War Classics

by Flora Johnston

  At length a fresh thought struck the troops. How nice it would be to dance! Now dancing in the Huts, during the War, was strictly forbidden. They knew it. But the War was over – a month ago – and it was Christmas night. Still there was another barrier. A Hut Lady ranks as an officer and so is forbidden to walk or to dance with a private soldier. They knew this too. But it was Christmas night and the war was over. A third objection – had they known it – was that, personally, I had forgotten how to dance. But the eager throng now surging round my chair was in no mood to be refused. The Hut Ladies had already reminded them that dancing was impossible – I was not a Hut Lady – would I not dance? I was still standing on my chair and hundreds of hands were lifted pleadingly to me. Would I not come? Please, please do come. Never surely was the proudest ballroom belle in England so humbly begged for a dance. I thought of all those who had swept past me in balls in England. Would that they could see me now! Then I gave one hand to the mistletoe man – as he was still beside me – and jumped from my chair. I was ready to dance.

  The piano was ringing out ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling’ to the measure of an intoxicating waltz. But the pianist was hastily ordered to stop. The audience of the ring had no intention of watching the mistletoe man and me treading a measure from which they were excluded. They clamoured for the Lancers, as, in that, I realised, they would all actually dance with me. It was not that they thought anything of me in particular, but they had not been allowed to dance with an Englishwoman in France for more than four years – and in that state of mind any Englishwoman is a goddess. I am quite certain that each one of them imagined me to be somebody different, whom he knew at home. We began. Now I am small, and they were all rather large. Furthermore, the Lancers as the British Army – Other Ranks – dance it, is a highly rollicking affair. In this famous first set, I was the only woman on the floor and we soon were the only set. The Hut, as I have said, was large, but it was nothing for my partners, as we set to corners, to fling me the whole length of it. I trembled at the thought of Grand Chain. The mistletoe man was the strongest there. He was also, it appeared, the least expert dancer. ‘Yer dunno ’ow ter dance,’ he was told wrathfully more than once as we collided with the next couple.

  ‘I darnces it as they does in London,’ he retorted. ‘I dunno ’ow they darnces it ’ere. It’s all right, Miss,’ he explained amiably to me. ‘I knows the London way and they does the others.’ The London way turned out to be all push and go, and I gave up all hope of trying to restrain him. I was thankful when, at the end, I could slip behind the counter and recover my breath. We had made wild dashes into all corners of the room, we had rushed up, whirled down, spun round, leapt up – but at least we had not fallen.

  I began to pour out mugs of tea, thankful for the respite. To my surprise, a small crowd was gathering round my late partner. Some time after – when the Hut Ladies were now dancing and the floor was full again – he came up to me. ‘Sorry I knocked yer about, Miss,’ he said. ‘’Opes I didn’t ’urt yer. Them other chaps sez as ’ow I was rough with yer.’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ I consoled him. ‘I think we took up a little bit too much room, but that was all.’ I hope it was as a result of the dance that I was invited up to Rouxmesnil to teach French two nights a week after this and to go up each time in the Hut Ladies’ car.

  But now I had to move down to General Headquarters for France. I was installed in a beautiful big room on the first floor, directly opposite the Education Chief himself.4 My room possessed two windows facing the sea and a large stove, which was carefully lit for me every morning. This, in the days of fuel shortage, was in itself a tremendous benefit. In the Local Headquarters, so minute had been our share of fuel of any kind that we sat about in greatcoats, except when the men had classes and we burnt our ration. Latterly, I got some wood through the Quartermaster, but it refused to burn in our stove. Many a time the Philosopher’s cry rang through the house, ‘Marie Henriette, le poêle allé premener,’ which was discovered to mean ‘the fire was out’.

  Not only now, though, had I a fire to myself – I had also a telephone and many empty cigar boxes of the Visitor’s. The room, naturally was of his choosing. I should not have had such an important one myself. His name, too, in black letters on white, flourished on the door though he had only occupied the place for a couple of days. My first care was to obliterate the name – no easy task. ‘How did he get it on?’ I enquired of Buttons, who answered my ring.

  ‘’E put it on ’isself, Miss.’

  ‘Oh did he! Well, push some brown paper over it and write my name on that!’

  The telephone at first was a great joy – it was English and in direct communication with HQL of C [Headquarters Lines of Communication]. I began to think of the interesting people I could ring up in my spare moments. Alas! That seemed to be the job of the other end. No sooner had I got well down to a letter than the telephone bell would ring, and Buttons’ voice from below, ‘Captain Brown on the telephone. Shall I put him through, Miss?’ Captain Brown was our Liaison Officer at HQL of C – we were not Army proper – only attached to it, and he was the method of attachment. He was a young man who took his duties most seriously. I never saw him smile. He occasionally whizzed in to see me, rattled out his business, obligingly listened to my – I am sure – inadequate replies, and whirled out again. The one definite impression I could gather from him was that he preferred me to the Visitor, and perhaps that I was not such a fool as I looked. He voiced it better than that, of course, but that was what he meant.5

  Next door to my room (GHQ had been, in peace time, a first-class hotel) was a magnificent bathroom complete with bath, into which about midday real hot water would flow. It was the first real bath I had seen since I came to France and I determined to take advantage of it. ‘Buttons,’ I said firmly, ‘I am going to have a bath. If Captain Brown rings up say that I will see him in half an hour.’

  Buttons was quite unperturbed. ‘Very good, Miss. There is an extension in the bathroom Miss. Would you like me to put you through there? The Chief often speaks to Captain Brown from his bath.’

  No doubt he did. But I wasn’t going to. I should laugh in the middle of the conversation I was sure, at the thought of the immaculate Captain Brown at the other end and how shocked he would be if he could see me now. Up till then our interviews had been of the most proper, and I decided that for him, anyway, I should wear the white flower of a blameless life.

  My secretary, too, was another joy at first. She was a remarkably pretty young woman who arrived with pencil and notebook at 9 a.m. prompt and seated herself opposite me with a vista of empty cigar boxes between us. After the first day, I put up a barrage of flowers which was not quite so depressing. At any rate, it did not suggest ‘the morning after the night before’. But the pretty young woman could not spell – not a little bit – not for little nuts. It would never do for the Education letters to go to the Detached Units – from Brigadiers downwards – with phonetic spelling. Why, they might even want to copy it, as Private Nobbs had wanted to copy my writing. I saw the organiser.

  ‘What a pretty girl you’ve given me as a secretary,’ I remarked with truth. ‘It’s an awful pity to waste her on me. She’s having such a dull time, poor dear. Look here, can’t you shove her on to one of the men – they’d love her – and give me a plain one, the plainest you’ve got.’

  He looked doubtful. ‘The Visitor chose her,’ he said. I gasped. So the Visitor was human after all. ‘She is pretty,’ the organiser went on, after a minute, musingly.

  ‘Pretty,’ I echoed. ‘She’s the prettiest girl in GHQ. What about the Chief with the white pass – the one that goes to Paris – he’d like her.’

  ‘That’s an idea,’ said the organiser briskly. ‘So he would. Well, I’ll see about it. I’ll send you in Miss Randel – she’s plain enough to be a good foil.’ I was left wondering which of us had won. At any rate Miss Randel could spell and worked like an automatic machine – we got on swimming
ly all the rest of the time.

  The work was really interesting. I had files from every one of the Forward Armies with demands for every kind of subject. The man who wanted to learn watchmaking by post was the greatest optimist – I had to break it to him gently that we could not teach that. The musical gentleman in Dublin wrote to me frequently and at great length to explain that organ theory is best taught by post and could I not find him pupils. But we were not allowed to suggest to the troops and none of them thought of organ theory for themselves. At times we really did begin to tap the University class of officer, but as soon as I got the Tutor fixed up, the officer was demobilised. I would receive a polite letter of thanks from Birmingham or from Birkenhead. The letters from the ‘Other Ranks’ were much more friendly in tone. They nearly always sent me their ‘kindest regards’ and on occasion their love and almost invariably began ‘My Dear’. They were not even daunted at my sternly official replies ‘Dear Sir’ and ‘Yours faithfully’. The next letter, on the contrary, would be even warmer and they always thanked me for my trouble.

  When a letter came from Cologne asking for advanced mathematics by correspondence, I made a guess at why we were so popular. I happened to know that instruction in this particular subject could be had at Cologne from the Army itself – but this, as my correspondent explained, was just what he did not want. ‘We have enough of the Army – we want something unofficial. You know more and you will help us more.’ That was the gist of many of my letters. They were right about the quality of the instruction available. The names on my list of Tutors – at our Bases, and if necessary, in England – were amongst the most distinguished that England could produce. Never again, I suppose, will there be such a many-sided array of experts at the disposal of the troops. It is only right that I, who had dossiers of the qualifications of each of them, as no other had, should make this fact known. And the troops got all their instruction gratis. This too, they one and all appreciated. Many a time they said and wrote to me, ‘We’ll never get the like of this again, for nothing.’ And they never will. A guinea an hour is what they would have had to pay in England.

  But now that the Army of Occupation was more or less settling down, we were told that the Army there would teach itself – we were to restrict ourselves to the Army in France. Many a regretful note I had to send and receive from the Army of Occupation. And the Army in France was being demobilised – and quickly too. Our work was petering out. Only the local work with the Base Troops was really important now – as they would be the longest in France. We were a Demobilisation Port, and troops en route for England usually remained only three days – of that more again.

  One fine morning, however, my old Chief sent round for me. ‘I have some work for you,’ he said, ‘if you can take it on. Do you know who have arrived?’ I shook my head. ‘The Glasgow Highlanders,’ he told me, ‘at Arques-la-Chapelle, six kilos from here. They’ve marched all the way from Mons and will be here for a month. Their Instructor has gone sick and they’ve sent Transport down for another this morning. Will you go?’ Would I go! There was a twinkle in the Chief’s eye as he spoke. ‘I daren’t send them an English Instructor, you know,’ he went on, ‘Circe wanted to go.’ She would, I reflected – new troops. ‘But I said they’d like you best. Run away, the car’s waiting.’

  I needed no second bidding. In the hall I met the Philosopher. ‘Where are you going to now?’ he enquired. ‘You’ve just come.’

  ‘So have the Scotch troops,’ I told him breathlessly. ‘From Mons. And they’ve asked for Education before they’ve taken off their boots. Scotland for ever!’ and I dashed off, leaving him perhaps a bit amazed. But once in the car, I began to reflect. I did not even know what instruction they had asked for. And if there was a whole battalion of them – in the open air! I had never taught Scotch troops before. All I knew was they would be different from English.

  At length the car pulled up at the Camp and I went down the duckboard path. Short, squat figures in kilts looked at me cautiously as I passed, but no one said, ‘Good morning.’ English troops would have. At length I met the Adjutant, calm and cool. He produced some books – a very difficult and rather stodgy English grammar and a French conversation book. The men were in there – did I think I could keep order? They had never been taught by a woman before. Would I like him to be present – like a policeman, I said to myself. ‘Oh no, thank you,’ I laughed, ‘I’m Scotch myself – I think I can keep order,’ and I went in.

  The men were sitting pretty well all over the Hut – many of them had replicas of the dull grammar, but most had illustrated papers, which they were hoping to read. At my entrance, the Sergeant called them to attention, numbered them off smartly, and presented two Companies for my instruction. He departed – I bade the men sit down, which they did in stiff rows. They stared at me in amused curiosity and their reluctant fingers played with their grammars. ‘Come and sit nearer,’ I invited. ‘I can’t see you over there. No – round this way’ – as a man sat bolt in front of me. ‘Now put away your grammars. We are not going to have any books today. Anybody here from Glasgow?’ Three or four sat up. ‘Well, I’ve sailed down the Broomielaw myself. But I don’t come from Glasgow. Anybody from further North?’ There were a few from Argyllshire, but most were from Lanark or Dumbarton. ‘Oh!’ I cried, ‘I’m more Scotch than any of you. I come from north of Inverness.’

  The whole class sat up. ‘Ye’re no Scotch, you?’ one jolly-faced boy enquired incredulously. ‘Ye dinna say’t!’

  ‘There’s nane but English here,’ came a miserable voice from the back row.

  ‘Well, I’m not English anyway,’ I answered cheerily, ‘any more than you.’

  ‘Ye dinna speak Scotch,’ said a canny voice that had not spoken before.

  ‘That’s because I’ve been with English troops,’ I lied bravely. Then I told them my name – it is an old and well-known one from Bannockburn downwards.

  ‘Were ye at a Scotch University?’ plied my last critic.

  ‘I was,’ I rejoined, ‘at the best one.’ They laughed. I had got them at last. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘we’re going to make a language – what kind of word do we need first?’

  ‘Names o’ things,’ suggested one.

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ I replied, ‘that wouldn’t be much good for a grown-up person. That’s for a child.’ Volleys of answers came from all directions. Now it was awake, it was the cleverest troop class I had ever had. When it came to French in the next hour, I could hold them quite easily, textbooks and all. But with a new class – for the first hour – I never attempt to use books. We must get to know each other first.

  Notes

  1. Bully beef (corned beef) and Maconochie (a thin stew of turnips and carrots) were tinned staples of First World War trench food.

  2. While the Croix de Guerre was a personal military award for bravery, the Fourragère was a braided cord decoration which was awarded to a regiment which had particularly distinguished itself.

  3. Who was ‘The Visitor’? As so often, Christina disguises identities – but she clearly thought very little of this man. There is a family story that Churchill visited and listened to one of her lectures, but she makes no reference to this in the narrative, and although it’s tempting to think that the Visitor could have been Churchill – particularly when she later refers to the cigar cases he left behind! – the details don’t really fit. Albert Braddock, sub-director of Education based at Abbeville, referred to a Mr Fox who was involved in the correspondence scheme, so this may be Christina’s Visitor, but we cannot be sure. His identity remains a mystery, just as she intended.

  4. General Headquarters was in the Hotel des Étrangers, and the Education Chief was Sir Graham Balfour.

  5. Christina’s irritation with the telephone would continue throughout her life, and she had it removed from her home in Thurso when she lived there in her latter years.

  7

  Officers and men

  When I first met officers at the Base,
I was greatly surprised that I did not fall in love with them. I had been quite prepared to do so. It seemed only reasonable that I should. But I did not. They were so unlike what I expected them to be – old and prosaic and often distinctly ordinary.

  The oldest and fiercest was a colonel who had been a naval officer, and, too old for that, he had been given a train-ferry job soon after the War began. His table was next to mine at the Coq d’Or, and the first time that he spoke to me, he told me in withering tones that he thoroughly disapproved of Education and of Classics in particular. He had learned the latter at Eton and, though he had been round the world in all sorts of guises, he had never found Classics the slightest particle of use. But behind his gruff manner he had the Navy’s warm heart. Noticing my cough, he insisted on my trying a remedy of his own, and one night when I was hesitating at the door because the Church was crowded, he marched in with me to his own special seat.