BATTLEFIELDS LTD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17335, 25 November 1916, Page 4

BATTLEFIELDS LTD.

"THE REAL THING." (CHRISTOPHER STONE, in the " Daily Mail.") "Tho idea is simplicity itself," said James airily as lie led the way out into tho gully. "If you'll just come up here, 1 can show you the whole thing in a minute." Wo had had an animated discussion during luncheon in the "A" Company mess. l.t had started with the usual tirade against the V.A.B. (the Velvet Armchair Hrigadc), the Biscuit Pushers (the Army Service Corps), the Motor Transport, et hoc genus -onmo, had proceeded through the axiom that the farther back you get from the firing lino the better pay you receive, and had debouched into a general condemnation of Army contractors, members of Parliament and neutrals Followed by a denunciation of all war exploitation, and, arising out of this, some comments on the Active Service Exhibition as described in the daily papers. James, who had been gnawing his pipe for some minutes without adding any scintillations to tho discussion, then announced his scbem'e abruptly. Tho "A" Company dug-out is a masterpiece in its way. though it has lost many of the glories that were attached to it when it was a German general's headquarters. It i.s carved oub of the side of the gully, and has a real gable over the doorway; but, inside, the wallpaper is faded and stained, the electric light fittings are no longer used, and the furniture is of, the simplest. - The two brass bedsteads of the inner room now lie in tangled disarray outside in the gully along with fragment; of barbed-wire entanglement, ruin jars, unrxploded shells, and dishevelled sandbags; and where the German general once slept in cultured security, the, " A " Company officers' servants now live and cook and prattle. " lb will only want touching up a bit," said James. ',' You don t want to spoil tho effect by repairing." I clambered up the chalk bank that protected "A" Company from observation on the eastward .side, and sat down on an improvised scat from which James was wont to contemplate the Boche. 1 i was a fine view, a.s such things go in tins country, for it commanded the front lines and the village beyond: the hill on the right across which the lines wound tortuously; the little stream in the valley, the debris of the railway station, the ruined village just behind us, and a great expanse of pock-marked ground, full of wire entanglements and empty , tins, and not quite free from the more gruesome indications of a hard-fought field. * * • * * • " You could get. the ground cheap enough," .said James. " It's absolutely useless for any other purpose; it can't be ploughed or farmed on any sane system for years and years, and probably you could rent four or five hundred acres for a mere song. Qi course Ypres would be better, but I'm

inclined to tliink that this would bo more profitable. I BCO.tlie whole thing, don't yon? The real thing mind you —no clap-trap sentimentalism. Lots of bodies lying about—you needn't havo real one?, bub bits of uniform with some chloride of limo scattered about. Any amount of souvenirs. People would have to pay extra if they wanted to take any away. ' I don't seo any difficulty."

'• It sounds rather tame," I suggested. " Who on earth will want to see a battlefield afterwards?" "Ah, .but you'd do it all on a big scale, don't you see?" ho explained. "You would bring your tourists over hero and dump them in a jolly comfortable hotel—find a good suite just on the edge of tho concern. In tho daytime they could wander about the trenches, have tea in dug-outs—braziers and conteens, you know, only jolly good tea and cakes that they brought with them from the hotel. And you could have exhibitions of trench mortars and aerial torpedoes; working -parties building up parapets; a gas attack on 'a small scale with helmets on and everything all correct. At night reliefs —nightly reliefs —top-hole, acrcss tho open, with flares going up arid tho rattle- of machine-guns; and you'd bring 'cm to tho gully here and show 'em a company—wiring party out, headquarters, colonel having shipper, signallers telephoning frantically, tho men in their dug-outs, the M.O. at tho aid post—have all sorts of creepy little details, wounded men on stretchers carried past the tourists, lit up by a flare, don't you know? Then you could tako them on to tho firing lino and make them go out in small parties as patrol? in tho Bocho trenches, of course, ready to looso off with blank. And you would make- them a rum ration, and so on. Oh, my dear fellow, it's a great idea. It's so beautifully simple. Then look at the village!" I looked at tho village, not a hundred yards away, but out of reach in day light because of that exposed hundred yards. Only ono house in tho whole placo had a semblance of a roof on it. literally only ono; tho rest of the village was merely debris; no roads wero distinguishable, no gardens, no telegraph poles, no trees; tho cemetery was as tho rest; the church was level with the ground. It was the epitome of desolation. • «.♦** "Matinee assaults daily," James declared with conviction. " All yora would want would ho ono of those pageant-masters to make sure that tho spectators missed none of the details. Seo what I mean?" I saw what ho meant all right. "Battlefields Limited" would be a concentrated warzono kept up with a semblance of reality for tho benefit of civilians, antique, female or ill-starred, after the war. It would be as near the genuine thing as possible. But would it pay? The upkeep would be enormous. '"Would the public respond? "I think you would have to cater for various types of sightseers, you know," said I. " Our relations, for instance, are not the samo as the Americans. And tho old men will like to seo something, and the young girls something else, and the elderly mati ions " "Cater for 'em all, my lad/VsaiciJ James. "Havo any amount of sideshows. Some want to see horrors, some como hero for a honeymoon, somo just for a jaunt. All right, let them seo what they want. Lectures by Maude and Co., for the professor's cosy little dug-outs made really comfortable for couples, with ration parties eveiy night; for the vicux marcheur a Gelr-f man general's home life in the trenches; for the gambler a roulette table in one of those big deep dugouts; for tho schoolboy. Very Light pistols and a glorified form of prisoners' base between the- front-line trenches. Tableaux arranged by Bains father—that would bo great; and a kinema at the hotel for the old ladies in the evenings." "And a largo terrace," I suggested,. 1 where one could sit and dine and I'sijbn. to the band, with a good Vfce.vW cf tho nightly relief " "lYes ,and on the last day off *vc, tour always wo could spring a mine, or a camembort, or whatever they call and have a proper strafe with all tho guns and machine guns and five rounds rapid and all tho rest of it "And make all the supers dash out. and occupv the lip of the crater '' "Bather—while tho band plays a waltz." We paused, >ather breathless. "It'll bo devilish' expensive," said I. " But cheaper than the real thing," said James. " And the right peophj will bo paying for it—neutrals and morbidites." As he spoke the Boche sent a salvo of whizz-bangs just over the gully and into the deserted vilbwre. "We could easily fake that sort of thine for a side-show for civilians who want a new sensation," said James, filling his pipe. " Or for us, when we want to recaptore an old sensation." James's face seemed to cloud over "Oh, no, thank .you," he said emphatically.