Part 15 (1/2)
A sound that set all my nerves singing And ran down the length of my spine, A great pack of hounds as they're flinging Themselves on a new red-hot line!
A bit of G.o.d's country is stretching As far as the hawk's eye can see, The bushes are leafless, like etching, As all good dream fences should be.
There isn't a bitter wind blowing But a soft little southerly breeze, And instead of the grey channel flowing A covert of scrub and young trees.
The field of course is just dozens Of people I want to meet so-- Old friends, to say nothing of cousins Who've been killed in the war months ago.
Three F.A.N.Y.s are riding like fairies Having drifted right into my dreams, And they're riding their favourite ”hairies”
That have been dead for years, so it seems.
A ditch that I've funked with precision For seasons, and pa.s.sed by in fear, I now leap with a perfect decision That never has marked my career.
For a dream-horse has never yet stumbled; Far away hounds don't know how to flag.
A dream-fence would melt ere it crumbled, And the dream-scent's as strong as a drag.
Of course the whole field I have pounded Lepping high five-barred gates by the score, And I don't seem the least bit astounded, Though I never have done it before!
At last a glad chorus of yelling, Proclaims my dream-fox has been viewed-- But somewhere some stove smoke is smelling Which accounts for my feeling half stewed-- And somewhere the F.A.N.Y.s are talking And somebody shouts through the din: ”What a horrible habit of snoring-- Hit her hard--wake her up--the train's in.”
CHAPTER XV
CONVOY PETS, COMMANDEERING, AND THE ”FANTASTIKS”
We took turns to go out on ”all-night duty”; a different thing from night guards, and meant taking any calls that came through after 9 p.m.
and before 8 a.m. next morning.
They were usually from outlying camps for men who had been taken ill or else for stranded Army Sisters arriving at the Gare about 3 a.m. waiting to be taken to their billets.
It was comparatively cheery to be on this job when night guards were in progress, as there were four hefty F.A.N.Y.s sitting up in the cook-house, your car warm and easy to crank, and, joy of joys, a hot drink for you when you came back!
In the ordinary way as one scrambled into warm sweaters and top coats the dominant thought was, would the car start all right out there, with not a hand to give a final fillip once the ”getting loose” process was accomplished?
Luckily my turns came round twice during night guards, and the last time I had to go for a pneumonia case to Beau Marais. It was a bright moonlight night, almost as light as day, with everything glittering in the frozen snow. Susan fairly hopped it! After having found the case, which took some doing, and deposited him in No. 30 hospital, I sped back to camp.
As I crossed the Place d'Armes and drove up the narrow Rue de la Mer, Susan seemed to take a sudden header and almost threw a somersault! I had gone into an invisible hole in the ice, two feet deep, extending half across the street. For some reason it had melted (due probably to an underground bakery in the vicinity). I reversed anxiously and then hopped out to feel Susan's springs as one might a horse's knees. Thank goodness they had not snapped, so backing all the way down the street again, relying on the moon for light, I proceeded cautiously by another route and got back without further mishap.
Our menagerie was gradually increasing. There were now three dogs and two cats in camp, not to mention a magpie and two canaries, more of which anon. There was Wuzzy, of course, and Archie (a naughty looking little Sealyham belonging to Heasy) and a mongrel known as G.K.W. (G.o.d knows what) that ran in front of a visiting Red Cross touring car one day and found itself in the position of the young lady of Norway, who sat herself down in the doorway! I did not witness the untimely end, but I believe it was all over in a minute.
One cat belonged to Eva, a plain-looking animal, black with a half-white face, christened ”Miss Dip” (an inspiration on my part suggested by the donor's name, on the ”Happy Family” principle). She was the apple of her eye, nevertheless, and nightly Eva could be heard calling ”Dip, Dip, Dip,” all over the camp to fetch her to bed. Incidentally it became quite an Angelus for us.
Considering the way she hunted all the meat shops for t.i.t bits, that cat ought to have been a show animal--but it wasn't. One day as our fairy Lowson was lightly jumping from a window-sill she inadvertently ”came in contact” with Dip's tail, the extreme tip of which was severed in consequence! In wrathful indignation Eva rushed Dip down to the Casino in an ambulance, where one of the foremost surgeons of the day operated with skill and speed and made a neat job of it, to the entire satisfaction of all concerned. If her tail still remains square at the end she can tell her children she was _blessee dans la guerre_. The other cat was a tortoisesh.e.l.l and appropriately called ”Melisande in the Wood,” justified by the extraordinary circ.u.mstances in which she was discovered. One day at No. 35 hut hospital I saw three of the men hunting in a bank opposite, covered with undergrowth and small shrubs.
They told me that for the past three days a kitten had been heard mewing, but in spite of all their efforts to find it, they had failed to do so. I listened, and sure enough heard a plaintive mew. The place was a network of clinging roots, but presently I crawled in and found it was just possible to get along on hands and knees. It was most mysterious--the kitten could be heard quite loud one minute, and when we got to the exact spot it would be some distance away again. (It reminded me of the Dutch ventriloquist's trick in Lamarck). It was such a plaintive mew I was determined to find that kitten if I stayed there all night. At last it dawned on me, it must be in a rabbit hole; and sure enough after pus.h.i.+ng and pulling my way along to the top of the bank, I found one over which a fall of earth had successfully pushed some wire netting from the fence above. I waited patiently, and in due time caught sight of a little black, yellow, and white kitten; but the minute I made a grab for it, it bolted. I pulled the netting away, but the hole was much too deep for so small a creature to get out by itself, and it was much too frightened to let me catch it. With great difficulty I extricated myself and ran to the cookhouse, where I soon enlisted Bridget's aid. We got some small pieces of soft raw meat and crawled to the top of the bank again. After long and tedious coaxing I at last grabbed the little thing spitting furiously while Bridget gave it some food, and in return for my trouble it bit and scratched like a young devil! It was terribly hungry and bolted all we had brought. When we got her to the cook-house she ran round the place like a mad thing, and turned out to be rather a fast cat altogether when she grew up. We tossed for her, Bridget won, and she was duly christened with a drop of tinned milk on her forehead, ”Melisande in the Wood.”
The magpie belonged to Russell, and came from Peuplinghe. Magpies are supposed to be unlucky birds. This one certainly brought no luck to its different owners. Shortly after its arrival Russell was obliged to return to England for good. Before going, however, she presented Jacques to Captain White at Val de Lievre. Sure enough after some time he was posted to the Boche prisoner camp at Marquise--a job he did not relish at all. I don't know if he took Jacques with him, but the place was bombed shortly after and the Huns killed many of their own men, and presumably Jacques as well. So he did his bit for France.
The canaries belonged to Renny--at least at first she had only one. It happened in this wise. The man at the disinfector (where we took our cars and blankets to be syringed after an infectious case), had had a canary given him by his ”best girl” (French). He did not want a canary and had nowhere to keep it, but, as he explained, he did not know enough of the language to say so, and thought the easiest way out of the difficulty was to accept it. ”Give me the bird, proper, she 'as,” he added.
The trouble was he did not reckon on her asking after it, which she most surely did. He could hardly confess to her that he had pa.s.sed the present on so instead he conveyed the news to her, somehow, that the ”pore little bird had gone and died on 'im.” She expressed her horror and forthwith produced a second!
”Soon 'ave a bloomin' aviary at this rate,” he remarked as he handed the second one over! No more appeared, however, and the two little birds, both presumably dead, twittered and sang merrily the length of the ”cues.”
As the better weather arrived so our work increased again, and in March the Germans began a retreat in the west along a front of 100 miles. We worked early and late and reached the point of being able to drive almost asleep. An extraordinary sensation--you avoid holes, you slip the clutch over b.u.mps, you stop when necessary, and go on ditto, and at the same time you can be having dreams! More a state of coma than actual sleep, perhaps. I think what happened was one probably slept for a minute and then woke up again to go off once more.
I became ”Wuzzy's” adopted mother about now and, whenever I had time, combed and brushed his silver curls till they stood out like fluff. He could spot Susan miles away, and though it was against rules I sometimes took him on board. As we neared camp I told him he must get down, but he would put on an obstinate expression and deliberately push himself behind my back, in between me and the canvas, so that I was almost on the steering wheel. At other times he would listen to me for awhile, take it all in, and then put his head on my shoulder with such an appealing gesture that I used to risk being spotted, and let him remain.