Towards the end of it our kind and deservedly
popular C.O. Captain Fleming, R.A.M.C., paid us a visit, with a civilian
doctor and the two nurses. The Captain made us a little speech and
informed us that the Queen had sent her best Christmas wishes to the
troops. We then cheered her Majesty, and Captain Fleming and Dr. Waters
and the nurses, and our visitors left us to enjoy the rest of the
evening as we liked.
After various toasts--the Queen, our General, Absent Friends and so
on--several comrades from other corps dropped in and every one was
called upon for a song. It is curious to find the extraordinary
popularity amongst soldiers of lugubrious and doleful songs. The
majority of our songs at that Christmas dinner dealt with graves and the
flowers that grew upon them, on the death of soldiers and the grief of
parents. One song, I remember, was almost ludicrously sad. It told how
a young soldier on active service in the Sudan or some other distant
region hears, apparently by telepathic means, that his mother--the
conventional grey-haired mother--is in some distress. The soldier at
once, without any attempt to secure leave of absence, sets out for
"home" on foot. He is brought back, and, as the excuse about his mother
is very naturally discredited, the deserter is sentenced to be shot.
Just as his lifeless body falls back riddled with bullets the mother
arrives--how, it is not explained--so, as the refrain has it, "The
Pardon comes too late".
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