't never a one to grouse."

Then someone who knew "Pongo" well made an apparently irrelevant remark. "There's plum and apple jam for rations again," he said.

"Pongo" rose to the fly at once. "Gawd!" he said, "if that ain't the bloomin' limit. I'd like to get me 'and round the neck of the bloke what gets all the raspberry an' apricot an' marmalade. 'Ere 'ave I been two years in the trenches, an' what 'ave I seen but plum an' apple? If it ain't plum an' apple, it's damson an' apple, which is jest the same only there's more stones in it. It do make me fair wild...."

"Pongo," insinuated someone at this moment, "I thought as 'ow you never grumbled."

"Pongo's" voice sank to its ordinary level. "That ain't grumblin'," he said. "I ain't a one to grumble."

But for the better part of an hour I heard him growling away to himself, and "plum and apple" was the burden of his growl. For even "Pongo" Simpson cannot always practise what he preaches.

XIII

THE CONVERT

John North, of the Non-Combatant Corps, leaned over the counter and smiled lovingly up into the shop girl's face. By an apparent accident, his hand slid across between the apple basket and the tins of biscuits, and came into gentle contact with hers. Knowing no French, his conversation was strictly limited, and he had to make amends for this by talking with his hand--by gently stroking her palm with his earth-stained thumb.

Mademoiselle Thérèse smiled shyly at him and her hand remained on the counter.

Private John North, thus encouraged, grew still bolder. He clasped her fingers in his fist, and was just wondering if he dared kiss them, when a gruff voice behind him caused him to stiffen, and to pretend he wanted nothing but a penny bar of chocolate.

"Now then, come orf it," said the newcomer, a private with the trench mud still caked on his clothes. "She's my young laidy, ain't yer, Thérèse?"

Thérèse smiled rather vaguely, for she knew no more Cockney than John North knew French.

"You clear out of 'ere," continued the linesman. "I don't want none o' you objector blokes 'anging around this shop, and if you come 'ere again I won't arf biff you one."

Unfortunately, it is the nature of woman to enjoy the sight of two men quarrelling for her favours, and Thérèse, guessing what was happening, was so unwise as to smile sweet encouragement at John North.