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Page 15
The shout was taken up all along the line--"Get a bloody move on"--and
tins and plates were banged until the uproar was deafening. It gradually
died down again, although curses and resentful remarks were still
frequent.
"'Tain't worth eatin' when yer do get it!"
"Bleed'n' stew, I s'pose, 'nough ter make yer go queer!"
"I wouldn't feed me dog on the stuff they give yer in the army--I
wouldn't 'ave the cheek ter orfer it to 'im."
"Come on ... put a jerk in it"--the cry was taken up again. There was
hooting and booing and banging of plates until pandemonium reigned once
more.
Suddenly the shutter in front of the cook-house was pushed up and one of
the cooks appeared in the opening. The booing changed into loud,
ironical cheers:
"What yer bin doin' all day? Swingin' the lead?"
A squeaky voice retorted: "I've bin up since four in the mornin' workin'
a bloody sight 'arder 'n what you 'ave. Yer never satisfied, yer
bleed'n' lot o'...." The rest was drowned in a storm of derisive shouts.
Then the men in the queue took up the argument again.
"Yer too slow--yer could'n catch the measles!"
"You come an' do my job an' see 'ow yer like it!"
"Do _your_ job! No bloody fear, why, 'tain't a man's job at all, it's
only old women what goes inter the cook-'ouse."
"Go on, get a move on--don't stand there talkin'!"
Another cook appeared. He dipped his ladle into a receptacle behind the
till and emptied into the first man's plate. The next man held out his
plate, and then the next. The cumbrous serpent moved forward inch by
inch while a counter movement began of men straggling back through the
slush, holding up tins or plates of steaming stew.
Two candles were burning inside my tent. The men were sitting on their
kits. The noisy manner in which they ate was irritating beyond measure.
After the meal I went over to the tent of a friend. He was sitting by a
flickering candle in moody silence. I asked him to come with me to the
village. He put on his great-coat and we walked along the duckboards on
to the road. It was intensely dark and we were conscious of the silent
fall of snow.
"What sort of a day did you have?" I asked.
"Undiluted misery. We marched to the quarry and when we got there we
found there was nothing to do, because the train hadn't turned up. So we
waited in the wind and snow, just walking up and down, stamping with our
feet and trying to get warm. Lieutenant Rowlatt was in charge of us. He
wouldn't let us leave the quarry or go into an estaminet. And he only
gave us half an hour for dinner. Of course he spent most of the time in
an estaminet himself, eating eggs and chips and flirting with the girl
... I couldn't keep warm and there was no shelter anywhere. It was like
doing an eight-hour guard."
All the windows in the streets of the village were shuttered, but the
light shone through cracks and chinks--a promise of warmth within that
cheered us a little.
We entered an estaminet. It was crowded. Soldiers were standing round
the walls waiting for vacant seats. We went to another place, but that
too was crowded. Indeed, they were all crowded. Nevertheless, it was
better to stand in the warmth than to walk about stiff-limbed in the
slush and falling snow. We went into the next estaminet we came to. We
entered the main room. An oil lamp was hanging from the ceiling. In the
middle there was a long table and soldiers were seated round it,
squeezed tightly together, eating eggs and chips and drinking wine or
coffee. We leaned up against the wall with a number of others and waited
our turn. The air was hot and moist and smelt of stale tobacco, burning
fat, and steaming clothes. There was a glowing stove at one end of the
room. It looked like a red-hot spherical urn on a low black pedestal. A
big bowl of liquid fat was seething on the fire. A woman with flaming
cheeks was throwing handfuls of sliced potatoes into it while she held a
saucepan in which a number of eggs were spluttering. The heat was
becoming intolerable and we edged away from the stove. We waited
patiently. More and more men came in until there was no standing room
left. The conversation was boisterous and vulgar, much of it at the
expense of the woman, who laughed frequently and pretended to feel
shocked and called the soldiers "Naughty boyss." A few men rose from the
table from time to time and at last our turn came, so that we were able
to sit down. We ordered eggs and chips and _vin blanc_, but had to wait
a long time before we got them. I rested my head on my hand and
struggled hard with sleep. At last the woman brought us the things we
had ordered and we ate and drank in silence. We would have been glad to
sit and doze in this warm place in spite of the smell and noise, but
when we had finished we felt obliged to get up and make room for others.
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