The Irish Fusilier’s Ambition
Though I am well off for literature of all sorts (my locker is a scandal), I don’t seem to be able to settle down to anything like a quiet, enjoyable read at all. Tommy Atkins never seems to realise that one cannot carry on a conversation and read a book simultaneously, or write a letter.
“Oh for a booke and a shadie nooke,
Eyther indoore or out;
With the grene leaves whysperynge overheade,
Or the streete cryes all about.
Where I maie reade all at mine ease,
Both of the newe and olde;
For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke,
Is better to me than golde.”
Thus the olde songe. And the kopjes are gazing stonily at me through the tent door; a man two beds off is squirming and ejaculating under the massage treatment of a powerful khaki masseur; doctors, sisters, orderlies, and runners come and go; a triangular duel between three patients on the usual subject—the superior merits of their respective regiments—is in full swing; and the realisation of the foregoing rhyme seems afar off.
I, however, am not the only man with yearnings for a different state of affairs. Private Patrick McLaughlan, of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, occupying the bed on my right, has his. He often tells us his ideal of happiness, a “pub” corner with half-a-dozen pint pots containing ambrosial “four ’arf” before him, and a well-seasoned old clay three inches long filled with black Irish twist.
The other day I ventured to Omarise his ideal of the earthly paradise thus:
A pipe of blackish hue for smoking fit,
Some good ould Irish twist to put in it;
Six pints of beer in a hostel snug,
And there, a king in Paradise, I’d sit.
His only comment was a vast expectoration.
By-the-way, my friend, Patrick, relates a good loot tale which befell his regiment in the Free State. They camped one day within easy distance of a store, kept by the usual gentleman of Hebrew extraction. Pat and his comrades made a rush for the place and collared all of the condensed milk, for which the merchant charged (or attempted to) a shilling per tin. About five men, early arrivals, paid; then in the scramble which ensued the rest omitted to do likewise. On returning to camp and opening the tins the milk appeared peculiar, and the regimental Æsculapius hearing of it, inspected the tins, pronounced them bad, and told the men to take them back to the store and get their money refunded, which they did. Of course, the gentle Hebrew protested vehemently, but Tommy, with the medical officer’s word behind him, soon persuaded him to do what he was told. Patrick was six shillings to the good over this transaction. And I daresay the wily Israelite regretted having had such a large stock of milk, though presumably he had hoped to rob the Philistines, not, as the case proved, to be doubly done by them.