NO MAN'S LAND (A WW1 Saga). H. C. McNeile / Sapper
cafés.
The other jostlers were principally Americans of fabulous wealth: at least as they thronged the shipping offices they said so. Also they were very angry, which is where they differed from the Cingalese and Chinamen, who liked Marseilles and prayed to remain for ever. But the Americans desired to return to God's own country—they and their wives and their sons and daughters; moreover, they expressed their desire fluently and frequently. There is something stupendous about an American magnate insisting on his rights on a hot day, when he can't get them. . . . It cheers a man up when he is waiting and wondering—and England is still silent.
It was just as Draycott had made the unpleasant discovery that no longer did the weekly boat run from Marseilles to Tunis and thence to Malta, and was debating on the rival merits of a journey through Italy, and thence by Syracuse to the island of goats; or a journey through Spain to Gibraltar, and thence by sea—with luck, that a railway magnate entered and gave his celebrated rendering of a boiler explosion. It appeared—when every one had partially recovered—that he was the proud possessor of ten francs and three sous. He also admitted to a wife suffering from something with a name that hurt, and various young railway magnates of both sexes. It transpired that the ten francs and three sous had been laboriously collected from his ménage only that morning; that the youngest hopeful had wept copiously on losing her life's savings; and further, that it was the limit of his resources. He had letters of credit, or something dangerous of that sort, to the extent of a few million; he was prepared to buy the whole one-donkey country by a stroke of the pen, but—in hard cash—he had ten francs and three sous. . . .
It was pathetic; it was dreadful. An American multi-millionaire, one of those strange beings of whom one reads, who corner tin-tacks and things, and ruin or make thousands with a word, reduced to ten francs and three sous.
For not another cent piece did America's pride obtain; not another sou to add to the three. Politely, firmly, a harassed clerk shooed him away. No, he could not tell him when the next boat would sail—perhaps to-morrow, perhaps in a fortnight. He did not know, and he did not care how he proposed to live during that period, and he had no intention of furnishing him with any money to do it with. He had definite orders from his firm: no cheques cashed under any circumstances whatever. He was sorry the gentleman didn't like Marseilles, or war, or France, or him personally; he regretted deeply that the gentleman's wife liked peaches with every meal, and hoped he'd manage all right on his ten francs; he—— And then came the interruption.
They crowded to the door, and watched them coming. Occasionally a cheer rang out, but for the most part they came in silence, passing through the ranks of people that lined the road each side. Half way down the column a band blared forth, and every now and then the Colonel in front lifted his right hand gravely in a salute. They were small men, the poilus of that regiment; but they marched well, with a swing, and the glint of white teeth. Sometimes they waved a greeting to a girl on the footpath, and she would smile back, or throw them a flower or a kiss. And like a ripple going down the lines of spectators, men took off their hats suddenly. The Colours were passing. . . .
Almost dazedly the American took off his hat as the ripple reached him; then he put it on again and turned to Draycott.
"Hell!" he remarked tersely, "and I've been worry in' over a ten-franc note. I guess I feel a bit small." He turned and followed the regiment, with his hands deep in his pockets, and his shoulders squared.
VI
It came through the following afternoon—the news they had been waiting for; and now for a certain period the curtain of discretion must be drawn. I gather that Draycott has dim recollections of a stout field officer endeavouring to stand on a small marble-topped table, with a glass of beer in each hand. He was making a speech—chiefly in Hindustani—to the frenzied mob of cheering Frenchmen around him. Then he came to the point when the best people say "Vive la France!" He remembered he had a hat on; he remembered he ought to take it off; he did. The only thing he forgot was the beer. But as he said later when they sorted him out, it was an old suit, and England didn't declare war every day. . . .
The following night they left in an ancient old cargo boat, skippered by the type of man who has since made our mercantile marine the glory of the world. His job was to get his peculiarly odoriferous cargo home to his owners as soon as possible; beyond that he either failed or refused to look. The entire German Navy might have been waiting outside for all he cared; he merely consumed a little more whisky, and conducted morning prayers. He would give them no assurance; they went at their own risk, but, if the boat got there, he would land them at Gibraltar. And having thought the matter over, and realised that firstly a journey through Italy might result in their being kept as prisoners of war; secondly, that a journey through Spain would probably take a fortnight at least; and thirdly, that any way they could do neither as they could get no money, Draycott and his friends embarked with the patent manure, and watched the lights of Marseilles growing fainter and fainter till they dropped below the horizon astern.
It was an uneventful voyage, and never for one hour after the first day were they out of sight of land. It was the only concession the skipper would make for the safety of his boat; and so they jogged along at a peaceful ten knots and watched the sun set each evening in a blaze of golden glory over the rocky coast of Spain. For the first time since leaving England a week before, they were able to think. In the rush to Paris, in the horse-box to Marseilles, in Marseilles itself, they had been too busy. Besides, they were outsiders. . . .
Now, England was in it; the thing which they had known in their hearts was coming, ever since a kindly senior subaltern had first taken it upon himself to shape their destinies, had actually come. And bitterest thought of all—they were not there.
"It can't last more than three months." A pessimistic garrison gunner from Malta, who was playing patience, cheated savagely. "I tell you no European country could stand it." Undoubtedly the fatuous drivel of certain writers had influenced even the Army itself. "Peace will be declared before Christmas. An' I'll have sat on that cursed island, and whenever I see a ship I'd like to poop at, the searchlight will go out, an' I'll be bitten by sand flies." He glared morosely at Draycott; until, suddenly, a dawning look of joy spread over his face. "It's coming out. I swear it's coming out!"
"You cheated," remarked an onlooker cruelly. "I saw you with my own eyes."
It was then that he burst into tears. . . .
Shut off as they were from the outside world—the old tramp had no wireless—they could only wonder, and wait, fuming with impatience. What had happened? Had the fleets met? Had the wonderful day which the German Navy was popularly supposed to be living for—had it arrived? And if it had—what had been the result? They could only lean over the stern and try and grasp the one monumental fact—war. And what did it hold in store? . . .
Visions of forlorn hopes, visions of glory, visions of the glamour of war rose unbidden in their minds. And then, when they had got as far as that, the smell of that patent manure obtruded itself once again, and the dreamers of honours to come passed sadly down the gangway to the Levantine villain who presided over the vermouth and the gin. Which might be taken as the text for a sermon on things as they are. In this war it is the patent manure and the vermouth which dominate the situation as far as the fighters, at any rate, are concerned. The talkers may think otherwise, may prate of soul-stirring motives, and great ideals. But for the soldiers, life is a bit too grim and overpowering for gloss. After a spell they come for their vermouth, for something to help nerves a trifle jangled, something to give a contrast to stark reality, and having had it they go back again to the patent manure; while the onlookers see visions and dream dreams. I suppose it's a fair division of labour! . . .
VII
It was the distinguished-looking gentleman in blue who came alongside just after