The Golden Virgin
Page 38
There, he felt better, and interest in the scene about him came back. Where were they going? Rouen, said the train orderly, his appearance nearly as strange a sight as that of the bearded man painting in Albert, for the orderly was not only shaved, washed, and hair brushed flat with oil, but his khaki trousers actually had a crease.
*
No. 9 General Hospital at Rouen, used by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian war, was so quiet at night that he could not sleep until he was given an injection of morphia, when the rough waves of excreta zigzagging awfully became smooth waves drowning him with spike-haired-Streuelpeter-terror until he rose slowly above their smooth and awful horridness and floated smilingly in silk-hanky pink-petal breast bliss, on the edge of sleep, but not over it because it was all so silent.
In the next bed lay a mass of bandages which moaned and whimpered through the darkness, heedless of cries of Shut up, for Christ’s sake pipe down, and more violent curses from the length of the ward. The bandaged man had belonged to a party which had tried to storm the redoubt on the Bapaume Road and been burned to death by flamethrowers as it reached the parapet, with the one exception. When Phillip looked in the morning, the bed was empty; the man had died, and been wheeled away.
Later, Phillip was lifted upon a rubber-tyred trolly and wheeled along a passage, to stop outside the operating theatre door. Before he could ask what was to happen a mask was put over his face, with pipes attached to cylinders. So he was to have a whiff. His hands were held when the cocks were turned on. He wanted to say to the nurse that he would not struggle, he would lie perfectly still, so would she please trust him and not hold his hands; but she held his hands, and as he lay immobile he felt distress that he could not say with the mask on what he wanted to say. Down down down he sank into a deep dug-out shaft, seeing the sky above turn green with sparkles and spangling flashes, the pollen of the lilies of the dead, far far far above him—
Then a face in a tilting room was very large, speaking foggy words, while waves washed in sounds somewhere and the angles of the room were acute, then right-angles, then obtuse, always trying to steady themselves while his hands were held and the voice of the face spoke his name and tried to draw him out of a wide open ragged space like a shell-hole under the sky which was white-washed like the ceiling of the room. He was sea-sick with the waves, and with a roar vomited froth into a basin which was part of the white shell-hole. He was sick again and again, and was only half of himself, the other half burning and held down by the grey-starched bosom of the nurse whose voice boomed as she spoke his name and said, “Come on! Come on! Wake up!” as she pulled him to her in a horrid froth-making way. He tried to push her away, uselessly, and saw her face clearly, as it shrunk; she said, “Lie still, I’ll fetch you a drink”, and the thought made him feel swelled and sick, and why did she have to bang the door with a fearful noise that hurt like thunder when she left the room. Why was he alone in the room, why was he not in the long rather dark ward, why was he isolated, what had happened. He sank away under nausea.
*
Two days later he was gliding in a hospital ship down the Seine. All base hospitals were being cleared to take the wounded coming down from the battlefield, many of them by barges on the canals.
He read a newspaper, The Daily Trident, which spoke of the continued British advance along the road to Bapaume, of the fall of La Boisselle and the imminent capture of Contalmaison, two miles beyond the old British front line. He wondered if “Spectre” West, who had gone back to the Gaultshires in that sector, had had anything to do with the success there.
Trees on the tall wooded river banks glided past the portholes, green and pleasant as he lay canted on his side, easy with milk and sugar in his belly.
He took up an old copy of Nash’s and Pall Mall Magazine, one of a bundle left on his cot by an orderly. He told himself that he must read carefully, so that when pain began again he might be able to hold his mind above matter. He began with the advertisements.
On the first page there was a picture of an officer in the trenches stropping a safety razor. The loop of the strap was held by a tommy with rifle slung, while another looked on, grinning.
IN FRANCE, FLANDERS, GALLIPOLI—or wherever he is—send ‘him’ an AutoStrop Safety Razor Set, the gift he most needs.
Comforts are few at the Front; therefore give ‘him’ the very real comfort of an AutoStrop Shave. Send him the only razor that strops itself whether in Field, Camp, Dug-out, or on Ship-board.
Opening his fountain pen, he gave the officer a beard; then the written comment, If it strops itself, then what is the officer doing in the picture?
The next advertisement was of a tommy holding an immense tin of Fry’s Pure Breakfast Cocoa, while a shell burst behind him, and underneath the words, WHAT I HAVE I’LL HOLD.
Then one of a small boy, finger to mouth, saying I’se found out where Mummy keeps Ficolax.
There is no need to cheat your children with nasty powders secreted in jam, or to give them horrid doses of castor oil …
Ugh, castor oil and licorice powder, given while Father stood by; for Mother alone could not get him to swallow such filthy stuff.
ONOTO the Pen. IT CANNOT LEAK. Do not make the mistake of sending the wrong pen to the front. The Military size exactly fits the Soldier’s pocket, 10/6 in Black Vulcanite, £5/5/-in Gold.
Phillip took his pen and shook blots all over the advertisement, then smeared the blots, and wrote across the advertisement, PROOF!
FREE! from Asthma. Specially suitable for Children. Potters Asthma Cure, Artillery Lane, London E. Recommended by many doctors, it has proved its efficiency for Asthma, and also for Bronchitis, Croup, Whooping Cough, and other Lung Troubles.
Including Phosgene, Chlorine, and all Hot Air from Behind the Lines, he added.
LOVE & KISSES from Wright’s Coal Tar Shaving soap, the Ideal Antiseptic. No slimy lather.
There was the picture of a man holding the waist of a girl in a nightdress who was lathering his chin.
Two jobs in one, as Freddy would say.
Then came the familiar picture of a man enclosed in a wooden box, his head sticking out.
TURKISH BATHS AT HOME. All the delights and benefits, etc.
Now that Gallipoli is no longer available, he wrote, as he gave the man dundreary whiskers.
A man in morning coat, with sahib-glance, stiff upper lip, jutting chin, stared out of the next photograph.
£2 to £10 WEEKLY, FOR ONE HOUR OF YOUR TIME DAILY! No matter what you are doing; no matter how low your salary, or how poor your prospects; no matter how discontented or discouraged you are; no matter how incapable of achievement your family or friends think you are—you can at once become the partner of the world’s greatest mail order enterprises. You can begin, for the first time in your life, perhaps, to see the money roll into you at every visit of the postman, without grinding out your heart, soul and body for every shilling of it. Right now I offer you the money-making chance of your life, without asking you to mortgage your life to me, without driving a grim, cold-blooded, Shylock’s bargain with you. I started with £2 and made a profit of £5,000 in two years in the mail-order business. I will teach you how to look the whole world in the face and never ask your shillings where they came from.
If, wrote Phillip, beside the photograph, you don’t ask your shillings where they come from, what sort of a business man are you? Better get into khaki, and be really sure where your bob a day comes from.
Superfluous Hair Permanent Cure Guaranteed by my ELECTROLYSIS HOME TREATMENT by Madame TENSFELDT, 122N, Princes Street, Edinburgh.
PROTECT YOUR SKIN against Cold Winds by Glycola. Neither greasy nor sticky, cannot be detected.
A USEFUL BOOK, which should be in the hands of every adult—Married or Unmarried. Skilfully the author guides his readers past the treacherous snares and unwary pitfalls that lie about the path of the unwary wedded … he shows how to guard against those body-blighting sins which married peopl
e know so much…. There is no shuffling or beating about the bush here, but a straightforward explanation of matters usually kept secret.
The heavy down-dragging weight was coming back, the nausea of pain, turning the mind from clear glass to frosty glass, to sooted frosty glass above London Bridge station, all the engine safety-valves blowing off in one great screeching tearing from which away he could not drag his feet. It was too much, it was happening all the time, it was going on night and day, never-ceasing, flesh splattering and bone splintering, shell splottering, bullet bizz-buzzing, bombwompering mortar crackrending. Rough awful waves of corrugating glass embedding him silent-screaming into smooth thick thickening thickest stifling excreta of licorice powder bubbled with castor oil breaking into smoke and flame and white flossy caterpillars of silent-screaming fire-terror Mavis.
“You must try not to cry out.”
“It was Mavis. She——”
“Drink this.”
“But my sister——”
“Now try and go to sleep again.”
“Was I asleep?”
“You have been, for the past hour.”
“Thank God, O, thank God!”
“Be a good boy, and I’ll bring you some tea.”
He took up the magazine, rejoicing secretly with it, as with an old and trusted friend.
“LIFEGUARD” Patent Collapsible Pocket Periscope. Used by over 8,000 Officers. To be without it is taking needless risks. Costs 20/-. It’s cheaper than life. From all Opticians or direct by return from the Sole Manufacturers.
There was a man with revolver in hand gazing calmly into a looking-glass on an expanding stick, while beside him stood another man with rifle, fear on his face as he had not got a Lifeguard Patent Collapsible Pocket Periscope. Perhaps he was also thinking that his wife could not afford 20/-.
IN A BAYONET CHARGE one of these watches had the bezel, glass, and hands torn off and the dial cracked but the watch NEVER STOPPED. Isn’t that PROOF POSITIVE that it’s just the watch for Active Service? Price £1 15/-. Every one Guaranteed.
Every one Guaranteed: what, never to stop—running? He began to laugh. Hero-proof watches, wear one and never stop running.
TOILET REQUISITES.
Handsome men are slightly sunburnt. “Sunbronze” gives this tint, detection impossible; genuine, harmless. 5,000 Testimonials. 1/3, 2/0, 10/6. Sunbronze Laboratories, Stoke Newington, London.
“Don’t cry, ducks,” said the nurse, bringing the tea, “you’re going to get well very soon. Now drink your tea, it’s nice and sugary, good for little boys.” Little London Cockney boys, he thought, no longer slightly sunburnt.
When sending a present to your Soldier friend include a set of the famous coloured Harrison Fisher Beauty Pictures—“Betty”, “A Fair Breeze”, “Good Morning”, “Dad’s Girl”, “He won’t Bite”—the five pictures will be forwarded post paid on receipt of a postal order for 2/6. All orders to Nash’s Magazine Print Dept., 69 Fleet Street, London, E.C.
O love, my love, did you but love me. There she was, his golden girl, in five poses by Harrison Fisher. He ached with longing.
LITERARY. If you can write an interesting letter you can learn to be a free-lance journalist, and increase your income by spare time writing and earn while learning at home. Send (with stamp for return) specimen letter, article, or story for Scholarship competition. No Entrance Fee. Freelance Correspondence College, 6 York Buildings, Adelphi, Strand, W.C.
He would write to them when he got home, and send an account of the attack of July the First.
WHY “NASH’S” WINS
In the year that has passed, the sales of Greater Britain’s Greatest Magazine have greatly increased since the war. There is of course a reason for this. No such group of famous writers and great artists has ever before contributed to one magazine.
During the last twelve months, when so many magazines have been compelled to cut down expenses, the following writers and artists have contributed to Nash’s: Rudyard Kipling, W. J. Locke, Gouverneur Morris, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Hilaire Belloc, Booth Tarkington, Israel Zangwill, Cynthia Stockley, André Castaigne, Frank Craig, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Maurice Maeterlinck, Robert W. Chambers, Princess Troubetskoy, John Galsworthy, Perceval Gibbon, F. Peter Dunne (the creator of the inimitable “Mr. Dooley”), Fortunino Matania, Harrison Fisher.
During the present year the following eminent writers will join the large family of Nash’s contributors.
Marie Corelli, Elinor Glyn, A. E. W. Mason, E. Phillips Oppenheim, and Jack London. Mr. Rudyard Kipling will also contribute, and Mr. Hall Caine’s next serial will appear exclusively in our pages.
He looked through the pages. There was a story called The Fear, by Charles G. D. Roberts, about prehistoric cave-men and women (one woman was naked, leaping forward, big toes spread, wild hair flying, with smoothed-out breasts) and mammoths; The Wonderful Year, a serial by W. J. Locke, to which he would return, as the woman looked luscious and sunny, with golden hair; “Mr. Dooley,” a fat Irishman with a funny face apparently cheating at cards; an essay by Dr. Frank Crane, called Bunglers, with a buxom angel visiting a girl in Greek robes, sewing beside a basket of pears, in a Mediterranean setting.
We educate everything except our souls. Is it not worth while to master the technique of failure, to turn disappointment into amusement, to handle crabbed natures so they show their sweetness, to make soured souls conscious of their bit of nobleness, to be an expert in hearts and a virtuoso in human nature, is it not the art of all arts? Why bungle?
Phillip thought of Grandpa, of Father, of Desmond, of Mavis: in future he would be to them like Col. Kingsman, putting himself out to understand others.
He turned over the pages, and settled to read Billet Notes, being Casual pencillings from a Fighting Man to his Mother.
Dearest,—I have just emerged from a dug-out that would make you stare. Now there are dug-outs and dug-outs. They all aim at being a home from home, but this one was fairly It. It hadn’t a carpet, but it was fashioned with old oak (loot from a German trench whose previous occupants had obviously looted it from somewhere else). In it we ate our dinner off delicate Sèvres plates and drank out of rare old cut glasses. A dug-out de luxe! But even the common or garden dug-out shows some attempt at cosiness.
We always have a desire to make the best of circumstances. We collect (or steal) planks, bricks, doors, and windows to help give a semblance of civilisation to our funk-holes. The men keep the trenches neat and make gardens behind the parados. A sense of humour gives spice to the task. It shows in the names bestowed upon our residences—“The Keep”, “Minnewerfer Villa”, “The Gasworks”. “Myholme” is also very popular. But there’s something beside humour that incites Tommy to put up a board marked “Trespassers will be prosecuted” over his kitchen garden. He means it. His impotent rage when a German shell ignores the prohibition is comic to a degree.
After one of these annoyances some of the men of my company in desperation stalked a German sentry, brought him in alive, and made him write in huge German characters the words KARTOFFELN GARTEN—VERBOTEN, which they hoisted on a board facing the enemies lines. I believe that sentry is secretly being kept as a hostage against further damage!
Your loving
CHOTA.
The notes continued with a long description of Chota’s dog, Little Kim, being sniped by the Germans, for daring to bark at them from the parapet. The “Boches” had thrown over written messages, “more than once informing us that they meant to get him if they could. We hoped, unconvincingly, that Little Kim had gone rabbiting.”
Little Kim eventually was traced by “a thin blood-stained trail to the bunk in my dug-out”. He had “a nasty hole in his chest”.
Our trench first-aid outfit doesn’t include any quick means of deliverance for a mortally wounded dog, and we hadn’t an R.A.M.C. man handy. Somebody volunteered to fetch one. Waiting, it was evident to me that if the medico couldn’t do anything, I should have to do so.
He read on, feeling twisted.
Kim was only a puppy, and as guileless a one as ever I’d known, yet he was made to suffer for something without purpose and for something beyond his comprehension. Is it fair? Tommy and I know we play with chance if we show our heads over the parapet and jeer at the Germans; but Kim had no knowledge of the risks he ran when he barked at them out of sheer joie de vivre. Poor little chap! Best of four-footed pals! I wished the Little Mother had been at hand. She would have made him understand that I was not angry with him. He got colder and colder, and I drew the blanket over him, but it moved tremulously with his shivers. And all the while his sad eyes were on mine.
At last, when the medico was brought in—one of the Vet.-corps—I saw there was no hope. “His number’s up, I’m afraid,” he said, and offered to shoot him for me. I told him I would rather do it myself. I think Kim knew and understood my reason. At least, I hope so. He lay still, very patient …
I had no idea the men would take it so badly. One or two fairly blubbered. They asked, as a favour, to be allowed to bury the little body … It went hard with them that they were not able to do it with full military honours …
Thank goodness we’ve been told to hold ourselves in readiness to move off first thing in the morning. There’s a rumour that we’re in for the Big Push at last. If it’s true this time, it’s enough to key the men up to concert pitch; but there’s something more in it to them than crumpling up the Germans (if we can do it): they mean to avenge Kim’s murder. They’re getting ready grimly, tidying themselves.