Читать книгу Beau Sabreur - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 8

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I found myself quite alive, however, at five o'clock the next morning, when the Corporal of the Week passed through the room bawling, "Anyone sick here?"

I was about to reply that although I was not being sick at the moment, I feared I shortly should be, when I realized that the Corporal was collecting names for the Sergeant-Major's morning report, and not making polite inquiries as to how we were feeling after a night spent in the most mephitic atmosphere that human beings could possibly breathe, and live.

There is no morning roll-call in the Cavalry, but the Sergeant-Major gets the names of those who apply for medical attention, and removes them from the duty-list of each peloton.

For half an hour I lay awake wondering what would happen if I sprang from my bed and opened a window--or broke a window if they were not made for opening. I was on the point of making this interesting discovery when the reveillé trumpets rang out, in the square below, and I was free to leave my bed--at five-thirty of a bitter cold morning.

Corporal Lepage came to me as I repressed my first yawn (fearing to inhale the poison-gas unnecessarily) and bade me endue my form with canvas and clogs, and hie me to the stables.

Hastily I put on the garb of a gutter-scavenger and guided by Dufour, hurried through the rain to my pleasing task.

In the stable was a different smell, but it was homogeneous and, on the whole, I preferred the smell of the horses to that of their riders. (You see, we clean the horses thoroughly, daily. In the Regulations it is so ordered. But as to the horsemen, it says, "A Corporal must sleep in the same room with the troopers of his escouade and must see that his troopers wash their heads, faces, hands and feet." This much would be something, at any rate, if only he carried out the Regulations.)

At the stables I received my first military order.

"Clean the straw under those four horses," said the Sergeant on stable-duty.

An unpleasing but necessary work.

Some one had to do it, and why not I? Doubtless the study of the art of separation of filthy straw from filthier straw, and the removal of manure, is part of a sound military training.

I looked round for implements. I believed that a pitchfork and shovel were the appropriate and provided tools for the craftsman in this line of business.

"What the hell are you gaping at? You . . ." inquired the Sergeant, with more liberty of speech than fraternity or equality.

"What shall I do it with, Sergeant?" I inquired.

"Heaven help me from killing it!" he moaned, and then roared: "Have you no hands, Village Idiot? D'you suppose you do it with your toe-nails, or the back of your neck?"

And it was so. With my lily-white hands I laboured well and truly, and loaded barrows until they were piled high. I took an artistic interest in my work, patting a shapely pyramid upon the barrow, until:

"Dufour," I said, "I am going to be so very sick. What's the punishment? . . ."

The good Dufour glanced hastily around.

"Run to the canteen," he whispered. "I can do the eight stalls easy. Have a hot coffee and cognac."

I picked up a bucket and rushed forth across the barrack-square, trying to look like one fulfilling a high and honourable function. If anybody stopped me, I would say I was going to get the Colonel a bucket of champagne for his bath. . . .

At the canteen I found a man following a new profession. He called himself a Saviour-from-Selfish-Sin, and explained to me that the basest thing a soldier could do was to faire Suisse, to drink alone.

No one need drink alone when he was there, he said, and he gave up his valuable time and energy to frequenting the canteen at such hours as it might be empty, and a man might come and fall into sin.

I drank my coffee and cognac and then went outside, inhaled deeply for some minutes, and soon felt better. Catching up my bucket, I returned to the stables, trying to look like one who has, by prompt and determined effort, saved the Republic.

Dufour finished our work and told me we must now return to the barrack-room in time to get our bags of grooming-implements before the trumpets sounded "Stables" at six o'clock.

"You begin on the horse that's given you, sir," said Dufour, "and as soon as the Sergeant's back is turned, clear out again, and I'll finish for you."

"Not a bit of it," I replied. "I shall be able to groom a horse all right. It was loading those barrows with my bare hands that made me feel so sea-sick."

"You'll get used to it," Dufour assured me.

But I doubted it. "Use is second nature," as de Poncey said, but I did not think it would become my second nature to scavenge with my bare hands. . . . Nor my third. . . .

At six o'clock we returned to the stables, and the Lieutenant of the Week allotted me my horse and ordered me to set about grooming him.

Now I have the horse-gift. I love and understand horses, and horses love and understand me. I was not, therefore, depressed when the horse laid his ears back, showed me a white eye, and lashed out viciously as I approached the stall. It merely meant that the poor brute had been mishandled by a bigger brute, and that fear, instead of love, had been the motive appealed to.

However, I had got to make friends with him before he could be friendly, and the first step was to enter his stall--a thing he seemed determined to prevent. I accordingly slipped into the next one, climbed over, and dropped down beside him. In a minute I was grooming him, talking to him, handling him, making much of him, and winning his confidence.

I swore to myself I would never touch him with whip nor spur: for whip and spur had been his trouble. He was a well-bred beast, and I felt certain from his colour, socks, head, eye and general "feel" that he was not really vicious. I don't know how I know what a horse thinks and feels and is, but I do know it.

I groomed him thoroughly for nearly an hour, and then fondled him and got him used to my voice, hands and smell. I rather expected trouble when I took him to water, as Dufour had put his head round the partition and warned me that Le Boucher was a dangerous brute who had sent more than one man on a stretcher to hospital.

At seven o'clock the order was given for the horses to be taken to the water-troughs, and I led Le Boucher out of his stall. Seizing a lock of his mane, I vaulted on to his bare back and prepared for trouble.

He reared until I thought he would fall; he put down his head and threw up his heels until I thought that I should; and then he bucked and bounded in a way that enabled me to give an exhibition of riding.

But it was all half-hearted. I felt that he was going through the performance mechanically, and, at worst, finding out what sort of rider I was.

After this brief period of protest he trotted off to the watering-tank, and I never again had the slightest trouble with Le Boucher. I soon changed the stupid name of "The Butcher," to "Angelique," partly in tribute to one of the nicest of girls, and partly in recognition of the horse's real temper and disposition. . . .

After "Stables," I was sent to get the rest of my kit, and was endowed with carbine, saddle, sword-belt, cartridge-box and all sorts of straps and trappings. I found my saddle to be of English make and with a high straight back, behind which was strapped the cylindrical blue portmanteau, with the regimental crest at each end.

I also found that the bridle was of the English model, not the "9th Lancer" pattern, but with bit and snaffle so made that the head-stall remained on the horse when the bit-straps were taken off.

It was ten o'clock by the time that I had received the whole of the kit for myself and horse, and that is the hour of breakfast. Our trumpets sang "Soupe" and the bucket was lowered from the hand of the soldier who crossed the wide plain--of the barrack-square.

Everybody rushed to put away whatever he held in his hand, and to join the throng that poured into the Regimental kitchen and out by another door, each man bearing a gamelle (or saucepan-shaped tin pot), of soupe and a loaf of bread. Having washed my hands, without soap, at the horse-trough, I followed.

Holding my own, I proceeded to my room, placed it on my bed, sat astride the bed with the gamelle before me, and fell to.

It wasn't at all bad, and I was very hungry in spite of my previous nausea.

The meal finished, the Orderly of the Caporal d'Ordinaire collected the pots and took them back to the kitchen.

My immediate desire now was a hot-and-cold-water lavatory and a good barber. It was the first day of my life that had found me, at eleven o'clock, unwashen and uncombed, to say nothing of unbathed. At the moment I wanted a shave more ardently than I wanted eternal salvation.

"And now, where is the lavatory, Dufour?" I asked, as that youth stowed away his spare bread behind his paquetage.

"Beside the forage-store, sir," he replied, "and it is a grain-store itself. There is an old Sergeant-pensioner at the hospital, who remembers the day, before the Franco-Prussian War, when it was used as a lavatory, but no one else has ever seen anything in it but sacks of corn."

"Isn't washing compulsory, then?" I asked.

"Yes. In the summer, all have to go, once a fortnight, to the swimming-baths," was the interesting reply.

"Do people ever wash voluntarily?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," said Dufour. "Men going on guard, or on parade, often wash their faces, and there are many who wash their hands and necks as well, on Sundays, or when they go out with their girls. . . . You must not think we are dirty people. . . ."

"No," said I. "And where can this be done?"

"Oh, under the pump, whenever you like," was the reply, and I found that it was the unsullied truth.

No one was hindered from washing under the pump, if he wished to do such a thing. . . .

At twelve o'clock, Corporal Lepage sent me to join the Medical-Inspection Squad, as I must be vaccinated.

After that operation, dubiously beneficial by reason of the probability of one's contracting tetanus or other sorrows as well as immunity from smallpox, I returned to my bright home to deal with the chaos of kit that adorned my bed-side; and with Dufour's help had it reduced to order and cleanliness by three in the afternoon, when "Stables" was again the pursuit in being.

After "Stables" we stood in solemn circles around our respective Caporaux-fourriers to hear the Regimental Orders of the Day read out, while Squadron Sergeant-Majors eyed everybody with profound suspicion and sure conviction of their state of sin.

So far as I could make out, the Regimental Orders of that particular day consisted of a list of punishments inflicted upon all and sundry (for every conceivable, and many an inconceivable, military offence), including the officers themselves--which surprised me.

So far as I remember, the sort of thing was:

"Chef d'Escadron de Montreson, fifteen days' arrêts de rigueur for being drunk and disorderly in the town last night.

"Capitaine Instructeur Robert, eight days' arrêts simples for over-staying leave and returning with uniform in untidy condition.

"Adjudant Petit, four days' confinement to room for allowing that room to be untidy.

"Trooper Leduc, eight days' salle de police for looking resentful when given four days' salle de police.

"Trooper Blanc, eight days' salle de police for possessing and reading a newspaper in quartiers.

"Trooper Delamer, thirty days' extra salle de police from the Colonel for having received sixteen days' extra salle de police from his Captain because he had received four days' extra salle de police from Sergeant Blüm, who caught him sleeping in the stables when he should have been sleeping in the salle de police.

"Trooper Mangeur, eight days' confinement to Barracks for smiling when given four days' Inspection with the Guard Parade."

And so on.

When the joyous parade was finished, I was free, and having cleaned and beautified myself, I passed the Sergeant of the Guard in full-dress uniform, and sought mine inn for dinner, peace, and privacy.

But oh! how my heart ached for any poor soul who, being gently nurtured, had to remain in that horrible place for three years, and without the privilege, even if he could afford it, of a private place to which he could retire to bathe and eat, to rest and be alone.