Part 20

"Here comes the General!" whispered somebody.

I got first up the steps and hurried, a battered plate in my hand, along the trenches to my dug-out.

XVIII

THE RASCAL IN WAR

Even the most apathetic of us has been changed by war--he who in times of peace was content with his ledgers and daily office round is now in the ranks of men who clamber over the parapet and rush, cheering, to the German lines; she who lived for golf, dances, and theatres is now caring for the wounded through the long nights in hospital. Everyone in every class of life has altered--the "slacker" has turned soldier, and the burglar has become a sound, honest man.

Strange it is that war, which might be expected to arouse all the animal passions in us, has done us so much good! There are among the men in the trenches many hundreds who were, before the war, vastly more at home in the police courts and prisons than is the average Londoner at a public dinner. That they should be brave is not astonishing, for adventure is in their bones, but they are also as faithful, as trustworthy, as amenable to discipline as any soldiers we possess.

There was "Nobby" Clarke, for instance. "Nobby" was a weedy little Cockney who became my "batman," or servant. He had complete control of my privy purse, did all my shopping, and haggled over my every halfpenny as carefully as though it were his own. Then, when he had served me for over six months, I overheard him one day recounting his prison experiences, and I discovered that he had been a pilferer and pickpocket well known in all the London police courts. In his odd moments out of jail, he would hover outside the larger stations, touch a bedraggled cap with a filthy finger, and say, "Kerry yer beg, sir?" in a threatening tone to all passers-by; his main income, however, appeared to come from far less respectable sources.

And yet he served me more faithfully than I have ever been served before or since, and I have seldom been more sorry than I was when "Nobby" Clarke was hit. As we were tying him up--he had been wounded in eight places by a rifle grenade--he signed to me and I stooped over him.

"I ain't got no one at 'ome as cares fer me," he said, "so yer might 'and me things round to the blokes 'ere. I've got a photograph of me ole woman wot died five years ago. It's in me pay book, sir, an' I'd like yer to keep it jest to remind yer of me." Then, his voice getting weaker every moment, "I ain't been such a bad servant to yer, 'as I, sir?" he whispered, his eyes looking appealingly into mine. And when "Nobby" Clarke, onetime loafer and pickpocket, passed away, I am not ashamed to own that there was a queer sort of lump in my throat.

And he was only one of many, was "Nobby" Clarke. There was Bennett, the tramp, who was always ready with a song to cheer up the weary on the march; there was a Jewish money-lender who was killed while trying to save a man who was lying wounded in No Man's Land; there was Phillips, who had been convicted of manslaughter--he became a stretcher-bearer, and was known all over the battalion for his care of the wounded.

In every regiment in every army you will find a little group of men who were tramps and beggars and thieves, and, almost without exception, they have "made good." For the first time in their lives they have been accepted as members of great society, and not driven away as outcasts. The Army has welcomed them, disciplined them, and taught them the elements of self-respect--a quality whose very existence they ignored before the war.

There is an Italian proverb--"Tutto il mondo è paese"--which means, in its broadest sense, "All the world is ruled by the same passion and qualities." In the old days it needed a Dickens, and, later, a Neil Lyons to discover the qualities of the criminal classes; now war has brought us all together--the erstwhile city merchant warms himself before the same brazier as the man who would have picked his pocket three years before--and we suddenly find that we are no better than the beggar, and that a man who stole apples from a stall is no worse at heart than the inhabitant of Mayfair.

It is not that our ideas of greatness have degenerated when we call these men heroes; it is not that war is entirely a thing of evil, so that the criminal shines as a warrior--it is that these "outcasts" have changed. Statistics prove that crime has decreased since the war began, and crime will continue to decrease, for that indefinable instinct we call patriotism has seized on all classes alike, so that the criminal can make the supreme sacrifice just as magnificently as the man who has "kept straight" all his life.

And the best of it is that this reform among burglars and beggars is not for the "duration of the war only." War has lost us our sons and our fathers, it has brought appalling sorrow and suffering into the world, but it has given the very poor a chance they have never had before. No more are they outcasts; they are members of society, and such they will remain. If this were all the good that war could do, it would still be our ultimate gain that the great scourge is passing over the world.

XIX

"PONGO" SIMPSON ON OFFICERS

"Orficers," said "Pongo" Simpson, "is rum blokes. I've got a fam'ly of six kids back at 'ome, not counting Emma what's in service, an' I reckon my orficer's more trouble to look after nor all the lot of 'em put together. It's always: 'Simpson, where the dooce is my puttees?' or 'Simpson, you've sewed this 'ere button on in the wrong place,' or 'Simpson, the soup tastes like cocoa and the cocoa tastes like soup'--does 'e expect me to kerry a bloomin' collection of canteens? Don't 'e think it better to 'ave cocoa what's got a bit o' soup in it than to 'ave a canteen what's been washed in a shell 'ole along of a dead 'Un? Why, if we was goin' to charge to Berlin to-morrer I'd 'ave to spend 'arf the night cleanin' 'is boots and buttons.

"Yes, 'e's a funny sort o' bloke, my orficer, but, my Gawd!"--and here Simpson expectorated to give emphasis to his statement--"I'd foller 'im against a crowd of 'Uns, or a lot of wimmen what's waiting for their 'usbands what ain't come 'ome at three in the morning, or anythink else you like. 'E's an 'elpless sort of chap, an' 'e's got funny ideas about shavin' and washin'--sort of disease, you know--but 'e's a good sort when you knows 'is little ways.

"Do you remember that young Mr. Wilkinson?" asked "Pongo," and a few of the "old hands" in the dug-out nodded affirmatively. "'E was a one, 'e was," resumed "Pongo." "Do you remember the day we was gassed on 'Ill 60? 'E used to be my bloke then, and I was with 'im all the time. 'E was a proper lad! When the gas 'ad gone over there was only five of A Company left, with 'im in charge, and we knew as 'ow the 'Uns would attack as soon as they thought we was properly wiped out. And Mr. Wilkinson was fine. All down the trench 'e put blokes' rifles on the parapet, and the 'ole bloomin' six of us ran up an' down the trench like a lot of rabbits, firin' off rifle after rifle till the Alleymans must 'ave thought we was an 'ole battalion. The only times when Mr. Wilkinson wasn't firin' rifles, 'e was fusin' bombs, jest as busy as that little girl be'ind the counter of the Nag's 'Ead of a Saturday night. 'E must 'ave sent a good number of 'Uns 'ome that day with bits of bombs inside of them.

"And you should 'a' seen Mr. Wilkinson when the Sergeant wos for givin' in and goin' back to the second line! We'd all the gas in us more or less, and 'e could 'ardly talk, 'e was that bad, but when 'e 'eard the Sergeant say as 'ow 'e was goin' back, 'e shouted like the Colonel on a battalion parade. 'Curse you, Sergeant!' 'e yelled, 'what's the good of goin' back? We've got to 'old this trench or 'op it. If you don't like the air down there, come up on the parapet with me.' And up 'e jumps on to the parapet with the gas clearin' away, and the Fritzes only 30 or 40 yards off.

"'It? Why, of course 'e was 'it. 'E was laughin' like a kid what's stealin' apples--all excited like--when they got 'im right through the 'ead, and 'e fell down on the other side of the parapet. But 'e'd done what 'e wanted to, for the Sergeant wasn't talkin' any more about goin' back. 'E crawled out over the parapet and brought poor Mr. Wilkinson back, and got 'it in the leg while 'e was doin' it, too. But that didn't matter to 'im, for 'e was out to 'ave 'is own back, was the Sergeant, and we 'eld that bloomin' trench for another hour until the blokes got up the communication trench to 'elp us. There's a lot of medals what ought to go to blokes as don't get them, and it might 'ave 'elped Mr. Wilkinson's mother if they'd given 'im the V.C., but there weren't no other orficers about, and they didn't take any notice of us chaps."

"Talkin' of 'Ill 60," said Bert Potter, "there was that Captain--I misremember 'is name--you know, that bloke what got into trouble at the ole farm for giving a cow a tin o' bully beef, and the cow died next day. I was in 'is trench with a machine gun when 'e got 'is little bit. A chunk out of an 'and grenade 'it 'im in the thigh, and 'e laughed like 'ell becos 'e'd got a 'cushy' wound. Why, 'e even said as 'ow 'e could walk down to the dressing station, and we envied 'im like 'ell and thought it was only a flesh wound. I got 'it the next day and went to the same 'orspital where 'e was. 'E'd 'ad 'is thigh bone smashed all to bits, and they'd jest taken 'is leg off when I saw 'im. 'E was weak as a kid and chirpy as a sparrer, and only cursin' becos 'e was out of things for the rest of the war. I never 'eard what 'appened to 'im, but the nurse told me as 'ow they was afraid 'e wouldn't recover becos of emmyridge, or something with a name like that. And 'e wasn't more nor twenty-one years old neither, pore bloke."

"But you won't beat the Medical Orficer anywhere," said Jones, one of the stretcher-bearers who was on duty in the trenches. "'E don't 'ave to fight, but you should see 'im when things is busy up 'ere. Coat off an' sleeves up, workin' for 'ours on end till any man what wasn't an 'orse would drop dead. 'E's 'ard on the shirkers and scrimshankers--e's the sort of bloke what would give you a dose o' castor oil for earache or frost-bitten feet, but 'e's like a mother with the wounded. I've seen 'im, too, goin' along the cutting when the whizz-bangs was burstin' all the way down it, carryin' some wounded fellow in 'is arms as calmly as if 'e were an ole girl carryin' a parcel along Regent Street. And then," said Jones, as he named the greatest point in the M.O.'s favour, "'e's the best forward on a wet day as ever I seed."

Just at that moment a voice sounded from farther up the trench. "Simpson," it said, "where the deuce is my toothbrush?"

"Jest comin', sir. I've got 'un," answered "Pongo" Simpson as he produced a greasy-looking toothbrush from his pocket. "'Ere, give us that canteen of 'ot water," he said quietly, "I used 'is toothbrush to grease 'is boots with yesterday--didn't think 'e'd miss it, for you don't come out 'ere to wash your teeth. They 'ave got funny ways, these 'ere orficers. 'Owever," he continued as he wiped the brush dry on the sleeve of his tunic, "what the eye don't see, the 'eart don't grieve over. 'E'll only think as 'ow it's the water what's greasy."

"Simpson," came the voice from farther along the trench, a moment or so later, "this is the greasiest water I've ever tasted. What the deuce you've done to it I don't know."

THE HAND OF SHADOW

"Come in," said Margery Debenham, as she opened her eyes lazily to the sunlight. "Put my tea on the table, please, Mary. I'm too sleepy to drink it yet.