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A Padre in France, a non-fiction book by George A. Birmingham |
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Chapter 15. My Third Camp |
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_ CHAPTER XV. MY THIRD CAMP At the front, the actual front where the fighting is, imagination runs riot in devising place names, and military maps recognise woods, hills, and roads by their new titles. At the bases a severer spirit holds sway. I recollect one curious and disagreeable camp which was called, colloquially and officially, Cinder City. Otherwise camps were known by numbers or at best by the French names of the districts in which they were situated. I thought I had hit on another exception to this rule when I first heard of this camp. It seemed natural to have called a camp after one of our generals. In fact nothing of the sort occurred. It was the French name for the place. We took over the name when we pitched our tents. Indeed the camp was not the sort of place which gets a name given to it. It is only places which somebody loves or hates, in which somebody is one way or other interested, which get new names given them. Nobody, or nobody in high authority, took an interest in this camp. It was a stepchild among camps, neither attractive enough to be loved nor disagreeable enough to be hated and reviled. With a string of other dull camps, it was under the command of a colonel who, having much on his mind besides the care of this camp, lived elsewhere. Only one officer slept in the camp. He had a bedroom which was half office, decorated--he several times assured me that his predecessor was responsible for the decoration--with pictures from La Vie Parisienne. The proprietors of that journal must have profited enormously by the coming of the British military force. If there is any form of taxation of excess profits in France that editor must be paying heavily. Yet the paper is sufficiently monotonous, and it is difficult to imagine that any one wants to take it in regularly. Except this bedroom, the officer in command had no habitation in the camp. He messed elsewhere and, as was natural, spent his spare time elsewhere. He did all he could for the camp, but he could not do very much. He was of subordinate rank and of no great military importance. It was very difficult to stir the authorities to any great interest in the camp. There was a certain amount of excuse for them. It never seemed worth while to take much trouble for the men there. The function of the camp was peculiar. Men were drafted into it from convalescent camps and hospitals when they were passed "fit," and were ready to rejoin their units. The business of the camp authorities was to sort the men out, divide them into parties, and dispatch them to the depots of their regiments. Every day men came into camp and were for the moment "details." They belonged to all possible regiments and branches of the service. Every day parties of men left the camp for the different base depots. At 10 a.m. the H. party for H., at 12 noon the E. party for E., no longer "details," but drafts consigned to their proper depots at H., E., or elsewhere. Their stay in the camp was usually very brief. It was scarcely worth while trying to make them comfortable or doing anything to make life pleasant for them. It was, I think, rather hard on men to be sent straight from the comfort and warmth of a hospital or convalescent camp to a place as Spartan as this. Instead of having a bed to sleep on, the unfortunate "detail" found himself condemned to the floor boards of a bell tent, with a very meagre allowance of well-worn blankets. In cold weather the change was abrupt and trying, but of course it had to be made sooner or later, and I suppose the men had no reasonable excuse for grumbling. Very much harder on them was the lack of accommodation in the camp. Things are much better now in this respect; but when I knew the camp first, there was no recreation room except a small and inconvenient E.F. Canteen. The Y.M.C.A. never established itself there. The Church Army put up a small hut, but sent no worker to look after it; and even that hut was not opened till the early summer of 1916. By a curious chance the E.F. Canteen was worked by ladies instead of the usual orderlies. The ladies were in fact there, running a small independent canteen, before the E.F. Canteen took over the place. Rather unwillingly, I think, the E.F. Canteen people took over these ladies. It was a most fortunate thing that they did so. Miss L., the head of this little band of workers, was a lady of unusual ability, energy, and sympathy. I have said that no one in authority cared for the camp. Miss L., who had no military authority, not only cared for it--she loved it. It was to her and her assistants that the camp owed most of what was done for it. I have seen much splendid work done by our voluntary ladies in France, but I have never seen better work done under more difficult circumstances than was done by these ladies. I suppose it is foolish to be surprised at any evidence of the blatant vulgarity of the men who earn their living by the horrid trade of politics. They speak and act after their kind; and it is probably true that silk purses cannot be made out of sows' ears. Yet I own to having experienced a shock when Mr. Macpherson in the House of Commons described our lady workers as "camp followers." Even for a politician, even in the House of Commons, that was bad. Miss L. and her assistants had no great organisation behind them to which they could appeal, which would take their part and fight their battles. Like the men they worked for, they were "details." The E.F. Canteen authorities, who employed but did not pay them, looked upon those ladies with suspicion. They were allowed to work. They were not welcomed. I think the E.F. Canteen people would have got rid of them if they could. Yet they did work which in quantity was at least equal to that of the orderlies usually employed, and in quality enormously superior. The room which served as a canteen was singularly inconvenient. The part of it used by the men was far too small, and used to be disagreeably crowded in the evenings and on wet days. The space behind the counter was narrow, gloomy, and ill ventilated. A worker serving there had the choice of being half choked or blown about by furious draughts. Miss L. preferred the draughts, which she called "fresh air." I sometimes found myself inclined to regard suffocation as the pleasanter alternative. I have never seen a more inconvenient kitchen than that in which those ladies worked. It was small, low, and very gloomy. It had an uneven floor, on which it was quite possible to trip. The roof leaked badly in half a dozen places, and on wet days an incautious person splashed about. In summer with two fires burning that kitchen became fiercely hot. Even an electric fan, presented by a sympathetic visitor, did little to help. No self-respecting English kitchen maid would have stayed two hours in a house where she was given such a kitchen to work in. Yet wonderful hot suppers were cooked there in long succession. Huge puddings and deep crocks of stewed fruit were prepared. A constant supply of tea, coffee, and cocoa was kept ready to replenish exhausted kettles on the counter outside, and all the washing up for hundreds of men was done in a very small sink. The cooking and bar serving were the smallest part of the work those ladies did. Miss L. was active as a gardener. In most camps in France men take to gardening willingly, and require little help or encouragement. In this camp it was different. No one stayed there long enough to be interested in the garden. I have seen photographs of the camp before I knew it, as it was in 1915, a desolate stretch of trampled mud. I saw recently a photograph of the camp in 1917. It was then gay with flowers. I knew it in 1916, when Miss L. had begun her gardening and was gradually extending her flower-beds, creating new borders and fencing off small spaces of waste ground with wooden palings. Her enthusiasm stimulated men, who could never hope to see any result of their labours, to do something for the camp. One man, a miner from Northumberland, set out the name of the camp in large letters done in white stones on a green bank behind the canteen. He gave all his spare time for two days to the work, and when he had finished we discovered that he had left out a letter in the first syllable of the name. He was a patient as well as an enthusiastic man. He began all over again. Miss L. went to great trouble in providing amusements for the men. Here she worked against great difficulties. An organisation like the Y.M.C.A. has control of concert parties and lecturers who are sent round to various huts, thus greatly lightening the labour of the local workers. The camp canteen had no organisation behind it, and could command no ready-made entertainments. In the sweat of our brows we earned such concerts as we had, and any one who has ever got up a concert, even at home, knows how much sweating such activities involve. In the end, moved by pity at our plight, the Y.M.C.A. people used to lend us concert parties, especially "Lena Ashwell" parties, the best of their kind. I have always found the Y.M.C.A. generous in sharing their good things with those outside their organisation. Another difficulty which faced Miss L. was the want of any suitable place for entertainments. The canteen was far too small. The Church Army hut, when we had got it opened, was a little better, but still not nearly large enough for the audience which a good concert party drew. We had to use the dining-hall. It was not always available and was seldom available at the exact time we wanted it. It had no stage and no piano. Each time a concert was held there, a stage had to be erected for the occasion, the piano hauled over from the canteen, and some kind of decoration arranged. One of the minor inconveniences of the camp was the extraordinary uncertainty of the lighting. Other camps, even the Con. Camp occasionally, suffered from failure of the supply of electricity. For some reason the thing happened more often in this camp than elsewhere; and even when the current was running strongly we found ourselves in darkness because our wires fused in places difficult to get at, or branches fell from trees and broke wires. We got accustomed to these disasters when they happened at ordinary times. Miss L. and her assistants were ladies of resource and indomitable spirit. It was a small thing to them to find the canteen suddenly plunged into total darkness while a crowd of men was clamouring for food and drink at the counter. A supply of candles was kept ready to hand. They were placed in mugs (candlesticks were lacking of course) and set on the counter. By the aid of their feeble gleam the ladies groped their way into the kitchen for tea, filled cups, and counted out change. The scene always reminded me of Gideon's attack on the Midianites when his soldiers carried lamps in pitchers. Occasionally some one knocked over a mug. There was a crash and a blaze, a very fair imitation of the battle in the Book of Judges. It was worse when a whist drive or a singing competition in the Church Army hut was interrupted by one of these Egyptian plagues of darkness. But even then we did not allow ourselves to be seriously embarrassed. The men, responsive to the instinct of discipline, sat quiet at the whist tables with their cards in their hands. The glow of burning cigarettes could be seen, faint spots of light; nothing else. Miss L. hurried to the canteen for candles. They were set in pools of their own grease on the tables and the games went on. A singing competition scarcely even paused. The competitors sang on. The pianist managed to play. The audience applauded with extra vigour until candles were brought and set in rows, like footlights, in front of the stage. Our worst experience of light failure occurred one evening when we had a visit from a very superior concert party. We had secured it only after much "wangling." We made every possible preparation for its reception. One of Miss L.'s assistants drew out a most attractive advertisement of the performance with a picture of a beautiful lady in a red dress at the top of it. We posted this up in various parts of the camp; but we were not really anxious about the audience. It always "rolled up." We set up a stage in the dining-room, a large high stage made out of dining-tables, a little rickety, but considered by good judges to be fairly safe. We spread a carpet, or something which looked like a carpet, on it. Only Miss L. could have got a carpet in the camp, and I do not know how she did it. We hung up a large Union Jack, Miss L.'s private property, which was used on all festive occasions and served as an altar cloth on Sundays. The E.F. Canteen authorities were worried for a week beforehand, and, lest they should be worried more, promised us a new piano, "same," so they put it, "to be delivered" in time for the concert. The promise was not kept. That was our first misfortune. With deep misgiving we dragged our own piano out of the canteen and set it on the stage. The musical members of Miss L.'s staff assured us that it was desperately out of tune. The least musical of us could assure ourselves that several notes made no sound at all, however hard you hit them. And the concert party was a very grand one. It arrived in two motors, and we abased ourselves before it, babbling apologies. One after another the members of the party approached our piano and poked at it with their forefingers. One after another they turned away looking depressed. The only one of them who remained moderately cheerful was a man who did conjuring tricks. It was, I imagine, through his good offices that the party agreed to attempt its programme. The audience, who knew the failings of our piano as well as we did, applauded the first song rapturously. Then without the slightest warning every lamp in the place went out. A dog, a well-beloved creature called Detail, who was accustomed to sit under Miss L.'s chair at concerts, began to bark furiously. That, I think, was what finally broke the temper of the concert party. We had an oil lamp ready for emergencies. It was lit, and I saw the leader of the party beckoning to me. His face was fearfully stern. I fully expected him to say that the whole party would leave at once. But he did nothing so drastic. He demanded the instant expulsion of Detail. There was a scuffle at the far end of the room. The audience rose to its feet and cheered tumultuously. Detail, I am sorry to say, barked again. I saw eight men staggering through the crowded room bearing a piano. It was quite new, and, I am told, almost in tune. The situation was saved. The singers were mollified and went on with their programme by the light of one lamp, two candles (on the piano), and three stable lanterns. An orderly with a screwdriver and a box of matches sought for the fused wire. Detail crept under her mistress's chair again unrebuked. She was an animal of cultivated tastes and hated missing concerts. She usually behaved with decorum, not barking except by way of applause when the audience shouted and noise of any kind was legitimate. The camp is, I am told, very different now. There is a new canteen, large, well furnished, and beautiful. Concerts can be held in it and church services. No one is any longer crowded out of anything. The kitchen is a spacious place in which it is possible to cook without great physical suffering. There are more flower beds, well-kept lines between the tents, an impressive entrance. No doubt even the electric light shines consistently. The days of makeshift are over and the camp is a credit to the Expeditionary Force. But I should not like to go back there again. I should be haunted with memories of old days which were trying but pleasant. I should wish myself back at one of the cheery tea-parties in the old canteen kitchen, when we sat on packing-cases and biscuit-boxes, when we shifted our seats about to dodge the raindrops from the roof, when we drank out of three cracked cups and thick mugs borrowed from the canteen. I should remember pay-nights when the men stood before the counter in a dense mob, all hungry, each holding in his hand a five-franc note, when we had no change, not a franc, not a sou; when, in desperation, I used to volunteer to collect change from any one who had it, giving chits in exchange for small coins. Such crises do not arise now, I suppose. Sitting in comfort at a table in the fine new canteen I should remember sadly a wet afternoon in the Church Army hut when there was no room to move and the air was heavy with Woodbine smoke and the steam of drying cloth, when I perched on the corner of a window-sill and pitted myself against a chess player who challenged me suddenly and turned out to be a master of the game and the secretary of a chess club in Yorkshire. I should remember, with how great regret! how, evening after evening, Miss S. left her pots and pans, smoothed her tousled overall, and came over to the Church Army hut to play a hymn for us at evening prayers; how the men, an ever-changing congregation, chose the same hymns night after night till we came to hate the sound of their tunes; how we, reserving Sunday evenings for our property, chose the hymn then and always chose the same one--which I shall never sing again without remembering Miss S. at the piano, smelling the air of that hut, and being troubled by a vision of the faces of the men who sang. I should not find Miss S. there if I went back, or Captain L., or any one, almost, whom I knew. No doubt their successors are doing well, mine better than ever I did, which would be no difficult thing; but I could not bear to see them at their work. Ghosts of old days would haunt me. And worst of all, Miss L. is gone. The rest of us have passed and no one misses us much, I suppose. Our places are easily filled. Her place in that camp no one will ever quite fill. "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." _ |
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