They wanted me.
They wanted me to come to them, since they couldn't be coming to me.
"Come on out here and see us and sing for us, Harry," they'd write to
me. "It'd be a fair treat to see your mug and hear you singing about
the wee hoose amang the heather or the bonnie, bonnie lassie!"
How could a man get such a plea as that and not want to do what those
laddies asked? How could he think of the great deal they were doing
and not want to do the little bit they asked of him? But it was no a
simple matter, ye'll ken! I could not pack a bag and start for France
from Charing Cross or Victoria as I might have done--and often did--
before the war. No one might go to France unless he had passports and
leave from the war office, and many another sort of arrangement there
was to make. But I set wheels in motion.
Just to go to France to sing for the boys would have been easy
enough. They told me that at once.
"What? Harry Lauder wants to go to France to sing for the soldiers?
He shall--whenever he pleases! Tell him we'll be glad to send him!"
So said the war office. But I knew what they meant. They meant for me
to go to one or more of the British bases and give concerts. There
were troops moving in and out of the bases all the time; men who'd
been in the trenches or in action in an offensive and were back in
rest billets, or even further back, were there in their thousands.
But it was the real front I was eager to reach.
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