Motor trucks--they were calling them camions, after the French
fashion, because it was a shorter and a simpler word--fairly swarmed
in the streets. Guns rolled ponderously along. It was not military
pomp we saw. Indeed, I saw little enough of that in France. It was
only the uniforms and the guns that made me realize that this was
war. The activity was more that of a busy, bustling factory town. It
was not English, and it was not French. I think it made me think more
of an American city. War, I cannot tell you often enough, is a great
business, a vast industry, in these days. Someone said, and he was
right, that they did not win victories any more--that they
manufactured them, as all sorts of goods are manufactured. Digging,
and building--that is the great work of modern war.
Our preparations, being in the hands of Captain Godfrey and the
British army, were few and easily made. Two great, fast army motor
cars had been put at the disposal of the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P.,
Tour, and when we went out to get into them and make our start it was
just a problem of stowing away all we had to carry with us.
The first car was a passenger car. Each motor had a soldier as
chauffeur. I and the Reverend George Adam rode in the tonneau of the
leading car, and Captain Godfrey, our manager and guide, sat with the
driver, in front. That was where he belonged, and where, being a
British officer, he naturally wanted to be. They have called our
officers reckless, and said that they risked their lives too freely.
Weel--I dinna ken! I am no soldier. But I know what a glorious
tradition the British officer has--and I know, too, how his men
follow him. They know, do the laddies in the ranks, that their
officers will never ask them to go anywhere or do anything they would
shirk themselves--and that makes for a spirit that you could not
esteem too highly.
It was the second car that was our problem. We put Johnson, my
accompanist, in the tonneau first, and then we covered him with
cigarettes. It was a problem to get them stowed away, and when we had
accomplished the task, finally, there was not much of Johnson to be
seen! He was covered and surrounded with cigarettes, but he was snug,
and he looked happy and comfortable, as he grinned at us--his face
was about all of him that we could see. Hogge rode in front with the
driver of that car, and had more room, so, than he would have had in
the tonneau, where, as a passenger and a guest, he really belonged.
The wee bit piano was lashed to the grid of the second car. And I
give you my word it looked like a gypsy's wagon more than like one of
the neat cars of the British army!
Weel, all was ready in due time, and it was just six o'clock when we
set off. There was a thing I noted again and again. The army did
things on time in France. If we were to start at a certain time we
always did. Nothing ever happened to make us unpunctual.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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