Back to Life. Philip Gibbs

pretty girl, if possible, or a plain one if not, drew him like a magnet, excited all his boyish egotism, called to the faun-spirit that played the pipes of Pan in his heart. It was an amusing game for him, with his curly brown hair and Midshipman Easy type of face. For the French girls whom he had met on his way—little Marcelle on Cassel Hill, Christine at Corbie on the Somme, Marguérite in the hat-shop at Amiens (what became of her, poor kid?)—it was not so amusing when he “blew away,” as he called it, and had a look at life elsewhere.

      He winked at me, as I passed, over the heads of the girls.

      “The fruits of victory!” he called out. “There is a little Miss Brown-Eyes here who is quite enchanting.”

      It was rather caddish of me to say: “Have you forgotten Marguérite Aubigny?”

      He thought so, too, and reddened angrily.

      “Go to blazes!” he said.

      His greatest chum, and one of mine—Charles Fortune—was standing outside a café in the big Place, not far from the Vieille Bourse, with its richly-carved Renaissance front. Here there was a dense crowd, but they kept at a respectful distance from Fortune, who, with his red tabs and red-and-blue arm-band and row of ribbons (all gained by heroic service over a blotting-pad in a Nissen hut) looked to them, no doubt, like a great general. He had his “heroic” face on, rather mystical and saintly. (He had a variety of faces for divers occasions—such as the “sheep’s face” in the presence of generals who disliked brilliant men, the “intelligent” facer-bright and inquiring—for senior officers who liked easy questions to which they could give portentous answers, the “noble” face for the benefit of military chaplains, foreign visitors to the war-zone, and batmen before they discovered his sense of humour; and the “old-English-gentleman” face at times for young Harding, who belonged to a county family with all its traditions, politics, and instincts, and permitted Fortune to pull his leg, to criticise generals, and denounce the British Empire as a licensed jester.)

      Fortune was addressing four gentlemen of the Town Council of Lille who stood before him, holding ancient top-hats.

      “Gentlemen,” said Charles Fortune in deliberate French, with an exaggerated accent, “I appreciate very much the honour you have just paid me by singing that heroic old song, ‘It’s a long, long way to Tipperary.’ I desire, however, to explain to you that it is not as yet the National Anthem of the British people, and that, personally, I have never been to Tipperary, that I should find some difficulty in finding that place on the map, and that I never want to go there. This, however, is of small importance, except to British generals, to whom all small things are of great importance—revealing, therefore, their minute attention to details, even when it does not matter—which, I may say, is the true test of the military mind which is so gloriously winning the war, after many glorious defeats (I mean victories) and——” (Here Fortune became rather tangled in his French grammar, but rescued himself after a still more heroic look). “And it is with the deepest satisfaction, the most profound emotion, that I find myself in this great city of Lille on the day of liberation, and on behalf of the British Army, of which I am a humble representative, in spite of these ribbons which I wear on my somewhat expansive chest, I thank you from my heart, with the words, ‘la France!’ ”

      Here Fortune heaved a deep sigh, and looked like a field marshal while he waited for the roar of cheers which greeted his words. The mystical look on his face became intensified as he stood there, a fine heroic figure (a trifle stout for lack of exercise), until he suddenly caught sight of a nice-looking girl in the crowd nearest to him, and gave her an elaborate wink, as much as to say, “You and I understand each other, my pretty one! Beneath this heroic pose I am really human.”

      The effect of that wink was instantaneous. The girl blushed vividly and giggled, while the crowd shouted with laughter.

      “Quel numéro! Quel drôle de type!” said a man by my side.

      Only the four gentlemen of the Town Hall, who had resumed their top-hats, looked perplexed at this grotesque contrast between the heroic speech (it had sounded heroic) and its anti-climax.

      Fortune took me by the arm as I edged my way close to him.

      “My dear fellow, it was unbelievable when those four old birds sang ‘Tipperary’ with bared heads. I had to stand at the salute while they sang three verses with tears in their eyes. They have been learning it during four years of war. Think of that! And think of what’s happening in Ireland—in Tipperary—now! There’s some paradox here which contains all the comedy and pathos of this war. I must think it out. I can’t quite get at it yet, but I feel it from afar.”

      “This is not a day for satire,” I said. “This is a day for sentiment. These people have escaped from frightful things——”

      Fortune looked at me with quizzical grey eyes out of his handsome, mask-like face.

      “Et tu, Brute? After all our midnight talks, our laughter at the mockery of the gods, our intellectual slaughter of the staff, our tearing down of all the pompous humbug which has bolstered up this silly old war.”

      “I know. But to-day we can enjoy the spirit of victory. It’s real, here. We have liberated all these people.”

      “We? You mean the young Tommies who lie dead the other side of the canal? We come in and get the kudos. Presently the generals will come and say, ‘We did it! Regard our glory! Fling down your flowers! Cheer us, good people, before we go to lunch.’ They will not see behind them the legions they sent to slaughter by ghastly blunders, colossal stupidity, invincible pomposity.”

      Fortune broke into song. It was an old anthem of his:

      “Blear-eyed Bill, the Butcher of the Boche.”

      He had composed it, after a fourth whisky, on a cottage piano in his Nissen hut. In crashing chords he had revealed the soul of a general preparing a plan of battle—over the telephone. It never failed to make me laugh, except that day in Lille when it was out of tune, I thought, with the spirit about us.

      “Let’s put the bitter taste out of our mouth to-day,” I said.

      Fortune made his sheep-face, saluted behind his ear, and said, “Every inch a soldier—I don’t think!”

III

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      It was then we bumped straight into Wickham Brand, who was between a small boy and girl, holding his hands, while a tall girl of sixteen or so, with a yellow pig-tail slung over her shoulder, walked alongside, talking vivaciously of family experiences under German rule. Pierre Nesle was on the other side of her.

      “In spite of all the fear we had—oh, how frightened we were sometimes!—we used to laugh very much. Maman made a joke of everything—it was the only way. Maman was wonderfully brave, except when she thought that father might have been killed.”

      “Where was your father?” asked Brand. “On the French side of the lines?”

      “Yes, of course. He was an officer in the artillery. We said good-bye to him on August 2nd of the first year, when he went off to the dépôt at Belfort. We all cried except maman—father was crying, too, but maman did not wink away even the tiniest tear until father had gone. Then she broke down, so that we all howled at the sight of her. Even these babies joined in. They were only babies then.”

      “Any news of him?” asked Brand.

      “Not a word. How could there be? Perhaps in a few days he will walk into Lille. So maman says.”

      “That would be splendid!” said Brand. “What is his name?”

      “Chéri, M. le Commandant Anatole Chéri, 59th Brigade, artillerie lourde.”