Bullets & Billets

CHAPTER XXVI

A PLEAS­ANT CHANGE--SUZETTE, BERTHE AND MARTHE--“LA JE­UNE FILLE FAROUCHE”--AN­DRÉ

On the next morn­ing we left Bailleul, and the whole of our bat­tal­ion marched off down one of the roads lead­ing out in­to the coun­try in a west­er­ly di­rec­tion. The weath­er was now ex­cel­lent; so what with a prospect of a rest, fine weath­er and the de­par­ture from the Wul­verghem trench­es, we were all very mer­ry and bright, and “go­ing strong” all round. It seemed to us as if we had come out of some dark, wet un­der-​world in­to a bright, whole­some lo­cal­ity, suit­able for the habi­ta­tion of man.

Down the long, straight, dusty road we marched, hop yards and bright coloured fields on ei­ther side, here and there pass­ing pros­per­ous look­ing farms and es­taminets: what a pleas­ant change it was from that ru­ined, dis­mal jun­gle we had so re­cent­ly left! About three or four miles out we came to a vil­lage; the main road ran right through it, form­ing its prin­ci­pal street. On ei­ther side small lanes ran out at right an­gles in­to the dif­fer­ent parts of the vil­lage. We re­ceived the or­der to halt, and soon learnt that this was the place where we were to have our ten days' rest. A cer­tain amount of bil­lets had been ar­ranged for, but, as is gen­er­al­ly the case, the ma­chine-​gun sec­tion have to search around for them­selves; an ad­van­tage re­al­ly, as they gen­er­al­ly find a bet­ter crib this way than if some­body else found it for them. As soon as we were “dis­missed,” I start­ed off on a bil­let search. The trans­port of­fi­cer was again with me on the same quest. We sep­arat­ed, and each searched a dif­fer­ent part of the vil­lage. The first house I went in­to was a dis­mal fail­ure. An old wom­an of about 84 opened the door about six inch­es, and was some time be­fore she per­mit­ted the aper­ture to widen suf­fi­cient­ly to al­low me to go in­side the house. A most dingy, poky sort of a place, so I cleared off to search for some­thing bet­ter. As I crossed the farm­yard be­hind, my ser­vant, who had been con­duct­ing a search on his own, sud­den­ly ap­peared round the cor­ner of the large barn at the end of the yard, and came to­wards me.

“I've found a place over 'ere, Sir, I ex­pect you'll like.”

“Where?” I asked.

“This way, Sir!” and he led the way across a field to a gate, which we climbed. We then went down a sort of back lane to the vil­lage, and turned in at a small wick­et-​gate lead­ing to a row of cot­tages. He led me up to one in the cen­tre, and knocked at the door. A wom­an opened it, and I told her what I was look­ing for. She seemed quite keen for us to go there, and asked if there was any­one else to come there with me. I told her the trans­port of­fi­cer would be com­ing there too, and our two ser­vants. She quite agreed to this, and showed me the rooms we could have. They were ex­treme­ly small, but we de­cid­ed to have them. “Them” con­sist­ed of one bed­room, con­tain­ing two beds, the size of the room be­ing about four­teen feet by eight, and the front kitchen-​sit­ting-​room place, which was used by ev­ery­body in the house, and was about twice the size of the bed­room. I went away and found the trans­port of­fi­cer, brought him back and showed him the place. He thought it a good spot, so we ar­ranged to fix up there.

Our ser­vants start­ed in to put things right for us, get our bag­gage there, and so on, whilst I went off to see to bil­lets for the ma­chine-​gun sec­tion. I had got them a pret­ty good barn, at­tached to the farm I first called at, but I want­ed to go and see that it was re­al­ly large enough and suit­able when they had all got in and spread them­selves. I found that it did suit pret­ty well. The space was none too large, but I felt sure we wouldn't find a bet­ter. There was a good field for all the lim­bers and hors­es ad­join­ing, so on the whole it was quite a con­ve­nient place. The sec­tion had al­ready got to work with their cook­ing things, and had a fire go­ing out in the field. Those gun­ners were a very self-​con­tained, hap­py throng; they all lived to­geth­er like a fam­ily, and were all very keen on their job.

I re­turned to my cot­tage to see how things were pro­gress­ing. My man had un­rolled my valise, and put all my things out and about in the bed­room. I took off all my equip­ment, which I was still wear­ing, pack, haver­sacks, re­volver, binoc­ulars, map case, etc., and sat down in the kitchen to take stock of the sit­ua­tion. I now saw what the fam­ily con­sist­ed of; and by air­ing my fee­ble French, I found out who they were and what they did. The wom­an who had come to the door was the wife of a painter and dec­ora­tor, who had been called up, and was in a French reg­iment some­where in Al­sace.

An­oth­er girl who was there was a friend, and re­al­ly lived next door with her sis­ter, but ow­ing to over­crowd­ing, due to our ser­vants and some French rel­atives, she spent most of her time in the house I was in.

The own­er of the place was Madame Charlet-​Flaw, Chris­tian name Suzette. The oth­er two girls were, re­spec­tive­ly, Berthe and Marthe. Ages of all three in the or­der I have men­tioned them were, I should say, twen­ty-​eight, twen­ty-​four, and twen­ty. The place had, I found, been used as bil­lets be­fore. I dis­cov­ered this in two ways.

First­ly: On the man­tel­piece over the old stove I saw a col­lec­tion of many kinds of reg­imen­tal badges, with a quan­ti­ty of En­glish mag­azines. Sec­ond­ly, af­ter I had been talk­ing for some time, Suzette an­swered my re­marks with one of her stock En­glish sen­tences, picked up from some for­mer lodgers, “And very nice too,” a phrase much in vogue at that time.

The trans­port of­fi­cer, who had been out see­ing about some­thing or oth­er, soon re­turned, and with him came the reg­imen­tal doc­tor, who had got his bil­lets all right, but had come along to see how we were fixed up. A re­al good chap he was, one of the best. All six of us now sat about in the kitchen and talked over things in gen­er­al. We were a very cheery group. The trans­port of­fi­cer, doc­tor and my­self were all thor­ough­ly in the mood for en­joy­ing this ten days' rest. To live amongst or­di­nary peo­ple again, and see the life of even a vil­lage, was re­fresh­ing to us. We had a pret­ty easy af­ter­noon, and all had tea in that kitchen, af­ter which I went out and round to look up my old pals in A com­pa­ny. They had, I found, got hold of the Curé's house, the vil­lage par­son's rec­to­ry, in fact. It was a square, plain-​look­ing house, stand­ing very close to the church, and they all seemed very com­fort­able there. The Curé him­self and his house­keep­er on­ly had three rooms re­served for them­selves, the rest be­ing hand­ed over to the of­fi­cers of A com­pa­ny. I stayed round there for a bit, hav­ing a talk and a smoke, and we each of us re­marked in turn, about ev­ery five min­utes, what a top-​hole thing it was that we had got this ten days' rest.

I then went back to our cot­tage, where I had a meal with the trans­port of­fi­cer, con­vers­ing the while with Suzette, Berthe and Marthe. I don't know which I liked the best of these three, they were all so cheery and hos­pitable. Marthe was the most in­ter­est­ing from the pic­to­ri­al point of view. She was so gip­sy-​like to look at: brown-​skinned, large dark eyes, ex­ceed­ing bright, with a sort of sparkling, wild look about her. I called her “La je­une fille farouche” (looked this up first be­fore do­ing so), and she was al­ways called this af­ter­wards. It means “the young wild girl”; at least I hope it means that. The doc­tor came back again af­ter din­ner, and we all pro­ceed­ed to fill the air in the small kitchen with songs and to­bac­co-​smoke. The trans­port of­fi­cer was a “Coro­na Coro­na” ex­pert, and there he would sit with his feet up on the rail at the side of the stove, smok­ing one of these zep­pelins of a cigar, till we all went to bed.

There was an heir to the es­tate in that cot­tage--one An­dré, Suzette's son, aged about five. He went to bed ear­ly, and slept with won­der­ful pre­ci­sion and per­sis­tence whilst we were mak­ing noise enough to wake the Curé a hun­dred yards away. But, when we went to bed, this lit­tle de­mon saw fit to wake, and con­tin­ue a se­ries of nois­es for sev­er­al hours. He slept in a small cot along­side Suzette's bed, so it was her job, and not mine, to smack his head.

Any­way, we all man­aged very com­fort­ably and mer­ri­ly in those bil­lets, and I look back on them very much as an oa­sis in a six months' desert.