The Army of a Dream

PART I

I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.

* * * * *

It was entirely natural that I should be talking to "Boy" Bayley. We had met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think he stayed a long, long time.

But now he had come back.

"Are you still a Tynesider?" I asked.

"I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son," he replied.

"Guard which? They've been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don't pull my leg, Boy."

"I said Guard, not Guard-s. The I. G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters. Does that make it any clearer?"

"Not in the least."

"Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren't a step from barracks. Keep on my right side. I'm — I'm a bit deaf on the near."

We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied pile, which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I could see no sentry at the gates.

"There ain't any," said the Boy lightly. He led me into a many-tabled restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of the room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.

"Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves. These are our chaps — but what am I thinking of? You must know most of 'em. Devine's my second in command now. There's old Luttrell — remember him at Cherat? — Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him), Harrison, Pigeon, and Kyd."

With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not remember that they had all been Tynesiders.

"I've never seen this sort of place," I said, looking round. "Half the men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children doing?"

"Eating, I hope," Boy Bayley answered. "Our canteens would never pay if it wasn't for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started people looked on 'em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or two to lunch in 'em, and they've been grossly fashionable since."