Read Ebook: General Bramble by Maurois Andr Boswell Ronald Translator Castier Jules Translator

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Ebook has 384 lines and 26149 words, and 8 pages

Major Baraquin was a very old soldier. He had seen service--in the 1870 campaign. All strangers, Allies included, inspired him with a distrust which even his respect for his superiors failed to remove. When the French War Office ordered him to place his barracks at the disposal of a British colonel, discipline required him to obey, but hostile memories inspired him with savage resistance.

"After all, sir," said Aurelle to Parker, "his grandfather was at Waterloo."

"Are you quite sure," asked the colonel, "that he was not there himself?"

Above all things, Major Baraquin would never admit that the armies of other nations might have different habits from his own. That the British soldier should eat jam and drink tea filled him with generous indignation.

"The colonel," Aurelle translated, "requests me to ask you ..."

"But it will be necessary, sir, for the Portuguese who are going to land...."

Next day several large British transports arrived, and disgorged upon the quay thousands of small, black-haired men who gazed mournfully upon the alien soil. It was snowing, and most of them were seeing snow for the first time in their lives. They wandered about in the mud, shivering in their spotted blue cotton uniforms and dreaming, no doubt, of sunny Alemtejo.

"They'll fight well," said Captain Pereira, "they'll fight well. Wellington called them his fighting cocks, and Napoleon said his Portuguese legion made the best troops in the world. But can you wonder they are sad?"

Each of them had brought with him a pink handkerchief containing his collection of souvenirs--little reminders of his village, his people, or his best girl--and when they were told that they could not take their pink parcels with them to the front, there was a heart-breaking outcry.

Major Baraquin, with unconscious and sinister humour, had quartered them in the shambles.

The Portuguese went to the shambles.

A BUSINESS MAN IN THE ARMY

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."--G. B. Shaw .

Colonel Musgrave of the R.A.S.C. had been instructed to superintend the supply and transport arrangements of the Portuguese Division, and Lieutenant Barefoot, in charge of a Labour Company, had been detailed to assist him.

"These men," he explained to Colonel Musgrave, "are all Southampton dockers. In peace time I am their employer, and Sergeant Scott over there is their foreman. They tell me your Labour Companies have often shown rather poor discipline. There's no fear of anything like that with my men; they have been chosen with care, and look up to me as if I were a king. Scott, my sergeant, can do anything; neither he nor my men ever drink a drop. As for me, I am a real business man, and I intend to introduce new methods into the army."

Barefoot was fifty years old; he had a bald head shaped like an egg. He had just enlisted to serve his King and country, and was overflowing with goodwill.

The next morning twenty of his men were dead-drunk, two were absent at roll-call, and Sergeant Scott had a scar on his nose which seemed to be the result of a somewhat sudden encounter with mother earth.

"No matter," said the worthy N.C.O., "Barefoot is an ass, and never notices anything."

Colonel Musgrave, who was to take charge of this treasure-store, began to make his plan of campaign.

"To-morrow, Friday," he said, "there will be a parade on the wharf at 7 a.m. I shall hold an inspection myself before work is begun."

On Friday morning at seven, Barefoot, his labourers and the lorries were all paraded on the wharf in excellent order. At eight the colonel got up, had his bath and shaved. Then he partook of eggs and bacon, bread and jam, and drank two cups of tea. Towards nine o'clock his car took him to the wharf. When he saw the men standing motionless, the officer saluting and the lorries all in a row, his face went as red as a brick, and he stood up in his car and addressed them angrily:

"So you are incapable of the slightest initiative! If I am absent for an hour, detained by more important work, everything comes to a standstill! I see I cannot rely on anyone here except myself!"

The same evening he called the officers together.

"To-morrow, Saturday," he said, "there will be a parade at 7 a. m.--and this time I shall be there."

The next morning Barefoot with his men and lorries paraded once more on the wharf, with a sea-wind sweeping an icy rain into their faces. At half-past seven the lieutenant took action.

"We will start work," he said. "The colonel was quite right yesterday and spoke like a real business man. In our respect for narrow formalism, we stupidly wasted a whole morning's work."

So his men began to pile up the cases, the lorries started to move the sacks of oats, and the day's work was pretty well advanced when Colonel Musgrave appeared. Having had his bath and shaved, and absorbed poached eggs on toast, bread, marmalade and three cups of tea, he had not been able to be ready before ten. Suddenly coming upon all this healthy bustle, he leaped out of his car, and angrily addressed the eager Barefoot, who was approaching him with a modest smile.

"Who has had the impudence to call the men off parade before my arrival?" he said. "So if I happen to be detained elsewhere by more important work, my orders are simply disregarded! I see again that I cannot rely on anyone here except myself!"

Meanwhile the crestfallen Barefoot was meditating upon the mysterious ways of the army. Musgrave inspected the work and decided that everything was to be done all over again. The biscuits were to be put in the shed where the oats had been piled, and the oats were to be put out in the open where the biscuits had been. The meat was to change places with the jam, and the mustard with the bacon. The lorries were to take away again everything they had just brought up. So that when lunch-time arrived, everything was in exactly the same state as it had been at dawn. The Admiralty announced the arrival of a transport at two o'clock; the men were supposed to find their rations ready for them upon landing.

Musgrave very pluckily decided that the Labour Company were to have no rest, and were just to be content with nibbling a light lunch while they went on with their work.

Barefoot, who had got up at six and was very hungry, approached the colonel in fear and trembling.

"May I leave my sergeant in charge for half an hour, sir?" he asked. "He can do everything as well as I can. I should like just to run along to the nearest caf? and have something warm to eat."

Musgrave gazed at him in mournful astonishment.

"Really," he said, "you young fellows don't seem to realize that there's a war on." Whereupon he stepped into his car and drove off to the hotel.

Barefoot, somewhat downcast, buttonholed the interpreter, who was father-confessor to all Englishmen in distress. Aurelle begged him not to get excited.

"You are always talking about introducing your business methods into the army. As if that were possible! Why, the objects of the two things are entirely different. A business man is always looking for work; an officer is always trying to avoid it. If you neglect these principles, I can foresee an ignominious end in store for you, Barefoot, and Colonel Musgrave will trample on your corpse."

Now the thirty thousand Portuguese had been fed during their long voyage on tinned food; and as the transports' holds were being cleared, innumerable empty tins began to accumulate on the wharves. Barefoot and his men were ordered to gather these tins together into regular heaps. These grew so rapidly that the Mayor of the town was exceedingly concerned to see such a waste of space in a harbour already filled to bursting-point, and sent a pointed letter to Colonel Musgrave, asking him to find some other place for his empty tins.

Barefoot happened to speak of this difficulty one day to the business man at whose house he was billeted; and the latter told him that a process had recently been discovered by which old tins could be melted down and used again, and that a company had been floated to work out the scheme; they would be sure to purchase Colonel Musgrave's tins.

"Aurelle," he said to the interpreter, "let's write to this company immediately; we'll speak about it to the colonel when we get their reply."

The answer came by return; they were offered twenty francs per ton, carriage at the company's cost.

Barefoot explained his scheme to Colonel Musgrave with assumed modesty, adding that it would be a good thing to flatten out the tins before dispatching them, and that Sergeant Scott, who was a handy man, could easily undertake the job.

Three years' experience had taught Colonel Musgrave that the French Customs Service were always to be relied on.

"Kindly ask this gentleman whether the British Army, having imported tins with their contents without paying any duty, has the right to sell these tins empty in France?"

"No," answered the official, when the colonel's question had been translated to him, "there is an order from our headquarters about the matter. The British Army must not carry on any sale of metal on French soil."

"Thank him very much," said the colonel, satisfied.

"Now just look here," he said to Barefoot on returning, "what a nice mess you would have made if I hadn't known my business. Let this be a lesson to you. In future it will be better if you look after your men and leave the rest to me. As for the tins, I have thought of a solution which will satisfy everyone concerned."

"I beg to draw attention," the document ran, "to the excellent organization of the Supply arrangements. Thirty thousand men have been provided with rations in a harbour where no British base existed. This result is due especially to the organizing abilities displayed by Colonel A. C. Musgrave, C.M.G., D.S.O. . Although this officer has only recently been promoted, I consider it my duty to recommend him ..."

"What about Barefoot?" said Aurelle. "Couldn't he be made a captain?"

"Barefoot? That damned shopkeeper fellow whom Musgrave told me about? The man who wanted to introduce his methods into the army? He's a public danger, my boy! But I can propose your friend Major Baraquin for a C.M.G., if you like."

"Baraquin?" Aurelle exclaimed in turn. "Why, he always refused everything you asked him for."

"Yes," said the colonel; "he's not very easy to get on with; he doesn't understand things; but he's a soldier, every inch of him! I like old Baraquin!"

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