War Classics (7 page)

The Lady of the Lovely Hair – for so we always called her – was before me. Showers and showers of golden hair neatly tucked away, keen blue eyes, and capability in every inch of her figure, characterised Miss Mordaunt. Ability to get what she wanted under every possible circumstance, was one of her lesser charms. The landlady of the Coq d'Or was firm and uncompromising. ‘
Pas d'eau chaude. Que voulez-vous? C'est la guerre
.' [‘There's no hot water. What do you want? There's a war on.']

I began to think we should be beaten. But not so Miss Mordaunt. ‘Get into bed,' she said. ‘I have a Tommy cooker and we'll get a hot-water bottle straight away.'
3
I needed no second bidding and, grimy, tired, travel worn, anything but a star turn, I fell sound asleep with Miss Mordaunt's hot-water bottle clasped in my arms. Time and again since then it has been her fate to find me ‘down and out' as on that first day and to send me straight to bed. Across the world as she is today, I doubt it never can happen again.

And then work began in real earnest. At least, it would have, if within a week the Armistice had not stepped in. I knew it first by the
bonne
bursting into my bedroom with the shrill cry ‘1870 is avenged!' The tumult in the street outside was an echo of her words. A statue of France with a broken sword stood there down in the public square below me, in memory of 1870, and round it all day long surged cheering crowds.
4
The statue itself was smothered in flowers, November though it was. Only the figure of France could be seen standing breast high in a sea of roses. ‘
Les voilà
,
Mlle
,' went on Germaine. ‘Even the English officers are dancing.' They were singing and marching too in serried rows down the Grande Rue.

We saw no
poilus
but French marines, with that odd red hackle in their caps, walked arm in arm with Belgian troops. From the pavement stolid groups of Chinese, cabbage in hand, surveyed them curiously. A dark French Senegalese soldier from the Military Hospital on the
Plage
jogged past a Portuguese – worst behaved of all the Allies and sent here to be shipped home as soon as ever occasion afforded.
5

‘Aux armes, citoyens,' they played over and over again and I had hardly got over the marvel of the ‘Marseillaise' being played for ‘peace' when, faint and halting at first, but more confidently as it went on, the strains of ‘Tipperary' rose to my ears. They had not played it much since 1914, but it was the first thing they thought of today. ‘It's a long way to Tipperary, it's a long way to go.' The Band went on – a French band – playing ‘Tipperary'. But it was useless. If the ‘Marseillaise' failed to suggest peace, ‘Tipperary' called up only 1914 – the August days of it. All day long the surging crowds cheered round the statue. 1870 was avenged.

At the School alone, there was quietness. The roll call of the classes fell away by one half on Armistice night and hardly ever afterwards recovered. Late in the afternoon I went into the huts to see the men and how they took it. The Base Commandant had sent round word to close the canteens if we wished, as the men might be drunk. But we did not wish. On that night of all nights every man, drunk or sober, was to find a welcome there.

When I went in, they were still sober and the hut was packed to the door. Most of them were singing and some few laughing and talking. Would you like to know what they sang? No ‘Rule Britannia' or ‘God Save The King' – English soldiers rarely sing either unless they are bidden. No – it was a chorus we were to hear every day for the next six months, with varying emphasis – ‘When do we go home?', each word punctuated by thumps of mugs on tables, and the last word raised the roof.

At night they were many of them drunk, and the sober ones, with thoughts of the punctilious WAACs [Women's Army Auxiliary Corps] with whom they were dancing, were for turning the drunks out.
6
‘No, no,' said the Hut leader firmly, ‘let the drunks dance by themselves in this corner.' So, sometimes three together, sometimes the orthodox two, sometimes one, the drunks danced merrily in their corner; whenever one, well meaning but nothing more, lurched out to grab a WAAC, he was hastily but tenderly shepherded back by a stronger comrade.

Outside bells blared; flags flew; bands played; at every window in the Grande Rue faces looked out, laughing, crying. In the distance the ‘Marseillaise' came rolling down and its echo ‘It's – a – long – way – to – go.'

I stole into the Cathedral. Over the altar hung our flags, quiet and still. There was no need to wave them now. Utter quietness here and one spot of light only. In the chapel at my side lay the empty tomb and the marble watchers beside it. The figure of the risen Christ was outlined and ringed with light. Never have I seen so many candles ablaze together. Beneath Him in the darkness knelt clusters of black-robed women. Peace had come.

Down by the shore the water was quiet. If only there had been a destroyer on that clear green sea, I could have believed that peace had come. But having lived for four years beside the Grand Fleet, I found it hard to believe that anything great could happen and the Navy not be there. It was
Hamlet
without the Prince.

Still, here we were at Peace, and the Army had to be taught until it went home. More than ever now as its proper work was done. But the Army wanted home straight away and sooner if possible. We held a council of war. At present we had only Base Troops and when Demobilisation came, these would soon have their hands full. Also, their heads were none of the best, at any time, or they would not have been at the Base. So our thoughts flew ahead. Would we get our chance with the fighting troops in the Forward Armies? They were the goal of all our hopes – night after night I went to bed and dreamt I had really met them. Well, meet them I did eventually – but not to teach. To flirt with, yes, for whirlwind weekends, and nobody in the world ever flirted quite so well as they did, and then, standing on the pier with unresponsive France in the background, I waved them off to Blighty.
Sic transit Gloria Mundi
.

In the meantime, whom could we teach? No one was forced to come to us except from a few camps in the area, where the Commanding Officers, possessed by a zeal for education, thought it desirable to send their men down in lorries to classes as a parade. From reasons hardly the same as those of their Commanders, the men too thought this a capital plan! First of all it exempted them – which was in itself a benefit – from a severe Physical Exercise Parade; secondly it gave them an enjoyable motor excursion from the desolation of the mud-flat that was their camp to the bliss of a real live Base; and thirdly it gave them a whole hour at their own sweet wills in that Base. It was true that for one hour, too, they had to sit on benches before an Instructor at ‘School' and profess a desire to be taught something, but even that was not without its entertaining moments.

Well do I remember being sent to find out what one set wanted to learn. ‘I wants to write a letter, Miss,' began Private Nobbs, a middle-aged man of disapproving aspect.

‘But surely you can do that already?' I returned in surprise.

‘No, Miss – that 'ere little writin' I means – same as likes of you puts and 'ard to read like – not them big letters same as mine.'

This somewhat daunted me, it being the only compliment my handwriting has ever extracted, but outwardly I preserved a business-like calm. ‘Writing class,' I jotted down. ‘Report to the Chief at the end of the hour.' Alas for my compliment! At the end of the hour Private Nobbs, seeing the Chief's handwriting – even more illegible than my own – decided he would prefer to model himself on that. I tremble to think what stage of development his calligraphy may now have reached, for he went for the writing lessons as, had he only been younger, he would have gone for the Boche.

Private Wooley, his neighbour, was a very superior person. ‘I wants English literature,' he said haughtily.

I took a deep breath. ‘Yes?' I said enquiringly, balancing my pencil in my fingers.

‘For to be a reporter-like to them newspapers,' he went on.

I thought of Lord Northcliffe and waited expectantly.
7

‘I wants to write police reports – can make a good bit o' money that way.'
News of the World
– I made a note. I had no experience of writing police reports myself – it not being included by the University of Edinburgh in their curriculum of English literature – but I knew the kind of thing this man wanted.

‘Write an account of a drowning accident for me,' I said promptly and passed on to the next.

He was an old soldier – served his time in the regular Army long years before the War and was really too old to have been sent even to a Base. Still he was there. He began the conversation. ‘You be the fourth young lady we've 'ad, Miss,' he said encouragingly, ‘and all of 'em larning their job.' This was somewhat dismaying, but I reflected that all troops learned French as a matter of course and that was probably how he had had four of us.

‘And which of them do you like best?' I questioned, ignoring the second half of his remark.

But he was not to be caught. Quick as a shot came the answer, ‘We allus likes the last 'un best, Miss,' which, I think, under the circumstances, could not have been bettered.

‘And what do you want to learn?' I pursued.

‘Not partickler, Miss,' he replied amiably, ‘anythink you likes.' Being of the old Army he, like his superiors, did not hold with Education, but it gave him an hour at the Base, so he came.

A bespectacled youth, converted by the war, wanted to learn the Greek Testament although he could not even ask for it grammatically; a good many wanted shorthand – one man quite genuinely asked for sewing – but the general demand was for anything that would pay after the war. As we styled it in our official communications, the demand was ‘vocational'.

One night the corporal in charge of one of these lorries came to me in great distress. I gathered that he had arrived duly at ‘School' at the appointed hour; it was a dark night and he was sitting beside the driver. When he got out to disembark his men, not one of them was there. ‘Started with me, Miss, they did, all of 'em. An' to go a-wastin' of your time like this,' – he was speechless with indignation – ‘an' givin' me the slip too,' he added sorrowfully. ‘I'll dish 'em – I will, when I gets 'em back.'

The Chief was never surprised at anything. ‘Go and round them up through the town, Corporal,' he said, ‘and fetch them here for their lesson – they will have it right away and no town leave.' I confess my sympathies were all with the truants who had noiselessly escaped from the lorry and the vigilance of the Corporal just as they entered the town.

Apart from these parades, however, which were productive of very little good, as the men's hearts were rarely in their work – apart from these, we had the voluntary classes both at ‘School' and in the camps themselves. To every camp round about – and there were many – we sent out instructors. Once a week as a rule they came in to ‘School' to report. Camp life was delightful and everybody loved it. Being considered a star turn, however, I was held to be too important to be wasted on an outlying camp, and except for flying visits to each and all of them, I was retained at the Base.

The delightfulness of Camp Life – as any woman would understand – lay largely in the fact that you were the only woman there. You interviewed the General – if you were Miss Mordaunt – for a hut for your classes, and on the same condition, you got it. If you were a male instructor, you only reached the Brigade Major, who might possibly promise you a hut in the dim future. But, being Miss Mordaunt still, you got the Brigade Major to help you find the hut and Staff Captains galore to have it fitted up for you. But then few of us had, like Our Lady of the Lovely Hair, the privilege and pleasure of being six weeks in Camp with the Guards' Brigade, which in itself was an excellent training.

Then there was Circe, dark-haired, white-faced, fascinating. It was a very muddy camp that she was sent to – for even in mud there are degrees – and after a week she failed to report. But not so her Camp Commandant. ‘The camp was knee-deep in mud,' he wrote, ‘the lady had arrived, it appeared, in the daintiest of tan suede shoes, fresh from Bond Street. Consequently after one day, her feet had crocked. The Principal Medical Officer spent most of the morning bathing them, while the Commandant's entire Staff was occupied in amusing the lady for the rest of the day.' Plainly the CC [Camp Commandant] had not himself fallen a victim. And it was very like Circe to have the Principal MO [Medical Officer] in attendance as distinct from his subordinates.

The Chief was not amused. ‘I will recall her at once,' he said, ordering the car, ‘and shoes or no shoes, she shall come with me to the RE [Royal Engineers?] stores and be fitted with military boots – regulation pattern.' And, though you might not think it, that was not the last of the tan suede shoes. They provided her with riding lessons from a compassionate Major of the camp, who thought it would be so much better if she hadn't to walk at all, and they formed the subject of a severe order to all future ladies of England who might think of coming out to us – nothing but boots of the heaviest pattern would do.

For myself, I was sent up to a Remount Camp to find out if anything could be taught there.
8
It was a small camp and very outlying. Later, in a different guise, I was to revisit it. The men in civil life were mostly grooms. I went into the Hut to talk to them and they affably made room for me in a big circle round the fire. I tried to find out where they came from – chiefly the Midlands and the backwoods of Yorkshire. They politely asked if I minded them smoking – which I did not – and the remarks of the Yorkshireman were translated to me by his more civilised-speaking companions. But the visit, though pleasant, was non-productive. ‘Fact is, Miss,' said the spokesman, in the tones of one arriving at a happy conclusion, ‘we don't want to learn nothink here, we don't. Not but what we'd like to see you, Miss,' he gallantly hastened to add, ‘every Saturday night, when the car comes.' But I reflected that a ‘star turn' would hardly be allowed up every Saturday night for conversational purposes, and I knew that in any case, any power I had in that direction, would rapidly give out.