"Well, wot put an end to my patience was a month later, when Short 'ad the cheek to jaw me personally about the girl I was walkin' out with. I went clean mad then, an' was ready for anythink, even for 'avin' it out again with Bill, rather than put up with that maniac's talk.

"'Please, sir,' I tells the colonel, 'I'm sorry to trouble you again with my religion, but this 'ere Wesleyanism don't satisfy me at all. It ain't a bit wot I'd 'oped for.'

"I expected to get jolly well strafed, but I didn't. Bill just looked at me with a smile.

"'That's all right, Brommit,' 'e said; 'the Government pays me for looking after the moral health of my men. And may I inquire what religion is at present enjoying the favour of your approval?'

"'Well, sir, I don't see none at all. I've made myself a sort o' religion o' my own—if you'll allow it, of course.'

"'I? Why, it's none of my business, Brommit. On the contrary, I admire the vitality of your mind. You've evidently got beliefs of your own; that's a very good sign indeed. It's just that they will not admit the obligation of going to a place of public worship on a Sunday, that's all. I presume I am taking you correctly?'

"'Yes, sir, quite correctly.'

"'What an admirable coincidence, Brommit! For a long time I've been looking for somebody to scrub the stairs thoroughly on Sundays, while the men are at church. Sergeant-major, put Brommit down as an Agnostic—on permanent fatigue for scrubbing the stairs on Sunday mornings.'"



CHAPTER XI

JUSTICE

The D.M.S. had sent round a note to all A.D.M.S.'s reminding them that all officers and men were to be inoculated against typhoid fever. So the A.D.M.S. of the Scottish Division ordered the different units to send in a nominal roll of all those who had not been inoculated. Most of the negligent confessed their sin; many of them were believers, and those who were not, respected the customs of their times and piously submitted to the ceremony.

Only the 113th Battery, R.F.A., sent in the following roll:

Names. Condition. Reason given for exemption. Capt. Cockell Do not believe in Lieut. Little Not yet inoculated. the efficacy of Lieut. M'Cracken Refuse inoculation. the operation.

The A.D.M.S. in high dudgeon complained to the Staff and requested the temporal powers to deliver the heretics over to the lancet. The temporal powers, while paying due reverence to medical infallibility, requested the A.D.M.S. to attempt a conversion.

The 113th Battery was famous for its courage and its daring deeds. Dr. O'Grady was entrusted with the mission of visiting Captain Cockell and bringing that erring soul back to the fold.

The gunners gave the doctor a warm welcome. Their dug-out was comfortable, their arm-chairs, made by the men out of the branches of fir-trees, were luxuriously low and deep. O'Grady dropped into one, and looked about him anxiously.

"It is a remarkable fact," he said, "that thirst and hunger should make themselves felt by sensations in the mouth and stomach only, and not in the rest of the body. At this very moment, when all my organs are quite dry for lack of decent whisky, I am only warned by the mucous membrane in my mouth——"

"Orderly! The whisky! Quick!" shouted Captain Cockell.

Whereupon the doctor, his mind set at rest, was able to explain the object of his mission.

"Doctor," answered Captain Cockell, "there is nothing I would not do for you. But I consider anti-typhoid inoculation, next to poison-gas, to be the most dangerous practice in this war."

The doctor, who was a skilful reader of character, saw at once that only liberal doctrines would help him to success.

"Oh," he exclaimed genially, "you needn't think I share the usual medical superstitions. But I do believe that inoculation has practically done away with deaths caused by typhoid. Statistics show——"

"Doctor, you know as well as I do that statistics may be made to say anything one likes. There are fewer cases of typhoid in this war than in former wars simply because the general sanitary conditions are much better. Besides, when a fellow who has been inoculated is silly enough to be ill—and that has been known to occur—you simply say, 'It isn't typhoid—it's para-typhoid.'"

"Which is perfectly true," said the doctor; "the pseudo-bacillus——"

"Oh, that stunt about the pseudo-bacillus! Next time you're wounded, doctor, I'll say it was by a pseudo-shell!"

"Very well, very well," said the doctor, somewhat nettled. "I'll just wait till next time you're ill. Then we'll see whether you despise doctors or not."

"That's a poor argument, doctor, very poor indeed. I'm quite ready to acknowledge that a sick man is in need of moral support and requires the illusion of a remedy, just like a woman in love. Therefore doctors are necessary, just like thought-readers. I simply submit it should be recognized that both professions are of a similar order."

The energetic Cockell had inspired his two young lieutenants with respectful admiration. They remained as firm as he in their refusal; and after an excellent lunch Dr. O'Grady returned to H.Q. and informed his chief of the cynicism of the 113th Battery and the obstinacy of the heretical sect in those parts.

The A.D.M.S. sent the names of the three officers up to H.Q., and demanded the general's authority to put a stop to this scandal; and Colonel Parker promised to let the Corps know of the matter.

* * * * *

Some time before this, the French Government had placed at the disposal of the British authorities a certain number of "Legion of Honour" decorations—to wit, two Grand Officer's badges, twelve Commander's cravats, twenty-four Officer's rosettes, and a considerable number of Knight's crosses.

The two Governments were in the habit of exchanging armfuls of ribbons at regular intervals in this way, and the apportioning of these trifles created a useful occupation for the numerous members of all staffs and their still more numerous clerks.

The distribution was performed according to wisely appointed rules. Of each batch of decorations G.H.Q. took one half for its own members, and passed on the other half to the Army Staffs. The Army Staffs kept half of what they received, and passed on the remainder to the Corps Staffs. The same method was applied right down to the Battalion Staffs, and it will readily be observed (with the help of an elementary arithmetical calculation) that the likelihood of the men in the line ever receiving a foreign decoration was practically nonexistent.

The Scottish Division received as its share on this occasion three crosses. Colonel Parker and the other demi-gods of the divisional Olympus being already provided for, these were allotted to dignitaries of minor importance. It was decided that one should be given to Dr. O'Grady, who had done great service to the French population (he had assisted a Belgian refugee in childbirth and she had survived his ministrations). The second was marked down for the D.A.D.O.S., and the third for the A.D.V.S., a genial fellow who was very popular in the mess.

The names of the three lucky men were handed by a Staff officer to an intelligent clerk with orders to draw up immediately a set of nominal rolls for the Corps.

Unfortunately the clerk happened to be the very same man to whom Colonel Parker had given the list of the three heretics of the 113th Battery the day before. But who can blame him for having confused two groups of three names? And who can blame the officer on duty for having signed two nominal rolls without reading them?

A month later, the Division was surprised to hear that Captain Cockell and Lieutenants Little and M'Cracken had been made Knights of the Legion of Honour. As they really deserved it, the choice caused considerable astonishment and general rejoicing; and the three warriors, happy to see three decorations reach them intact after having passed through so many covetous hands, were loud in praise of their superior officers' discrimination.



CHAPTER XII

VARIATIONS

"I have no illusions left but the Archbishop of Canterbury."—Sydney Smith.

"When I was attached to a field ambulance," said the doctor, "we had three padres with us in the mess."

"That was rather a large order," said the Rev. Mr. Jeffries.

"It was a large order," agreed the doctor, "but one of them anyway was quite harmless. The R.C. padre spoke very little, ate an enormous amount, and listened with infinite contempt to the discussions of his colleagues.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings, padre, but Catholicism is the only religion. A faith is only justified if it carries conviction. What's the use of a creed or a dogma which is as transient as a philosophy? Being condemned by my profession to study beings whose moral balance is unstable, I am in a position to assert that the Roman Church has a complete understanding of human nature. As a psychologist and a doctor, I admire the uncompromising attitude of the Councils. So much weakness and stupidity requires the firm support of an authority without the slightest tolerance. The curative value of a doctrine lies not in its logical truth, but in its permanency."

"It is quite true," said Colonel Parker, "that nothing short of the rigid dictates of Catholicism could have prevented the Irish from going completely mad. But don't judge every one from your own case, O'Grady; the Saxons possess a solid, Protestant intelligence."

"Well," the doctor continued, "our other two padres spent their evenings trying to swallow each other up. One of them was Church of England and the other Presbyterian; and they employed the most modern commercial methods in their competition. Church of England found an old gipsy cart which he set up at Dickebusch and from which he sold chocolate to the Jocks; whereupon Church of Scotland installed a telescope at Kruystraete to show them the stars. If the one formed a cigar-trust, the other made a corner in cigarettes. If one of them introduced a magic lantern, the other chartered a cinema. But the permanent threat to the peace of the mess was undoubtedly the Baptist question.

"As we had no Baptist padre, the unfortunate soldiers of that persuasion (of whom there were seven in the Division) could attend no service. The astonishing thing was that they never seemed to realize the extent of their misfortune.

"On one point at any rate our two padres agreed: men could not be left, in the dangerous zone in which we were then living, without the consolations of religion. But both Church of England and Church of Scotland each claimed the right to annex this tiny neutral congregation.

"'Excuse me,' said Church of Scotland; 'the Baptist, it is true, only performs the immersion ceremony when the adult's faith is confirmed, but on all other points he resembles the Presbyterian. His Church is a democratic one and is opposed to episcopacy, like ours.'

"'Pardon me,' said Church of England; 'the Baptist, in demanding a return to the primitive form of the Sacrament, proves himself to be the most conservative of all British Christians. Now every one—including yourself—admits that the Church of England is the most conservative of all the Reformed Churches. Besides——'

"For hours at a time they used to go on like this, and the futile discussion became even more annoying as I got to know the different arguments as well as either of them.

"One day I was sent up to the ambulance's advance post at Maple Copse—you know, that little wood in front of Ypres."

"Unhealthy spot that," said the general.

"So unhealthy, sir, that while I was there a whizz-bang hit my dug-out and blew my sergeant into small pieces, which remained hanging on the branches of the trees. It was a pity, for he was the best forward in the brigade football team. I put all I could find of him into a cloth, announced the burial for the next day, and then, as it was my turn to be relieved, I went back to the ambulance headquarters.

"My return was distinctly lively. On leaving the splendid trench which is called Zillebeke Road, I was silly enough to cross the exposed ground near the railway embankment. A machine gun thought it rather amusing to have a pot at me from Hill 60——"

"All right, doctor," said General Bramble, "spare us the details."

"Well, just as I left Ypres, I came across a Ford car which took me back to camp. In the mess I found Church of England and Church of Scotland arguing away as usual, while Roman Church was reading his breviary in a corner.

"'Satan, whence comest thou?' one of them asked me.

"'Well, gentlemen,' I replied, 'you ought to be glad to see me, because I really am back from hell this time.'

"And I told them my adventures, putting in a lot of local colour about cannonades, explosions, whistling bullets and hailstorm barrages, in a style worthy of our best war correspondents."

"You old humbug!" grunted the colonel.

"'By the way,' I concluded, 'I've got a job for one of you! Freshwater, my sergeant, has been blown to bits, and what I could collect of him is to be buried to-morrow morning. I'll give you the route—Messines gate, Zillebeke——'

"I saw the two padres' faces fall swiftly.

"'What religion?' they both asked simultaneously.

"'Baptist,' I replied carelessly. 'Have a cigarette, padre?'

"The two enemies gazed attentively at the ceiling; Roman Church kept his nose in his breviary and his ears well pricked up.

"'Well,' said Church of England at length, 'I wouldn't mind going up to Zillebeke. I've been in worse places to bury a man of my own Church. But for a Baptist it strikes me, O'Grady——'

"'Excuse me,' interrupted Church of Scotland. 'Baptism is the most conservative form of British Christianity, and the Anglican Church itself boasts——'

"'I dare say, I dare say,' said the other, 'but is not the Baptist Church a democratic one, like the Presbyterian?'

"They might have gone on in this strain till the poor beggar was in his grave, had not Roman Church suddenly interrupted in a mild voice, without taking his nose out of his little book:

"'I'll go, if you like.'

"Hatred of Popery is the beginning of union, and they both went up the line together."



CHAPTER XIII

THE CURE

"Le Schein et le Wesen sont, pour l'esprit allemand, une seule et meme chose."—Jacques Riviere.

"The only decent whisky," said the doctor, "is Irish whisky." Whereupon he helped himself to a generous allowance of Scotch whisky, and as they had just been talking about Ludendorff's coming offensive, he began to discourse upon the Germans.

"One of the most astounding things about German psychology," he said, "is their passion for suggesting the appearance of results which they know they are powerless to attain. A German general who is not in a position to undertake a real offensive deludes himself into believing that he will strike terror into his opponent by describing an absurd and appalling attack in his reports; and a Solingen cutler, if he cannot manufacture really sharp blades at the required price, will endeavour to invoke a sort of metaphysical blade which can give its owner the illusion of a useful instrument.

"When once this trait of the national character is properly understood, all the German shoddy which is so much talked about seems no longer the swindling practice of dishonest tradesmen, but is simply the material expression of their ingrained Kantianism, and their congenital inability to distinguish Appearance from Reality.

"At the sanatorium at Wiesdorf, where I was working when the war broke out, this method was practised with quite unusual rigour.

"Doctor Professor Baron von Goeteburg was a second-rate scientist, and he knew it. He had made a lifelong study of the expression, clothes and manners which would most successfully impress his clients with the idea that he was the great physician he knew he could never be.

"After innumerable careful experiments, which do him the greatest credit, he had decided on a pointed beard, a military expression, a frock coat and a baron's title.

"Everything in his admirable establishment bore the impress of the kind of scientific precision which is the most striking hall-mark of ignorance. The Wiesdorf sanatorium extracted from the human carcase the maximum amount of formulae, scientific jargon and professional fees which it could possibly yield. The patients felt themselves surrounded by a pleasant and luxurious apparatus of diagnoses, figures and diagrams.

"Each patient had a suite of rooms furnished, in spite of a rather obvious Munich atmosphere, with a sense of real comfort and order. Each floor was under the supervision of a doctor, a lean, athletic Swedish masseur and a qualified nurse in a white apron. The nurses were nearly all daughters of the nobility, whose happiness had been sacrificed to the extravagance of their brothers, who were generally captains in the Guards. The one attached to the floor I was in charge of was a French Alsatian with an innocent, obstinate face, whom the Germans called 'Schwester Therese,' and who asked me to call her 'Soeur Therese.'

"The place was only opened in the spring of 1914, and from the very first season its success had testified to the excellence of the system. Photographs were published in all the fashionable papers, and wealthy clients rushed in with alarming and automatic rapidity.

"On my floor I had an old American, one James P. Griffith, an English lady, the Duchess of Broadfield, and a Russian, Princess Uriassof. None of these three patients displayed symptoms of any illness whatsoever; they just complained of depression—nothing could amuse them—and of an appetite which no dish could tempt. When the American arrived, I considered it my duty to inform the professor of the excellent health in which I found him.

"'O'Grady,' he said, staring hard at me with his brilliant, commanding eyes, 'kindly give yourself less trouble. Your patient is suffering from congestion of the purse, and I think we shall be able to give him some relief.'

"The Duchess of Broadfield longed to put on flesh, and wept all day long. 'Madam,' Sister Therese said to her, 'if you want to get stouter, you ought to try and enjoy yourself.' That caused a nice scene! I was obliged to explain to the nurse that the Duchess was on no account to be spoken to before eleven in the morning, and that it was improper to address her without calling her 'Your Grace!'

"As to Princess Uriassof, she had been preceded by a courier, who had burst into indignant exclamations at the sight of the Munich furniture and had demanded genuine antiques. The professor smiled, and summoned a furniture dealer and his cashier. Followed the princess with twenty-three boxes and six servants. She was enormously stout, cried the whole day long, and yearned to reduce her figure.

"When the lift that was to take her down to the bathroom was not in front of her door at the very second when she left her room, she used to stamp her foot in anger, pull her maid's hair and shout:

"'What? I have to wait; I, Princess Uriassof?'

"That was the kind of patient we had. Only once there came to my floor a young fellow from the Argentine who really had something wrong with his liver. I said to him, 'You are not well; you would do better to go and see a doctor.'

"Towards the 24th of July the newspapers seemed to cause the noble clients of Wiesdorf sanatorium considerable anxiety. The note to Servia, the letters they received from their homes, the clatter of arms which was beginning to be heard throughout Europe, all began to point to a vague danger which could not, of course, affect their sacred persons, but might possibly hinder them from peacefully cultivating the sufferings which were so dear to them.

"The Duchess of Broadfield telegraphed to her nephew at the Foreign Office and got no answer. Princess Uriassof began to hold mysterious confabulations with her courier.

"The German doctors soon restored every one's confidence; 'Unser Friedens-Kaiser ... our peace-loving Emperor ... he is cruising on his yacht ... he has not the slightest thought of war.'

"The barometers of refreshment vendors are always at 'set-fair,' and Professor von Goeteburg temporized with such authority and diplomacy that he managed to keep his international clientele for another six days.

"However, the peace-loving Emperor returned only to send threatening telegrams, and on the 27th the danger became evident even to our guests' bird-like intellects.

"Princess Uriassof announced her departure, and sent her courier to the bank to cash an enormous cheque. He came back with the message that the bank no longer cashed foreign cheques; whereupon he disappeared, and was never heard of again. The Princess was beside herself with rage, and cried that she would have him knouted. She summoned her German valet, but he was busy buckling on his Feldwebel uniform. She ordered her French chauffeur to be ready to start instantly; I went down to the garage with the message myself so as to get away from her, and discovered that the fellow was a reservist from Saint-Mihiel, and had left with Her Highness' car to join his regiment.

"That morning for the first time, the Duchess and the Princess condescended to notice the presence of James P. He had a magnificent 100 H.P. American car, and represented their only hope of getting across the frontier. But James P. had no more petrol, and the Germans refused to supply him with any, because his car had already been earmarked for General von Schmack's Staff.

"The same evening these first three victims of the war sat and childishly discussed the situation in an untidy room on a bed which nobody came to make. Their telegrams were no longer forwarded, their money was worthless, and the German servants in the sanatorium treated them more as prisoners than as patients. It seemed as though their fortune and their greatness had suddenly abandoned them at the first breath of war, like a slender veil torn by the wind from a woman's shoulders.

"James P. went to interview Dr. von Goeteburg, who answered him with ironical politeness, and depicted the pitiable plight of a Germany surrounded and attacked by a world of enemies. If, however, they were willing to leave him the princess's pearl necklace as security, he would consent to lend them the few marks they needed to cross the frontier.

"Towards midnight I entered the room where this Twilight of the Gods was drawing to an end, and saw an astounding spectacle. The Duchess of Broadfield and Princess Uriassof were attempting to pack their own trunks. Their lack of experience was only too conspicuous. In every corner there lay hats which had been crushed by their clumsy attempts; the badly folded dresses swelled awkwardly and refused with disgraceful obstinacy to allow the Princess to lock her trunks. Vanquished at last by the stress of events against which she was contending for the first time in her life, she sat down on a portmanteau and burst into tears. The Duchess, who came of a less fatalistic race, was still struggling, aided by James P., with two rebellious valises.

"I went and called Sister Therese, and with her made ready for their departure. Hoping that England would declare war, I informed the professor of my intention to accompany my patients.

"The little Alsatian girl went and asked the German servants to carry the luggage to the station for the last civilian train, which was to leave at six in the morning.

"I don't mind carrying anything for you, Schwester," said the hall porter, "but I won't do a thing for those dogs of Russians and English."

"The Sister came back and said timidly, 'If the doctor and Your Grace don't mind helping me, we might perhaps take at least some of these things together.'

"So Wiesdorf station beheld the extraordinary sight of the Duchess pulling an enormous portmanteau and perspiring freely, and behind her Princess Uriassof, James P., and myself, each pushing a wheelbarrow. The station was already thronged with soldiers in Feldgrau. We were ravenously hungry. I asked the young Alsatian girl to accompany me to the refreshment-room, and she was able, thanks to her nurse's bonnet, to obtain two pieces of extremely dry bread from the military canteen.

"I found my patients ensconced in a fourth-class carriage. Their eyes were shut, they were leaning against the duty wooden back of the seat, and on their faces was a smile of indescribable bliss.

"The Princess greedily seized the piece of bread I handed her, took an enormous bite out of it, and said to the Duchess:

"'What nice bread!'

"'What nice seats!' replied Her Grace, leaning voluptuously against the hard, greasy boards."



CHAPTER XIV

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

"All the way talking of Russia, which, he says, is a sad place."—Pepys (Sept. 16th, 1664).

For three days our soldiers had been advancing over the devastated plain of the Somme. The crests of the innumerable shell-holes gave the country the appearance of a sort of frozen angry sea. The victors were advancing light-heartedly, as though preceded by invisible drums.

It was just at the time when the German army was swaying and tottering like a spent boxer awaiting the inevitable knock-out.

The Division had suffered heavily. All along the roads they had seen for the second time the sinister spectacle of villagers in flight and furniture-laden carts drawn by bowed women.

General Bramble had looked at the map with painful astonishment. He had been ordered to resist at all costs along the trenches on the green line; but when he reached the green line he had found no trenches; the Chinamen who were to dig them were still at sea somewhere near Suez.

Then, in a corner of a ruined village, they had come across a green felt hat and a fearsome moustache, which turned out reassuringly to belong to a rocking, tottering old man; and the Tommies—who are a primitive and adventurous race—were glad of the protection of this wild old totem of the Frankish tribe.

Then came motor-lorries to take the whole Division to the North, and through all the bustle and disorder they were conscious of a giant hand trying with prudent and skilful movements to rebuild the line.

"What can a general do?" the doctor had asked. "This war is too vast to be affected by human volition. Victory will come through tiny, decisive forces that have been at work since the beginning of the world. Tolstoy's Kutusoff used to go to sleep in Council—yet he beat Napoleon."

"However vast the scale of circumstance may be," said the colonel, "a man can change everything. A child cannot push a railway engine; yet he can start it if he opens the right throttle. A man has only to apply his will at the right place, and he will be master of the world. Your determinism is nothing more than a paradox. You build a cage round yourself and then are astonished you are a prisoner."

They were going forward rapidly. Aurelle, mounted on his old white Arab, trotted between the doctor and Colonel Parker.

"Don't hold your horse in so tightly, Messiou; give him the rein."

"But the road's full of holes, sir."

"My dear chap, when a man is on a horse, the horse is always the more intelligent of the pair."

He slackened his mare's rein to pass by a huge shell-hole, and began to talk of the peace that was at hand.

"The most difficult thing of all," he said, "will be to preserve in our victory the virtues that won it for us. Germany and Russia will do their best to corrupt us. A dishonoured nation always tries to bury its shame under the ruins of the victor's civilization. It's the device of Samson; it's as old as history itself. Rome, surrounded by vanquished and humbled nations, witnessed the lightning speed of Judaic preaching, which was so much like the Bolshevism of our day. The Russian ghettos of our capitals had their counterpart then in the Syrian dens that swarmed in the large ports; that is where the apostles of mystical communism preached most successfully. And Juvenal and Tacitus, who were gentlemen, had good reason to detest those anarchists, who condemned Roman civilization with the fanatical fury of a Trotsky."

"Yes," said the doctor, "the danger of these prolonged wars is that they end by making the most unusual habits generally acceptable. They require courage; and courage is a dangerous virtue, the mother of revolutions. And it is not easy to accustom a nation of warriors to render due obedience once more to second-rate politicians and profiteers. The oligarchy of parvenus which arose after the Punic wars could not be respected as the Roman senate had been. They possessed neither its hardihood nor its heroic parsimony. Bent only on beautiful slaves, perfumes and luxuries, they sacrificed their nascent influence to their passion for pleasure. They did not last long."

"It is quite certain," the colonel continued, "that in order to survive, an aristocracy must be hard upon itself. Moral discipline is indispensable to any class that wants to govern. If the industrial middle class is to take our place, it will have to be austere and hard. What sealed once and for all the doom of the Roman Senators was the decadent Greek culture of their sons. Those young noblemen affected an elegant dilettantism and toyed pleasantly with cultured demagogy. Caesar in his youth, Aurelle, was rather like one of your comfortable cultured French middle-class Socialists. His lifelong dream was to lead a moderate reform party, but he was embittered by the attacks of the Roman patricians. He is a type against whom our Public Schools protect us pretty well. We also have our decadent young lords, but the contempt of their own generation keeps them from doing much harm."

He stopped in order to salute a magpie—for he was very superstitious—pointed with his cane to a tank that lay buried on its back in the sand like a defeated tortoise, and went on:

"Do you think you will have a revolution in France after the war? If you do, I shall be very much surprised. Up till now the remembrance of 1793 has kept us looking with apprehension towards France as the danger-spot of Europe. To-day we realize our mistake.

"1793 made your country more conservative than any other, by giving your peasants the possession of the soil. It will probably be seen some years hence that the Russian Revolution has also had the same effect. The revolution will end when the Red armies return to Moscow and some unemployed Bonapartsky has the Soviets dispersed by his grenadiers. Then the moujiks who have acquired the national property will form the first layer of a respectable liberal bourgeois republic."

"Unless," said Aurelle, "Bonapartsky, having tasted the sweets of victory, sets out to conquer Europe with the help of his trusty grenadiers. Between the Terror and 'the respectable republic' there were twenty years of war, sir."

"The most terrible of all revolutions," began the doctor, "will be the English one. In France the intellectual is popular; the tribune of the people is a bearded professor with the kindest of hearts. In England the people's commissary will be a hard, clean-shaven, silent, cruel man."

"That may be," said the colonel; "but he will find more silent and still harder men up against him. If you think we are going to lie down and submit like the fatalist nobles of Petrograd, you are mistaken."

"You, sir? And why the devil should you defend business men and profiteers whom you are never tired of sending to perdition?"

"I shall not be defending profiteers, but a form of society which I hold to be necessary. The institutions which our ancestors have adopted after six thousand years' experience are worth ten times more than the systems of foolish and boastful hotheads. I stand always for what is."

With a sweeping gesture the doctor pointed to the twisted, rusty wire, the shattered walls, the mangled trees and the dense harvest of wooden crosses that rose from the barren soil.

"Allow me," he said, "to express the heartfelt admiration I feel for this venerable civilization of yours, and let me contemplate the fruits of these wise institutions which six thousand years have consecrated for you. Six thousand years of war, six thousand years of murder, six thousand years of misery, six thousand years of prostitution; one half of mankind busy asphyxiating the other half; famine in Europe, slavery in Asia, women sold in the streets of Paris or London like matches or boot-laces—there is the glorious achievement of our ancestors. It is well worth dying to defend, I must confess!"

"Yes, doctor," replied Aurelle; "but there are two sides to the question: six thousand years of reform, six thousand years of revolt, six thousand years of science, six thousand years of philosophy——"

"Now don't you run away with the idea that I'm a revolutionary. As far as I am concerned, the movements of men interest me no more than those of the spiders or the dogs I am so fond of observing. I know that all the speeches in the world will not prevent men from being jealous monkeys always greedy for food, females and bright stones. It is true that they know how to deck out their desires with a somewhat brilliant and delusive ideology, but it is easy for an expert to recognize the instinct beneath the thought. Every doctrine is an autobiography. Every philosophy demands a diagnosis. Tell me the state of your digestion, and I shall tell you the state of your mind."

"Oh, doctor, if that is so, life is not worth living."

"That, my boy, depends entirely upon the liver, as they say."

Young Dundas, who had just reined up level with them, interposed:

"My God, my God," he said, "how you chaps do love talking! Why, I once had a discussion myself at Oxford with one of those johnnies in a bowler hat and ready-made tie who go round and make speeches in public squares on Saturday afternoons. I had stopped to listen to him on my way back from a bathe. He was cursing the aristocracy, the universities, and the world in general. Well, after about five minutes' talking, I went right up to him and said, 'Off with your coat, my friend; let's go into the matter thoroughly.'"

"And did you convince him, Dundas?"

"It wasn't very difficult, Messiou, because, honestly, I could use my left better than he could."



CHAPTER XV

DANSE MACABRE

"Magical dancing still goes on in Europe to-day."—Sir James Fraser.

"Doctor," said General Bramble, "this morning I received from London two new fox-trots for my gramophone."

Ever since the Armistice sent the Scottish Division into rest on the Norman coast, the Infant Dundas had been running a course of dancing-lessons at the mess, which were patronized by the most distinguished "red-hats."

Aurelle emerged from behind an unfolded copy of the Times.

"Things look very rotten," he said. "The Germans are taking heart again; you are demobbing; the Americans are sailing away; and soon only we and the Italians will be left alone to face the European chaos——"

"Aurelle," said Colonel Parker, "take off your coat and come and learn the one-step—that'll be a jolly sight better than sitting moping there all the evening."

"You know I don't dance, sir."

"You're very silly," said Parker. "A man who doesn't dance is an enemy of mankind. The dancer, like the bridge-player, cannot exist without a partner, so he can't help being sociable. But you—why, a book is all the company you want. You're a bad citizen."

The doctor emptied his glass of brandy at one gulp, removed his coat, and joined the colonel in his attack upon the young Frenchman.

"A distinguished Irish naturalist, Mr. James Stephens," he said, "has noticed that love of dancing varies according to innocence of heart. Thus children, lambs and dogs like dancing. Policemen, lawyers and fish dance very little because they are hard-hearted. Worms and Members of Parliament, who, besides their remarkable all-round culture, have many points in common, dance but rarely owing to the thickness of the atmosphere in which they live. Frogs and high hills, if we are to believe the Bible——"

"Doctor," interrupted the general, "I put you in charge of the gramophone; top speed, please."

The orderlies pushed the table into a corner, and the aide-de-camp, holding his general in a close embrace, piloted him respectfully but rhythmically round the room.

"One, two ... one, two. It's a simple walk, sir, but a sort of glide. Your feet mustn't leave the ground."

"Why not?" asked the general.

"It's the rule. Now twinkle."

"Twinkle? What's that?" asked the general.

"It's a sort of hesitation, sir; you put out your left foot, then you bring it sharply back against the right, and start again with the right foot. Left, back again, and quickly right. Splendid, sir."

The general, who was a man of precision, asked how many steps he was to count before twinkling again. The rosy-cheeked one explained that it didn't matter, you could change steps whenever you liked.

"But look here," said General Bramble, "how is my partner to know when I'm going to twinkle?"

"Oh," said the aide-de-camp, "you must hold her near enough for her to feel the slightest movement of your body."

"Humph!" grunted the general. And after a moment's thought he added, "Couldn't you get up some mixed dances here?"

From the depths of the arm-chair came Aurelle's joyful approval.

"I've never been able to make out," he said, "what pleasure you men can find in dancing together. Dancing is a sentimental pantomime, a kind of language of the body which allows it to express an understanding which the soul dare not confess. What was dancing for primitive man? Nothing but a barbaric form of love."

"What a really French idea!" exclaimed Colonel Parker. "I should say rather that love is a barbaric form of dancing. Love is animal; dancing is human. It's more than an art; it's a sport."

"Quite right," said Aurelle. "Since the British nation deems worthy of the name of sport any exercise which is at once useless, tiring and dangerous, I am quite ready to admit that dancing answers this definition in every way. Nevertheless, among savages——"

"Aurelle, my boy, don't talk to me about savages!" said Parker. "You've never been out of your beloved Europe. Now I have lived among the natives of Australia and Malay; and their dances were not sentimental pantomimes, as you call them, at all, but warlike exercises for their young soldiers, that took the place of our Swedish drill and bayonet practice. Besides, it is not so very long since these close embraces were adopted in our own countries. Your minuets and pavanes were respecters of persons, and the ancients, who liked looking at dancing girls, never stooped to twirling them round."

"That's quite easy to understand," put in the doctor. "What did they want with dancing? The directness of their customs made such artificial devices for personal contact quite unnecessary. It's only our Victorian austerity which makes these rhythmical embraces so attractive. Puritan America loves to waggle her hips, and——"

"Doctor," said the general, "turn the record over, will you, and put on speed eighty; it's a jazz."

"What's worrying me," began Aurelle, who had returned once more to his paper, "is that our oracles are taking the theory of nationality so seriously. A nation is a living organism, but a nationality is nothing. Take the Jugo-Slavs, for instance——"

At that moment the doctor produced such an ear-splitting racket from the gramophone that the interpreter let his Times fall to the ground.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed; "have you broken it, doctor?"

"Broken it?" repeated the doctor in mild surprise.

"You don't mean to tell me that all that noise of broken crockery and foghorns was deliberately put together by a human brain?"

"You know nothing about it," said the doctor. "This negro music is excellent stuff. Negroes are much finer artists than we are; they alone can still feel the holy delirium which ranked the first singers among the gods...."

His voice was drowned by the sinister racket of the jazz, which made a noise like a barrage of 4.2 howitzers in a thunderstorm.

"Jazz!" shouted the general to his aide-de-camp, bostoning majestically the while. "Jazz—Dundas, what is jazz?"

"Anything you like, sir," replied the rosy-cheeked one. "You've just got to follow the music."

"Humph!" said the general, much astonished.

"Doctor," said Aurelle gravely, "we may now be witnessing the last days of a civilization which with all its faults was not without a certain grace. Don't you think that under the circumstances there might be something better for us to do than tango awkwardly to this ear-splitting din?"

"My dear boy," said the doctor, "what would you do if some one stuck a pin into your leg? Well, war and peace have driven more than one spike into the hide of humanity; and of course she howls and dances with the pain. It's just a natural reflex action. Why, they had a fox-trot epidemic just like this after the Black Death in the fourteenth century; only then they called it St. Vitus's dance."



CHAPTER XVI

THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

"But the Glory of the Garden Lies in more than meets the eye." R. Kipling.

A farewell dinner was being given to Aurelle by the officers of the Scottish Division, with whom he had spent four years of danger and hardship.

Before they sat down, they made him drink a cocktail and a glass of sherry, and then an Italian vermouth tuned up with a drop of gin. Their eager affection, and this curiously un-British mixing of drinks, made him feel that on this last evening he was no longer a member of the mess, but its guest.

"I hope," said Colonel Parker, "that you will be a credit to the education we have given you, and that you will at last manage to empty your bottle of champagne without assistance."

"I'll try," said Aurelle, "but the war has ended too soon, and I've still a lot to learn."

"That's a fact," grumbled the colonel. "This damned peace has come at a most unfortunate moment. Everything was just beginning to get into shape. I had just bought a cinema for the men; our gunners were working better every day; there was a chance of my becoming a general, and Dundas was teaching me jazz. And then the politicians poke their noses in and go and make peace, and Clemenceau demobs Aurelle! Life's just one damned thing after another!"

"Wee, Messiou," sighed General Bramble, "it's a pity to see you leaving us. Can't you stay another week?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm to be demobbed with the third batch, and I've got my warrant in my pocket. I'm to report to-morrow at Montreuil-sur-Mer; from there I shall be sent to Arras, and then dispatched to Versailles, after which, if I survive the journey, I shall be at liberty to return to Paris. I should be delighted to stay a few days, but I suppose I must obey the pompous military maxim and 'share the fortunes of my comrades.'"

"Why," said Colonel Parker, "are people so idiotic as to discharge soldiers whose return is dreaded by civilians and whose presence is necessary to the comfort of the Staff? We English adopted a much more intelligent plan for our demobilization. The men were to be classified according to their professions, and were only to be released when workmen of their occupation were required in England. In this way we were to avoid unemployment trouble. All the details were most clearly explained in a bulky volume; it was really an excellent plan. Well, when it came to be actually worked, everything went as badly as could be. Every one complained; there were small riots which were dramatized in the newspapers; and after some weeks' trial we returned to your system of classes, Aurelle, which makes for equality and is idiotic."

"It was easy to foresee," said the doctor, "that any regulation which neglected human nature was bound to fail. Man, that absurd and passionate animal, cannot thrive under an intelligent system. To be acceptable to the majority a law must be unjust. The French demobilization system is inane, and that is why it is so good."

"Doctor," said the general, "I cannot allow you to say that the French method is inane; this is the last evening Messiou is spending with us, and I will not have him annoyed."

"It doesn't matter a bit," said Aurelle; "neither of them knows what he's talking about. It is quite true that things are going rather better in France than elsewhere, in spite of absurd decrees and orders. But that's not because our laws are unjust; it's because no one takes them seriously. In England your weakness is that if you are ordered to demobilize men by classes, you'll do it. We say we're doing it, but by means of all sorts of reprieves, small irregularities and reasonable injustices, we manage not to do it. Some barbarous bureaucrat has decreed that the interpreter Aurelle should, in order to be demobilized, accomplish the circuit Montreuil-Arras-Versailles in a cattle-truck. It is futile and vexatious; but do you suppose I shall do it? Never in your life! Tomorrow morning I shall calmly proceed to Paris by the express. I shall exhibit a paper covered with seals to a scribe at the G.M.P., who will utter a few lamentations as a matter of form, and demobilize me with much grumbling. With us the great principle of public justice is that no one is supposed to respect the laws; this is what has enabled us to beat Germany."

"Humph!" muttered the general, much taken aback.

"Doctor," said Colonel Parker, "help Messiou Aurelle to some champagne; his mind is far too clear."

Corks began to pop with the rapidity of machine guns. Colonel Parker began a speech about the charming, kind and affectionate disposition of the women of Burma; the doctor preferred Japanese women for technical reasons.

"French women are also very beautiful," said General Bramble politely; for he could not forget this was Aurelle's farewell dinner.

When the orderlies had brought the port, he struck the table twice sharply with the handle of his knife, and said, with a pleasant mixture of solemnity and geniality:

"Now, gentlemen, as our friend is leaving us after having so excellently represented his country amongst us for the last four years, I propose that we drink his health with musical honours."

All the officers stood up, glass in hand. Aurelle was about to follow their example, when Colonel Parker crushed him with a whispered, "Assee, Messiou, poor l'amoor de Dee-er!" And the Staff of the Scottish Division proceeded to sing with the utmost solemnity, keeping their eyes fixed upon the young Frenchman:

"For he's a jolly good fellow, And so say all of us...."

Aurelle was deeply moved as he gazed at the friendly faces round him, and reflected sadly that he was about to leave for ever the little world in which he had been so happy. General Bramble was standing gravely at attention, and singing as solemnly as if he were in his pew in church:

"For he's a jolly good fellow, And so say all of us...."

Then came much cheering, glasses were drained at a gulp, and young, rosy-cheeked Dundas shouted, "Speech, Messiou, speech!"

"Come, Aurelle," said Colonel Parker, "don't you believe you're going to get out of it as easily as all that! You must get on your hind legs, my boy, and do your bit."

* * * * *

"Ah, Messiou," said the general when the ceremony was over and the brandy had followed the port, "I hope our two nations will remain friends after this war."

"How could it possibly be otherwise, sir? We cannot forget——"

"The duration of our friendship," Colonel Parker put in, "depends neither on you, Aurelle, nor on us. The Englishman as an individual is sentimental and loyal, but he can only afford the luxury of these noble sentiments because the British nation is imbued with a holy selfishness. Albion is not perfidious, in spite of what your countrymen used to say; but she cannot tolerate the existence of a dominant power on the Continent. We love you dearly and sincerely, but if you were to discover another Napoleon...."

"Humph!" grunted the general, greatly shocked. "Have some more brandy, Messiou?"

"Everything will be all right," said the doctor cynically. "Your cotton goods will always cost more than ours, and that is the surest guarantee of friendship."

"Why should they cost more?" carelessly asked Aurelle, in whose brain the brandy was beginning to produce a pleasant misty feeling.

"My boy," said the doctor, "your Napoleon, of whom Parker is so afraid, said we were a nation of shopkeepers. We accept the compliment, and our only regret is that we are unable to return it. You have three national failings which will always prevent you from being dangerous commercial competitors: you are economical, you are simple and you are hard-working. That is what makes you a great military people; the French soldiers got accustomed to the hardship of trench life far more readily than ours. But in peace-time your very virtues betray you. In that famous woollen stocking of yours you hoard not only your francs but your initiative; and your upper classes, being content with bathrooms which our farmers would disdain, feel no call to go out and cultivate Indo-China. We never invest a penny; so our children have no alternative but to go out Empire-building. We must have comfort, which compels us to be audacious; and we are extremely lazy, which makes us ingenious."

At this point General Bramble began to emit the series of grunting noises which invariably preceded his favourite anecdotes.

"It is quite true," he said proudly, "that we are lazy. One day, just after we had made an advance near Cambrai, and the position was still uncertain, I sent out an aviator to fly over a little wood and report whether the troops that occupied it were French, British or German. I watched him executing my order, and when he came back he told me the troops were British. 'Are you quite certain?' I asked, 'you didn't go very low.' 'It was not necessary, sir. I knew if those men had been busy digging trenches, I should have been uncertain whether they were French or German; but as they were sitting on the grass, I'm sure they are British.'"

It was ten o'clock. The aide-de-camp poured out a whisky and soda for his general. A silence ensued, and in the kitchen close by the orderlies were heard singing the old war ditties, from "Tipperary" to "The Yanks are coming," as was their nightly custom. They made a fine bass chorus, in which the officers joined unconsciously.

The singing excited Dundas, who began to yell "view-halloos" and smack a whip he took down from the wall. The doctor found a Swiss cowbell on the mantelpiece and rang it wildly. Colonel Parker took up the tongs and began rapping out a furious fox-trot on the mantelshelf, which the general accompanied from his armchair with a beatific whistle.

Of the end of the evening Aurelle had but a blurred remembrance. Towards one o'clock in the morning he found himself squatting on the floor drinking stout beside a little major, who was explaining to him that he had never met more respectable women than at Port Said.

Meanwhile Dundas started to chant a ditty about the virtues of one notorious Molly O'Morgan; Colonel Parker repeated several times, "Aurelle, my boy, don't forget that if Englishmen can afford to make fools of themselves, it is only because England is such a devilishly serious nation;" and Dr. O'Grady, who was getting to the sentimental stage, sang many songs of his native land in a voice that was full of tears.



CHAPTER XVII

LETTER FROM COLONEL PARKER TO AURELLE

"Tout homme de courage est homme de parole."—Corneille

Stapleton Hall, Stapleton, Kent. April —, 1920.

My Dear Aurelle,—Much water has passed beneath the bridges since your last letter. For one thing, I have become a farmer. When I left my staff job I thought of rejoining my old regiment; but it wasn't easy, as the battalion is crammed full of former generals who are only subalterns.

They are treating the army very unfairly here. Our damned Parliament refuses to vote it any money; very little is required of it, it's true—it has merely to maintain order in Ireland and to guard the Rhine, Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, Turkey, Palestine, Silesia, the Caucasus and a few other countries the names of which I can't remember! All I can say is, God help England!

We farmers also can do with His help. April is the month for sowing, and fine weather is necessary. As far as I am concerned, I had a hundred acres of potatoes to sow, and I had made detailed preparations for my spring offensive. But, as always happens when the poor British start attacking, rain began falling in bucketfuls the very first day of operations. The advance had to be stopped after a few acres, and public opinion is really much exercised about the matter.

Now I want to answer your letter. You say, "Some of you in England seem astonished that we refuse to trust the Germans. We are accused of a lack of generosity. What a splendid piece of unconscious humour! I'd like to see you in our shoes—suppose there were no sea between those chaps and yourselves!"

My dear Aurelle, I have often asked you not to confuse the English people with their cursed Puritans. There have always been in this country a large number of men who have done their best to destroy the strength and reputation of our Empire. Up to the time of good Queen Bess, these scoundrels were kept in their place, and I often regret I was not born in those times. Since then the Puritan element has on every occasion displayed its narrow-mindedness and its hatred of patriotism and of everything beautiful and joyous. The Puritans prefer their opinions to their country, which is an abominable heresy. They brought the civil wars upon us at the time of the Stuarts; they helped the rebels during the American War of Independence and the French during their Revolution. They were pro-Boers in the South African War, conscientious objectors in this one, and now they are supporting the republican murderers in Ireland, trying to undermine the British workman's faith in his King and county cricket, and doing their best to encourage the Germans by creating difficulties between France and ourselves.

But you must not forget that the magnificent indifference and ignorance of our race makes these pedants quite harmless.

You ask me what the average British citizen thinks about it all. Well, I'm going to tell you.

What interests the average British citizen beyond everything is the match between England and Scotland, which is to be played next Saturday at Twickenham, the Grand National, which is to be run next week at Liverpool, and Mrs. Bamberger's divorce, which fills the newspapers just now.

What does the British citizen think? Well, he went to the war without knowing what it was all about, and he has come back from it without having gathered any further information. As a matter of fact, he is beginning to wonder who won it. You say it was Foch, and we are quite ready to believe you; still, it seems to us that our army had a little to do with it. The Italians say they struck the decisive blow; so do the Serbians and the Portuguese, of course. The Americans go about wearing little badges in their buttonholes which proclaim, "We did it." Ludendorff claims that the German army won the war. I am beginning to ask myself whether I was not the victor. As a matter of fact, I'm inclined to think it was you. You kept the Infant Dundas quiet; if you hadn't repressed him, he would have kept General Bramble from working; the general would have been nervous at the time of the attack in April '18, and all would have been lost.

As to international politics I have very little to tell you. I am observing the bucolic mind, and am noticing with some anxiety that the brain of the countryman is very much like the turnip he grows with such perseverance. I am hoping I shall not also develop any vegetable characteristics.

You ask whether we are forgetting France. I don't think we are. Do you know that we were ready to remit your war debts if America had agreed? Not so bad for a nation of shopkeepers, is it? We don't brag about our devotion, but we will be with you if anything goes wrong. I trust you know us well enough to be quite assured of that.

I am very busy this morning with my favourite sow, who has just borne a litter of twelve. She immediately squashed one of them; King Solomon was not such a clever judge as he looked, after all. Au revoir.



CHAPTER XVIII

GENERAL BRAMBLE'S RETURN

"The English have a mild aspect and a ringing, cheerful voice."—Emerson.

"By Jove," said the Infant Dundas, "this Paris of yours is a jolly town."

Beltara the painter had invited Aurelle to spend an evening in his studio to meet General Bramble, who was passing through Paris on his way to Constantinople, accompanied by Dundas and Dr. O'Grady.

The general was sitting on a divan piled high with many-coloured cushions, and gazing with emotion upon the sketch of a nude figure. The Greek heads, Etruscan warriors and Egyptian scribes about him had the rare and spiritual beauty of mutilated things. Aurelle gazed at his old chief as he sat motionless among the statues, and consecrated the brief moment of silence to the memory of his virtues.

"A fine woman," exclaimed the general, "a very fine woman indeed! What a pity I can't show you a few Soudan negresses, Beltara!"

Beltara interrupted him to introduce one of his friends, Lieutenant Vincent, a gunner with a frank, open face. The general, fixing his clear gaze on Aurelle, tried to speak of France and England.

"I'm glad, Messiou, that we've come to an understanding at last. I'm not very well up in all this business, but I can't stand all these bickering politicians."

Aurelle was suddenly conscious of the general's real sincerity and anxiety about the future. Lieutenant Vincent came up to them. He had the rather wild, attractive grace of the present-day youth. As he sat listening to General Bramble's words about English friendship, his lips parted as though he was burning to break in.

"Will you allow me, sir," he suddenly interrupted, "to tell you how we look at it. Frankly speaking, you English were marvellous during the war, but since the Armistice you have been on the wrong tack entirely. You are on the wrong tack because you don't know the Germans. Now I've just come back from Germany, and it is absolutely clear that as soon as those fellows have enough to eat they'll fall on us again. You want to get their forgiveness for your victory. But why should they accept their defeat? Would you accept it in their place?"

"The sense of shame after victory," said the doctor gently, "is a sentiment quite natural to barbarous peoples. After employing the utmost cruelty during the fight, they come and implore their slaughtered enemies' pardon. 'Don't bear us a grudge for having cut off your heads,' they say; 'if we had been less lucky you would have cut off ours.' The English always go in for this kind of posthumous politeness. They call it behaving like sportsmen. It's really a survival of the 'enemy's taboo.'"

"It would be quite all right," put in Lieutenant Vincent breathlessly, "if you waited to appease the shades of your enemies till you were quite certain they were really dead. But the Germans are very much alive. Please understand, sir, that I'm speaking absolutely without hate. What I mean is that we must destroy Carthage—that is German military power—so completely that the very idea of revenge will appear absurd to any German with an ounce of common sense. As long as there exists at any time the barest chance of an enterprise, they will attempt it. I don't blame them in the least for it; in fact I admire them for not despairing of their country; but our duty—and yours too—is to make such an enterprise impossible."

"Yes," said the general in rather feeble French; "but you can't hit a man when he's down, can you?"

"It's not a question of being down, sir. Do you know that the three big gunpowder factories in Germany pay a dividend of fifteen per cent.? Do you know that Krupp is building a factory in Finland in order to escape our supervision? Do you realize that in ten years, if we don't keep an eye on their chemical factories, the Germans will be able to wage a frightful war against us, and use methods of which we haven't the slightest inkling? Now why should we run this risk when we are clearly in a position to take all precautions for some years to come? Carthage must be destroyed, sir. Why, just look at Silesia...."

"Every one's talking about Silesia," said the Infant Dundas. "What is it, really?"

Vincent, waving his arms despairingly, went to the piano and played a long, sad phrase of Borodin, the one which is sung by the recumbent woman just before Prince Igor's dances. Before Aurelle's eyes floated Northern landscapes, muddy fields and bleeding faces, mingling with the women's bare shoulders and the silk embroideries in the studio. He was suddenly seized by a healthy emotion, like a breath of fresh air, which made him want to ride across the wide world beside General Bramble.

"Doctor, can't we remain 'musketeers'?" he said.

"Can't be done," said the doctor sarcastically, "till this damned peace ends."

"You hateful person!" said Beltara. "Will you have a whisky and soda?"

"What!" exclaimed the general joyfully, "you've got whisky in the house, here, in France?"

"It is pleasant to notice," said the doctor, "that the war has been of some use after all. Your whisky, Beltara, quite reassures me about the League of Nations. As the Entente is necessary to the safety of our two countries, the responsibility of preserving good relations ought to be given to doctors and psychologists. Such experts would make it their business to cultivate those sentiments which tend to unite two countries into one. They would remind people, by means of noise and military ceremonies, of the great things they had achieved together. England would be represented at these functions, as she is in the minds of most Frenchmen, by Scotchmen and Australians. Bagpipes, kilts, bugles and tam-o'-shanters are far better diplomatists than ambassadors are. Pageants, dances, a few sentimental anecdotes, exchanges of song, common sports, common drinks—these are the essence of a good international policy. The Church, which is always so wise and so human, attaches as much importance to works as to faith. The outward signs of friendship are much more important than friendship itself, because they are sufficient to support it."

"Beltara," said the general, "will you ask your friend to play the 'Destiny Waltz' for Messiou?"

Once more the familiar strains rang out, and brought to mind the years of stress and happy comradeship.

"Aurelle, do you remember Marguerite at Amiens—oh, and those two little singers at Poperinghe whom I used to call Vaseline and Glycerine? They sang English songs without understanding a word, with the funniest accent in the world."

"And the Outersteene innkeeper's pretty daughters, Aurelle? Did you ever see them again?"

"Goodness knows where they've got to, sir; Outersteene isn't rebuilt yet."

"You never got to Salonica, did you? We had Mirka there; a fine pair of legs she had too!"

Meanwhile the Infant Dundas had discovered that Lieutenant Vincent played tennis, and had struck up a firm friendship. Taking hold of a palette, he began to explain a few strokes. "Look here, old man, if you cut your service towards the right, your ball will spin from right to left, won't it?"

Vincent, who had been somewhat reserved at first, was melting, like so many others, before the youthful charm of the Happy Nation.

Soon echoes of the hunt were heard in the studio, and Aurelle received full upon his person an orange that spun from right to left.

General Bramble took out his watch and reminded Aurelle he was taking the Orient Express. Beltara escorted him to the door, and Aurelle, Vincent and the Infant followed behind.

"I like the Vincent boy," said the general to his host. "He's a splendid fellow, really splendid! When he came in, I thought he was English."

Aurelle wished them a pleasant journey.

"Well, good-bye, Dundas. It was nice seeing you again. I suppose you're jolly glad you're going to Constantinople? I rather envy you."

"Yes," said the Infant, "I'm quite bucked about it, because the general who was there before us is leaving us a house that's got up in absolutely British style; there's a bathroom and a tennis-court. So I'll be able to go on practising my overhead service. Splendid, isn't it?"

They exchanged greetings and good wishes. The stars were shining in a moonless sky. On the pavement in the avenue they heard the aide-de-camp changing his step to fit his general's. The door closed upon them.

In the gallery, in front of the green bronze warriors with their large, staring eyes, the three Frenchmen looked at one another, and the corners of their mouths twitched with the same friendly smile.



Transcriber's Notes

Minor typographical errors in the original have been silently corrected. Page numbers have been removed from the table of contents and page boundaries have been recorded in comments in the html markup.

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