The Collected Works of P. C. Wren: Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories. P. C. Wren
and bed.
An amusing morning.
§ 5
I shall never forget being tailored by the Sergent-Fourrier that afternoon. His store was a kind of mighty shop in which the Regimental Sergeant-Tailor, Sergeant-Bootmaker Sergeant-Saddler and Sergeant-Storekeeper were his shop-assistants.
Here I was given a pair of red trousers to try on--"for size." They were as stiff, as heavy, and nearly as big, as a diver's suit and clogs, and from the knees downwards were of solid leather.
They were not riding-breeches, but huge trousers, the legs being each as big round as my waist. As in the case of an axiom of Euclid, no demonstration was needed, but since the Sergeant-Tailor bade me get into them--I got.
When the heavy leather ends of them rested on the ground, the top cut me under the arm-pits. The top of that inch-thick, red felt garment, hard and stiff as a board, literally cut me.
I looked over the edge and smiled at the Sergeant-Tailor.
"Yes," he agreed, "excellent," and handed me a blue tunic to try on, "for size." The only faults in this case were that my hands were invisible within the sleeves, and that I could put my chin inside the collar after it had been hooked. I flapped my wings at the Sergeant-Tailor.
"Yes, you go into that nicely, too," he said, and he was quite right. That there was room for him, as well, did not seem to be of importance.
The difficulty now was to move, as the trousers seemed to be like jointless armour, but I struggled across the store to where sat the Sergeant-Bootmaker, with an entire range of boots of all sizes awaiting me. The "entire range" consisted of four pairs, and of these the smallest was two inches too long, but would not permit the passage of my instep.
They were curious leather buildings, these alleged boots. They were as wide as they were long, were perfectly square at both ends, had a leg a foot high, heels two and a half inches thick, and great rusty spurs nailed on to them.
The idea was to put them on under the trousers.
"You've got deformed feet, oh, espèce d'imbécile," said the Sergeant-Bootmaker, when his complete range of four sizes had produced nothing suitable. "You ought not to be in the army. The likes of you are a curse and an undeserved punishment to good Sergeants, you orphaned Misfortune of God. . . . Put on the biggest pair. . . ."
"But, Sergeant," I protested, "they are exactly five inches longer than my feet!"
"And is straw so dear in a cavalry regiment that you cannot stuff the toes with it, Most Complete Idiot?" inquired the man of ideas.
"But they'd simply fall off my feet if I tried to walk in them," I pointed out.
"And will not the straps of your trousers, that go underneath the boots, keep the boots on your feet, Most Polished and Perfected Idiot?" replied this prince of bootmakers. "And the trousers will hide the fact that the boots are a little large."
As all I had to do was to get from the barracks to my hotel, where I had everything awaiting me, it did not so much matter. But what of the poor devil who had to accept such things without alternative?
When I was standing precariously balanced inside these boots and garments, the Sergent-Fourrier gave me a Hussar shako which my ears insecurely supported; wound a blue scarf round my neck, inside the collar of the tunic, and bade me go and show myself to the Captain of the Week--who was incidentally Capitaine en Second of my Squadron.
Dressed as I was, I would not willingly have shown myself to a mule, lest the poor animal laugh itself into a state of dangerous hysteria.
Walking as a diver walks along the deck of a ship, I plunged heavily forward, lifting and dropping a huge boot, that hung at the end of a huge trouser-leg, at each step.
It was more like the progression of a hobbled clown-elephant over the tan of a circus, than the marching of a smart Hussar. I felt very foolish, humiliated and angry.
Guided by a storeroom Orderly, I eventually reached the door of the Captain's office, and burst upon his sight.
I do not know what I expected him to do. He did not faint, nor call upon Heaven for strength.
He eyed me as one does a horse offered for sale. He was of the younger school--smart, cool and efficient; a handsome, spare man, pink and white above a shaven blueness. In manner he was of a suavely sinister politeness that thinly covered real cruelty.
"Take off that tunic," he said.
I obeyed with alacrity.
"Yes, the trousers are too short," he observed, and added: "Are you a natural fool, that you come before me with trousers that are too short?"
"Oui, mon Capitaine," I replied. I felt I was a natural fool, to be there in those, or in any other, trousers.
"And look at your boots. Each is big enough to contain both your feet. Are you an unnatural fool to come before me in such boots?"
"Oui, mon Capitaine," I replied. I felt I was an unnatural fool, to be there in those, or in any other, boots.
"I will make a note of it, recruit," said the officer, and I felt he had said more than any roaring Sergeant, shouting definite promises of definite punishments.
"Have the goodness to go," he continued in his silky-steely voice, "and return in trousers twice as large and boots half as big. You may tell the Sergent-Fourrier that he will shortly hear something to his disadvantage. . . . It will interest him in you. . . ."
It did. It interested all the denizens of that horrible storeroom, that stank of stale leather, stale fustian, stale brass, and stale people.
("I would get them into trouble, would I? . . . I would bring reprimands and punishments upon senior Sergeants, would I? . . . Oh, Ho! and Ah, Ha! Let me but wait until I was in their hands . . . !")
A little later, I was sent back to the Captain's room, in the identical clothes that I had worn on the first visit. My trousers were braced to my chin, the leather ends of the legs were pulled further forward over the boots, a piece of cloth was folded and pushed up the back of my tunic, my sleeves were pulled back, and a fold or tuck of the cloth was made inside each elbow. A crushed-up ball of brown paper relieved my ears of some of the weight of my shako.
"You come back here again, unpassed by the Captain, and I swear I'll have you in prison within the week," promised the Sergent-Fourrier.
I thanked him and shuffled back.
My Captain eyed me blandly across the table, as I saluted.
"Trousers are now too big," he observed, "and the tunic too small. Are you really determined to annoy me, recruit?" he added. "If so, I must take steps to protect myself. . . . Kindly return and inform the Sergent-Fourrier that I will interview him later. . . ."
Pending that time, the Sergent-Fourrier and his myrmidons interviewed me. They also sent me back in precisely the same garments; this time with trousers braced only to my breast and with the sleeves of my tunic as they had been at first.
My Captain was not in his room, and I promptly returned and told the truth--that he had found no fault in me this time. . . .
Eventually I dragged my leaden-footed, swaddled, creaking carcase from the store, burdened with an extra tunic, an extra pair of incredible trousers, an extra pair of impossible boots, a drill-jacket, a képi, two canvas stable-suits, an overcoat, a huge cape, two pairs of thick white leather gauntlets big enough for Goliath of Gath, two terrible shirts, two pairs of pants, a huge pair of clogs, and no socks at all.
Much of this impedimenta was stuffed into a big canvas bag.
With this on my back-hand looking like Bunyan's Christian and feeling like no kind of Christian, I staggered to my room.
Here, Corporal Lepage,