‘“Oh, yes, Colonel,” says the Major. “I too will be lucky if I am not court-martialled. Our orders were as severe as yours.” So they laughed like crows together.
‘Putzi was the most envied man in France that day: going back under safe escort to a prison camp in Blighty. And the Colonel told the Major: “I congratulate you on that soldier. He wouldn’t give away a thing!”
‘At four o’clock sharp we broke it off; but the two officers waited a bit longer to see that everyone got back. But no, young Stan, that’s not the end of the story! I had a bloke in my platoon called Gipsy Smith, a dark-faced, dirty soldier, and a killer. He’d been watching the fun from the nearest sap-head, and no sooner had the Major turned his back than Gipsy aimed at his head and tumbled him over.
‘The first I knew of it was a yell of rage from everyone all round me. I see Colonel Pomeroy run up to the Major, shouting for stretcher-bearers. Them Fritzes must have thought the job was premeditated, because when our stretcher-bearers popped out of the trench, they let ’em have it and hit one bloke in the leg. His pal popped back again.
‘That left the Colonel alone in No-man’s land. He strolled calmly towards the German trenches, his hands in his pockets – being too proud to raise them over his head. A couple of Fritzes fired at him, but both missed. He stopped at their wire and shouted: “West Saxons, my men had strict orders not to fire. Some coward has disobeyed. Please help me carry the Major’s body back to your trenches! Then you can shoot me, if you like; because I pledged my word that there’d be no fighting.”
‘The Fritzes understood, and sent stretcher-bearers out. They took the Major’s body back through a crooked lane in their wire, and Colonel Pomeroy followed them. A German officer bandaged the Colonel’s eyes as soon as he got into the trench, and we waited without firing a shot to see what would happen next. That was about four o’clock, and nothing did happen until second watch. Then we see a flashlight signalling, and presently the Colonel comes back, quite his usual self.
‘He tells us that, much to his relief, Gipsy’s shot hadn’t killed the Major but only furrowed his scalp and knocked him senseless. He’d come to after six hours, and when he saw the Colonel waiting there, he’d ordered his immediate release. They’d shaken hands again, and said: “Until after the war!”, and the Major gives the Colonel his flashlight.
‘Now the yarn’s nearly over, Stan, but not quite. News of the truce got round, and General Haig ordered first an Inquiry and then a Court Martial on Colonel Pomeroy. He wasn’t shot, of course; but he got a severe reprimand and lost five years’ seniority. Not that it mattered, because he got shot between the eyes in the 1916 Delville Wood show where I lost my foot.
‘As for Gipsy Smith, he said he’d been obeying Haig’s strict orders not to fraternize, and also he’d felt bound to avenge a brother killed at Loos. “Blood for blood,” he said, “is our gipsy motto.” So we couldn’t do nothing but show what we thought by treating him like the dirt he was. And he didn’t last long. I sent Gipsy back with the ration party on Boxing Night. We were still keeping up our armed truce with the Saxons, but again their gunners weren’t a party to it, and outside the Quartermaster’s hut Gipsy got his backside removed by a piece of howitzer shell. Died on the hospital train, he did.
‘Oh, I was forgetting to tell you that no sparrows came for biscuit crumbs that Christmas. The birds had all cleared off months before.
‘Every year that war got worse and worse. Before it ended, nearly three years later, we’d have ten thousand officers and men pass through that one battalion, which was never at more than the strength of five hundred rifles. I’d had three wounds by 1916; some fellows got up to six before it finished. Only Dodger here came through without a scratch. That’s how he got his name, dodging the bullet that had his name and number on it. The Armistice found us at Mons, where we started. There was talk of “Hanging the Kayser”; but they left him to chop wood in Holland instead. The rest of the Fritzes had their noses properly rubbed in the dirt by the Peace Treaty. But we let them re-arm in time for a second war, Hitler’s war, which is how your Dad got killed. And after Hitler’s war there’d have been a third war, just about now, which would have caught you, Stanley my lad, if it weren’t for that blessed bomb you’re asking me to march against.
‘Now, listen, lad: if two real old fashioned gentlemen like Colonel Pomeroy and Major Coburg – never heard of him again, but I doubt if he survived, having the guts he had – if two real men like them two couldn’t hope for a third Christmas Truce in the days when “mankind”, as you call ’em was still a little bit civilized, tell me, what can you hope for now?
‘Only fear can keep the peace,’ I said. ‘The United Nations are a laugh, and you know it. So thank your lucky stars that the Russians have H-bombs and that the Yanks have H-bombs, stacks of ’em, enough to blow your “mankind” up a thousand times over; and that everyone’s equally respectful of everyone else, though not on regular visiting terms.’
I stopped, out of breath, and Dodger takes Stan by the hand. ‘You know what’s right for you, lad?’ he says. ‘So don’t listen to your Granddad. Don’t be talked out of your beliefs! He’s one of the Old and Bold, but maybe he’s no wiser nor you and I.’
My Best Christmas
‘QUEEN VICTORIA WAS still alive that Christmas, and I was four and a half years old.’
‘Who was she exactly? Queen Elizabeth’s grandmother?’
‘No: great-great-grandmother.’
‘Wow ! Do you remember her?’
‘Yes: a fat little lady in black riding through the Park with an escort of Lifeguardsmen – her open barouche drawn by two splendid high-stepping grey horses, and the band playing: “Make way, make way, for the rowdy-dowdy boys”.’
‘Barouche?’
‘Yes: no cars in those days. The streets cobbled, and so filthy with horse-droppings and mud that everyone wore boots. Ragged boys with dirty faces used to sweep the crossings with brooms, and beg for halfpennies. Sometimes they turned cartwheels to attract attention.’
‘Wow! How ancient you are! Where did you spend that Christmas?’
‘At home, near Wimbledon Common. A big house with twenty-five rooms and a coal cellar. But no electric light or lift, or vacuum cleaner, or refrigerator, or radio, or telly. Only rather dim gas-lamps, and coal fires, and a grand piano.’
‘Were Christmas trees invented then?’
‘Yes, Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert the Good, brought them in from Germany… We always had a big one in the drawing room. The same coloured glass decorations lasted year after year – never got broken. Things were made to last in those days and people treated them more carefully… We children always waited outside in the dark, cold hall for an hour or so, telling ghost stories, while Mother and Father dressed the tree and sorted out the presents.’
‘Were they hung on the tree?’
‘No: each of us had a chair or a sofa or small table, covered with a white linen cloth, and the presents laid out on it. But when at last the door opened and we rushed in and the tree blazed out at us like the Jewelled Garden of Paradise, we had to join hands first and sing: “O Come All Ye Faithful”. Mother accompanied us on the piano with the loud pedal pressed hard down. At the foot of the tree was a Crypt – with St Joseph and the Virgin and the Christ Child and the ox and ass, and the Three Wise Men. Then Father Christmas knocked at the french window leading to the garden, and came in. He waved his hand at us and told us his reindeer were stabled at the “Swan” just across the road and wished us a happy Christmas. He complained of the cold so much that my father poured him a glass of cherry brandy. He drank it noisily and went out again into the thick fog, shouting: “See you again next century!” That’s how I can fix the date: 1899!’
‘Tell me about your presents.’
‘I got a musical box that played “Home Sweet Home”, and two boxes of soldiers – the Royal Fusiliers and the Egyptian Camel Corps – and a toy helmet and a toy drum, and a praye
r-book in red morocco leather, and a painting book, and a clockwork horse.’
‘You’re making it up, aren’t you?’
‘No; I remember the list because soon afterwards I was taken away to a scarlet-fever hospital and my mother had most of my toys burned. The doctor said they were infectious for the baby. But my favourite sister hid the helmet and drum in the tool shed, and used to play with them sadly when her nurse wasn’t about.’
‘Did you believe in Father Christmas?’
‘Yes, until the Mix-up Christmas (I’ll tell you about that later), although he wore the same boots as Uncle Charles. But he hadn’t such importance in those days as the advertisements have built up now. Christmas wasn’t just fun and games. It was Jesus’s Birthday, on which we gave one another birthday presents – a day of thanking God and being especially kind to everyone. We emptied out our money-boxes for the presents. I remember we always used to give the cook and the parlour-maid scented soap, at 2d. a cake… We got a penny a week in those days, and occasional tips from uncles and aunts.’
‘A penny a week; sounds sort of stingy… Did you hang up your stockings?’
‘We did, and anyone who had been naughty that winter got coal instead of almonds, raisins, apples, tangerines, a negro-teeth puzzle, and white sugar mice with pink eyes and string tails.’
‘Wow! Did you often get coal?’
‘Never. I was always as good as Prince Albert.’
‘Ha, ha! What happened on Christmas Day?’
‘We dressed up and went to church, which was decorated with chrysanthemums and holly. But the vicar wouldn’t allow mistletoe; he said it was frivolous. Then back to Christmas dinner. The whole family was there: five boys (counting the baby), four girls, and Uncle Charles who couldn’t spend Christmas at home because Aunt Alice had left him. Yes, turkey, plum-pudding and mince pies had been invented. In fact our cook had once been cook to General Gordon and used a plum-pudding recipe in his own hand-writing.’
‘Who was General Gordon?’
‘The Dervishes killed him at Khartoum. I once showed you the scene at Madame Tussaud’s.’
‘Did you? I don’t remember. Go on with the story.’
‘Then we pulled crackers, and put on coloured caps and asked one another riddles…’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as: “Why did Kruger wear thick boots?”’
‘Who was Kruger?’
‘President of the South African Republic. The Boer War had been on for two years that Christmas and every streetboy was whistling the song:
Good bye, Dolly, I must leave you
Though it breaks my heart to go
– Something tells me I am needed,
At the Front to fight the foe.
But nobody got called up; and it wasn’t much of a war. Life went on as usual. Bombs and tanks and planes hadn’t been invented yet.’
‘But why did Kruger wear thick boots?’
‘To keep De Wet off defeat.’
‘I don’t dig you.’
‘De Wet was one of Kruger’s generals.’
‘Anyhow, what did you do that evening?’
‘We went to a special children’s service at the Parish Church: cinemas hadn’t been invented, you see.’
‘Then why was it your best Christmas?’
‘Because it was the reallest.’
‘Oh!… What’s happened to the Wimbledon house?’
‘Sold and cut up into six flats… I suppose six small families live in them now, and on Christmas Eve there’ll be six tiny Christmas trees lighted – probably the artificial wire- and grocer’s-grass sort that fold up, with a little string of coloured electric light bulbs tied on… And a couple of elderly baby-sitters will be drinking sherry there and listening to the carol-singers on TV, while the young folk go off somewhere to dance.’
‘Well, I daresay that’s a bit more fun than singing hymns to a grand piano and asking riddles. By the way: if I’m still on your Santa list what I want is a really good set of bongo-drums… Oh, and you had something to say about a Mix-up?’
‘Yes, two years later – when Uncle Charles came in by one door and said he was Father Christmas, and Uncle Bob came in by the other, just after Uncle Charles had gone, and said he was Santa Claus.’
‘Wow!’
No, Mac, It Just Wouldn’t Work
A WILD CHARACTER, obviously high and wearing a Mexican hat, though he wasn’t Mexican but, in fact, Boston Irish (which can be just as wild), edged up to me at the Green Hornet the other night and said abruptly:
‘Speaking out, I mean, Professor… it’s quite simple really… millions of poor devils starving in India and Africa and China and such places. Millions of them! Grant me that for the sake of the argument.’
‘Granted, Mex. What’s your problem?’
‘And all the thousands of gangsters and delinquents and violent no-gooders in our big cities, grant me them?’
‘Granted, Mex, for the sake of your argument. Go ahead!’
‘And hundreds of Federal ships tied up empty in the Hudson, waiting for God only knows what. Grant me –’
‘I’m a stranger here,’ I said cautiously. ‘English. But you may be right. There’s always marginal tonnage lying around the ports, except in wartime. When freight rates rise, it can amount to a lot.’
‘And all the farm surplus that we either hoard or destroy because nobody here can eat it all, and because the poor starving devils abroad can’t pay for it! And all the criminal waste here in New York and the other big cities – enough to feed and clothe millions!’
‘I’ve read of that, Mex. Speak on!’
‘And all those philanthropic Christian and Jewish do-gooders and Peace Corps characters who want to prevent crime, starvation, idleness – the lot?’
‘I seem to have met most of them,’ I agreed.
The barman said: ‘All granted, mac, but what the hell? All this don’t hurt you none, surely?’
Mex said: ‘Sure, it hurts me as a human being. I’ve got a Mexican conscience or something and I ask myself: Why can’t we put the Christian and Jewish do-gooders in charge of the delinquent no-gooders? Why not give the no-gooders a grand job, which would be to load those idle boats – or marginal tonnage, as the Prof calls them – with surplus food and clothing and city waste, and make men of the no-gooders and send them sailing over the wide ocean with gifts for the poor starving devils abroad? Sure, then everyone would feel good? What’s amiss with that for a solution?’
‘No, mac,’ said the barman. ‘It just wouldn’t work. The Long-shoremen’s union and the Seafarers’ union and the Teamsters’ union would raise hell. And you’ve got to respect big business. Big business wouldn’t stand for any of that, even to save the world from communism – no more than the unions wouldn’t. Free gifts destroy markets, don’t you see?’
‘But there’s no market there, anyway. Those poor devils have no cash, so they have to starve. Only pump them up and they’ll start producing again and have money to throw around.’
‘And put us Americans out of jobs by undercutting prices?’ sneered the barman. ‘No, mac, it just wouldn’t work. Forget it! What do you think, Professor?’
‘I’m with you,’ I said. ‘Nothing sensible and simple ever works: because nobody thinks sensibly or simply. In the end, of course, something snaps and then you have a recession or a war, which changes the problem.’
Mex grinned: ‘Then, Prof, why can’t you university guys teach our Government and big business how to think that way?’
That was easy to answer. ‘Because the university guys here, and everywhere else, depend for their easy life on money grants from the Government and big business. So they teach students not to think out of the ordinary rut. Any teacher who gets out of step has to think stupid or be fired.’
‘You, too, Prof?’
I changed the subject. ‘What’s your job these days, Mex?’
‘Selling encyclopedias. But I don’t wear this hat on duty.’
r /> ‘Good encyclopedias?’
‘I wouldn’t call them good, Prof. Every time I look up a subject I know something about – haven’t we all our own little private pools of knowledge? – by God, it’s always wrong. Like news reports about suicides in your own street: all slanted.’
‘How do you account for that, Mex?’
‘I guess the editors don’t pay the writers enough.’
‘Might be. I don’t know about the States, but nowadays in England the editors expect learned men to feel honoured by contributing, and offer them around five dollars a thousand words. That was all right fifty years ago, but now learned men are too busy teaching or researching or advising the government to accept the honour. So the editors hire hacks for the job, and the encyclopedias go downhill, and the honour is every year less of an honour.’
‘Why don’t they raise their fees?’
‘That would make the encyclopedia too expensive.’
‘Too bad,’ said the barman frowning.
‘Well,’ I said grimly, ordering three whisky sours – the third one for an old Negro with a flattened nose and cauliflower ears, an ex-fighter who had joined us. ‘Speaking out, it’s quite simple, really. There’s thousands of clever, industrious graduate students at hundreds of universities, all in need of doctorates in history or philosophy or literature or medicine or something – to give them a higher academic grade and raise their income level. Grant me them for the sake of my argument.’