WAR SONGS
I—Water-colour
Pushing my way through the chattering throng of my brown-clad mates to the rail of the troop-ship, I look at still water, greasy and opaque. A touch of sunlight makes it splendid with rainbows, a great prismatic expanse, beautiful, more beautiful than clear water could be. Broken oars shatter the rainbow, bringing a black, clumsy rowboat close to our ship’s side. Around the black boat the rainbow settles. The rower rests his oars and lifts graceful entreating arms. He wears pale blue overalls. In the stern of his boat is a little girl in a cardinal cloak. On her head is one of the caps that make the French sailors look so gay and gentle, a flat, round, blue thing with a red pompom. She claps her hands when cooks lean through the portholes and throw loaves of bread to her father.
II—Breakfast
I may breakfast in either of two ways. I may, as I pass a steaming field-kitchen, hold out by its long handle a shining aluminum basin. John Wilkert will put into it a big ladleful of rice, and Leo Maher will pour golden syrup over it. Also, before I leave the line I shall have three long strips of broiled bacon and two thick slices of white bread, and a canteen cup full of hot, sweet coffee. The breakfast room is a meadow or the roadside across from the barracks. There is good company, hungry and mirthful. And over our heads noisy battalions of crows maneuver, advancing, retreating, hoarsely shouting down to us news of what awaits us beyond the frozen hills.
Or I may go to the House by the Fountain. Pierre’s “permission” is over, so he will not come in from the stable to smoke my tobacco and tell me of life and death in the trenches. Grandpere sits by the fire, now and then blowing it to flame by forcing his scant old breath upon it through a long hollow tube, and toasting for me a thick slice of war-bread. Madame superintends the heating of the big iron pot of this morning’s milk and the three-legged pot of coffee. Now my bowl—a little precious sugar in the bottom—is filled with hot milk. Madame deftly pours black coffee into it, and it becomes richly brown. I break my toast into it and eat eagerly—more eagerly than does demure little Francine, who sits opposite me, her school books beside her on the bench. She has large innocent brown eyes like her father’s. Her hands are so tiny that I am surprised at her dexterity with the large pewter spoon. I am afraid that if I stare at her I shall embarrass her and make her spill cafe au lait on her immaculate pinafore. On the great stone mantel over the fire are a spent seventy-five millimetre shell curiously engraved with wreaths of roses, a pink china pig and a brass crucifix. A bugle sounds by the barracks. I give Madame her half-franc. I take my belt and rifle. “Bon jour, Monsieur,” says Madame, “A demain!” Some day instead of “a demain” they will say “au revoir.”