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As we reached the quarry that was to become Brigade Headquarters, we marvelled still more. A veritable quarry de luxe. A mess fashioned out of stone-blocks hewn from the quarry, perfectly cut and perfectly laid. Six-inch girders to support the concrete roof, and an underground passage as a funk-hole from bombs, shells, and gas.
From a Boche artillery map picked up in the châlet we concluded that the place must have been the summer quarters of a Hun artillery group commander. And then without warning our satisfaction was changed to disappointment. Major Mallaby-Kelby had just called out that the place was so complete that even a funk-hole had been provided, when a gunner emerged.
"Come in, padre," said the major, who of late had become more genial, "and tell us the best kind of a funk-hole for a 'minniewafer." "The deepest and the closest for me, major, I should say," said Barry, "from what I have heard of those uncertain and wobbling beasts."
He is describing the "carryings on" at Bordeaux in September, when the Government was there. He tells of the festivities, the orgies, the expenditure, and there is almost a tone of pride in the poor creature's voice as he recalls so many pompous pageants all at once. But the uproar outside silences us. Our funk-hole trembles and cracks.
"It all depends on whether you've got a funk-hole handy," he replied. But that was mere lightness of speech. Oliver's inclusion of him in his remark shook him to the depths of his sensitive nature. The man who despises the petty feelings and frailties of mankind is doomed to remain in awful ignorance of that which there is of beauty and pathos in the lives of his fellow-creatures.
At the subaltern's order the blacks prodded the walls with their bayonets and hammered the floor with the butt ends of their rifles, but no suspicion of the existence of a concealed "funk-hole" was to be traced. "Precious little here," commented Wilmshurst. "I'll have to keep the place open for the colonel's inspection, I suppose."
One afternoon, when I was pretending to doze in a niche near the entrance to Colonel Kirby's funk-hole, I became possessed of the key to it all; for Colonel Kirby's voice was raised more than once in anger. I understood at last how Ranjoor Singh had orders to deceive the Germans as to our state of mind.
"In his heart he would like to play the devil with the bishops and kick every able-bodied parson into the trenches and there are thousands of them that don't need any kicking and, on the contrary, have been kicked back; but he has become half-petrified in the atmosphere of this place. It's lovely to come to as a sort of funk-hole of peace but my holy aunt! What the blazes are you laughing at?"
Even so I think I would have held my tongue, only that Gooja Singh, who dozed in a niche on the other side of the funk-hole entrance, heard the same as I. Said Gooja Singh that evening to the troopers round about: "They chose well," said he. "They picked a brave man a clever man, for a desperate venture!"
Our good friends of the rd Brigade had occupied the châlet, and received one sharp reminder that the Boche gunner was still a nasty animal. A high-velocity shell had hit the edge of the gully not ten yards from them, and their adjutant and their intelligence officer had described to me their acrobatic plunge into the funk-hole.
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