Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/589

Wife. "Otto, where are we going for our holidays this Summer?"

Otto. "Well―er―there's Turkey."

It is hard for the most insensible of men to look on at this war unmoved for long. We have looked on at it for months and months and months from a haunt of ancient peace known for some obscure antiquarian reason as a firing line; and now we are to be moved; to-morrow, or the next day, or, to sum up all the possibilities in the word of the historic despatch, "shortly." Indeed, the Sergeant-Major even now approaching with his indestructible smile may bear the details that we are to follow. The Sergeant-Major is a great man for a detail. Nothing escapes him. Three weeks ago measles stole into our midst like thieves in the night. The S.-M. had them before could you say "Bosch."

Pending the push off, we anti-asphyxiate ourselves. There used to be some doubt among N.C.O.'s supervising as to whether the impedimenta supplied for that end were inspirators or perspirators. Eventually they compromised on "gas-bags." Only nine patterns have so far been issued, but the more cautious of us wear all these simultaneously, so if Nos. 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 fail, 2, 4, 6 and 8 may prove efficacious.

Preparations for the trek are in train. Each Platoon Commander―in view of the fact that men who have lived nine months in ditches may have mislaid the use of their feet―has written out slips permitting No. 000 Private Blank to fall out and report at Dash with all possible expedition. Now Mr. Mactavish is a very thorough officer, and he was determined that no one was going to catch him out through his having too few of these backsliding permits. But when I found him engaged on the sixty-fourth, the strength of his platoon being forty-seven, I felt compelled to demand some explanation. He seems to have assumed that some men might fall out twice. To me, the assumption that men whose feet have given way will pick up a taxi somewhere and overhaul you just for the pleasure of falling out again, appeared rash.

Since the foregoing was indelibled, we have walked a great walk―seven leagues, no less. At intervals, we bivouac in odd bits of Europe that happen to be unoccupied when we stumble on them. Some are crowded with horrible dangers. Never shall I forget seeing Private Packer wake up from his afternoon sleep to find himself practically in the act of being bitten by a ferocious cow. Springing up, with he threw the officers' kettle at the savage ruminant; whereas by all the best traditions he should have continued to smile. Fortunately the cow (like President Wilson) was too proud to fight.

The trek has been a great disappointment to those who were looking forward to writing home brave accounts of "how I marched forty miles on a biscuit and a cough-lozenge?" When we got to our first bivouac three of us had just made a frugal meal of malted milk tablets and melted barley sugar when the Mess-Sergeant loomed up with the news that lunch was served. My appetite was so impoverished by previous indulgence that I gave up after the third course. But the coffee and cigars were admirable.

We are now billeted in a wood. The billets make excellent fuel, and there are no wild animals except beetles, which, though large and highly coloured, appear quite pacific. The glow-worms glow of an evening and help out the embers of the moribund fires, which are strictly doomed to die with the daylight. Round these embers Mr. Atkins stands in groups and renders with every variety of modulation and idiosyncracy, but with united cheerfulness, his famous patriotic number, "I want to go home." The stars are in their heaven and Mr. Atkins is not downhearted.