but have no time to think it out at present. What does it matter anyway, the children are pleasantly thrilled and everyone is pleased.
Major Morley arrives to give his cinema show long before Banks has finished, and we stand in a corner together and watch the fun. âBanks is enjoying himself,â Major Morley says.
âEverybody is,â I reply vaguely, but with truth; and, indeed, there is not a dull or sulky person to be seen. Every face is shining, not only with the outward shininess of heat, and a good tea, but also with the inward glow of unselfconscious enjoyment.
âSimple people,â Major Morley says thoughtfully. âI used to get a laugh out of this show â tongue in my cheek, you know â but Iâve grown wiser now. Awfully clean chaps soldiers, in spite of smells and bad language âawfully clean. Kind too. Look at old McInnes with that lame child of the Norriesâ â and then think of him on the barrack square. Heâs quite unselfconscious, thatâs what it is. Weâre too civilized â too afraid of what the next-door feller is going to say about us.â
Banks is finished now and is helped down off the platform by willing hands. He is still talking, having got completely wound up â something about his reindeer, I think it is â but Banksâs hour is over and nobody is listening to him now.
We clear away the wreck of the tree and everyone helps to put the chairs in rows for the movie performance. Major Morley sets up his apparatus and the lights are lowered. There are gasps of joy when Mickey Mouse appears on the screen, he is an old favourite. Then comes Charlie Chaplin in one of his old knockabout comedies, then a film for the little ones of comic monkeys riding on a train. After the monkeys Major Morley turns to me with a wicked grin which looks positively saturnine as he leans over the light of the projector in the dark hall and says, âRemember that day at Littlehampton?â
I do remember it and say, âNo! No! Donât please!â But the dreadful man has already started his infernal machine and I see myself coming towards me on the screen, clad in a bathing suit. There are wild cries of âMrs. Christie, Mrs. Christie,â as I wave my hand, and do a few steps of a dance in a perfectly idiotic manner. Betty and Bryan now appear running headlong down the sands, we chase each other madly, and then run into the sea where there is a lot of splashing. I emerge from the waves gasping like a codfish Tim now comes on the scene and we all take hands and dance a âjingo-ringâ in the water.
Such torrents of applause greet this film and such shouts of delight and excitement that Major Morley shows it again, and once more I see myself as others see me a strange and not altogether gratifying experience.
Major Morley looks at me and says gravely, âI wonder if Mary Pickford has ever had such an ovation.â
Am still pondering this remark and trying to make up my mind whether he is laughing at me or not, when Sergeant Norrie stands up and calls for silence.
âI donât wonder we are all clapping our âands off at this film,â he says beaming round at the assembled company, âitâs because we all knows Mrs. Christie, isnât it? Look at all she does for us and the interest she takes in the kiddies. Now we been told as how Mrs. Christie is going away, and we knows weâll all miss her very badly because why? Because she always has a smile for everyone. Well, all I can say is weâll look forward to seeing her and the captain back to the regiment some day, and we wishes them luck, and we shanât forget them, and we hopes they wonât forget us. So now weâll give three cheers for Mrs. Christie â Hip, hip, hurrah â â
Am absolutely overcome at this unexpected turn in events and stand there shaking like a jelly while the hall echoes and re-echoes with cheers. Major