War Classics

by Flora Johnston

  ‘A sell lots of them to the men,’ he continued, ‘they’ll ask for’t at the counter.’ He was quite right – they did, often, but all the same, I did not put it on.

  We ate our breakfast in silence – he being Scotch, was no talker and I was afraid to speak for once. At the end he rose. ‘Can ye sweep a chimney?’ he enquired slowly. I’m afraid I looked blank. Pursuant to the Sergeant’s instructions, I had done up till then everything I had been told, but I didn’t even know how to begin this. ‘Weel, weel,’ he said with a sigh, ‘a doot a’ll hae to do’t masel, but ye’d better bake some shortbread for tea, a’m expectin’ the Chief.’

  My heart leapt. How nice to see the Chief again! He hadn’t asked me to sweep chimneys. But my host was speaking. ‘Ye’ll mebbe no’ ken how to make shortbread, like?’ he enquired tactfully. I did not. In self-defence, most Oxford dons don’t. ‘Tak’ off your boots and put on your overall an’ a’ll show ye.’ We didn’t make real shortbread, not having the ingredients, but a kind of Quaker Oats cake, crisp and sweet and brown – rather easier to make. At least that is the only way I can account for my being able to make them – after only spoiling two. Never have I passed a happier morning and when at 12 o’clock, I hurried to the counter to serve the first cup of tea, my cheeks were hot, my hands were floury and I expect, so was my hair. But the troops were not to be daunted. ‘You looks like a little bit o’ home, Miss,’ one said in plain tones of admiration. ‘Don’t she just,’ echoed the Quartermaster proudly from the depths of the orderly kitchen.

  ‘Ye’ll no’ be forgettin’,’ said the Hut Leader to me at lunch, an hour later, ‘that this is St Andrew’s nicht. We’ll ha’e a supper after nine o’clock in ma room.’

  It was indeed 30 November – tho’ I had forgotten it. This was, I suppose, why the chimney required to be swept. It was the quaintest St Andrew’s night supper to which I have ever sat down. To begin with there was no whisky – not that I would have drunk any in any case – but it seems to go with St Andrew. The Hut Leader and I had the honour to represent Scotland – the Chief was English but well intentioned, and so was the Quartermaster.

  We dined off chestnut soup – made from chestnut flour specially sent out from Gibson’s, Princes Street, to the Hut Leader – then roasted chickens – the pièce-de-résistance, those, and produced from somewhere by the Quartermaster. ‘However did you get them?’ I said in admiration. We usually dined off bully beef or fish, when I could get it.

  ‘Well, I points to what I wants, Miss, and then I say “Vous blaguez, Madame” when she sez the price and there it is.’

  Dessert was my cakes and the canteen chocolate, and then in lemonade we drank ‘Them That’s Far Awa’.

  After that the Hut Leader announced that the Camp Commandant had invited us both to lunch on the morrow – and what about my boots? The Orderly had expressed a desire to clean them. ‘But,’ I exclaimed in distress, ‘even if he does, they’ll be muddy again before I get to the Camp Commandant.’

  The Quartermaster intervened. ‘I’ll find you a pair of gum boots and you’ll put them on till you get to the CC’s house. Then you can put on your own at the door.’

  It is not the usual way of calling at home – to put on one’s boots in the porch – but I did not want to disgrace the troops, and when I did get as far as the CC’s dining room next day, he could have seen his face, had he chosen, reflected in the polish of my boots. It was a very stiff luncheon – all prunes and prisms – the CC treating me with withering politeness from behind the majesty of his eyeglass. Just once again I saw him, down at the Base, cantering a fiery charger through the crowded Grande Rue, and clearing it before him. It was on the tip of my tongue to shout out, ‘Halt’ and I knew the horse would have pulled up dead. But the consequences to me would have been – well – undesirable, though not unexpected.

  As we walked back from luncheon, the Leader told me a padre would arrive to conduct the service in the Hut that night. Now padres – bar one – are the only ‘duds’ I ever struck in France. This one was harmless. I was conducted to a seat in the front row, beside the Hut Leader, and the men were told they might choose the hymns. They had come in, mud-soaked and fresh from the horses, and were sitting patiently but wearily round. It was perhaps natural, I reflected, that they should choose ‘Days and Moments Quickly Flying’ but I only really understood the reason when we came to the rousing chorus of another hymn ‘And nightly pitch my moving tent – One day’s march nearer Home.’ I think the padre himself must have been surprised at the fervour of that last line. I endured the sermon with the thought of the next hymn. It came – one of the old Glory hymns – ‘Wash me and I shall be Whiter than Snow’ with the ‘Wash me’, as the Army would say, in triplicate, at the beginning. When I stole a look at the mud-stained, unkempt rows – it was not a ‘parade’ service – I could not keep the ghost of a smile from my lips, but I hope it was a kind ghost, for I loved the singers.

  But the regulation lady was coming back, and in a few days I had to go. I have seldom been sorrier leaving anywhere in my life than leaving Luneray. After the first night in my house in the wood, I felt just like an Enchanted Princess with all my Knights round me. To the outside world they might be rough and horsy and stupid, but I knew they were gems – tophole, as the Sergeant had said – every one. There they were, on treetop, hut roof, far down the lines, waving goodbye as the Chief and I sped away.

  Down at the Base it was work again. A very important Visitor had arrived from England – to organise correspondence work with the Forward Armies. The Chief was closeted with him for hours and then they sent for me. ‘I feel,’ said the Chief, ‘that this will really be worthy of your talents.’ I never quite knew how to take statements like that, though I am sure there must be a right answer somewhere.

  The Visitor looked at me through his glasses. ‘I am very much astonished,’ he said severely, ‘that you are doing so little at the Bases. I have been over them all. And yet the newspapers at home show that the troops are simply craving for Education.’

  ‘Not the Base troops,’ I said gravely, thinking of the Sainte Valerie lorry and its missing load.

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ he returned, nettled. ‘Why shouldn’t the Base troops want it?’

  ‘Because they are mostly no good in the line, you know, or too old to go up, and they all have their work too. They haven’t much time for education.’

  ‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘all the young officers are University men – everybody knows that – and The Times says they read Plato in the trenches.’

  I was politic. ‘We haven’t those here,’ I said.

  ‘I come from Cambridge and I know dozens of young officers,’ he went on. ‘Where are they?’

  Well, I came from Oxford, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. ‘Mostly dead,’ I answered. ‘They’ve won the war you know.’ He must himself have been indispensable – he was under age – for he turned to his files.

  ‘I have here a scheme,’ he said icily, ‘for instructing by correspondence all Units not in touch with a Base.’ My heart leapt – teaching the Forward Armies! That was business indeed! I was prepared to love our Visitor, in spite of his Times. ‘The men will write to you and say what they want (a little envelope for that). You will have a list of all Tutors available in France, with their qualifications, and where the subject has no Tutor, you will write to me (big envelope for that). I have all the Universities in England behind me and most of the leading commercial men in London. If music is required, I have a Tutor in Trinity College, Dublin.’ Ireland all over, I thought, to choose a subject like that. Music by correspondence would hardly appeal, even to the Forward Armies. ‘And you yourself,’ he concluded, ‘will undertake the classics, I believe.’ I bent my head. ‘It’s a first-rate scheme,’ he went on, ‘and I think you hardly realise out here how interested people at home are in this demand for Education. Here I have overworked business men giving up their spare hours to this correspondence work, that th
e men may get the best of everything.’

  ‘And so the men should,’ I put in quickly, ‘but you know, those you want to get at have no spare hours at all.’

  ‘I fear you lack my enthusiasm,’ he countered.

  ‘No,’ I said sadly, ‘only your optimism, but I will do my best.’

  ‘I have to go home myself,’ he went on regretfully, ‘as I cannot be spared from my present work – so I shall have to leave it to you.’

  ‘Shall we get the bills and – er – envelopes and prospectuses printed then?’ I suggested, hoping to change the subject.

  ‘No,’ he said curtly. ‘I shall have those done in London. It will be quicker. We work day-and-night shifts there, you know. And I’ll send them out by a friend of mine, who is just going back.’ Probably one of the dozens of young officers, I reflected. It was. And he dumped them at Boulogne whence, because of the severity of the weather and the bulkiness of the packages, I could get no car to retrieve them for weeks and weeks.

  When the Visitor had departed, we breathed again. Oh! I had one parting shot at him. ’I could give you final instructions,’ he said to me, ‘about the manner I wish this done, if you come round to the General Headquarters tonight after dinner, about 9 o’clock, say.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ I said quietly, ‘but I teach from now on till 9,’ – it was very nearly teatime then – ‘and I have to have my dinner after that.’ What the troops would have said – or done – to him, if they’d heard him suggest I should walk along the Plage by myself unescorted to see him, at 9 p.m. I did not say. He might be spared that, I felt, seeing he knew so little already.3

  At tea, the Staff waxed very merry over my new job. Any of the local officers – and all visiting officers – were welcome to drop in to tea, and most of them did. The Chief, his secretary and I, the Philosopher and the OC Stores, were the only permanent members in for tea. Between them, they devised a new title for me – ‘OC Odd Subjects, Lonely Soldiers’ Department, Care of British Army.’ ‘Care of British Army, anyhow,’ said the Philosopher bitterly.

  ‘You will have to give up housekeeping now,’ said the Chief, I trusted with regret, ‘when you go to General Headquarters. I have always hoped you would get something good like that.’

  ‘But I needn’t give up my classes, need I?’ I enquired, in alarm. ‘I don’t want to be writing letters all the day. I’d much rather talk to the men.’

  ‘You will have a secretary,’ said the Chief quietly, ‘but you needn’t give up your classes. I will keep you for those.’

  ‘What about our Christmas dinner?’ said the OC Stores, suddenly. He had not spoken till then.

  ‘I would love to do that,’ I put in meekly. ‘Couldn’t I just do the Christmas dinner?’

  ‘There are no turkeys in the Area,’ said the Philosopher. ‘All bought up by the Camps long ago – none in the market either, or likely to be.’

  This was alarming. ‘What about plum puddings?’ I said to the OC Stores. ‘Can you do them?’

  He shook his head. ‘I might do you about four,’ he said, ‘but each is only for one person. I need all the rest for the men.’

  It appeared the Chief wanted to ask at least sixteen people, so four small plum puddings would be worse than useless. Suddenly I thought of the Quartermaster at Luneray with his ‘Vous blaguez, Madame’ – he would wangle the turkeys for me, I knew he would. ‘I’ll do the Christmas dinner,’ I said, ‘and ‘’twill be the nicest you ever ate.’

  All the same, for the next three weeks, I was none so sure of that. But everyone played up. Marie Henriette took the most enormous interest in it. Her menu would have satisfied the Savoy, but we cut it down. She shook her head over the turkeys. ‘Pas de dindes,’ she said, ‘Messieurs les officiers anglais les out toutes, mais des oies, de belles oies.’ [There are no turkeys,’ … ‘the English officers have them all, but there are geese, lovely geese.’]

  ‘Non,’ I returned calmly, ‘des dindes, deux,’ – for I had written to my friend. Sure enough a scrawl came down, ‘Turkeys have been secured as requested, same to be delivered without fail on 23 December. P.S. Do not tip the bearer.’ Indeed, we were the only mess at the Base that had turkey for its Christmas dinner. The plum puddings were beyond hope, but Marie Henriette declared she could make a chocolate cream that would make us think of heaven. Only, it required a dozen eggs. ‘Impossible,’ I said. ‘We cannot afford that, even if we could get them.’

  ‘Mais non, Mlle,’ said Marie Henriette agitatedly. ‘Il y a un de mes frères …’ [one of my brothers … ] The French Army, it appeared, in the person of Marie Henriette’s ‘brothers’ was willing to contribute the eggs. They were unobtainable in town. ‘Also, Mlle,’ went on Marie Henriette, warming to her task, ‘there is le gui [mistletoe]. Messieurs les officiers anglais, how they love that!’ She turned up her eyes. Marie Henriette had been cook to an officers’ mess before she came to us, and she did not let us forget it.

  ‘Yes?’ I said doubtfully. It was well not to encourage her on some points.

  ‘Michel, mon frère, he bring a cart load of it and messieurs les officiers help Mlle to pin it up’ – planning it all out.

  ‘What about holly?’ I enquired, but she had never heard of it. Messieurs les officiers had no use for holly.

  In the end there was a reunion in the kitchen; all the family came up from the country with the Christmas provisions. There was golden butter – precious as gold – with a cow carved on it, eggs galore in basins and a perfect forest of mistletoe, with Michel’s laughing face peeping out amidst it. In the corner, were the turkeys ‘as per order’. Upstairs a cataract of coloured paper and lanterns and flags had arrived – the gift of the OC Stores. It being an Allied undertaking, I handed over a Union Jack and a couple of Irish harps on a bright green ground to Marie Henriette for the kitchen. The two last, being those of an unknown Ally, proved a mighty distraction for the French Army. Upstairs I set the Philosopher to hang up the lanterns and the paper and the flags – not trusting him with the mistletoe.

  ‘Can you get any wine?’ said the Chief to me anxiously. ‘The shops have none.’ I knew that, but on Armistice Day, in my billet, Monsieur had produced champagne – which I had tasted for the first time in my life – and we often had cider. I still remembered Monsieur’s toast – ‘À tous ceux que nous aimons and à tous ceux qui nous aiment’ [‘To all those we love, and to all those who love us’]. I always think of it when I see champagne. Perhaps we would get some wine from him.

  ‘I can get it Mlle,’ he said politely, ‘but it will be prix de fantaisie.’

  ‘Ça ne fait rien,’ I said gaily, ‘c’est Noel, Monsieur, et la paix.’ [‘It doesn’t matter … It’s Christmas, Monsieur, and Peace.’] After all, vin rouge and cider at five francs a bottle for the one and 50 centimes for the other would not ruin us, and the Chief had said I could pay what I liked for them – he would give it.

  On Christmas Eve, we had a surprise. Uncle Joe wheeled up to the back door with 47 plum puddings instead of the four we’d been promised. England, alas! is always better than her word. I was helping the Philosopher to decorate and the ‘officiers anglais’ (a gay party) were aiding the secretary to hang up the mistletoe when the Education Officer arrived with a large box. ‘Going on leave tonight,’ he said cheerily, ‘but I’ve brought you a Christmas present – crackers – you never thought of them.’

  ‘Oh yes, I had,’ I answered, from the top of a ladder, ‘but they don’t run to them in France and it takes months to get them from home.’ I fixed the last lantern and jumped down. ‘You’re a perfect dear, give our best love to England.’ The crackers would be a lovely spot of colour at everyone’s plate tomorrow, I thought. But I thought too late. Next morning, bouquets of red carnations arrived for each of us, from the officers of the Base. It was clear that the English officers appreciated us. I never see red carnations now without thinking of Christmas at the Base.

  Just before we went in to dinner, Marie Henriette and I went
round the table. There was mistletoe on the oranges and trails of mistletoe in straight lines on the table – trust France for straight lines. At each plate was a cracker and at each woman’s place, a bouquet of red carnations. The vin rouge was there and the cider – its delicious yellow. Marie Henriette and her two French assistants were to serve the dinner, and as it was to be an Allied function and we had no orderlies, I decided the Philosopher must wait. He made a born butler and perhaps enjoyed it all the more as it necessitated visits to the kitchen. The OC Stores – as fitted by his office – took on the job of Footman. ‘You’d better hand round the forty-seven plum puddings,’ I suggested, ‘and prevail on the guests to eat them – otherwise we’ll have them every day for a month.’

  So ended my housekeeping labours – with a blaze of glory on Christmas Day. In the evening we went to the Huts to help the men have an English Christmas. The Hut to which I went was a few miles out, at Rouxmesnil, and it was larger than most and possessed a cinema. For the first hour or so, we were fully occupied in serving out the tea and buns and extra fruit provided by the Hut Ladies, and then came the games. An eager throng surrounded me, pleading that I would come and watch a boxing match which was to be fought at one end of the Hut. Feeling it might be the least of many evils, I went down. A chair had been set for me, on which it was proposed that I should stand, at the inner edge of the ring. I got up on it. The preliminary skirmishes of the combat began. I had never seen a boxing match before, but they were not to know that. It is an exciting event, as I realised by the surging crowd pressing up behind me. I began to feel rather lonely on my perch. When the champions really did box and the crowd forgot all about me, what price my chair? A soldier with a garland of mistletoe in his cap stood beside me. I placed my hand on his shoulder strap and did the same to my neighbour on the other side. The hero of the mistletoe was immensely flattered. He stood like a rock. So did my other rather squatter pillar. The fight began. After the first five seconds I shut my eyes tight. The noise reminded me of a Rugger match in Oxford and I wondered if this would last as long. At any rate, I must stick to my post. Presently, at the sound of applause, I cautiously opened my eyes. The champions had finished one bout and were resting. I addressed what I hoped was an intelligent remark to my friend of the mistletoe. So intent was the ring, it had not remarked my eyes were shut. Three and yet four bouts succeeded and still the mistletoe man and I were there. But alas! for my hopes! In the fifth bout, the champions reeled up, interlocked, so close to my chair, that they cleared the entire audience around me. In an instant I had leapt from my chair, and was back amongst them, leaving the mistletoe man aghast by the post of honour. The attention of the audience was diverted at once. I was encouraged from all sides to return. The unfortunate champions were reproached. Feeling rather hot, I went back. But now the audience had two things to think of – which of the champions was going to win and when I was going to spring from my chair. The mistletoe man rallied me nobly. ‘Don’t you worry nothink, Miss, I’ll stand by ye.’ The champions, feeling they must recapture attention, in this laudable aim approached as near the chair as they dared. It was a new game, and even I was enjoying it.