The Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Casualty And Other Stories, by James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Our Casualty And Other Stories 1918 Author: James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham Release Date: January 21, 2008 [EBook #24393] Last Updated: February 18, 2018 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR CASUALTY AND OTHER STORIES *** Produced by David Widger OUR CASUALTY AND OTHER STORIES By G. A. Birmingham 1918 CONTENTS I ~~ OUR CASUALTY II ~~ GETTING EVEN III ~~ A MATTER OF DISCIPLINE IV ~~ THE SECOND BASS V ~~ HER RIGHT VI ~~ JOURNEY’S END VII~~ HIS GIRL VIII ~~ SIR GALAHAD IX ~~ A GUN-RUNNING EPISODE X ~~ IRELAND FOR EVER I. II. XI ~~ SIR TIMOTHY’S DINNER-PARTY XII ~~ UNITED IRELAND XIII ~~ OLD BIDDY AND THE REBELS XIV ~~ CIVILIZED WAR XV ~~ THE MERMAID XVI ~~ AN UPRIGHT JUDGE I ~~ OUR CASUALTY There is not in the whole British Isles a more efficient military body than the Ballyhaine Veterans’ Corps. The men look like soldiers when they have their grey uniforms on and their brassards on their sleeves. They talk like soldiers. They have the true military spirit. There is not a man in the company under fifty years of age, but if the Germans attempt a landing on the Ballyhaine beach, by submarine or otherwise, they will be sorry for themselves afterwards—those of them who remain alive. Ballyhaine is a residential suburb, entirely built over with villas of the better kind. Each villa has its garden. In times of peace we discuss sweet peas or winter spinach or chrysanthemums on our way into town in the morning, travelling, as most of us do, by the 9.45 train, with season tickets, first class. When our boys went off from us, as they all did early in the war, we felt that it was time for us to do something too. There was not the least difficulty about enrolling the men. We all joined the corps, even poor old Cotter, who must be close on seventy, and who retired from business three years ago. He used to bore us all by talking about his rheumatism, but when the Volunteer Corps was formed he dropped all that, and went about saying that he had never suffered from pain or ache in his life, and could do twenty miles a day without feeling it. We made Cotter a corporal. Our Commanding Officer is Haines, who plays the best hand at bridge of any man in the club. He held a commission in a line regiment before he went on the Stock Exchange. That was thirty-five years ago, and it is not to be supposed that his knowledge of soldiering is up-to-date, but he is the only one of us who has any knowledge of soldiering at all, so we chose him. The women were a difficulty at first. They insisted on regarding us as a joke, and used to repeat the absurd witticism of the street boys. I heard Janet say “Methusaleers” one day. She denied it, but I am perfectly certain she did not say “Fusiliers,” My wife fussed about dry socks and wanted me to take my umbrella on a route march one wet Sunday. Every other member of the corps had similar experiences. It was Tompkins who hit on a way of dealing satisfactorily with the women. Tompkins is our local doctor. He stays in Ballyhaine all day long when the rest of us go up to town, so he naturally knows a good deal about women. He enrolled them in a volunteer ambulance brigade, and after that they were just as keen as any of us. We did the thing handsomely for them. We bought six stretchers, a small motor ambulance waggon, and some miles of bandages. Janet and Cotter’s youngest girl carried one of the stretchers. I should not like to say that my wife actually hoped I should be wounded, but I think she would have liked the chance of bandaging any other man in the corps. The rest of the women felt as she did. The drawback to Ballyhaine as a centre of military activity is the difficulty of finding a place for practising field manoeuvres. There is the golf links, of course, but we got tired of marching round and round the golf links, and we did not want to dig trenches there. Haines, who does not play golf, drew up a plan of trench digging which would have ruined the golf links for years. But we would not have that. Nor could we dig in each other’s gardens, or practise advancing over open country in skirmishing order when there was no open country. The whole district is a network of high walls with broken glass on top of them, a form of defence rendered necessary by the attacks of small boys on our fruit trees. Fortunately, we had the sea beach. The strand—there are three miles of it—is one of the glories of Ballyhaine. We did most of our manoeuvring there and dug our trenches there. Haines was opposed to this plan at first. “If the Germans come at all,” said Cotter, “they’ll come from the sea. They must, this being an island.” “Of course,” said Haines. “Then,” said Cotter, “the beach is the place where we shall have to meet them, and the strand is where our trenches ought to be.” There was no answering that argument. Even Haines gave way. “With barbed wire entanglements,” said Cotter, “down to the water’s edge.” The weather round about Christmas-time was extraordinarily severe in Ballyhaine. We came in for a series of gales, accompanied by driving rain, and the days at that time of year are so short that most of our soldiering had to be done in the dark. I got one cold after another, and so did every other member of the corps. Poor old Cotter limped pitifully on parade, but he did not say a word about rheumatism. The spirit of the men was splendid, and not one of us showed a sign of shirking, though Haines kept us at it with ferocity. Haines varied the digging by making us practise a horrible manoeuvre called “relieving trenches.” This was always done in the middle of the night, between twelve and one o’clock. Part of the corps went out early—about 10.30 p.m.—and manned the trenches. The rest of us marched forth at midnight and relieved them. The worst evening we had all winter was December 8th. It was blowing terrifically from the south-east The sea was tumbling in on the beach in enormous waves, fringing the whole line of the shore with a broad stretch of white foam. The rain swept over the country pitilessly. I came out of town by the 5.10 train, and called at the club on my way home. I found a notice posted up: “Ballyhaine Veterans’ Corps. “Tonight, December the 8th, trenches will be relieved at 12 midnight. No. 1 and No. 2 Platoons to parade at 10.30, march to north end of the strand, and occupy trenches.” That meant a six-mile march for those platoons—three there and three back. “No. 3 and No. 4 Platoons to parade at 11 p.m., march to cliffs, descend rocks, and relieve trenches as soon as possible after midnight.” I am in No. 3 Platoon, and I confess I shuddered. The rocks at the north end of the beach are abominably slippery. A year ago I should have hesitated about climbing down in broad daylight in the finest weather. My military training had done a good deal for me physically, but I still shrank from those rocks at midnight with a tempest howling round me. When I reached home I put a good face on the matter. I was not going to admit to my wife or Janet—particularly to Janet—that I was afraid of night operations in any weather. “Please have my uniform left out for me,” I said, “I shall put it on before dinner.” “Surely,” said my wife, “you’re not going out to-night? I don’t think you ought to.” “Duty, my dear,” I said. “Just fancy,” said Janet, “if the Germans came and father wasn’t there! We might be murdered in our beds!” I am sometimes not quite sure whether Janet means to scoff or is in serious earnest On this occasion I was inclined to think that she was poking fun at the Veterans’ Corps. I frowned at her. “You’ll get dreadfully wet,” said my wife. “Not the least harm in that,” I said cheerily. “It’ll give you another cold in your head,” said Janet This time she was certainly sneering. I frowned again. “Of course,” said my wife, “it won’t matter to you. You’re so strong and healthy. Nothing does you any harm.” I suspected her of attempting a subtle form of flattery, but what she said was quite true. I am, for a man of fifty-three, extremely hardy. “I’m thinking,” she said, “of poor old Mr. Cotter. I don’t think he ought to go. Mrs. Cotter was round here this afternoon. She says he’s suffering dreadfully from rheumatism, though he won’t admit it, and if he goes out to-night... But he’s so determined, poor old dear. And she simply can’t stop him.” “Cotter,” I said, “must stay at home.” “But he won’t,” said my wife. “Military ardour is very strong in him,” said Janet. “I’ll ring up Dr. Tompkins,” I said, “and tell him to forbid Cotter to go out. Tompkins is Medical Officer of the corps, and has a right to give orders of the kind. In fact, it’s his duty to see that the company’s not weakened by ill-health.” “I’m afraid,” said my wife, “that Dr. Tompkins can do nothing. Mrs. Cotter was with him before she came here. The fact is that Mr. Cotter won’t give in even to the doctor’s orders.” I rang up Tompkins and put the case very strongly to him. “It will simply kill Cotter,” I said, “and we can’t have that. He may not be of any very great military value, but he’s a nice old boy, and we don’t want to lose him.” Tompkins agreed with me thoroughly. He said he’d been thinking the matter over since Mrs. Cotter called on him in the afternoon, and had hit upon a plan which would meet the case. “If only the C.O. will fall in with it,” he added. Haines is in some ways a difficult man. He likes to manage things his own way, and resents any suggestions made to him, particularly by men in the ranks. However, Cotter’s life was at stake, so I undertook to tackle Haines, even at the risk of being snubbed. Tompkins explained his plan to me. I rang up Haines, and laid it before him. I put the matter very strongly to him. I even said that the War Office would probably deprive him of his command if it was discovered that he had been wasting the lives of his men unnecessarily. “The country needs us all,” I said, “even Cotter. After all, Cotter is a non-commissioned officer and a most valuable man. Besides, it’ll do the Ambulance Brigade a lot of good.” It was this last consideration which weighed most with Haines. He had felt for some time that our ambulance ladies were coming to have too good an opinion of themselves. I had the satisfaction of going back to the drawing-room and telling Janet that the stretcher bearers were to parade at eleven o’clock, and march in the rear of the column—Numbers 3 and 4 Platoons—which went to relieve trenches. “Rot,” said Janet “We can’t possibly go out on a night like this.” “C.O.‘s orders,” I said. “The stretchers will be utterly ruined,” she said, “not to mention our hats.” “C.O.‘s orders,” I said severely. “If we must go,” said Janet, “we’ll take the ambulance waggon. “No, you won’t,” I said. “You’ll take your stretchers and carry them. Yours not to reason why, Janet. And in any case you can’t take the ambulance waggon, because we’re marching along the beach, and you know perfectly well that the strand is simply scored with trenches. We can’t have the ambulance waggon smashed up. It’s the only one we have. If a few girls break their legs it doesn’t much matter. There are too many girls about the place.” Platoons Numbers 1 and 2 marched off at 10.30 p.m. in a blinding downpour of rain. We watched them go from the porch of the golf pavilion, and promised to relieve them as quickly as we could. We paraded, according to orders, at 11 sharp, and I was glad to see that Janet and the other girls were wet and draggled long before we started. Haines made us a short speech. He had to shout at the top of his voice because the storm was making a dreadful noise. But we heard what he said. The business of relieving trenches, he told us, would be carried out under strictly war conditions, precisely as if enemy submarines were shelling us from the sea. There would necessarily, supposing the submarines to be actually there, be casualties in our force. Haines told off four men to act as casualties. The first on the list—this was the way Tompkins’ plan worked out—was Corporal Cotter. “Corporal Cotter,” said Haines, “will drop out of the ranks as the column passes the third bathing-box, numbering from the south end of the beach, Mrs. Tompkins’ bathing-box, which is painted bright green.” Haines was, very properly, most particular about defining the bathing-box exactly. “Corporal Cotter and the other casualties,” said Haines, “will take waterproof ground-sheets with them—two waterproof ground- sheets each—and keep as dry as possible. The stretcher bearers will follow the column at a distance of two hundred paces to pick up the casualties, affording first-aid on the spot, and, on reaching the field hospital, will apply restoratives under the directions of the Company’s Medical Officer. For the purposes of these manouvres. Corporal Cotter’s house will be regarded as the Field Hospital.” The other three casualties, all elderly and rather delicate men, were ordered to drop out of the ranks at places further along the beach. If it was Janet’s luck to reach the furthest casualty she would walk, carrying a stretcher, about a mile and a half altogether. When she got home she would be less inclined to sneer at people who catch cold in the service of their country. The night was extremely dark. I do not think I have ever experienced a darker night. We could hear the sea roaring on our left, and could see, when we looked back, a dim glow here and there from the windows of our houses; but it was quite impossible to see anything on the beach. I missed Cotter when we had been stumbling along for about a quarter of an hour, and felt glad that he had done his share. In a minute or so, I hoped, he would be safe on a stretcher, and half an hour later would be drinking whisky and water, hot. That, so Tompkins told me, was the restorative which was to be administered to all the casualties. We got through the business of relieving the trenches in the end, though we had a tough struggle. The great difficulty was to find them. If Platoons Numbers 1 and 2 could have shouted to us or flashed their electric torches we should have got them much sooner than we did. But noise and light were strictly forbidden. They would, so Haines said, attract the enemy’s fire, and result in our being wiped out by shrapnel. I got separated at one time from the rest of my platoon, and walked into the sea twice. Afterwards I fell over the Company Sergeant-Major, who was sitting in a pool beside a rock. He said he had sprained his ankle. But that turned out not to be true. He had only twisted it a little, and was able to limp home. In civil life our Company Sergeant-Major is one of the directors of the Corporate Banking Company Ltd., and drives into town in his own motor. Then I came on Haines, wandering by himself on a sandhill. He was swearing viciously. It was, indeed, the sound of his oaths which led me to him. They were not loud, but they were uttered with an intensity which gave them the power of piercing through the tumult of the storm. He and I and the Company Sergeant-Major stuck together, and at 1 a.m.—we took the time from Haines’ luminous-faced wrist watch—we suddenly tumbled into the trench. We found the whole four platoons waiting for us; but they would not have waited much longer. The senior Second Lieutenant—a very well-known solicitor—had taken command of the company, assuming, as he said, that Haines had become a casualty accidentally. His idea was to march the men home, and then send the Ambulance Brigade to search for Haines, the Company Sergeant-Major, and me. “That’s the sort of thing,” he said, “an ambulance is for. The men in the fighting line can’t be expected to do it.” We marched home in pretty good order, considering that we were all very wet, greatly exhausted, and many of us bruised in various parts of our bodies. Our spirit was quite unbroken, and Haines, writing up the official diary afterwards, said that our moral was excellent. He did us no more than bare justice. There was not a man among us—except perhaps the Company Sergeant-Major, whose ankle was swelling up—who would not have welcomed a German attack. We got back to the golf pavilion, and found the whole place in an uproar. Women, all of them very wet, were rushing about. Tompkins was giving confused and contradictory orders to the twelve stretcher bearers, who looked cowed and miserable. Mrs. Cotter was sitting on the floor in a corner of the room crying bitterly. We got the explanation out of Tompkins at last. Three of the casualties had, it appeared, been successfully picked up and carried home. The stretcher bearers had somehow missed Cotter. Search parties had been sent out. Tompkins himself had felt his way round each of the fifteen bathing-boxes. The nursing section of the Ambulance Brigade had waved electric torches and stable lanterns up and down the beach from the edge of the sea to the sandhills. The stretcher bearers, scourged by the remarks Tompkins made about their incompetence, had gone shouting through the storm until they were hoarse and utterly exhausted. Nothing had been seen or heard of Cotter. Haines took charge of the situation at once. He formed up the four platoons, and marched us all back to the beach. There we assumed open order, and skirmished in a northerly direction. We were told to keep in touch with each other, and to leave no square yard of the sand unexamined. We were to go on skirmishing until we found Cotter, dead or alive. My own idea was that if we found anything it would be his corpse. I did my best to obey orders, but I almost immediately lost touch with everybody else. The other men, so I learnt afterwards, had the same experience. However, I had the good luck to find Cotter. He came towards me, indeed he ran into me before I saw him. He was in charge of a policeman, who held him firmly but kindly by the arm. The moment Cotter saw me he burst out: “Tell this infernal fool that I’m not drunk,” he said. “If you’re acquainted with the gentleman,” said the policeman, “it would be well for you to take him home to his bed. He’s not in a fit state to be out by himself.” I drove off the policeman with some difficulty, making myself personally responsible for Cotter’s safety. Then I questioned the old gentleman. “What have you been doing?” I said. “Waiting for the ambulance. I’d be waiting still if that ass of a policeman hadn’t insisted that I was drunk and dragged me away.” “Good Lord!” I said, “and they’ve been looking for you for hours.” “I know that,” said Cotter. “I saw their lights all over the place and heard them shouting.” “Then why on earth didn’t you shout back and let them know where you were?” “Casualties don’t shout,” said Cotter. “They can’t. They’re too weak. I groaned occasionally; but I suppose they didn’t hear me.” “And how long did you mean to lie out in this storm?” I said. “Till the stretcher bearers found me,” said Cotter. “Those were the C.O.‘s orders.” I do not know whether any medals will be given to volunteers after the war. Cotter certainly deserves one. I have never heard a finer story of devotion to duty than his. When I had got rid of the policeman he actually wanted to go back and lie down again. II ~~ GETTING EVEN The battalion awaited its orders to embark for France. A feeling of expectation, a certain nervousness, a half-pleasurable excitement, prevailed in the officers’ mess and among the men. No one thought of service in France as a picnic, or anticipated a good time in the trenches. But there was a general sense of relief that the period of training—a long, tiresome, very dull business—was over at last over or almost over. For the Colonel and certain remote authorities behind the Colonel believed in working the battalion hard up to the last moment. Therefore day after day there were “stunts” and “shows,” field exercises of every conceivable kind. The weather was hot, as hot as weather ought to be in the first week of August Long marches became dusty horrors to the men. Manouvres meant hours of desperate toil. Officers thought longingly of bygone summers, of the cool shade of trees, of tennis played in white flannels, of luscious plates of strawberries and cream. The Colonel, an old soldier, went on inventing new “stunts” and more of them. He had laboured at the training of his battalion, hammering raw boys into disciplined men, inspiring subalterns with something of his own spirit. On the whole he had been successful. The men sweated, but grumbled very little. The officers kept up a gallant pretence at keenness. Slackness was regarded as bad form, and only one member of the mess made no secret of his opinion that the Colonel was overdoing the “spit and polish” business. This was McMahon, the medical officer; and he did not, properly speaking, belong to the battalion at all. Men and officers alike were drawn for the most part from the English midlands. McMahon was an Irishman. They were born with a sense of discipline and the Colonel worked on material responsive to his methods. McMahon, like most Irishmen, was by temperament a rebel. Yet there was no more popular officer than the Irish doctor. His frank good humour, his ready wit, his unfailing kindliness, won him affection. Even the Colonel liked him, and bore from McMahon behaviour which would have led to the sharp snubbing of anyone else. There came a day—the 6th of August—for which the Colonel, or some higher authority, devised a “stunt” of the most intense and laborious kind. A very great and remote man, the General in command of the whole district, promised to be present and to witness the performance. Orders were issued in minute detail, and every officer was expected to be familiar with them. Maps were studied conscientiously. Field glasses were polished. Rations were served out. Kits were inspected. The affair was an attack upon a hill supposed to be strongly held by an enemy well provided with machine-guns. A genuine excitement possessed the battalion. This, so it was felt, was very like the real thing. Just so, some day in France, would an advance be made and great glory won. McMahon alone remained cheerfully indifferent to the energetic fussiness which prevailed. The day dawned cloudless with promise of intense heat. Very early, after a hurried and insufficient breakfast, B Company marched out. It was the business of B Company to take up a position south of the enemy’s hill, to harass the foe with flanking fire and at the proper moment to rush certain machine-gun posts. B Company had some ten miles to march before reaching its appointed place. McMahon gave it as his opinion that B Company would be incapable of rushing anything when it had marched ten miles in blistering heat and had lain flat for an hour or two in a shadeless field. A party of cooks, with a travelling kitchen, followed B Company. McMahon said that if the cooks were sensible men they would lose their way and come to a halt in a wood, not far from a stream. He added that he was himself very sensible and had already fixed on the wood, about a mile from the scene of the attack, where he intended to spend the day, with a novel. The other three companies, the Lewis gunners, and a battery of Stokes gun men, attached to the battalion for the attack, marched out later, under the command of the Colonel himself. Cyclist scouts scoured the roads ahead of the advance. McMahon, accompanied by an orderly, marched in the rear and complained greatly of the dust. A Brigadier appeared in a motor and cast a critical eye on the men. Two officers in staff caps, understood to be umpires, rode by. At noon, the heat being then very great, a motor cyclist dashed up, his machine snorting horribly, the man himself plastered with dust, sweat and oil. He announced that the battalion was under heavy fire from the enemy artillery and that men were falling fast. The Brigadier had sent an urgent message to that effect. The Colonel, who rather expected that something of the sort would occur, gave the orders necessary in such a situation. The men opened out into artillery formation and advanced, by a series of short rushes, to take cover in some trenches, supposed to have been abandoned, very conveniently, by the enemy the day before. The Brigadier, seated in his motor-car in a wood on a neighbouring hill, watched the operation through his field glasses, munched a sandwich, and enjoyed a glass of sherry from his flask. McMahon, for whom short rushes in artillery formation had no attractions at all, slipped through a hedge, skirted a field of ripening oats, and settled himself very comfortably under a beech tree on the edge of a small wood. His orderly followed him and laid down a large package on the grass beside the doctor. The Colonel, an enthusiastic realist, had insisted that McMahon should bring with him a supply of surgical instruments, dressings and other things necessary for dealing with wounds. McMahon opened the package. He took out a novel, a tin of tobacco, a great many packages of cigarettes, two bottles of soda water, two lemons and several parcels of food. “This,” he said to the orderly, “is the advanced dressing station. When the casualties begin to arrive, we shall be ready for them.” The Brigadier sent another motor cyclist to say that the battalion would be wiped out if it stayed where it was. He suggested a move to the right and an attempt to get into touch with B Company. The Brigadier, though he drove in a motor-car, was feeling the heat. If a direct advance had been made on the hill from where the battalion lay he would have been obliged to drive out of his wood in order to keep the battle in view. A move to the right could be watched comfortably from where he sat The Colonel explained the situation, not the Brigadier’s feelings, to his officers, exposing himself with reckless gallantry as he passed from company to company. He said that he himself would survey the ground to the right and would try to discover the exact position of B Company. “I shall,” he said to the Adjutant, “climb a tree so as to get a good view.” The Adjutant remonstrated. He thought the Colonel was too old a man for climbing trees. He recommended that a subaltern, a Second Lieutenant whom nobody would miss much if he fell, should be sent up the tree. The suggestion, as the Adjutant might have guessed, made the Colonel more determined and slightly exasperated him. He gave orders that the Stokes gunners should shell the enemy while he climbed the tree. The Stokes gunners did not want to shell anyone. Their weapons are awkward to handle and their ammunition very heavy. They were already as hot as any men ought to be. But they were well trained and highly disciplined. They attacked the enemy with small dummy shells, which rose gently into the air, made a half-circle, and fell about fifteen yards from the muzzles of their guns. The Colonel, looking about him for a tree not too difficult to climb, caught sight of the beech under which McMahon lay. It seemed exactly the kind of tree he required. It was high. Its lower branches were close to the ground. It looked strong and sound. The Colonel pushed his way through the hedge, avoided the oats, and approached the tree across a pasture field. He came on McMahon stretched flat on his back, a tumbler full of lemon squash beside him and his novel in his hand. The Colonel was still irritated by the Adjutant’s suggestion that he was too old to climb trees. He was also beginning, now that he was near a tree, to wonder uneasily whether the Adjutant had not been right He saw an opportunity of expressing his feelings at the expense of McMahon. “What are you doing here?” he asked. McMahon, who had not seen the Colonel approach, stood up hurriedly, upsetting his lemon squash, and saluting. “What the deuce are you doing here?” said the Colonel. “You’ve no business to be idling, drinking and smoking under a tree, when the battalion is in action.” “This is an advanced dressing station, sir,” said McMahon. “I’m waiting for the casualties. “That’s not your duty,” said the Colonel. “Your duty is to be with the men, in the firing line, ready to render first aid when required.” “Beg pardon, sir,” said McMahon, “but I don’t think that you’re quite right in saying——” “Do you mean to tell me,” said the Colonel, “that it isn’t the duty of a medical officer to accompany the men into the firing line?” McMahon saluted again. “According to the instructions issued by the R.A.M.C., sir,” he said, “my place is in the advanced dressing station when there’s only one medical officer attached to the unit in action. If there is more than one the position is, of course, quite different.” The Colonel, though a soldier of long experience, was not at all sure what instructions the R.A.M.C. authorities might have issued to their officers. And doctors are a powerful faction, given to standing together and defying anyone who attempts to interfere with them. Besides, no one, not even the strongest and healthiest of us, knows how soon he may find himself under the power of a doctor, seized with a pain or other form of discomfort which only a doctor can alleviate. It is never wise to push things to a quarrel with any member of the R.A.M.C. The Colonel turned away and, somewhat laboriously, climbed his tree. He was anxious, if possible, to make McMahon do a little work. It was annoying to think that this young man, horribly addicted to slacking, should be lying on his back in the shade. Yet he did not at once see his way to any plan for making McMahon run about in the heat. It was while he scanned the position of B Company through his field glasses that an idea suddenly occurred to him. He climbed down rapidly and found McMahon standing respectfully to attention at the foot of the tree. “You told me, I think,” said the Colonel, “that this is the advanced dressing station?” “Yes, sir.” “And that you’re prepared to deal with casualties?” “Yes, sir.” “I shall send some casualties down to you,” said the Colonel. “Yes, sir, certainly.” “I shall expect,” said the Colonel, “that each man shall be properly treated, exactly as if he were really wounded, bandaged up, you know, ready for the ambulance to take him to the casualty clearing station. And a proper record must be kept for each case. You must have a list made out for me, properly classified, with a note of the treatment adopted in each case and the nature of the injury, just as if you were going to send it to the medical officer at the casualty clearing station.” “Yes, sir.” “And it must be done properly,” said the Colonel. “No shirking. No short cuts. I don’t see why you shouldn’t practise your job like the rest of us.” He turned away with a smile, a grim but well-satisfied smile. He intended to keep McMahon busy, very busy indeed, for the rest of the day. McMahon lay down again after the Colonel left him. But he did not attempt to read his novel. He saw through the Colonel’s plan. He was determined to defeat it if he could. He was enjoying a peaceful afternoon, and had no intention of exhausting himself bandaging up men who had nothing the matter with them or compiling long lists of imaginary injuries. After five minutes’ thought he hit upon a scheme. Ten minutes later the first casualty arrived. “Sent to the rear by the Colonel, sir,” said the man. “Orders are to report to you. Shrapnel wound in the left thigh, sir.” “Left thigh?” said McMahon. “It was the left the Colonel said, sir.” “All right,” said McMahon. “Orderly!” The orderly, who had found a comfortable couch among some bracken, roused himself and stood to attention in front of McMahon. “Take this man round to the far side of the tree,” said McMahon, “and let him lie down there flat on his back. You can give him a cigarette. He is to stay there until he gets orders to leave.” The orderly saluted. The man grinned. He was quite ready to lie under the tree without attempting to move until someone ordered him to get up. In the course of the next ten minutes six more casualties arrived. Their injuries were of several different kinds. One man reported that his thumb had been taken off by a machine-gun bullet. Another said he had a scalp wound. A third had lost a whole leg, severed at the thigh. A fourth had a fragment of shell in his stomach. A fifth was completely blinded. A sixth was suffering from gas poisoning. McMahon’s treatment never varied. Each man was given a cigarette and led off by the orderly to lie down in the shade at the far side of the tree. McMahon kept quite cool, refreshed himself occasionally with a drink of lemon squash, and smoked his pipe. He began to admire the activity of the Colonel’s imagination. For two hours casualties poured in and every one had a different kind of wound. There was scarcely any part of the human body with which McMahon was not called upon to deal. And the Colonel never once repeated himself. Before four o’clock about a third of the battalion and half of the officers were lying, very well content, in the shade under McMahon’s care. Many of them were sound asleep. The orderly was a man with a sense of military propriety. He insisted on the casualties lying in straight rows, as neatly aligned as if they were on their feet at parade in the barrack square. At last the stream of wounded grew slacker and finally ceased to flow. Between half-past four and five o’clock not a single man came to report himself wounded. McMahon, lighting a fresh pipe, congratulated himself. Either the Colonel’s knowledge of anatomy was exhausted and he was unable to think of any more wounds, or the battle was over, and there was no further excuse for inventing casualties. McMahon got up and stretched himself. He handed his novel, the two empty soda-water bottles, and his tobacco tin to the orderly, and bade him pack them up. “No cigarettes left, I suppose?” he said. “No, sir, not one. In fact, sir, the last twenty men didn’t get any. Weren’t enough to go round them all, sir.” “Ah,” said McMahon, “it’s been an expensive afternoon for me; but I don’t grudge it. Those poor fellows wanted a smoke and a rest badly. Besides, I’ve had a very pleasant time, pleasant and peaceful.” He strolled round to the far side of the tree and took a look at the men who lay stretched out. One of the officers, a boy of untiring energy, complained that he was bored. “I say, McMahon, can’t I get up and go back to the mess? What’s the good of my lying here all the afternoon?” “You’ll lie there,” said McMahon severely, “until you get orders to go. And it may be a long time before you do. In fact, you won’t be able to stir till the padre comes, and I haven’t the least idea where he is, I doubt if he’s out with us at all to-day.” “What the dickens has the padre got to do with it?” said the officer. “You’ll find that out in time. For the present you’ve nothing to do but lie still.” “But hang it all—— I say, McMahon, can’t you finish off and let me go?” “I?” said McMahon. “I’ve finished with you long ago. There’s nothing more for me to do. The next man to take you in hand is the padre.” The orderly stood at his elbow while he spoke. He seemed a little nervous and agitated. “Beg pardon, sir,” he said. “The Colonel’s just coming, sir. He and the General. He’s drove up in the General’s car; and I’m afraid they’re both coming here, sir.” McMahon turned. What the orderly said was perfectly true. The Colonel, and with him the General, and the two umpires in the fight, were skirting the oats and making for the little grove of trees where the casualties were. McMahon went to meet them. “Ah, McMahon,” said the Colonel, “I’ve come to see how you’ve treated the wounded. I’ve brought the General with me. Casualties rather heavy, eh? Had a busy afternoon?” The Colonel grinned. McMahon saluted respectfully. “Got your list made out?” said the Colonel, “and your report on each case? Just hand them over to me, will you? The General would like to see them.” “I beg your pardon, sir,” said McMahon, “but have you given orders for the padre to report here?” “Padre?” said the Colonel. “What do you want the padre for?” “The padre and a burying party, sir,” said McMahon. “The fact is, sir, that the wounded all died, every one of them, on the way down from the firing line. Arrived here stone dead. I couldn’t do anything for them, sir. Dead before they got to me. I’ve had them laid out, if you’d like to see them, sir. It’s all I could do for the poor fellows. It’s the padre’s job now. I understand that he keeps a register of burials, so there was no need for me to make a list, and of course I didn’t attempt any treatment. It wouldn’t have been any use, sir, when the men were dead.” III ~~ A MATTER OF DISCIPLINE O’Byrne, the Reverend Timothy, is our padre. We call him Tim behind his back because we like him and Padre to his face because some respect is due to his profession. Mackintosh is our medical officer. The Reverend Tim used to take a special delight in teasing Mackintosh. It may have been the natural antipathy, the cat and dog feeling, which exists between parsons and doctors. I do not know. But the padre never lost a chance of pulling the doctor’s leg, and Mackintosh spent hours proving that the things which the padre says he saw could not possibly have happened. I should not like to call any padre a liar; but some of the Rev. Tim’s stories were rather tall, and the doctor’s scepticism always goaded him to fresh flights of imagination. The mess was a much livelier place after the Rev. Tim joined it. Before he attached himself to us we used to wonder why God made men like Mackintosh, and what use they are in the world. Now we know. Mackintosh exists to call out all that is best in our padre. One night—the battalion was back resting at the time—we had an Assistant Provost Marshal as a guest. The conversation turned on the subject of deserters, and our A.P.M. told us some curious stories about the attempts made by these poor devils to escape the net of the military organization. “The fact is,” said the A.P.M., “that a deserter hasn’t a dog’s chance, not here in France anyway. We are bound to get him every time.” “Not every time,” said the padre. “I know one who has been at large for months and you’ll never lay hands on him.” The A.P.M., who did not of course know our padre, sat up and frowned. “I don’t think it’s his fault that he’s a deserter,” said the padre. “He was forced into it. And anyway, even if I give you his name and tell you exactly where he is, you’ll not arrest him.” “If he’s a deserter, I will,” said the A.P.M. “No, you won’t,” said the padre. “Excuse my contradicting you, but when you hear the story you’ll see yourself that you can’t arrest the man. Mackintosh here is protecting him.” “Is it me?” said Mackintosh. “I’d like you to be careful what you’re saying. In my opinion it’s libellous to say that I’m protecting a deserter. I’ll have you court-martialled, Mr. O’Byrne, padre or no padre. I’ll have you court-martialled if you bring any such accusation against me.” “I don’t mean you personally,” said O’Byrne. “I am taking you as a representative of your profession. The man I am speaking of”— he turned politely to the A.P.M.—“is under the direct protection of the Army Medical. You can’t get at him.” Mackintosh bristled, to the padre’s great delight Anything in the way of an attack on the medical profession excites Mackintosh fearfully. “Binny is the man’s name,” said the padre. “17932, Private Alfred Binny. He was in the Wessex, before the hospital people made a deserter of him. I will give you his address if you like, but you’ll not be able to arrest him. If you try you’ll have every doctor in France down on you. They back each other up through anything, don’t they, Mackintosh?” “I’d like you to understand,” said Mackintosh, “that you can’t be saying things like that with impunity.” “Get on with the story, padre,” I said, “and don’t exasperate Mackintosh.” “It was while I was attached to No. 97 General Hospital,” he said. “Know No. 97, Mackintosh? No. That’s a pity. It’s a place which would just suit you. Patients wakened every morning at five to have their faces washed. Discipline polished till you could see your face in it, and so many rules and regulations that you can’t cross a room without tripping over one. The lists and card indexes that are kept going in that place, and the forms that are filled in! You’d glory in it, Mackintosh. But it didn’t suit my temperament.” “I believe you,” said Mackintosh grimly. “It was while I was there,” said the padre, “that Biimy came down the line and was admitted to the hospital with a cushy wound in the fleshy part of his arm. He’d have been well in three weeks and back with his battalion in a month, if it hadn’t been for the doctors. It’s entirely owing to them that he’s a deserter now.” “Malingered, I suppose,” said Mackintosh. “Got back to England by shamming shell shock and was given his discharge. He wouldn’t have pulled it off if I’d been there.” “You’ve guessed wrong,” said the padre. “It wasn’t a case of malingering. As nearly as possible it was the exact opposite. The doctors tried to make the poor fellow out much worse than he really was. “I don’t believe it,” said Mackintosh. “As a matter of fact,” said the padre, “the mistake—you’ll hardly deny that it was a mistake when you hear the story—arose through too strict attention to discipline, that and the number of lists and returns that were made out. It doesn’t do to rely too much on lists, and there is such a thing as overdoing discipline. “What happened was this. One evening, when Binny had been in the hospital about a week, two orderlies came to his bed with a stretcher. They told him they were going to carry him down to the mortuary and put him into his coffin. Binny, of course, thought they were making some new kind of joke, and laughed. But the orderlies were perfectly serious. They said his name was on the list of those who had died during the day and they had no choice except to obey orders and put him into a coffin. They showed Binny the list, all nicely typed out, and there was no mistake about it Binny’s name, number, regiment, and religion were all there. “Binny began to get indignant. He said he wasn’t dead, that anyone could see he wasn’t dead, and that it would be a barbarous thing to bury him. The orderlies, who were very nice fellows, admitted that Binny seemed to be alive, but they stuck to it that it was their business to carry out their orders. Into the mortuary Binny would have to go. They tried to console him by saying that the funeral would not be till the next morning. But that did not cheer Binny much. In the end they took pity on the poor fellow and said they would go away for an hour and come back. If Binny could get the order changed they’d be very pleased to leave him where he was. It wasn’t, so they explained, any pleasure to them to put Binny into a coffin. “Binny did not get much chance during his hour’s reprieve. The only person who came into the ward was a V.A.D. girl, quite a nice little girl, good-looking enough to be bullied a lot by the sister-in-charge. Binny told her about the fix he was in, and at first she thought he was raving and tried to soothe him down. In the end, to pacify him, I suppose, she went and asked the orderlies about him. She had not been out in France long, that V.A.D., and wasn’t properly accustomed to things. When she found out that what Binny had told her was true, she got fearfully excited. She couldn’t do anything herself, of course, but she ran off to the matron as hard as she could. The matron was a bit startled just at first, but she kept her head. “‘Tell Private Binny,’ she said, ‘that if he has any complaints to make they must be made at the proper time and through the proper channels. The C.O. goes round the hospital every morning between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. Private Binny can speak to him then.’ “‘But by that time,’ said the V. A.D. girl, ‘the man will be buried.’ “‘I can’t help that,’ said the matron. ‘The discipline of the hospital must be maintained. It would be perfectly impossible to run a place like this if every man was allowed to make complaints at all hours of the day and to all sorts of people.’ “That V.A.D. was a plucky girl, and persistent—they sent her home afterwards in disgrace—and she talked on until the matron agreed to take a look at Binny. I think she was staggered when she saw him sitting up in bed and heard him cursing the orderlies, who had come back by that time. But she couldn’t do anything. She wasn’t really a bad sort of woman, and I don’t suggest for a moment that she wanted to have Binny buried alive. But she had no authority. She could not alter an order. And there the thing was in black and white. However, she persuaded the orderlies to wait another half-hour. She went off and found one of the surgeons. He was a decent sort of fellow, but young, and he didn’t see his way to interfering. There had been several mistakes made in that hospital, and the C.O. had been rather heavily strafed, which meant of course that everyone under him was strafed worse, on the good old principle of passing it on. That surgeon’s idea was to avoid trouble, if possible. Somebody, he said, had made a mistake, but it was too late, then, to set things right, and the best thing to do was to say nothing about it. He was sorry for Binny, but he couldn’t do anything. “When the V.A.D. girl heard that, she lost her temper. She said she’d write home and tell her father about it, and that her father was a Member of Parliament and would raise hell about it She didn’t, of course, say hell!” “She couldn’t do that,” said Mackintosh. “The censor wouldn’t pass a letter with a story like that in it.” “Quite right,” said the padre, “and it wouldn’t have been any good if her father had got the letter. He couldn’t have done anything. If he’d asked a question in Parliament he’d simply have been told a lie of some kind. It was a silly sort of threat to make. The V.A.D. saw that herself and began to cry. “That upset the surgeon so much that he went round and took a look at Binny. The man was pale by that time and in the deuce of a funk. But he wasn’t in the least dead. The surgeon felt that it was a hard case, and said he’d take the risk of speaking to the C.O. about it. “The C.O. of No. 97 General at that time was an oldish man, who suffered from suppressed gout, which is the regular medical name for unsuppressed temper. He said emphatically that Private Binny was reported dead, marked dead, removed from the hospital books, and must stay dead. The whole system of the R.A.M.C. would break down, he said, and things would drift into chaos if dead men were allowed to come to life again whenever they chose. “The surgeon was a plucky young fellow in his way. Remembering how pretty the V.A.D. looked when she cried, he pressed Binny’s case on the C.O. The old gentleman said he might have done something two hours sooner; but the hospital returns had gone to the D.D.M.S. and couldn’t possibly be got back again or altered. In the end, after a lot more talk about regulations and discipline, he said he’d telephone to the D.D.M.S. office and see if anything could be done. It is greatly to his credit that he did telephone, explaining the case as well as he could over a faulty wire. The staff colonel in the office was perfectly civil, but said that the returns had been forwarded by a motor dispatch rider to G.H.Q. and could not be recalled by any possibility. The C.O., who seems to have begun to realize the horrible position of Binny, asked advice as to what he ought to do. The staff colonel said he’d never come across a case of the kind before, but it seemed plain to him that Binny was dead, that is to say, officially dead. The Chaplain’s Department, he thought, might be able to do something for a man after he was dead. If not nobody could. “That,” said O’Byrne with a smile, “is where I came in. The C.O. sent for me at once.” “I suppose,” said Mackintosh, “that you straightened the whole thing out without difficulty?” Mackintosh is always irritated at a suggestion that anyone connected with the medical profession can possibly make a mistake. When irritated he is apt to attempt a kind of heavy sarcasm which O’Byrne sucks in with obvious delight. “No,” said the padre, “I couldn’t straighten it out. But I did the best I could. I went to see poor Binny. He was in the mortuary by that time. I found him sitting up in his coffin crying like a child. I comforted him as well as I could.” “Poor devil,” said Mackintosh. “Not that I believe a word of this story. It couldn’t have happened. But you may as well go on and tell us what you did. Sang hymns to him, I suppose.” “Not at all,” said the padre. “I got him something to eat and a couple of blankets. That mortuary is a cold place, and, though you mightn’t think it, a coffin is draughty. Next morning I buried him.” “God bless me!” said the A.P.M. explosively. “Do you mean to say you buried a man you knew to be alive?” “Couldn’t help it,” said the padre. “It was in orders, matter of discipline, you know. Can’t go back on discipline, can you, Mackintosh? I got through it as quickly as I decently could. Then I let Binny out. The graves in th...