Simon Called Peter, Robert Keable [read e books online free txt] 📗

to wait for the train. Big notices made it impossible to miss the Railway Transport Officer. He passed down a passage and into an office. He loathed and hated the whole wide world as he went in.

A young man, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine, glanced up at him. Peter observed in time that he had two stars only on his shoulder-strap. Before he could speak, the other said cheerily: "Well, padre, and what can I do for you?"

Peter deprecatingly told him. He had waited ten days, etc., and had at last gone out, and the movement order had come with…

The other cut him short: "Oh, you're the chap who failed to report, are you? Blighted rotters they are at these Group H.Q.'s. Chuck us over the chit."

Peter brightened up and obeyed. The other read it. "I know," ventured Peter, "but I got the dickens of a strafe from the Colonel. He said he had no idea when I could get away, and had better see you. What can I do?"

"Silly old ass! You'd better go to-night. There are plenty of trains, and you're all alone, aren't you? I might just alter the date, but I suppose now you had better go to his nibs the Deputy Assistant Officer controlling Transport. He's in the Rue de la Republique, No. 153; you can find it easily enough. Tell him I sent you. He'll probably make you out a new order."

Peter felt enormously relieved. He relaxed, smiled, and got out a cigarette, offering the other one. "Beastly lot of fuss they make over nothing, these chaps," he said.

"I know," said the R.T.O.; "but they're paid for it, my boy, and probably your old dear had been strafed himself this morning. Well, cheerio; see you again to-night. Come in time, and I'll get you a decent place."

The great man's office was up two flights of wooden stairs in what looked like a deserted house. But Peter mounted them with an easy mind. He had forgiven Lear, and the world smiled. He still didn't realise he was acting in Punch.

Outside a suitably labelled door he stood a moment, listening to a well-bred voice drawling out sarcastic orders to some unfortunate. Then, with a smile he entered. A Major looked up at him, and heard his story without a word. Peter got less buoyant as he proceeded, and towards the end he was rather lame. A silence followed. The great man scrutinised the order. "Where were you?" he demanded at last, abruptly.

It was an awkward question. Peter hedged. "The O.C. of my camp asked me to go out with him," he said at last, feebly.

The other picked up a blue pencil and scrawled further on the order. "We've had too much of this lately," he said icily. "Officers appear to think they can travel when and how they please. You will report to the D.A.Q.M.G. at Headquarters, 3rd Echelon." He handed the folded order back, and the miserable Peter had a notion that he meant to add: "And God have mercy on your soul."

He ventured a futile remonstrance. "The R.T.O. said you could perhaps alter the date."

The Major leaned back and regarded him in silence as a remarkable phenomenon such as had not previously come his way. Then he sighed, and picked up a pen. "Good-morning," he said.

Peter, in the street, contemplated many things, including suicide. If Colonel Chichester had been in Rouen he would have gone there; as it was, he did not dare to face that unknown any more than this other. In the end he set out slowly for H.Q., was saluted by the sentry under the flag, climbed up to a corridor with many strangely labelled doors, and finally entered the right one, to find himself in a big room in which half a dozen men in uniform were engaged at as many desks with orderlies moving between them. A kind of counter barred his farther passage. He stood at it forlornly for a few minutes.

At last an orderly came to him, and he shortly explained his presence and handed in the much-blued order. The man listened in silence, asked him to wait a moment, and departed. Peter leaned on the counter and tried to look indifferent. With a detached air he studied the Kirschner girls on the walls. These added a certain air to the otherwise forlorn place, but when, a little later, W.A.A.C.'s were installed, a paternal Government ordered their removal. But that then mattered no longer to Peter.

At the last the orderly came back. "Will you please follow me, sir?" he said.

Peter was led round the barrier like a sheep to execution, and in at a small door. He espied a General Officer at a desk by the window, telephone receiver in one hand, the fateful order in the other. He saluted. The other nodded. Peter waited.

"Ah, yes! D.A.Q.M.G. speaking. That 10th Group Headquarters? Oh yes; good-morning, Mallony. About Captain Graham's movement order. When was this order applied for at your end?… What? Eighteenth? Humph! What time did your office receive it?… Eh? Ten a.m.? Then, sir, I should like to know what it was doing in your office till six p.m. This officer did not receive it till six-thirty. What? He was out? Yes, very likely, but it reached his mess at six-thirty: it is so endorsed…. Colonel Lear has had the matter under consideration? Good. Kindly ask Colonel Lear to come to the telephone."

He leaned back, and glanced up at Graham, taking him in with a grave smile. "I understand you waited ten days for this, Captain Graham," he said. "It's disgraceful that it should happen. I am glad to have had an instance brought before me, as we have had too many cases of this sort of thing lately…." He broke off. "Yes? Colonel Lear? Ah, good-morning, Colonel Lear. This case of the movement order of Captain Graham has just been brought to me. This officer was kept waiting ten days for his order, and then given an impossibly short time to report. Well, it won't do, Colonel. There must be something very wrong in your orderly-room; kindly see to it. Chaplains have other things to do than sit around in camps waiting the convenience of Group Headquarters. The application for this order reached us on the 27th, and was sent off early next morning, in ample time for the officer to travel. I am very displeased about it. You will kindly apply at once for a fresh order, and see that it is in Captain Graham's hands at least six hours before he must report. That is all. Good-morning."

Peter could hardly believe his ears, but he could barely keep a straight face either. The D.A.Q.M.G. hung up the receiver and repeated the latter part of the message. Peter thanked him and departed, walking on air. A day later an orderly from the group informed him at 11 a.m. that the order had been applied for and might be expected that day, and at 1 o'clock he received it. Such is the humour of the high gods who control the British Army. But he never saw Colonel Lear again, and was thankful.

Peter reached his new base, then, early in March in a drizzle of rain. He was told his camp and set off to find it, and for an hour walked through endless docks, over innumerable bridges, several of which, being open to admit and let out ships, caused him pretty considerable delay. It was a strange, new experience. The docks presented types of nearly every conceivable nationality and of every sort of shipping. French marines and seamen were, of course everywhere, but so were Chinese, South African natives, Egyptians, Senegalese, types of all European nationalities, a few of the first clean, efficient-looking Americans in tight-fitting uniforms, and individual officers of a score of regiments.

The old town ended in a row of high, disreputable-looking houses that were, however, picturesque enough, and across the pavé in front of them commenced the docks. One walked in and out of harbours and waterways, the main stretch of harbour opening up more and more on the right hand, and finally showing two great encircling arms that nearly met, and the grey Channel beyond. Tossing at anchor outside were more than a dozen ships, waiting for dark to attempt the crossing. As he went, a seaplane came humming in from the mists, circled the old town, and took the harbour water in a slither of foam. He had to wait while a big Argentine ship ploughed slowly in up a narrow channel, and then, in the late afternoon, crossed a narrow swing foot-bridge, and found himself on the main outer sea-wall.

Following directions, he turned to the right and walked as if going out to the harbour mouth a mile or so ahead. It seemed impossible that his camp should be here, for on the one hand he was close to the harbour, and on the other, over a high wall and some buildings, was plainly to be espied the sea. A few hundred yards on, however, a crowd of Tommies were lined up and passing embarkation officers for a big trooper, and Peter concluded that this was the leave boat by which he was to mark his camp across the road and more or less beyond it.

He crossed a railway-line, went in at a gate, and was there.

The officers' quarters had a certain fascination. You stepped out of the anteroom and found yourself on a raised concrete platform at the back of which washed the sea. Very extensive harbour works, half completed, ran farther out in a great semicircle across a wide space of leaden water, over which gulls were circling and crying; but the thin black line of this wall hardly interrupted one's sense of looking straight out to sea, and its wide mouth away on the right let in the real invigorating, sea-smelling wind. The camp itself was a mere strip between the railway-line and the water, a camp of R.E.'s to which he was attached. He was also to work a hospital which was said to be close by.

It was pointed out to him later. The railway ran out all but to the harbour mouth, and there ended in a great covered, wide station. Above it, large and airy, with extensive verandahs parallel to the harbour, was the old Customs, and it was this that had been transformed into a hospital. It was an admirable place. The Red Cross trains ran in below, and the men could be quickly swung up into the cool, clean wards above. These, all on one level, had great glass doors giving access to the verandahs, and from the verandahs broad gangways could be placed, running men, at high tide, on to the hospital ship alongside. The nurses' quarters were beyond, and their sitting-room was perched up, as it were, sea on one side and harbour on the other.

At present, of course, Peter did not know all this. He was merely conducted by an orderly in the dusk to the anteroom of the mess, and welcomed by the orderly-officer, who led him into a comfortable room already lit, in a corner of which, near a stove, four officers sat at cards.

"Hearts three," said one as Peter came in.

"Pass me," said another, and it struck Peter that he knew the tone.

The four were fairly absorbed in their game, but the orderly officer led Peter towards the table. At that they looked up, and next minute one had jumped up and was greeting him.

"By all that's wonderful! It's you again," he said.

"Donovan!" exclaimed Peter, "What: are you doing here?"

The South African held out his hand. "I've got attached to one of our nigger outfits," he said, "just up the dock from here. But what are you doing?"

"Oh, I've been moved from Rouen," said Peter, "and told to join up here. Got to look after the hospital and a few camps. And I was told," he added, "I'd live in this camp."

"Good enough," said Donovan. "Let me introduce you. This is Lieutenant Pennell, R.E.—Lieutenant Pennell, Captain Graham. This is a bird of your kidney, mess secretary and a great man, Padre Arnold, and this is one Ferrars, Australian Infantry. He tried to stop a shell," went on Donovan easily, "and is now recovering. The shock left him a little insane, or so his best friends think; hence, as you may have heard, he has just gone three hearts. And that's all anyone can do at present, padre, so have a cigarette and sit down. I hope you haven't changed your old habits, as you are just in