'When you hear four loud short whistles, it means that the ship has been torpedoed,' and you replied, 'And what if the torpedo carries away the whistle?'"

The doctor, having found his place, goes on.

Parker, too, one day found a remark which ever afterwards had a brilliant success. He got it out of a letter that a chaplain had written to the Times. "The life of the soldier," wrote this excellent man, "is one of great hardship; not infrequently mingled with moments of real danger."

The colonel thoroughly enjoys the unconscious humour of this remark, and would quote it whenever a shell scattered gravel over him. But his great resource, if the conversation bores him, is to attack the padre on his two weak points: bishops and Scotchmen.

The padre, who comes from the Highlands, is madly patriotic. He is convinced that it is only Scotchmen who play the game and who are really killed.

"If history told the truth," he says, "this war would not be called the European War, but the war between Scotland and Germany."

The colonel is Scotch himself, but he is fair, and every time he finds in the papers the casualty lists of the Irish Guards or the Welsh Fusiliers he reads them out in a loud voice to the padre, who, to keep his end up, maintains that the Welsh Fusiliers and Irish Guards are recruited in Aberdeen. This is his invariable retort.

All this may appear rather puerile to you, my friend, but these childish things are the only bright spots in our boring, bombarded existence. Yes, these wonderful men have remained children in many ways; they have the fresh outlook, and the inordinate love of games, and our rustic shelter often seems to me like a nursery of heroes.

But I have profound faith in them; their profession of empire-builders has inspired them with high ideals of the duty of the white man. The colonel and Parker are "Sahibs" whom nothing on earth would turn from the path they have chosen. To despise danger, to stand firm under fire, is not an act of courage in their eyes—it is simply part of their education. If a small dog stands up to a big one they say gravely, "He is a gentleman."

A true gentleman, you see, is very nearly the most sympathetic type which evolution has produced among the pitiful group of creatures who are at this moment making such a noise in the world. Amid the horrible wickedness of the species, the English have established an oasis of courtesy and phlegm. I love them.

I must add that it is a very foolish error to imagine that they are less intelligent than ourselves, in spite of the delight my friend Major Parker pretends to take in affirming the contrary. The truth is that their intelligence follows a different method from ours. Far removed from our standard of rationalism and the pedantic sentiment of the Germans, they delight in a vigorous common sense and all absence of system. Hence a natural and simple manner which makes their sense of humour still more delightful.

But I see, from the window, my horse waiting for me; and I must go round to the surly farmers and get some straw for the quartermaster, who is trying to build stables. But you are furnishing boudoirs, and mind you choose, oh, Amazon, soft, oriental silks.

Dans votre salon directoire

(Bleu lavande et jaune citron)

De vieux fauteuils voisineront

Dans un style contradictoire

Avec un divan sans histoire

(Bleu lavande et jaune citron).

A des merveilleuses notoires

(Bleu lavande et jaune citron)

Des muscadins à cinq chevrons

Diront la prochaine victoire,

En des domains ostentatoires

(Bleu lavande et jaune citron).

Les murs nus comme un mur d'église

(Bleu lavande et jaune citron)

Quelque temps encore attendront

Qu'un premier consul brutalise

Leur calme et notre Directoire

De son visage péremptoire

(OEil bleu lavande et teint citron).

 

"Are you a poet?" the colonel asked me doubtfully, when he saw me writing lines of equal length.

I denied the soft impeachment.

CHAPTER V

It had been raining for four days. The heavy raindrops played a monotonous tattoo on the curved roof of the tent. Outside in the field the grass had disappeared under yellow mud, in which the men's footsteps sounded like the smacking of a giant's lips.

"'And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt,'" recited the padre; "'and God said to Noah, Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened,'" continued the doctor.

"The Flood," he added, "was a real event, for its description is common to all oriental mythology. No doubt the Euphrates had burst its banks; that's why the Ark was driven into the interior and came to rest on a hill. Similar catastrophes often occur in Mesopotamia and in India, but are rare in Belgium."

"The cyclone of 1876 killed 215,000 people in Bengal," said the colonel. "Messiou, send round the port, please."

The colonel loved statistics, to the great misfortune of Aurelle, who, quite incapable of remembering figures, was interrogated every day on the number of inhabitants in a village, the strength of the Serbian army, or the initial velocity of the French bullet. He foresaw with terror that the colonel was going to ask him the average depth of rain in feet and inches in Flanders, and he hastened to create a diversion.

"I found in Poperinghe," he said, showing the book he was reading, "this very curious old volume. It is a description of England and Scotland by the Frenchman, Etienne Perlin, Paris, 1558."

"Humph! What does this Mr. Perlin say?" asked the colonel, who had the same respect for ancient things as he had for old soldiers.

Aurelle opened the book at hazard and translated:

"'After dinner, the cloth is withdrawn and the ladies retire. The table is of beautiful glossy Indian wood, and stands of the same wood hold the bottles. The name of each wine is engraved on a silver plate which hangs by a little chain round the neck of the bottle. The guests each choose the wine they like and drink it as seriously as if they were doing penance, while proposing the health of eminent personages or the fashionable beauties; this is what is known as a toast.'"

"I like 'fashionable