Chapter SEVEN: Three Musketeers in London

Our stay in England has been prolonged beyond the usual time, chiefly because that impartial foe of the just and the unjust, the Spanish Influenza, has opened a campaign against us, and it is manifestly foolish to attack Germany before you have settled accounts with Spain.

Pending the time when our invalids shall be convalescent, we have had some interesting experiences. We have explored the countryside, and studied and analyzed the structure of insular society. We have consorted with Barons, Squires, and Knights of the Shire; with Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; with Waacs, Wrens, and V.A.D.’s; with Farmers, Hedgers, and Land Girls; with Mayors and Corporations. They are all interesting; most of them are quite human; and all, once you know them, are extremely friendly and anxious to entertain us.

For instance, there was the Fourth of July, officially celebrated in London. British Official—not American. The Americans are a patriotic people; but it certainly had not occurred to us, sojourning in Great Britain, to undertake, this year of all years, any ostentatious celebration of the foundation of our national liberties.

But John Bull would have none of this false delicacy.

“My dear fellow,” he said in effect, “of _course_ you must celebrate the Fourth of July. We know it is one of your greatest national festivals. We will help you. We will put up flags, arrange a demonstration, and devise special features for the day. Let me see—you usually have fireworks, don’t you? Sorry! I’m afraid we can’t quite manage fireworks this year. You see, they might be misconstrued into an air-raid warning. But anything else—bands, processions, baseball? My boy, you shall have them all! What else? Won’t you require pumpkin-pie, or cranberry sauce, or something of that kind? Oh—that’s _Thanksgiving_? I beg your pardon. Stupid of me to mix ’em. Anyway, you must have a jolly good time. We should never forgive ourselves if we didn’t give you a chance to celebrate an occasion like that. I know how _we_ should feel if we had to cut out Christmas, old man!”

We forbore to explain that Christmas is also, to a certain extent, a recognized festival in the United States, and merely accepted John Bull’s invitation in the spirit in which it was offered—that is to say, with great heartiness but some vagueness as to the probable course of events.

However, everything worked out right on the day. On the Fourth of July, nineteen eighteen, London was turned over to the Americans. In the morning, parties of American soldiers and sailors proceeded to explore the town. They enquired politely of passers-by for the Tower of London; the Old Curiosity Shop; the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey; Buckingham Palace. The passers-by, though cordially disposed, did not always know where these places were. The Londoner takes his national monuments, like the British Constitution and the British Navy, for granted, and is seldom concerned with the Why and Wherefore thereof. However, we succeeded in discovering most of these places for ourselves, and were gratified to observe that Old Glory was amicably sharing a flagpole over the Palace of Westminster with the Union Jack.

By high noon most of us had squeezed ourselves into Central Hall, Westminster, where all the Americans in London seemed to be gathered, together with a goodly percentage of the native element. A solid wedge of convalescent soldiers in hospital blue supplied the necessary reminder of the Thing which had brought us together. The speakers included a British ex-Ambassador, venerated on both sides of the Atlantic, a British Cabinet Minister, an American Admiral, and an American General. Altogether, an affair to write home about.

Thereafter, refreshment, at the Eagle Hut, the Beaver Hut, Washington Inn, and other recently opened hospitality centres. At one of these Ikey Zingbaum succeeded during the rush of business in cashing a Confederate twenty-dollar bill, which had been “wished on” him one dark night some years previously, and which he had carried in his pocket, faint yet pursuing, ever since. He got four pounds sterling for it—a rate of interest more indicative of International amity than financial condition.

Al Thompson, Ed Gillette, and that captious critic Joe McCarthy (not yet entirely recovered from dyspepsia incurred upon his maiden ocean voyage), pushed their way out of the crowded Hall into the blazing July sunshine, and enquired of one another simultaneously:

“Where do we eat?”

In a spirit of appropriate independence they decided to elude the special arrangements made for their entertainment and forage for themselves. From the moment of their embarkation from their native land their daily diet had been selected and provided by a paternal but unimaginative Department of State, and their stomachs cried out for something unusual, unexpected, and, if possible, unwholesome. But London has an area of seven hundred and fifty square miles. This offers an embarrassing choice of places of refreshment. They swung on their heels undecided.

“I guess we better ask some guy,” suggested Ed Gillette.

The motion was seconded by Al Thompson.

“There’s a Jock,” he said. “Let’s go ask him.”

They approached their quarry—a squat figure in a kilt, with a round and overheated countenance beaming like a vermilion haggis under a voluminous khaki bonnet—and addressing him as “friend,” enquired:

“Where do folks eat around here?”

The Scot smiled affably.

“I’m no varra weel acquent with this toon,” he admitted. “If it was Airdrie, now, or Coatbridge! I’m awa’ there to-night. I’m just on leave, like yourselves. But I doot we’ll no be goin’ far wrong if we keep along toward The Strand. Will I come with you?”

“Sure!” replied Ed Gillette heartily.

“This is on us,” Al Thompson hastened to add.

The Scotsman led the way. Whether he had grasped the implied offer of hospitality is doubtful. However, that hardened cynic Joe McCarthy cherished no illusions on the subject. He sniffed contemptuously.

Their walk towards The Strand—it is to be feared that their guide’s sense of direction was once or twice at fault—gave them further opportunities of studying the habits and customs of the strange race upon whom they had descended. In one quiet street—there are many such in London these days, for traffic is down to a minimum—they beheld a middle-aged lady hail a crawling taxi-cab. The driver of the vehicle took not the slightest notice, but slid upon his way.

“There’s jest twa-three o’ they taxis nowadays where formerly there was a hunnerd in a street,” explained that man-about-town, Private Andrew Drummond. “Consequently, they can pick and choose. They’ll no tak’ a body that looks ower carefu’ of their money. There’s another yin! He’ll give the auld wife the go-bye too, I’m thinking. She doesna look like yin o’ the extravagant soort.”

He was right. A second taxi sauntered past the gesticulating lady. This time the driver, after a single fleeting glance, condescended to flip his right hand in the air, in a gesture which may have been intended to indicate that he had particular business elsewhere, but more probably expressed his contempt for the pedestrian world in general.

The gesture was observed by a passing citizen—an elderly gentleman with white whiskers and spats—who, at first appropriating it to himself, stopped and glared at the offender. Then noting beauty in distress upon the sidewalk, he assailed the taxi with indignant cries.

“Hi, there! Taxi! Stop! Stop, there! Don’t you see the lady hailing you?”

The taxi-driver perfectly impassive, pressed his accelerator.

“Stop, confound you!” yelled the old gentleman, waving his umbrella. “Stop, you blackguard! Don’t you hear—”

This time the taxi-driver replied with a gesture quite unmistakable, and disappeared from sight round the corner.

The old gentleman turned apologetically to his Ariadne.

“Intolerable! Monstrous!” he announced. “If you will allow me, madam, I will stay and secure the next taxi for you, or give the man in charge.”

“Boys,” murmured the dreamy voice of that bonny fighter, Ed Gillette, “I guess we’ll stay an’ see this through. We’re nootral, of course, but maybe we can hand the taxi-driver a Note!”

Without further pressure our four friends anchored in a favourable position on the opposite side of the sunny street, and awaited developments. One or two vehicles sped through, but they were either military automobiles or taxis carrying passengers. Once or twice a tradesman’s delivery-van passed by, rendered top-heavy in appearance by a bloated gas-bag billowing upon the roof. But nothing else.

“’Nother dead town!” murmured Joe McCarthy, not without satisfaction.

As he spoke, another taxi, with flag up, swung round the corner. The old gentleman, taking up a frontal position in the middle of the street, waved his umbrella. The taxi, with a swerve that would have done credit to a destroyer avoiding a mine, eluded him, and resumed its normal course. This manœuvre accomplished, it slackened speed again.

But the British are a tenacious race. The elderly champion of the fair turned and ran with surprising swiftness after the receding vehicle. He overtook it. He took a flying leap upon the footboard beside the driver, and grasping that astonished malefactor by the collar with one hand laid hold of the side brake with the other. Employing the driver’s neck as fulcrum, he pulled the lever with all his strength and jammed the brakes on hard. His baffled victim having automatically thrown open the throttle of the engine, the whirring back wheels, caught in the full embrace of the brake, skidded violently; the cab described a semicircle, and ran to a full stop on the sidewalk with its radiator (which had narrowly missed Joe McCarthy) pressed affectionately against some one’s area railings.

After this all concerned got into action with as little delay as possible. The old gentleman, descending from his perch, opened upon his opponent at a range of about three feet. Such phrases as “Ruffian!” “Bandit!” “Thug!” “Yahoo!” “Police!” “War on, too!” flew from him like hail. The driver, though obviously rattled by the complete unexpectedness of the attack, and further hampered by having swallowed the glowing stub of a cigarette, reacted (as they say in the official _communiqué_) with creditable promptness.

“Call yourself a gentleman?” he coughed. “’Ard-workin’ man like me!… Over milingtary age!… Carryin’ on as well as I can till the boys comes ’ome!… Disgrace, that’s what you are!… Got a job in the War Office, I’ll lay a tanner!… I’ll summons you for assault and damagin’ my keb!… The first copper I sees…”

And so on. Meanwhile the lady in the case, much to her own surprise, found herself propelled by four pairs of willing hands into the cab. This done, the door was shut upon her, and a soothing Scots-American chorus assured her through the window-glass that the entire matter would straightway be adjusted. (“Fixed” was the exact term employed.)

But now a new figure added itself to the tableau—a slightly nervous individual in blue, with silver buttons and flat peaked cap. He coughed in a deprecating fashion, and produced a notebook.

“That a cop?” enquired Ed Gillette of the Scot.

“No jist exactly. He’s a ‘Special.’ I doot he’ll no be a match for the taxi-man.”

But the Special Constable, though his lack of stolidity betrayed the amateur, had been well-drilled in his part.

“Now, then, now, then,” he demanded sternly, “what’s all this? Driver, what is your cab doing up against these railings? You are causing an obstruction.”

These questions were promptly answered by the old gentleman in a sustained passage, supported by a soprano _obbligato_ from the interior of the taxi. The “Special” listened judicially, and finally held up his hand.

“That’ll do,” he intimated, and turned to the taxi-driver.

“What have you got to say?”

The taxi-driver, having by this time cleared his larynx of cigarette-ash, shrugged his shoulders.

“Me? Oh, nothink! What I say don’t matter. I’m a poor man: I don’t count for anythink. That old garrotter only tried to murder me—that’s all! Flew at me, he did, out of the middle of the road like a laughin’ hyena, and nearly broke my neck, besides wreckin’ my keb. But of course I don’t matter. Let ’im ’ave it ’is own way. One law for the rich, and another—”

“Do you charge this gentleman with assault?” interpolated the Special, who had evidently come to the conclusion that it was time to get down to the rigid official formula provided for such occasions as this.

“Charge ’im? And waste ’alf a workin’ day at a blinkin’ police court, waitin’ for the case to come on? Not me!” replied the taxi-man, with evident sincerity. “Oh, no, I’m only a pore—”

“Constable, will you _please_ tell this man to drive me to Half-moon Street?” demanded a high-pitched voice from the interior of the cab.

“I have no power to compel him to drive you anywhere, madam,” replied the Special, with majestic humility.

“Well, what powers _have_ you got?” shouted the old gentleman.

“At your request, sir, I can take his name and number, and you can charge him with declining to ply for hire when called upon to do so,” chanted the limb of the Law. “Do you wish to charge him?”

“_Wish?_” shrieked the old gentleman. “Of course I wish! I mean”—as he met the cold and steady eye of the Special—“I shall be obliged if you will charge this man, officer.”

“Very good,” was the gracious reply. “Now I can _act_.” The Special turned to the cabman, with pencil poised. “Your name?”

“Most certainly you shell ’ave my name!” retorted the other, with the air of a master-tactician who at last sees his opponent walk into a long-prepared trap. “_And_ my number, too! And you’ll oblige me, Constable, by takin’ _his_ name and address as well. I don’t intend for to—”

“Your name?” suggested the Special unfeelingly.

“Henery Mosscockle, Number Five-oh-seven-oh—”

Details followed, all duly noted. Then came the turn of the old gentleman. He proffered a visiting-card, and gave another to the cabman, who apologized for being unable to reciprocate, on the ground that he had left his card-case on the Victrola in his drawing-room. Our Three Musketeers, together with their D’Artagnan, were moved to audible chuckles. The old gentleman, aware of their presence for the first time, swung round and addressed them.

“American soldiers!” he exclaimed. “Good-morning, gentlemen. I am sorry that you should have witnessed such a poor specimen of British patriotism. None of that sort in your country, I’ll be bound!”

Our friends saluted politely, and cast about for an answer which should be both candid and equally agreeable to all parties—not, when you come to think of it, a particularly easy task. But it was that ill-used individual, the taxi-driver, who replied. He thrust a bristling chin towards the old gentleman.

“Patriotism?” he barked. “As man to man, tell me—’ow old are you?”

“That,” snapped the old gentleman, “is my business!”

“Well,” announced the taxi-driver, with the air of a man who has been awarded a walk-over, “I’m fifty-seven. Any sons?”

“Two.”

“Two? Well, I got two too—one in the East Surreys and the other in the Tanks. (’E was a machine-gunner in the first place.) Both bin in the War four years. Both bin wounded. What are yours in? The Circumloosion Office, or the Conchies’ Battalion?”[2]

“One is in the Coldstream Guards. The other was a Gunner, but he was killed.”

The cabman became human at once.

“I’m sorry for that—sir! May I ask where?”

“First Battle of Ypres.”

“Epray? That was where our Bert stopped his first one.”

“I have a son too,” interpolated the Special eagerly—“in the—”

But no one took any notice of him. The cabman and the old gentleman had entirely forgotten the existence of the rest of the party.

“Not badly wounded, I hope?”

“Nothing to signify—a couple of machine-gun bullets in the forearm. The second time was worser. That was at a place somewhere in the ’Indenburg line, spring of last year. ’En-in-’Ell, or some such name. Bert copped a sweet one that time—bit o’ shell-splinter as big as me ’and. It was nearly a year before ’e was fit to go back. You see—”

But the old gentleman had laid an indignant hand on the other father’s shoulder.

“You mean to tell me,” he demanded, “that your son, twice badly wounded, has been sent back to the firing-line again?”

“I do. He’s there now.”

For the second time that day the old gentleman began to shake his fist.

“It’s monstrous!” he shouted. “It’s damnable! They did the same thing to my boy—my only surviving boy! It’s this infernal system of throwing all the burden on the willing horse—this miserable cringing to so-called Labour!” He choked. “The Government.… If I were Lloyd George.…” He exploded. “_Pah!_”

“Never mind,” said a soothing voice from the interior of the cab. “If he won’t go, he won’t. Besides, it’s no use making him violent. I dare say I shall be able to get another taxi. Will you please open this door, Constable? It seems to have stuck.”

The two parents stopped short, guiltily conscious of having strayed from their text. Al Thompson addressed the driver.

“Say, friend,” he enquired, “ain’t you got enough gas to take this lady where she belongs?”

“Gas?” The taxi-driver glared suspiciously.

“He means petrol,” interpreted the Special.

“I got about an inch-and-a-’alf in me tank,” replied the taxi-driver, half-resuming his professional air of martyrdom. “I been on this box since eight this mornin’, and ain’t ’ad a bite o’ dinner; but I’ll take the lady anywheres in reason. She ain’t _arst_ me yet. I don’t want to be disobligin’ to nobody. ’Elp everybody, and everybody’ll ’elp you! That’s my motto. Give us a ’and, matey”—to Al Thompson—“and back my keb off the curb. Crank ’er up, Jock! Thanks! Good-mornin’, all! Good-mornin’, sir!”

“Good-morning!” called the old gentleman. “You have my card. Come and tell me how your sons are doing. Meanwhile I’ll tackle those rascals. We’ll get something done! Twice wounded! The same old story! Oh, criminal! Monstrous! Da—”

The cab rattled away, leaving the old gentleman to apostrophize His Majesty’s Government. The Special, with the air of a man who has performed a difficult and delicate task with consummate tact, packed up his pocket-book and resumed his beat.

“And now,” enquired the peevish voice of Joe McCarthy, “_Where do we eat?_”

They dined at a red plush restaurant somewhere off the Strand, and were introduced to some further War economies.

First, the waitress. By rights she should have been a waiter.

“Bin here nearly two years, now,” she informed them. “The last man here was called up in March. Sorry for the Army if there’s many more like him in it. Flat feet, something cruel. Anyhow, there’s only us girls now.”

“And varra nice, too!” ventured Andrew Drummond.

“None of your sauce, Scottie,” came the reply, promptly, but without rancour.

“You’re married, ma’m, I see,” said Al Thompson deferentially with a glance at her left hand.

“Widow,” said the girl briefly. “Since the Somme, two years ago.”

“That’s too bad,” observed Al, painfully conscious of the inadequacy of the remark.

“Most of us has lost some one. In the house where my sister’s in service there’s three gone—all officers. I’m not one to ask for sympathy when there’s others needs it more,” replied this sturdy little city sparrow. “Carry on—that’s my motto! He was in the Field Artillery: just bin promoted bombardier. Got any meat coupons?”

They shook their heads. As regularly rationed soldiers they were free from such statutory fetters.

“Better have bacon and eggs,” announced Hebe. “They’re not rationed.” She dealt them each a slice of War bread. Butter they found was unobtainable; so was sugar. Andrew suggested that the party should solace itself with beer; but his companions, like most Americans, whether of the dry habit or the wet, preferred to drink water with their actual meals. The fact that the water when served was tepid received due comment from Joe McCarthy.

“That’s the way folks always tak’ it here,” explained Andrew. “I dinna often drink it mysel’, I canna see what other kind o’ water ye could expect.”

“You could put ice in it,” grunted Joe.

“Ice?” The Scottish soldier explained the omission with elaborate tact. “In this country,” he pointed out, “ice is no obtainable in the summer-time. We are situated here in the Temperate Zone, and if a body needs ice, he has tae wait till the winter for it. Oot in Amerikey I doot ye’ll be able tae gather it all the year roond. Aye! couldna fancy iced watter mysel’. It must be sair cauld tae the stomach.”

Ice being unobtainable, it was obviously futile to ask for ice-cream. Sweet corn the waitress had never heard of: the mention of waffles merely produced an indulgent shake of the head. However, a timid enquiry for pie—after Andrew had amended the wording to “tart”—was more successful. It was obvious War-pie, but it satisfied.

“And,” enquired their conductor, as they shouldered their way, full-fed, into the Strand, “where are you boys for now?”

They were bound, it seemed, for a great Ball Game between the American Navy and Army, at a place called Stamford Bridge. This was outside the ken of Andrew Drummond, but a policeman directed their attention to the Underground Railway System of London.

Presently they found themselves at the great football ground, converted for the time being into American territory. It is true that King George himself sat in the Grand Stand, surrounded by Generals, Admirals, and Councillors. It is true that thousands of British soldiers, sailors, and civilians lined the ground, and that British brass bands made indefatigable music. But it was America’s day. From the moment when the teams lined up, and the two captains were presented to the King by an American Vice-Admiral and an American Major-General, the proceedings were controlled by the fans and rooters of the American Navy and Army.

How far the British contingent followed the intricacies of the combat it is difficult to say. When Al Thompson pointed out a sturdy but medium-sized player, and announced that he had once been a Giant, Andrew Drummond merely wondered vaguely why he had shrunk. When another player was uproariously identified as a late Captain of the Red Socks, the English spectators mentally registered the Red Socks as some obsolescent Indian tribe—like the Blackfeet.

But you cannot, as has been well said during this War, remain neutral on a moral issue. Within twenty minutes every one on the ground was shouting “Attaboy!” or consigning the umpire to perdition, or endeavouring to imitate the concerted war-songs of the rival sides. When the sailors won the game by a narrow margin every soldier present, American or British, lamented to heaven.

“This is the End of a Perfect Day, I guess,” remarked that most satisfactory guest, Al Thompson, as the trio made their way arm in arm along the crowded Strand in the cool of the evening. “What do you say, Ed?”

“Sure!” replied Mr. Gillette. “Fine!”

“You all right, Joe?” enquired Al.

The carper made no reply, but looked about him with a dissatisfied air.

“Seems to me,” he remarked querulously, “that this War ain’t such a fierce proposition as folks made out. Look at these people all enjoying themselves.”

“Well, I guess they done their day’s work,” said Gillette pacifically. “Besides, most of them are in khaki—or else that hospital uniform”—as a string of _char-à-bancs_ conveying convalescents to the theatre rattled cheerfully past.

But the misanthrope would not be denied.

“These here wounded don’t appear to be wounded so bad,” he grumbled. “You don’t never see no seriously wounded men in the streets of this town.”

“No,” rapped out Al Thompson, ruffled for once, “and you don’t see no dead laying around neither! I guess if you was to take a walk through a hospital, Joe McCarthy—No, you can cancel the hospital. This will do.”

They had reached Charing Cross Station. From the farther gate streamed a slow-moving procession of loaded Red Cross ambulances. Another procession, empty, was moving in at the nearer gate, to disappear inside the station. Down an adjacent street stretched a line of more ambulances, and more yet. But the busy crowd in the Strand gave little heed to the spectacle. They had witnessed it, or could have witnessed it, at this hour and in this place, among others, any evening during the past four years.

Our friends halted, waiting for an opening in the close-moving stream. Presently it slowed down and stopped, and Joe McCarthy led the way across. But he paused curiously, as did the others, at the open back of an ambulance, and peered in.

The car contained four passengers. Each lay very still upon his stretcher—two upon the floor, and the other two packed neatly on shelves overhead. All were rolled up in brown Army blankets. From the end of one of these protruded a heavily splinted and bandaged foot. Another man had his arm strapped across his chest. The third lay on his face, his back torn by shrapnel. The fourth lay on his back. His head was swathed in bandages, and only one eye was visible. It was closed. One hand was bandaged; the other clasped to his bosom a German sniper’s helmet.

As they gazed, another figure edged in beside them—a London flower-girl, in the usual dilapidated shawl and deplorable hat, with her fragrant stock-in-trade clasped in the hollow of her left arm. She plucked a couple of pink carnations from a bundle, and flung them to the man with the bandaged head.

“For you, ole sport,” she announced, “with my love. So long!”

The wounded man opened his visible eye and smiled his thanks; and the girl was passing on to the next ambulance, there to squander more of her sole means of livelihood, when a hand of iron fell upon her shoulder. On the defensive in a moment, she whirled round.

“Nar, then! You stop pawin’ me! I never done no—”

But Joe McCarthy, misanthrope, merely deprived her of the bundle of pink carnations, placing in her grimy palm in exchange all the money he happened to have with him. It was roughly three days’ pay—no mean sum in the most highly paid Army in the world. Then leaning into the ambulance, which had begun to move again, he deposited the flowers beside the wounded soldier, and said gruffly:

“Say, Tommy!”

The solitary eye opened again, and a voice replied:

“Tommy yourself! I’m from Elizabeth, New Jersey. We’re all Doughboys in here.”

The Three Musketeers, thrilled to the core, broke into a trot, and panted:

“You don’t say? Where you been fighting?”

“Place called Belleau Wood. Good-night, boys!”

It was their first contact with actuality.

[2] “Conchies,” being interpreted, means “Conscientious Objectors.”