The Great Push: An Episode of the Great War. Patrick MacGill

he were in fever; when he spoke his voice was highly pitched and unnatural, a sign that he was under the strain of great nervous tension. Felan looked very much at ease, though now and again he fumbled with the pockets of his tunic, buttoning and unbuttoning the flaps and digging his hands into his pockets as if for something which was not there. He had no cause for alarm; he was the company cook and, according to regulations, would not cross in the charge.

      "Blimey! you're not 'arf a lucky dawg!" said Bill, glancing at Felan. "I wish I was the cook to-morrow."

      "I almost wish I was myself."

      "Wot d'yer mean?"

      "Do you expect an Irishman is going to cook bully-beef when his regiment goes over the top?" asked Felan. "For shame!"

      We rose, all of us, shook him solemnly by the hand, and wished him luck.

      "Now, what about the addresses?" asked Kore. "It's time we wrote them down."

      "It's as well to get it over," I said, but no one stirred. We viewed the job with distrust. By doing it we reconciled ourselves to a dread inevitable; the writing of these addresses seemed to be the only thing that stood between us and death. If we could only put it off for another little while. …

      "We'll 'ave a drink to 'elp us," said Bill, and a cork went plonk! The bottle was handed round, and each of us, except the corporal, drank in turn until the bottle was emptied. The corporal was a teetotaller.

      "Now we'll begin," I said. The wine had given me strength. "If I'm killed write to—— and——, tell them that my death was sudden—easy."

      "That's the thing to tell them," said the corporal. "It's always best to tell them at home that death was sudden and painless. It's not much of a consolation, but——"

      He paused.

      "It's the only thing one can do," said Felan.

      "I've nobody to write to," said Pryor, when his turn came. "There's a Miss——. But what the devil does it matter! I've nobody to write to, nobody that cares a damn what becomes of me," he concluded. "At least I'm not like Bill," he added.

      "And who will I write to for you, Bill?" I asked.

      Bill scratched his little white potato of a nose, puckered his lips, and became thoughtful. I suddenly realised that Bill was very dear to me.

      "Not afraid, matey?" I asked.

      "Naw," he answered in a thoughtful voice.

      "A man has only to die once, anyhow," said Felan.

      "Greedy! 'Ow many times d'yer want ter die?" asked Bill. "But I s'pose if a man 'ad nine lives like a cat 'e wouldn't mind dyin' once."

      "But suppose," said Pryor.

      "S'pose," muttered Bill. "Well, if it 'as got to be it can't be 'elped. … I'm not goin' to give any address to anybody," he said. "I'm goin' to 'ave a drink."

      We were all seated on the floor round the candle which was stuck in the neck of an empty champagne bottle. The candle flickered faintly, and the light made feeble fight with the shadows in the corners. The room was full of the aromatic flavour of Turkish cigarettes and choice cigars, for money was spent that evening with the recklessness of men going out to die. Teake handed round a fresh bottle of champagne and I gulped down a mighty mouthful. My shadow, flung by the candle on the white wall, was a grotesque caricature, my nose stretched out like a beak, and a monstrous bottle was tilted on demoniac lips. Pryor pointed at it with his trigger finger, laughed, and rose to give a quotation from Omar, forgot the quotation, and sat down again. Kore was giving his home address to the corporal, Bill's hand trembled as he raised a match to his cigar. Pryor was on his feet again, handsome Pryor, with a college education.

      "What does death matter?" he said. "It's as natural to die as it is to be born, and perhaps the former is the easier event of the two. We have no remembrance of birth and will carry no remembrance of death across the bourne from which there is no return. Do you know what Epictetus said about death, Bill?"

      "Wot regiment was 'e in?" asked Bill.

      "He has been dead for some eighteen hundred years."

      "Oh! blimey!"

      "Epictetus said, 'Where death is I am not, where death is not I am,'" Pryor continued. "Death will give us all a clean sheet. If the sergeant who issues short rum rations dies on the field of honour (don't drink all the champagne, Bill) we'll talk of him when he's gone as a damned good fellow, but alive we've got to borrow epithets from Bill's vocabulary of vituperation to speak of the aforesaid non-commissioned abomination."

      "Is 'e callin' me names, Pat?" Bill asked me.

      I did not answer for the moment, for Bill was undergoing a strange transformation. His head was increasing in size, swelling up until it almost filled the entire room. His little potato of a nose assumed fantastic dimensions. The other occupants of the room diminished in bulk and receded into far distances. I tried to attract Pryor's attention to the phenomenon, but the youth receding with the others was now balancing a champagne bottle on his nose, entirely oblivious of his surroundings.

      "Be quiet, Bill," I said, speaking with difficulty. "Hold your tongue!"

      I began to feel drowsy, but another mouthful of champagne renewed vitality in my body. With this feeling came a certain indifference towards the morrow. I must confess that up to now I had a vague distrust of my actions in the work ahead. My normal self revolted at the thought of the coming dawn; the experiences of my life had not prepared me for one day of savage and ruthless butchery. To-morrow I had to go forth prepared to do much that I disliked. … I had another sip of wine; we were at the last bottle now.

      Pryor looked out of the window, raising the blind so that little light shone out into the darkness.

      "A Scottish division are passing through the street, in silence, their kilts swinging," he said. "My God! it does look fine." He arranged the blind again and sat down. Bill was cutting a sultana cake in neat portions and handing them round.

      "Come, Felan, and sing a song," said M'Crone.

      "My voice is no good now," said Felan, but by his way of speaking, we knew that he would oblige.

      "Now, Felan, come along!" we chorused.

      Felan wiped his lips with the back of his hand, took a cigar between his fingers and thumb and put it out by rubbing the lighted end against his trousers. Then he placed the cigar behind his ear.

      "Well, what will I sing?" he asked.

      "Any damned thing," said Bill.

      "'The Trumpeter,' and we'll all help," said Kore.

      Felan leant against the wall, thrust his head back, closed his eyes, stuck the thumb of his right hand into a buttonhole of his tunic and began his song.

      His voice, rather hoarse, but very pleasant, faltered a little at first, but was gradually permeated by a note of deepest feeling, and a strange, unwonted passion surged through the melody. Felan was pouring his soul into the song. A moment ago the singer was one with us; now he gave himself up to the song, and the whole lonely romance of war, its pity and its pain, swept through the building and held us in its spell. Kore's mobile nostrils quivered. M'Crone shook as if with ague. We all listened, enraptured, our eyes shut as the singer's were, to the voice that quivered through the smoky room. I could not help feeling that Felan himself listened to his own song, as something which was no part of him, but which affected him strangely.

      "'Trumpeter, what are you sounding now?

      Is it the call I'm seeking?'

      'Lucky for you if you hear it all

      For my trumpet's but faintly speaking—

      I'm calling 'em home. Come home! Come home!

      Tread light o'er the dead in the valley,

      Who are lying around

      Face down to the ground,

      And