The Coffee-Shop and Wankin

What the pump is to the villager,
so the coffee-shop is to the soldier of the New Army. Here the men
crowd nightly and live over again the incidents
of the day. Our particular coffee-shop
is situated in our corner of the town;
our men patronise it; there are three assistants,
plump, merry girls, and three of our
men have fallen in love with them; in short,
it is our very own restaurant, opened when
we came here, and adapted to our needs;
the waitresses wear our hat-badges, sing our
songs, and make us welcome when we cross
the door to take up our usual chairs and
yarn over the cosy tables. The Jersey
youth with the blue eyes, the Oxford man,
who speaks of things that humble waitresses
do not understand, the company drummer,
the platoon sergeants, and the Cockney
who vows that water is spoilt in making
[pg 61]
every cup of coffee he drinks, all come here, and all love the place.

I have come to like the place and do
most of my writing there, catching snatches
of conversation and reminiscence as they float across to me.

“I wasn’t meanin’ to ‘urt ole Ginger
Nobby nohow, but the muck I throwed took
‘im dead on the jor. ‘Wot’s yer gime?’
‘e ‘ollers at me. ‘Wot’s my gime?’ I says
back to ‘im. ‘Nuffin’, if ye want ter know!’
I says. ‘I was just shyin’ at squidges.'”

Thus spoke the bright-eyed Cockney at
the table next me, gazing regretfully at his
empty coffee-cup and cutting away a fringe
of rag-nails from his finger with a clasp-knife.
The time was eight o’clock of the
evening, and the youth was recounting an
adventure which he had had in the morning
when throwing mud at sparrows on the
parade ground. A lump of clay had struck
a red-haired non-commissioned officer on the
jaw, and the officer became angry. The
above was the Cockney version of the story.
One of my friends, an army unit with the
Oxford drawl, was voluble on another subject.

[pg 62]

“Russian writers have had a great effect on
our literature,” he said, deep in a favourite
topic. “They have stripped bare the soul
of man with a realism that shrivels up our
civilisation and proves—Two coffees, please.”

A tall, well-set waitress, with several
rings on her fingers, took the order as gravely
as if she were performing some religious
function; then she turned to the Cockney.

“Cup of cawfee, birdie!” he cried, leaning
over the table and trying to grip her hand.
“Not like the last, mind; it was good
water spoilt. I’ll never come in ‘ere again.”

“So you say!” said the girl, moving
out of his way and laughing loudly.

“Strike me balmy if I do!”

“Where’ll yer go then?”

“Round the corner, of course,” was the
answer. “There’s another bird there—and
cawfee! It’s some stuff too, not like ‘ere.”

“All right; don’t come in again if yer don’t want ter.”

The Cockney got his second cup of coffee
and pronounced it inferior to the first;
then looked at an evening paper which
[pg 63]
Oxford handed to him, and studied a photograph
of a battleship on the front page.

“Can’t stand these ‘ere papers,” he said,
after a moment, as he got to his feet and
lit a cigarette. “Nuffink but war in them
always; I’m sick readin’ about war! I
saw your bit in one a couple of nights ago,” he said, turning to me.

“What did you think of it?” I asked,
anxious to hear his opinion on an article
dealing with the life of his own regiment.

“Nuffink much,” he answered, honestly
and frankly. “Everything you say is about
things we all know; who wants to ‘ear
about them? D’ye get paid for writin’ that?”

One of his mates, a youth named Bill,
who came in at that moment, overheard the remark.

“Paid! Of course ‘e gets paid,” said
the newcomer. “Bet you he gets ‘arf a
crown for every time ‘e writes for the paper.”

All sorts and conditions of soldiers drift
into the place and discuss various matters
over coffee and mince pies; they are men
of all classes, who had been as far apart
as the poles in civil life, and are now knit
[pg 64]
together in the common brotherhood of war.
Caste and estate seem to have been forgotten;
all are engaged in a common business,
full of similar risks, and rewarded by a similar wage.

In one corner of the room a game of cards
was in progress, some soldiers were reading,
and a few writing letters. Now and again
a song was heard, and a score of voices
joined in the chorus. The scene was one of
indescribable gaiety; the temperament of
the assembly was like a hearty laugh, infectious
and healthy. Now and then a discussion took place, and towards the close
of the evening hot words were exchanged
between Bill and his friend, the bright-eyed Cockney.

“I’ll give old Ginger Nobby what for one day!” said the latter.

“Will you? I don’t think!”

“Bet yer a bob I will!”

“You’d lose it.”

“Would I?”

“Straight you would!”

“Strike me pink if I would!”

“You know nothin’ of what you’re sayin’.”

“Don’t I?”

[pg 65]

“Git!”

“Shut!”

In the coffee-shop Wankin is invariably
the centre of an interested group. As the
company scapegrace and black sheep of the
battalion he occupies in his mates’ eyes
a position of considerable importance. His
repartees are famous, and none knows better
than he how to score off an unpopular officer
or N.C.O. He has the distinction also of
having spent more days in the guard-room
than any other man in the battalion.

On the occasion when identity discs were
being served out to the men and a momentary
stir pervaded the battalion, it was Wankin
who first became involved in trouble.

He employed the disc string to fasten the
water-bottle of the man on his left to the
haversack of the man on his right, and the
colour-sergeant, livid with rage, vowed to
chasten him by confining him eternally to
barracks. But the undaunted company
scapegrace was not to be beaten. Fastening
the identity disc on his left eye he fixed a stern look on the sergeant.

“My deah fellah,” he drawled out, imitating
the voice of the company lieutenant
[pg 66]
who wears an eyeglass, “your remarks are
uncalled for, really. By Jove! one would
think that a scrap of string was a gold
bracelet or a diamond necklace. I could
buy the disc and the string for a bloomin’ ‘apenny.”

“You’ll pay dearly for it this time,” said
the colour with fine irony. “Three days
C.B.² your muckin’ about’ll cost you.”
And before Wankin could reply the sergeant
was reporting the matter to the captain.

Wankin is eternally in trouble, although
his agility in dodging pickets and his skill
in making a week’s C.B. a veritable holiday
are the talk of the regiment. All the
officers know him, and many of them who
have been victims of his smart repartee
fear him more than they care to acknowledge.
The subaltern with the eyeglass is a bad
route-marcher, and Wankin once remarked
in an audible whisper that the officer had
learned his company drill with a drove of
haltered pack-horses, and the officer bears
the name of “Pack-horse” ever since.

On another occasion the major suffered
[pg 67]
when a battalion kit inspection took place
early one December morning. Wankin had
sold his spare pair of boots, the pair that
is always kept on top of the kit-bag; but
when the major inspected Wankin’s kit the
boots were there, newly polished and freed
from the most microscopic speck of dust.
Someone tittered during the inspection, then
another, and the major smelt a rat. He
lifted Wankin’s kit-bag in his hand and
found Wankin’s feet tucked under it—Wankin’s
feet in stockinged soles. The major
was justly indignant. “One step to the
front, left turn,” he roared. “March in
front of every rank in the battalion and see what you think of it!”

With stockinged feet, cold, but still wearing
an inscrutable smile of impudence, Wankin
paraded in front of a thousand grinning
faces and in due course got back to his kit and beside the sarcastic major.

“What do you think of it?” asked the latter.

“I don’t think much of it, sir,” Wankin
replied. “It’s the dirtiest regiment I ever inspected.”

Wankin was sometimes unlucky; fortune
[pg 68]
refused to favour him when he took up the
work of picket on the road between St.
Albans and London. No unit of his regiment
is supposed to go more than two miles
beyond St. Albans without a written permit,
and guards are placed at different points of
the two-mile radius to intercept the regimental
rakes whose feet are inclined to roving.
Wankin learned that the London road was
not to be guarded on a certain Sunday.
The regiment was to parade for a long route-march,
and all units were to be in attendance. Wankin pondered over things for a
moment, girt on his belt and sword and took
up his position on the London road within
a hundred yards of a wayside public-house.
At this tavern a traveller from St. Albans
may obtain a drink on a Sabbath day.

Soldiers, like most mortals, are sometimes
dry and like to drink; Wankin was often
dry and Wankin had seldom much money
to spend. The first soldier who came out
from the town wanted to get to the tavern.

“Can’t pass here!” the mock-picket told him.

“But I’m dry and I’ve a cold that catches me awful in the throat.”

[pg 69]

“Them colds are dangerous,” Wankin
remarked in a contemplative voice, tinged
with compassion. “Used to have them bad
myself an’ I feel one coming on. I think
gin, same as they have in the trenches, is
the stuff to put a cold away. But I’m on the rocks.”

“If you’ll let me through I’ll stand on my hands.”

“It’s risky,” said Wankin, then in a brave
burst of bravado he said, “Damn it all!
I’ll let you go by. It’s hard to stew dry
so near the bar!” An hour later the young
man set off towards home, and on his way
he met two of his comrades-in-arms on the road.

“Going to —— pub?” he inquired.

“Going to see that no one does go near
it,” was the answer. “Picket duty for the rest of the day, we are.”

“But Wankin—”

“What?”

The young man explained, and shortly
afterwards Wankin went to headquarters
under an armed escort. Three days later
I saw his head sticking out through the
guard-room window, and at that time I
[pg 70]
had not heard of the London road escapade.

“Here on account of drink?” I asked him.

“You fool,” he roared at me. “Do you
think I mistook this damned place for the canteen?”

I like Wankin and most of his mates
like him. We feel that when detention,
barrack confinement and English taverns
will be things of yesterday, Wankin will
make a good and trustworthy friend in the trenches.

Footnote 2: (return)

Confinement to Barracks.

[pg 71]