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 c.o.c.ktail and a gla.s.s 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 a.s.sistance."
"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 d.a.m.ned 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 d.a.m.ned 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 cla.s.sified 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 cla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.sionate 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 cla.s.ses, 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 j.a.panese 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, gla.s.s in hand. Aurelle was about to follow their example, when Colonel Parker crushed him with a whispered, "_a.s.see, 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, gla.s.ses 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 n.o.ble 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 compet.i.tors: 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 h.o.a.rd not only your francs but your initiative; and your upper cla.s.ses, 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 gra.s.s, 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 ba.s.s 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._