War is War by A. M. Burrage

Author:A. M. Burrage
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781844685844
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military

CHAPTER XII

On the following morning we go down to Poperinghe in trucks on a light railway, which we board somewhere close to Irish Farm. “Pop” is a civilised town with real shops and houses all standing intact. We are billeted in some Nissen huts on the town square.

We were there for about three days and I made my acquaintanceship with Talbot House. Toc H was an institution which deserves to be perpetuated. It was the only club which the private soldier could enter and find himself in civilised surroundings. It was a real joy to find comfortable chairs and see books and magazines lying invitingly about.

I am afraid I pinched Masefield's Everlasting Mercy from the library, but I didn't mean to. I took it out and lent it to another fellow, who lost it.

While we were in “Pop” Captain Medville disappeared and, I think, went home sick, but Captain Perks returned from a course and took charge of the remnants of the company. The change was not a welcome one, for Perks was entirely lacking in imagination and had no tact in handling his men. He seemed quite oblivious of the fact that we had been going through a pretty thick time while he was in safe and comfortable surroundings.

He celebrated his return by giving me six days extra duties for being absent from a rifle inspection which we had not been warned was to take place. It was on a Sunday, and I had gone to Mass at the parish church. Coming out I made one of those strange coincidental acquaintances, for, seeing a little dried-up man who was in the Munsters, I asked if he knew Mr. O'Rorke who was killed just before Christmas in 1914. Poor Jimmy O'Rorke and I had been friends at school, but he had gone almost straight to India after leaving Sandhurst and I had only seen him once since. By a freak of chance this fellow had been his batman and was beside him when he got a bullet straight between the eyes.

I had money enough to buy him and myself a meal, so I didn't return to camp but got some writing materials and polished off half a short story in Toc H. It was a great relief to me to write when it was at all possible—to sit down and lose myself in the pleasant old world I used to know and pretend to myself that there never had been a war. Some of my editors seemed of the opinion that we were not suffering from one now. One dear old chap, since dead, who controlled one of the leading fiction magazines, used to write to me saying, “Couldn't you let me have one of your light, charming love stories of country house life by next Thursday.” I would get these letters in the trenches during the usual “morning hate” when my fingers were too numb to hold a pencil, when I was worn out with work and sleeplessness, and when I was extremely doubtful if there would ever be another Thursday so far as I was concerned.

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