THE " CAMOUFLAGE " SOLDIER.

[CoMMuxICATED.]

IARRIVED at a certain place in France, cross, tired, and dirty. My efforts were directed to rejoining my unit, which I had left some six months before, owing to a piece of shrapnel intended for our enemies embedding itself in my right leg. I was sufficiently recovered to be anxious to see my old surviving friends, but not well enough to appreciate the humour of the R.T.O.'s, Town Majors, and others of the same profession. The R.T.O. at our particular station, who was considerably my junior in rank, but apparently did not know it, or anything about trains either, turned me over to the Town Major, who lived some miles away. I reported myself to the Town Major, who was a most genial old gentleman, but knew less about trains than the R.T.O., and the end of the meeting was a little set speech by the old gentleman to the effect that, if I wanted to, I could go to the nearest camp, five miles away, for a bed, and for food— well, I should have to feed myself, and, in the far and distant future, by writing letters might recover three francs a day from the Government. The Town Major coughed after this speech and said : " I shouldn't recommend it, you know, and, by the way, the Grande Couronne is the best hotel ; you can do it for 15 francs a day en pension there, but of course you can't claim any allowance from the Government."

I thanked the old gentleman and went to the Grande Couronne- my mind was at rest. There had been a time when I was nearly anxious to lay down my life on the altar of my country, but if R.T.O.'s and Town Majors forbade it, I felt it was not for me to complain, and I determined to hibernate till either my name turned up before the astonished R.T.O., or I was finally lost in the simplified card-index system, in which case I should see the end of the war from the security of a nice hotel in Central France and fight my battles daily over a glass of Kimmel at one of the little tables in the neighbouring cafe. Thus soliloquizing, I passed through the portals of the Grande Couronne, and, advancing to the office, asked in my best French for a room ; but Madame shrugged her shoulders and Said she was utterly grieved to say there were no rooms left. I perceived how the R.T.O. and the Town Major, by losing the train of the day before yesterday in the fearful time-table they both in vain tried to fathom, not yet having discovered the train that started next week, were unwittingly filling Madame's rooms, and at the same time extracting 15 francs a day from officers whose total income would not have lasted them at this rate, with extras, for more than a few months. Personally, I didn't care, but I saw only one cause for hope amongst the group of officers round the fire of ever getting even with the Government, and that was that Madame having made them overdraw at Cox's, a machine-gun bullet might catch them before sufficient pay had accumulated to make good the deficiency in their account at that celebrated bank.

Turning on my heel, with protestations of thanks to Madame, I made for the door. I never reached the exit, however, as some one took my elbow, and, turning round, I found a little man in a trench coat covered with mud, who said : " If you don't mind, I'll share my room with you." Now, I don't like sharing a room with any one, but this offer was made with such genuine kindness and per- suasion that I immediately agreed, and shortly the little man and I were ushered into a room with two beds. The porter bowed himself out and left us alone. The little man began to strut about the room and harangue me on the iniquities of the R.T.O.'s and Town Majors, and I tried in vain to guess his rank. He looked about forty and had a Napoleonic cast of countenance. " Here I am," he said, " anxious to get back to the front. Haven't had leave for nine months. Just returned from an inspection at the base. Seven hundred men waiting for me, with no orders to carry on, and the R.T.O.'s and Town Majors, who have never seen a shot fired, do everything to dislocate my work. I shall report them when I get back to Divisional Headquarters." I was sympathetic and atten- tive, and thought my happy fate was leading me to sleep with a Brigadier or some one of equal importance. " Here in this town," he said, " are Majors seventeen days overdue from leave. An officer was put under arrest yesterday by telegram from his C.O. because the R.T.O. could not find a train. But, bad as that is, think of my case. I am Headquarters Staff, and the R.T.O. would not listen to me. It is dreadful. I shall telegraph to the Major- General."

While this harangue proceeded I began to wash and prepare for

dinner, and on fuming round perceived my little friend had pro- duced a map. Laying it on the table, he said : " Perhaps you would

• care to see how we are doing ' up there.' " He jerked his head in a vague way which gave me the feeling that he came from a land of horrors, where life was uncertain and death stared you in the face at every turn. I bent over the map with genuine interest, and with

bold strokes of his rather dirty finger he pointed out the line we held in September, how we -took this and that trench, and finally the

secret of the present line, and that in the greatest confidence.

" Here, you see," he said, " we enfiladed them, there we outflanked them." The gestures were Napoleonic, and the passing over of

mere detail for salient broad fact impressed me immensely. I saw

under his coat a row of ribbons denoting reckless courage, knowledge of his profession, and possibly one or two of a mere decorative kind.

" I might wear red tabs," he remarked, " but I won't. Why ? Well, because people laugh at tabs, I mean the fellows in the trenches, so I just don't wear them. I think it is more distinguished. These

R.T.O.'s and Commandants, they don't know the horrors of trench warfare, do they ? " " I don't know," I replied. " Some have seen service, I suppose." " But not up there," he said, and jerked his head again in that suggestive way. " No, perhaps not," I answered guardedly.

I now left the room on my way to dinner, and was beginning to enjoy some potage a in bonne femme when across the room I saw my little friend advancing. He had no trench coat on, and on his sleeve was the emblem which no commissioned rank salutes. Also as he advanced he rubbed his hands together and with an ingratiating smile seated himself opposite me. I suppose I looked surprised, as he immediately broke out : " Yes, I know I have only one pip, but I shall be in to-morrow's Gazette for my third pip. You know the General calls me one of his boys, and he said to me the other day : `Jones, my boy, you have saved the country a hundred thousand pounds ; you shall have your third pip, and any decoration you like.' I think the Military Cross is too common," said Jones, condescendingly. " I like the D.S.O., but on the whole I think the M.V.O. is most distinguished. What do you think ? " I answered that decorations did not seem to come my way, and I didn't know much about them. " Wait till you get up there," he said myste- riously, " you can't miss one—if you come through—that's the rub, if you come through," he said gloatingly. Thoroughly mystified, I said : " By the way, I didn't catch your name." " Jones," he replied with dignity. " And what is your job ? " I asked humbly. " Oh, I am Headquarters Staff," he said. " I am salvage officer. I run the camouflage factory. I make things appear to be what they are not—I make sham trees, dummy sandbags, my business is to fool people with clever imitations, and I do it very well." And Jones's eyes twinkled. " Don't you know the word t Why, it's French, or was once, but I think in years to come if you want to apply an adjective to something deceptive, something that takes you in, you'll call it ' a camouflage' so-and-so. We camouflage our trenches now, when we cover them with wire, and then put grass on them. Later on we shall camouflage our thoughts. Politicians won't talk with their intimate friends of how to conceal their actions, but how to camouflage them. You note what I say, that word will become part of the English language." " How very interesting," I said. " Tell me about it." And he did.

His, story was really most interesting : how he buried the countless dead of all nationalities, indiscriminately, but with reverence ; how he sorted the equipment scattered on the field of battle; how factories of his design cleaned these equipments and fresh soldiers marched in equipments snatched from the gravedigger and used again and again. There was a grandeur in his story, combined with a great consideration for the taxpayer. I was frankly fascinated by his account of how, after the war, he would make his already vast fortune greater by taking contracts for clearing up the country for the French Government, and as I slept in the bed next to him I wondered why we did not choose our Generals more freely from among such men as Jones. For two days we had our meals together, and daily he harangued the Town Major on the urgency of- his return to the front, and finally on the third day he rushed into our room and said the General was sending a car for him, and that after lunch that day I would see him no more as he was so urgently needed at the front. When lunch came I missed the solitary pip opposite me, and concluded that the oar had come sooner than he expected, that the General had probably had a disaster and wanted things salvaged a bit, or required Jones to camouflage his casualties, and eventually I forgot my little friend.

In due course the R.T.O.'s and Town Majors discovered a train and stumbled on my name at the psychological moment. Then I was called upon to uproot myself from the Grande Couronne, and move " up there ! " I recalled Jones's ominous jerk of the head with disgust. On asking for my bill, I found that Jones had informed Madame that he was my attached officer and that I paid for him. I was pained, but I paid, and I smiled to myself as I remembered how Jones used ostentatiously to fill my glass with the expensive wine we shared, and I promised myself some day the pleasure of meeting Jones alone.

I did meet Jones again. I met his► the next day quite

unexpectedly. It was at a wayside station, before you got " up there," and it was a shock, for even the solitary pip was missing. and Jones marched between an escort, and gyvcs were on his wrists. He gave me a sort of look as if to say : " It was worth it. I camou- flaged you and the R.T.O. and the Town Major, and my story was not altogether untrue. If I wasn't an officer, I had the brains for being one, and if truly I wasn't a salvage officer to a diN sion, I did salve one officer's uniform, and put it to damned good use I've had my time, I've lived for the last fortnight where my brains entitle me to be. Now do your worst ! " The N.C.O. in charge lagged behind the escort, and I detained him a minute to ask who the prisoner was. "Deserter, Sir. Private J. Jones, Sir, Blank- shire Regiment. Caught at Harmonteers marskerading as an orficer, Sir." The sergeant smartly saluted, and I heard him in the distance addressing words of sarcastic advice to his prisoner on deportment and other qualities which are generally attributed to officers