PANTOMIME AT THE FRONT.

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

PANTOMIME AT THE FRONT.

(From Philip Gibbs.) j WAR CORRESPONDENTS' HEAD-; QUARTERS. FRANCE, ! January lb. j There i K nothing of figlii-ing to record | cxccpt small 'affairs of body-grabbing, i and this inactivity is encouraged by the j state of the ground, after snowstorms i and rainstorms. There is a gale sweep- J ing across the country now, with a wild j howl in the w'nd. and ihe floods in the j flats and marshes are ruffled by it. So . our men are making the most of their j rest by every kind of game that goes J into a'back yard, or a billet, or a field behind the lines. Officers and men are reviving the parlour games of their boyhood—not a very ancient memory for sonm of them—and gallant fellows who assaulted German pill-boxes under ma-c-hinc-gtin lire chnlLnge each other to fero. ious encounters ot ping-pong and j badminton, and tho meu who dribbled a ) football to Loos through a barrage ot | high explcsivcs —that ivas niorc than ; two years ago —are now kicking the ball between the goal-posts on a muddy field, and cheering as loudly for victory, as though they had overthrown the Gorman Empire. "We mu>t have a little bit of sport now and ' said a London mail to me as a kind of apology for the wi;ld{ humours of his comrades, on a day of goo J fun between tho fighting, and I siid, "The more tlir> merrier." The Higher Command s:es the force of this', and encoi'.rage.s in every way the provision of recreation for the troops by bands and cinema shows, theatrical onterlainmonts, and games of any old sort. Every division has its '"Follies" and "Frolics," and companies of players, and because the uati: n has come into the Army we have grc.it talent out here in funny fellows and musicians who can draw tears from a quartermaster-scr-sergeant—which wants a lot of doing — and vocalists who will sing you Fongs of Arcady in places that have been knocked to hell by shell tire. The other'night I went to the Thcatro Royal on the Wostern front. "Robinson Crusoe" was on tho bill, as performed by some of his Majesty's players who wear kilts when they are not in fancy and belong to a division with'whom the enemy is most intimately acquainted. The Theatre Royal of the Western front is a famous and distinguished house, though slightly in need cf decoration and repairs, owing to the ventilation of its root by shell lire, ior these little accidents will happen, even in war-time. But it presented a brilliant aspect the other night, and was quito an historic scone. In the .Royal box, with its tattered brocade and tarnished gilding there was a party of generals and Staff officers, and tho dress circle was filled with regimental officers who a week or two ago were staring at snow scenes in No Man's Land, and saying "A Merry Christmas, I don't think." The stalls were crowded with men of many battalions, English. Scottish, and Irish, gunners and engineers, signallers, and machine-gun companies.

LADIES IX THE AUJMENCE. But what was most thrilling in the sccno was the presence oi two ladies in the stage bos. sitting on either sidft of a gallant officer in his "stink-coat"' or ''hairy." They were real ladies, and not soldiors in disguise, to give an extra touch of splendour to the scene. For three gears'and more they had been living underground, coming up for light and air between storms of high explosives, but now they had put on evening dress and looko:l like dowager-duchesses at Covent Garden after a, robbery of their jewels. Jt was very pleasant to have them there, and as they could not understand a word of the performance there was no need for the funny men to restrain the exuberance cf their liumour, which to very convenient. Down below the footlights the stringed orchestra played delightfully, and a fellow in the corner with the tenor drums had a number of subsidiary instruments for rag-time effects which thrilled the hpusc, especially when he made a whole choir of birds sing to a solo by Robinson, Orusoe, with a background of palm trees and sun-splashed islands, painted by a non-commission-ed officer with beauty in his brush. Robinson Crusoe was a "one pip" man who deserves crossed swords ior the amount of pleasure he has given to great numbers of men by training his company how to fight the enemy of depression. Polly Perkins, with hor rosebud mouth and coy ways, was as pretty a child as you could find in any company of kilted men after sligtit alterations by the make-up expert; and Mrs Cinisoe. who comes from Glasgow, with striped stockings and a strong acccnt. and a weakness for unsweetened gin. had a sense of humour which would bring a smile to the face of a German cololiel in a prisoners' cage— which is not easy. lam bound to say, however, vvith due acknowledgments to two funny sailormen and the Man Friday, '.nd a young seaman with a voice like the west wind in a song by Shelley, that my fancy was particularly taken by a comedian with a face of most whimsical variety. He had strange, mirthprovoking gestures and a sense of life s little ironies in war time so sharp that it cut the ground between one's feet. He is a man of distinguished family, and has as his crest "Four sergeantmajors rampant on a field of as-you-were." The audience of soldiers— men just out of the line—roared with laughter for two hours. * After the theatre I went to dinner with the same crowd that celebrated Hogmanay night in the caves 100 yards from the German line. They have made me an honorary member of their mess, and I have had no greater honour. It was a great dinner, ilia Germans were 400 yards away from the pipes on Hogmanay night, but I was only three inches away, when nine rail and prooer men, with the pipes fiuns? across thoir shoulders, came marching in, and stood .behind the long table where thirty officers sat in the old panelled room. It was stirring music, a little alarming to the ears at first, until a Saxon got ouito u;?pd to it. iy,;t very glorious and filled with the heriic spirit of Scotland, with the _ haunting memories of many gallant ghosts and t.he sadness of old. far-off times. ~>:e Scottish officers around mc„ with the lamplight on their faces and shadows about them, in this room gave sh"='! cries and applauded after each march and each strathspey. After that there were Highland danced to the rippling notes of n clarinet played by an officer who bad the greatest endurance in wind-power of any man I have ever met, and I watched the eightsome with ftuvy, r.ecause of its spirit and vitality ind joyovsness, as danced by officers who pnt their souls in it and challenged each other with wild barbaric cries and with a shining light in their eye.s. though there was only one ennd'e 'n the room, and the panelled walls seemed tn recede from us into the shadowworld. These men are the fighting men. They arc waiting, like hundreds of thousands more, for the fate of tbis year to declare its hand, and for new battles to begin. Meanwhile thoy are glad of the. rest behind the lines, and fill every hour of it with as much fun as they can grab out of the luck of life.