He could say, with a fine fluency, "Ou est le blooming
couteau?" or "Donnez-moi le bally fourchette, s'il vous plait,
madame." It was not beyond his vocabulary to explain that "Les pommes
de terre frites are absolument all right if only madame will tenir ses
cheveux on." In the courtyards of ancient farmhouses, so old in their
timbers and gables that the Scottish bodyguard of Louis XI may have
passed them on their way to Paris, modern Scots with khaki-covered
kilts pumped up the water from old wells, and whistled "I Know a
Lassie" to the girl who brought the cattle home, and munched their
evening rations while Sandy played a "wee bit" on the pipes to the
peasant--folk who gathered at the gate. Such good relations existed
between the cottagers and their temporary guests that one day, for
instance, when a young friend of mine came back from a long spell in
the trenches (his conversation was of dead men, flies, bombs, lice,
and hell), the old lady who had given him her best bedroom at the
beginning of the war flung her arms about him and greeted him like a
long-lost son.
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