Our Casualty, and Other Stories Part 1

Our Casualty And Other Stories.

by James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham.

I -- OUR CASUALTY

There is not in the whole British Isles a more efficient military body than the Ballyhaine Veterans' Corps. The men look like soldiers when they have their grey uniforms on and their bra.s.sards on their sleeves.

They talk like soldiers. They have the true military spirit. There is not a man in the company under fifty years of age, but if the Germans attempt a landing on the Ballyhaine beach, by submarine or otherwise, they will be sorry for themselves afterwards--those of them who remain alive.

Ballyhaine is a residential suburb, entirely built over with villas of the better kind. Each villa has its garden. In times of peace we discuss sweet peas or winter spinach or chrysanthemums on our way into town in the morning, travelling, as most of us do, by the 9.45 train, with season tickets, first cla.s.s.

When our boys went off from us, as they all did early in the war, we felt that it was time for us to do something too. There was not the least difficulty about enrolling the men. We all joined the corps, even poor old Cotter, who must be close on seventy, and who retired from business three years ago. He used to bore us all by talking about his rheumatism, but when the Volunteer Corps was formed he dropped all that, and went about saying that he had never suffered from pain or ache in his life, and could do twenty miles a day without feeling it We made Cotter a corporal.

Our Commanding Officer is Haines, who plays the best hand at bridge of any man in the club. He held a commission in a line regiment before he went on the Stock Exchange. That was thirty-five years ago, and it is not to be supposed that his knowledge of soldiering is up-to-date, but he is the only one of us who has any knowledge of soldiering at all, so we chose him.

The women were a difficulty at first. They insisted on regarding us as a joke, and used to repeat the absurd witticism of the street boys.

I heard Janet say "Methusaleers" one day. She denied it, but I am perfectly certain she did not say "Fusiliers," My wife fussed about dry socks and wanted me to take my umbrella on a route march one wet Sunday.

Every other member of the corps had similar experiences. It was Tompkins who hit on a way of dealing satisfactorily with the women. Tompkins is our local doctor. He stays in Ballyhaine all day long when the rest of us go up to town, so he naturally knows a good deal about women. He enrolled them in a volunteer ambulance brigade, and after that they were just as keen as any of us. We did the thing handsomely for them. We bought six stretchers, a small motor ambulance waggon, and some miles of bandages. Janet and Cotter's youngest girl carried one of the stretchers. I should not like to say that my wife actually hoped I should be wounded, but I think she would have liked the chance of bandaging any other man in the corps. The rest of the women felt as she did.

The drawback to Ballyhaine as a centre of military activity is the difficulty of finding a place for practising field manoeuvres. There is the golf links, of course, but we got tired of marching round and round the golf links, and we did not want to dig trenches there. Haines, who does not play golf, drew up a plan of trench digging which would have ruined the golf links for years. But we would not have that. Nor could we dig in each other's gardens, or practise advancing over open country in skirmis.h.i.+ng order when there was no open country. The whole district is a network of high walls with broken gla.s.s on top of them, a form of defence rendered necessary by the attacks of small boys on our fruit trees.

Fortunately, we had the sea beach. The strand--there are three miles of it--is one of the glories of Ballyhaine. We did most of our manoeuvring there and dug our trenches there. Haines was opposed to this plan at first.

"If the Germans come at all," said Cotter, "they'll come from the sea.

They must, this being an island."

"Of course," said Haines.

"Then," said Cotter, "the beach is the place where we shall have to meet them, and the strand is where our trenches ought to be."

There was no answering that argument. Even Haines gave way.

"With barbed wire entanglements," said Cotter, "down to the water's edge."

The weather round about Christmas-time was extraordinarily severe in Ballyhaine. We came in for a series of gales, accompanied by driving rain, and the days at that time of year are so short that most of our soldiering had to be done in the dark.

I got one cold after another, and so did every other member of the corps. Poor old Cotter limped pitifully on parade, but he did not say a word about rheumatism. The spirit of the men was splendid, and not one of us showed a sign of s.h.i.+rking, though Haines kept us at it with ferocity.

Haines varied the digging by making us practise a horrible manoeuvre called "relieving trenches." This was always done in the middle of the night, between twelve and one o'clock. Part of the corps went out early--about 10.30 p.m.--and manned the trenches. The rest of us marched forth at midnight and relieved them.

The worst evening we had all winter was December 8th. It was blowing terrifically from the south-east The sea was tumbling in on the beach in enormous waves, fringing the whole line of the sh.o.r.e with a broad stretch of white foam. The rain swept over the country pitilessly. I came out of town by the 5.10 train, and called at the club on my way home. I found a notice posted up:

"Ballyhaine Veterans' Corps.

"Tonight, December the 8th, trenches will be relieved at 12 midnight No. 1 and No. 2 Platoons to parade at 10.30, march to north end of the strand, and occupy trenches."

That meant a six-mile march for those platoons--three there and three back.

"No. 3 and No. 4 Platoons to parade at 11 p.m., march to cliffs, descend rocks, and relieve trenches as soon as possible after midnight."

I am in No. 3 Platoon, and I confess I shuddered. The rocks at the north end of the beach are abominably slippery. A year ago I should have hesitated about climbing down in broad daylight in the finest weather.

My military training had done a good deal for me physically, but I still shrank from those rocks at midnight with a tempest howling round me.

When I reached home I put a good face on the matter. I was not going to admit to my wife or Janet--particularly to Janet--that I was afraid of night operations in any weather.

"Please have my uniform left out for me," I said, "I shall put it on before dinner."

"Surely," said my wife, "you're not going out to-night? I don't think you ought to."

"Duty, my dear," I said.

"Just fancy," said Janet, "if the Germans came and father wasn't there!

We might be murdered in our beds!"

I am sometimes not quite sure whether Janet means to scoff or is in serious earnest On this occasion I was inclined to think that she was poking fun at the Veterans' Corps. I frowned at her.

"You'll get dreadfully wet," said my wife.

"Not the least harm in that," I said cheerily.

"It'll give you another cold in your head," said Janet

This time she was certainly sneering. I frowned again.

"Of course," said my wife, "it won't matter to you. You're so strong and healthy. Nothing does you any harm."

I suspected her of attempting a subtle form of flattery, but what she said was quite true. I am, for a man of fifty-three, extremely hardy.

"I'm thinking," she said, "of poor old Mr. Cotter. I don't think he ought to go. Mrs. Cotter was round here this afternoon. She says he's suffering dreadfully from rheumatism, though he won't admit it, and if he goes out to-night... But he's so determined, poor old dear. And she simply can't stop him."

"Cotter," I said, "must stay at home."

"But he won't," said my wife.

"Military ardour is very strong in him," said Janet.

"I'll ring up Dr. Tompkins," I said, "and tell him to forbid Cotter to go out Tompkins is Medical Officer of the corps, and has a right to give orders of the kind. In fact, it's his duty to see that the company's not weakened by ill-health."

"I'm afraid," said my wife, "that Dr. Tompkins can do nothing. Mrs.

Cotter was with him before she came here. The fact is that Mr. Cotter won't give in even to the doctor's orders."

I rang up Tompkins and put the case very strongly to him.

"It will simply kill Cotter," I said, "and we can't have that. He may not be of any very great military value, but he's a nice old boy, and we don't want to lose him."

Tompkins agreed with me thoroughly. He said he'd been thinking the matter over since Mrs. Cotter called on him in the afternoon, and had hit upon a plan which would meet the case.

"If only the C.O. will fall in with it," he added.