Читать книгу Disenchantment - C. E. Montague - Страница 10

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Where, then, did the first shiver of disillusion begin? Perhaps with some trivial incident. Say a new-born company, quartered in a great town, was sent out for a long afternoon's marching. Only through long, steady grinds can the perfect rhythm of marching, like that of rowing, be generated at last. The men, youthfully eager to kiss all possible rods and endure any obtainable hardness, march forth in a high state of delight—they are going to learn how to march to Berlin! No officer being present—and scarcely any existing as yet—a sergeant-major is in command. He is a very old hand. For twenty minutes he leads his 250 adorers into the thick of a populous quarter. Then he orders them to fall out. A public-house resembling Buckingham Palace, but smaller, is near. Most of the men, in their ardour, stand about on the kerb, ready to leap back to their places as soon as the whistle shall sound. A few thirsty souls jostle hurriedly into the bars, where they find that arrangements for serving a multitude are surprisingly complete. Soon they are further reassured by descrying the sergeant-major's handsome form, like Tam o' Shanter's, "planted unco' right" in a chair in an inner holy of holies along with the landlord. This esoteric session has an air of permanence; the sergeant-major is evidently au mieux with the management. The thirsty souls settle down to their beer.

Five minutes, twenty, half an hour pass fairly fast for them, less fast for the keener warriors pawing the kerbstone without. At the end of an hour fifty per cent. of the kerbstone zealots have been successfully frozen into the bars. The rest stare at each other with a wild surmise. Rumour shakes her wings and begins to fly round. The sergeant-major, she says, is holding a species of court in the depths of the pub; some privates with money upon them, children of this world, are pressing in, she says, even now, into that heart of the rose, and with a few manly words are standing the great man the extremely expensive combination of nectars that he prefers. "Were it not better done as others use?"—the Spartan residuum on the kerb is diminishing. Another hour goes; only an inconsiderable remnant of Spartans is left; these are exchanging profane remarks about patriotism and other virtues. One of them quotes a famous Conservative statesman whose footman he was before he enlisted: "I believe we shall win, in spite of the Regular Army." When just enough time is left to march back to quarters the whistle is blown, the men slouch into their places and stump unrhythmically home, revolving many things according to their several natures. A child who has rashly taken its parent on trust, and yet more rashly taken the parent's all-round perfection as some sort of sample and proof of a creditable government of the world, must have a good deal of mental rearrangement to do the first time the parent comes home full of liquor and sells the furniture to get some more.