Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/402

Dear Charles,—We are now holding our own little bit against enormous odds, the latter being partly Germans but mostly rain. Even so we find the trenches a pleasant relief, since our allowance of discomfort is now defined. Up till now they couldn't make up their minds as to what exactly we were. Sometimes they thought we were fully qualified experts, fit for all the deeds, dangerous and dirty, which soldiers have to do, while at other times they a regarded us as amateurs, requiring instruction. Between the some times and the "other" times there was little margin for rest and recreation.

Now it's over, I may tell you that the instruction is even worse than the thing itself. We didn't so much mind digging practice trenches as filling them in again. We had done such as lot of this that we had come to the dismal conclusion that herein was the ultimate destiny for all of us, lawyers, landed proprietors, engineers and undergraduates alike. We saw ourselves left here, long after the War was over, filling in trenches in Flanders when we should be dining honourably in London. Moreover we foresaw that our ultimate convenience would be sacrificed, in an expansive moment, to the cause of universal peace, and, when we had finished the English, Belgian, French, Russian, Japanese, Servian, Montenegrin, Roumanian, and Italian lines, "My dear Kaiser," the authorities would write, "bygones being bygones, please remember you have only to drop us a postcard and we will send you a thousand or two industrious, if incompetent, spademen to fill in your trenches for you. You might pass this on to your Austrian, Hungarian and Turkish friends. And believe us, very sincerely yours..."

As it is, I reckon I'm now off trench-filling for ever. I would far sooner be shot for insubordination than stir a limb to destroy this "little grey home in the West" I have dug out for myself and Captain Johnson. Take my word, there comes a time in a man's life when he attaches far more importance to a judicious admixture of matchwood, sandbags, straw and mud of his own contriving than to the most luxurious combination of chintz and Chippendale designed and executed by paid hands.

We marched up here, three days back, in a mood of ferocious silence, my captain providing the sole domestic touch by leaving his washing at the last complete building on our route. The people we relieved (in more senses than one) were delighted to see us, but, recollecting suddenly that they had important business elsewhere, vanished by the back door as soon as ever our faces were turned to the front. The Germans, however, were more courteous: realizing the arrival of slightly bored strangers, they at once treated us to a pyrotechnic display of commendable thoroughness, combining entertainment with instruction, expensive illumination with unquestionable realism. Since then the spasmodic crackle of rifles has not ceased; snipers snipe industriously, and bombs and rifle grenades arrive and depart every now and then by way of comic relief. We enjoy the privilege of watching artillery duels from the ten-pound seats in the middle. Captain Johnson has a personal grievance, since the objective of the enemy guns is the last complete building above mentioned. "The low hounds," he murmurs, standing on our front door step and shaking his fist at the horizon. "Not content with making a target of my personal existence, they must needs go shelling my pants with their shrapnel and high explosives." And we continue our present lives, spending to-day in getting rid of yesterday's rain and looking forward to to-morrow's.

I write, after a sort of high-tea-dinner-lunch in my dug-out (where no parcel containing victuals or drink ever comes amiss), and from both sides of me penetrates the singularly trifling conversation of the men. They are enjoying a period of rest, and the general state of their spirits is not so much boisterous joy as comatose content. I have often wondered exactly what motive—duty, enterprise, sport or adventure—brought them all together here; in one case I have been enlightened only this morning. The sanitary man, always ready for conversation in the intervals of his ambitious work, informed me as to his own case. It appears that at the end of last July he was affected with general nervous debility. His doctor recommended a fortnight at the seaside. The sanitary man (then a clerk) protested poverty; his wife insisted on the change of air, and the combined ingenuity of the three suggested enlistment in the local Territorial battalion, with an eye solely to its yearly encampment. And here she is in muddy France, executing his (shall I say disquieting?) labours amidst relentless shot and shell, whose object is to kill rather than cure. Meanwhile rarely was a more rosy and less nervous warrior than our old-time invalid.

In conclusion let me tell you of the affairs of Lance-Corporal Rice. For years past he has professed Wesleyanism, and has paraded with the minority of a Sunday. I have even known him to do this, with a set expression of feature and great dignity of bearing, in a minority of one. But times change and we change with them, and, whether it was that some epoch-making event occurred to convert him or whether it was that the Church of England parade happened (for once) to be an hour later in the morning than the Wesleyan, our Lance-Corporal fell in last Sunday with the majority. His Platoon Sergeant may, for all I know, be a keen church-goer in ordinary life, but in war he is a stickler for regulations. "What are you doing here?" he asked the Lance-Corporal, and, after a long conversation, was finally convinced that his man was deliberately parading with the Church of England. "Get away with you,' said the Sergeant, not caring what the other believed or didn't believe. "If you want to change your religion, you can't just do it like that; you must go to orderly-room and do it proper."

I have stolen this item of news, by way of compensation, from our Second in Command, who, happening to call on me at my trench at 11 A.M., stole from me my biggest and best peppermint drop. Next time you write, enclose a candle, a piece of soap, a bundle of toothpicks, and a stick of nougat, a parcel which, if you had sent it me a year ago, would have proved you to be a poor farceur.

Yours, as long as I'm my own, Henry.

"Somehow the old atmosphere of the 'Row' has completely gone—the 'knut' has vanished as if he had never been. The conventional silk hat and morning coat was only to be seen here and there and at rare intervals, and then on the heads only of elderly men."

The Daily Mirror.

"Sir Stanley Buckmaster, the Solicitor-General and Director of the War Press Bureau, who has gone to Scotland for salmon-fishing, landed a 10 lb. fish one day this week."

Evening News.

The Press Bureau has no objection to the publication of the above statement, but takes no responsibility for its accuracy.

"In Scandinavia, where men drink horribly owing to the damp-cold climate, the Government has introduced the Swedenborg system, which has accomplished wonders."—Mr. Austin Harrison in "The Sunday Chronicle."

Swedenborg dealt with the spirit, it is true; but not in this sense. Mr. Harrison, before he tackles this subject again, should consult the wise men of Gothenburg.