"AFTER MANY DAYS."

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16168, 23 March 1918, Page 10

"AFTER MANY DAYS."

CHy Lievt. J. P. Lloyd.l

'•March to attention!' 1 The shout, caught up by company after company, was flung from one end of tho dusty battalion to the ether. The tired men lifted their rifles from their shoulders and tightened tho slings. Lnfinished cigarettes were pinche:! economically between finger and thumb, and transferred to pocket or cap for use on a luturo occasion. As the head of the column entered the village, the band struck up tlio regimental march. The sound was like some quickening wine to the weary soldiers. Blistered feet and heavy packs were all forgotten for the moment. drooping shoulders were squared, dull eyes gleamed with a new light. The long march was nearly over. The Land wheeled and hailed in the c-jbblad market square still playing, and each company, its steaming cooker rumbling in its wake, marchod off in search of its billets. If was very like home tn us, this pleasant little French yillage, with its cobWcd street, its church guarded by a sentinel line of tall poplars, and tho o)d mi!) perched above the stecpy r,-atcrs (f the quiet stream. Wo had seen many things sinco that sunny day in early .Tune when y,-e had marched out of it- with our faces turned towards the south. Since then we had played our little part in winning a fow squarn miles of tortured France from the hands of the unwilling German. They had been hard days of training and marching and fighting, with tho shadow of death always hovering closo abovo us. We were by no means the same battalion that had crossed the Channel a full year ago, nor ovon tho same battalion that went down tho north to win its spurs in Picardy. There were many gaps in the ranks, manv now faces round toe tables in the officers' messes, many a friend whom wo had left, with a rough wooden cross to mark the spot where he fell, in th« stricken country about Mametz and Montauban. When the business of settling my platoon into its new billots had boon satisfactorily completed, I strolled back towards the farmhouse on tho outskirts of tho yillage, which was A Company's headquarters. The street was already filling with soldiers, who walked in twos nnd thrers, pausing now and then to look in at the shop windows, or to renew acquaintances of former days. Through the opon door of 1 the restaurant at the corner, which bore the optimistic _ title of "A la Reunion des Veloeopodistes," groups of weary warriors could he seen, s'tting at the littl-3 round tables. A little further on, where a board nailed to the door of an empty house announced that here was tho medical inspection room, a small queue of "sick" awaited th<nr turn to receive the attention of the M.O. Outside the door "of a small cottage I caught sight of the 11.5.M., the great' man, in whose presence orderly sergeants trembled, and at whose frown a fatigue party would move mountains. He was sitting on a bench smoking his pipe, with one plump ehorub on each pulling at his shining buttons with their tiny hands. Thp tiny battalion had begun to settle down.

"When I arrived at the little farmhouse, I found that Madame had prepared omelettes, and got out her best china in honour of our return. "Wo sat down to tea to the accompaniment of much gossip from the good lady as she bustled in and out with the dishes, and a drumfire of questions from P'tit Jean, who was oighfc years old, and wished he -was eighteen. He showed , us a little wooden sword,, which he'told I lis. ho had sharpened ready for the Boche, if. he should come. He was almost disappointed when we assured him that- there was not much chanco of that. • The only thing he yearns for is "Rosalie." War is a great game to him, the greatest game of all. Presently Madame came in witK a, small parcel, carefully -wrapped up in paper. Taking: off the coverings, she disclosed a stained briar pipe, black with age. She explained that it had been Jftft behind "when -wo moved. "C'etait a I'officer qui avait tonjours nn Briile-peuelc (short pipe) entre lea dents." She looked up as she spoke, and, with a "wom&n's intuition, read thn answer in our faces. "N'est ce ou'il est mort? Le pauvre petit! Mais e'est la merre, n'est ce- pas, Messieurs?" Tfc is a wonderful thira; that simple philosophy of the French peasantry. "C'est la guerre, messieurs." Then she -wrapped up that old pipe once wore in its faded paper covering, touching it almost reverently with her rough hands.

After tea we sat on chairs outside tho billet, and watched the autumn afternoon fade into ( twilight, and the twilight grow into night. Far away over the flat fields towards the east, ■where the trendies lay, an occasional gun lifted up its voice in its evensong of hate, and the white star-shell began to float down the sky. We felt in the mood of the old Roman,, who thought it good "to stand upon the shore, and ivatch ships toss the sea." Tomorrow night we- might he in the trenches ourselves, but to-night we had beds to sleep in and a roof over our heads. To-morrow night—hut ■why worry about to-morrow night?