Part 8 (1/2)

A week after this Tom's battalion was ordered south, and amidst much excitement the men boarded the train which took them there. He had hoped they would stay in London for at least one night, but only two hours were allowed between the time they reached Euston from the time the train was due to leave Waterloo. Discipline was somewhat relaxed during the journey, and when at length Tom entered the train at Waterloo he noticed that many of the men were the worse for drink.

”What blithering fools they are!” said Penrose to him, as seated in their carriage they saw many of their companions staggering along the platform. Tom was silent at this, nevertheless he thought a great deal.

It was now the beginning of May, and the Surrey meadows were bedecked with glory. Tom, who had never been out of Lancas.h.i.+re before, could not help being impressed with the beauty he saw everywhere. It was altogether different from the hard bare hills which he had been accustomed to in the manufacturing districts of Lancas.h.i.+re. The air was sweet and pure too. Here all nature seemed generous with her gifts; great trees abounded, flowers grew everywhere, while fields were covered with such a glory of green as he had never seen before. By and by the train stopped at a little station, and then commenced the march to the camp for which they were bound. Penrose and Tom walked side by side.

”This is not new to you, I suppose?” Tom queried.

”No,” said Penrose, ”I know almost every inch round here.”

”I saw you looking out of the train at a place we pa.s.sed what they call G.o.dalming; you were looking at a big building on the top of a hill there. What was it?”

”It was my old school,” said Penrose, ”Charterhouse; the best school in the world.”

”Ay, did you go there?” asked Tom. ”Why, it was fair grand. How long were you there?”

”Five years,” said Penrose.

”And to think of your becoming a Tommy like me!” Tom almost gasped.

”Well, what of that?”

”You might have been an officer if you had liked, I suppose?”

Penrose nodded.

”It wur just grand of you.”

”Nothing grand at all,” said Penrose. ”A chap who doesn't do his bit at a time like this is just a skunk, that's all; and I made up my mind that I would learn what a private soldier's life was like before I took a commission.”

”Well, you know now,” said Tom, ”and you will be an officer soon, I expect.”

”My uniform's ordered,” said Penrose.

Tom was silent for some time.

”I suppose you won't be friends with me any more, and I shall have to salute you,” he remarked presently.

”Discipline is discipline,” replied Penrose. ”As to friends.h.i.+p, I am not given to change.”

The battalion, eleven hundred strong, climbed a steep hill, under great overshadowing trees. Birds were singing gaily; May blossom was blooming everywhere; the green of the trees was wonderful to behold.

Presently they came to a great clearing in a pine forest. The life of the country seemed suddenly to end, and they arrived at a newly improvised town. There were simply miles of wooden huts, while the sound of men's voices, the neighing of horses, and the rolling of wheels were heard on every hand. These huts, from what Tom could see, were nearly all of them about two hundred feet long, while around them were great open s.p.a.ces where all vegetation had been worn away by the tramp of thousands of feet. The men, who had been singing all the way during their march, became silent; the scene was so utterly different from what they had left. That morning they had left a grim, grey, smoky manufacturing town; in the evening they had entered a clearing surrounded by sylvan beauty.

”I feel as though I could stay here for ever,” said Tom. ”But look at yon',” and he pointed to a long, low hut, at the door of which the letters ”Y.M.C.A.” were painted. ”Why, they're here too!”

”Yes,” said Penrose, ”there's not a camp in the country where you don't find the Y.M.C.A. huts; for that matter they are on the Continent too.”

”But yon' place must have cost a lot of money,” said Tom, ”you can't build shanties like that without a lot of bra.s.s. Where did they get the bra.s.s from?”

”I expect the people who believe in religious lolly-pops gave it to them,” replied Penrose.