War Classics (11 page)

‘You will have to give up housekeeping now,’ said the Chief, I trusted with regret, ‘when you go to General Headquarters. I have always hoped you would get something good like that.’

‘But I needn’t give up my classes, need I?’ I enquired, in alarm. ‘I don’t want to be writing letters all the day. I’d much rather talk to the men.’

‘You will have a secretary,’ said the Chief quietly, ‘but you needn’t give up your classes. I will keep you for those.’

‘What about our Christmas dinner?’ said the OC Stores, suddenly. He had not spoken till then.

‘I would love to do that,’ I put in meekly. ‘Couldn’t I just do the Christmas dinner?’

‘There are no turkeys in the Area,’ said the Philosopher. ‘All bought up by the Camps long ago – none in the market either, or likely to be.’

This was alarming. ‘What about plum puddings?’ I said to the OC Stores. ‘Can you do them?’

He shook his head. ‘I might do you about four,’ he said, ‘but each is only for one person. I need all the rest for the men.’

It appeared the Chief wanted to ask at least sixteen people, so four small plum puddings would be worse than useless. Suddenly I thought of the Quartermaster at Luneray with his ‘
Vous blaguez
,
Madame
’ – he would wangle the turkeys for me, I knew he would. ‘I’ll do the Christmas dinner,’ I said, ‘and ‘’twill be the nicest you ever ate.’

All the same, for the next three weeks, I was none so sure of that. But everyone played up. Marie Henriette took the most enormous interest in it. Her menu would have satisfied the Savoy, but we cut it down. She shook her head over the turkeys. ‘
Pas de dindes
,’ she said, ‘
Messieurs les officiers anglais les out toutes
,
mais des oies
,
de belles oies
.’ [There are no turkeys,’ … ‘the English officers have them all, but there are geese, lovely geese.’]

‘
Non
,’ I returned calmly, ‘
des dindes
,
deux
,’ – for I had written to my friend. Sure enough a scrawl came down, ‘Turkeys have been secured as requested, same to be delivered without fail on 23 December. P.S. Do not tip the bearer.’ Indeed, we were the only mess at the Base that had turkey for its Christmas dinner. The plum puddings were beyond hope, but Marie Henriette declared she could make a chocolate cream that would make us think of heaven. Only, it required a dozen eggs. ‘Impossible,’ I said. ‘We cannot afford that, even if we could get them.’

‘
Mais non
,
Mlle
,’ said Marie Henriette agitatedly. ‘
Il y a un de mes frères
…’ [one of my brothers … ] The French Army, it appeared, in the person of Marie Henriette’s ‘brothers’ was willing to contribute the eggs. They were unobtainable in town. ‘Also,
Mlle
,’ went on Marie Henriette, warming to her task, ‘there is
le gui
[mistletoe].
Messieurs les officiers anglais
, how they love that!’ She turned up her eyes. Marie Henriette had been cook to an officers’ mess before she came to us, and she did not let us forget it.

‘Yes?’ I said doubtfully. It was well not to encourage her on some points.

‘Michel,
mon frère
, he bring a cart load of it and
messieurs les officiers
help
Mlle
to pin it up’ – planning it all out.

‘What about holly?’ I enquired, but she had never heard of it.
Messieurs les officiers
had no use for holly.

In the end there was a reunion in the kitchen; all the family came up from the country with the Christmas provisions. There was golden butter – precious as gold – with a cow carved on it, eggs galore in basins and a perfect forest of mistletoe, with Michel’s laughing face peeping out amidst it. In the corner, were the turkeys ‘as per order’. Upstairs a cataract of coloured paper and lanterns and flags had arrived – the gift of the OC Stores. It being an Allied undertaking, I handed over a Union Jack and a couple of Irish harps on a bright green ground to Marie Henriette for the kitchen. The two last, being those of an unknown Ally, proved a mighty distraction for the French Army. Upstairs I set the Philosopher to hang up the lanterns and the paper and the flags – not trusting him with the mistletoe.

‘Can you get any wine?’ said the Chief to me anxiously. ‘The shops have none.’ I knew that, but on Armistice Day, in my billet, Monsieur had produced champagne – which I had tasted for the first time in my life – and we often had cider. I still remembered Monsieur’s toast – ‘
À tous ceux que nous aimons and à tous ceux qui nous aiment
’ [‘To all those we love, and to all those who love us’]. I always think of it when I see champagne. Perhaps we would get some wine from him.

‘I can get it
Mlle
,’ he said politely, ‘but it will be
prix de fantaisie
.’

‘
Ça ne fait rien
,’ I said gaily, ‘
c’est Noel
,
Monsieur
,
et la paix
.’ [‘It doesn’t matter … It’s Christmas,
Monsieur
, and Peace.’] After all,
vin rouge
and cider at five francs a bottle for the one and 50 centimes for the other would not ruin us, and the Chief had said I could pay what I liked for them – he would give it.

On Christmas Eve, we had a surprise. Uncle Joe wheeled up to the back door with 47 plum puddings instead of the four we’d been promised. England, alas! is always better than her word. I was helping the Philosopher to decorate and the ‘
officiers anglais
’ (a gay party) were aiding the secretary to hang up the mistletoe when the Education Officer arrived with a large box. ‘Going on leave tonight,’ he said cheerily, ‘but I’ve brought you a Christmas present – crackers – you never thought of them.’

‘Oh yes, I had,’ I answered, from the top of a ladder, ‘but they don’t run to them in France and it takes months to get them from home.’ I fixed the last lantern and jumped down. ‘You’re a perfect dear, give our best love to England.’ The crackers would be a lovely spot of colour at everyone’s plate tomorrow, I thought. But I thought too late. Next morning, bouquets of red carnations arrived for each of us, from the officers of the Base. It was clear that the English officers appreciated us. I never see red carnations now without thinking of Christmas at the Base.

Just before we went in to dinner, Marie Henriette and I went round the table. There was mistletoe on the oranges and trails of mistletoe in straight lines on the table – trust France for straight lines. At each plate was a cracker and at each woman’s place, a bouquet of red carnations. The
vin rouge
was there and the cider – its delicious yellow. Marie Henriette and her two French assistants were to serve the dinner, and as it was to be an Allied function and we had no orderlies, I decided the Philosopher must wait. He made a born butler and perhaps enjoyed it all the more as it necessitated visits to the kitchen. The OC Stores – as fitted by his office – took on the job of Footman. ‘You’d better hand round the forty-seven plum puddings,’ I suggested, ‘and prevail on the guests to eat them – otherwise we’ll have them every day for a month.’

So ended my housekeeping labours – with a blaze of glory on Christmas Day. In the evening we went to the Huts to help the men have an English Christmas. The Hut to which I went was a few miles out, at Rouxmesnil, and it was larger than most and possessed a cinema. For the first hour or so, we were fully occupied in serving out the tea and buns and extra fruit provided by the Hut Ladies, and then came the games. An eager throng surrounded me, pleading that I would come and watch a boxing match which was to be fought at one end of the Hut. Feeling it might be the least of many evils, I went down. A chair had been set for me, on which it was proposed that I should stand, at the inner edge of the ring. I got up on it. The preliminary skirmishes of the combat began. I had never seen a boxing match before, but they were not to know that. It is an exciting event, as I realised by the surging crowd pressing up behind me. I began to feel rather lonely on my perch. When the champions really did box and the crowd forgot all about me, what price my chair? A soldier with a garland of mistletoe in his cap stood beside me. I placed my hand on his shoulder strap and did the same to my neighbour on the other side. The hero of the mistletoe was immensely flattered. He stood like a rock. So did my other rather squatter pillar. The fight began. After the first five seconds I shut my eyes tight. The noise reminded me of a Rugger match in Oxford and I wondered if this would last as long. At any rate, I must stick to my post. Presently, at the sound of applause, I cautiously opened my eyes. The champions had finished one bout and were resting. I addressed what I hoped was an intelligent remark to my friend of the mistletoe. So intent was the ring, it had not remarked my eyes were shut. Three and yet four bouts succeeded and still the mistletoe man and I were there. But alas! for my hopes! In the fifth bout, the champions reeled up, interlocked, so close to my chair, that they cleared the entire audience around me. In an instant I had leapt from my chair, and was back amongst them, leaving the mistletoe man aghast by the post of honour. The attention of the audience was diverted at once. I was encouraged from all sides to return. The unfortunate champions were reproached. Feeling rather hot, I went back. But now the audience had two things to think of – which of the champions was going to win and when I was going to spring from my chair. The mistletoe man rallied me nobly. ‘Don’t you worry nothink, Miss, I’ll stand by ye.’ The champions, feeling they must recapture attention, in this laudable aim approached as near the chair as they dared. It was a new game, and even I was enjoying it.

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.