64 Cocktail for Memory^ 1914=1918 55
THE YPRES TIMES
The Army has not stood still since. Among us are those who could make Marco
Polo hide a modest head, and Munchausen believe his own tales. And how we love to
talk.
What matter though the tales be old We all know word for word what Dusty
not to be confused with Dapper Smith said to the Brigadier on the road to Rene-
scure. Nothing delights us more than to hear it all again from Dusty's own lips. We've
never yet got to the bottom of the great Arras Rum Scandal. But we recall as we look
at him the exact expression on Lackery Wood's face when he drew the cork and sipped
the creosote. And he had no right to the jar at all, anyway.
It's all over. Every day one or the .other of us sees his name in orders Dis
charged to Pension.' We're going to miss a lot find a lot changed. Even our time has
been Army time. Just sounded the Quarter nearly dismiss." We'll even
regret the Reveille sounded by a pestiferous boy Trumpeter.
There have been joys the civilian never knows joys we never admitted were such.
There is comfort in the pawing of horses in the stables below the barrack-rooms philo
sophic joy in hanging over the verandah watching new recruits at drill ecstasy in the
smell of wood fires at the end of a long day's manoeuvres.
The future A bit of a snag perhaps. We've had ample warning, and most of us
have managed to find a hole, which, if npt a better 'Ole will serve the purpose. Not
so easy to start a new life at forty. The Pension consoles us vastly. It won't be large,
but it's buckshee the Army's most delicious word. We feel we've won something
in the true soldier sense and off the Government at that.
The end comes in a final whirl of documents. Each of us has a red-covered official
discharge. Kew has sent buff unemployment cards Chelsea a blue pension paper.
Very inquisitive, is Chelsea. It refuses to pay a halfpenny unless we supply the Christian
names of father and mother, wife and children.
There have been sales of kit,' final settlements new quarters to seek a long
farewell to arms. Henceforth we shall be of those who emerge on Armistice Parade
Old Comrades' Sundays and the like, something for the young 'uns to wonder a little at.
A pension, a row of medals and our memories. These things make it worth while
especially the last.
A young corporal has said to me, wistfully, I thought We can never be quite
like you others we shall never have such memories to share."
Kitchener's First Hundred Thousand is disbanded at last. The War is really over.
(September Pilgrimage to Ypres).
By Rex Sargeant.
LAST September I paid a visit to the battlefields of the Western Front to see some
of the old haunts, and to.look on the graves of the men who stayed behind.'
There are many ex-service men who long to go, but are afraid of the difficulties.
These are purely imaginary if the pilgrini travels under the auspices of the Ypres League
whose genial representatives on both sides of the Channel have every detail worked out
to three decimal places. They are old soldiers "to the last man, and it was sheer delight
to talk to them of the days of the war to end war.'
I had to travel from the north, and, being alone, and somewhat shy with strangers,
I wondered what manner of people would make up the party. There was no need for
