Bullets & Billets

CHAPTER XIX

VI­SIONS OF LEAVE--DICK TURPIN--LEAVE!

Our first time in the Dou­ve trench­es was main­ly un­event­ful, but we all de­cid­ed it was not as pleas­ant as St. Yvon. For my part, it was fifty per cent. worse than St. Yvon; but I was now buoyed up by a new light in the sky, which made the first time in more tol­er­able than it might oth­er­wise have been. It was get­ting near my turn for leave! I had been look­ing for­ward to this for a long time, but there were many who had to take their turn in front of me, so I had dis­missed the case for a bit. Re­cent­ly, how­ev­er, the pow­ers that be had been send­ing more than one of­fi­cer away at a time; con­se­quent­ly my turn was rapid­ly ap­proach­ing. We came away back to bil­lets in the usu­al way af­ter our first dose of the Dou­ve, and all wal­lowed off to our var­ious bil­let­ing quar­ters. I was hot and strong on the leave idea now. It was re­al­ly get­ting close and I felt dis­posed to find ev­ery­thing _couleur de rose_. Even the ma­nure heap in the bil­let­ing farm yard looked cov­ered with ros­es. I could have thrown a bag of con­fet­ti at the farmer's wife--it's most ex­hil­arat­ing to think of the com­ing of one's first leave. One maps out what one will do with the time in a hun­dred dif­fer­ent ways. I was won­der­ing how I could man­age to trans­port my sou­venirs home, as I had col­lect­ed a pret­ty good sup­ply by this time--shell cas­es, fuse tops, clogs, and that Boche ri­fle I got on Christ­mas Day.

One morn­ing (we had been about two days out) I got a note from the Ad­ju­tant to say I could put in my ap­pli­ca­tion. I put it in all right and then sat down and hoped for the best.

My spir­its were now raised to such a pitch that I again de­cid­ed to ride to Nieppe--just for fun.

I rode away down the long wind­ing line, smil­ing at ev­ery­thing on ei­ther side--the three-​sailed wind­mill with the top off; the es­taminet with the hole through the gable end--all ob­jects seemed to ra­di­ate peace and good­will. There was a very bright sun in the sky that day. I rode down to the high road, and can­tered along the grass at the side in­to Nieppe. Just as I en­tered the town I met a friend rid­ing out. He shout­ed some­thing at me. I couldn't hear what he said. “What?” I yelled.

“All leave's can­celled!”

That was enough for me. I rode in­to Nieppe like an in­fu­ri­at­ed cow­boy. I went straight for the di­vi­sion­al head­quar­ters, flung away the horse and dashed up in­to the build­ing. I knew one or two of the of­fi­cers there. “What's this about leave?” I asked. “All about to be can­celled,” was the re­ply. “If you're quick, you may get yours through, as you've been out here long enough, and you're next to go.” “What have I got to do?” I screamed. “Go to your Colonel, and ask him to wire the Corps head­quar­ters and ask them to let you go; on­ly you'll have to look sharp about it.”

He needn't have told me that. He had hard­ly fin­ished be­fore I was out­side and mak­ing for my horse. I got out of Nieppe as quick­ly as I could, and lit out for our bat­tal­ion head­quar­ters. About four miles to go, but I lost no time about it. “Leave can­celled!” I hissed through the tri­an­gu­lar gap in my front tooth, as I gal­loped along the road; “leave can­celled!”

I should have made a good film ac­tor that day: “Dick Turpin's ride to York” in two reels. I reached the turn­ing off the high road all right, and pur­sued my wild ca­reer down the lanes which led to the Colonel's head­quar­ters. The road wound about in a most ridicu­lous way, mak­ing salients out of ploughed fields on ei­ther side. I de­cid­ed to throw all pru­dence to the winds, and cut across these. My horse ev­ident­ly thought this an ex­cel­lent idea, for as soon as he got on the fields he was off like a trout up stream. Most suc­cess­ful across the first salient, then, sud­den­ly, I saw we were ap­proach­ing a wide ditch. Leave _would_ be can­celled as far as I was con­cerned if I tried to jump that, I felt cer­tain. I saw a sort of a nar­row bridge about fifty yards to the right. Tried to per­suade the horse to make for it. No, he be­lieved in the ditch idea, and put on a sprint to jump it. Ter­rif­ic bat­tle be­tween Dick Turpin and Black Bess!

A foam­ing pause on the brink of the abyss. Dick Turpin wins the ar­gu­ment, and af­ter a few pranc­ing cir­cles de­scribed in the field man­ages to cross the bridge with his fiery steed. I then rode down the road in­to the lit­tle vil­lage. The vil­lage school had been turned in­to a bat­tal­ion stores, and the quar­ter­mas­ter-​sergeant was in­vari­ably to be found there. I dis­mount­ed and pulled my horse up a cou­ple of steps in­to the large school­room. Tied him up here, and last saw him blow­ing clouds of steam out of his nose on to one of those maps which show in­ter­est­ing forms of veg­etable life with their Latin names un­der­neath. Now for the Colonel. I clat­tered off down the street to his tem­po­rary or­der­ly room. Thank heav­en, he was in! I ex­plained the case to him. He said he would do his best, and there and then sent off a wire. I could do no more now, so af­ter fix­ing up that a mes­sage should be sent me, I slow­ly re­traced my steps to the school, ex­tract­ed the horse, and wend­ed my way slow­ly back to the Trans­port Farm. Here I lan­guished for the rest of the day, feel­ing con­vinced that “all leave was can­celled.” I sat down to do some sketch­ing af­ter tea, full of mar­malade and de­pres­sion. About 6 p.m. I chucked it, and went and sat by the stove, smok­ing a pipe. Sud­den­ly the door opened and a bi­cy­cle or­der­ly came in: “There's a note from the Ad­ju­tant for you, sir.”

I tore it open. “Your leave grant­ed; you leave to-​mor­row. If you call here in the morn­ing, I'll give you your pass.”

LEAVE!!