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A Padre in France, a non-fiction book by George A. Birmingham |
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Chapter 11. Another Journey |
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_ CHAPTER XI. ANOTHER JOURNEY "'Tis but in vain for soldiers to complain." That jingle occurs over and over again in Wolfe Tone's autobiography. It contains his philosophy of life. I learned to appreciate the wisdom of it before I had been a week in the army. I said it over and over to myself. If I had kept a diary I should have written it as often as Wolfe Tone did. I had need of all its consolation when the time came for me to leave H. One evening--I was particularly busy at the moment in the Y.S.C.--an orderly summoned me to the chaplain's office to answer a telephone call. I learned that orders had come through for my removal from H. to B. I had twenty-four hours' notice. That is more than most men get, double as much as an officer gets who is sent up the line. Yet I felt irritated. I am getting old and I hate being hustled. Also I felt quite sure that there was no need for any kind of hurry. As it appeared in the end I might just as well have had three or four more days quietly at H. and started comfortably. I arrived at my destination, a little breathless, to find I was not wanted for a week. My new senior chaplain was greatly surprised to see me. My predecessor had not given up the post I was to fill. There was nothing for me to do and nowhere for me to go. I spent several days, most unprofitably, in B. which I might have spent usefully in H. But this is the way things are done in the army, sometimes; in the Chaplains' Department generally. And "'Tis but in vain for soldiers to complain." I fully expected to make a bad start on my new journey. Having been fussed I was irritable. I had spent a long day trying to do twenty things in a space of time which would barely have sufficed for ten of them. I had been engaged in an intermittent struggle with various authorities for permission to take my servant with me, a matter which my colonel arranged for me in the end. I was in the worst possible mood when I reached the station from which I had to start--a large shed, very dimly lit, designed for goods traffic, not for passengers. Oddly enough I began to recover my temper the moment I entered the station. I became aware that the whole business of the starting of this great supply train was almost perfectly organised, so well organised that it ran more smoothly, with less noise and agitation, than goes to the nightly starting of the Irish mail from Euston. The train itself, immensely long, was drawn up the whole length of the station and reached out for a distance unknown to me into the darkness beyond the station. There were passenger coaches and horse waggons. Every waggon was plainly labelled with the number of men to go in it and the name of the unit to which they belonged. The windows of every compartment of the passenger coaches bore the names of four officers. A fool could have been in no doubt about where he had to go. The fussiest traveller could have had no anxiety about finding a seat. Each party of men was drawn up opposite its own part of the train. The men's packs and arms were on the ground in front of them. They waited the order to take their places. Competent N.C.O.'s with lanterns walked up and down the whole length of the station, ready with advice and help when advice and help were needed. It was my good fortune that I had to visit in his office the R.T.O., the organising genius of the start. My servant arrived at the last moment, an unexpected traveller for whom no provision had been made. The order which permitted him to accompany me reached him only after I had left the camp. I fully expected to be snubbed, perhaps cursed, by that R.T.O. I was an utterly unimportant traveller. I was upsetting, at the very moment of starting, his thought-out arrangements. He would have been fully justified in treating me with scant courtesy. I found him cool, collected, complete master of every detail. He was friendly, sympathetic, ready with an instant solution of the difficulty of my servant. He even apologised--surely an unnecessary apology--for the discomfort I was likely to suffer through having to spend the night in a compartment with three other officers. I do not know the name of that R.T.O. I wish I did. I can only hope that his abilities have been recognised and that he is now commander-in-chief of all R.T.O.'s. The night was not very unpleasant after all. My three fellow-travellers were peaceable men who neither snored nor kicked wildly when asleep. I slumbered profoundly and did not wake till the train came to a standstill on an embankment. There was no obvious reason why the train should have stopped in that particular place for half an hour or why it should have spent another three-quarters of an hour in covering the last mile which separated us from the station. But I know by experience that trains, even in peace time, become very leisurely in approaching that particular city. They seem to wander all round the place before finally settling down. In peace time, travelling as a tourist, one does not complain. The city is rich in spires and there are nice views to be got from the railway carriage windows. We got rather too much of those views that morning. Even Wordsworth, though he did write an early morning sonnet on Westminster Bridge, would not have cared to meditate on "Houses Asleep" for an hour and a quarter before he got a wash or anything to eat. I interviewed the R.T.O. when I reached the station and found that I could not continue my journey till 5 o'clock in the afternoon. I was not altogether sorry to have the whole day before me in a town which I had never visited. I recollected that I had a cousin stationed there and made up my mind to rely on him, if I could find him, for entertainment. My servant's lot was less fortunate. He belonged, of course, to that part of the army which is officially described as "other ranks"; and only commissioned officers are trusted to wander at will through that town. The "other ranks" spend the day in the railway station. They are dependent on a Y.M.C.A. canteen for food and on themselves for amusement. I spent a pleasant day, finding my cousin quite early and visiting with him a large number of churches. Some day I mean to work out thoroughly the connection between that town and Ireland and discover why pious Frenchmen dedicated several of their churches to Irish saints. At 4 o'clock--I like to be in good time for trains--I went back to the station. My servant was sitting patiently on my valise. A long train lay ready. As in the train in which I had travelled the night before, all the coaches and waggons were carefully and clearly labelled, but this time with the names of the places to which they were going. I went the whole length of the train and read every label. No single carriage was labelled for B., my destination. I walked all the way back again and read all the labels a second time. Then I fell back on the R.T.O. for guidance. I found not the man I had met in the morning, but a subordinate of his. "I'm going," I said, "or rather I hope to go to B. What part of the train do you think I ought to get into?" "What does your party consist of?" he asked. "How many men have you?" "One," I said. "You can hardly call it a party at all. There's only my servant and myself." He lost all interest in me at once. I do not wonder. A man who is accustomed to deal with battalions, squadrons, and batteries cannot be expected to pay much attention to a lonely padre. I quite understood his feelings. "Still," I said, "I've got to get there." "You can't get to B. in that train," he said. "It doesn't go there." I was not prepared to sit down under that rebuff without a struggle. "The R.T.O. who was here this morning," I said, "told me to travel by this train." "Sorry," he said. "But you can't, or if you do you won't get to B." "How am I to get there?" I asked. "I don't know that you can." "Do you mean," I said, "that no train ever goes there?" He considered this and replied cautiously. "There might be a train to-morrow," he said, "or next day." The prospect was not a pleasant one; but I knew that R.T.O.'s are not infallible. Sometimes they have not the dimmest idea where trains are going. I left the office and wandered about the station until I found the officer in command of the train. He was a colonel, and I was, of course, a little nervous about addressing a colonel. But this colonel had kindly eyes and a sorrowful face. He looked like a man on whom fate had laid an intolerable burden. I threw myself on his mercy. "Sir," I said, "I want to go to B. I am ordered to report myself there. I am trying to take my servant with me. What am I to do?" That colonel looked at me with a slow, mournful smile. "This train," he said, "isn't supposed to go to B. You can't expect me to take it there just to suit you?" He waved his hand towards the train. It was enormously long. Already several hundred men were crowding into it. I could not expect to have the whole thing diverted from its proper course for my sake. I stood silent, looking as forlorn and helpless as I could. My one hope, I felt, lay in an appeal to that colonel's sense of pity. "We shall pass through T. to-morrow morning about 6 o'clock," he said. That did not help me much. I had never heard of T. before. But something in the colonel's tone encouraged me. I looked up and hoped that there were tears in my eyes. "T.," said the colonel, "is quite close to B. In fact it is really part of B., a sort of suburb." That seemed to me good enough. "Take me there," I said, "and I'll manage to get a taxi or something." "But," said the colonel, "my train does not stop at T. We simply pass through the station. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll slow down as we go through. You be ready to jump out. Tell your servant to fling out your valise and jump after it. You won't have much time, for the platform isn't very long, but if you're ready and don't hesitate you'll be all right." I babbled words of gratitude. The prospect of a leap from a moving train at 6 a.m. was exhilarating. I might hope that I should find my servant and my luggage rolling over me on the platform when I reached it. Then all would be well. The colonel, moved to further kindness by my gratitude, invited me to travel in a coach which was specially reserved for his use. The art of travelling comfortably in peace or war lies in knowing when to bully, when to bribe, and when to sue. Neither bullying nor bribing would have got me to B. If I had relied on those methods I should not have arrived there for days, should perhaps never have arrived there, should certainly have been most uncomfortable. By assuming the manner, and as far as possible the appearance, of a small child lost in London I moved the pity of the only man who could have helped me. But those circumstances were exceptional. As a general rule I think bullying and bribing are better ways of getting what you want on a journey. I travelled in great comfort. There were three of us--the colonel, a colonial commissioner, in uniform but otherwise unconnected with the army, and myself. There was also the colonel's servant, who cooked a dinner for us on a Primus stove. The train stopped frequently at wayside stations. There was no conceivable reason why it should have stopped at all. We neither discharged nor took up any passengers. But the halts were a source of entertainment for the men. Most of them and all the officers got out every time the train stopped. It was the duty of the colonel, as O.C. Train, to see that they all got in again. It was a laborious job, not unlike that of a sheep dog. The colonial commissioner and I tried to help. I do not think we were much use. But I have this to my credit. I carried a message to the engine driver and told him to whistle loud and long before he started. Having read long ago Matthew Arnold's Essay on Heine, I know the French for "whistle" or a word which conveyed the idea of whistling to the engine driver. When it became dark the worst of this labour was over for the colonel. The men stayed in their carriages. I suppose they went to sleep. We dined. It was a pleasant and satisfying meal. We all contributed to it. The colonel's servant produced soup, hot and strong, tasting slightly of catsup, made out of small packets of powder labelled "Oxtail." Then we had bully beef--perhaps the "unexpended portion" of the colonel's servant's day's rations--and sandwiches, which I contributed. By way of pudding we had bread and marmalade. The colonial commissioner produced the marmalade from his haversack. I had some cheese, a Camembert, and the colonel's servant brought us sardines on toast, and coffee. We all had flasks and the colonel kept a supply of Perrier water. Men have fared worse on supply trains. After dinner I taught the colonel and the commissioner to play my favourite kind of patience. I do not suppose the game was ever much use to the commissioner. In his colony life is a strenuous business. But I like to think that I did the colonel a good turn. His business was to travel up to the rail head in supply trains full of men, and then to travel down again in the same train empty. When I realised that he had been at this work for months and expected to be at it for years I understood why he looked depressed. Train commanding must be a horrible business, only one degree better than draft conducting. To a man engaged in it a really absorbing kind of patience must be a boon. The next morning the colonel woke me early and warned me to be ready for my leap. In due time he set me on the step of the carriage. He took all my coats, rugs, and sticks from me. The train slowed down. I caught sight of the platform. The colonel said "Now." I jumped. My coats and rugs fell round me in a shower. My servant timed the thing well. My valise came to earth at one end of the platform. The man's own kit fell close to me. He himself lit on his feet at the far end of the platform. The train gathered speed again. I waved a farewell to my benefactor and the colonial commissioner. _ |
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