Next To It On The Left, Of Equal Height, Was The Hog Back Of
The Cote Barine, Hiding A Battery.
Between the Cote Barine and my
road and wall, I saw the rising ground and the familiar Barracks that
Are called (I know not why) the Barracks of Justice, but ought more
properly to be called the Barracks of petty tyrannies and good
fellowship, in order to show the philosophers that these two things
are the life of armies; for of all the virtues practised in that old
compulsory home of mine Justice came second at least if not third,
while Discipline and Comradeship went first; and the more I think of
it the more I am convinced that of all the suffering youth that was
being there annealed and forged into soldiery none can have suffered
like the lawyers. On the right the high trees that stand outside the
ramparts of the town went dwindling in perspective like a palisade,
and above them, here and there, was a roof showing the top of the
towers of the Cathedral or of St Gengoult. All this I saw looking
backwards, and, when I had noticed it and drawn it, I turned round
again and took the road.
I had, in a small bag or pocket slung over my shoulder, a large piece
of bread, half a pound of smoked ham, a sketch-book, two Nationalist
papers, and a quart of the wine of Brule - which is the most famous
wine in the neighbourhood of the garrison, yet very cheap. And Brule
is a very good omen for men that are battered about and given to
despairing, since it is only called Brule on account of its having
been burnt so often by Romans, Frenchmen, Burgundians, Germans,
Flemings, Huns perhaps, and generally all those who in the last few
thousand years have taken a short cut at their enemies over the neck
of the Cote Barine. So you would imagine it to be a tumble-down, weak,
wretched, and disappearing place; but, so far from this, it is a rich
and proud village, growing, as I have said, better wine than any in
the garrison. Though Toul stands in a great cup or ring of hills, very
high and with steep slopes, and guns on all of them, and all these
hills grow wine, none is so good as Brule wine. And this reminds me of
a thing that happened in the Manoeuvres of 1891, _quorum pars magna_;
for there were two divisions employed in that glorious and fatiguing
great game, and more than a gross of guns - to be accurate, a hundred
and fifty-six - and of these one (the sixth piece of the tenth battery
of the eighth - I wonder where you all are now? I suppose I shall not
see you again; but you were the best companions in the world, my
friends) was driven by three drivers, of whom I was the middle one,
and the worst, having on my Livret the note 'conducteur mediocre'.
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