THE YPRES TIMES
231
By Ian Hay.
MOST of us who served in the Ypres Salient will remember Zillebeke Lake
that big triangular reservoir with its apex pointing to Maple Copse and
Sanctuary Wood, and its base confronting the Lille Gate of Ypres, some
thousand yards away. I spent nearly three months without a break in the dug-outs
in the dam at the foot of the lake, in 1915. We were a Scottish Brigade Headquarters.
Our little Messthere were only five of ushad decided that if the Boche was
on his good behaviour (or as near to good behaviour as a Boche can hope to get) on
Saint Andrew's Night, we would have a Saint Andrew's Dinner. So we resolved
ourselves into a Dinner Committee of five, with the Brigadier as Honorary Chairman.
The Committee commenced its labours by sending home for a haggis. The next
item on the agenda was the selection of the most suitable solvent for haggis. The
light wine of our native land was unobtainable; in fact, our only available beverage
was Rum, Service, Diluted. This the Wine Committee (the Staff Captain and the
Signal Officer) condemned as too crude an accompaniment to such a delicate dish.
Suddenly the Brigade Machine Gun Officer (myself) remembered that in a
former age he had been Secretary to a College Club in Cambridge, which had been
accustomed, once a fortnight, to gather round a mahogany table for the purpose of
indulging in harmony and drinking some rather innocuous milk punch. I may add
that it was part of the Secretary's dutyin fact, all of the Secretary's duty—to make
the punch. So I volunteered to brew a bowl for the feast. The offer was accepted
—with the stipulation that I drank the first glass.
The difficulty was to obtain all the necessary componentsnamely, rum, brandy,
milk, sugar, lemon-peel, and the yolks of six eggsrather a large order when you
are living within eight hundred yards of the enemy's front line. Our one certainty,
thanks to the infallibility of the Army Service Corps, was the rum ration. I com
mandeered the entire Mess allowance for three days, and then set out to accumulate
the remaining ingredients. Sugar was obtained by cajolery from the Quartermaster-
Sergeant; milk was provided by that benevolent Swiss neutral, Mr. Nestle. The
Brigade Interpreter, the only member of the Mess whose duty permitted him to leave
the trenches, set off on a foraging expedition to the farms in rear of us, and returned
with five assorted eggs. Lemons were unobtainable, but a spoonful of lime-juice
made a fair substitute.
Our most insuperable difficulty was the brandy. Here the silent strong man of
the Mess (the Brigade Major) came to our rescue. He seldom spoke, but when he
did he was usually worth listening to. On the evening of the twenty-ninth of
November, during the final sitting of the Dinner Committee, he spoke for the first
time
"Divisional Headquarters have plenty. They always have plenty. I will send
to them for some."
The following afternoon, during the usual three o'clock bombardment by the
enemy of the cross-roads which lay between us and the Lille Gate, a motor-cyclist
was observed riding furiously from the direction of Ypres. He dashed across the
cross-roads, neatly timing the interval between two German shells, and finally drew
up, all standing, at our dug-out entrance and delivered into my hands half a bottle
of brandy.
The component parts of our evening's brew being now all present and correct,
I set to work and made the punch, in a tin wash-hand basinthe necessary heat was
supplied by a bucket of coke. Then, when we had eaten our haggis, we drank the
punch. It was much criticisedbut finished.