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Title: Men at Arms
Author: Waugh, Evelyn [Arthur Evelyn St John] (1903-1966)
Date of first publication: 1952
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Chapman & Hall, 1952
Date first posted: 8 March 2020
Date last updated: 8 March 2020
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1645

This ebook was produced by Cindy Beyer, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net



PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.






MEN AT ARMS

by Evelyn Waugh




TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Prologue. SWORD OF HONOUR
    Book One. APTHORPE GLORIOSUS
    Book Two. APTHORPE FURIBUNDUS
    Book Three. APTHORPE IMMOLATUS




TO CHRISTOPHER SYKES
COMPANION IN ARMS




PROLOGUE
SWORD OF HONOUR


[I]

When Guy Crouchback's grandparents, Gervase and Hermione, came to Italy
on their honeymoon, French troops manned the defences of Rome, the
Sovereign Pontiff drove out in an open carriage and Cardinals took their
exercise side-saddle on the Pincian Hill.

Gervase and Hermione were welcomed in a score of frescoed palaces. Pope
Pius received them in private audience and gave his special blessing to
the union of two English families which had suffered for their Faith and
yet retained a round share of material greatness. The chapel at Broome
had never lacked a priest through all the penal years and the lands of
Broome stretched undiminished and unencumbered from the Quantocks to the
Blackdown Hills. Forbears of both their names had died on the scaffold.
The City, lapped now by the tide of illustrious converts, still
remembered with honour its old companions in arms.

Gervase Crouchback stroked his side-whiskers and found a respectful
audience for his views on the Irish question and the Catholic missions
in India. Hermione set up her easel among the ruins and while she
painted Gervase read aloud from the poems of Tennyson and Patmore. She
was pretty and spoke three languages; he was all that the Romans
expected of an Englishman. Everywhere the fortunate pair were praised
and petted but all was not entirely well with them. No sign or hint
betrayed their distress but when the last wheels rolled away and they
mounted to their final privacy, there was a sad gap between them, made
by modesty and tenderness and innocence, which neither spoke of except
in prayer.

Later they joined a yacht at Naples and steamed slowly up the coast,
putting in at unfrequented harbours. And there, one night in their state
room, all at last came right between them and their love was joyfully
completed.

Before they fell asleep they felt the engines stop and heard the rattle
of the anchor-chain, and when Gervase came on deck at dawn, he found
that the ship lay in the shelter of a high peninsula. He called Hermione
to join him and so standing together hand-in-hand, at the moist
taffrail, they had their first view of Santa Dulcina delle Rocce and
took the place and all its people into their exulting hearts.

The waterfront was thronged as though the inhabitants had been shaken
from bed by an earthquake; their voices came clearly across the water,
admiring the strange vessel. Houses rose steeply from the quay; two
buildings stood out from the ochre and white walls and rusty pantiles,
the church, domed, with a voluted façade, and a castle of some kind
comprising two great bastions and what seemed a ruined watch-tower.
Behind the town for a short distance the hillside was terraced and
planted, then above broke wildly into boulders and briar. There was a
card game which Gervase and Hermione had played together in the
schoolroom in which the winner of a trick called, 'I claim.'

'I claim,' cried Hermione, taking possession of all she saw by right of
her happiness.

Later in the morning the English party landed. Two sailors went first to
prevent any annoyance from the natives. There followed four couples of
ladies and gentlemen; then the servants carrying hampers and shawls and
sketching materials. The ladies wore yachting caps and held their skirts
clear of the cobbles; some carried lorgnettes. The gentlemen protected
them with fringed sunshades. It was a procession such as Santa Dulcina
delle Rocce had never seen before. They sauntered through the arcades,
plunged briefly into the cool twilight of the church and climbed the
steps which led from the piazza to the fortifications.

Little remained. The great paved platform was broken everywhere with
pine and broom. The watch-tower was full of rubble. Two cottages had
been built in the hillside from the finely cut masonry of the old castle
and two families of peasants ran out to greet them with bunches of
mimosa. The picnic luncheon was spread in the shade.

'Disappointing when you get up here,' said the owner of the yacht
apologetically. 'Always the way with these places. Best seen from a
distance.'

'I think it's quite perfect,' said Hermione, 'and we're going to live
here. Please don't say a word against our castle.'

Gervase laughed indulgently with the others but later, when his father
died and he seemed to be rich, the project came to life. Gervase made
inquiries. The castle belonged to an elderly lawyer in Genoa who was
happy to sell. Presently a plain square house rose above the ramparts
and English stocks added their sweetness to the myrtle and the pine.
Gervase called his new house the Villa Hermione, but the name never
caught the local fancy. It was cut in large square letters on the
gate-posts but honeysuckle spread and smothered it. The people of Santa
Dulcina spoke always of the 'Castello Crouchback' until eventually that
title found its way to the head of the writing-paper and Hermione, proud
bride, was left without commemoration.

Whatever its name, however, the Castello kept the character of its
origin. For fifty years, until the shadows closed on the Crouchback
family, it was a place of joy and love. Guy's father and Guy himself
came there for their honeymoons. It was constantly lent to newly married
cousins and friends. It was the place of Guy's happiest holidays with
his brothers and sister. The town changed a little but neither railway
nor high road touched that happy peninsula. A few more foreigners built
their villas there. The inn enlarged itself, installed sanitation of a
sort and a café-restaurant, took the name of 'Hotel Eden' and abruptly
changed it during the Abyssinian crisis to 'Albergo del Sol'. The garage
proprietor became secretary of the local Fascists. But as Guy descended
to the piazza on his last morning, he saw little that would have been
unfamiliar to Gervase and Hermione. Already, an hour before midday, the
heat was fierce but he walked as blithely as they on that first morning
of secret jubilation. For him, as for them, frustrated love had found
its first satisfaction. He was packed and dressed for a long journey,
already on his way back to his own country to serve his King.

Just seven days earlier he had opened his morning newspaper on the
headlines announcing the Russian-German alliance. News that shook the
politicians and young poets of a dozen capital cities brought deep peace
to one English heart. Eight years of shame and loneliness were ended.
For eight years Guy, already set apart from his fellows by his own deep
wound, that unstaunched, internal draining away of life and love, had
been deprived of the loyalties which should have sustained him. He lived
too close to Fascism in Italy to share the opposing enthusiasms of his
countrymen. He saw it neither as a calamity nor as a rebirth; as a rough
improvisation merely. He disliked the men who were edging themselves
into power around him, but English denunciations sounded fatuous and
dishonest and for the past three years he had given up his English
newspapers. The German Nazis he knew to be mad and bad. Their
participation dishonoured the cause of Spain, but the troubles of
Bohemia, the year before, left him quite indifferent. When Prague fell,
he knew that war was inevitable. He expected his country to go to war in
a panic, for the wrong reasons or for no reason at all, with the wrong
allies, in pitiful weakness. But now, splendidly, everything had become
clear. The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all
disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms. Whatever the outcome
there was a place for him in that battle.

Everything was now in order at the Castello. His formal farewells were
made. The day before he had visited the Arciprete, the Podestà, the
Reverend Mother at the Convent, Mrs. Garry at the Villa Datura, the
Wilmots at the Castelletto Musgrave, Gräfin von Gluck at the Casa Gluck.
Now there was a last piece of private business to transact. Thirty-five
years old, slight and trim, plainly foreign but not so plainly English,
young, now, in heart and step, he came to bid good-bye to a lifelong
friend who lay, as was proper for a man dead eight hundred years, in the
parish church.

St. Dulcina, titular patroness of the town, was reputedly a victim of
Diocletian. Her effigy in wax lay languorously in a glass case under the
high altar. Her bones, brought from the Greek islands by a medieval
raiding party, lay in their rich casket in the sacristy safe. Once a
year they were carried shoulder high through the streets amid showers of
fireworks, but except on her feast-day she was not much regarded in the
town to which she had given her name. Her place as benefactor had been
usurped by another figure whose tomb was always littered with screws of
paper bearing petitions, whose fingers and toes were tied in bows of
coloured wool as aides-mémoire. He was older than the church, older than
anything in it except the bones of St. Dulcina and a pre-Christian
thunderbolt which lay concealed in the back of the altar (whose
existence the Arciprete always denied). His name, just legible still,
was Roger of Waybroke, Knight, an Englishman; his arms five falcons. His
sword and one gauntlet still lay beside him. Guy's uncle, Peregrine, a
student of such things, had learned some of his story. Waybroke, now
Waybrook, was quite near London. Roger's manor had long ago been lost
and over-built. He left it for the Second Crusade, sailed from Genoa and
was shipwrecked on this coast. There he enlisted under the local Count,
who promised to take him to the Holy Land but led him first against a
neighbour, on the walls of whose castle he fell at the moment of
victory. The Count gave him honourable burial and there he had lain
through the centuries, while the church crumbled and was rebuilt above
him, far from Jerusalem, far from Waybroke, a man with a great journey
still all before him and a great vow unfulfilled; but the people of
Santa Dulcina delle Rocce, to whom the supernatural order in all its
ramifications was ever present and ever more lively than the humdrum
world about them, adopted Sir Roger and despite all clerical
remonstrance canonized him, brought him their troubles and touched his
sword for luck, so that its edge was always bright. All his life, but
especially in recent years, Guy had felt an especial kinship with 'il
Santo Inglese'. Now, on his last day, he made straight for the tomb and
ran his finger, as the fishermen did, along the knight's sword. 'Sir
Roger, pray for me,' he said, 'and for our endangered kingdom.'

The confessional was occupied that morning, for it was the day when
Suora Tomasina brought the schoolchildren to their duties. They sat on a
bench along the wall, whispering and pinching one another, while the
sister flapped over them like a hen leading them in turn to the grille
and thence to the high altar to recite their penance.

On an impulse, not because his conscience troubled him but because it
was a habit learned in childhood to go to confession before a journey,
Guy made a sign to the sister and interrupted the succession of peccant
urchins.

'Beneditemi, padre, perche ho peccato...' Guy found it easy to
confess in Italian. He spoke the language well but without nuances.
There was no risk of going deeper than the denunciation of his few
infractions of law, of his habitual weaknesses. Into that wasteland
where his soul languished he need not, could not, enter. He had no words
to describe it. There were no words in any language. There was nothing
to describe, merely a void. His was not an 'interesting case', he
thought. No cosmic struggle raged in his sad soul. It was as though
eight years back he had suffered a tiny stroke of paralysis; all his
spiritual faculties were just perceptibly impaired. He was 'handicapped'
as Mrs. Garry of the Villa Datura would have put it. There was nothing
to say about it.

The priest gave him absolution and the traditional words of dismissal:
'Sia lodato Gesù Cristo,' and he answered, 'Oggi, sempre.'[A] He rose
from his knees, said three 'Aves' before the waxen figure of St. Dulcina
and passed through the leather curtain into the blazing sunlight of the
piazza.

-----

[A] 'Jesus Christ be praised.' 'To-day, always.'

-----

Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren of the peasants who first
greeted Gervase and Hermione still inhabited the cottages behind the
Castello and farmed the surrounding terraces. They grew and made the
wine; they sold the olives; they kept an almost etiolated cow in an
underground stable from which sometimes she escaped and trampled the
vegetable beds and plunged over the low walls until she was, with
immense drama, recaptured. They paid for their tenancy in produce and
service. Two sisters, Josefina and Bianca, did the work of the house.
They had laid Guy's last luncheon under the orange trees. He ate his
spaghetti and drank his _vino scelto_, the brownish, heady wine of the
place. Then with a fuss Josefina brought him a large ornamental cake
which had been made in celebration of his departure. His slight appetite
was already satisfied. He watched with alarm as Josefina carved. He
tasted it, praised it, crumbled it. Josefina and Bianca stood implacable
before him until he had finished the last morsel.

The taxi was waiting. There was no carriage drive to the Castello. The
gates stood in the lane at the bottom of a flight of steps. When Guy
rose to leave, all his little household, twenty strong, assembled to see
him go. They would remain, come what might. All kissed his hand. Most
wept. The children threw flowers into the car. Josefina put into his lap
the remains of the cake wrapped in newspaper. They waved until he was
out of sight, then returned to their siestas. Guy moved the cake to the
back seat and wiped his hands with his handkerchief. He was glad that
the ordeal was over and waited resignedly for the Fascist secretary to
start a conversation.

He was not loved, Guy knew, either by his household or in the town. He
was accepted and respected but he was not _simpatico_. Gräfin von Gluck,
who spoke no word of Italian and lived in undisguised concubinage with
her butler, was _simpatica_. Mrs. Garry was _simpatica_, who distributed
Protestant tracts, interfered with the fishermen's methods of killing
octopuses and filled her house with stray cats.

Guy's uncle, Peregrine, a bore of international repute whose dreaded
presence could empty the room in any centre of civilization,--Uncle
Peregrine was considered _molto simpatico_. The Wilmots were gross
vulgarians; they used Santa Dulcina purely as a pleasure resort,
subscribed to no local funds, gave rowdy parties and wore indecent
clothes, talked of 'wops' and often left after the summer with their
bills to the tradesmen unpaid; but they had four boisterous and
ill-favoured daughters whom the Santa-Dulcinesi had watched grow up.
Better than this, they had lost a son bathing here from the rocks. The
Santa-Dulcinesi participated in these joys and sorrows. They observed
with relish their hasty and unobtrusive departures at the end of the
holidays. They were _simpatici_. Even Musgrave who had the Castelletto
before the Wilmots and bequeathed it his name, Musgrave who, it was
said, could not go to England or America because of warrants for his
arrest, 'Musgrave the Monster', as the Crouchbacks used to call
him--_he_ was _simpatico_. Guy alone, whom they had known from infancy,
who spoke their language and conformed to their religion, who was
open-handed in all his dealing and scrupulously respectful of all their
ways, whose grandfather built their school, whose mother had given a set
of vestments embroidered by the Royal School of Needlework for the
annual procession of St. Dulcina's bones--Guy alone was a stranger among
them.

The black-shirt said: 'You are leaving for a long time?'

'For the duration of the war.'

'There will be no war. No one wants it. Who would gain?'

As they drove they passed on every windowless wall the lowering,
stencilled face of Mussolini and the legend '_The Leader is always
right_'. The Fascist secretary took his hands off the wheel and lit a
cigarette, accelerating as he did so. '_The Leader is always right_'...
'_The Leader is always right_' flashed past and was lost in the
dust. 'War is foolishness,' said the imperfect disciple. 'You will see.
Everything will be brought to an arrangement.'

Guy did not dispute the matter. He was not interested in what the
taxi-driver thought or said. Mrs. Garry would have thrown herself into
argument. Once, driving with this same man, she had stopped the cab and
walked home, three hot miles, to show her detestation of his political
philosophy. But Guy had no wish to persuade or convince or to share his
opinions with anyone. Even in his religion he felt no brotherhood. Often
he wished that he lived in penal times when Broome had been a solitary
outpost of the Faith, surrounded by aliens. Sometimes he imagined
himself serving the last mass for the last Pope in a catacomb at the end
of the world. He never went to communion on Sundays, slipping into the
church, instead, very early on weekdays when few others were about. The
people of Santa Dulcina preferred Musgrave the Monster. In the first
years after his divorce Guy had prosecuted a few sad little love affairs
but he had always hidden them from the village. Lately he had fallen
into a habit of dry and negative chastity which even the priests felt to
be unedifying. On the lowest, as on the highest plane, there was no
sympathy between him and his fellow men. He could not listen to what the
taxi-driver was saying.

'History is a living force,' said the taxi-driver, quoting from an
article he had lately read. 'No one can put a stop to it and say: "After
this date there shall be no changes." With nations as with men, some
grow old. Some have too much, others too little. Then there must be an
arrangement. But if it comes to war, everyone will have too little.
_They_ know that. _They_ will not have a war.'

Guy heard the voice without vexation. Only one small question troubled
him now: what to do with the cake. He could not leave it in the car;
Bianca and Josefina would hear of it. It would be a great nuisance in
the train. He tried to remember whether the Vice-Consul, with whom he
had to decide certain details of closing the Castello, had any children
to whom the cake might be given. He rather thought he had.

Apart from this one sugary encumbrance, Guy floated free; as untouchable
in his new-found contentment as in his old despair. Sia lodato Gesù
Cristo. Oggi, sempre. To-day especially; to-day of all days.


[II]

The Crouchback family, until quite lately rich and numerous, was now
much reduced. Guy was the youngest of them and it seemed likely he would
be the last. His mother was dead, his father over seventy. There had
been four children. Angela, the eldest; then Gervase, who went straight
from Downside into the Irish Guards and was picked off by a sniper his
first day in France, instantly, fresh and clean and unwearied, as he
followed the duckboard across the mud, carrying his blackthorn stick, on
his way to report to company headquarters. Ivo was only a year older
than Guy but they were never friends. Ivo was always odd. He grew much
odder and finally, when he was twenty-six, disappeared from home. For
months there was no news of him. Then he was found barricaded alone in a
lodging in Cricklewood where he was starving himself to death. He was
carried out emaciated and delirious and died a few days later stark mad.
That was in 1931. Ivo's death sometimes seemed to Guy a horrible
caricature of his own life, which at just that time was plunged in
disaster.

Before Ivo's oddness gave real cause for anxiety Guy had married, not a
Catholic but a bright, fashionable girl, quite unlike anyone that his
friends or family would have expected. He took his younger son's share
of the diminished family fortune, and settled in Kenya, living, it
seemed to him afterwards, in unruffled good humour beside a mountain
lake where the air was always brilliant and keen and the flamingos rose
at dawn first white, then pink, then a whirl of shadow passing across
the glowing sky. He farmed assiduously and nearly made it pay. Then
unaccountably his wife said that her health required a year in England.
She wrote regularly and affectionately until one day, still
affectionately, she informed him that she had fallen deeply in love with
an acquaintance of theirs named Tommy Blackhouse; that Guy was not to be
cross about it; that she wanted a divorce, '_And, please_,' her letter
had ended, '_there's to be no chivalrous nonsense of your going to
Brighton and playing "the guilty party". That would mean six months
separation from Tommy and I won't trust him out of my sight for six
minutes, the beast._'

So Guy left Kenya and shortly afterwards his father left Broome. The
property was reduced by then to the house and park and home farm. In
recent years it had achieved a certain celebrity among those interested
in such things. It was almost unique in contemporary England, having
been held in uninterrupted male succession since the reign of Henry I.
Mr. Crouchback did not sell it. He let it, instead, to a convent and
himself retired to Matchet, a nearby watering-place. And the sanctuary
lamp still burned at Broome as of old.

No one was more conscious of the decline of the House of Crouchback than
Guy's brother-in-law, Arthur Box-Bender, who had married Angela in 1914
when Broome seemed set unalterably in the firmament, a celestial body
emanating tradition and unobtrusive authority. Box-Bender was not a man
of family and he respected Angela's pedigree. He even at one time
considered the addition of Crouchback to his own name, in place of
either Box or Bender, both of which seemed easily dispensable, but Mr.
Crouchback's chilling indifference and Angela's ridicule quickly
discouraged him. He was not a Catholic and he thought it Guy's plain
duty to marry again, preferably someone with money, and carry on his
line. He was not a sensitive man and he could not approve Guy's hiding
himself away. He ought to take over the home farm at Broome. He ought to
go into politics. People like Guy, he freely stated, owed something to
their country; but when at the end of August 1939 Guy presented himself
in London with the object of paying that debt, Arthur Box-Bender was not
sympathetic.

'My dear Guy,' he said, 'be your age.'

Box-Bender was fifty-six and a Member of Parliament. Many years ago he
had served quite creditably in a rifle regiment; he had a son serving
with them now. For him soldiering was something that belonged to extreme
youth, like butterscotch and catapults. Guy at thirty-five, shortly to
be thirty-six, still looked on himself as a young man. Time had stood
still for him during the last eight years. It had advanced swiftly for
Box-Bender.

'Can you seriously imagine yourself sprinting about at the head of a
platoon?'

'Well, yes,' said Guy. 'That's exactly what I did imagine.'

Guy usually stayed with Box-Bender in Lowndes Square when he was in
London. He had come straight to him now from Victoria but found his
sister Angela away in the country and the house already half dismantled.
Box-Bender's study was the last room to be left untouched. They were
sitting there now before going out to dinner.

'I'm afraid you won't get much encouragement. All that sort of thing
happened in 1914--retired colonels dyeing their hair and enlisting in
the ranks. I remember it. I was there. All very gallant of course but it
won't happen this time. The whole thing is planned. The Government know
just how many men they can handle; they know where they can get them;
they'll take them in their own time. At the moment we haven't got the
accommodation or the equipment for any big increase. There may be
casualties, of course, but personally I don't see it as a soldier's war
at all. Where are we going to fight? No one in his senses would try to
break either the Maginot or the Siegfried Line. As I see it, both sides
will sit tight until they begin to feel the economic pinch. The Germans
are short of almost every industrial essential. As soon as they realize
that Mr. Hitler's bluff has been called, we shan't hear much more of Mr.
Hitler. That's an internal matter for the Germans to settle for
themselves. We can't treat with the present gang of course, but as soon
as they produce a respectable government we shall be able to iron out
all our differences.'

'That's rather how my Italian taxi-driver talked yesterday.'

'Of course. Always go to a taxi-driver when you want a sane, independent
opinion. I talked to one to-day. He said: "When we are at war then it'll
be time to start talking about war. Just at present we aren't at war."
Very sound that.'

'But I notice you are taking every precaution.'

Box-Bender's three daughters had been despatched to stay with a
commercial associate in Connecticut. The house in Lowndes Square was
being emptied and shut. Some of the furniture had gone to the country;
the rest would go to store. Box-Bender had taken part of a large
brand-new luxury flat, going cheap at the moment. He and two colleagues
from the House of Commons would share these quarters. The cleverest of
his dodges had been to get his house in the constituency accepted as a
repository for 'National Art Treasures'. There would be no trouble there
with billeting officers, civil or military. A few minutes earlier
Box-Bender had explained these provisions with some pride. Now he merely
turned to the wireless and said: 'D'you mind awfully if I just switch
this thing on for a moment to hear what they're saying? There may be
something new.'

But there was not. Nor was there any message of peace. The evacuation of
centres of population was proceeding like clockwork; happy groups of
mothers and children were arriving punctually at their distributing
centres and being welcomed into their new homes. Box-Bender switched it
off.

'Nothing new since this afternoon. Funny how one keeps twiddling the
thing these days. I never had much use for it before. By the way, Guy,
that's a thing that might suit you, if you really want to make yourself
useful. They're very keen to collect foreign language speakers at the
B.B.C. for monitoring and propaganda and that sort of rot. Not very
exciting of course but someone has to do it and I should think your
Italian would come in very handy.'

There was no great affection between the two brothers-in-law. It never
occurred to Guy to speculate about Box-Bender's view of him. It never
occurred to him that Box-Bender had any particular view. As a matter of
fact, which he freely admitted to Angela, Box-Bender had for some years
been expecting Guy to go mad. He was not an imaginative man, nor easily
impressionable, but he had been much mixed up in the quest for Ivo and
his ghastly discovery. That thing had made an impression. Guy and Ivo
were remarkably alike. Box-Bender remembered Ivo's look in the days when
his extreme oddness still tottered this side of lunacy; it had not been
a wild look at all; something rather smug and purposeful; something
'dedicated'; something in fact very much like the look in Guy's eyes now
as he presented himself so inopportunely in Lowndes Square talking
calmly about the Irish Guards. It could bode no good. Best get him
quickly into something like the B.B.C., out of harm's way.

They dined that night at Bellamy's. Guy's family had always belonged to
this club. Gervase's name was on the 1914-1918 Roll of Honour in the
front hall. Poor crazy Ivo had often sat in the bay window alarming
passers-by with his fixed stare. Guy had joined in early manhood, seldom
used it in recent years, but kept his name on the list notwithstanding.
It was an historic place. Once fuddled gamblers, attended by linkmen,
had felt their way down these steps to their coaches. Now Guy and
Box-Bender felt their way up in utter blindness. The first glass doors
were painted out. Within them in the little vestibule was a perceptible
eerie phosphorescence. Beyond the second pair of doors was bright light,
noise, and a thick and stagnant fog of cigar-smoke and whisky. In these
first days of the black-out the problem of ventilation was unsolved.

The club had only that day re-opened after its annual cleaning. In
normal times it would have been quite empty at this season. Now it was
thronged. There were many familiar faces but no friends. As Guy passed a
member who greeted him, another turned and asked: 'Who was that? Someone
new, isn't it?'

'No, he's belonged for ages. You'll never guess who he is. Virginia
Troy's first husband.'

'Really? I thought she was married to Tommy Blackhouse.'

'This chap was before Tommy. Can't remember his name. I think he lives
in Kenya. Tommy took her from him, then Gussie had her for a bit, then
Bert Troy picked her up when she was going spare.'

'She's a grand girl. Wouldn't mind having a go myself one of these
days.'

For in this club there were no depressing conventions against the
bandying of ladies' names.

Box-Bender and Guy drank, dined and drank with a group which fluctuated
and changed throughout the evening. The conversation was briskly topical
and through it Guy began to make acquaintance with this changed city.
They spoke of domestic arrangements. Everyone seemed to be feverishly
occupied in disencumbering himself of responsibilities. Box-Bender's
arrangements were the microcosm of a national movement. Everywhere
houses were being closed, furniture stored, children transported,
servants dismissed, lawns ploughed, dower-houses and shooting lodges
crammed to capacity; mothers-in-law and nannies were everywhere gaining
control.

They spoke of incidents and crimes in the black-out. So-and-so had lost
all her teeth in a taxi. So-and-so had been sandbagged in Hay Hill and
robbed of his poker-winnings. So-and-so had been knocked down by a Red
Cross ambulance and left for dead.

They spoke of various forms of service. Most were in uniform. Everywhere
little groups of close friends were arranging to spend the war together.
There was a territorial search-light battery manned entirely by
fashionable aesthetes who were called 'the monstrous regiment of
gentlemen'. Stockbrokers and wine salesmen were settling into the
offices of London District Headquarters. Regular soldiers were kept at
twelve hours' notice for active service. Yachtsmen were in R.N.V.R.
uniform growing beards. There seemed no opportunity for Guy in any of
this.

'My brother-in-law here is looking for a job,' said Box-Bender.

'You've left it rather late, you know. Everyone's pretty well fixed. Of
course things will start popping once the balloon goes up. I should wait
till then.'

They sat on late for no one relished the plunge into darkness. No one
attempted to drive a car. Taxis were rare. They made up parties to walk
homeward together. At length Guy and Box-Bender joined a group walking
to Belgravia. They stumbled down the steps together and set out into the
baffling midnight void. Time might have gone back two thousand years to
the time when London was a stockaded cluster of huts down the river, and
the streets through which they walked, empty sedge and swamp.

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the following fortnight Guy came to spend most of the day in
Bellamy's. He moved to an hotel and immediately after breakfast daily
walked to St. James's Street as a man might go to his office. He wrote
letters there, a thick batch of them every day, written shamefacedly
with growing facility in a corner of the morning-room.

'_Dear General Cutter, Please forgive me for troubling you at this busy
time. I hope you remember as I do the happy day when the Bradshawes
brought you to my house at Santa Dulcina and we went out together in the
boat and so ignominiously failed to spear pulpi..._'

'_Dear Colonel Glover, I am writing to you because I know you served
with my brother Gervase and were a friend of his..._'

'_Dear Sam, Though we have not met since Downside I have followed your
career with distant admiration and vicarious pride..._'

'_Dear Molly, I am sure I ought not to know, but I do know that Alex is
Someone Very Important and Secret at the Admiralty. I know too that you
have him completely under your thumb. So do you think you could possibly
be an angel..._'

He had become a facile professional beggar.

Usually there was an answer; a type-written note or a telephone call
from a secretary or aide-de-camp; an appointment or an invitation.
Always there was the same polite discouragement. 'We organized skeleton
staffs at the time of Munich. I expect we shall expand as soon as we
know just what our commitments are'--from the civilians--'Our last
directive was to go slow on personnel. I'll put you in our list and see
you are notified as soon as anything turns up.'

'We don't want cannon-fodder this time'--from the Services--'we learned
our lesson in 1914 when we threw away the pick of the nation. That's
what we've suffered from ever since.'

'But I'm not the pick of the nation,' said Guy. 'I'm natural fodder.
I've no dependants. I've no special skill in anything. What's more I'm
getting old. I'm ready for immediate consumption. You should take the
35's now and give the young men time to get sons.'

'I'm afraid that's not the official view. I'll put you on our list and
see you're notified as soon as anything turns up.'

In the following days Guy's name was put on many lists and his few
qualifications summarized and filed in many confidential registers where
they lay unexamined through all the long years ahead.

England declared war but it made no change in Guy's routine of appeals
and interviews. No bombs fell. There was no rain of poison or fire.
Bones were still broken after dark. That was all. At Bellamy's he found
himself one of a large depressed class of men older than himself who had
served without glory in the first World War. Most of them had gone
straight from school to the trenches and spent the rest of their lives
forgetting the mud and lice and noise. They were under orders to await
orders and spoke sadly of the various drab posts that awaited them at
railway stations and docks and dumps. The balloon had gone up, leaving
them on the ground.

Russia invaded Poland. Guy found no sympathy among these old soldiers
for his own hot indignation.

'My dear fellow, we've quite enough on our hands as it is. We can't go
to war with the whole world.'

'Then why go to war at all? If all we want is prosperity, the hardest
bargain Hitler made would be preferable to victory. If we are concerned
with justice the Russians are as guilty as the Germans.'

'Justice?' said the old soldiers. 'Justice?'

'Besides,' said Box-Bender when Guy spoke to him of the matter which
seemed in no one's mind but his, 'the country would never stand for it.
The socialists have been crying blue murder against the Nazis for five
years but they are all pacifists at heart. So far as they have any
feeling of patriotism it's for Russia. You'd have a general strike and
the whole country in collapse if you set up to be just.'

'Then what are we fighting for?'

'Oh we had to do that, you know. The socialists always thought we were
pro-Hitler, God knows why. It was quite a job keeping neutral over
Spain. You missed all that excitement living abroad. It was quite
ticklish, I assure you. If we sat tight now there'd be chaos. What we
have to do now is to limit and localize the war, not extend it.'

The conclusion of all these discussions was darkness, the baffling night
that lay beyond the club doors. When the closing hour came the old
soldiers and young soldiers and the politicians made up their same
little companies to grope their way home together. There was always
someone going Guy's way towards his hotel, always a friendly arm. But
his heart was lonely.

Guy heard of mysterious departments known only by their initials or as
'So-and-so's cloak and dagger boys'. Bankers, gamblers, men with jobs in
oil companies seemed to find a way there; not Guy. He met an
acquaintance, a journalist, who had once come to Kenya. This man, Lord
Kilbannock, had lately written a racing column; now he was in Air Force
uniform.

'How did you manage it?' Guy asked.

'Well, it's rather shaming really. There's an air marshal whose wife
plays bridge with my wife. He's always been mad keen to get in here.
I've just put him up. He's the most awful shit.'

'Will he get in?'

'No, no, I've seen to that. Three blackballs guaranteed already. But he
can't get me out of the Air Force.'

'What do you do?'

'That's rather shaming too. I'm what's called a "conducting officer". I
take American journalists round fighter stations. But I shall find
something else soon. The great thing is to get into uniform; then you
can start moving yourself round. It's a very exclusive war at present.
Once you're _in_, there's every opportunity. I've got my eye on India or
Egypt. Somewhere where there's no black-out. Fellow in the flats where I
live got coshed on the head the other night, right on the steps. All a
bit too dangerous for me. I don't want a medal. I want to be known as
one of the soft-faced men who did well out of the war. Come and have a
drink.'

So the evenings passed. Every morning Guy awoke in his hotel bedroom,
early and anxious. After a month of it he decided to leave London and
visit his family.

                 *        *        *        *        *

He went first to his sister, Angela, to the house in Gloucestershire
which Box-Bender bought when he was adopted as Member for the
constituency.

'We're living in the most frightful squalor,' she said on the telephone.
'We can't meet people at Kemble any more. No petrol. You'll have to
change and take the local train. Or else the 'bus from Stroud if it's
still running. I rather think it isn't.'

But at Kemble, when he emerged from the corridor in which he had stood
for three hours, he found his nephew Tony on the platform to greet him.
He was in flannels. Only his close-cropped hair marked him as a soldier.

'Hullo, Uncle Guy. I hope I'm a pleasant surprise. I've come to save you
from the local train. They've given us embarkation leave and a special
issue of petrol coupons. Jump in.'

'Shouldn't you be in uniform?'

'Should be. But no one does. It makes me feel quite human getting out of
it for a few hours.'

'I think I shall want to stay in mine once I get it.'

Tony Box-Bender laughed innocently. 'I should love to see you. Somehow I
can't imagine you as one of the licentious soldiery. Why did you leave
Italy? I should have thought Santa Dulcina was just the place to spend
the war. How did you leave everyone?'

'Momentarily in tears.'

'I bet they miss you.'

'Not really. They cry easily.'

They bowled along between low Cotswold walls. Presently they came into
sight of the Berkeley Vale far below them with the Severn shining brown
and gold in the evening sun.

'You're glad to be going to France?'

'Of course. It's hell in barracks being chased round all day. It's
pretty good hell at home at the moment--art treasures everywhere and Mum
doing the cooking.'

Box-Bender's house was a small, gabled manor in a sophisticated village
where half the cottages were equipped with baths and chintz.
Drawing-room and dining-room were blocked to the ceiling with wooden
crates.

'Such a disappointment, darling,' said Angela. 'I thought we'd been so
clever. I imagined us having the Wallace Collection and luxuriating in
Sèvres and Boulle and Bouchers. Such a cultured war, I imagined. Instead
we've got Hittite tablets from the British Museum, and we mayn't even
peep at them, not that we want to, heaven knows. You're going to be
hideously uncomfortable, darling. I've put you in the library. All the
top floor is shut so that if we're bombed we shan't panic and jump out
of the windows. That's Arthur's idea. He's really been too resourceful.
He and I are in the cottage. I know we shall break our necks one night
going to bed across the garden. Arthur's so strict about the electric
torch. It's all very idiotic. No one can possibly see into the garden.'

It seemed to Guy that his sister had grown more talkative than she had
been.

'Ought we to have asked people in for your last night, Tony? I'm afraid
it's very dull, but who is there? Besides there really isn't elbow room
for ourselves now we eat in Arthur's business-room.'

'No, Mum, it's much nicer being alone.'

'I so hoped you'd say that. We like it of course, but I do think they
might give you two nights.'

'Have to be in at reveille on Monday. If you'd stayed in London...'

'But you'd sooner be _at home_ your last night?'

'Wherever you are, Mum.'

'Isn't he a dear boy, Guy?'

The library was now the sole living-room. The bed already made up for
Guy on a sofa at one end consorted ill with the terrestrial and
celestial globes at its head and foot.

'You and Tony will both have to wash in the loo under the stairs. He's
sleeping in the flower-room, poor pet. Now I must go and see to dinner.'

'There's really not the smallest reason for all this,' said Tony. 'Mum
and Dad seem to enjoy turning everything topsy-turvy. I suppose it comes
from having been so very correct before. And of course Dad has always
been jolly close about money. He hated paying out when he felt he had
to. Now he thinks he's got a splendid excuse for economizing.'

Arthur Box-Bender came in carrying a tray. 'Well, you see how we're
roughing it,' he said. 'In a year or two, if the war goes on, everyone
will have to live like this. We're starting early. It's the greatest
fun.'

'You're only here for week-ends,' said Tony. 'I hear you're very snug in
Arlington Street.'

'I believe you would sooner have spent your leave in London.'

'Not really,' said Tony.

'There wouldn't have been room for your mother in the flat. No wives.
That was part of the concordat we made when we decided to share. Sherry,
Guy? I wonder what you'll think of this. It's South African. Everyone
will be drinking it soon.'

'This zeal to lead the fashion is something new, Arthur.'

'You don't like it?'

'Not very much.'

'The sooner we get used to it the better. There is no more coming from
Spain.'

'It all tastes the same to me,' said Tony.

'Well, the party is in your honour.'

A gardener's wife and a girl from the village were now the only
servants. Angela did all the lighter and cleaner work of the kitchen.
Presently she called them in to dinner in the little study which Arthur
Box-Bender liked to call his 'business-room'. He had a spacious office
in the City; his election agent had permanent quarters in the market
town; his private secretary had files, a typewriter and two telephones
in South-West London; no business was ever done in the room where they
now dined, but Box-Bender had first heard the expression used by Mr.
Crouchback of the place where he disastrously transacted all the paper
work of the estate at Broome. It had an authentic rural flavour,
Box-Bender rightly thought.

In the years of peace Box-Bender often entertained neat little parties
of eight or ten to dinner. Guy had memories of many candle-lit evenings,
of a rather rigid adequacy of food and wine, of Box-Bender sitting
square in his place and leading the conversation in humdrum topical
subjects. To-night with Angela and Tony frequently on their feet moving
the plates, he seemed less at his ease. His interests were still topical
and humdrum but Guy and Tony had each his own preoccupation.

'Shocking thing about the Abercrombies,' he said. 'Did you hear? They
packed up and went to Jamaica bag and baggage.'

'Why shouldn't they?' said Tony. 'They couldn't be any use here. Just
extra mouths to feed.'

'It looks as though I am going to be an extra mouth,' said Guy. 'It's a
matter of sentiment, I suppose. One wants to be with one's own people in
war time.'

'Can't see it,' said Tony.

'There's plenty of useful work for the civilian,' said Box-Bender.

'All the Prentices' evacuees have gone back to Birmingham in a huff,'
said Angela. 'They always were unnaturally lucky. We've got the Hittite
horrors for life, I know.'

'It's an awful business for the men not knowing where their wives and
families are,' said Tony. 'Our wretched Welfare Officer spends his whole
day trying to trace them. Six men in my platoon have gone on leave not
knowing if they've got a home to go to.'

'Old Mrs. Sparrow fell out of the apple-loft and broke both legs. They
wouldn't take her in at the hospital because all the beds are kept for
air-raid casualties.'

'We have to keep a duty officer on day and night doing PAD. It's a
ghastly bore. They ring up every hour to report "All Clear".'

'Caroline Maiden was stopped in Stroud by a policeman and asked why she
wasn't carrying a gas-mask.'

'Chemical Warfare is the end. I'm jolly grateful I had a classical
education. We had to send an officer from the battalion on a C.W.
course. They had me down for it. Then by the mercy of God a frightfully
wet fellow turned up in C Company who'd just got a science scholarship,
so I stood the adjutant a couple of drinks and got him sent instead. All
the wettest fellows are in C.W.'

Tony was from another world; their problems were not his. Guy belonged
to neither world.

'I heard someone say that this was a very exclusive war.'

'Well, surely, Uncle Guy, the more who can keep out of it the better.
You civilians don't know when you're well off.'

'Perhaps we don't want to be particularly well off at the moment, Tony.'

'I know exactly what I want. An M.C. and a nice neat wound. Then I can
spend the rest of the war being cosseted by beautiful nurses.'

'_Please_, Tony.'

'Sorry, Mum. Don't look so desperately serious. I shall begin to wish
I'd spent my leave in London.'

'I thought I was keeping such a stiff upper lip. Only please, darling,
don't talk like that about being wounded.'

'Well, it's the best one can hope for, isn't it?'

'Look here,' said Box-Bender, 'aren't we all getting a bit morbid? Take
Uncle Guy away while your mother and I clear the table.'

Guy and Tony went into the library. The french windows were open on the
paved garden. 'Damn, we must draw the curtains before we put on the
light.'

'Let's go out for a minute,' said Guy.

It was just light enough to see the way. The air was scented by
invisible magnolia flowers, high in the old tree which covered half the
house.

'Never felt less morbid in my life,' said Tony, but as he and Guy
strolled out into the gathering darkness, he broke the silence by saying
suddenly: 'Tell me about going mad. Are lots of Mum's family cuckoo?'

'No.'

'There was Uncle Ivo, wasn't there?'

'He suffered from an excess of melancholy.'

'Not hereditary?'

'No, no. Why? Do you feel your reason tottering?'

'Not yet. But it's something I read, about an officer in the last war
who seemed quite normal till he got into action and then went barking
mad and his sergeant had to shoot him.'

'"Barking" is scarcely the word for your uncle's trouble. He was in
every sense a most retiring man.'

'How about the others?'

'Look at me. Look at your grandfather--and your Great-uncle Peregrine;
he's appallingly sane.'

'He's spending his time collecting binoculars and sending them to the
War Office. Is that sane?'

'Perfectly.'

'I'm glad you told me.'

Presently Angela called: 'Come in, you two. It's quite dark. What are
you talking about?'

'Tony thinks he's going mad.'

'Mrs. Groat is. She left the larder un-blacked-out.'

They sat in the library with their backs to Guy's bed. Quite soon Tony
rose to say good-night.

'Mass is at eight,' said Angela. 'We ought to start at twenty to. I'm
picking up some evacuees in Uley.'

'Oh I say, isn't there something later? I was looking forward to a long
lie.'

'I thought we might all go to communion to-morrow. Do come, Tony.'

'All right, Mum, of course I will. Only make it twenty-five-to in that
case. I shall have to go to scrape after weeks of wickedness.'

Box-Bender looked self-conscious, as he still did, always, when
religious practices were spoken of. He could not get used to it--this
ease with the Awful.

'I shall be with you in spirit,' he said.

Then he left too, and stumbled across the garden to the cottage. Angela
and Guy were left alone.

'He's a charming boy, Angela.'

'Yes, so military, isn't he? All in a matter of months. He doesn't a bit
mind going to France.'

'I should think not indeed.'

'Oh, Guy, you're too young to remember. I grew up with the first war.
I'm one of the girls you read about who danced with the men who were
being killed. I remember the telegram coming about Gervase. You were
just a schoolboy going short of sweets. I remember the first lot who
went out. There wasn't one of them left at the end. What chance has a
boy of Tony's age starting now at the very beginning? I worked in a
hospital, you remember. That's why I couldn't bear it when Tony talked
of a nice neat wound and being cosseted.'

'He oughtn't to have said that.'

'There weren't any nice neat little wounds. They were all perfectly
beastly and this time there'll be all kinds of ghastly new chemicals
too, I suppose. You heard how he spoke about Chemical Warfare--a hobby
for "wet" officers. He doesn't know what it will be like. There isn't
even the hope of his being taken prisoner this time. Under the Kaiser
the Germans were still a civilized people. These brutes will do
anything.'

'Angela, there's nothing I can say except that you know very well you
wouldn't have Tony a bit different. You wouldn't want him to be one of
those wretched boys I hear about who have run away to Ireland or
America.'

'That's quite inconceivable, of course.'

'Well, then?'

'I know. I know. Time for bed. I'm afraid we've filled your room with
smoke. You can open the window when the light's out. Thank goodness
Arthur has gone ahead. I can use my torch across the garden without
being accused of attracting Zeppelins.'

That night, lying long awake, obliged to choose between air and light,
choosing air, not reading, Guy thought: Why Tony? What crazy economy was
it that squandered Tony and saved himself? In China when called to the
army it was honourable to hire a poor young man and send him in one's
place. Tony was rich in love and promise. He himself destitute,
possessed of nothing save a few dry grains of faith. Why could he not go
to France in Tony's place, to the neat little wound or the barbarous
prison?

But next morning as he knelt at the altar-rail beside Angela and Tony he
seemed to hear his answer in the words of the canon: _Domine non sum
dignus_.


[III]

Guy had planned to stay two nights and to go on Monday to visit his
father at Matchet. Instead he left before luncheon on Sunday so as to
leave Angela uninterrupted in her last hours with Tony. It was a journey
he had often made before. Box-Bender used to send him into Bristol by
car. His father used to send for him to the mainline station. Now all
the world seemed on the move and he was obliged to travel tediously with
several changes of bus and train. It was late afternoon when he arrived
at Matchet station and found his father with his old golden retriever
waiting on the platform.

'I don't know where the hotel porter is,' said Mr. Crouchback. 'He
should be here. I told him he would be needed. But everyone's very busy.
Leave your bag here. I expect we'll meet him on the way.'

Father and son and dog walked out together into the sunset down the
steep little streets of the town.

Despite the forty years that divided them there was a marked likeness
between Mr. Crouchback and Guy. Mr. Crouchback was rather the taller and
he wore an expression of steadfast benevolence quite lacking in Guy.
'_Racé_ rather than _distingué_' was how Miss Vavasour, a fellow
resident at the Marine Hotel, defined Mr. Crouchback's evident charm.
There was nothing of the old dandy about him, nothing crusted, nothing
crotchety. He was not at all what is called 'a character'. He was an
innocent, affable old man who had somehow preserved his good
humour--much more than that, a mysterious and tranquil joy,--throughout
a life which to all outward observation had been overloaded with
misfortune. He had like many another been born in full sunlight and
lived to see night fall. England was full of such Jobs who had been
disappointed in their prospects. Mr. Crouchback had lost his home.
Partly in his father's hands, partly in his own, without extravagance or
speculation, his inheritance had melted away. He had rather early lost
his beloved wife and been left to a long widowhood. He had an ancient
name which was now little regarded and threatened with extinction. Only
God and Guy knew the massive and singular quality of Mr. Crouchback's
family pride. He kept it to himself. That passion, which is often so
thorny a growth, bore nothing save roses for Mr. Crouchback. He was
quite without class consciousness because he saw the whole intricate
social structure of his country divided neatly into two unequal and
unmistakable parts. On one side stood the Crouchbacks and certain
inconspicuous, anciently allied families; on the other side stood the
rest of mankind, Box-Bender, the butcher, the Duke of Omnium (whose
onetime wealth derived from monastic spoils), Lloyd George, Neville
Chamberlain,--all of a piece together. Mr. Crouchback acknowledged no
monarch since James II. It was not an entirely sane conspectus but it
engendered in his gentle breast two rare qualities, tolerance and
humility. For nothing much, he assumed, could reasonably be expected
from the commonalty; it was remarkable how well some of them did behave
on occasions; while, for himself, any virtue he had came from afar
without his deserving, and every small fault was grossly culpable in a
man of his high tradition.

He had a further natural advantage over Guy; he was fortified by a
memory which kept only the good things and rejected the ill. Despite his
sorrows, he had had a fair share of joys, and these were ever fresh and
accessible in Mr. Crouchback's mind. He never mourned the loss of
Broome. He still inhabited it as he had known it in bright boyhood and
in early, requited love.

In his actual leaving home there had been no complaining. He attended
every day of the sale seated in the marquee on the auctioneer's
platform, munching pheasant sandwiches, drinking port from a flask and
watching the bidding with tireless interest, all unlike the ruined
squire of Victorian iconography.

'...Who'd have thought those old vases worth £18?... Where did
that table come from? Never saw it before in my life... Awful shabby
the carpets look when you get them out... What on earth can Mrs.
Chadwick want with a stuffed bear?...'

The Marine Hotel, Matchet, was kept by old servants from Broome. They
made him very welcome. There he brought a few photographs, the bedroom
furniture to which he was accustomed, complete and rather severe,--the
brass bedstead, the oak presses and bootrack, the circular shaving
glass, the mahogany prie-dieu. His sitting-room was furnished from the
smoking-room at Broome with a careful selection of old favourites from
the library. And there he had lived ever since, greatly respected by
Miss Vavasour and the other permanent residents. The original manager
sold out and went to Canada; his successor took on Mr. Crouchback with
the other effects. Once a year he revisited Broome, when a requiem was
sung for his ancestors. He never lamented his changed state or mentioned
it to newcomers. He went to mass every day, walking punctually down the
High Street before the shops were open; walking punctually back as the
shutters were coming down, with a word of greeting for everyone he
passed. All his pride of family was a schoolboy hobby compared with his
religious faith. When Virginia left Guy childless, it did not occur to
Mr. Crouchback, as it never ceased occurring to Box-Bender, that the
continuance of his line was worth a tiff with the Church; that Guy
should marry by civil law and beget an heir and settle things up later
with the ecclesiastical authorities as other people seemed somehow to
do. Family pride could not be served in dishonour. There were in fact
two medieval excommunications and a seventeenth-century apostasy clearly
set out in the family annals, but these were among the things that Mr.
Crouchback's memory extruded.

To-night the town seemed fuller than usual. Guy knew Matchet well. He
had picnicked there as a child and visited his father whenever he came
to England. The Marine Hotel lay outside the town, on the cliff beside
the coast-guard station. Their way led down the harbour, along the
waterfront, then up again by a red rock track. Lundy Island could be
seen in the setting sun, beyond the brown waters. The channel was full
of shipping held by the Contraband Control.

'I should have liked to say good-bye to Tony,' said Mr. Crouchback. 'I
didn't know he was off so soon. There's something I looked out for him
the other day and wanted to give him. I know he'd have liked to have
it--Gervase's medal of Our Lady of Lourdes. He bought it in France on a
holiday the year war broke out and he always wore it. They sent it back
after he was killed with his watch and things. Tony ought to have it.'

'I don't think there'd be time to get it to him now.'

'I'd like to have given it to him myself. It's not the same thing
sending it in a letter. Harder to explain.'

'It didn't protect Gervase much, did it?'

'Oh, yes,' said Mr. Crouchback, 'much more than you might think. He told
me when he came to say good-bye before going out. The army is full of
temptations for a boy. Once in London, when he was in training, he got
rather drunk with some of his regiment and in the end he found himself
left alone with a girl they'd picked up somewhere. She began to fool
about and pulled off his tie and then she found the medal and all of a
sudden they both sobered down and she began talking about the convent
where she'd been at school and so they parted friends and no harm done.
I call that being protected. I've worn a medal all my life. Do you?'

'I have from time to time. I haven't one at the moment.'

'You should, you know, with bombs and things about. If you get hit and
taken to hospital, they know you're a Catholic and send for a priest. A
nurse once told me that. Would _you_ care to have Gervase's medal, if
Tony can't?'

'Very much. Besides I hope to get into the army too.'

'So you said in your letter. But they've turned you down?'

'There doesn't seem to be much competition for me.'

'What a shame. But I can't imagine you a soldier. You never liked
motor-cars, did you? It's all motor-cars now, you know. The yeomanry
haven't had any horses since the year before last, a man was telling me,
and they haven't any motor-cars either. Seems a silly business. But you
don't care for horses either, do you?'

'Not lately,' said Guy, remembering the eight horses he and Virginia had
kept in Kenya, the rides round the lake at dawn; remembering, too, the
Ford van which he had driven to market twice a month over the dirt
track.

'Trains de luxe are more in your line, eh?'

'There wasn't anything very luxurious about to-day's trains,' said Guy.

'No,' said his father. 'I've no business to chaff you. It's very nice of
you to come all this way to see me, my boy. I don't think you'll be
dull. There are all kinds of new people in the inn--most amusing. I've
made a whole new circle of friends in the last fortnight. Charming
people. You'll be surprised.'

'More Miss Vavasours?'

'No, no, different people. All sorts of quite young people. A charming
Mrs. Tickeridge and her daughter. Her husband is a major in the
Halberdiers. He's come down for Sunday. You'll like them awfully.'

The Marine Hotel was full and overflowing, as all hotels seemed to be
all over the country. Formerly when he came to visit his father, Guy had
been conscious of a stir of interest among guests and staff. Now he
found it difficult to get any attention.

'No, we're quite full up,' said the manageress. 'Mr. Crouchback did ask
for a room for you but we were expecting you to-morrow. There's nothing
at all to-night.'

'Perhaps you could fix him up in my sitting-room.'

'We'll do what we can, if you don't mind waiting a bit.'

The porter who should have been at the station was helping hand round
drinks in the lounge.

'I'll go just as soon as I can, sir,' he said. 'If you don't mind
waiting until after dinner.'

Guy did mind. He wanted a change of shirt after his journey, but the man
was gone with his tray of glasses before Guy could answer.

'Isn't it a gay scene?' said Mr. Crouchback. 'Those are the Tickeridges
over there. Do come and meet them.'

Guy saw a mousy woman and a man in uniform with enormous handle-bar
moustaches. 'I expect they've sent their little girl up to bed. She's a
remarkable child. Only six, no nannie, and does everything for herself.'

The mousy woman smiled with unexpected charm at Mr. Crouchback's
approach. The man with the moustaches began moving furniture about to
make room.

'Cheerioh,' he said. 'Pardon my glove.' (He was holding a chair above
his head with both hands.) 'We were about to do a little light shopping.
What's yours, sir?'

Somehow he cleared a small space and filled it with chairs. Somehow he
caught the porter. Mr. Crouchback introduced Guy.

'So you're joining the lotus-eaters too? I've just settled madam and the
offspring here for the duration. Charming spot. I wish I could spend a
few weeks here instead of in barracks.'

'No,' said Guy, 'I'm only here for one night.'

'Pity. The madam wants company. Too many old pussy-cats around.'

In addition to his huge moustaches Major Tickeridge had tufts of wiry
ginger whisker high on his cheekbones, almost in his eyes.

The porter brought them their drinks. Guy tried to engage him on the
subject of his bag but he was off in a twinkling with 'I'll be with you
in one minute, sir.'

'Baggage problems?' said the major. 'They're all in rather a flap here.
What's the trouble?'

Guy told him at some length.

'That's easy. I've got the invaluable but usually invisible Halberdier
Gold standing easy somewhere in the rear echelon. Let him go.'

'No, I say, please....'

'Halberdier Gold has not done a hand's turn since we got here except
call me too damned early this morning. He needs exercise. Besides he's a
married man and the housemaids won't let him alone. It'll do Halberdier
Gold good to get away from them for a bit.'

Guy warmed towards this kind and hairy man.

'Here's how,' said the major.

'Here's how,' said the mousy wife.

'Here's how,' said Mr. Crouchback with complete serenity.

But Guy could only manage an embarrassed grunt.

'First to-day,' said the major, downing his pink gin. 'Vi, order another
round while I winkle out the Halberdier.'

With a series of collisions and apologies Major Tickeridge made his way
across the hall.

'It's awfully kind of your husband.'

'He can't bear a man standing idle,' said Mrs. Tickeridge. 'It's his
Halberdier training.'

Later when they separated for dinner Mr. Crouchback said: 'Delightful
people, didn't I tell you? You'll see Jenifer to-morrow. A beautifully
behaved child.'

In the dining-room the old residents had their tables round the wall.
The newcomers were in the centre, and, it seemed to Guy, got more
attention. Mr. Crouchback by a long-standing arrangement bought his own
wine and kept it in the hotel cellars. A bottle of Burgundy and a bottle
of port were already on the table. The five courses were rather better
than might have been expected.

'It's really remarkable how the Cuthberts cope with the influx. It's all
happened so suddenly. Of course one has to wait a bit between courses
but they manage to turn out a very decent dinner, don't they? There's
only one change I mind. They've asked me not to bring Felix in to meals.
Of course he did take up an awful lot of room.'

With the pudding the waiter put a plate of dog's dinner on the table.
Mr. Crouchback studied it carefully, turning it over with his fork.

'Yes, that looks delicious,' he said. 'Thank you so very much,' and to
Guy, 'D'you mind if I take it up to Felix now? He's used to it at this
time. Help yourself to the port. I'll be back directly.'

He carried the plate through the dining-room up to his sitting-room, now
Guy's bedroom, and soon returned.

'We'll take him out later,' said Mr. Crouchback. 'At about ten. I see
the Tickeridges have finished dinner. The last two nights they've joined
me in a glass of port. They seem a little shy to-night. You don't mind
if I ask them over, do you?'

They came.

'A beautiful wine, sir.'

'Oh, it's just something the people in London send down to me.'

'I wish you could come to our mess one day. We've got some very fine
port we bring out for guest nights. You, too,' he added, addressing Guy.

'My son, in spite of his advanced years, is making frantic efforts to
join the army himself.'

'I say, not really? I call that jolly sporting.'

'I'm not seeing much sport,' said Guy, and wryly described the
disappointments and rebuffs of the last fortnight.

Major Tickeridge was slightly puzzled by the ironic note of the
recitation.

'I say,' he said. 'Are you serious about this?'

'I try not to be,' said Guy. 'But I'm afraid I am.'

'Because if you _are_ serious, why don't you join _us_?'

'I've pretty well given up,' said Guy. 'In fact I've as good as signed
on in the Foreign Office.'

Major Tickeridge showed deep concern.

'I say, that is a pretty desperate thing to do. You know, if you're
really serious, I think the thing can be managed. The old corps never
quite does things in the ordinary army style. I mean none of that
Hore-Belisha stuff of starting in the ranks. We're forming a brigade of
our own, half regulars, half temporaries, half National Service men,
half long-service. It's all on bumf at present but we're starting cadre
training any day now. It's going to be something rather special. We all
know one another in the corps, you know, so if you'd like me to put in a
word with the Captain-Commandant, just say so. I heard him saying the
other day he could do with a few older chaps among the temporary
officers.'

By ten o'clock that night, when Guy and his father let Felix go bounding
into the blackness, Major Tickeridge had made notes of Guy's particulars
and promised immediate action.

'It's remarkable,' said Guy. 'I spent weeks badgering generals and
Cabinet Ministers and getting nowhere. Then I come here and in an hour
everything is fixed, up for me by a strange major.'

'That's often the way. I told you Tickeridge was a capital fellow,' said
Mr. Crouchback, 'and the Halberdiers are a magnificent regiment. I've
seen them on parade. They're every bit as good as the Foot Guards.'

At eleven lights went out downstairs in the Marine Hotel and the
servants disappeared. Guy and his father went up to bed. Mr.
Crouchback's sitting-room smelled of tobacco and dog.

'Doesn't look much of a bed, I'm afraid.'

'Last night at Angela's I slept in the library.'

'Well, I hope you'll be all right.'

Guy undressed and lay down on the sofa by the open window. The sea beat
below and the sea-air filled the room. Since that morning his affairs
had greatly changed.

Presently his father's door opened: 'I say, are you asleep?'

'Not quite.'

'There's this thing you said you'd like. Gervase's medal. I might forget
it in the morning.'

'Thanks most awfully. I'll always wear it from now on.'

'I'll put it here on the table. Good-night.'

Guy stretched out in the darkness and felt the light disc of metal. It
was strung on a piece of cord. He tied it round his neck and heard his
father moving about in his room. The door opened again. 'I say, I'm
afraid I get up rather early and I'll have to come through. I'll be as
quiet as I can.'

'I'll come to mass with you.'

'Will you? Do. Good-night again.'

Soon he heard his father lightly snoring. His last thought before
falling asleep was the uneasy question: 'Why couldn't I say "Here's how"
to Major Tickeridge? My father did. Gervase would have. Why couldn't I?'




BOOK ONE
APTHORPE GLORIOSUS


[I]

'Here's how,' said Guy.

'Cheers,' said Apthorpe.

'Look here, you two, you'd better have those drinks on me,' said Major
Tickeridge, 'junior officers aren't supposed to drink in the ante-room
before lunch.'

'Oh Lord. I am sorry, sir.'

'My dear chap, you couldn't possibly know. I ought to have warned you.
It's a rule we have for the youngsters. It's all rot applying it to you
chaps, of course, but there it is. If you want a drink tell the
corporal-of-servants to send it to the billiards-room. No one will mind
that.'

'Thanks for telling us, sir,' said Apthorpe.

'I expect you work up quite a thirst pounding the square. The C.O. and I
had a look at you this morning. You're coming along.'

'Yes, I think we are.'

'I heard from my madam to-day. All's well on the Matchet front. Pity
it's too far for week-end leave. I expect they'll give you a week at the
end of the course.'

It was early November. Winter had set in early and cold that year. A
huge fire blazed in the ante-room. Junior officers, unless invited, did
not sit by it; but its warmth reached the humble panelled corners.

The officers of the Royal Corps of Halberdiers, from the very fact of
their being poor men, lived in great comfort. In fashionable regiments
the mess was deserted after working hours by all except the
orderly-officer. The Halberdiers had made this house their home for two
hundred years. As Major Tickeridge often said: 'Any damn fool can make
himself uncomfortable.' In their month in the regiment neither Guy nor
Apthorpe had once been out to a meal.

They were the eldest of the batch of twenty probationary officers now
under instructions in barracks. Another similar group was said to be at
the Depot. Presently they would be brought together. Some hundreds of
National Service recruits were in training on the coast. Eventually in
the spring they would all be interjoined with the regular battalions and
the Brigade would form. This was a phrase in constant use: 'When the
brigade forms...' It was the immediate end of all their present
activity, awaited like a birth; the start of a new unknown life.

Guy's companions were mostly young clerks from London offices. Two or
three had come straight from public schools. One, Frank de Souza, was
just down from Cambridge. They had been chosen, Guy learned, from more
than two thousand applicants. He wondered, sometimes, what system of
selection had produced so nondescript a squad. Later he realized that
they typified the peculiar pride of the Corps, which did not expect
distinguished raw materials but confided instead in its age-old methods
of transformation. The discipline of the square, the traditions of the
mess, would work their magic and the _esprit de corps_ would fall like
blessed unction from above.

Apthorpe alone looked like a soldier. He was burly, tanned, moustached,
primed with a rich vocabulary of military terms and abbreviations. Until
recently he had served in Africa in some unspecified capacity. His boots
had covered miles of bush trail.

Boots were a subject of peculiar interest to Apthorpe.

He and Guy first met on the day they joined. Guy got into the carriage
at Charing Cross and found Apthorpe seated in the corner opposite to
him. He recognized the badges of the Halberdiers and the regimental horn
buttons. His first thought was that he had probably committed some
heinous breach of etiquette by travelling with a senior officer.

Apthorpe had no newspaper or book. He stared fixedly at his own feet for
mile after mile. Presently by a process of furtive inspection Guy
realized that the insignia of rank on Apthorpe's shoulders were not
crowns but single stars like his own. Still neither spoke, until after
twenty minutes Apthorpe took out a pipe and began carefully filling it
from a large rolled pouch. Then he said: 'This is my new pair of
porpoises. I expect you wear them too.'

Guy looked from Apthorpe's boots to his own. They seemed very much
alike. Was 'porpoise' Halberdier slang for 'boot'?

'I don't know. I just told the man I always go to, to make me a couple
of pairs of thick black boots.'

'He may have given you cow.'

'Perhaps he did.'

'A great mistake, old man, if you don't mind my saying so.'

He puffed his pipe for another five minutes, then spoke again: 'Of
course, it's really the skin of the white whale, you know.'

'I didn't know. Why do they call it "porpoise"?'

'Trade secret, old man.'

More than once after their first meeting Apthorpe reverted to the topic.
Whenever Guy gave evidence of sophistication in other matters, Apthorpe
would say: 'Funny you don't wear porpoises. I should have thought you
were just the sort of chap who would.'

But the Halberdier servant who looked after them in barracks--one
between four probationary officers--found great difficulty in polishing
Apthorpe's porpoises and the only criticism ever made of his turn-out on
parade was that his boots were dull.

Because of their age Guy and Apthorpe became companions in most things
and were called 'Uncle' by the younger officers.

'Well,' said Apthorpe, 'we'd better get a move on.'

The luncheon break allowed no time for dawdling. On paper there was an
hour and a half but the squad drilled in suits of privates' dungarees
(battle-dress had not yet been issued) and they had to change before
appearing in the mess. To-day Colour Sergeant Cook had kept them five
minutes after the dinner call in expiation of Trimmer's being late on
parade that morning.

Trimmer was the only member of the batch whom Guy definitely disliked.
He was not one of the youngest. His large, long-lashed, close-set eyes
had a knowing look. Trimmer concealed under his cap a lock of golden
hair which fell over his forehead when he was bare-headed. He spoke with
a slightly refined Cockney accent and when the wireless in the
billiards-room played jazz, Trimmer trucked about with raised hands in
little shuffling dance steps. Nothing was known of his civilian
antecedents; theatrical, possibly, Guy supposed. He was no fool but his
talents were not soldierly. The corporate self-esteem of the Halberdiers
did not impress Trimmer, nor did the solemn comforts of the mess attract
him. The moment work ended Trimmer was off, sometimes alone, sometimes
with a poor reflexion of himself, his only friend, named Sarum-Smith. As
surely as Apthorpe was marked for early promotion, Trimmer was marked
for ignominy. That morning he had appeared at the precise time stated in
orders. Everyone else had been waiting five minutes and Colour Sergeant
Cook called out the marker just as Trimmer appeared. So it was
twelve-thirty-five when they were dismissed.

Then they had doubled to their quarters, thrown their rifles and
equipment on their beds, and changed into service-dress. Complete with
canes and gloves (which had to be buttoned before emerging. A junior
officer seen buttoning his gloves on the steps would be sent back to
dress) they had marched in pairs to the Officers' House. This was the
daily routine. Every ten yards they saluted or were saluted. (Salutes in
the Halberdiers' Barracks were acknowledged as smartly as they were
given. The senior of the pair was taught to count: 'Up, one, two, three.
Down.') In the hall they removed their caps and sam-brownes.

Theoretically there was no distinction of rank in the mess 'Except,
Gentlemen, the natural deference which youth owes to age', as they were
told in the address of welcome on their first evening; Guy and Apthorpe
were older than most of the regular captains and were, in fact, treated
in many ways as seniors. Together they now went into the mess at a few
minutes after one.

Guy helped himself to steak-and-kidney pie at the sideboard and carried
his plate to the nearest place at the table. A mess orderly appeared
immediately at his elbow with salad and roast potatoes. The wine butler
put a silver goblet of beer before him. No one spoke much. 'Shop' was
banned and there was little else in their minds. Over their heads two
centuries of commanding officers stared dully at one another from their
gilt frames.

Guy had joined the Corps in a mood of acute shyness born of conflicting
apprehension and exultation. He knew little of military life save
stories he had heard from time to time of the humiliations to which new
officers were liable; of 'subalterns' courts-martial' and gross
ceremonies of initiation. He remembered a friend telling him that in his
regiment no one noticed him for a month and that the first words spoken
to him were: 'Well, Mr. Bloody, and what may your name be?' In another
regiment a junior officer said 'Good-morning' to a senior and was
answered: 'Good-morning, good-morning, good-morning, good-morning,
good-morning, good-morning, good-morning. Let that last you for a week.'
There had been nothing at all like that in the hospitable welcome he and
his fellows received from the Halberdiers. It seemed to Guy that in the
last weeks he had been experiencing something he had missed in boyhood,
a happy adolescence.

Captain Bosanquet, the adjutant, coming cheerfully into the mess after
his third pink gin, stopped opposite Guy and Apthorpe and said: 'It must
have been pretty bloody cold on the square this morning.'

'It was rather, sir.'

'Well, pass the word to your chaps to wear great-coats this afternoon.'

'Very good, sir.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Oh, you two poops,' said Frank de Souza, the Cambridge man, opposite.
'That means we'll have to let out all our equipment again.'

So there was no time for coffee or a cigarette. At half past one Guy and
Apthorpe put on their belts, buttoned their gloves, looked in the glass
to see that their caps were straight, tucked their canes under their
arms and strode off in step to their quarters.

'Up. One, two, three. Down.' They acknowledged a fatigue party called to
attention as they passed.

At their steps they broke into a run. Guy changed, and began hastily
adjusting his webbing equipment. Blanco got under his fingernails. (This
was the time of day which, all his life since school, Guy had spent in
an easy chair.) It was permissible to double in drill suits. Guy arrived
on the edge of the barrack square with half a minute in hand.

Trimmer looked terrible. Instead of buttoning his great-coat across the
chest and clipping it tight at the throat, he had left it open. Moreover
he had made a mess of his equipment. He had let one side-strap down at
the back, the other in front with monstrous effect.

'Mr. Trimmer, fall out, sir. Go to your quarters and come back here
properly dressed in five minutes. _As you were._ One pace _back_ from
the rear rank, Mr. Trimmer. _As you were._ On the command "Fall out" you
take one pace back with the left foot. About turn, quick march. _As you
were._ Swing the right arm level with the belt as the left foot goes
forward. Now get it right. Fall out. And let me not see any laughter,
Mr. Sarum-Smith. There's not an officer in this squad so smart as he can
laugh at another. Any officer I see laughing at another officer on
parade will find himself up before the adjutant. All right. Stand-easy.
While we wait for Mr. Trimmer, we'll just run through a little Corps
history. The Royal Corps of Halberdiers was first raised by the Earl of
Essex, for service in the Low Countries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
It then bore the name of the Earl of Essex's Honourable Company of Free
Halberdiers. What other sobriquets has it earned, Mr. Crouchback?'

'"The Copper Heels", and the "Applejacks", Sergeant.'

'Right. Why the "Applejacks", Mr. Sarum-Smith?'

'Because after the Battle of Malplaquet a detachment of the Corps under
Halberdier Sergeant Major Breen were bivouacked in an orchard when they
were surprised by a party of French marauders whom they drove away by
pelting them with apples, Sergeant.'

'Very good, Mr. Sarum-Smith. Mr. Leonard, what part did the Corps play
in the First Ashanti War...'

Presently Trimmer returned.

'Very well. Now we can get on. This afternoon we are going to the
kitchens where Halberdier Sergeant Major Groggin will show you how to
tell meat. Every officer must know how to tell meat. Many frauds are
attempted on the military by civilian contractors and the health of his
men depends on the alertness of the officer. All right? Then, Mr.
Sarum-Smith, will you take command. At the command, "Move", step smartly
out of the ranks, about turn, face your men. Move. This is your squad
now. I'm not here. I want them without arms, marched in a soldierly
fashion to the kitchen yard. If you don't know where that is, follow
your nose, sir. First run through the detail for piling arms, just for
refreshment, and then give the executive order.'

The detail for piling arms was the most elaborate part of their
education to date. Sarum-Smith faltered. Guy was called out and faltered
also. De Souza ran on confidently, but incorrectly. At last Apthorpe,
the safe stand-by, was called on. With an expression of strain he got it
right--'... the odd numbers of the front rank will seize the rifles of
the even numbers with the left hand crossing the muzzles, magazines
turned outward, at the same time raising the piling swivels with the
forefinger and thumb of both hands...' and the squad marched off. For
the rest of the afternoon period they inspected the kitchens in great
heat and the meat store in great cold. They saw vast, purple and yellow,
carcasses of beef and were taught to distinguish cat from rabbit by the
number of ribs.

At four they were dismissed. There was tea in the mess for those who
thought it worth another change of uniform. Most lay on their beds until
it was time for Physical Training.

Sarum-Smith came to Guy's room.

'I say, Uncle, have you had any pay yet?'

'Not a penny.'

'Can't we do anything about it?'

'I did mention it to the Second-in-Command. He says it always takes some
time to get through. It's just a matter of waiting.'

'That's all right for those who can afford it. Some firms are making up
their fellows' salaries so they don't lose by joining the army. Mine
doesn't. You're quite happily placed, aren't you, Uncle?'

'Well, I'm not quite broke yet.'

'Wish I wasn't. It's jolly awkward for me. Did you realize when we
joined they'd make us pay for our food?'

'Well, we don't really. We pay for what we have to supplement rations.
It's very good value.'

'That's all very well, but I'd have thought the least they could do
would be to feed us in war time. It was a shock when I found my first
mess bill. How do they expect us to live? I'm absolutely stony.'

'I see,' said Guy without enthusiasm or surprise, for this was not the
first conversation of the kind he suffered in the last few weeks and
Sarum-Smith was not a man whom he particularly liked. 'I suppose you
want a loan.'

'I say, Uncle, you're a thought-reader. I would be glad of a fiver if
you can spare it. Just till the Army pays up.'

'Don't tell everyone else.'

'No, of course not. A lot of us are in a bit of a fix, I can tell you. I
tried Uncle Apthorpe first. He advised me to come to you.'

'Thoughtful of him.'

'Of course if it's putting _you_ in a fix....'

'No, that's all right. But I don't want to become banker for the whole
Corps.'

'You shall have it back the moment I get my pay...'

Guy was owed fifty-five pounds.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Soon it was time to change into flannels and go to the gym. This was the
one part of the day Guy hated. The squad of probationary officers
assembled under the arc lights. Two Halberdier corporals were kicking a
football about. One of them kicked it so that it smacked against the
wall over their heads.

'That's damned cheek,' said a young man named Leonard.

The ball came again, rather closer.

'I believe the fellow's doing it deliberately,' said Sarum-Smith.

Suddenly there was a loud, authoritative shout from Apthorpe. 'You two
men, there. Can't you see there's a squad of officers here? Take that
ball and get out.'

The corporals looked sulky, picked up their ball and strolled out with a
plausible suggestion of nonchalance. Outside the door they laughed
loudly. The gym seemed to Guy to institute a sort of extra-territorial
area, the embassy of an alien and hostile people, that had no part in
the well-ordered life of the barracks.

The Physical Training instructor was a sleek young man with pomaded
hair, a big behind and unnaturally glittering eyes. He performed his
great feats of strength and agility with a feline and, to Guy, most
offensive air of sangfroid.

'The purpose of P.T. is to loosen up,' he said, 'and counteract the
stiffening effects of the old-fashioned drill. Some of you are older
than others. Don't strain. Don't do more than you feel you can. I want
to see you _enjoy_ yourselves. We'll start with a game.'

These games had a deeply depressing effect even on the youngest. Guy
stood in line, took a football when it came to him from between the legs
of the man in front, and passed it on. They were supposed to compete,
one rank against the other.

'Come on,' said the instructor, 'you're letting them get away with it.
I'm backing _you_. Don't let me down.'

After the game came exercises.

'Make it smooth and graceful, gentlemen, as though you were waltzing
with your best girl. That's the way, Mr. Trimmer. That's very rhythmic.
In the old days a soldier's training consisted in standing stiff at
attention for long periods and stamping the feet. Modern science has
shown that stamping the feet can seriously jar the spinal column. That's
why nowadays every day's work ends with half an hour's limbering up.'

This man would never fight, Guy thought. He would stay in his glaring
shed, rippling his muscles, walking on his hands, bouncing about the
boards like an india-rubber ball, though the heavens were falling.

'At Aldershot to-day the advance courses are all done to music.'

There would have been no place for this man, Guy reflected, in the Earl
of Essex's Honourable Company of Free Halberdiers. He was no Copper
Heel, no true Applejack.

After Physical Training another change of clothes and a lecture on
Military Law from Captain Bosanquet. Lecturer and audience were equally
comatose. Captain Bosanquet demanded no more than silence.

'...The great thing to remember is to stick in all the amendments of
King's Regulations as soon as they're issued. Keep your King's
Regulations up to date and you can't go far wrong.'

At six-thirty they were roused, dismissed and the day's work was at last
over. This evening Captain Bosanquet called Guy and Apthorpe back.

'I say,' he said, 'I looked in at your P.T. this evening. Do you think
it does you any particular good?'

'I can't say I do, sir,' said Guy.

'No, it's rather rot for people like yourselves. If you like, you can
cut it out. Keep clear of the ante-room. Just stay in your quarters and,
if anyone asks, say you are mugging up Military Law.'

'Thanks awfully, sir.'

'You'll probably find yourself commanding companies one day. Military
Law will be more use to you then than P.T.'

'I think I'll stay on in the gym, if I may,' said Apthorpe. 'I find that
after the square I need limbering up a bit.'

'Just as you like.'

'I've always been used to plenty of exercise,' said Apthorpe to Guy, as
they returned to their quarters. 'There's a lot of sense in what
Sergeant Pringle said about jarring the spinal column. I think I may
have jarred mine a bit. I've been feeling a bit off colour lately. It
may be that. I don't want anyone to think I'm not as fit as the rest of
the crowd. The truth is I've lived hard, old man, and it tells.'

'Talking about being different from the rest of the crowd, did you by
any chance pass Sarum-Smith on to me?'

'That's right. I don't believe in borrowing or lending. Seen too much of
it.'

There were two baths on every staircase. Coal fires had now been lighted
in the bedrooms. Toiling old Halberdiers, recalled to the colours and
put on barrack duties, kept them stoked. This was the best hour of the
day. Guy heard the feet of the young officers scampering down and out to
local cinemas, hotels and dance halls. He soaked in hot water and later
lay dozing in the wicker Oxford chair before his fire. No Mediterranean
siesta had ever given such ease.

Presently Apthorpe came to summon him to the Officers' House. Patrol
dress was optional for probationary officers. Only he and Guy had bought
it and this tended to set them apart and make them more acceptable to
the regulars, not because they could afford twelve guineas which the
others could not, but because they had chosen to make a private
investment in the traditions of the Corps.

When the two 'Uncles' in their blues arrived in the ante-room, Major
Tickeridge and Captain Bosanquet were alone before the fire.

'Come and join us,' said Major Tickeridge. He clapped his hands. 'Music
and dancing-girls. Four pink gins.'

Guy loved Major Tickeridge and Captain Bosanquet. He loved Apthorpe. He
loved the oil-painting over the fireplace of the unbroken square of
Halberdiers in the desert. He loved the whole Corps deeply and tenderly.

Dinner was formal that night. The mess-president struck the table with
an ivory hammer and the chaplain said Grace. The young officers,
accustomed to swifter and sparser meals, found all this rather
oppressive. 'I call it a bit thick,' Sarum-Smith had remarked, 'the way
they even make a drill-movement out of eating.'

The table was lit with huge many-branched candle-sticks which
commemorated the military history of the last century in silver palm
trees and bowed silver savages. There were about twenty officers in mess
that night. Many of the young were out in the town; the older were in
neighbouring villas with their wives. No one drank wine except on guest
nights. Guy had made the mistake of ordering claret his first evening
and had been rebuked with a jocular: 'Hullo, blood? Is it someone's
birthday?'

'There's an Ensa show to-night. Shall we go?'

'Why not?'

'I rather thought of sticking some amendments into the King's
Regulations.'

'I'm told the orderly-room clerk will do it for a pound.'

'Looks better to do it oneself,' said Apthorpe. 'Still I think I'll come
for once. The Captain-Commandant may be there. I haven't spoken to him
since the first day.'

'What d'you want to say to him?'

'Oh, nothing particular. Anything that crops up, you know.'

After a pause Guy said: 'You heard what the adjutant said about our
probably getting companies.'

'Doesn't that verge rather on shop, old man?'

Presently the hammer sounded again, the chaplain said Grace and the
table was cleared. The removal of the cloth was a feat of dexterity
which never failed to delight Guy. The corporal-of-servants stood at the
foot of the table. The mess orderlies lifted the candle-sticks. Then
with a single flick of his wrists the corporal drew the whole length of
linen into an avalanche at his feet.

Port and snuff went round. The party broke up.

The Halberdiers had their own Garrison Theatre within the barrack walls.
It was nearly full when Guy and Apthorpe arrived. The first two rows
were kept for officers. In the centre sat the full colonel, who by an
idiosyncrasy of the Corps was called the Captain-Commandant, with his
wife and daughter. Guy and Apthorpe looked for places, saw only two
empty seats in the centre. They hesitated, Guy seeking to withdraw,
Apthorpe rather timidly advancing.

'Come along,' said the Captain-Commandant. 'Ashamed to be seen sitting
with us? Meet madam and the brat.'

They took their places with the distinguished party.

'Do you go home for the week-end?' asked the brat.

'No. You see my home's in Italy.'

'Not really. Are you artistic or something? How thrilling.'

'My home used to be in Bechuanaland,' said Apthorpe.

'I say,' said the Captain-Commandant. 'You must have some interesting
yarns. Well, I suppose I'd better get this thing started.'

He gave a nod; the footlights went up; he rose and climbed the steps to
the stage.

'We're all greatly looking forward to this show,' he said. 'These
charming ladies and accomplished gentlemen have come a long way on a
cold night to entertain us. Let's see we give them a real Halberdier
welcome.'

Then he returned to his place amid loud applause.

'It's really the chaplain's job,' he said to Guy. 'But I give the little
fellow a rest now and then.'

A piano began playing behind the curtain. The curtain rose. Before the
stage was fully revealed, the Captain-Commandant sank into deep but not
silent sleep. Under the Corps crest in the proscenium there was
disclosed a little concert party comprising three elderly women,
over-made-up, a cadaverous old man, under-made-up, and a neuter beast of
indeterminable age at the piano. All wore the costume of pierrots and
pierrettes. There was a storm of loyal applause. A jaunty chorus opened
the show. One by one the heads in the first two rows sank into their
collars. Guy slept too.

He was awakened an hour later by a volume of song striking him from a
few feet away. It came from the cadaverous man whose frail northern body
seemed momentarily possessed by the ghost of some enormous tenor from
the south. He woke the Captain-Commandant, too.

'I say, that's not God Save the King, is it?'

'No, sir. "There'll always be an England".'

The Captain-Commandant collected his wits and listened.

'Quite right,' he said. 'Never can tell a tune till I've heard the
words. The old fellow's got a voice, hasn't he?'

It was the last item. Soon everyone was at attention. The tenor did
more. He stood at the salute while company and audience joined in the
National Anthem.

'On these occasions we always have the performers in for a drink. You
might round up some of the young chaps to do the honours, will you? I
expect you've more experience in entertaining the theatrical world than
we have. And, I say, if you're here for Sunday and have nothing better
to do, come and lunch.'

'Very glad to, sir,' said Apthorpe, whose inclusion in the invitation
was by no means clear.

'You'll be here, too? Yes, of course, do come. Delighted.'

The Captain-Commandant did not go with them to the Officers' House. Two
regulars and three or four of Guy's batch formed the reception
committee. The ladies had shed all theatrical airs with their make-up
and their fancy dress. They might have come in from a day's household
shopping.

Guy found himself next to the tenor, who had shed his wig, revealing a
few grey wisps of hair which made him appear somewhat younger, but still
very old. His cheeks and nose were blotchy and bright-veined, his eyes
watery in a nest of wrinkles. It was many weeks since Guy had looked
into a sick man's face. He might have taken the tenor for an alcoholic,
but he chose only coffee to drink.

'Find I don't sleep if I drink whisky nowadays,' he said apologetically.
'You're all wonderfully hospitable. Especially the Corps. I've always
had a very warm corner for the Copper Heads.'

'Copper Heels.'

'Yes, of course. I meant Copper Heels. We were next to you in the line
once in the last show. We got on very well with your chaps. I was in the
Artists. Not with a commission, mind you. I wasn't the age for that,
even then. Joined up in the ranks and saw it all through.'

'I only just scraped in.'

'Oh, you're young. I wonder if I might have another cup of this
excellent coffee. Takes it out of one, singing.'

'You've got a fine voice.'

'D'you think it went down all right? One never knows.'

'Oh, yes, a great success.'

'Of course we aren't a No. 1 Company.'

'You were all a great success.'

They stood silent. A burst of laughter rose from the group round the
ladies. Everything was going easily there.

'More coffee?'

'No more, thank you.'

Silence.

'The news looks better,' said the tenor at last.

'Does it?'

'Oh, _much_ better.'

'We don't get much time to read the papers.'

'No, I suppose you don't. I envy you. There's nothing in them but lies,'
he added sadly. 'You can't believe a word they say. But it's all good.
Very good indeed. It helps to keep one's spirits up,' he said from the
depths of his gloom. 'Something cheerful every morning. That's what we
need in these times.'

Quite soon the party bowled away into the night.

'That looked a very interesting man you were talking to,' said Apthorpe.

'Yes.'

'A real artist. I should think he's been in opera?'

'I daresay.'

'Grand Opera.'

Ten minutes later Guy was in bed. In youth he had been taught to make a
nightly examination of conscience and an act of contrition. Since
he joined the army this pious exercise had become confused with the
lessons of the day. He had failed dismally in the detail of the
pile-arms...--'...the even numbers of the centre rank will incline
their muzzles to the front and place their rifles under their right arms,
guards uppermost, at the same time seizing the piling swivel....'--He
was not now certain which had the more ribs, a cat or a rabbit. He
wished it had been he, not Apthorpe, who called the impudent corporals
to order in the gym. He had snubbed that decent, melancholy old man
about the 'Copper Heads'. Was that the 'real Halberdier welcome'
expected of him? There was much to repent and repair.


[II]

On Saturday at twelve there was a large exodus from barracks. Guy as
usual remained. More than his longer and more bitter memories, his
modest bank balance, his blue patrols, his boredom in the gym or any of
the small symptoms of age which distinguished him from his youthful
fellows, there was this recurring need for repose and solitude. Apthorpe
went off to play golf with one of the regulars. It was holiday enough
for Guy to change at his leisure, wear the same clothes all the
afternoon, to smoke a cigar after luncheon, walk down the High Street to
collect his weekly papers--the _Spectator_, the _New Statesman_, the
_Tablet_--from the local newsagent, to read them drowsily over his own
fire in his own room. He was thus employed when, long after nightfall,
Apthorpe returned from golf. He wore flannel trousers and a tweed coat
much patched and bound with leather. There was a fatuous and glassy
squint in his eyes. Apthorpe was tight.

'Hallo. Have you had dinner?'

'No. I don't intend to. It's a sound rule of health not to have dinner.'

'Never, Apthorpe?'

'Now, old man, I never said that. Of course not _never_. Sometimes. Give
the juices a rest. You have to be your own doctor in the bush. First
rule of health, keep your feet dry; second, rest the juices. D'you know
what the third is?'

'No.'

'Nor do I. Just stick to two rules and you'll be all right. You know you
don't look well to me, Crouchback. I've been worrying about you. You
know Sanders?'

'Yes.'

'I've been playing golf with him.'

'Good game?'

'Terrible. High wind, poor visibility. Played nine holes and knocked
off. Sanders has a brother in Kasanga. I suppose you think that's near
Makarikari.'

'Isn't it?'

'Just about twelve hundred miles, that's how near it is. You know, old
man, for a chap who's knocked about as much as you have, you don't know
much, do you? Twelve hundred bloody miles of bush and you call that
near.' Apthorpe sat down and stared at Guy sadly. 'Not that it really
matters,' he said. 'Why worry? Why go to Makarikari? Why not stay in
Kasanga?'

'Why not indeed?'

'Because Kasanga's a perfectly awful hole, that's why. Still if you like
the place, stay there by all means. Only don't ask me to join you,
that's all, old man. Of course you'd have Sanders' brother. If he's
anything like Sanders he plays pretty rotten golf, but I've no doubt
you'd be jolly glad of his company in Kasanga. It's a perfectly awful
hole. Don't know what you see in the place.'

'Why don't you go to bed?'

'Lonely,' said Apthorpe. 'That's why. It's always the same, wherever you
are, Makarikari, Kasanga, anywhere. You have a good time drinking with
the chaps in the club, you feel fine, and then at the end of it all you
go back alone to bed. I need a woman.'

'Well, you won't find one in barracks.'

'For company, you understand. I can do without the other thing. Not,
mind you, that I haven't done myself well in my time. And I will do
again I hope. But I can take it or leave it. I'm above sex. You have to
be, in the bush, or it gets a grip on you. But I can't do without
company.'

'I can.'

'You mean you want me to go? All right, old man, I'm not as
thick-skinned as you might think. I know when I'm not wanted. I'm sorry
I inflicted myself on you for so long, very sorry.'

'We'll meet again to-morrow.'

But Apthorpe did not move. He sat goggling sadly. It was like watching
the ball at roulette running slower and slower, trickling over the
numbers. What would turn up next: Women? Africa? Health? Golf? It
clicked into Boots.

'I was wearing rubber soles to-day,' he said. 'I regret it now. Spoiled
my drive. No grip.'

'Don't you think you'd better get to bed?'

It was half an hour before Apthorpe rose from the chair. When he did so,
he sat heavily on the floor and continued the conversation, without
apparently noticing his change of position. At last he said with a new
lucidity: 'Look here, old man, I've enjoyed this talk tremendously. I
hope we can go on with it some other night but at the moment I'm rather
sleepy so if you don't mind I think I'll turn in.'

He then rolled over and lay silent. Guy went to bed to the sound of
Apthorpe's breathing, turned off the light and slept also. He woke in
the dark to hear groaning and stumbling. He turned on the light.
Apthorpe was on his feet blinking.

'Good-morning, Crouchback,' he said with dignity. 'I was just looking
for the latrines. Must have taken a wrong turning. Good-night.'

And he staggered from the room leaving the door ajar.

Next morning when Guy was called, the batman said: 'Mr. Apthorpe's sick.
He asked for you to go in and see him when you're dressed.'

Guy found him in bed with a japanned tin medicine chest on his knees.

'I'm a bit off colour, to-day,' he said. 'Not quite the thing at all. I
shan't be getting up.'

'Anything I can do?'

'No, no, it's just a touch of Bechuana tummy. I get it from time to
time. I know just how to take it.' He was stirring a whitish mixture
with a glass rod. 'The hell of it is I promised to lunch with the
Captain-Commandant. I must make a signal putting him off.'

'Why not just send him a note?'

'That's what I mean, old man. You always call it "making a signal" in
the service, you know.'

'Do you remember calling on _me_ last night?'

'Yes, of course. What an extraordinary question, old man. I'm not a
talkative bloke as you well know, but I do enjoy a regular chinwag now
and then in the right company. But I don't feel so good to-day. It was
bloody cold and wet on the links and I'm liable to this damned Bechuana
tummy if I get a chill. I wondered if you could let me have some paper
and an envelope. I'd better let the Captain-Commandant know in good
time.' He drank his mixture. 'Be a good chap and put this down for me
somewhere where I can reach it.'

Guy lifted the medicine chest, which on inspection seemed to contain
only bottles labelled 'Poison', put it on a table, and brought Apthorpe
paper.

'D'you suppose I ought to begin: "Sir, I have the honour"?'

'No.'

'Just "Dear Colonel Green"?'

'Or "Dear Mrs. Green".'

'That's the ticket. That's exactly the right note. Good for you, old
man. "Dear Mrs. Green" of course.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

One of the characteristics of the Halberdiers was a tradition of firm
churchmanship. Papistry and Dissent were almost unknown among the
regulars. Long-service recruits were prepared for Confirmation by the
chaplain as part of their elementary training. The parish church of the
town was the garrison chapel. For Sunday Mattins the whole back of the
nave was reserved for the Halberdiers who marched there from barracks
behind their band. After church the ladies of the garrison--wives,
widows and daughters in whom the town abounded, whose lawns were mown by
Halberdiers and whose joints of beef were illicitly purchased from the
Halberdier stores--assembled with hymn books in their hands at the
Officers' House for an hour's refreshment and gossip. Nowhere in England
could there be found a survival of a Late-Victorian Sunday so complete
and so unself-conscious, as at the Halberdier barracks.

As the only Catholic officer Guy was in charge of the Catholic details.
There were a dozen of them, all National Service men. He inspected them
on the square and marched them to mass at the tin church in a side
street. The priest was a recent graduate from Maynooth who had little
enthusiasm for the Allied cause or for the English army, which he
regarded merely as a provocation to immorality in the town. His sermon
that morning was not positively offensive; there was nothing in it to
make the basis of a complaint; but when he spoke of 'this terrible time
of doubt, danger and suffering in which we live', Guy stiffened. It was
a time of glory and dedication.

After mass, as the men were waiting to fall in for their return march,
the priest accosted Guy at the gate. 'Won't you just slip in to the
presbytery, Captain, and pass the time of day? I've a bottle of whisky a
good soul gave me, that needs opening.'

'I won't, thank you, Father Whelan. I've got to take the men back to
barracks.'

'Well now and what a wonderful thing the army is to be sure, that a lot
of grown lads can't walk half a mile by themselves.'

'Those are the orders, I'm afraid.'

'Now that little matter of the list of names, Captain. His Lordship
wants a list of all the names of the Catholic serving men for his
records as I think I mentioned to you last Sunday.'

'Very good of you to take so much interest in us. I think you get a
capitation grant from the War Office, don't you, Father Whelan, when
there's no Catholic chaplain?'

'Well, I do now, Captain, and isn't it me right at law?'

'I'm not a captain. You'd better write to the adjutant.'

'And how would I be telling one officer from another and me not a
military man at all?'

'Just write "the Adjutant, the Royal Corps of Halberdiers". That'll get
to him all right.'

'Well, if you won't help, you won't, I suppose. God bless you, Captain,'
he said curtly and turned to a woman who had been standing unnoticed at
his elbow. 'Well, my dear woman, and what's troubling you now?'

On the march home they passed the parish church, a lofty elaborate tower
rising from a squat earlier building of flint and grey stone, with low
dog-toothed arches. It stood in a well-kept graveyard behind ancient
yews. Within from the hammer-beams hung the spider's-web Colours of the
Corps. Guy knew them well. He often stopped there on Saturday afternoons
with his weekly papers. From such a doorway as that Roger de Waybroke
had stepped out on his unaccomplished journey, leaving his madam
padlocked.

Less constrained than the Lady of Waybroke, the womenfolk of the
Halberdiers were all over the ante-room when Guy returned. He knew most
of them now and for half an hour he helped order sherry, move ashtrays
and light cigarettes. One of his own batch, the athletic young man named
Leonard, had brought his wife that morning. She was plainly pregnant.
Guy knew Leonard little for he lodged in the town and spent his evenings
there, but he recognized him as peculiarly fitted for the Halberdiers.
Apthorpe looked like any experienced soldier but Leonard seemed made of
the very stuff that constituted the Corps. In peace he had worked in an
insurance office and had travelled, every winter Saturday afternoon,
carrying his 'change' in an old leather bag, to outlying football
grounds to play scrum-half for his club.

In his first speech of welcome the Captain-Commandant had hinted that
there might be permanent commissions for some of them after the war. Guy
could imagine Leonard in twelve years' time as hairy and kindly and
idiomatic as Major Tickeridge. But that was before he met his madam.

The Leonards sat with Sarum-Smith talking of money.

'I'm here because I've got to be,' Sarum-Smith was saying. 'I went to
town last week-end and it cost me over a fiver. I shouldn't have thought
twice of it when I was in business. Every penny counts in the army.'

'Is it true, Mr. Crouchback, that they're moving you all after
Christmas?'

'I gather so.'

'Isn't it a shame? No sooner settled in one place than you're off
somewhere else. I don't see the sense of it.'

'One thing I won't do,' said Sarum-Smith, 'and that's buy a map-case.
_Or_ King's Regulations.'

'They say we've got to pay for our battle-dress when it comes. I call
that a bit thick,' said Leonard.

'It's no catch being an officer. They're always making you buy something
you don't want. The War Office is so busy sucking up to the other ranks
it hasn't time for the poor bloody officers. There was three bob on my
mess bill yesterday marked "entertainment". I asked what that was for
and they told me it was my share of the drinks for the Ensa party. I
didn't even go to the show, let alone stand any drinks.'

'Well, you wouldn't want them to come to the Corps and not have any
hospitality, would you?' asked Leonard.

'I could survive it,' said Sarum-Smith. 'And I bet half those drinks
went down the throats of the regular officers.'

'Steady on,' said Leonard. 'Here's one of them.'

Captain Sanders approached. 'I say, Mrs. Leonard,' he said. 'You know
that the Captain-Commandant's expecting you both to luncheon to-day?'

'We got our orders,' said Mrs. Leonard sourly.

'Grand, I'm trying to find another man. Apthorpe's chucked. You're
booked for it already, aren't you Crouchback? How about you,
Sarum-Smith?'

'Spare me,' said Sarum-Smith.

'You'll enjoy it. They're grand people.'

'Oh, very well then.'

'I haven't seen Uncle Apthorpe this morning? How's he looking?'

'Terrible.'

'He had rather a load on last night. He got into a pretty hearty school
at the golf club.'

'He has Bechuana tummy this morning.'

'Well, that's a new name for it.'

'I wonder what he'd call _my_ tummy,' said Mrs. Leonard.

Sarum-Smith laughed loudly. Captain Sanders wandered away. Leonard said:
'Keep it clean, Daisy, for heaven's sake. I'm glad you're coming to
lunch, Uncle. We'll have to sit on Daisy. She's in a wicked mood
to-day.'

'Well, all I can say, I wish _Jim_ had something wrong with himself.
Here he is playing soldiers all the week. I never see him. They might at
least give him his Sunday free. Any decent job you get that.'

'The Captain-Commandant seemed awfully nice.'

'I daresay he is, if you know him. So is my Aunt Margie. But I don't
expect the Captain-Commandant to spend his day off with her.'

'You mustn't mind Daisy,' said Leonard. 'It's just she looks forward to
Sundays and she isn't one for going out and meeting people particularly
at the moment.'

'If you ask me the Halberdiers think far too much of themselves,' said
Mrs. Leonard. 'It's different in the R.A.F. My brother's a wing
commander on the catering side and he says it's just like any ordinary
job only easier. Halberdiers can't ever forget to be Halberdiers even on
Sunday. Look at them all now.'

Sarum-Smith looked at his brother officers and at their ladies, whose
laps were full of prayer-books and gloves, their hands full of
cigarettes and sherry; their voices high and happy.

'I suppose we shall find _these_ drinks on the mess bill too. How much
d'you suppose the Captain-Commandant charges for lunch?'

'I say, steady on,' said Leonard.

'I wish Jim had joined the R.A.F.,' said Mrs. Leonard. 'I'm sure it
could have been managed. You know where you are with them. You just
settle down at an R.A.F. station as though it was business with regular
hours and a nice crowd. Of course I shouldn't let Jim fly, but there's
plenty of jobs like my brother's got.'

'Ground staff is all right in war time,' said Sarum-Smith. 'It won't
sound so good afterwards. One's got to think of peace. It'll do one more
good in business to have been in the Halberdiers than the R.A.F. ground
staff.'

At five minutes to one Mrs. Green and Miss Green, wife and daughter of
the Captain-Commandant, rose from their places and collected the guests.

'We mustn't be late,' said Mrs. Green. 'Ben Ritchie-Hook is coming. He's
a terror if he's kept waiting for his food.'

'I find him rather a terror always,' said Miss Green.

'You oughtn't to say that about their future brigadier.'

'Is it the man you were telling me about?' asked Mrs. Leonard, whose way
of showing her disapproval of the expedition was to speak only to her
husband, 'the man who cuts off people's heads?'

'Yes. He sounds a regular fizzer.'

'We're all very fond of him really,' said Mrs. Green.

'I've heard of him,' said Sarum-Smith as though to be known to him had
some sinister connotation like being 'known' to the police.

Guy too had heard of him often. He was the great Halberdier _enfant
terrible_ of the first World War; the youngest company commander in the
history of the Corps; the slowest to be promoted; often wounded, often
decorated, recommended for the Victoria Cross, twice court-martialled
for disobedience to orders in the field, twice acquitted in recognition
of the brilliant success of his independent actions; a legendary wielder
of the entrenching tool; where lesser men collected helmets Ritchie-Hook
once came back from a raid across no-man's-land with the dripping head
of a German sentry in either hand. The years of peace had been years of
unremitting conflict for him. Wherever there was blood and gun-powder
from County Cork to the Matto Grosso, there was Ritchie-Hook. Latterly
he had wandered about the Holy Land tossing hand-grenades into the front
parlours of dissident Arabs. These were some of the things Guy had heard
in the mess.

The Captain-Commandant inhabited a square, solid house at an extremity
of the barrack area. As they approached it, Mrs. Green said: 'Do any of
you smoke a pipe?'

'No.'

'No.'

'No.'

'That's a pity. Ben prefers men who smoke pipes. Cigarettes?'

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

'That's a pity, too. He likes you not to smoke at all if you don't smoke
pipes. My husband always smokes a pipe when Ben's about. Of course he's
senior but that doesn't count with Ben. My husband is rather afraid of
him.'

'He's in a blue funk,' said Miss Green. 'It's pitiful to see.'

Leonard laughed heartily.

'I don't see it's funny,' said Mrs. Leonard. '_I_ shall smoke if I want
to.'

But no one else in the party shared Mrs. Leonard's mood of defiance. The
three probationary Halberdiers stood back for the ladies to pass and
followed them through the garden-gate with adolescent misgivings and
there before them unmistakably, separated from them only by the
plate-glass of the drawing-room window, stood Lieutenant-Colonel,
shortly to be gazetted Brigadier, Ritchie-Hook glaring out at them
balefully with a single, terrible eye. It was black as the brows above
it, this eye, black as the patch which hung on the other side of the
lean skew nose. It was set in steel-rimmed monocle. Colonel Ritchie-Hook
bared his teeth at the ladies, glanced at his huge wrist-watch with
studied pantomime and said something inaudible but plainly derisive.

'Oh dear,' said Mrs. Green. 'We must be late.'

They entered the drawing-room; Colonel Green, hitherto a figure of awe,
smirked at them from behind a little silver tray of cocktails. Colonel
Ritchie-Hook, not so much usurping the position of host as playing the
watch dog, the sentinel perhaps at one of those highly secret
headquarters which Guy had visited in his search for employment, strode
to meet them. Mrs. Green attempted some conventional introductions but
was interrupted.

'Names again, please. Must get them clear. Leonard, Sarum-Smith,
Crouchback?--I can only count three. Where's Crouchback? Oh, I see. And
which owns the madam?'

He flashed his huge eye-teeth at Mrs. Leonard.

'_I_ own _this_ one,' she said.

It was braver and better than Guy would have expected, and it went down
well. Leonard alone seemed put out.

'Splendid,' said Ritchie-Hook. 'Jolly good.'

'That's the way to treat him,' said Mrs. Green.

Colonel Green goggled in admiration.

'Gin for the lady,' cried Colonel Ritchie-Hook. He stretched out a
maimed right hand, two surviving fingers and half a thumb in a black
glove, clutched a glass and presented it to Mrs. Leonard. But the light
mood passed and he immediately refused to take one for himself.

'Very nice if you don't have to keep awake after lunch.'

'Well, I don't,' said Mrs. Leonard. 'Sunday's my day of rest--usually.'

'There are no Sundays in the firing-line,' said Colonel Ritchie-Hook.
'The week-end habit could lose us the war.'

'You're spreading alarm and despondency, Ben.'

'I'm sorry, Geoff. The Colonel here was always the brainy one,' he
added, as though to explain his meek acceptance of criticism. 'He was
brigade major when I only had a platoon. That's why he's sitting in this
fine mansion while I'm going under canvas. Any camping experience?' he
asked suddenly of Guy.

'Yes, sir, a little. I lived in Kenya at one time and did several trips
in the bush.'

'Good for you. Gin for the old settler.' The black claw struck, grappled
and released a second cocktail into Guy's hand. 'Did you get much
shooting?'

'I bagged an old lion once who wandered into the farm.'

'Which are you? Crouchback? I knew one of my young officers came from
Africa. I thought it was some other name. You'll find your African
experience worth a hundred pounds a minute. There's one wretched fellow
on my list spent half his life in Italy. I didn't care for the sound of
that much.'

Miss Green winked at Guy and he kept silent.

'I've had fun in Africa, too,' said Ritchie-Hook. 'After one of my
periodical disagreements with the powers that be, I got seconded to the
African Rifles. Good fellows if you keep at them with a stick but
devilish scared of rhinos. One camp we had was by a lake and an old
rhino used to come down for a drink every evening across the parade
ground. Devilish cheek; I wanted to shoot him but the C.O. talked a lot
of rot about having to get a game licence. He was a stuffy fellow, the
sort of chap,' he said as though defining a universally recognized and
detestable type, 'the sort of chap who owns a dozen shirts. So next day
I fixed up a flare-path right across rhino's drinking place, with a line
of fuses, and touched it off right under his nose. I never saw a rhino
move faster, smack through the camp-lines. Caught a black fellow bang
through the middle. You never heard such a yelling. They couldn't stop
me shooting him then, not when he had a sergeant stuck on his nose.'

'Sounds like Bechuana tummy,' said Mrs. Leonard.

'Eh? What's that?' said Colonel Ritchie-Hook, not so pleased now at her
cheeky ways.

'Where was this, Ben?' Mrs. Green interposed.

'Somaliland. Ogaden border.'

'I didn't know there was any rhino in Somaliland,' said Colonel Green.

'There's one less now.'

'How about the sergeant?'

'Oh, he was on parade again in a week.'

'You mustn't take all Colonel Ritchie-Hook says quite literally,' said
Mrs. Green.

They went into luncheon. Two Halberdiers waited at table. Mrs. Green
carved. Ritchie-Hook grasped his fork in his gloved fingers, impaled his
meat, cut it rapidly into squares, laid down his knife, changed hands
with the fork and ate fast and silently, plunging the pieces into
horse-radish sauce and throwing them back to his molars. Then he began
to talk again. Had he followed any less chivalrous calling, had he worn
any other uniform than a Halberdier's, it might have seemed that Colonel
Ritchie-Hook, piqued by her interruption, was seeking to discomfort Mrs.
Leonard, so hard did he fix her with his single, ferocious eye, so
directly aimed seemed all his subsequent words at the hopes and
susceptibilities of a bride.

'You'll be glad to hear that I've got the War House to play. They've
recognized our Special Role. I drafted the minute myself. It went right
up the line and came down again approved. We're H.O.O.'

'What does that mean, please?' asked Mrs. Leonard.

'Hazardous Offensive Operations. We've been given our own heavy machine
guns and heavy mortars; no divisional organization; we come direct under
the Chiefs of Staff. There was some opposition from an idiot gunner in
Military Training but I soon scotched him. We've got a whizz of an area
in the Highlands.'

'Scotland? Is that where we've got to settle?'

'That is where we shall form.'

'But is that where we shall be in the summer? I've got my arrangements
to make.'

'Summer arrangements will depend on our friend the Boche. By summer I
hope to report the brigade as efficient and then immediate action. No
good hanging about. There's a limit to the amount of training men can
take. After a point they get stale and go back. You must use them when
they're on their toes... Use them,' he repeated dreamily, 'spend
them. It's like slowly collecting a pile of chips and then plonking them
all down on the roulette board. It's the most fascinating thing in life,
training men and staking them against the odds. You get a perfect force.
Everyone knows everyone else. Everyone knows his commander so well they
can guess his intention before they're told. They can work without
orders, like sheep-dogs. Then you throw them into action and in a week,
perhaps in a few hours, the whole thing is expended. Even if you win
your battle, you're never the same again. There are reinforcements and
promotions. You have to "start all over again from your beginnings, and
never breathe a word about your loss". Isn't that how the poem goes? So
you see, Mrs. Leonard, it's no good asking where or when we shall
settle. Do you all play footer?'

'No, sir.'

'No, sir.'

'Yes,' from Leonard.

'Soccer?'

'No, sir. Rosslyn Park.'

'Pity. The men don't understand rugger, except Welshmen and we don't get
many of those. It's a great thing to play with them. The men go for you
and you go for them and there's no hard feelings when bones get broken.
In my company at one time we had more casualties from soccer than from
the enemy and I can assure you we gave more than we took. Permanent
injuries some of them. There was a plucky little fellow played right
half for C Company lamed for life in the rest camp. You ought to follow
footer even if you don't play. I remember once a sergeant of mine got
his leg blown off. There was nothing to be done for the poor beggar. It
had taken half his body with it. He was a goner all right but quite
sensible and there was the padre one side of him trying to make him pray
and me the other side and all he'd think about was football. Luckily I
knew the latest League results and those I didn't know, I made up. I
told him his home team was doing fine and he died smiling. If ever I see
a padre getting above himself, I pull his leg about that. Of course it's
different with Catholics. Their priests hold on to them to the last.
It's a horrible sight to see them whispering at a dying man. They kill
hundreds just with fright.'

'Mr. Crouchback is a Catholic,' said Mrs. Green.

'Oh, sorry. Am I talking out of turn as usual? Never had any tact. Of
course it's because you live in Africa,' said Colonel Ritchie-Hook,
turning to Guy. 'You get a very decent type of missionary out there.
I've seen 'em myself. They don't stand any nonsense from the natives.
None of that "me velly Clistian boy got soul all same as white boss".
But mind you, Crouchback, you've only seen the best. If you lived in
Italy like this other young officer of mine, you'd see them as they are
at home. Or in Ireland; the priests there were quite openly on the side
of the gunmen.'

'Eat your pudding, Ben,' said Mrs. Green.

Colonel Ritchie-Hook turned his eye down to his apple-pie and for the
rest of luncheon spoke mainly against air-raid precautions, an
uncontroversial subject.

In the drawing-room with the coffee Colonel Ritchie-Hook showed the
softer side of his character. There was a calendar on the chimney piece,
rather shabby now in November and coming to the end of its usefulness.
Its design was fanciful, gnomes, toadstools, hare-bells, pink bare
babies and dragon-flies.

'I say,' he said. 'That's a lovely thing. My word it _is_ lovely. Isn't
it lovely?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, we mustn't stand here getting sentimental. I've a long ride ahead
of me on my motor-bike. I need a stretch. Who's coming with me?'

'Not Jim,' said Mrs. Leonard, 'I'm taking him home.'

'All right. Coming, you two?'

'Yes, sir.'

The town where the Halberdiers lived was ill suited to walking for
pleasure. It was a decent old place at the heart revealing concentric
layers of later ugliness. Pleasant country had to be sought three miles
out or more, but Colonel Ritchie-Hook's aesthetic appetites had been
sated by the calendar.

'There's a round I always go when I'm here,' he said. 'It takes fifty
minutes.'

He set off at a fast irregular lope, with which it was impossible to
keep in step. He led them to the railway beside which, separated from it
by a fence of black, corrugated iron, ran a cinder path.

'Now we're out of earshot of the Captain-Commandant,' he began, but a
passing train put him out of earshot of his two companions. When he
could next be heard he was saying '...altogether too much flannel in
the Corps. Necessary in peace time. No use for it in war. You want more
than automatic obedience. You want Grip. When I commanded a company and
a man came up to me on a charge I used to ask him whether he'd take my
punishment or go to the C.O. He always chose mine. Then I'd bend him
over and give him six of the best with a cane. Court-martial offence, of
course, but there was never a complaint and I had less crime than any
company in the Corps. That's what I call "Grip".' He strode on. Neither
companion found any suitable reply. At length he added: 'I shouldn't try
that out yourselves though--not at first.'

The walk continued mostly in silence. When Ritchie-Hook spoke it was
mostly to recount practical jokes or _gaffes raisonnées_. For this
remarkable warrior the image of war was not hunting or shooting; it was
the wet sponge on the door, the hedgehog in the bed; or, rather, he saw
war itself as a prodigious booby trap.

After twenty-five minutes Colonel Ritchie-Hook looked at his watch.

'We ought to be crossing now. I'm getting slow.'

Soon they came to an iron foot-bridge. On the farther side of the line
was a similar cinder track, bounded by corrugated iron. They turned
along it towards home.

'We'll have to spurt a bit if we're going to keep the scheduled time.'

They went at a great pace. At the barrack gates he looked at his watch.
'Forty-nine minutes,' he said. 'Good going. Well, glad to have got to
know you. We'll be seeing plenty of each other in the future. I left my
motor-bike at the guard-room.' He opened his respirator haversack and
showed them a tight wad of pyjamas and hair-brushes. 'That's all the
luggage I carry. Best use for this damn silly thing. Good-bye.'

Guy and Sarum-Smith saluted as he drove off.

'Regular old fire-eater, isn't he?' said Sarum-Smith. 'Seems to have
made up his mind to get us all killed.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

That evening Guy looked in on Apthorpe to see if he was coming to
dinner.

'No, old man. Going slow to-day. I think I can shake this thing off but
I've got to go slow. How was lunch?'

'Our future brigadier was there.'

'I'm sorry I missed that, very sorry. But it wouldn't have been much of
a first impression. I shouldn't want him to see me under the weather.
How did things go?'

'Not so badly. Largely because he thought I was you.'

'I don't quite get you, old man.'

'He'd heard one of us lived in Italy and the other in Africa. He thinks
I'm the African one.'

'I say, old man, I don't much like that.'

'He began it. Then it had gone too far to put him right.'

'But he _must_ be put right. I think you ought to write and tell him.'

'Don't be an ass.'

'But it's not a joking matter at all. It seems to me you've pulled
rather a fast one, taking advantage of another chap's illness to
impersonate him. It's just the sort of thing that might make a lot of
difference. Did you take my name, too?'

'No, of course not.'

'Well, if you won't write, I will.'

'I shouldn't. He'd think you were mad.'

'Well, I shall have to consider what is best. The whole thing's
extremely delicate. I can't think how you let it happen.'

Apthorpe did not write to Colonel Ritchie-Hook but he nursed his
resentment and was never again quite off his guard in Guy's company.


[III]

Shortly before Christmas the course of elementary training came to an
end and Guy and his batch were sent on a week's leave. Before they left
and largely in their honour, there was a guest night. They were urged to
bring guests to what, for the time being at any rate, was to be their
last night in barracks. Each felt on his mettle to provide someone
creditable to himself. Apthorpe, in particular, was proud of his choice.

'Great bit of luck,' he said, 'I've got hold of "Chatty" Corner. I
didn't know he was in England till I saw it in the paper.'

'Who's Chatty Corner?'

'I should have thought you would have heard of him. Perhaps it's
different in the posh ranches of Kenya. If you asked that question in
_Real_ Africa--anywhere between Chad and Mozambique--people would think
you were chaffing. He is a great character, Chatty. Queer sort of devil
to look at. You wouldn't think he knew how to use a knife and fork.
Actually he's a Bishop's son, Eton and Oxford and all that, and he plays
the violin like a pro. He's mentioned in all the books.'

'Books on music, Apthorpe?'

'Books on gorillas, of course. And who are you bringing, old man, if one
may ask?'

'I haven't found anyone yet.'

'Funny. I should have thought a chap like you would have known quite a
number of people.'

He was still huffy over the affair of mistaken identity.

Guy had proposed himself for Christmas to the Box-Benders. In her reply
Angela said that Tony was coming on Christmas leave. Guy was able at the
last moment to intercept him in London and lure him down to the
Halberdiers for the night. It was the first time either had seen the
other in uniform.

'I wouldn't miss seeing you masquerading as a young officer for anything
in the world, Uncle Guy,' he said on arrival.

'Everyone else here calls me "Uncle", too, you'll find.'

They were walking across the gravel to their quarters where the guests
had been given rooms. A Halberdier passed them at the salute and Guy
shrank to see his nephew's careless flick of acknowledgement.

'I say, Tony, that may be all right in your regiment. Here we return the
salute as smartly as it's given.'

'Uncle Guy, do I have to remind you that I am your superior officer?'

But that evening he was proud of his nephew, conspicuous in green
patrols and black leather, as he led him up to the Mess President in the
ante-room.

'Back from France, eh? I'm going to exercise my presidential privilege
and put you next to me. I'd very much like a first-hand account of
what's going on out there. Can't make head or tail of the papers.'

The identity of Chatty Corner was apparent to all without introduction;
a brown man with grizzled hair _en brosse_ stood morosely at Apthorpe's
side. It was easy to see how he had gained a footing among the gorillas;
easy, too, to recognize English irony in his nickname. He swung his head
from side to side, gazing about him from under shaggy brows as though
seeking some high path by which he could swing himself aloft and lie
cradled in solitude among the rafters. Not till the band struck up "the
Roast Beef of Old England" did Chatty seem at ease. Then he beamed,
nodded and gibbered confidentially into Apthorpe's ear.

The band was in the minstrels' gallery. They passed under it to enter
the mess and met its full force as they took their places at table. The
Mess President was in the centre opposite the Vice. Tony, next to him,
began to sit down before Grace and was hastily restrained by his uncle.
The band ceased, the hammer struck, the chaplain prayed. Band and
general conversation burst out once more together.

Drawn out by the senior officers round him, Tony began to talk about his
service in France, of field-craft, night patrols, and booby traps, of
the extreme youth and enthusiasm of the handful of enemy prisoners whom
he had seen, of the admirable style and precision of their raiding
tactics. Guy looked down the table to Chatty Corner to see whether he
was displaying any notable dexterity with his knife and fork and saw him
drink with an odd little rotary swirling motion of head and wrist.

At length when the cloth was drawn for dessert, the brass departed and
the strings came down from the minstrels' gallery and stationed
themselves in the window embrasure. Now there was silence over all the
diners while the musicians softly bowed and plucked. It all seemed a
long way from Tony's excursions in no-man's-land; farther still,
immeasurably far, from the frontier of Christendom where the great
battle had been fought and lost; from those secret forests where the
trains were, even then, while the Halberdiers and their guests sat
bemused by wine and harmony, rolling east and west with their doomed
loads.

They played two pieces, in the second of which a carillon was brightly
struck. Then the Captain of the Musicke presented himself in traditional
form to the Mess President. Room was made for him on a chair placed next
to Tony's and a bumper of port brought by the corporal-of-servants. He
was a shiny, red man no more to be recognized as a man or the arts, Guy
thought, than Chatty himself.

The Mess President hammered the table. All rose to their feet.

'Mr. Vice, our Colonel-in-Chief, the Grand-Duchess Elena of Russia.'

'The Grand-Duchess, God bless her.'

This ancient lady lived in a bed-sitting-room at Nice, but she was still
as loyally honoured by the Halberdiers as when, a young beauty, she had
graciously accepted the rank in 1902.

Smoke began to curl among the candles. The horn of snuff was brought
round. This huge, heavy-mounted object was hung about with a variety of
little silver tools--spoon, hammer, brush,--which had to be employed
ritualistically and in the right order on pain of a half-crown fine. Guy
instructed his nephew in their proper use.

'Do you have all this sort of thing in your regiment?'

'Not quite all this. I'm awfully impressed.'

'So am I,' said Guy.

No one was quite sober when he left the dining-room; no one was quite
drunk except Chatty Corner. This man of the wilds, despite his episcopal
origin, succumbed to the advance of civilization, was led away and never
seen again. Had he been competing for prestige, as Apthorpe thought he
was, this would have been an hour of triumph for Guy. Instead the whole
evening was one simple sublime delight.

In the ante-room there was an impromptu concert. Major Tickeridge gave
an innocently obscene performance called 'The One-Armed Flautist', an
old favourite in the Corps, new to Guy, a vast success with all. The
silver goblets, which normally held beer, began to circulate brimming
with champagne. Guy found himself talking religion with the chaplain.

'...Do you agree,' he asked earnestly, 'that the Supernatural Order
is not something added to the Natural Order, like music or painting, to
make everyday life more tolerable? It _is_ everyday life. The
supernatural is real; what we call "real" is a mere shadow, a passing
fancy. Don't you agree, Padre?'

'Up to a point.'

'Let me put it another way...'

The chaplain's smile had become set during Major Tickeridge's
performance; it was like an acrobat's, a professional device concealing
fear and exhaustion.

Presently the adjutant started a game of football with a waste-paper
basket. They changed from soccer to rugger. Leonard had the basket. He
was tackled and brought down. All the young officers began to leap on
the struggling bodies. Apthorpe leapt. Guy leapt. Others leapt on them.
Guy was conscious of a wrench in the knee; then the wind was knocked out
of him and he lay momentarily paralysed. Dusty, laughing, sweating,
panting, they disentangled themselves and got to their feet. Guy felt a
remote but serious pain in his knee.

'I say, Uncle, are you hurt?'

'No, no, it's nothing.'

Somewhere the order had been given to disperse. Tony gave Guy his arm
across the gravel.

'I hope you weren't too bored, Tony?'

'I wouldn't have missed it for anything. D'you think you ought to see a
doctor?'

'It'll be all right in the morning. It's just a twist.'

But in the morning, when he awoke from deep sleep, his knee was swollen
large and he could not walk with it.


[IV]

Tony was driving home. He took Guy with him as they had arranged, and
for four days Guy lay up at Box-Benders' with his leg bandaged stiff. On
Christmas Eve they bore him to midnight mass and then put him back on
his bed in the library. There was anti-climax in Tony's return. All the
stage properties remained, the crates of Hittite tablets, the improvised
beds, but there was no drama. After the spacious life of his barracks
Guy felt himself penned and straightened so that when after Boxing-Day
his brother-in-law returned to London, Guy went with him and spent the
last days of his leave in an hotel.

Those days of lameness, he realized much later, were his honeymoon, the
full consummation of his love of the Royal Corps of Halberdiers. After
them came domestic routine, much loyalty and affection, many good things
shared, but intervening and overlaying them all the multitudinous, sad
little discoveries of marriage, familiarity, annoyance, imperfections
noted, discord. Meanwhile it was sweet to wake and to lie on in bed; the
spirit of the Corps lay beside him: to ring the bell; it was in the
service of his unseen bride.

London had not yet lost its store of riches. It was the same city he had
avoided all his life, whose history he had held to be mean, whose aspect
drab. Here it was, all round him, as he had never seen it before, a
royal capital. Guy was changed. He hobbled out into it with new eyes and
a new heart.

Bellamy's, where last he had slunk in corners to write his begging
letters, offered him now an easy place in the shifting population of the
bar. He drank hard and happily, saying mechanically 'Cheerioh' and
'Here's how', quite unconscious of the mild surprise these foreign
salutations roused.

One evening he went alone to the theatre and heard behind him a young
voice say: 'Oh my prophetic soul, my uncle.'

He turned and saw immediately behind him Frank de Souza. He was dressed
in what the Halberdiers called 'plain clothes' and civilians, more
exotically, 'mufti'. His clothes were not particularly plain--a brown
suit, a green silk shirt, an orange tie. Beside him sat a girl. Guy knew
Frank de Souza little. He was a dark, reserved, drily humorous,
efficient young man. He remembered vaguely hearing that Frank had a girl
in London whom he visited at week-ends.

'Pat, this is my Uncle Crouchback.'

The girl smiled, without humour or welcome.

'Must you be facetious?' she said.

'Enjoying it?' Guy asked. They were at what was known as an 'intimate
revue'.

'Quite.'

Guy had thought it very bright and pretty. 'Have you been in London all
the time?'

'I've got a flat in Earl's Court,' said the girl. 'He lives with me.'

'That must be nice,' said Guy.

'Quite,' said the girl.

Further conversation was stopped by the return of their neighbours from
the bar and the rise of the curtain. The second half of the programme
seemed less bright and pretty to Guy. He was conscious all the time of
this cold odd couple behind him. At the end he said: 'Won't you come and
have some supper with me?'

'We're going to the Café from here,' said the girl.

'Is that far?'

'The Café Royal,' Frank explained. 'Come too.'

'But Jane and Constant said they might be meeting us there,' said the
girl.

'They never do,' said Frank.

'Come and eat oysters with me,' said Guy. 'There's a place just next
door.'

'I hate oysters,' said the girl.

'Perhaps we'd better not,' said Frank. 'Thanks all the same.'

'Well, we'll meet again soon.'

'At Philippi,' said Frank.

'Oh God,' said the girl. 'Come on.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

On his last evening, the last day of the old year, after dinner Guy was
at Bellamy's, standing at the bar, when he heard: 'Hullo, Tommy, how are
the staff-officer's piles?' and, turning, found at his side a major of
the Coldstream.

It was Tommy Blackhouse, whom he had last seen from his solicitor's
window in Lincoln's Inn when he and Tommy's soldier-servant had been
summoned to make a formal recognition during the divorce proceedings.
Tommy and Virginia had come through the square laughing, had paused at
the door by arrangement showing their faces, Virginia's under a bright
new hat, Tommy's under a bowler, and had immediately gone on, without
looking up towards the windows from one of which, they knew, they were
being watched. Guy had testified: 'That is my wife.' The guardsman had
said: 'That is Captain Blackhouse and the lady with him is the one I
found when I called him on the morning of the 14th.' Each had then
signed a statement and the solicitor had stopped Guy from giving the
guardsman a ten shilling note. 'Entirely irregular, Mr. Crouchback. The
offer of an emolument might jeopardize the action.'

Tommy Blackhouse had had to send in his papers and leave the Brigade of
Guards, but, because his heart was in soldiering, he had transferred to
a line regiment. Now, it seemed, he was back in the Coldstream. Before
that time Guy and Tommy Blackhouse had known one another very slightly.
Now they said:

'Hullo, Guy.'

'Hullo, Tommy.'

'So you're in the Halberdiers. They're very efficient, aren't they?'

'Much too efficient for me. They nearly broke my leg the other night. I
see you're back in the Coldstream.'

'I don't know where I am. I'm a sort of shuttlecock between the War
House and the Lieutenant-Colonel. I got back to the Brigade all right
last year--adultery doesn't matter in war time apparently--but like an
ass I spent the last two or three years at the Staff College and somehow
managed to pass. So I'm called "G.2. Training" and spend all my time
trying to get back to regimental soldiering. I knew one of yours at the
Staff College. Awfully good chap with a big moustache. Forget his name.'

'They've all got big moustaches.'

'You're in for a pretty interesting role it seems to me. I saw a file
about it to-day.'

'We know nothing.'

'Well, it'll be a long war. There'll be fun for us all in the end.'

It was all quite effortless.

Half an hour later the group broke up. In the hall Tommy said: 'I say
you _are_ going lame. Let me give you a lift.'

They drove up Piccadilly in silence. Then Tommy said: 'Virginia's back
in England.'

Guy had never considered what Tommy thought about Virginia. He did not
know precisely in what circumstances they had parted.

'Has she been away?'

'Yes, for quite a time. In America. She's come back for the war.'

'Typical of her--when everyone else is running the other way.'

'She's in great form. I saw her this evening in Claridge's. She asked
after you but I didn't know then where you were.'

'She asked after me?'

'Well, to tell you the truth she asked after all her old boy
friends--but you especially. Go and see her if you've got time. We all
ought to rally round.'

'Where is she?'

'At Claridge's, I imagine.'

'I don't suppose she wants to see me really.'

'I got the impression she wants to see the whole world. She was all over
_me_.'

Here they reached Guy's hotel and parted. Guy in correct Halberdier
fashion absurdly saluted this superior officer in the utter darkness.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next morning, New Year's Day, Guy awoke, as always now, at the hour when
the bugles were sounding reveille in barracks; his first thought was of
Virginia. He was full of over-mastering curiosity, but after eight
years, after all that he had felt and left unsaid, he could not pick up
the telephone at his bedside and call her as, he had no doubt, she would
have called him had she known where to find him. Instead he dressed and
packed and settled his hotel bill with his head full of Virginia. He had
until four that afternoon before setting out to his new destination.

He drove to Claridge's, asked at the desk, learned that Mrs. Troy had
not yet come down, and stationed himself in the hall where he could
watch both lifts and staircase. From time to time people he knew passed,
stopped, asked him to join them, but he kept his unwinking vigil. At
length someone who might be she, came swiftly from the lift and crossed
to the desk. The concierge pointed towards where Guy was sitting. The
woman turned and immediately beamed with pleasure. He limped forward;
she came to meet him with a skip and a jump.

'Guy, _pet_; what a treat! How lovely London is!' She hugged him; then
examined him at arm's length. 'Yes,' she said. 'Very nice indeed. I was
asking about you only yesterday.'

'So I heard. Tommy told me.'

'Oh, I asked absolutely everyone.'

'But it was funny hearing of it from him.'

'Yes, come to think of it, I suppose it was in a way. Why are your
clothes a different colour from everyone else's?'

'They aren't.'

'Well from Tommy's and his over there and his and his?'

'They're in the Foot Guards.'

'Well, I think your colour's _much_ more chic. And how it suits you. I
do believe you're growing a little moustache, too. It does make you look
so _young_.'

'You too.'

'Oh yes, me more than anyone. I thrive on the war. It's such heaven
being away from Mr. Troy.'

'He's not with you?'

'Darling, just between us two, I don't think I'm going to see much more
of Mr. Troy. He hasn't been behaving at all well lately.'

Guy knew nothing of this Hector Troy except his name. He knew that for
eight years Virginia had floated on a tide of unruffled popularity. He
willed her no evil but this prosperity of hers had stiffened the barrier
between them. In destitution she would have found him at her side, but
as she drifted into ever ampler felicity, Guy shrank the further into
his own dry, empty place. Now in the changes of war, here she was,
pretty and smart and pleased to see him.

'Are you lunching anywhere?'

'I was. I won't. Come on. I say, you're lame. Not wounded already?'

'No. Believe it or not, I've been playing football with a waste-paper
basket.'

'Not true?'

'Literally.'

'Darling, how madly unlike you.'

'You know, you're the first person I've met who hasn't been surprised to
find me in the army.'

'Why, wherever else would you be? Of course I've always known you were
brave as a lion.'

They lunched together and afterwards went up to her room and talked
continuously until it was time for Guy's train.

'You've still got the farm at Eldoret?'

'I sold it at once; didn't you know?'

'Perhaps I did hear at the time, but you know I had such a lot on my
mind just then. First divorce, then marriage, then divorce again, before
I had time to look round. Tommy didn't last any time at all, the beast.
I might almost just as well have stayed put. I hope you got a big
price?'

'Practically nothing. It was the year everyone went broke.'

'So it was. Don't I remember! That was another of the troubles with
Tommy. The chief thing was that his regiment turned so stuffy. We had to
leave London and stay in a ridiculous little town full of the dreariest
people. He even talked of going to India. That was the end. I really did
adore him, too. You never married again?'

'How could I?'

'Darling, don't pretend your heart was broken for life.'

'Apart from my heart, Catholics can't remarry, you know.'

'Oh, _that_. You still keep to all that?'

'More than ever.'

'Poor Guy, you did get in a mess, didn't you? Money gone, me gone, all
in one go. I suppose in the old days they'd have said I'd ruined you.'

'They might.'

'Have you had lots of lovely girls since?'

'Not many, not very lovely.'

'Well, you must now. I'll take you in hand and find you something
special.'

And.

'There's one thing I always did feel rather bad about. How did your
father take it all? He was such a lamb.'

'He just says: "Poor Guy, picked a wrong 'un."'

'Oh, I don't like that at all. What a perfectly beastly way to speak.'

And.

'But it can't be possible just to have done _nothing_ for eight years.'

It amounted to nothing. There was nothing worth the telling. When he
first came to Santa Dulcina from Kenya, with the habit of farming still
fixed in him, he had tried to learn viticulture, had pruned the
straggling vines, attempted to introduce a system of selection among the
pickers, a new French press. The wine of Santa Dulcina was delicious on
the spot but turned sour after an hour's travel. Guy had tried to bottle
it scientifically. But it all came to nothing.

He had tried to write a book. It went well enough for two chapters and
then petered out.

He had put a little money and much work into a tourist agency which a
friend of his tried to organize. The intention was to provide first-rate
aesthetic guides in Italy and to take specially deserving visitors into
little-known districts and to palaces normally kept shut. But the
Abyssinian crisis had cut off the flow of visitors, deserving and
undeserving alike.

'No, nothing,' he agreed.

'Poor Guy,' said Virginia. 'How wretched you make it sound. No work. No
money. Plain girls. Anyway you've kept your wool. Tommy's almost bald.
It was quite a shock to see him again. And your figure. Augustus is as
fat as butter.'

'Augustus?'

'I don't think we ever knew him in your time. He came after Tommy. But I
never married Augustus. He was getting fat even then.'

And so on for three hours.

When they parted Virginia said: 'But we must _keep_ meeting. I'm here
indefinitely. We mustn't ever lose touch again.'

It was dark when Guy reached the station. Under the faint blue lamp he
found half a dozen of his batch of Halberdiers.

'Here comes our gouty uncle,' they said as he joined them. 'Tell us all
about this new course? You're always in the know.'

But Guy knew no more than was typed on his move-order. It was a
destination quite unknown.


[V]

The Movement Order said: '_Destination, Kut-al-Imara House,
Southsand-on-sea_.' It was issued on the morning of the guest night
without explanation. Guy had consulted Major Tickeridge, who said:
'Never heard of the place. It must be something new the Corps has
thought up,' and the adjutant, who said: 'Not our pigeon. You'll come
under the Training Depot from now on until the brigade forms. It'll
probably be a pretty fair shambles.'

'None of the regulars from here will be coming?'

'Not on your life, Uncle.'

But to Guy sitting there with them in the ante-room among all the
trophies of the Corps, in the order and comfort of two centuries'
uninterrupted inhabitation, it seemed impossible that anything conducted
by the Halberdiers could fall short of excellence. And to him now, as
the train rolled through the cold and misty darkness, there remained the
same serene confidence. His knee was stiff and painful. He shifted his
leg among the legs that crossed and crowded in the twilight. The little
group of subalterns sat listless. High overhead their piled kitbags,
equipment and suitcases loomed darkly and were lost in the shadows.
Faces were hidden. Only their laps were lit by shafts too dim for easy
reading. From time to time one of them struck a match. From time to time
they spoke of their leave. Mostly they were silent. In the fog and chill
Guy was full of clear and comforting memories and he sat listening
inwardly to the repeated voices of the afternoon as though he were
playing a gramophone record over and over to himself. A ghost had been
laid that day which had followed him for eight years, lurked in every
strange passage barring his way, crossing him everywhere. Now he had met
it face to face in the daylight and found it to be kind and
unsubstantial; that airy spirit could never again block him, he thought.

For the last three-quarters of an hour of the journey all were quite
silent, all save Guy asleep. At length they reached Southsand, dragged
out their gear and stood in sharper cold on the platform. The train
moved off. For long after its feeble lamp had disappeared the sound of
the engine came to them on the east wind. A porter said: 'You from the
Halberdiers? You ought to have been on the six-eight.'

'This is the train on our orders.'

'Well, the rest of you came through an hour ago. The RTO just locked up.
You might catch him in the yard. No, that's him driving away now. He
said not to expect any more military to-night.'

'Hell.'

'Well, that's the army all over, isn't it?'

The porter moved off into the darkness.

'What are we going to do?'

'Better telephone.'

'Who to?'

Leonard pursued the porter.

'Is Kut-al-Imara House on the telephone?'

'Only the military line. That's locked up in the RTO's office.'

'Have you a telephone book?'

'You can try. Expect it's been cut off.'

In the dim office of the station-master they found the local directory.

'Here's Kut-al-Imara House Preparatory School. Let's try it.'

After a time a hoarse voice answered: ''Ullo, yes; what, who? Can't hear
a thing. This line's supposed to be cut off. This is a military
establishment.'

'There are eight officers here waiting for transport.'

'Are you the officers what's expected?'

'We thought so.'

'Well, 'old on, sir. I'll try and find someone.'

After many minutes a new voice said: 'Where are you?'

'Southsand station.'

'Why the devil didn't you get on the bus with the others?'

'We've only just arrived.'

'Well, you're late. The bus has gone back. We haven't any transport.
You'll have to find your own way here.'

'Is it far?'

'Of course it's far. You'd better hurry or there won't be anything left
to eat. There's bloody little now.'

They managed to find one taxi, and then a second, and so drove huddled
and laden to their new home. Nothing was visible. There was no
impression of anything until twenty minutes later they stood beside
their bags in a hall quite devoid of furniture. The floor-boards had
recently been washed and were still damp and reeking of disinfectant. An
aged Halberdier, much decorated for long years of good conduct, said:
'I'll get Captain McKinney.'

Captain McKinney, when he came, had his mouth full.

'Here you are,' he said, chewing. 'There seems to have been a balls-up
about your move-order. I daresay it's not your fault. Everything's
rather a shambles. I'm acting camp-commandant. I didn't know I was
coming here at all till nine o'clock this morning, so you can imagine
how much I know about anything. Have you had dinner? Well, you'd better
come and get something now.'

'Is there anywhere to wash?'

'In there. But there's no soap I'm afraid and the water's cold.'

They followed him unwashed through the door by which he had come to
greet them, and found a dining-room, soon to become familiar in every
horrid aspect but now affording merely a glare of nakedness. Two trestle
tables were laid with enamel plates and mugs and the grey cutlery they
had seen in the mess-rooms during one of their conducted tours of
barracks. There were dishes of margarine, sliced bread, huge bluish
potatoes and a kind of drab galantine which Guy seemed to remember, but
without relish, from his school-days during the first World War. On a
side table an urn stood in a pool of tea, dripping. Beetroot alone gave
colour to the spread.

'What price Dotheboys Hall?' said Trimmer.

But it was not the room nor the rations that caught Guy's chief notice.
It was a group of strange second lieutenants who occupied one of the
tables and now looked up, staring and munching. Those evidently were the
Depot Batch about whom they had so often heard.

Half a dozen familiar figures from the Barrack Batch sat at the other
table.

'You'd better settle there for the time being,' said Captain McKinney.
'There's some of your chaps still adrift. Sorting out will have to wait
till morning.' Then he raised his voice and addressed the room at large.

'I'm pushing off now to my billet,' he said. 'I hope you've got
everything you want. If you haven't, you'll just have to do without.
Your quarters are upstairs. They aren't allotted. Arrange all that
between yourselves. Lights out downstairs at twelve. Reveille at seven.
Parade to-morrow at eight-fifteen. You're free to come and go up to
twelve. There are six orderlies about the place but they've been at work
all day scrubbing out, so I'd be glad if you'd let them stand-easy for a
bit. It won't kill you to hump your own gear for once. We haven't been
able to start a bar yet. The nearest pub is on the front about half a
mile down the road. It's called the Grand and it's in bounds to
officers. The pub nearer is for Other Ranks only. Well, good-night.'

'Do I remember a lecture on "Man-management" not long ago?' said
Trimmer. '"When you make camp or move into new billets, remember that
the men under your command come first, second and third. You come
nowhere. A Halberdier officer never eats until he has seen the last
dinner served. A Halberdier officer never sleeps until he has seen the
last man bedded down." Didn't it go something like that?' He took one of
the forks and moodily bent it till it broke. 'I'm off to the Grand to
see if there's anything edible there.'

He was the first to go. Soon after him the Depot Batch rose from their
table. One or two of them hesitated, wondering whether they ought not to
speak to the newcomers, but by now all heads at the Barrack Batch table
were bent over their plates. The moment passed before it was recognized.

'Matey bastards, aren't they?' said Sarum-Smith.

The meal did not last long. Soon they were in the hall with the luggage.

'Let me take yours up, Uncle,' said Leonard and Guy gratefully
surrendered his kitbag and limped upstairs behind him.

The doors round the stairhead were locked. A notice scrawled in chalk on
the wall-paper pointed to '_Officers Quarters_' through a baize door. A
step down, bare light bulbs, a strip of linoleum with open doors on
either side. The first-comers had already established themselves but it
could not be said that they had gained by their priority. The rooms were
uniform. Each contained six service bedsteads and a pile of blankets and
palliasses.

'Let's keep away from Trimmer and Sarum-Smith,' said Leonard. 'How about
this, Uncle? Take your pick.'

Guy chose a corner bed and Leonard swung his kitbag on it.

'Shan't be a jiffy with the rest,' he said. 'Hold the fort.'

Other second lieutenants looked in. 'Any room, Uncle?'

'Room for three. I'm keeping a place for Apthorpe.'

'There's four of us. We'll try farther down.'

He heard their voices next door: 'To hell with unpacking. If we're going
to get a drink before closing time we've got to hurry.'

Leonard returned laden.

'I thought I'd better keep a place for Apthorpe.'

'Rather. Can't have our uncles separated. This is going to be very cosy.
I don't know how long I'll be here though. Daisy's coming down as soon
as I find rooms. There's a rumour married men can sleep out.'

Three cheerful youths brought in their luggage and appropriated the
remaining beds.

'Coming to the pub, Leonard?'

'How about you, Uncle?'

'Don't worry about me. I'll be all right.'

'Sure?'

'We might be able to get a taxi.'

'No, you run along.'

'Well, we'll be seeing you.'

Soon Guy was left quite alone in the new quarters. He began to unpack.
There were no cupboards or presses. He hung his great-coat on a hook in
the wall and laid his hair-brushes, washing things and books on the
window-sill. He got out his sheets and made the bed and stuffed his
pillow-case with a rolled blanket. Everything else was best left
unpacked. Then, leaning on his stick, he made a tour of the empty house.

The sleeping quarters had plainly been the boys' dormitories. Each was
named after a battle in the First War. His was '_Paschendael_'. He
passed the doors of '_Loos_', '_Wipers_' (so spelt) and '_Anzac_' Then
he found a small unnamed room, a master's perhaps, containing a single
unappropriated bed and a chest of drawers. Here lay luxury. Guy's
spirits rose. 'Any damn fool can make himself uncomfortable,' he
thought. The old soldier 'made his recce', 'appreciated the situation',
'conformed his plan to the ground'. He began to drag his kitbag down the
linoleum. And then he remembered Leonard dragging it up there. He
remembered how he had been given choice of beds. If he moved now he
would be denying the welcome of his juniors, setting himself apart
again, as he had already been too much set apart in barracks, from the
full fellowship of his batch. He closed the door of the single room and
dragged his bag back to Paschendael.

He continued his tour. The place had been thoroughly emptied, presumably
during the summer holidays. On the first floor he found a row of baths
in doorless cubicles; on the ground floor a changing-room with many
pegs, wash basins and a shower. He found a notice board which still bore
a list of cricket colours. Certain locked rooms must have been the
headmaster's private quarters. Here was plainly the masters'
common-room--an empty set of oak bookshelves, cigarette burns all over
the chimneypiece, a broken waste-paper basket. '_O.Rs_' was chalked on
the door which led to the kitchen quarters; beyond it the wireless was
playing. In the hall a tabletop had been put on the mantelpiece. It was
divided vertically with a chalk line. Over one half was written
'_Standing Orders_', over the other '_Daily Orders_'. Standing Orders
comprised printed notices about black-out and protection from gas, a
type-written alphabetical list of names and _Routine: Reveille 0700.
Breakfast 0730. Parade and Instruction 0830. Lunch 1300. Parade and
Instruction 1415. Tea 1700. Dinner 1930. Unless otherwise ordered
officers will be free from 1700._ There were no Daily Orders. A painting
too large to move--acquired when, how and why?--hung in a gilt
composition frame opposite the fireplace; it represented a wintry
sea-scape empty save for a few distant fishing boats and an enormous
illegible signature. He leant against a coil of antiquated iron pipes
and was surprised to find them hot. They seemed to lack all power of
radiation; a yard from them there was no sensible warmth. He could
imagine a row of little boys struggling to sit on them, tight-trousered
boys with adenoids and chilblains; or perhaps it was a privilege to sit
there enjoyed only by prefects and the First Eleven. In its desolation
he could see the whole school as it had been made familiar to him in
many recent realistic novels; an enterprise neither progressive nor
prosperous. The assistant masters changed often, he supposed, arriving
with bluff, departing with bluster; half the boys were taken at
surreptitiously reduced fees; none of them ever won a scholarship or
passed into a reputable public school or returned for an Old Boys' Day
or ever thought of his years there with anything but loathing and shame.
The History lessons were patriotic in design, turned to ridicule by the
young masters. There was no school song at Kut-al-Imara House. All this
Guy thought he snuffed in the air of the forsaken building.

Well, he reflected, he had not joined the army for his own comfort. He
had expected a grim initiation. Life in barracks had been a survival
from long years of peace, something rare and protected, quite
unconnected with his purpose. That was over and done with; this was war.

And yet on this dark evening, his spirit sank. The occupation of this
husk of a house, perhaps, was a microcosm of that new world he had
enlisted to defeat. Something quite worthless, a poor parody of
civilization, had been driven out; he and his fellows had moved in,
bringing the new world with them; the world that was taking firm shape
everywhere all about him, bounded by barbed wire and reeking of
carbolic.

His knee hurt more to-night than ever before. He stumped woefully to
Paschendael, undressed, spread his clothes on the foot of his bed, and
lay down leaving the single bulb shining in his eyes. Soon he fell
asleep and soon after was awakened by the cheery return of his
companions.


[VI]

There was nothing obnoxious about the batch from the Training Depot.
There were no grounds on which the Barrack Batch could assume
superiority. The disconcerting quality about them was their resemblance
at every point. They had their Trimmer, a black sheep named Hemp. They
had their Sarum-Smith, a malcontent named Colenso. They even had their
'uncles', a genial, stoutish schoolmaster named 'Tubby' Blake and a
rubber planter from Malay named Roderick. It was as though in their
advance the Barrack batch had turned a corner and suddenly been brought
up sharp by a looking-glass in which they found themselves reflected.
There was no enmity between the two groups but there was little
friendship. They continued as they had begun, eating at separate tables
and inhabiting separate bedrooms. To Guy it seemed that there were just
twice too many young officers at Kut-al-Imara House. They were
diminished and caricatured by duplication, and the whole hierarchic
structure of army life was affronted by this congregation of so many men
of perfectly equal rank. The regular officers charged with their
training lived in billets, appeared more or less punctually for duty,
sauntered from class to class during working hours and punctually
departed. Often at their approach a sergeant-instructor would say: 'Come
on now, look alive. Officer coming,' oblivious of the rank of his squad.
The orderlies and non-commissioned instructors were under the command of
a quartermaster-sergeant. The second lieutenants had no responsibility
for, nor authority over them.

Living conditions grew slightly more tolerable. Rudimentary furniture
appeared; a mess-committee was formed consisting of the camp-commandant,
Guy and 'Tubby' Blake; the food was improved; the bar stocked. A motion
to hire a wireless-set was hotly debated and narrowly lost through the
combination of the elderly with the thrifty. The regimental Comforts
Fund lent a dart board and a ping-pong table; but in spite of these
amenities the house was generally deserted in the evening. Southsand
offered a dance hall, a cinema and several hotels and there was more
money about. Each officer was greeted on his return from leave with a
note crediting him with back-pay and a number of quite unexpected
allowances. All Guy's creditors save Sarum-Smith repaid their loans.
Sarum-Smith said: 'With regard to that little matter of a fiver, uncle,
if it's all the same to you, I'll let it run a bit longer.'

It seemed to Guy that there was now a slight nuance in the use of
'Uncle'. What had before been, at heart, an expression of respect, of
'the deference which youth owes to age', was now perceptibly derisive.
The young officers were much at their ease in Southsand; they picked up
girls of the town, they drank in congenial palm-lounges and snuggeries,
they felt their leisure free from observation. In barracks Guy had been
a link between them and their seniors. Here he was a lame old buffer who
did not shine at the work or join in the fun. He had always stood in
their esteem on the very verge of absurdity. Now his stiff knee and
supporting stick carried him over.

He was excused from parades and Physical Training. He hobbled alone to
instruction in the gym where they marched as a squad, and hobbled back
alone behind them. They had been given battle-dress and now wore it for
classes. At night they changed into service-dress if they wished. There
was no order about it. 'Blues' were out. The work of the course was
Small Arms, morning and afternoon. The lessons followed the Manual page
by page, designed for the comprehension of the dullest possible recruit.

'Just imagine, gentlemen, that you're playing football. I daresay some
of you wish you were. All right? You're outside right. There's a wind
blowing straight down the field. All right? You're taking a corner kick.
All right? Do you aim straight at the goal? Can't anyone tell me? Mr.
Trimmer, do you aim straight at the goal?'

'Oh, yes, Sergeant.'

'You do, do you? What does anyone else think?'

'No, Sergeant.'

'No, Sergeant.'

'No, Sergeant.'

'Oh, you don't, don't you? Well, where do you aim?'

'I'd try and pass.'

'That's not the answer I want. Suppose you _want_ to shoot a goal, do
you aim straight at it?'

'Yes.'

'No.'

'No, Sergeant.'

'Well, where _do_ you aim? Come along, doesn't anyone here play
football? You aim _up_ field, don't you?'

'Yes, Sergeant.'

'Why? Can't any of you think? You aim _up_ field because it's _into the
wind_, isn't it?...'

Guy took his turn at the aiming-rest and laid off for wind. Later he
lowered himself painfully to the gymnasium floor and pointed a rifle at
Sarum-Smith's eye while Sarum-Smith squinnied at him through an
'aiming-disc' and declared all his shots wide.

It was generally known that Guy had once shot a lion. The
non-commissioned officers took up the theme: 'Dreaming of big game, Mr.
Crouchback?' they asked when Guy's attention wandered, and they gave
their fire orders: 'Ahead a bushy-top tree. Right, four o'clock, ten
degrees, corner of yellow field. In that corner a lion. At that lion,
two rounds, fire.'

Guy's position on the mess-committee was far from being a hollow
dignity, indeed, it lacked dignity of any kind for it exposed him to
rather sharp complaints: 'Uncle, why can't we have better pickles?'
'Uncle, why isn't whisky cheaper here than at the Grand Hotel?' 'Why do
we take in _The Times_? No one reads it except you.' Throughout all the
smooth revolutions of barrack life there had been accumulating tiny
grits of envy which were now generating heat.

All that week Guy was increasingly lonely and dispirited. The news on
the eighth day that Apthorpe was rejoining them cheered him throughout a
tedious session of 'Judging Distance'.

'...Why do we judge distance? To estimate the range of the target
correctly. All right? Correct range makes fire effective and avoids
waste of ammunition. All right? At two hundred yards all parts of the
body are distinctly seen. At three hundred yards the outline of the face
is blurred. At four hundred yards, no face. At six hundred yards the
head is a dot and the body tapers. Any questions?...'

As he limped back from the gym to the house he repeated to himself: 'Six
hundred yards the head is a dot; four hundred yards, no face,' not to
fix it in his mind, but as a meaningless jingle. Before he reached the
house he was saying: 'Four hundred yards, the head is a face; six
hundred yards, no dot.' It was the worst afternoon since he joined the
army.

Then he found Apthorpe sitting in the hall.

'I'm delighted to see you back,' said Guy, with sincerity. 'Are you all
right again?'

'No, no, far from it. But I've been passed fit for light duties.'

'Bechuana tummy again?'

'It's no joking matter, old man. I met with rather a nasty accident. In
the bathroom when I hadn't a stitch on.'

'Do tell me.'

'I was going to, only you seem to find it so funny. I was staying with
my aunt at Peterborough. There wasn't a great deal to do and I didn't
want to get out of condition, so I decided to run through some of the
P.T. tables. Somehow the very first morning I slipped and came the most
awful cropper. I can tell you it hurt like the devil.'

'Whereabouts, Apthorpe?'

'In my knee. It was literally agony. I quite thought I'd broken it. I
had quite a business finding an M.O. My aunt wanted me to see her doctor
but I insisted on going through service channels. When I did, he took it
very seriously. Packed me off to hospital. As a matter of fact that was
interesting. I don't think you've ever been in a military hospital,
Crouchback?'

'Not yet.'

'It's well worth while. One should get to know all arms of the service.
I had a sapper in the next bed to mine,--with ulcers.'

'Apthorpe, there's one thing I must ask you----'

'I was there over Christmas. The VADs sang carols----'

'Apthorpe, are you lame?'

'Well, what d'you expect, old man? A thing like this doesn't clear up in
a day even with the best treatment.'

'I'm lame too.'

'Very sorry to hear it. But I was telling you about Christmas in the
ward. The SMO made punch----'

'Don't you realize what awful fools we're going to look, the two of us,
I mean, both going lame?'

'No.'

'Like a pair of twins.'

'Frankly, old man, I think that's a bit far-fetched.'

But when he and Apthorpe appeared at the dining-room door, each leaning
on his stick, there was a general turning of heads, then laughter, then
a round of clapping from both tables.

'I say, Crouchback, has this been pre-arranged?'

'No. It seems quite spontaneous.'

'Well, I consider it's in pretty poor taste.'

They filled their mugs at the urn and sat down.

'Not the first tea I've had in this room!' said Apthorpe.

'How is that?'

'We used to play Kut-al-Imara when I was at Staplehurst. I was never
quite first-class at cricket but I played goal for the First Eleven my
last two seasons.'

Guy had come to rejoice in facts about Apthorpe's private life. They
were rather rare. The aunt at Peterborough was a new character; now
there was Staplehurst.

'Was that your prep school?'

'Yes. It's that rather prominent building I expect you've noticed the
other side of the town. I should have thought you'd have heard of it.
It's very well known. My aunt was rather High Church,' he added with the
air of thus somehow confirming the school's reputation.

'Your aunt at Peterborough?'

'No, no, of course not,' said Apthorpe crossly. 'My aunt at Tunbridge
Wells. My aunt at Peterborough doesn't go in for that sort of thing at
all.'

'Was it a good school?'

'Staplehurst? One of the best. Quite outstanding. At least it was in my
day.'

'I meant Kut-al-Imara.'

'We thought them awful little ticks. They usually beat us, of course,
but then they made a fetish of games. We just took them in our stride at
Staplehurst.'

Leonard joined them.

'We've kept a bed for you in our room, Uncle,' he said.

'Jolly decent of you, but to tell you the truth I've got rather a lot of
gear. I had a look round before you chaps dismissed and found an empty
room, so I'm moving in there alone. I shall have to read a bit at night,
I expect, to catch up with you. The sapper I met in hospital lent me
some very interesting books, pretty confidential ones. The sort of thing
you aren't allowed to take into the front line trenches in case it fell
into the hands of the enemy.'

'Sounds like an ATM.'

'This _is_ an ATM.'

'We've all been issued with those.'

'Well it can't be at all the same thing. I got it from this sapper
major. He had an internal ulcer so he passed it on to me.'

'Is this the thing?' asked Leonard, taking from the pocket of his
battle-dress trousers a copy of the January Army Training Memorandum
that was issued to all officers.

'I couldn't say offhand,' said Apthorpe. 'Anyway I don't think I ought
to talk about it.'

So Apthorpe's gear, that vast accumulation of ant-proof boxes,
water-proof bundles, strangely shaped, heavily initialled tin trunks and
leather cases all bound about with straps and brass buckles, was shut
away from all eyes but his.

Guy had seen them often enough in barracks, incuriously. He could have
asked about them then, in the days of confidence before the
Captain-Commandant's luncheon party, and learned their secrets. All he
knew now, from an early chance reference, was that somewhere among these
possessions lay something rare and mysterious which Apthorpe spoke of as
his 'Bush Thunder-box'.

                 *        *        *        *        *

That night for the first time Guy went out into the town. He and
Apthorpe hired a car for the evening and drove from hotel to hotel,
finding Halberdiers everywhere, drinking and moving on in search of
greater privacy.

'It seems to me you've let the young gentlemen become rather uppish in
my absence,' said Apthorpe.

In particular they sought an hotel called the Royal Court where
Apthorpe's aunts had stayed when they came to visit him at school.

'Not one of the showy places, but everything just right. Only a few
people know of it.'

No one knew of it that evening. At length when all bars were shut Guy
said: 'Couldn't we visit Staplehurst?'

'There wouldn't be anyone there, old man. Holidays. And anyway it's a
bit late.'

'I mean, couldn't we just go and look at it?'

'Sound scheme. Driver, go to Staplehurst.'

'Staplehurst Grove or Staplehurst Drive?'

'Staplehurst House.'

'Well, I know the Grove and the Drive. I'll try there, shall I? Is it a
Private?'

'I don't follow you, driver.'

'A private hotel?'

'It is the Private School.'

There was a moon and a high wind off-shore. They followed the Parade and
mounted to the outskirts of the town.

'It all seems rather changed,' said Apthorpe. 'I don't remember any of
this.'

'We're in the Grove now, sir. The Drive is round on the left.'

'It stood just about here,' said Apthorpe. 'Something must have happened
to it.'

They got out into the moonlight and the bitter North wind. All round
them lay little shuttered villas. Here, under their feet and beyond the
neat hedges, lay the fields where muddy Apthorpe had kept goal.
Somewhere among these gardens and garages bits of brickwork, perhaps,
survived from the sanctuary where clean Apthorpe in a lace cotta had
lighted the tapers.

'Vandals,' said Apthorpe bitterly.

Then the two lame men climbed into the car and drove back to
Kut-al-Imara in alcoholic gloom.


[VII]

Next day Apthorpe had a touch of Bechuana tummy but he rose none the
less. Guy was first down, driven from bed by thirst. It was a grey and
bitter morning, heavy with coming snow. He found one of the regular
officers in the hall engaged at the notice board with a large sheet
headed in red chalk: 'READ THIS. IT CONCERNS _YOU_.'

'Great bit of luck,' he said. 'We've got Mudshore for to-day. Embus at
eight-thirty. Draw haversack rations. You'd better pass the word to your
chaps.'

Guy climbed the stairs and put his head into each dormitory in turn
saying: 'We've got Mudshore for to-day. Bus leaves in twenty minutes.'

'Who's Mudshore?'

'I've no idea.'

Then he returned to the notice board and learned that Mudshore was a
rifle-range some ten miles distant.

Thus began the saddest day of the new dispensation.

Mudshore range was a stretch of sea-marsh transected at regular
intervals by banks and ending in a colourless natural escarpment. It was
surrounded by wire and cautionary notices; there was a tin hut by the
nearest bank, the firing point. When they arrived they found a soldier
in his shirt-sleeves shaving at the door; another was crouching by a
Soyer stove; a third appeared buttoning his tunic, unshaved.

The major in charge of the expedition went forward to investigate. They
heard his tones, ferocious at first, grow gradually softer and end with:
'Very well, Sergeant. It's clearly not your fault. Carry on. I'll try
and get through to Area.'

He returned to his party.

'There seems to have been some sort of misunderstanding. The last order
the range-keeper got from Area was that firing was cancelled for to-day.
They're expecting snow. I'll see what can be done. Meanwhile since we're
here, it's a good opportunity to run through Range Discipline.'

For an hour, while the light broadened into a leaden glare, they learned
and practised the elaborate code of precautions which, at this stage of
the second World War, surrounded the firing of live ammunition. Then the
major returned to them from the hut where he had been engaged on the
telephone. 'All right. They don't expect snow for an hour or two. We can
carry on. Our walking wounded can make themselves useful in the butts.'

Guy and Apthorpe set off across the five hundred yards of sedge and took
their places in the brick-lined trench below the targets. A corporal and
two details from the Ordnance Corps joined. After much telephoning red
flags were hoisted and eventually firing began. Guy looked at his watch
before marking the first shot. It was now ten minutes to eleven. At half
past twelve fourteen targets had been shot and the message came to
stand-easy. Two of the Depot Batch arrived to relieve Guy and Apthorpe.

'They're getting pretty fed up at the firing point,' one of them said.
'They say you're marking too slow. And I'd like to see my target. I'm
certain my third was on it. It must have gone through the same hole as
the second. I was dead on aim.'

'It's patched out, anyway.'

Guy stumped away and emerged from the side of the trench to be greeted
with distant yells and arm waving. He hobbled on, disregarding, until he
was within talking distance. Then he heard from the major: 'For Christ's
sake, man, d'you want to be killed? Can't you see the red flag's up?'

Guy looked and saw that it was. No one was at the firing point. All were
crowded in the lee of the hut eating sandwiches. He continued his walk
among the hummocks.

'Get down, for Christ's sake. Now, look for the flag.'

He lay, looked and presently saw the flag lowered. 'All right, come on
now.'

When he came up with the major he said: 'I'm sorry, sir. Those other two
people had just come up and we'd been told to stand-easy.'

'Exactly. That's how fatal accidents happen. The flag and only the flag
is the signal to go by. Pay attention, everyone. You've just seen a
typical example of bad range discipline. Remember it.'

Apthorpe meanwhile had just started out and was making heavy going. When
he arrived, Guy said: 'Did _you_ see the bloody flag?'

'Of course. One always looks out for it. It's the first rule. Besides
the corporal up there tipped me off. They often play that trick the
first day on the range, running up the red flag when everyone knows it
ought to be down. It's simply done to impress the need of range
discipline.'

'Well, you might have passed the tip on to me.'

'Hardly the thing, old man. It would defeat the whole object of the
exercise. There'd be no lessons learned if everyone tipped everyone else
off, if you see what I mean.'

They ate their sandwiches. The cold was intense. 'Couldn't we carry on
firing, sir? Everyone's ready.'

'I daresay, but we've got to think of the men. They expect their
stand-easy.'

At last firing began again.

'We shan't get through on time,' said the major. 'Cut down to five
rounds a man.'

But it was not the firing which took the time; it was the falling in of
details, the drill on the firing point, the inspection of arms. Light
was failing when it came to Guy's turn. He and Apthorpe joined the last
detail, hobbling up independently. As he lay and sighted his rifle
before loading, Guy made the disconcerting discovery that the target
entirely disappeared when he covered it. He lowered his rifle and looked
with two eyes. There was a discernible white square. He closed one eye;
the square became dimmed, flickered. He raised the rifle and at once
there was a total blank at the end of his foresight.

He loaded and quickly fired his five observed shots. After the first,
the disc rose and covered the bull.

'Nice work, Crouchback, keep it up.'

After the second, the flag signalled a miss. After the third, the flag
again.

'Hullo, Crouchback, what's gone wrong?'

The fourth was a high outer. After the fifth, the flag.

Then a telephone message: 'Correction on target two. The first shot was
wrongly marked a bull. A patch had blown off. The first shot on target
two was a miss.'

Apthorpe, next to him, had done very nicely.

The major led Guy aside and said gravely: 'That was a very poor show,
Crouchback. What on earth went wrong?'

'I don't know, sir. The visibility was rather poor.'

'It was the same for everyone. You'll have to work hard at elementary
aiming. You put up a very poor show to-day.'

Then began the ritual of counting the ammunition and collecting shell
cases. 'Pull through now. Boil out as soon as you're dismissed.'

Then the snow began. It was dark before they took their seats in the bus
and began slowly nosing a way home.

'I reckon that lion was unlucky, Uncle,' said Trimmer. But no one in his
numbed audience laughed.

Even Kut-al-Imara House seemed warm and welcoming. Guy pressed himself
to the hot pipes in the hall while the rush on the stairs cleared. A
mess waiter passed and Guy ordered a glass of rum. Slowly he began to
feel the blood move and irrigate his hands and feet.

'Hullo, Crouchback, boiled out already?'

It was the major.

'Not yet, sir. I was just waiting till the crowd had finished.'

'Well, you've no business to wait. What were the orders? Boil out
_immediately_ you dismiss. Nothing was said about waiting till you'd had
a couple of drinks.'

The major was cold too; he, also, had had a beastly day. Moreover he had
nearly a mile to walk through the snow to his billet and when he got
there, he remembered now, the cook would be out and he had promised to
take his wife to dinner at one of the hotels.

'Not one of your better days, Crouchback. You may not be much of a
marksman but you might at least keep your rifle clean for someone who
is,' he said; he went off into the snow and entirely forgot the matter
before he had gone a hundred yards.

Trimmer was on the stairs during this conversation.

'Hullo, Uncle, did I hear you getting a rocket?'

'You did.'

'Quite a change for our blue-eyed boy.'

A spark was struck in Guy's darkened mind; a fuse took fire. 'Go to
hell,' he said.

'Tut, tut, Uncle. Aren't we a little crusty this evening?'

Bang.

'You bloody, half-baked pipsqueak, pipe down,' he said. 'One more piece
of impudence out of you and I'll hit you.'

The words were not well chosen; lame or sound, Guy was not built to
inspire great physical fear, but sudden wrath is always alarming,
recalling as it does the awful unpredictable dooms of childhood;
moreover Guy was armed with a strong stick which he now involuntarily
raised a little. A court martial might or might not have construed this
gesture as a serious threat against the life of brother officer. Trimmer
did.

'Here, I say, steady on. No offence meant.'

Anger carries its own propulsive mechanism and soars far from the point
of ignition. It carried Guy now into a red incandescent stratum where he
was a stranger.

'God rot your revolting little soul, I told you to pipe down, didn't I?'

He gave the stick a definite, deliberate flourish and advanced a halting
step. Trimmer fled. Two swift _chassés_ and he was round the corner,
muttering inaudibly about '...taking a joke without flying off the
handle...'

Quite slowly Guy's rage subsided and touched ground; self-satisfaction
sank with it, rather more slowly but at last that too was on the common
level.

Just such a drama, he reflected, must have been enacted term by term at
Kut-al-Imara House, when worms turned and suddenly revealed themselves
as pythons; when nasty, teasing little boys were put to flight. But the
champions of the upper fourth needed no rum to embolden them.

Was it for this that the bugles sounded across the barrack square and
the strings sang over the hushed dinner table of the Copper Heels? Was
this the triumph for which Roger de Waybroke took the cross; that he
should exult in putting down Trimmer?

In shame and sorrow Guy stood last in the queue for boiling water,
leaning on his fouled weapon.


[VIII]

The week that followed brought consolation.

Health returned to Guy's knee. It had grown stronger every day while he
was acquiring a habitual limp; the pain, lately, had come from the
elastic bandage. Now, haunted by Apthorpe in the role of doppel-gänger,
he abandoned stick and strapping and found he could move normally, and
he fell in with his squad as proudly as on his second day in barracks.

At the same time the moustache which he had let grow for some weeks
suddenly took shape, as suddenly as a child learns to swim; one morning
it was a straggle of hair, the next a firm and formal growth. He took it
to a barber in the town who trimmed it and brushed it and curled it with
a hot iron. He rose from the chair transmogrified. As he left the shop
he noticed an optician's over the street in whose window lay a single
enormous china eyeball and a notice proclaiming: FREE TESTS. EYE-GLASSES
OF ALL KINDS FITTED WHILE YOU WAIT. The solitary organ, the
idiosyncratic choice of word 'eye-glasses' in preference to
'spectacles', the memory of the strange face which had just looked at
him over the barber's basin, the memory of countless German Uhlans in
countless American films, drew him across.

'I was thinking of a monocle,' he said quite accurately.

'Yes, sir. Merely the plain lens for smart appearance, or do you suffer
from faulty vision?'

'It's for shooting. I can't see the target.'

'Dear, dear, _that_ won't do, will it, sir?'

'Can you cure it?'

'We _must_, mustn't we, sir?'

Quarter of an hour later Guy emerged, having purchased for fifteen
shillings a strong lens in a 'rolled-gold' double rim. He removed it
from its false-leather purse, stopped before a window and stuck the
glass in his right eye. It stayed there. Slowly he relaxed the muscles
of his face; he stopped squinting. The monocle remained firmly in place.
The man reflected to him had a cynical leer; he was every inch a junker.
Guy returned to the optician. 'I think I'd better have two or three more
of these, in case I break one.'

'I'm afraid that's the only one I have in stock of that particular
strength.'

'Never mind. Give me the nearest you have.'

'Really, sir, the eye is a most delicate instrument. You shouldn't play
ducks and drakes with it. _That_ is the lens for which you have been
tested. It is the only one I can recommend professionally.'

'Never mind.'

'Well, sir, I have made my protest. The man of science demurs. The man
of business submits.'

The monocle, combined with the moustaches, set him up with his young
companions, none of whom could have transformed himself so quickly. It
also improved his shooting.

A few days after he bought it, they went to Mudshore to fire the Bren.
Through his eye-glass Guy saw, distinct from the patchy snow, a plain
white blob and hit it every time, not with notable marksmanship but as
accurately as anyone else in his detail.

He did not attempt to keep the monocle permanently in his eye but he
used it rather often and regained much of his lost prestige by
discomforting the sergeant-instructor with it.

His prestige rose also with the renewed incidence of poverty.
Palm-lounges and dance halls cost dear and the first flood-tide of ready
cash ebbed fast. Young officers began counting the days until the end of
the month and speculating whether, now that their existence had once
been recognized by the pay-office, they could depend on regular funds.
One by one all Guy's former clients returned to him; one or two others
diffidently joined; and all, save Sarum-Smith, he helped (Sarum-Smith
got a cold stare through the monocle), and although you could not say
that the Halberdiers sold 'the deference which youth owed to age' for
three or four pounds down, it was a fact that his debtors were more
polite to him and often remarked to one another in extenuation of their
small acts of civility: 'Old Uncle Crouchback is an awfully generous
good-natured fellow really.'

His life was further mitigated by his discovery of two agreeable
retreats. The first was a small restaurant on the front called 'the
Garibaldi' where Guy found Genoese cooking and a warm welcome. The
proprietor was a part-time spy. This Giuseppe Pelecci, fat and
philoprogenitive, welcomed Guy on his first visit as a possible source
of variety in the rather monotonous and meagre lists of shipping which
hitherto had been his sole contribution to his country's knowledge, but
when he found Guy spoke Italian, patriotism gave place to simple
home-sickness. He had been born not far from Santa Dulcina and knew the
Castello Crouchback. The two became more than _patron_ and patron, more
than agent and dupe. For the first time in his life Guy felt himself
_simpatico_ and he took to dining at the Garibaldi most evenings.

The second was the Southsand and Mudshore Yacht Squadron.

Guy found this particularly congenial resort in a way which was itself a
joy, for it added some hard facts to the incomplete history of
Apthorpe's youth.

It would be a travesty to say that Guy suspected Apthorpe of lying. His
claims to distinction--porpoise-skin boots, a High Church aunt in
Tunbridge Wells, a friend who was on good terms with gorillas--were not
what an impostor would invent in order to impress. Yet there was about
Apthorpe a sort of fundamental implausibility. Unlike the typical figure
of the J.D. lesson, Apthorpe tended to become faceless and tapering the
closer he approached. Guy treasured every nugget of Apthorpe but under
assay he found them liable to fade like faery gold. Only so far as
Apthorpe was himself true, could his enchantment work its spell. Any
firm passage between Apthorpe's seemingly dreamlike universe and the
world of common experience was a thing to cherish, and just such a way
Guy found on the Sunday following his fiasco on Mudshore range; the
start of the week which ended triumphantly with his curled moustaches
and his single eye-glass.

Guy went alone to mass. There were no Halberdiers to march there and the
only other Catholic officer was Hemp, the Trimmer of the Depot. Hemp was
not over scrupulous in his religious duties, from which (he claimed to
have read somewhere) all servicemen were categorically dispensed.

The church was as old as most buildings in Southsand and sombrely
embellished by the legacies of many widows. In the porch, as he left,
Guy was accosted by the neat old man who had earlier carried the
collection plate.

'I think I saw you here last week, didn't I? My name is Goodall, Ambrose
Goodall. I didn't speak to you last Sunday as I didn't know if you were
here for long. Now I hear you are at Kut-al-Imara for some time, so may
I welcome you to St. Augustine's?'

'My name is Crouchback.'

'A great name, if I may say so. One of the Crouchbacks of Broome
perhaps?'

'My father left Broome some years ago.'

'Of course, yes, I know. Very sad. I make a study, in a modest way, of
English Catholicism in penal times so of course Broome means a lot to
me. I'm a convert myself. Still I daresay I've been a Catholic nearly as
long as you have. I usually take a little turn along the front after
mass. If you are walking back may I accompany you a short way?'

'I'm afraid I ordered a taxi.'

'Oh dear. I couldn't induce you to stop at the Yacht Club? It's on your
way.'

'I don't think I can stop, but let me drop you there.'

'That's very kind. It _is_ rather sharp this morning.'

As they drove away Mr. Goodall continued. 'I'd like to do anything I can
for you while you're here. I'd like to talk about Broome. I went there
last summer. The sisters keep it very well all things considered.

'I might be able to show you round Southsand. There are some very
interesting old bits. I know it very well. I was a master at Staplehurst
House once, you see, and I stayed on all my life.'

'You were at Staplehurst House?'

'Not for very long. You see when I became a Catholic I had to leave. It
wouldn't have mattered at any other school but Staplehurst was so very
High Church that of course they minded particularly.'

'I _long_ to hear about Staplehurst.'

'Do you, Mr. Crouchback? Do you? There's not very much to tell. It came
to an end nearly ten years ago. There were said to be abuses of the
Confessional. I never believed it myself. You must be descended from the
Grylls, too, I think. I have always had a particular veneration for the
Blessed John Gryll. And, of course, for the Blessed Gervase Crouchback.
Sooner or later they'll be canonized, I'm quite sure of it.'

'Do you by any chance remember a boy at Staplehurst called Apthorpe?'

'Apthorpe? Oh dear, here we are at the Club. Are you sure I can't induce
you to come in?'

'May I, after all? It's earlier than I thought.'

The Southsand and Mudshore Yacht Squadron occupied a solid villa on the
front. A flag and burgee flew from a pole on the front lawn. Two brass
cannon stood on the steps. Mr. Goodall led Guy to a chair in the
plate-glass windows and rang the bell.

'Some sherry, please, steward.'

'It must be more than twenty years since Apthorpe left.'

'That would be just the time I was there. The name seems familiar. I
could look him up if you're really interested. I keep all the old Mags.'

'He's with us at Kut-al-Imara.'

'Then I will certainly look him up. He's not a Catholic?'

'No, but he has a High Church aunt.'

'Yes, I suppose so. Most of our boys did, but quite a number came into
the church later. I try to keep touch with them but parish affairs take
up so much time, particularly now that Canon Geoghan can't get about as
he did. And then I have my work. I had rather a hard time of it at first
but I get along. Private tutoring, lectures at convents. You may have
seen some of my reviews in the _Tablet_. They generally send me anything
connected with heraldry.'

'I'm sure Apthorpe would like to meet you again.'

'Do you think he would? After all this time? But I must look him up
first. Why don't you bring him here to tea? My rooms aren't very
suitable for entertaining, but I'd be very pleased to see him here. You
also stem from Wrottman of Speke, do you not?'

'I've some cousins of that name.'

'But not of Speke, surely? The Wrottmans of Speke are extinct in the
male line. Don't you mean Wrottman of Garesby?'

'Perhaps I do. They live in London.'

'Oh yes, Garesby was demolished under the usurper George. One of the
saddest things in all that whole unhappy century. The very stones were
sold to a building contractor and dragged away by oxen.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

But when a few days later the meeting was arranged Guy and Apthorpe kept
the conversation on the affairs of Staplehurst.

'I was able to find two references to your football in the Mag. I copied
them out. I'm afraid neither is very laudatory. First in November 1913.
"_In the absence of Brinkman ma. Apthorpe acted as understudy in goal
but repeatedly found the opposing forwards too strong for him._" The
score was 8--0. Then in February 1915: "_Owing to mumps we could only
put up a scratch XI against St. Olaf's. Apthorpe in goal was
unfortunately quite outclassed._" Then in the summer of '16 you are in
the _Vale_ column. It doesn't give the name of your public school.'

'No, sir. It was still rather uncertain at the time of going to press.'

'Was he ever in your form?'

'Were you, Apthorpe?'

'Not exactly. We came to you for Church History.'

'Yes. I taught that through the school. In fact I owe my conversion to
it. Otherwise I only took the scholarship boys. You were never one of
those, I think?'

'No,' said Apthorpe. 'There was a muddle about it. My aunt wanted me to
go to Dartmouth. But somehow I made a hash of the Admiral's interview.'

'I always think it's too formidable an ordeal for a small boy. Plenty of
good candidates fail purely on nerves.'

'Oh, it wasn't that exactly. We just couldn't seem to hit it off.'

'Where _did_ you go after leaving?'

'I chopped and changed rather,' said Apthorpe.

They ate their tea in deep leather arm-chairs before a fire. Presently
Mr. Goodall said: 'I wonder if either of you would like to become
temporary members of the club while you're here. It's a cosy little
place. You don't have to have a yacht. That was the original idea but
lots of our members can't run to one nowadays. I can't myself. But we
keep up a general interest in yachting. There's usually a very pleasant
crowd in here between six and eight and you can get dinner if you give
the steward a day's notice.'

'I should like it very much,' said Guy.

'There's a lot to be said for it,' said Apthorpe.

'Then let me introduce you to our Commodore. I just saw him come in. Sir
Lionel Gore, a retired Harley Street man. A very good fellow in his
way.'

They were introduced. Sir Lionel spoke of the Royal Corps of Halberdiers
and with his own hand filled in their entries in the Candidates Book,
leaving a blank for the names of their yachts.

'You'll hear from the secretary in due course. In fact at the moment _I_
am the secretary. If you'll wait a minute I'll make out your cards and
post you on the board. We charge temporary members ten bob a month. I
don't think that's unreasonable these days.'

So Guy and Apthorpe joined the Yacht Club, and Apthorpe said: 'Thanks,
Commodore' when he was handed his ticket of membership.

It was dark and freezing hard when they left. Apthorpe had not yet
recovered the full use of his leg and insisted on travelling by taxi.

As they drove back he said: 'I reckon we are on a good thing there,
Crouchback. I suggest we keep it to ourselves. I've been thinking
lately, it won't hurt to be a bit aloof with our young friends. Living
cheek by jowl breeds familiarity. It may prove a bit awkward later when
one's commanding a company and they're one's platoon commanders.'

'I shan't ever get a company. I've been doing badly all round lately.'

'Well, awkward for me, at any rate. Of course, old man, I don't mind
being familiar with you because I know you'd never try to take advantage
of it. Can't say the same for all the batch. Besides, you never know,
you might get made second-in-command and that's a captain's
appointment.'

Later he said: 'Funny old Goodall taking such a fancy to you,' and later
still, when they had reached Kut-al-Imara and were sitting in the hall
with their gin and vermouth, he broke a long silence with: 'I never
claimed to be anything much at football.'

'No. You said you didn't make a fetish of it.'

'_Exactly._ To tell you the truth I never made much mark at Staplehurst.
It's strange, looking back on it now, but in those days I might just
have passed for one of the crowd. Some men develop late.'

'Like Winston Churchill.'

'Exactly. We might go back to the Club after dinner.'

'D'you think to-night?'

'Well, I'm going and it's cheaper sharing a taxi.'

So that evening and most subsequent evenings Guy and Apthorpe went to
the Yacht Club. Apthorpe was welcome as a fourth in the card-room and
Guy read happily before the fire surrounded by charts, burgees,
binnacles, model ships and other nautical decorations.


[IX]

All that January was intensely cold. In the first week an exodus began
from the dormitories of Kut-al-Imara, first of the married men who were
given permission to sleep in lodgings; then, since many of the
controlling staff were themselves unmarried yet comfortably quartered,
the order was stretched to include all who could afford or contrive it.
Guy moved to the Grand Hotel, which was conveniently placed between
Kut-al-Imara and the Club. It was a large hotel built for summer
visitors, almost empty now in war-time winter. He engaged good rooms
very cheaply. Apthorpe was taken in by Sir Lionel Gore. By the end of
the month less than half the original draft remained in quarters. They
spoke of 'boarders and dayboys'. The local bus service did not fit the
times of parade nor did it strictly conform to its timetable. Many
'dayboys' had lodgings far from the school and the bus route. The
weather showed no sign of breaking. Even the march to and from the bus
stop was now laborious on the icebound road. There were many cases of
officers late on parade with plausible excuses. The gym was unheated and
long hours there became increasingly irksome. For all these reasons
working hours were cut. They began at nine and ended at four. There was
no bugler at Kut-al-Imara and Sarum-Smith one day facetiously rang the
school bell five minutes before parade. Major McKinney thought this a
helpful innovation and gave orders to continue it. The curriculum
followed the text-books, lesson by lesson, exercise by exercise, and the
preparatory school way of life was completely recreated. They were to
stay there until Easter--a whole term.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The first week of February filled no dykes that year. Everything was
hard and numb. Sometimes about midday there was a bleak glitter of sun;
more often the skies were near and drab, darker than the snowbound
downland inshore, leaden and lightless on the seaward horizon. The
laurels round Kut-al-Imara were sheathed in ice, the drive rutted in
crisp snow.

On the morning of Ash Wednesday Guy rose early and went to mass.

With the ash still on his forehead he breakfasted and tramped up the
hill to Kut-al-Imara, where he found the place full of boyish
excitement.

'I say, Uncle, have you heard? The Brigadier's arrived.'

'He was here last night. I came into the hall and there he was, covered
in red, glaring at the notice board.'

'I'd made a resolution to dine in every night till the end of the month,
but I slipped out by the side door. So did everyone else.'

'Something tells me he's up to no good.'

The school bell rang. Apthorpe was now restored to general duties and
fell in with the squad.

'The Brigadier has come.'

'So I hear.'

'High time, too, if you ask me. There are quite a number of things here
need putting in order, starting with the staff.'

They marched to the gymnasium and broke up into the usual four classes.
All were being initiated in the same hard way into the mysteries of
Fixed Lines.

'Stores,' said the colour sergeant-instructor. 'Gun, spare barrel,
dummies, magazines, carrier's wallet, tripod, aiming peg and night
firing lamp. All right?'

'Right, Sergeant.'

'Right, eh? Any gentleman see anything not right? Where's the peg;
where's the lamp? Not available. So this here piece of chalk will
substitute for peg and lamp. All right?'

Every half-hour they stood easy for ten minutes. During the second of
these periods of glacial rest there was a warning: 'Pipes out. Officers
coming. Party, shun.'

'Carry on, Sergeants,' said a voice unfamiliar to most. 'Never hold up
instruction. Don't look at me, gentlemen. All eyes on the guns.'

Ritchie-Hook was among them, clothed as a brigadier, attended by the
officer commanding the course and his second-in-command. He went from
class to class. Parts of what was said reached the corner where Guy's
squad worked. Most of it sounded cross. At last he reached Guy's squad.

'First detail; prepare for action.'

Two young officers flung themselves on the floor-boards and reported:
'Magazines and spare barrel correct.'

'Action.'

The Brigadier watched. Presently he said: 'Get up, you two. Stand-easy,
everyone. Now tell me what a fixed line is for.'

Apthorpe said: 'To deny an area to the enemy by means of interlocking
beaten zones.'

'Sounds as though you'd stopped giving him sweets. I'd like to hear less
about denying things to the enemy and more about biffing him. Remember
that, gentlemen. All fire-plans are just biffing. Now, you, number one
at the gun. You've just been laying an aim on that chalk mark on the
floor, haven't you? D'you think you'd hit it?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Look again.'

Sarum-Smith lay down and carefully checked his aim.

'Yes, sir.'

'With the sights at 1800?'

'That's the range we were given, sir.'

'But God damn it, man, what's the use of aiming at a chalk mark ten
yards away with the sights at 1800?'

'That's the fixed line, sir.'

'Fixed on what?'

'The chalk mark, sir.'

'Anyone care to help him?'

'There is no aiming peg or night firing lamp available, sir,' said
Apthorpe.

'What the hell's that got to do with it?'

'That's why we're using a chalk mark, sir.'

'You young officers have been doing small arms for six weeks. Can none
of you tell me what a fixed line is for?'

'For biffing, sir,' suggested Trimmer.

'For biffing what?'

'The aiming peg or night firing lamp if available, sir. Otherwise the
chalk mark.'

'I see,' said the Brigadier, baffled. He strode out of the gym followed
by the staff.

'Now you've been and let me down,' said the sergeant-instructor.

In a few minutes a message arrived that the Brigadier would see all
officers in the mess at twelve o'clock.

'Rockets all round,' said Sarum-Smith. 'I shouldn't wonder if the staff
aren't having rather a sticky morning, too.'

So it seemed from their glum looks as they sat facing their juniors
assembled in the school dining hall. Places were already laid for
luncheon and there was a smell of brussels sprouts boiling not far away.
They sat silent as in a monastery refectory. The Brigadier rose, _Cesare
armato con un occhio grifano_, as though to say Grace. He said:
'Gentlemen, you may not smoke.'

It had not occurred to anyone to do so.

'But you need not sit at attention,' he added, for everyone was
instinctively stiff and motionless. They tried to arrange themselves
less formally but there was no ease in that audience. Trimmer rested an
elbow on the table and rattled the cutlery.

'It is not yet time to eat,' said the Brigadier.

Guy remembered the anecdote about 'six of the best'. It would really not
have surprised him greatly if the Brigadier had produced a cane and
called Trimmer up for correction. No charge had been preferred, no
specific rebuke (except to Trimmer), uttered but under that solitary
ferocious eye all were held in universal guilt.

The spirits of countless scared schoolboys still haunted and dominated
the hall. How often must the word have been passed under those rafters
of painted and grained plaster, in this same stench of brussels sprouts:
'the Head's in a frightful wax.' 'Who is it this time?' 'Why me?'

The words of that day's liturgy echoed dreadfully in Guy's mind:
_Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris_.

Then the Brigadier began his speech: 'Gentlemen, it seems to me that you
could all do with a week's leave,' and his smile, more alarming than any
scowl, convulsed the grey face. 'In fact some of you needn't bother to
come back at all. They'll be notified later through what are laughingly
called the "correct channels".'

It was a masterly opening. The Brigadier was no scold and he was barely
one part bully. What he liked was to surprise people. In gratifying this
simple taste he had often to resort to violence, sometimes to heavy
injury, but there was no pleasure for him in these concomitants.
Surprise was everything. He must have known, glaring at his audience
that morning, that he had scored a triumph. He continued:

'I can only say that I am sorry I have not been to visit you before.
There is more work than you can possibly know in forming a new brigade.
I have been looking after that side of your affairs. I heard reports
that when you arrived the accommodation was not perfect but Halberdier
officers must learn to look after themselves. I came here last night on
a friendly visit expecting to find you all happily settled in. I arrived
at seven o'clock. There was not one officer in camp. Of course there is
no military rule that you must dine in on any particular night. I
supposed you were all out on some celebration. I asked the civilian
caterer and learned that yesterday was not an exceptional occasion. He
did not know the name of a single member of the mess-committee. This
does not strike me as being what the blue-jobs call a "happy ship".

'I looked at your work this morning. It was pretty moderate--and in case
any young officer doesn't know what that means, it means damned awful. I
do not say that it is entirely your fault. No military offence that I
know of has been committed. But an officer's worth does not consist in
avoiding military offences.

'What's more, gentlemen, you aren't officers. There are advantages in
your present equivocal position. Advantages for you and for me. You,
none of you hold His Majesty's Commission. You are on probation. I can
send the lot of you packing to-morrow without giving any explanation.

'As you know, the normal channel to a commission nowadays in the rest of
the army is through the ranks and then to an OCTU. Halberdiers have been
specially privileged to collect and train our new officers by direct
entry. It won't occur again. We were given this single opportunity to
train one batch of young officers because the War Office have faith in
the traditions of the Corps. They know we wouldn't take a dud. Your
replacements, when you're "expended"'--a cyclopean flash--'will have
gone through the modern mill of the ranks and an OCTU. You are the last
men to be accepted and trained in the old way. And I'd sooner report
total failure than let in one man I can't trust.

'Don't think you've done something clever in getting a commission easily
by the backstairs. You'll go down those stairs arse over tip with my
foot behind you, if you don't pull yourselves together.

'The rule of attack is "Never reinforce failure". In plain English that
means: if you see some silly asses getting into a mess, don't get mixed
up with 'em. The best help you can give is to go straight on biffing the
enemy where it hurts him most.

'This course has been a failure. I'm not going to reinforce it. We'll
start again this time next week. I shall be in charge.'

The Brigadier did not stay for luncheon. He mounted his motor-cycle and
drove away noisily among the icy ruts. Major McKinney and the directing
staff packed into their cosy private cars. The probationary officers
remained. Strangely enough the atmosphere was one of exhilaration, not
at the prospect of leave (that created many problems), but because all,
or nearly all, had been unhappy during the past weeks. They were all, or
nearly all, brave, unromantic, conscientious young men who joined the
army expecting to work rather harder than they had done in peace time.
Regimental pride had taken them unawares and quite afflated them. At Kut
the Bitter they had been betrayed; deserted among dance halls and slot
machines.

'Rather strong worded, I thought,' said Apthorpe. 'He might have made it
clearer that there were certain exceptions.'

'You don't think he meant you when he said some of us need not come
back?'

'Hardly, old man,' Apthorpe said, and added: 'I think in the
circumstances I shall dine in mess to-night.'

Guy went alone to the Garibaldi where he found it difficult to explain
to Mr. Pelecci, a deeply superstitious Catholic but in the manner of his
townsmen not given to ascetic practices, that he did not want meat that
evening. Ash Wednesday was for Mrs. Pelecci. Mr. Pelecci feasted for St.
Joseph and fasted for no one.

But that evening Guy felt full of meat, gorged like a lion on
Ritchie-Hook's kill.

[X]

Perhaps the Brigadier believed that besides clearing space for his own
work, he was softening the force of his reprimand by sending the course
on leave. The 'boarders' left cheerfully but the 'dayboys' were
committed to various arrangements in the town. Many had overspent
themselves in establishing their wives. For them there was the prospect
of five days loafing in lodgings. Guy was not rich. He was spending
rather more than usual. There was no great attraction in changing an
hotel bedroom in Southsand for a more expensive one in London. He
decided to remain.

On the second evening Mr. Goodall was due to dine with him at the
Garibaldi. Afterwards they went to the Yacht Club, and sat alone among
the trophies in the shuttered morning-room. Both were elated by that
evening's news, the boarding of the _Altmark_, but soon Mr. Goodall was
back on his favourite topic. He was very slightly flown with wine and
looser than usual in his conversation.

He spoke of the extinction (in the male line), some fifty years back, of
an historic Catholic family.

'...They were a connexion of yours through the Wrottmans of Garesby.
It was a most curious case. The last heir took his wife from a family
(which shall be nameless) which has an unfortunate record of instability
in recent generations. They had two daughters and then the wretched girl
eloped with a neighbour. It made a terrible ado at the time. It was
before divorce was common. Anyway they _were_ divorced and this woman
married this man. If you'll forgive me I won't tell you his name. Then
ten years later your kinsman met this woman alone, abroad. A kind of
rapprochement occurred but she went back to her so-called husband and in
due time bore a son. It was in fact your kinsman's. It was by law the
so-called husband's, who recognized it as his. That boy is alive to-day
and in the eyes of God the rightful heir to all his father's
quarterings.'

Guy was less interested in the quarterings than in the morality.

'You mean to say that theologically the original husband committed no
sin in resuming sexual relations with his former wife?'

'Certainly not. The wretched girl of course was guilty in every other
way and is no doubt paying for it now. But the husband was entirely
blameless. And so under another and quite uninteresting name a great
family has been preserved. What is more the son married a Catholic so
that _his_ son is being brought up in the Church. Explain it how you
will, I see the workings of Providence there.'

'Mr. Goodall,' Guy could not resist asking, 'do you seriously believe
that God's Providence concerns itself with the perpetuation of the
English Catholic aristocracy?'

'But, of course. And with sparrows, too, we are taught. But I am afraid
that genealogy is a hobbyhorse I ride too hard when I get the chance. So
much of my life is spent with people who aren't interested and might
even think it snobbish or something--one evening a week for the Vincent
de Paul Society, one evening at the boys' club; then I go to the Canon
one evening to help him with his correspondence. And I have to keep some
time for my sister who lives with me. She's not really interested in
genealogy. Not that it matters. We are both unmarried and the last of
our family, such as it was. Oh dear, I think your hospitality has made
my tongue run away with me.'

'Not at all, dear Mr. Goodall. Not at all. Some port?'

'No more, thank you.' Mr. Goodall looked crestfallen. 'I must be on my
way.'

'You're quite sure about that point you raised. About the husband
committing no sin with his former wife?'

'Quite sure, of course. Think it out for yourself. What possible sin
could he have committed?'

Guy did think long and late about that blameless and auspicious
pseudo-adultery. The thought was still with him when he woke next day.
He went to London by a morning train.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The name of Crouchback, so lustrous to Mr. Goodall, cut no ice at
Claridge's: Guy was politely informed that there was no room available
for him. He asked for Mrs. Troy and learned that she had left
instructions not to be disturbed. He went crossly to Bellamy's and
explained his predicament at the bar, which, at half past eleven, was
beginning to fill.

Tommy Blackhouse said: 'Who did you ask?'

'Just the chap at the desk.'

'That's no good. When in difficulties always take the matter to a higher
level. It never fails. I'm staying there myself at the moment. In fact
I'm going round there now. Would you like me to fix it for you?'

Half an hour later the hotel telephoned to say that there was a room
awaiting him. He returned and was welcomed at the desk. 'We are so
grateful to Major Blackhouse for telling us where to find you. There was
a cancellation just as you left the hotel and we had no address for
you.' The receptionist took a key from his rack and led Guy to the lift.
'We are fortunate in being able to offer you a very nice little suite.'

'I was thinking of a bedroom only.'

'This has a very nice little sitting-room that goes with it. I'm sure
you will find it more quiet.'

They reached the floor; doors were thrown open on rooms which in all
points proclaimed costliness. Guy remembered why he had come and the
laws of propriety which govern hotels; a sitting-room constituted a
chaperon.

'Yes,' he said, 'I think these will do very nicely.'

When he was left alone, he asked on the telephone for Mrs. Troy.

'Guy? _Guy._ Where are you?'

'Here in the hotel.'

'Darling, how _beastly_ of you not to let me know.'

'But I am letting you know now. I've only this minute arrived.'

'I mean let me know in advance. Are you here for a lovely long time?'

'Two days.'

'How _beastly_.'

'When am I going to see you?'

'Well, it's rather difficult. You should have let me know. I've got to
go out almost at once. Come now. Number 650.'

It was on his floor, not a dozen rooms away, round two corners. The
doors all stood ajar.

'Come in, I'm just finishing my face.'

He passed through the sitting-room--also a chaperon? he wondered. The
bedroom door was open; the bed unmade; clothes and towels and newspapers
all over the place. Virginia sat at a dressing-table covered with powder
and wads of cotton wool and crumpled paper napkins. She was staring
intently in the glass doing something to her eye. Tommy Blackhouse came
unconcernedly from the bathroom.

'Hullo, Guy,' he said. 'Didn't know you were in London.'

'Make a drink for us all,' Virginia told him. 'I'll be with you in a
second.'

Guy and Tommy went into the sitting-room where Tommy began cutting up a
lemon and shovelling ice into a cocktail-shaker.

'They fixed you up all right?'

'Yes. I'm most grateful to you.'

'No trouble at all. By the way, better not say anything to
Virginia'--Guy noticed that he had shut the bedroom door behind
him--'about our having met at Bellamy's. I told her I came straight from
a conference, but as you know I stopped on the way. She's never jealous
of other women, but she does hate Bellamy's. Once, while we were
married, she said: "Bellamy's. I'd like to burn the place down." Meant
it, too, bless her. Here for long?'

'Two nights.'

'I go back to Aldershot to-morrow. I ran into a brigadier of yours the
other day at the War Office; they're scared stiff of him there. Call him
"the one-eyed monster". Is he a bit cracked?'

'No.'

'I didn't think so either. They all say he's stark crazy at the War
Office.'

Soon from the disorderly slum of her bedroom Virginia emerged spruce as
a Halberdier.

'I hope you haven't made them too strong, Tommy. You know how I hate
strong cocktails. Guy, _your moustache_.'

'Don't you like it?'

'It's perfectly awful.'

'I must say,' said Tommy, 'it took me aback rather.'

'It's greatly admired by the Halberdiers. Is this any better?' He
inserted the monocle.

'I think it is,' said Virginia. 'It was just plain common before. Now
it's comic.'

'I thought that, taken together, they achieved a military effect.'

'There you're wrong,' said Tommy. 'You must accept my opinion on a point
of that kind.'

'Not attractive to women?'

'No,' said Virginia. 'Not to nice women.'

'Damn.'

'We ought to be going,' said Tommy. 'Drink up.'

'Oh dear,' said Virginia. 'What a short meeting. Am I going to see you
again? I shall be free of this burden to-morrow. Couldn't we do
something in the evening?'

'Not before?'

'How can I, darling, with this lout around? To-morrow evening.'

They were gone.

Guy returned to Bellamy's as though to the Southsand Yacht Club. He
washed and gazed in the glass over the basin as steadfastly as Virginia
had done in hers. The moustache was fair, inclined to ginger, much
lighter than the hair of his head. It was strictly symmetrical, sweeping
up from a neat central parting, curled from the lip, cut sharp and
slightly oblique from the corners of his mouth, ending in firm points.
He put up his monocle. How, he asked himself, would he regard another
man so decorated? He had seen such moustaches before and such monocles
on the faces of clandestine homosexuals, on touts with accents to hide,
on Americans trying to look European, on business-men disguised as
sportsmen. True, he had also seen them in the Halberdier mess, but on
faces innocent of all guile, quite beyond suspicion. After all, he
reflected, his whole uniform was a disguise, his whole new calling a
masquerade.

Ian Kilbannock, an arch-impostor in his Air Force dress, came up behind
him and said: 'I say, are you doing anything this evening? I'm trying to
get some people in for cocktails. Do come.'

'I might. Why?'

'Sucking up to my air marshal. He likes to meet people.'

'Well, I'm not much of a catch.'

'He won't know that. He just likes meeting people. I'd be awfully
grateful if you could bear it.'

'I've certainly nothing else to do.'

'Well, come then. Some of the other people won't be quite as awful as
the marshal.'

Later, upstairs in the coffee-room, Guy watched Kilbannock going round
the tables, collecting his party.

'What's the point of all this, Ian?'

'Well, I told you. I've put the marshal up for this club.'

'But they aren't letting him in?'

'I hope not.'

'But I thought it was all fixed.'

'It's not quite as easy as that, Guy. The marshal is rather fly in his
way. He's not giving anything away except for value received. He insists
on meeting some members and getting their support. If he only knew, his
best chance of getting in is to meet no one. So it's all in a good cause
really.'

That afternoon Guy had his moustache shaven. The barber expressed
professional admiration for the growth and did his work with reluctance,
like the gardeners who all over the country had that autumn ploughed up
their finest turf and transformed herbaceous borders into vegetable
plots. When it was done, Guy studied himself once more in the glass and
recognized an old acquaintance he could never cut, to whom he could
never hope to give the slip for long, the uncongenial fellow traveller
who would accompany him through life. But his naked lip felt strangely
exposed.

Later he went to Ian Kilbannock's party. Virginia was there with Tommy.
Neither noticed the change until he called attention to it.

'I knew it wasn't real,' said Virginia.

The air marshal was the centre of the party, in the sense that everyone
was introduced to him and almost immediately withdrew. He stood like the
entrance to a bee-hive, a point of vacuity with a constant buzzing
movement to and from it. He was a stout man, just too short to pass for
a Metropolitan policeman, with a cheerful manner and shifty little eyes.

There was a polar-bear rug before the fire.

'That reminds me of a clever rhyme I once heard,' he said.

    "Would you like to sin
    With Eleanor Glyn
    On a tiger skin?
    Or would you prefer
    With her
    To err
    On some other fur?"

All in his immediate ambience looked at the rug in sad embarrassment.

'Who's Eleanor Glyn?' asked Virginia.

'Oh, just a name, you know. Put in to make it rhyme, I expect. Neat,
isn't it?'

When he came to go, Guy found himself at the door with Ian and the
marshal.

'My car's here. Can I give you a lift?'

It was snowing again and dark as the grave.

'That's very good of you, sir. I was going to St. James's Street.'

'Hop in.'

'I'll come too, sir, if I may,' said Ian, surprisingly for there were
still guests lingering upstairs.

When they reached Bellamy's, Ian said: 'Won't you come in for a final
one, sir?'

'A sound idea.'

The three of them went to the bar.

'By the way, Guy,' said Ian, 'Air Marshal Beech is thinking of joining
us here. Parsons, got the Candidates Book with you?'

The book was brought and the marshal's virgin page presented to view.
Ian Kilbannock's fountain-pen was gently put into Guy's hand. He signed.

'I'm sure you'll find it amusing here, sir,' said Ian.

'I've no doubt I shall,' said the air marshal. 'I often thought of
joining in the piping days of peace, but I wasn't in London often enough
for it to be worth while. Now I need a little place like this where I
can slip away and relax.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was St. Valentine's Day.

Februato Juno, dispossessed, has taken a shrewish revenge on that
steadfast clergyman, bludgeoned and beheaded seventeen centuries back,
and set him the ignominious role of patron to killers and facetious
lovers. Guy honoured him for the mischance and whenever possible went to
mass on his feast-day. He walked from Claridge's to Farm Street, from
Farm Street to Bellamy's and settled down to a bleak day of waiting.

The newspapers were still full of the _Altmark_, now dubbed 'the Hell
Ship'. There were long accounts of the indignities and discomforts of
the prisoners, officially designed to rouse indignation among a public
quite indifferent to those trains of locked vans still rolling East and
West from Poland and the Baltic, that were to roll on year after year
bearing their innocent loads to ghastly unknown destinations. And Guy,
oblivious also, thought all that winter's day of his coming meeting with
his wife. In the late afternoon when all was black, he telephoned to her
room.

'What are our plans for the evening?'

'Oh good, are there plans? I quite forgot. Tommy's just left and I was
thinking of a lonely early night, dinner in bed with the cross-word. I'd
_much_ rather have plans. Shall I come along to you? Everything looks
rather squalid here.' So she came to the six-guinea chaperon
sitting-room and Guy ordered cocktails.

'Not as cosy as mine,' she said, looking round the rich little room.

Guy sat beside her on the sofa. He put his arm on the back, edged
towards her, put his hand on her shoulder.

'What's going on?' she asked in unaffected surprise.

'I just wanted to kiss you.'

'What an odd way to go about it. You'll make me spill my drink. Here.'
She put her glass carefully on the table at her side, took hold of him
by the ears and gave him a full firm kiss on either cheek.

'Is that what you want?'

'Rather like a French general presenting medals.' He kissed her on the
lips. 'That's what I want.'

'Guy, are you tight?'

'No.'

'You've been spending the day at that revolting Bellamy's. Admit.'

'Yes.'

'Then of course you're tight.'

'No. It's just that I want you. D'you mind?'

'Oh, nobody ever minds being wanted. But it's rather unexpected.'

The telephone bell rang.

'Damn,' said Guy.

The telephone was on the writing-table. Guy rose from the sofa and
lifted the receiver. Familiar tones greeted him.

'Hullo, old man, Apthorpe here. I thought I'd just give you a ring.
Hullo, hullo. That is Crouchback, isn't it?'

'What d'you want?'

'Nothing special. I thought I could do with a change from Southsand so I
ran up to town for the day. I got your address out of the Leave Book.
Are you doing anything this evening?'

'Yes.'

'You mean, you have an engagement?'

'Yes.'

'I couldn't join you anywhere?'

'No.'

'Very well, Crouchback. I'm sorry I disturbed you.' Huffily: 'I can tell
when I'm not wanted.'

'It's a rare gift.'

'I don't quite get you, old man.'

'Never mind. See you to-morrow.'

'Things seem a bit flat in town.'

'I should go and have a drink.'

'I daresay I shall. Forgive me if I ring off now.'

'Who was that?' asked Virginia. 'Why were you so beastly to him?'

'He's just a chap from my regiment. I didn't want him butting in.'

'Some horrible member at Bellamy's?'

'Not at all like that.'

'Mightn't he have been rather fun?'

'No.'

Virginia had now moved to an arm-chair.

'What were we talking about?' she asked.

'I was making love to you.'

'Yes. Let's think of something different for a change.'

'It _is_ a change. For me, anyway.'

'Darling, I haven't had time to get my breath from Tommy. Two husbands
in a day is rather much.'

Guy sat down and stared at her.

'Virginia, did you ever love me at all?'

'But of course, darling. Don't you remember? Don't look so gloomy. We
had lovely times together, didn't we? Never a cross word. _Quite_
different to Mr. Troy.'

They talked of old times together. First of Kenya. The group of
bungalows that constituted their home, timber-built, round stone
chimneys and open English hearths, furnished with wedding presents and
good old pieces of furniture from the lumber-rooms at Broome; the
estate, so huge by European standards, so modest in East Africa, the
ruddy earth roads, the Ford van and the horses; the white-gowned
servants and their naked children always tumbling in the dust and
sunshine round the kitchen quarters; the families always on the march to
and from the native reserves, stopping to beg for medicine; the old lion
Guy shot among the mealies. Evening bathes in the lake, dinner parties
in pyjamas with their neighbours. Race Week in Nairobi, all the
flagrant, forgotten scandals of the Muthaiga Club, fights, adulteries,
arson, bankruptcies, card-sharping, insanity, suicides, even duels--the
whole Restoration scene re-enacted by farmers, eight thousand feet above
the steaming seaboard.

'Goodness it was fun,' said Virginia. 'I don't think anything has been
quite such fun since. How things just do happen to one!'

In February 1940 coal still burned in the grates of six-guinea hotel
sitting-rooms. Virginia and Guy sat in the fire-light and their talk
turned to gentler matters, their earliest meeting, their courtship,
Virginia's first visit to Broome, their wedding at the Oratory, their
honeymoon at Santa Dulcina. Virginia sat on the floor with her head on
the sofa, touching Guy's leg. Presently Guy slid down beside her. Her
eyes were wide and amorous.

'Silly of me to say you are drunk,' she said.

It was all going as Guy had planned, and, as though hearing his unspoken
boast, she added: 'It's no good planning anything,' and she said again:
'Things just happen to one.'

What happened then was a strident summons from the telephone.

'Let it ring,' she said.

It rang six times. Then Guy said: 'Damn. I must answer it.'

Once again he heard the voice of Apthorpe.

'I'm doing what you advised, old man; I've had a drink. Rather more than
one as it happens.'

'Good. Continuez, mon cher. But for Christ's sake don't bother me.'

'I've met some very interesting chaps. I thought perhaps you'd like to
join us.'

'No.'

'Still engaged?'

'Very much so.'

'Pity. I'm sure you'd like these chaps. They're in Ack-Ack.'

'Well, have a good time with them. Count me out.'

'Shall I ring up later to see if you can give your chaps the slip?'

'No.'

'We might all join forces.'

'No.'

'Well, you're missing a very interesting palaver.'

'Good-night.'

'Good-night, old man.'

'I'm sorry about that,' said Guy, turning from the telephone.

'While you're there you might order some more to drink,' said Virginia.

She rose to her feet and arranged herself suitably for the waiter's
arrival. 'Better put on the lights,' she said.

They sat opposite one another on either side of the fire, estranged and
restless. The cocktails were a long time in coming. Virginia said: 'How
about some dinner?'

'Now?'

'It's half past eight.'

'Here?'

'If you like.'

He sent for the menu and they ordered. There was half an hour in which
waiters came and went, wheeling a table carrying an ice bucket, a
hot-plate, eventually food. The sitting-room suddenly seemed more public
than the restaurant below. All the fire-side intimacy was dissipated.
Virginia said: 'What are we going to do afterwards?'

'I can think of something.'

'Can you indeed?'

Her eyes were sharp and humorous, all the glowing expectation and
acceptance of an hour ago quite extinguished. Finally the waiter removed
all his apparatus; the chairs on which they had sat at dinner were back
against the wall; the room looked just as it had when it was first
thrown open to him, costly and uninhabited. Even the fire, newly banked
up with coal and smoking darkly, had the air of being newly lit.
Virginia leaned on the chimney piece with a cigarette training a line of
smoke between her fingers. Guy came to stand by her and she moved very
slightly away.

'Can't a girl have time to digest?' she said.

Virginia had a weak head for wine. She had drunk rather freely at dinner
and there was a hint of tipsiness in her manner, which, he knew from of
old, might at any minute turn to truculence. In a minute it did.

'As long as you like,' said Guy.

'I should just think so. You take too much for granted.'

'That's an absolutely awful expression,' said Guy. 'Only tarts use it.'

'Isn't that rather what you think I am?'

'Isn't it rather what you are?'

They were both aghast at what had happened and stared at one another,
wordless. Then Guy said: 'Virginia, you know I didn't mean that. I'm
sorry. I must have gone out of my mind. Please forgive me. Please forget
it.'

'Go and sit down,' said Virginia. 'Now tell me just what you did mean.'

'I didn't mean anything at all.'

'You had a free evening and you thought I was a nice easy pick-up.
That's what you meant, isn't it?'

'No. As a matter of fact I've been thinking about you ever since we met
after Christmas. That's why I came here. Please believe me, Virginia.'

'And anyway what do you know about picking up tarts? If I remember our
honeymoon correctly, you weren't so experienced then. Not a particularly
expert performance as I remember it.'

The moral balance swung sharply up and tipped. Now Virginia had gone too
far, put herself in the wrong. There was another silence until she said:
'I was wrong in thinking the army had changed you for the better.
Whatever your faults in the old days you weren't a cad. You're worse
than Augustus now.'

'You forget I don't know Augustus.'

'Well, take it from me he was a monumental cad.'

A tiny light gleamed in their darkness, a pin-point in each easy tear
which swelled in her eyes and fell.

'Admit I'm not as bad as Augustus.'

'Very little to choose. But he was fatter. I'll admit that.'

'Virginia, for God's sake don't let's quarrel. It's my last chance of
seeing you for I don't know how long.'

'There you go again. The warrior back from the wars. "I take my fun
where I find it."'

'You know I didn't mean that.'

'Perhaps you didn't.'

Guy was beside her again with his hands on her. 'Don't let's be
beastly?'

She looked at him, not loving yet, but without any anger; sharp and
humorous again.

'Go back and sit down,' she said, giving him one friendly kiss. 'I
haven't finished with you yet. Perhaps I do look like an easy pick-up.
Lots of people seem to think so, anyway. I suppose I shouldn't complain.
But I can't understand you, Guy, not at all. You were never one for
casual affairs. I can't somehow believe you are now.'

'I'm not. This isn't.'

'You used to be so strict and pious. I rather liked it in you. What's
happened to all that?'

'It's still there. More than ever. I told you so when we first met
again.'

'Well, what would your priests say about your goings-on to-night;
picking up a notorious divorcee in an hotel?'

'They wouldn't mind. You're my wife.'

'Oh, rot.'

'Well, you asked what the priests would say. They'd say. "Go ahead."'

The light that had shone and waxed in their blackness suddenly snapped
out as though at the order of an air-raid warden.

'But this is horrible,' said Virginia.

Guy was taken by surprise this time.

'What's horrible?' he said.

'It's absolutely disgusting. It's worse than anything Augustus or Mr.
Troy could ever dream of. Can't you see, you pig, you?'

'No,' said Guy in deep, innocent sincerity. 'No, I don't see.'

'I'd far rather be taken for a tart. I'd rather have been offered five
pounds to do something ridiculous in high heels or drive you round the
room in toy harness or any of the things they write about in books.'
Tears of rage and humiliation were flowing unresisted. 'I thought you'd
taken a fancy for me again and wanted a bit of fun for the sake of old
times. I thought you'd chosen me specially, and by God you had. Because
I was the only woman in the whole world your priests would let you go to
bed with. That was my attraction. You wet, smug, obscene, pompous,
sexless lunatic pig.'

Even in this discomfiture Guy was reminded of his brawl with Trimmer.

She turned to leave him. Guy sat frozen. On the silence left by her
strident voice there broke a sound more strident still. While her hand
was on the door-knob, she instinctively paused at the summons. For the
third time that evening the telephone bell sang out between them.

'I say, Crouchback, old man, I'm in something of a quandary. I've just
put a man under close arrest.'

'That's a rash thing to do.'

'He's a civilian.'

'Then you can't.'

'That, Crouchback, is what the prisoner maintains. I hope you aren't
going to take his part.'

'Virginia, don't go.'

'What's that? I don't get you, old man. Apthorpe here. Did you say it
was "No go"?'

Virginia went. Apthorpe continued.

'Did you speak or was it just someone on the line? Look here, this is a
serious matter. I don't happen to have my King's Regulations with me.
That's why I'm asking for your help. Ought I to go out and try and
collect an NCO and some men for prisoner's escort in the street? Not so
easy in the black-out, old man. Or can I just hand the fellow over to
the civilian police?... I say, Crouchback, are you listening? I don't
think you quite appreciate that this is an official communication. I am
calling on you as an officer of His Majesty's Forces...'

Guy hung up the receiver and from the telephone in his bedroom gave
instructions that he was taking no more calls that night, unless by any
chance he was rung up from Number 650 in the hotel.

He went to bed and lay restless, half awake, for half the night. But the
telephone did not disturb him again.

Next day when he met Apthorpe at the train he said: 'You got out of your
trouble last night?'

'Trouble, old man?'

'You telephoned to me, do you remember?'

'Did I? Oh, yes, about some point of military law. I thought you might
be able to help.'

'Did you solve the problem?'

'It blew over, old man. It just blew over.'

Presently he said: 'Not wishing to be personal, may I ask what's
happened to your moustache?'

'It's gone.'

'Exactly. Just what I mean.'

'I had it shaved off.'

'Did you? What a pity. It suited you, Crouchback. Suited you very well.'




BOOK TWO
APTHORPE FURIBUNDUS


[I]

Orders were to report back to Kut-al-Imara by 1800 hours on February
15th.

Guy travelled through the familiar drab landscape. The frost was over
and the countryside sodden and dripping. He drove through the darkling
streets of Southsand where blinds were going down in the lightless
windows. This was no home-coming. He was a stray cat, slinking back
mauled from the rooftops, to a dark corner among the dustbins where he
could lick his wounds.

Southsand was a place of solace. Hotel and Yacht Club would shelter him,
he thought. Giuseppe Pelecci would feed and flatter him; Mr. Goodall
raise him. Mist from the sea and the melting snow would hide him. The
spell of Apthorpe would bind him, and gently bear him away to the far
gardens of fantasy.

In his melancholy Guy had taken no account of the Ritchie-Hook Seven Day
Plan.

Later in his military experience, when Guy had caught sight of that vast
uniformed and bemedalled bureaucracy by whose power alone a man might
stick his bayonet into another, and had felt something of its
measureless obstructive strength, Guy came to appreciate the scope and
speed of the Brigadier's achievement. Now he innocently supposed that
someone of the Brigadier's eminence merely said what he wanted, gave his
orders and the thing was done; but even so he marvelled, for in seven
days Kut-al-Imara had been transformed, body and soul.

Gone were Major McKinney and the former directing staff and the civilian
caterers. Gone, too, was Trimmer. A notice on the board, headed
_Strength, Decrease of_, stated that his temporary commission had been
terminated. With him went Helm and a third delinquent, a young man from
the Depot whose name was unfamiliar to Guy for the sufficient reason
that he had been absent without leave for the whole of the course at
Southsand. In their stead were a group of regular officers, Major
Tickeridge among them, many of whom Guy recognized from the barracks.
They sat at the back of the mess behind the Brigadier when at six
o'clock on the first evening he rose to introduce them.

He held his audience for a moment with his single eye. Then he said:
'Gentlemen, these are the officers who will command you in battle.'

At those words Guy's shame left him and pride flowed back. He ceased for
the time being to be the lonely and ineffective man--the man he so often
thought he saw in himself, past his first youth, cuckold, wastrel,
prig--who had washed and shaved and dressed at Claridge's, lunched at
Bellamy's and caught the afternoon train; he was one with his regiment,
with all their historic feats of arms behind him, with great
opportunities to come. He felt from head to foot a physical tingling and
bristling as though charged with galvanic current.

The rest of the speech was an explanation of the new organization and
régime. The brigade had already taken embryonic form. The temporary
officers were divided into three battalion groups of a dozen each under
the regular major and captain who would eventually become respectively
their commanding officer and adjutant. All would live in. Permission to
sleep out would be given to married men for Saturday and Sunday nights
only. All would dine in mess at least four nights a week.

'That is all, gentlemen. We will meet again at dinner.'

When they left the mess, they found that the tabletop over the fireplace
in the hall had been covered in their brief absence with type-written
sheets. Gradually spelling his way through the official abbreviations
Guy learned that he was in the Second Battalion under Major Tickeridge
and the Captain Sanders with whom Apthorpe had once so notably played
golf. With him were Apthorpe, Sarum-Smith, de Souza, Leonard and seven
others all from the barracks. Sleeping quarters had been reallocated.
They lived by battalions, six in a room. He was back in Paschendael; as
was Apthorpe.

Then and later he learned of other changes. The closed rooms of the
house were now thrown open. One was labelled '_Bde. HQ_' and held a
brigade major and two clerks. The headmaster's study housed three
Battalion Orderly Rooms. There were also a regular quartermaster, with
an office and a clerk, three regimental sergeant majors, Halberdier
cooks, new, younger Halberdier servants, three lorries, a Humber Snipe,
three motor-bicycles, drivers, a bugler. The day's routine was a
continuous succession of parades, exercises and lectures from eight in
the morning till six. 'Discussions' would be held after dinner on
Mondays and Fridays. 'Night Operations', also, were two a week.

'I don't know how Daisy will take this,' said Leonard.

She took it, Guy learned later, very badly, and returned heavy and cross
to her parents.

Guy welcomed the new arrangements. After the expenses of London he had
been uneasy about his hotel bill at the Grand. But most of the young
officers were worried. Apthorpe, who had mentioned in the train that he
was suffering from 'a touch of tummy', looked more worried than anyone.

'It's the question of my gear,' he said.

'Why not leave it at your digs?'

'At the Commodore's? Pretty awkward, old man, in the case of a sudden
move. I think I'd better have a palaver with the Q.M. about it.'

And later: 'D'you know, the Q.M. wasn't a bit helpful. Said he was busy.
Seemed to think I was talking about superfluous clothing. He even
suggested I might have to scrap half of it when we move under canvas.
He's just one of those box-wallahs. No experience of campaigning. I told
him so and he said he'd served in the ranks in Hongkong. Hongkong--I ask
you! About the cushiest spot in the whole empire. I told him that too.'

'Why is it all so important to you, Apthorpe?'

'My dear fellow, it's taken me years to collect.'

'Yes, but what's in it?'

'That, old man, is not a very easy question to answer in one word.'

Everyone dined in the mess that first evening. There were three tables
now, one for each battalion. The Brigadier, who from now on sat wherever
his fancy took him, said Grace, banging the table with the handle of his
fork and saying simply and loudly: 'Thank God.'

He was in high good humour and gave evidence of it first by providing a
collapsible spoon for the brigade major which spilt soup over his chest,
and secondly by announcing after dinner:

'When the tables have been cleared there will be a game of
Housey-housey, here. For the benefit of the young officers I should
explain that it is what civilians, I believe, call Bingo. As you are no
doubt aware, it is the only game which may be played for money by His
Majesty's Forces. Ten per cent of each bank goes to the Regimental
Comforts Fund and Old Comrades' Association. The price of each card will
be three pence.'

'Housey-housey?'

'Bingo?'

The junior officers looked at one another in wild surmise. 'Tubby' Blake
alone, the veteran of the Depot Batch, claimed he had played the game on
board ship crossing the Atlantic to Canada.

'It's quite simple. You just cross out the numbers as they're called.'

'What numbers?'

'The ones they call.'

Mystified, Guy returned to the mess. The brigade major sat at the corner
of a table with a tin cash box and a heap of cards printed with squares
and numbers. Each bought a card as he came in. The Brigadier, smiling
ferociously, stood at the brigade major's side with a pillow-case in his
hand. When they were all seated the Brigadier said: 'One object of this
exercise is to see how many of you carry pencils.'

About half did. Sarum-Smith, surprisingly, had three or four, including
a metal one with different coloured leads.

Someone asked: 'Will a fountain-pen do, sir?'

'Every officer should always carry a pencil.'

It was back to prep. school again, but a better school than McKinney's.

At last after much borrowing and searching of pockets the game began
suddenly with the command: 'Eyes down for a house.'

Guy stared blankly at the Brigadier, who now plunged his hand in the
pillow-case and produced a little square card.

'Clickety-click,' said the Brigadier disconcertingly. Then: 'Sixty-six.'
Then in rapid succession, in a loud sing-song tone: 'Marine's breakfast
number ten add two twelve all the fives fifty-five never been kissed
sweet sixteen key of the door twenty-one add six twenty-seven legs
eleven Kelly's eye number one and we'll...'

He paused. The regular officers and Tubby Blake gave tongue: 'Shake the
bag.'

Slowly the terms of this noisy sport became clearer to Guy and he began
making crosses on his card until there was a cry of 'House' from Captain
Sanders, who then read his numbers aloud.

'House correct,' said the brigade major, and Sanders collected about
nine shillings, and the other players crowded round the brigade major to
buy new cards.

They played for two hours. The Brigadier's eye-teeth flashed like a
questing tiger's. As the players began to grasp what was going on, an
element of enjoyment just perceptible warmed them here and there. The
Brigadier became more jolly. 'Who wants one number?'

'Sir.'

'Sir.'

'Sir.'

'What do you want?'

'Eight.'

'Fifteen.'

'Seventy-one.'

'Well it's...' Pause. The Brigadier made a pantomime of being unable
to read it; fixed the card with his monocle. 'Did someone say they
_wanted_ seventy-one. Well it is seventy...' pause 'seven. All the
sevens and we'll...'

'Shake the bag.'

At half past ten the Brigadier said: 'Well, gentlemen, Bedfordshire for
you. I've got work. You haven't got a training programme yet.'

He led his staff away into the room marked '_Bde. HQ_'. It was two
o'clock when Guy heard them disperse.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The Training Programme followed no text-book. Tactics as interpreted by
Brigadier Ritchie-Hook consisted of the art of biffing. Defence was
studied cursorily and only as the period of reorganization between two
bloody assaults. The Withdrawal was never mentioned. The Attack and the
Element of Surprise were all. Long raw misty days were passed in the
surrounding country with maps and binoculars. Sometimes they stood on
the beach and biffed imaginary defenders into the hills; sometimes they
biffed imaginary invaders from the hills into the sea. They invested
downland hamlets and savagely biffed imaginary hostile inhabitants.
Sometimes they merely collided with imaginary rivals for the use of the
main road and biffed them out of the way.

Guy found that he had an aptitude for this sort of warfare. He read his
map easily and had a good eye for country. When townsmen like
Sarum-Smith gazed blankly about them Guy could always recognize 'dead
ground' and 'covered lines of approach'. Sometimes they worked singly,
sometimes in 'syndicates'; Guy's answers usually turned out to be the
'staff solution'. At night when they were dropped about the downs, with
compass bearings to guide them to a meeting-place, Guy was usually home
one of the first. There were great advantages in a rural upbringing. In
the 'discussions', too, he did well. These were debates on the various
more recondite aspects of biffing. The subjects were announced
beforehand with the implication that the matter should be given thought
and research. When the evening came most were drowsy and Apthorpe's fine
show of technical vocabulary fell flat. Guy spoke up clearly and
concisely. He realized that he was once more attracting favourable
notice.

The thaw gave place to clear, cold weather. They returned to Mudshore
range but with the Brigadier in charge. This was a period before the
invention of 'Battle Schools'. The firing of a live round, as Guy well
knew, was attended with all the solemnity of a salute at a funeral,
always and everywhere, except when Brigadier Ritchie-Hook was about. The
sound of flying bullets exhilarated him to heights of levity.

He went to the butts to organize snap-shooting. Markers raised
figure-targets at unpredictable points drawing bursts of Bren fire. The
Brigadier soon tired of this, put his hat on his stick and ran up and
down the trench, raising, lowering, waving it, promising down the
telephone a sovereign to the man who hit it. All missed. Enraged he
popped his head over the parapet shouting: 'Come on, you young
blighters, shoot me.' He did this for some time, running, laughing,
ducking, jumping, until he was exhausted though unwounded.

It was a period when ammunition was short. Five rounds a man was the
normal training allowance. Brigadier Ritchie-Hook had all the Brens
firing at once, continuously, their barrels overheated, changed, plunged
sizzling into buckets of water, while he led his young officers on all
fours in front of the targets a few inches below the rain of bullets.


[II]

The newspapers, hastily scanned, were full of Finnish triumphs. Ghostly
ski-troops, Guy read, swept through the sunless Arctic forests harassing
the mechanized divisions of the Soviet who had advanced with massed
bands and portraits of Stalin expecting a welcome, whose prisoners were
ill equipped, underfed, quite ignorant of whom they were fighting and
why. English forces, delayed only by a few diplomatic complications,
were on their way to help. Russian might had proved to be an illusion.
Mannerheim held the place in English hearts won in 1914 by King Albert
of the Belgians. Then quite suddenly it appeared that the Finns were
beaten.

No one at Kut-al-Imara House seemed much put out by the disaster. For
Guy the news quickened the sickening suspicion he had tried to ignore,
had succeeded in ignoring more often than not in his service in the
Halberdiers; that he was engaged in a war in which courage and a just
cause were quite irrelevant to the issue.

That day Apthorpe said: 'After all, it's only what one expected.'

'Did you, Apthorpe? You never told me.'

'Stuck out a mile, old man, to anyone who troubled to weigh the pros and
cons. It was simply the case of Poland over again. But there was no
point in talking about it. It would only have spread alarm and
despondency among the weaker brethren. Personally I can see quite a few
advantages in the situation.'

'What, for instance?'

'Simplifies the whole strategy, if you know what I mean.'

'Am I to take this as part of your campaign to prevent alarm and
despondency?'

'Take it how you like, old man. I've other things to worry about.'

And Guy at once knew that there must have been a new development in the
tense personal drama which all that Lent was being played against the
background of the Brigadier's training methods; which, indeed, drew all
its poignancy from them and itself formed their culminating
illustration.

This adventure had begun on the first Sunday of the new régime.

The schoolrooms were almost deserted that afternoon; everyone was either
upstairs asleep or else in the town. Guy was reading his weekly papers
in the hall when he saw through the plate-glass window a taxi drive up
and Apthorpe emerge carrying, with the help of the driver, a large
square object, which they placed in the porch. Guy went out to offer his
help.

'That's all right, thank you,' said Apthorpe rather stiffly. 'I'm just
shifting some of my gear.'

'Where d'you want to put it?'

'I don't quite know yet. I shall manage quite well, thank you.'

Guy returned to the hall and stood in the window gazing idly out. It was
getting too dark to read comfortably and the man had not yet appeared to
put up the black-out screens. Presently he saw Apthorpe emerge from the
front door into the twilight and begin furtively burrowing about in the
shrubbery. He watched fascinated until some ten minutes later he saw him
return. The front porch opened directly into the hall. Apthorpe entered
backwards dragging his piece of gear.

'Are you sure I can't help?'

'Quite sure, thank you.'

There was a large cupboard under the stairs. Into this Apthorpe with
difficulty shoved his burden. He removed his gloves and coat and cap and
came with an air of unconcern to the fire saying: 'The Commodore sent
you his compliments. Says he misses us at the Club.'

'Have you been there?'

'Not exactly. I just dropped in on the old man to fetch something.'

'That piece of gear?'

'Well, yes, as a matter of fact.'

'Is it something very private, Apthorpe?'

'Something of no general interest, old man. None at all.'

At that moment the duty servant came in to fix the black-out. Apthorpe
said: 'Smethers.'

'Sir.'

'Your name is Smethers, isn't it?'

'No, sir. Crock.'

'Well, never mind. What I wanted to ask you was about the offices, the
back-parts of the house.'

'Sir?'

'I need some sort of little shed or store-house, a gardener's hut would
do, a wash-house, dairy, anything of that kind. Is there such a place?'

'Was you wanting it just for the moment, sir?'

'No, no, no. For as long as we're here.'

'Couldn't say, I'm sure, sir. That's for the Q.M.'

'Yes. I was only wondering,' and when the man had gone: 'Stupid fellow
that. I always thought he was called Smethers.'

Guy turned back to his weekly papers. Apthorpe sat opposite him gazing
at his boots. Once he got up, walked to the cupboard, peered in, shut it
and returned to his chair.

'I can _keep_ it there, I suppose, but I can't possibly _use_ it there,
can I?'

'Can't you?'

'Well, how _can_ I?'

There was a pause during which Guy read an article about the
inviolability of the Mikkeli Marshes. (These were the brave days before
the fall of Finland.) Then Apthorpe said:

'I thought I could find a place for it in the shrubbery but it's all
much more open than I realized.'

Guy said nothing and turned a page of the _Tablet_. It was clear that
Apthorpe was longing to divulge his secret and would shortly do so.

'It is no good going to the Q.M. _He_ wouldn't understand. It's not
exactly an easy thing to explain to anyone.'

Then, after another pause, he said: 'Well, if you _must_ know, it's my
thunder-box.'

This was far above Guy's hopes; his mind had been running on food,
medicine, fire-arms; at the very best he had hoped for something exotic
in footwear.

'May I see it?' he asked reverently.

'I don't see why not,' said Apthorpe. 'As a matter of fact I think it
will interest you; it's pretty neat, a type they don't make any more.
Too expensive, I suppose.'

He went to the cupboard and dragged out the treasure, a brass-bound, oak
cube.

'It's a beautiful piece of work really.'

He opened it, showing a mechanism of heavy cast-brass and patterned
earthenware of solid Edwardian workmanship. On the inside of the lid was
a plaque bearing the embossed title _Connolly's Chemical Closet_.

'What do you think of it?' said Apthorpe.

Guy was not sure of the proper terms in which to praise such an exhibit.

'It's clearly been very well looked after,' said Guy.

It seemed Guy had said the right thing.

'I got it from a High Court Judge, the year they put drains into the
Government buildings at Karonga. Gave him five pounds for it. I doubt if
you could find one for twenty to-day. There's not the craftsmanship any
more.'

'You must be very proud of it.'

'I am.'

'But I don't quite see why you need it here.'

'Don't you, old man? Don't you?' A curiously solemn and fatuous
expression replaced the innocent light of ownership that had until now
beamed from Apthorpe. 'Have you ever heard of a rather unpleasant
complaint called "clap", Crouchback?'

Guy was dumbfounded.

'I say, what a beastly thing. I am sorry. I had no idea. I suppose you
picked it up the other night in London when you were tight. But are you
having it properly seen to? Oughtn't you to go sick?'

'No, no, no, no. _I_ haven't got it.'

'Then who has?'

'Sarum-Smith for one.'

'How do you know?'

'I don't _know_. I simply chose Sarum-Smith as an example. He's just the
sort of young idiot who would. Any of them might. And I don't intend to
take any risks.'

He shut his box and pushed it away under the stairs. The effort seemed
to rile him.

'What's more, old man,' he said, 'I don't much like the way you spoke to
me just now, accusing me of having clap. It's a pretty serious thing,
you know.'

'I'm sorry. It was rather a natural mistake in the circumstances.'

'Not natural to me, old man, and I don't quite know what you mean by
"circumstances". I _never_ get tight. I should have thought you would
have noticed that. Merry, perhaps, on occasions, but never _tight_. It's
a thing I keep clear of. I've seen far too much of it.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

Apthorpe was up at first light next day exploring the outbuildings and
before breakfast had discovered an empty shed where the school perhaps
had kept bats and pads. There with the help of Halberdier Crock he
installed his chemical closet and thither for several tranquil days he
resorted for his comfort. It was two days after the fall of Finland that
his troubles began.

Back from biffing about the downs and, after a late luncheon, inclined
for half an hour's rest, Guy was disturbed by Apthorpe. He wore a face
of doom.

'Crouchback, a word with you.'

'Well.'

'In private if you don't mind.'

'I do mind. What is it?'

Apthorpe looked round the ante-room. Everyone seemed occupied.

'You've been using my thunder-box.'

'No, I haven't.'

'Someone has.'

'Well, it isn't me.'

'No one else knows of it.'

'How about Halberdier Crock?'

'He wouldn't dare.'

'Nor would I, my dear fellow.'

'Is that your last word?'

'Yes.'

'Very well. But in future I shall keep a look-out.'

'Yes, I should.'

'It's a serious matter, you know. It almost amounts to pilfering. The
chemical is far from cheap.'

'How much a go?'

'It isn't the money. It's the Principle.'

'And the risk of infection.'

'Exactly.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

For two days Apthorpe posted himself in the bushes near his shed and
spent every available minute on watch. On the third day he drew Guy
aside and said: 'Crouchback, I owe you an apology. It isn't you who has
been using my thunder-box.'

'I knew that.'

'Yes, but you must admit the circumstances were very suspicious. Anyway
I've found out who it is, and it's most disturbing.'

'Not Sarum-Smith?'

'No. Much more disturbing than that. _It's the Brigadier._'

'Do you think _he's_ got clap?'

'No. Most unlikely. Far too much a man of the world. But the question
arises, what action ought I to take?'

'None.'

'It's a matter of Principle. As my superior officer he has no more right
to use my thunder-box than to wear my boots.'

'Well, I'd lend him my boots if he wanted them.'

'Perhaps; but then, if you'll forgive my saying so, you're not very
particular about your boots, are you, old man? Anyway you think it my
duty to submit without protest.'

'I think you'll make a tremendous ass of yourself if you don't.'

'I shall have to think about it. Do you think I ought to consult the
B.M.?'

'No.'

'You may be right.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next day Apthorpe reported: 'Things are looking worse.'

It showed how much the thunder-box had occupied Guy's thoughts that he
at once knew what Apthorpe meant.

'More intruders?'

'No, not that. But this morning as I was coming out I met the Brigadier
going in. He gave me a very odd look--you may have noticed he has rather
a disagreeable stare on occasions. His look seemed to suggest that _I_
had no business there.'

'He's a man of action,' said Guy. 'You won't have to wait long to know
what he thinks about it.'

All day Apthorpe was distracted. He answered haphazard when asked an
opinion on tactics. His solutions of the problems set them were wild. It
was a particularly cold day. At every pause in the routine he kept vigil
by the hut. He missed tea and did not return until ten minutes before
the evening lecture. He was red-nosed and blue-cheeked.

'You'll make yourself ill, if this goes on,' said Guy.

'It can't go on. The worst has happened already.'

'What?'

'Come and see. I wouldn't have believed it, if I hadn't seen it with my
own eyes.'

They went out into the gloom.

'Just five minutes ago. I'd been on the watch since tea and was getting
infernally cold, so I started walking about. And the Brigadier came
right past me. I saluted. He said nothing. Then he did this thing under
my very eyes. Then he came past me again and I saluted and he positively
grinned. I tell you, Crouchback, it was _devilish_.'

They had reached the hut. Guy could just see something large and white
hanging on the door. Apthorpe turned his torch on it and Guy saw a
neatly inscribed notice: _Out of Bounds to all ranks below Brigadier_.

'He must have had it specially made by one of the clerks,' said Apthorpe
awfully.

'It's put you in rather a fix, hasn't it?' said Guy.

'I shall send in my papers.'

'I don't believe you can in war time.'

'I can ask for a transfer to another regiment.'

'I should miss you, Apthorpe, more than you can possibly believe. Anyway
there's a lecture in two minutes. Let's go in.'

The Brigadier himself lectured. Booby traps, it appeared, were proving
an important feature of patrol-work on the Western front. The Brigadier
spoke of trip-wires, detonators, anti-personnel mines. He described in
detail an explosive goat which he had once contrived and driven into a
Bedouin encampment. Seldom had he been more exuberant.

This was one of the evenings when there was no discussion or night
exercise and it was generally accepted that those who wished might dine
out.

'Let's go to the Garibaldi,' said Apthorpe. 'I won't sit at the same
table with that man. You must dine with me as my guest.'

There, in the steam of _minestrone_, Apthorpe's face became a healthier
colour and strengthened by Barolo his despair gave place to defiance.
Pelecci leant very near while Apthorpe rehearsed his wrongs. The
conversation was abstruse. 'Thunder-box', an invention of this capable
officer's, unjustly misappropriated by a superior, was clearly a new
weapon of value.

'I don't think,' said Apthorpe, 'it would be any good appealing to the
Army Council, do you?'

'No.'

'You could not expect them to meet a case like this with purely open
minds. I don't suggest positive prejudice but, after all, it's in their
interest to support authority if they possibly can. If they found a
loophole...'

'You think there are loopholes in your case?'

'Quite frankly, old man, I do. In a court of honour, of course, the
thing would be different, but in its purely legal aspect one has to
admit that the Brigadier is within his rights in putting any part of the
brigade premises out of bounds. It is also true that I installed my
thunder-box without permission. That's just the sort of point the Army
Council would jump on.'

'Of course,' said Guy, 'it's arguable that since the thunder-box has not
risen to the rank of brigadier, it is itself at the moment out of
bounds.'

'You've got it, Crouchback. You've hit the nail right on the head.' He
goggled across the table with frank admiration. 'There's such a thing,
you know, as being too near to a problem. Here I've been turning this
thing over and over in my mind till I felt quite ill with worry. I knew
I needed an outside opinion; anybody's, just someone who wasn't
personally implicated. I've no doubt I'd have come to the same solution
myself sooner or later, but I might have worried half the night. I owe
you a real debt of gratitude, old man.'

More food arrived and more wine. Giuseppe Pelecci was out of his depth.
'Thunder-box', it now appeared, was the code-name of some politician of
importance but no military rank, held concealed in the district. He
would pass the information on for what it was worth; keener brains than
his should make what they could of it. He had no ambition to rise in his
profession. He was doing nicely out of the restaurant. He had worked up
the good-will of the place himself. Politics bored him and battles
frightened him. It was only in order to escape military service that he
had come here in the first place.

'And afterwards a special _zabaglione_, gentlemen?'

'Yes,' said Apthorpe. 'Yes, rather. Let's have all you've got.' And to
Guy: 'You must understand that this is _my_ dinner.'

So Guy had understood from the first; this reminder, Guy thought, was
perhaps a clumsy expression of gratitude. It was in fact a sly appeal
for further services.

'I think we've cleared up the whole legal aspect very neatly,' Apthorpe
continued. 'But there's now the question of action. How are we going to
get the thunder-box out?'

'The way you got it in, I suppose.'

'Not so easy, old man. There's wheels within wheels. Halberdier Crock
and I carried it there. How can we carry it away without going out of
bounds? One can't order a man to perform an unlawful action. You must
remember that. Besides I shouldn't really care to _ask_ him. He was
distinctly unco-operative about the whole undertaking.'

'Couldn't you lasso it from the door?'

'Pretty ticklish, old man. Besides, my lariat is with the rest of my
gear at the Commodore's.'

'Couldn't you draw it out with a magnet?'

'I say, are you trying to be funny, Crouchback?'

'It was just a suggestion.'

'_Not_ a very practical one, if you don't mind my saying so. No. Someone
must go in and get it.'

'Out of bounds?'

'Someone who doesn't know, or at least who the Brigadier doesn't know
knows, that the hut is out of bounds. If he was caught he could always
plead that he didn't see the notice in the dark.'

'You mean me?'

'Well, you're more or less the obvious person, aren't you, old man?'

'All right,' said Guy, 'I don't mind.'

'Good for you,' said Apthorpe, greatly relieved.

They finished their dinner. Apthorpe grumbled about the bill but he paid
it. They returned to Kut-al-Imara. There was no one about. Apthorpe kept
_cave_ and Guy, without much difficulty, dragged the object into the
open.

'Where to now?'

'That's the question. Where do you think will be the best place?'

'The latrines.'

'Really, old man, this is scarcely the time or place for humour.'

'I was only thinking of Chesterton's observation, "Where is the best
place to hide a leaf? In a tree."'

'I don't get you, old man. It would be jolly awkward up a tree, from
_every_ point of view.'

'Well, let's not take it far. It's bloody heavy.'

'There's a potting-shed I found when I was making my recce.'

They took it there, fifty yards away. It was less commodious than the
hut, but Apthorpe said it would do. As they were returning from their
adventure he paused in the path and said with unusual warmth: 'I shan't
forget this evening's work, Crouchback. Thank you very much.'

'And thank you for the dinner.'

'That wop did pile it on, didn't he?'

After a few more steps Apthorpe said: 'Look here, old man, if you'd care
to use the thunder-box, too, it's all right with me.'

It was a moment of heightened emotion; an historic moment, had Guy
recognized it, when in their complicated relationship Apthorpe came
nearest to love and trust. It passed, as such moments do between
Englishmen.

'It's very good of you but I'm quite content as I am.'

'Sure?'

'Yes.'

'That's all right then,' said Apthorpe, greatly relieved.

Thus Guy stood high in Apthorpe's favour and became with him joint
custodian of the thunder-box.


[III]

In full retrospect all the last weeks of March resolved themselves into
the saga of the chemical closet. Apthorpe soon forgot his original
motive for installing it.

He was no longer driven by fear of infection. His right of property was
at stake. Waiting to fall in, on the morning after the first
translation, Apthorpe drew Guy aside. Their new comradeship was on a
different plane from frank geniality; they were fellow conspirators now.
'It's still there.'

'Good.'

'Untouched.'

'Fine.'

'I think, old man, that in the circumstances we had better not be seen
talking together too much.'

Later, as they went into the mess for luncheon Guy had the odd
impression that someone in the crowd was attempting to hold his hand. He
looked about him and saw Apthorpe near, with averted face, talking with
great emphasis to Captain Sanders. Then he realized that a note was
being passed to him.

Apthorpe made for a place at table as far as possible from his. Guy
opened the screw of paper and read: '_The notice has been taken down
from the hut. Unconditional surrender?_'

Not until tea time did Apthorpe consider it safe to speak.

'I don't think we've any more to worry about. The Brig. has given us
best.'

'It doesn't sound like him.'

'Oh, he's unscrupulous enough for anything. I know that. But he has his
dignity to consider.'

Guy did not wish to upset Apthorpe's new, gleeful mood, but he doubted
whether these adversaries had an identical sense of dignity. Next day it
was apparent that they had not.

Apthorpe arrived for parade (under the new régime there was half an
hour's drill and physical training every morning) with a face of horror.
He fell in next to Guy. Again there was an odd inter-fumbling of fingers
and Guy found himself holding a message. He read it at the first
stand-easy while Apthorpe turned ostentatiously away. '_Must speak to
you alone first opportunity. Gravest developments._'

An opportunity came half-way through the morning.

'The man's mad. A dangerous, certifiable maniac. I don't know what I
ought to do about it.'

'What's he done now?'

'He came within an inch of killing me, that's all. If I hadn't been
wearing my steel helmet I shouldn't be here to tell you. He caught me
with a bloody great flower-pot, full of earth and a dead geranium,
square on the top of my head. That's what he did this morning.'

'He threw it at you?'

'It was on top of the potting-shed door.'

'Why were you wearing your tin-hat?'

'Instinct, old man. Self-preservation.'

'But you said last night you thought the whole thing was over. Apthorpe,
do you always wear your tin-hat on the thunder-box?'

'All this is irrelevant. The point is that this man simply isn't
responsible. It's a very serious matter for someone in his position--and
ours. A time may come when he holds our lives in his hands. What ought I
to do?'

'Move the box again.'

'And not report the matter?'

'Well, there's your dignity to consider.'

'You mean there are people who might think it funny?'

'Awfully funny.'

'Damn,' said Apthorpe. 'I hadn't considered that side of the question.'

'I wish you'd tell me the truth about the tin-hat.'

'Well, if you must know, I _have_ been wearing it lately. I suppose it
really boils down to home-sickness, old man. The helmet has rather the
feel of a solar topee, if you see what I mean. It makes the thunder-box
more homely.'

'You don't start out wearing it?'

'No, under my arm.'

'And when do you put it on, before or after lowering the costume? I must
know.'

'On the threshold, as it happens. Very luckily for me this morning. But,
you know, really, old man, I don't quite get you. Why all the interest?'

'I must visualize the scene, Apthorpe. When we are old men, memories of
things like this will be our chief comfort.'

'Crouchback, there are times when you talk almost as though you found it
funny.'

'Please don't think that, Apthorpe. I beg you, think anything but that.'

Already after so brief a reconcilation Apthorpe was getting suspicious.
He would have liked to be huffy but did not dare. He was pitted against
a ruthless and resourceful enemy and must hold fast to Guy or go down.

'Well, what is our next move?' he asked.

That night they crept out to the potting-shed and Apthorpe in silence
showed with his torch the broken shards, the scattered mould and the
dead geranium of that morning's great fright. In silence he and Guy
lifted the box and bore it as they had planned, back to its original
home in the games-hut.

Next day, the Brigadier appeared at the first parade.

'ATM 24, as no doubt you all know, recommends the use of games for
training in observation and field-craft. This morning, gentlemen, you
will play such a game. Somewhere about these grounds has been concealed
an antiquated field latrine, no doubt left here as valueless by the
former occupants of the camp. It looks like a plain square box. Work
singly. The first officer to find it will report to me. Fall out.'

'His effrontery staggers me,' said Apthorpe. 'Crouchback, guard the
shed. I will draw off the hunt.'

New strength had come to Apthorpe. He was master of the moment. He
strode off purposefully towards the area of coal bunkers and petrol dump
and, sure enough, the Brigadier was soon seen to follow behind him. Guy
made deviously for the games-hut and sauntered near it. Twice other
seekers approached and Guy said: 'I've just looked in there. Nothing to
see.'

Presently the bugle recalled them. The Brigadier received the 'nil
report', mounted his motor-cycle and drove away scowling ominously but
without a word; he did not reappear at all that day.

'A bad loser, old man,' said Apthorpe.

But next day the _Out of Bounds_ notice was back on the door of the
shed.

                 *        *        *        *        *

As Guy foresaw, those mad March days and nights of hide-and-seek drained
into a deep well of refreshment in his mind, but in retrospect the
detail of alternate ruse and counter-ruse faded and grew legendary. He
never again smelled wet laurel, or trod among pine needles, without
reliving those encumbered night prowls with Apthorpe, those mornings of
triumph or disappointment. But the precise succession of episodes,
indeed their very number, faded and were lost among later, less
childlike memories.

The climax came in Holy Week at the very end of the course. The
Brigadier had been in London for three days on the business of their
next move. The thunder-box stood in a corner of the playing field,
unhoused but well hidden between an elm tree and a huge roller. There
for the three days Apthorpe enjoyed undisputed rights of property.

The Brigadier returned in alarmingly high spirits. He had bought some
trick-glasses at a toy-shop which, when raised, spilled their contents
down the drinker's chin, and these he secretly distributed round the
table before dinner. After dinner there was a long session of
Housey-housey. When he had called the last house he said: 'Gentlemen,
everyone except the B.M. and I goes on leave to-morrow. We meet under
canvas in the lowlands of Scotland where you will have ample space to
put into practice the lessons you have learned here. Details of the move
will be posted as soon as the B.M. has sweated them out. You will
particularly notice that officers' baggage and equipment is defined by a
scale laid down at the War House. Those limits will be strictly
observed. I think that's all, isn't it, B.M.? Oh, no, one other thing.
You are all improperly dressed. You've been promoted as from this
morning. Get those second pips up before leaving camp.'

That night there was singing in the dormitories:

    'This time to-morrow I shall be
    Far from this Academee.'

Leonard improvised:

    'No more TEWTS and no more drill,
    No night ops to cause a chill.'

'I say,' said Guy to Apthorpe. 'That scale of equipment won't allow for
your gear.'

'I know, old man. It's very worrying.'

'And the thunder-box.'

'I shall find a place for it. Somewhere quite safe, a crypt, a vault,
somewhere like that where I shall know it's waiting for me until the end
of the war.'

    'No more swamps through which to creep,
    No more lectures to make me sleep.'

The cheerful voices reached the room marked '_Bde. HQ_' where the
Brigadier was at work with his brigade major.

'That reminds me,' he said, 'I've some unfinished business to attend to
outside.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next morning as soon as the sun touched the unshaded window of
Paschendael, Apthorpe was up, jabbing his shoulder straps with a pair of
nail scissors. Then he tricked himself out as a lieutenant. He nothing
common did or mean on their morning of departure. His last act before
leaving the dormitory was a friendly one; he offered to lend Guy a pair
of stars from a neat leather stud-box which he now revealed to be full
of such adornments, and of crowns also. Then before Guy had finished
shaving, Apthorpe, correctly dressed and bearing his steel helmet under
his arm, set out for his corner of the playing field.

The spot was not a furlong away. In less than five minutes an explosion
rattled the windows of the schoolhouse. Various jolly end-of-term voices
rose from the dormitories: 'Air raid'; 'Take cover'; 'Gas'.

Guy buckled his belt and hurried out to what he knew must be the scene
of the disaster. Wisps of smoke were visible. He crossed the playing
field. At first there was no sign of Apthorpe. Then he came upon him,
standing, leaning against the elm, wearing his steel helmet, fumbling
with his trouser buttons and gazing with dazed horror on the wreckage
which lay all round the roller.

'I say, are you hurt?'

'Who is that? Crouchback? I don't know. I simply don't know, old man.'

Of the thunder-box there remained only a heap of smoking wood, brass
valves, pinkish chemical powder scattered many yards, and great jags of
patterned china.

'What happened?'

'I don't know, old man. I just sat down. There was a frightful bang and
the next thing I knew I was on all fours on the grass, right over
there.'

'Are you hurt?' Guy asked again.

'Shock,' said Apthorpe. 'I don't feel at all the thing.'

Guy looked more closely at the wreckage. It was plain enough from his
memories of the last lecture what had happened.

Apthorpe removed his steel helmet, recovered his cap, straightened his
uniform, put up a hand to assure himself that his new stars were still
in place. He looked once more on all that remained of his thunder-box;
the _mot juste_, thought Guy.

He seemed too dazed for grief.

Guy was at a loss for words of condolence.

'Better come back to breakfast.'

They turned silently towards the house.

Apthorpe walked unsteadily across the wet, patchy field with his eyes
fixed before him.

On the steps he paused once and looked back.

There was more of high tragedy than of bitterness in the epitaph he
spoke.

'_Biffed._'


[IV]

Guy had considered going to Downside for Holy Week, but decided instead
on Matchet. The Marine Hotel was still crowded but there was now no
sense of bustle. Management and servants had settled down to the simple
policy of doing less than they had done before, for rather more money. A
notice board hung in the hall. Except that they began: '_Guests are
respectfully reminded_...', '_Guests are respectfully requested_...',
'_Guests are regretfully informed_...', the announcements were curiously
like military orders and each proclaimed some small curtailment of
amenity.

'Seems to me this place is going off rather,' said Tickeridge, who now
wore the badges of lieutenant-colonel.

'I'm sure they're doing their best,' said Mr. Crouchback.

'I notice they've put up the prices too.'

'I believe they're finding everything rather difficult.'

All his life Mr. Crouchback abstained from wine and tobacco during Lent,
but his table still bore its decanter of port and the Tickeridges joined
them every evening.

As they stood at the windy front door that Maundy Thursday night, while
Felix gambolled off into the darkness, Mr. Crouchback said:

'I am so glad you're in Tickeridge's battalion. He's such a pleasant
fellow. His wife and little girl miss him dreadfully...

'He tells me you're probably being given a company.'

'Hardly that. I think I may get made second-in-command.'

'He said you'd get your own company. He thinks the world of you. I'm so
glad. You're wearing that medal?'

'Yes, indeed.'

'I really am delighted you're doing so well. Not that I'm at all
surprised. By the way I shall be taking my turn at the Altar of Repose.
I don't suppose you care to come too?'

'What time?'

'Well, they seem to find it hardest to get people for the early morning
watches. It's all the same for me so I said I'd be there from five to
seven.'

'That's a bit long for me. I might look in for half an hour.'

'Do. They've got it looking very pretty this year.'

Dawn was breaking that Good Friday when Guy arrived at the little
church, but inside it was as still as night. The air was heavy with the
smell of flowers and candles. His father was alone, kneeling stiff and
upright at a prie-dieu before the improvised altar, gazing straight
before him into the full face of the monstrance. He turned to smile at
Guy and then resumed his prayer.

Guy knelt not far from him and prayed too.

Presently a sacristan came in and drew the black curtains from the east
windows; brilliant sunlight blinded their eyes, momentarily, to candles
and Host.

                 *        *        *        *        *

At that moment in London--for in this most secret headquarters it was
thought more secret to work at unconventional hours--Guy was being
talked about.

'There's some more stuff come in about the Southsand affair, sir.'

'Is that the Welsh professor who's taken against the RAF?'

'No, sir. You remember the short-wave message from L18 we intercepted.
It's here. _Two Halberdier officers state that important politician Box
visited Southsand in secret and conferred with high military
commander._'

'I've never thought there was much in that. We've no suspect called Box
as far as I know and there's no high military commander anywhere near
Southsand. Might be a code-name, of course.'

'Well, sir, we got to work on it as you told us and we've learned that
there's a Member of Parliament named Box-Bender who has a brother-in-law
named Crouchback in the Halberdiers. Now Box-Bender was born plain Box.
His father added to the name in 1897.'

'Well, that seems to dispose of it, eh? No reason why this fellow
shouldn't visit his own brother-in-law.'

'In secret, sir?'

'Have we anything on this Box? Nothing very suspicious about a
hyphenated name, I hope?'

'We've nothing very significant, sir,' said the junior officer whose
name was Grace-Groundling-Marchpole, each junction of which represented
a provident marriage in the age of landed property. 'He went to Salzburg
twice, ostensibly for some kind of musical festival. But Crouchback's
quite another fish. Until September of last year he lived in Italy and
is known to have been on good terms with the Fascist authorities. Don't
you think I'd better open a file for him?'

'Yes, perhaps it would be as well.'

'For both, sir?'

'Yes. Pop 'em all in.'

They, too, took down the black-out screens and admitted the dawn.

Thus two new items were added to the Most Secret index, which later was
micro-filmed and multiplied and dispersed into a dozen indexes in all
the Counter-Espionage Headquarters of the Free World and became a
permanent part of the Most Secret archives of the second World War.


[V]

The great promised event, 'When the brigade forms', had glowed in Guy's
mind, as in the minds of nearly all his companions, for more than five
months; a numinous idea. None knew what to expect.

Once Guy saw a film of the Rising of '45. Prince Charles and his
intimates stood on a mound of heather, making a sad little group,
dressed as though for the Caledonian Ball, looking, indeed, precisely as
though they were a party of despairing revellers mustered in the outer
suburbs to meet a friend with a motor-car who had not turned up.

An awful moment came when the sun touched the horizon behind them. The
Prince bowed his head, sheathed his claymore and said in rich Milwaukee
accents: 'I guess it's all off, Mackingtosh.' (Mackingtosh from the
first had counselled immediate withdrawal.)

At that moment, suddenly, a faint skirl of pipes rose and swelled to an
unendurable volume, while from all the converging glens files of kilted
extras came winding into view. ''Tis Invercauld comes younder.' 'Aye and
Lochiel', 'And stout Montrose', 'The Laird of Cockpen', 'The bonnets of
bonnie Dundee', 'The Campbells are coming. Hurrah, Hurrah...' until
across the crimson panorama the little bands swept together into one
mighty army. Unconquerable they seemed to anyone ignorant of history, as
they marched into the setting sun; straight, as anyone knowledgeable in
Highland geography could have told them, into the chilly waters of Loch
Moidart.

Guy had come to expect something almost like that; something at any rate
totally different from what did happen.

They reassembled from Easter leave at Penkirk, a lowland valley some
twenty miles from Edinburgh, covered in farm land and small homesteads.
At its head stood a solid little mid-Victorian Castle. It was there they
met and there they messed and slept for the first two days. Their
numbers were swollen by many unfamiliar regulars of all ranks, a Medical
Officer, an Undenominational Chaplain and a cantankerous, much
beribboned veteran who commanded the Pioneers. Still there were only
officers. The drafts of men had been postponed until there was
accommodation for them.

The Pioneers, it was supposed, had prepared a camp, but on the appointed
day nothing was visible above ground. They had been there all the winter
cosily established in the Castle stables. Some of them had grown fond of
the place, particularly the reservists who made friends in the
neighbourhood, sheltered at their hearths during working hours and paid
for their hospitality with tools and provisions from the company stores.
These veterans were designed to be the stiffening of a force otherwise
composed of anti-fascist 'cellists and dealers in abstract painting from
the Danubian Basin.

'If they'd given me one section of _fascists_,' said their commander,
'I'd have had the place finished in a week.'

But he did not repine. He had billeted himself in very fair comfort at
the Station Hotel three miles distant. He was versed in all the arcana
of the Pay Office and drew a multitude of peculiar special allowances.
If he liked the new commander he was quite ready to prolong his task
until the end of the summer.

Five minutes with Brigadier Ritchie-Hook decided him to make an end and
be gone. The veterans were caught and put to bully the anti-fascists.
Construction began in earnest but not earnestly enough for Ritchie-Hook.
A second Ruskin, on the first morning at Penkirk, he ordered his young
officers to dig and carry. Unfortunately he had had them all inoculated
the evening before with every virus in the medical store. Noting a lack
of enthusiasm he tried to stir up competition between Halberdiers and
Pioneers. The musicians responded with temperamental fire; the
art-dealers less zealously, but seriously and well; the Halberdiers not
at all, for they could barely move.

They dug drains and carried tent-boards (the most awkward burden ever
devised by man for man); they unloaded lorry-loads of Soyer stoves and
zinc water pipes; they ached and staggered and in a few cases fainted.
Not until the work was nearly done, did the poisons lose their strength.

For the first two nights they spread their blankets and messed
higgledy-piggledy in the Castle. It was Major McKinney's Kut-al-Imara
all over again. Then on the third day officers' lines were complete in
each battalion area, with a mess-tent, a water tap and a field kitchen.
They moved out and in. The adjutant procured a case of spirits. The
quartermaster improvised a dinner. Colonel Tickeridge stood round after
round of drinks and later gave his obscene performance of 'The One-Armed
Flautist'. The Second Battalion had found a home and established its
identity.

Guy groped his way among the ropes and tent pegs that first evening
under canvas, fuddled with gin, fatigue and germs, to the tent he was
sharing with Apthorpe.

Apthorpe, the old campaigner, had defied orders (as, it soon appeared,
had done all the regulars) and brought with him a substantial part of
his 'gear'. He had left the mess before Guy. He lay now, on a high
collapsible bed, in a nest of white muslin illuminated from inside by a
patent, incandescent oil lamp, like a great baby in a bassinette,
smoking his pipe and reading his Manual of Military Law. A table, a
chair, a bath, a wash-hand-stand, all collapsible; chests and trunks,
very solid, surrounded his roost; also a curious structure like a
gallows from which hung his uniforms. Guy gazed, fascinated by this
smoky, luminous cocoon.

'I trust I've left you enough room,' said Apthorpe.

'Yes, rather.'

Guy had only a rubber mattress, a storm lantern and a three-legged
canvas wash-basin.

'You may think it odd that I prefer to sleep under a net.'

'I expect it's wise to take every precaution.'

'No, no, no. This isn't a _precaution_. It's just that I sleep better.'

Guy undressed, throwing his clothes on his suitcase, and lay down on the
floor, between blankets, on his strip of rubber. It was intensely cold.
He felt in his bag for a pair of woollen socks and the balaclava helmet
knitted for him by one of the ladies at the Marine Hotel, Matchet. He
added his great-coat to his mattress.

'Chilly?' asked Apthorpe.

'Yes.'

'It's not really a cold night,' said Apthorpe. 'Far from it. Of course
we're some way north of Southsand.'

'Yes.'

'If you'd care to have a rub down with liniment, I can lend you some.'

'Thanks awfully. I shall be all right.'

'You ought to, you know. It makes a lot of difference.'

Guy did not answer.

'Of course this is only a temporary arrangement,' said Apthorpe, 'until
the lists are out. Company commanders have tents to themselves. I'd
double in with Leonard, if I were you. He's about the best of the
subalterns. His wife had a baby last week. I should have thought it the
kind of thing that would rather spoil one's leave, but he seems quite
cheerful about it.'

'Yes. He told me.'

'What you want to avoid in a room-mate is someone who's always trying to
borrow one's gear.'

'Yes.'

'Well, I'm turning in now. If you get up in the night you'll take care
where you walk, won't you? I've got some pretty valuable stuff lying
around I haven't found a place for yet.'

He laid his pipe on his table and extinguished his light. Soon,
invisible in his netting, embraced in cloud, soothed and wooed and
gently overborne like Hera in the arms of Zeus, he was asleep.

Guy turned down his lantern and lay long awake, cold and aching but not
discontented.

He was thinking of this strange faculty of the army of putting itself
into order. Shake up a colony of ants and for some minutes all seems
chaos. The creatures scramble aimlessly, frantically about; then
instinct reasserts itself. They find their proper places and proper
functions. As ants, so soldiers.

In the years to come he was to see the process awork again and again,
sometimes in grim circumstances, sometimes in pleasant domesticity. Men
unnaturally removed from wives and family began at once to build
substitute homes, to paint and furnish, to make flower-beds and edge
them with white-washed pebbles, to stitch cushion-covers on lonely
gun-sites.

He thought, too, about Apthorpe.

Apthorpe had been in his proper element during the building operations.

When his turn had come to be inoculated that first evening he had
insisted on waiting until last and had then given the Medical Officer
such an impressive account of the diseases from which he had, from time
to time, suffered, of the various inoculations he had undergone and
their precise effects, of the warnings he had been given by eminent
specialists about the dangers of future inoculations, of idiosyncratic
allergies and the like, that the Medical Officer readily agreed to
perform a purely ceremonial injection of quite non-injurious matter.

He was thus in his full vigour of mind and was usually to be found in
consultation with the Pioneer officer giving sage advice about the
siting of camp kitchens in relation to the prevailing wind, or pointing
out defects in the guy-ropes.

He had taken advantage of the two days mucking-in with the brigade staff
to make himself well known to them all. He had discovered an old
friendship with a cousin of the brigade major's. He had done very well
indeed.

And yet, Guy thought, and yet there was something rum about him; not
'off colour'; far from it; gloriously over-Technicolored like Bonnie
Prince Charlie in the film. It was not anything that could be defined.
Just a look in the eye; not even that--an aura. But it was distinctly
rum.

So fitfully sleeping and thinking he passed the hours until reveille.


[VI]

On the fourth afternoon the last tent went up. Across and down the
valley, from the Castle to the main road, lay the battalion lines, the
kitchens, stores, mess-tents, latrines. Much was missing, much had been
scamped, but it was ready for occupation. On the morrow the men were due
to arrive. That evening the officers assembled in the Castle, which for
now was the Brigade Headquarters, and the Brigadier addressed them:

'Gentlemen,' he began, 'to-morrow you meet the men you will lead in
battle.'

It was the old, potent spell, big magic. Those two phrases, 'the
officers who will command you...', 'the men you will lead...', set
the junior officers precisely in their place, in the heart of the
battle. For Guy they set swinging all the chimes of his boyhood's
reading...

'..._"I've chosen your squadron for the task, Truslove." "Thank you,
sir. What are our chances of getting through?" "It can be done,
Truslove, or I shouldn't be sending you. If anyone can do it, you can.
And I can tell you this, my boy, I'd give all my seniority and all these
bits of ribbon on my chest to be with you. But my duty lies here with
the Regiment. Good luck to you, my boy. You'll need it"_...' The
words came back to him from a summer Sunday evening at his preparatory
school, in the headmaster's drawing-room, the three top forms sitting
about on the floor, some in a dream of home, others--Guy among
them--spell-bound.

That was during the first World War but the story came from an earlier
chapter of military history. Pathans were Captain Truslove's business.
Troy, Agincourt and Zululand were more real to Guy in those days than
the world of mud and wire and gas where Gervase fell. Pathans for
Truslove; paynims for Sir Roger de Waybroke; for Gervase, Bernard
Partridge's flamboyant, guilty Emperor, top-booted, eagle-crowned. For
Guy at the age of twelve there were few enemies. They, in their hordes,
came later.

The Brigadier continued. It was the first of April, a day which might
have provoked him to fun, but he was serious and for once Guy listened
with only half his mind. This crowd of officers, many quite strange to
him, seemed no longer his proper habitat. In less than forty-eight hours
he had made his new, more hallowed home with the Second Battalion and
his thoughts were with the men who were coming next day.

The assembly was dismissed and from that moment the Brigadier, who until
then had been the dominant personality in their lives, became for the
time remote. He lived in his castle with his staff. He came and went, to
London, to Edinburgh, to the Training Depot, and no one knew why or
when. He became the source of annoying, impersonal orders. 'Brigade says
we have to dig slit trenches'... 'Brigade says only a third of the
battalion can be absent from camp at any given time'... 'More bumf
from Brigade'... That was Ritchie-Hook with his wounds and his
escapades; a stupendous warrior shrunk to a mean abstraction--'Brigade'.

Each battalion went to its lines. There were four oil-stoves in the
mess-tent now but the evening chill entered the Second Battalion as they
sat on the benches to hear Colonel Tickeridge's list of appointments.

He read slowly: first the headquarters; himself, the second-in-command,
the adjutant, all regulars;
intelligence-gas-welfare-transport-assistant-adjutant and 'general
dogsbody', Sarum-Smith; Headquarter Company; commander, Apthorpe;
second-in-command, one of the very young regulars.

This caused a stir of interest. There had been rumours among the
temporary officers that one or two of them might be promoted; no one
except Apthorpe supposed he might get his own company at this early
stage; not even Apthorpe imagined he would be put in command of a
regular, however juvenile.

It was a shock, too, to the regulars, who looked at one another askance.

A Company had a regular commander and second-in-command, three temporary
officers as platoon commanders. B Company followed the same plan. In C
Company Leonard was second-in-command. There were now left Guy, two
other temporary officers and one of the cockiest young regulars, named
Hayter.

'D Company,' said Colonel Tickeridge. 'Commander Major Erskine, who
apparently can't be spared at the moment. He ought to be with us in the
next few days. Meanwhile the second-in-command, Hayter, will be in
command single-handed. Platoon commanders, de Souza, Crouchback and
Jervis.'

It was a bitter moment. At no previous stage in his life had Guy
expected success. His 'handkerchief' at Downside took him by surprise.
When a group of his College suggested he should stand as secretary of
the J.C.R. he had at once assumed that his leg was being inoffensively
pulled. So it had been throughout his life. The very few, very small
distinctions that had come to him had all come as a surprise. But in the
Halberdiers he had had a sense of well-doing. There had been repeated
hints. He had not expected or desired much but he had looked forward
rather confidently to promotion of some kind and he had come to want it
simply as a sign that he had, in fact, done well in training and that
the occasional words of approbation had not been merely 'the deference
due to age'. Well, now he knew. He was not as bad as Trimmer, not quite
as bad as Sarum-Smith, whose appointment was contemptible; he had just
scraped through without honours. He should have realized, he saw now,
that Leonard was obviously the better man. Moreover he was the poorer
man and newly a father; Leonard needed the extra pay that would come
eventually with his captaincy. Guy felt no resentment; he was a good
loser--at any rate an experienced one. He merely felt a deep sinking of
spirit such as he had felt in Claridge's with Virginia, such as he had
felt times beyond number through all his life. Sir Roger, maybe, had
felt thus when he drew his dedicated sword in a local brawl, not
foreseeing that one day he would acquire the odd title of 'il Santo
Inglese'.

Colonel Tickeridge continued: 'Of course all these appointments are just
a try-out. We may have a reshuffle later. But they're the best we can
think of at the moment.'

The meeting broke up. The orderly behind the bar busily served pink
gins.

'Congratulations, Apthorpe,' said Guy.

'Thanks, old man. I confess I never expected the Headquarter Company.
It's twice the size of any other, you know.'

'I'm sure you'll manage it very well.'

'Yes. I may have to sit on my 2IC a bit.'

'On your what, Apthorpe? Is that a new sort of thunder-box?'

'No, no, no. Second-in-command, of course. You really ought to get the
correct terms, you know. It's the kind of thing they notice higher up.
By the way I think it's bad luck you didn't do better. I heard a buzz
that one of our batch was going to be a 2IC. I quite thought that meant
you.'

'Leonard's very efficient.'

'Yes. _They_ know best, of course. Still I'm sorry it wasn't you. If
it's a bore to move your gear immediately, you can use my tent for
to-night.'

'Thanks. I will.'

'But get it clear first thing to-morrow, won't you, old man.'

It was so cold in the mess-tent that they dined in great-coats. In
accordance with regimental custom Apthorpe and Leonard stood drinks to
all.

Several of the temporary officers said: 'Bad luck, Uncle.' Guy's reverse
seemed to have made him more _simpatico_.

Hayter said: 'You're Crouchback, aren't you? Have a drink. Time I got to
know my little flock. You won't find me a hard chap to work with, when
you're used to my ways. What did you do in the piping days of peace?'

'Nothing.'

'Oh.'

'What's Major Erskine like?'

'Brainy. He's spent a lot of his service in rather special jobs. But
you'll get on all right with him if you do what you're told. He won't
expect anything very much of you new chaps at first.'

'What time do the men arrive to-morrow?'

'The Brig. was shooting rather a line about that. It's only the old
sweats who come to-morrow. The National Service chaps won't be here for
some days.'

They drank pink gin together and eyed one another without confidence.

'Which are de Souza and Jervis? I ought to have a word with them, too, I
suppose.'

That evening when Guy went in for the last time to Apthorpe's tent, he
found his host awake and illuminated.

'Crouchback,' he said, 'there's something I have to say to you. I never
want to hear another word about that happening at Southsand. Never. Do
you understand? Otherwise I shall have to take action.'

'What sort of action, Apthorpe?'

'_Drastic_ action.'

Rum. Very rum indeed.


[VII]

Nearly three weeks later there appeared _Army Training Memorandum No. 31
War. April 1940_. A canvas letter rack with a stitched section for every
officer was one of the pieces of furniture which, with hired arm-chairs,
a wireless-set and other amenities, had lately appeared in the mess of
the Second Battalion. Returning from an afternoon of 'company schemes',
each of them found a copy of the tract protruding from his pouch.
General Ironside commended it with the words: '_I direct all commanding
officers to ensure that every junior officer is thoroughly examined in
the questions set in Part I of this Memorandum and not to rest content
until the answers are satisfactory._'

Colonel Tickeridge said: 'You chaps had better take a dekko at the ATM
this month. It seems to be important for some reason or other.'

There were one hundred and forty-three questions in the tract.

April 21st; the nine o'clock news announced that General Paget was at
Lillehammer and that all was going well in Norway. When the news was
over, music began. Guy found an arm-chair as far from the wireless as
possible and in an atmosphere in which the scents of trodden grass, gin
and roast beef were subdued by paraffin and hot iron, he began to study
the '_life and death responsibilities of a sub. unit commander_'.

Many of the questions related either to the regular routine, of which no
Halberdier officer could conceivably be negligent, or to abstruse
technicalities quite outside his ken.

'I say, have _you_ acquired--out of your grant--an old motor-car chassis
and engine parts to assist M.T. training?'

'No. How many men in _your_ platoon have you earmarked for signallers?'

'None.'

It was like a game of 'Happy Families'.

'Can you tell me why camouflage done late is more dangerous than no
camouflage at all?'

'I suppose you might get stuck on the wet paint.'

'Are your men's arrangements for drying their clothes as good as yours?'

'They couldn't possibly be worse.'

'I say, Uncle, have you tested whether your platoon can cook in their
mess-tins?'

'Yes. We did it last week.'

'What are the advantages during training of beginning night operations
an hour before dawn?'

'They can only last an hour, I suppose.'

'No, seriously.'

'It seems a great advantage to me.'

The camp seemed to whisper and chatter with the questionnaire like
Apthorpe's home-jungle at sundown.

Guy dreamily turned the pages. It was all rather like the advertisement
of a correspondence course in Business Efficiency. 'How to catch the
boss's eye in five lessons.' 'Why didn't _I_ get promoted?'... But a
question here and there set him thinking about the last three weeks.

_Are you trying to make yourself competent to take over the job of the
next senior man to you?_

Guy had no respect for Hayter. He was confident he could now do his job
much better than Hayter. Moreover, he had lately learned that when he
did take over another job, it would not be Hayter's.

Major Erskine had arrived on the same day as the National Service men.
His 'braininess' was not oppressive. The imputation derived chiefly from
the facts that he read Mr. J. B. Priestley's novels, and was strangely
dishevelled in appearance. His uniform was correct and clean but it
never seemed to fit him, not through any fault of the tailor's, but
rather because the major seemed to change shape from time to time during
the day. One moment his tunic seemed too long, the next, too short. His
pockets were too full. His anklets got twisted. He was more like a
Sapper than a Halberdier. But he and Guy got on well together. Major
Erskine did not talk much, but when he did it was with great simplicity
and frankness.

One evening when Hayter had been more cocky than usual, Major Erskine
and Guy walked back together from the company lines to the mess.

'That little tick wants his bottom kicked,' said Major Erskine. 'I think
I _shall_ kick it. Good for him and pleasant for me.'

'Yes. _I_ can see that.'

Major Erskine then said: 'I shouldn't talk to you like that about your
superior officer. Did anyone ever tell you why you're only commanding a
platoon, Uncle?'

'No. I didn't think any explanation necessary.'

'They ought to have. You see, you were down for a company. Then the
Brig. said he wouldn't have anyone commanding a _fighting_ company who
hadn't had a platoon first. I see his point. Headquarters is different.
Old Uncle Apthorpe will stay there until he becomes GSO2(Q) or something
wet like that. None of the temporary officers who've started high will
ever get a rifle company. You will, before we go into action, unless you
blot your copy-book in a pretty sensational way. I thought I'd tell you,
in case you felt depressed about it.'

'I did rather.'

'Yes, I thought as much.'

_Who runs the platoon--you or your platoon sergeant?_

Guy's platoon sergeant was named Soames. Neither found the other
_simpatico_. The normal relationship in the Halberdiers between platoon
commander and sergeant was that of child and nanny. The sergeant should
keep his officer out of mischief. The officer's job was to sign things,
to take the blame and quite simply to walk ahead and get shot first.
And, as an officer, he should have a certain intangibility belonging, as
in old-fashioned households, to the further side of the baize-doors. All
this was disordered in the relationship of Guy and Sergeant Soames.
Soames reverenced officers in a more modern way, as men who had been
sharp and got ahead; moreover he distinguished between regulars and
temporaries. He regarded Guy as a nannie might some child, not of 'the
family' but of inferior and suspicious origin, suddenly, by a whim of
the mistress of the house, dumped, as a guest of indefinite duration, in
her nursery. Moreover he was far too young, and Guy far too old, for him
to be a nannie at all. Soames had signed on for long-service in 1937. He
had been a corporal for three months when the declaration of war and the
formation of the brigade had precociously exalted him. He often bluffed
and was exposed. Guy ran the platoon, but not in easy co-operation.
Sergeant Soames wore his moustache in a gangster's cut. There was a
great deal in him that reminded Guy of Trimmer.

_How many men have you earmarked in your mind as possible candidates for
a commission?_

One. Sergeant Soames. Guy had done more than earmark him in his mind. He
had presented a slip of paper bearing Sergeant Soames' name, number and
history, to Major Erskine at the Company Office some days ago.

Major Erskine had said: 'Yes. I can't blame you. I have this morning
sent in Hayter's name as an officer suitable for special training in Air
Liaison, whatever Air Liaison may be. I expect it means he will be a
full colonel in a year. Now you want to make Soames an officer just
because _he's_ a nasty bit of work. Jolly sort of army we're going to
have in two years' time when all the shits have got to the top.'

'But Soames won't come back to the Corps if he's commissioned.'

'That's exactly why I'm sending his name up. The same with Hayter, if he
gets through his course on whatever it is.'

_How many of your men do you know by name and what do you know of their
characters?_

Guy knew every name. The difficulty was to identify them. Each had three
faces: an inhuman and rather hostile mask when he stood at attention; a
vivacious and variable expression, mostly clownish, sometimes furious,
sometimes heart-sore, as he saw the men among themselves, off duty or at
stand-easies, going to the N.A.A.F.I. or arguing in the company lines;
and thirdly a guarded but on the whole amiable grin when he spoke to
them personally at these times or at stand-easies. Most English
gentlemen at this time believed that they had a particular aptitude for
endearing themselves to the lower classes. Guy was not troubled by this
illusion, but he believed he was rather liked by these particular thirty
men. He did not greatly care. He liked them. He wished them well. He did
well by them so far as his limited knowledge of 'the ropes' allowed. He
was perfectly ready, should need arise, to sacrifice himself for
them--throw himself on a grenade, give away the last drop of
water--anything like that. But he did not distinguish between them as
human beings, any more or less than he did between his brother officers;
he preferred Major Erskine to the young man, Jervis, with whom he shared
a tent; he nursed a respect and slight suspicion for de Souza. For his
platoon and company and battalion and for all Halberdiers everywhere he
had a warmer sentiment than for anyone outside his family. It was not
much but it was something to thank God for.

And at the very opening of this heterogeneous catechism stood the
question that was quintessential to his very presence among those
unchosen companions.

_What are we fighting for?_

The Training Memorandum mentioned with shame that many private soldiers
had been found to entertain hazy ideas on the subject. Could Box-Bender
have given a clear answer? Guy wondered. Could Ritchie-Hook? Had he any
idea what all his biffing was for? Had General Ironside himself?

Guy believed he knew something of this matter that was hidden from the
mighty.

England had declared war to defend the independence of Poland. Now that
country had quite disappeared and the two strongest states in the world
guaranteed her extinction. Now General Paget was at Lillehammer and it
was announced that all was going well. Guy knew things were going badly.
They had no well-informed friends, here in Penkirk, they had access to
no intelligence files, but the smell of failure had been borne to them
from Norway on the East wind.

But Guy's spirit was as high as on the day he had bade farewell to St.
Roger.

He was a good loser, but he did not believe his country would lose this
war; each apparent defeat seemed strangely to sustain it. There was in
Romance great virtue in unequal odds. There were in morals two
requisites for a lawful war, a just cause and the chance of victory. The
cause was now, past all question, just. The enemy was exorbitant. His
actions in Austria and Bohemia had been defensible. There was even a
shadow of plausibility in his quarrel with Poland. But now, however
victorious, he was an outlaw. And the more victorious he was the more he
drew to himself the enmity of the world and the punishment of God.

Guy thought of this as he lay in his tent that night. He clasped
Gervase's medal as he said his night prayers. And, just before sleep,
came a personal comforting thought. However inconvenient it was for the
Scandinavians to have Germans there, it was very nice for the
Halberdiers. They had been assigned their special role of Hazardous
Offensive Operations, but until that month there seemed little
opportunity for playing it. Now a whole new coastline was open for
biffing.


[VIII]

On the day that Mr. Churchill became Prime Minister, Apthorpe was
promoted captain.

He had been forewarned by the adjutant and his servant was standing by
in the Headquarter Company's office. As the first note of Battalion
Orders sounded from the orderly room--before the cyclostyled sheets
announcing the appointment had been collected, much less
distributed--Apthorpe's pips were up. The rest of the forenoon passed in
solemn ecstasy. He sauntered round the transport lines, called on the
medical officer, ostensibly to enquire about a tonic he thought he
needed, he flushed the quartermaster drinking tea in his store, but no
one seemed to notice the new constellation. He was content to bide.

At midday the companies could be heard marching into camp from their
training areas and dismissing. Apthorpe was waiting serenely in the
mess-tent to welcome his brother officers.

'Ah, Crouchback, what can I offer you to drink?'

Guy was surprised, for Apthorpe had almost ceased to speak to him in the
last few weeks.

'Oh, that's very nice of you. I've marched miles this morning. Can I
have a glass of beer?'

'And you Jervis? de Souza?'

This was more surprising still, since Apthorpe had never at any stage of
incubation spoken to de Souza or Jervis.

'Hayter, old man, what's yours?'

Hayter said: 'What's this? A birthday?'

'I understand it's usual in the Halberdiers to stand drinks on these
occasions.'

'What occasions?'

It was unfortunate that he had chosen Hayter. Hayter thought nothing of
temporary officers and was himself still a lieutenant.

'Good God,' said Hayter. 'You don't mean to say they've made you a
captain?'

'With effect from April 1st,' said Apthorpe with dignity.

'Quite a suitable date. Still I don't mind taking a pink gin off you.'

There were moments, as in the gym in barracks, when Apthorpe rose above
the ridiculous. This was one of them.

'Give these young officers what they require, Crock,' he said and
royally turned to new arrivals at the bar: 'Draw up, Adj. Drinks are on
me. Colonel, I hope you'll join us.'

The mess-tent was filled for luncheon. Apthorpe dispensed hospitality.
No one but Hayter much grudged him his elevation.

There was less interest in the change of Prime Ministers. Politics were
considered an unsoldierly topic among the Halberdiers. There had been
some rejoicing and dispute at Mr. Hore-Belisha's fall in the winter.
Since then Guy had not heard a politician's name mentioned. Some of Mr.
Churchill's broadcasts had been played on the mess wireless-set. Guy had
found them painfully boastful and they had, most of them, been
immediately followed by the news of some disaster, as though in
retribution from the God of Kipling's _Recessional_.

Guy knew of Mr. Churchill only as a professional politician, a master of
sham-Augustan prose, a Zionist, an advocate of the Popular Front in
Europe, an associate of the press-lords and of Lloyd George. He was
asked:

'Uncle, what sort of fellow is this Winston Churchill?'

'Like Hore-Belisha except that for some reason his hats are thought to
be funny.'

'Well, I suppose they had to make someone carry the can after the
balls-up in Norway.'

'Yes.'

'He can't be much worse than the other fellow?'

'Better, if anything.'

Here Major Erskine leant across the table.

'Churchill is about the only man who may save us from losing this war,'
he said.

It was the first time that Guy had heard a Halberdier suggest that any
result, other than complete victory, was possible. They had had a
lecture, it is true, from an officer lately returned from Norway, who
had spoken frankly about the incompetent loading of ships, the
disconcerting effect of dive-bombing, the activities of organized
traitors and such matters. He had even hinted at the inferior fighting
qualities of British troops. But he had made little impression.
Halberdiers always assumed that 'the Staff' and 'the Q side', were
useless, that all other regiments were scarcely worthy of the name of
soldier, that foreigners let one down. Naturally things were going badly
in the absence of the Halberdiers. No one thought of losing the war.

Apthorpe's promotion was a matter of more immediate interest.

Brigadier Ritchie-Hook could disappear behind his Victorian battlements,
and lose his personality. Not so Apthorpe. That afternoon, the day of
his promotion, Guy happened to pass him on the battalion parade ground
and with one of those pathetic spasms of fourth-form fun that came
easily in military life, Guy solemnly saluted him. Apthorpe as solemnly
returned the attention. He was a little unsteady on his pins after the
morning's celebrations, his face was oddly grave, but the incident
passed off cheerfully.

Later that evening, just before dark, they met again. Apthorpe had
evidently stuck close to the bottle, and was now in the state he called
'merry',--a state recognizable by his air of preternatural solemnity. As
he approached, Guy with amazement saw him go through all the motions
they used to practise in barracks before passing a senior officer. He
put his stick under his left arm, he swung his right with exaggerated
zest and he fixed his glassy eyes straight before him. Guy walked on
with a genial 'Evening, Captain' and too late noticed that Apthorpe's
hand was shoulder high, in the rudimentary stage of a salute. The hand
fell, the eyes fixed themselves far ahead on the other side of the
valley and Apthorpe passed, stumbling over a night bucket.

Somehow the memory of Guy's first, jocular salute had fixed itself
indelibly in Apthorpe's mind; it survived his evening's merriment. Next
day he was out of the clouds, slightly disturbed internally, but with a
new _idée fixe_.

Before the first parade he said to Guy: 'I say, old man, I'd greatly
appreciate it if you'd salute me when we pass one another in the camp
area.'

'What on earth for?'

'Well, I salute Major Trench.'

'Of course you do.'

'The difference between him and me is only the same as between you and
me if you see what I mean.'

'My dear fellow, it was all explained to us when we first joined, whom
we saluted and when.'

'Yes, but don't you see that I am an exceptional case. There is no
precedent for _me_ in regimental custom. We all started equal not so
long ago. I happen to have forged ahead a bit so naturally I have to do
more to assert my authority than if I had years of seniority. Please,
Crouchback, salute me. I am asking you as a friend.'

'I'm sorry, Apthorpe, I simply can't. I should feel such an ass.'

'Well, anyway, you might tell the other chaps.'

'You really mean that? You've thought the matter out?'

'I've thought of nothing else.'

'All right, Apthorpe, I'll tell them.'

'I can't order them, of course. Just say it is my wish.'

Apthorpe's 'wish' became quickly known and for some days he suffered a
concerted persecution. He could always be seen approaching yards off,
tensely self-conscious, preparing for he knew not what. Sometimes his
junior officers would salute him with unsmiling correctness; sometimes
they would stroll past ignoring him; sometimes they would give a little
flick of the cap and say: 'Hullo, Uncle.'

The cruellest technique was devised by de Souza. On sighting Apthorpe he
would put his stick under his left arm and march at attention gazing
straight into Apthorpe's eyes with an expression of awe. Then two paces
away he would suddenly relax, switch negligently at a weed, or on one
occasion, drop suddenly on one knee and, still fixing the captain with
his worshipping stare, fiddle with a bootlace.

'You know you'll drive that unhappy man stark mad,' said Guy to him.

'I think I shall, Uncle; I honestly think I shall.'

The fun came to an end one evening when Colonel Tickeridge summoned Guy
to the orderly room.

'Sit down, Guy. I want to speak to you unofficially. I'm getting worried
about Apthorpe. Frankly, is he quite right in the head?'

'He has his peculiarities, Colonel. I don't think he's likely to do
anything dangerous.'

'I hope you're right. I'm getting the most extraordinary reports of him
from all sides.'

'He had a rather nasty accident the morning we left Southsand.'

'Yes, I heard about it. Surely that could not have affected his _head_?
Let me tell you his latest. He's just formed up and asked me to put it
in orders that the junior officers should salute him. That's not quite
normal, you'll admit.'

'No, Colonel.'

'Either that, he says, or will I put it in orders that you're _not_ to
salute him. That's not normal either. What exactly has been going on?'

'Well, I think he's been ragged a bit.'

'I'm bloody well sure he has and it's gone far enough. Just pass it
round that it's got to stop. You may find yourself in his shoes before
long. Then you'll find you have plenty on your hands without being
ragged by a lot of young asses.'

This happened, though the news did not reach Penkirk for some time, on
the day when the Germans crossed the Meuse.


[IX]

Guy passed the colonel's order round the mess and the affair, which de
Souza preciously dubbed 'The Matter of the Captain's Salutation', came
to an abrupt end. But in other ways, too, Apthorpe had been showing
marked abnormality.

There was the question of the Castle. From the first day of his
appointment, while still a lieutenant, Apthorpe took to dropping in
there two or three times a week without ostensible cause, at the
eleven-o'clock break, when tea was drunk in various ante-rooms and dens.
Apthorpe would join the staff-captain and his peers and they, supposing
he was on an errand from his battalion, entertained him. In this way he
heard much 'shop' and was often able to surprise the adjutant with prior
information on matters of minor policy. When tea was over and the staff
went back to their rooms Apthorpe would saunter into the chief clerk's
room and say, 'Anything special to-day about the Second Battalion,
Staff?' After the third of these visits the sergeant clerk reported to
the brigade major and asked whether these inquiries were authorized. The
result was an order reminding all officers that they must not approach
Brigade Headquarters except through the proper channels.

When this was posted Apthorpe said to the adjutant: 'I take this to mean
that they come to me for permission?'

'For Christ's sake, why to _you_?'

'Well, after all I _am_ the Headquarters commander here, am I not?'

'Apthorpe, are you tight?'

'Certainly not.'

'Well, come and see the C.O. about this. He can explain it better than
I.'

'Yes, I suppose it _is_ rather a nice point.'

It was not often that Colonel Tickeridge 'went off the handle'. That
morning the whole camp heard the roars in his orderly room. But Apthorpe
emerged bland as ever.

'My God, Uncle, that was a rocket. We could hear it on the parade
ground. What was it about?'

'Just a bit of red tape, old man.'

Since the loss of his thunder-box Apthorpe was impervious to shock.

The army was not then troubled, as it was later, by psychiatrists. Had
it been, Apthorpe would no doubt have been lost to the Halberdiers. He
remained--to the great comfort of his fellows.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Apthorpe's wildest aberration was his one-man war with the Royal Corps
of Signals. This campaign was his predominant obsession during all his
difficult days at Penkirk and from it he emerged with the honours of
war.

It began by a simple misunderstanding.

Studying his duties by the light of his incandescent lamp, Apthorpe
learned that the regimental signallers of his battalion came under his
command for administrative purposes.

From the first this statement bulked over-large in Apthorpe's
imagination. It was plain to him that this was where he joined, indeed
controlled, the battle. There were ten of these signallers on the
fateful 1st of April, volunteers for what they had supposed was a light
duty, little trained, equipped with nothing but flags. Apthorpe was a
man of certain odd accomplishments, among them a mastery of Morse.
Accordingly for several days he made these men his special care and
spent many chilly hours wagging a flag at them.

Then brigade signals arrived under their own officer, laden with radio
telegraphy sets. These were men of the Royal Corps of Signals. By chance
they were allotted lines next to the Second Battalion. Their officer was
invited to mess with the battalion, rather than at the Castle a mile
distant; their quartermaster-sergeant was instructed to draw rations
from the Second Battalion quartermaster. They thus became accidentally,
but quite closely, associated with the battalion.

The situation was clear enough to all except Apthorpe, who conceived
that they were under his personal command. He was still a lieutenant at
this time. The Signals Officer was also a lieutenant, much younger than
Apthorpe and younger than his age in looks. His name was Dunn. On his
first appearance in the mess Apthorpe took him in charge, introducing
him with courtly patronage as 'my latest subaltern'. Dunn did not quite
know what to make of this, but since it involved many free drinks and
since he was by nature shy to the point of gaucherie, he submitted
cheerfully.

Next morning Apthorpe sent an orderly to the brigade signallers' lines.

'Mr. Apthorpe's compliments and will Mr. Dunn kindly report when his
lines are ready for inspection.'

'What inspection? Is the Brigadier coming round? No one told me.'

'No, sir, Mr. Apthorpe's inspection.'

Dunn was a shy man but this was too much for him.

'Tell Mr. Apthorpe that when I have finished inspecting my own lines I
shall be quite ready to come and inspect Mr. Apthorpe's head.'

The Halberdier, a regular, showed no emotion. 'Could I have that message
in writing, please, sir?'

'No. On second thoughts I'll see his adjutant.'

This first skirmish was treated lightly and unofficially.

'Don't be an ass, Uncle.'

'But, Adj., it's in my establishment. _Signallers._'

'Battalion signals, Uncle. Not brigade signals.' Then, speaking as he
supposed Apthorpe spoke to his men in Africa: 'No savvy? These boys,
Royal Corps of Signal boys. Your boys, Halberdier boys. Damn it, d'you
want me to draw you the badges.'

But the adjutant, in his haste, had made things too simple, for in fact
the battalion signallers, though Halberdiers for all purposes except
signalling, came under the Brigade Signals Officer for training. This
fact Apthorpe could not or would not, and certainly never did, grasp.
Whenever Dunn ordered a training exercise, Apthorpe devised camp duties
for his signal section. He did more. He paraded his Halberdiers and told
them they were never to accept orders from anyone but himself. The
matter was moving up to an official level.

Apthorpe's case, though untenable, was strengthened by the fact that no
one liked Dunn. When he formed up at the Second Battalion Orderly Room,
the adjutant told him coldly that he was merely a guest in their mess
and that for all official purposes he was at the Castle. Any complaints
against his hosts should be addressed to the brigade major. Dunn tramped
to the Castle and was told by the brigade major to settle the thing
sensibly with Colonel Tickeridge. Colonel Tickeridge duly told Apthorpe
that his men must work with brigade signals. Apthorpe immediately sent
them all away on urgent compassionate leave. Back to the Castle went
Dunn, all shyness shed. The Brigadier was then absent on one of his
trips to London. The brigade major was the busiest man in Scotland. He
said he would raise the matter at the next Battalion Commanders'
Conference.

Apthorpe, meanwhile, withdrew his friendship from Dunn, and refused to
speak to him. This quarrel in high places quickly spread to the men.
There were hard words in the N.A.A.F.I. and between the lines. Dunn put
six Halberdiers on a charge of prejudicial conduct. In the orderly room
they drew on the limitless pool of fellow Halberdiers who were always
ready to give false witness in defence of the Corps, and Colonel
Tickeridge dismissed the case.

So far it had been a feud of a normal military kind, differing from
others only in the fact that Apthorpe had no case at all. In the middle
of it he got his captaincy. In Apthorpe's story that event corresponds
to Alexander's visit to Siwa. It was an illumination that changed all
the colours and shapes about him. Fiends like de Souza lurked in black
shadow, but a shining path led upward to the conquest of Dunn.

On the afternoon following the day of his promotion he proceeded to
inspect the signallers' lines. Dunn found him there and stood
momentarily confounded by what he saw.

It was Apthorpe's old interest, boots. He had found one that was in need
of repair, and there he stood in the centre of a curious circle of
signalmen, carefully dismembering it with a clasp knife.

'Apart from the quality of the leather,' he was saying, 'this boot is a
disgrace to the Service. Look at the stitching. Look how the tongue has
been fitted. Look at the construction of the eyeholes. Now in a
well-made boot'... and he raised his foot, placing it where all might
admire it, on the nearby gas-detector.

'What the devil are you doing?' asked Dunn.

'Mr. Dunn, I think you forget you are addressing a superior officer.'

'What are you doing in my lines?'

'I am verifying my suspicion that your boots are in need of attention.'

Dunn realized that for the moment he was beaten. Nothing short of
physical violence would suit the occasion and that way lay endless
disasters.

'We can discuss that later. At the moment they ought to be on parade.'

'You mustn't blame your sergeant. He reminded me of that fact more than
once. It was I detained them.'

The two officers separated, Dunn to the Castle to lay his case before
the brigade major, Apthorpe with a much stranger purpose. He sat down in
his company office and penned a challenge to Dunn to meet him, armed
with a heliograph, before their men, for a Trial by Combat in
proficiency in Morse.

The Brigadier was at the Castle. He had just returned from London on the
night train, hag-ridden by the news from France.

The brigade major said: 'I am afraid I've a serious disciplinary problem
for you, sir. It will probably involve an Officer's Court Martial.'

'Yes,' said the Brigadier, 'yes.' He was gazing out of the window. His
mind was far away, still trying to comprehend the unspeakable truths he
had learned in London.

'An officer of the Second Battalion,' continued the brigade major, in
rather louder tones, 'has been accused of entering Brigade Headquarters'
lines and deliberately destroying the men's boots.'

'Yes,' said the Brigadier. 'Drunk?'

'Sober, sir.'

'Any excuse?'

'He considered the workmanship defective, sir.'

'Yes.'

The Brigadier stared out of the window. The brigade major gave a lucid
account of the Dunn-Apthorpe campaign. Presently the Brigadier said:

'Were the boots good enough to run away in?'

'I haven't asked about that yet. It will no doubt come out when the
Summary of Evidence is taken.'

'If they're, good enough to run away in, they're good enough for our
army. Damn it, if they lost their boots, they might have to meet the
enemy. It's, as you say, a very serious matter.'

'Then shall I carry on with the preliminaries of a court martial, sir?'

'No. We've no time for that. Do you realize that the whole of our army
and the French are on the run leaving everything behind them, half of
them without firing a shot? Make these young idiots work together. Lay
on a Brigade Exercise for the signallers. Let's see if they can work
their instruments with or without boots. That's all that matters.'

So two days later, after feverish work at the Castle and in the orderly
rooms, the Halberdier Brigade marched out into the dripping Midlothian
countryside.

That day was memorable for Guy as the most futile he had yet spent in
the army. His platoon lay on a rain-swept hillside doing absolutely
nothing. They were quite near one of the brigade signalling posts and
from it there rose from dawn till noon a monotonous, liturgical
incantation:... 'Hullo Nan, Hullo Nan. Report my signals. Over. Hullo
Nan. Hullo Nan. Are you hearing me. Over. Hullo King, Hullo King. Are
you hearing me. Over. Hullo Nan. Hullo King. Nothing heard. Out. Hullo
Able. Hullo Able. Am hearing you strength one, interference five. Out.
Hullo all stations. Able. Baker. Charlie. Dog. Easy. Fox. Are you
hearing me. Over...' Throughout the chill forenoon the prayer rose to
the disdainful gods.

The men rolled themselves in their anti-gas capes and ate their sodden
rations. At length, walking very slowly, a signalman appeared out of the
haze. He was greeted derisively by the platoon. He approached the signal
station and from the depths of his clothing produced a damp piece of
paper. The corporal brought it to Guy. '_Able Dog Yoke_,' it read.
'_Close down RT stop signals will be by runner stop ack._'

Another two hours passed. Then a 'runner' stumbled up the hill with a
message for Guy. '_From OC D Coy to OC 2 pl. Exercise terminated. Rally
forthwith road junction 643202._' Guy saw no reason to inform the
signallers. He fell in the platoon and marched off, leaving them quite
alone where they had been lying.

'Well,' said Colonel Tickeridge in the mess, 'I've written my report on
to-day's nonsense. I have recommended that brigade signals go away and
get trained.'

It was generally recognized as being a personal success for Apthorpe.
There had been a general attempt to be pleasant to him in the last two
days since ragging had ceased. That evening he was the centre of
hospitality. Next morning two commandeered civilian buses arrived near
the Second Battalion lines. The signallers piled in and drove away.

'Brigade really showed some pace for once,' said de Souza.

The Halberdiers congratulated themselves on a triumph.

But the departure of the signalmen had been ordered the day before, far
away in London, while at Penkirk they were first erecting their aerials
into the rain, and for a reason quite unconnected with the failure of
their apparatus.

Had they known it, the Halberdiers would have been even more jubilant.
This was, for them, the start of the war.


[X]

This was Friday, May 17th; pay day. Every Friday after Pay Parade Major
Erskine lectured his company on the progress of the war. Lately there
had been much detail of 'dents' and 'bulges' in the Allied line, of
'armour breaking through and fanning out', of 'pincers' and 'pockets'.
The exposition was lucid and grave but most men's thoughts were on the
week-end leave which began when he ceased speaking.

This Friday was different. An hour after the signalmen left an order was
issued cancelling all leave and Major Erskine had an attentive and
resentful audience. He said:

'I am sorry that your leave has been cancelled. This is not an order
that applies only to us. All leave has been stopped throughout the Home
Forces. You may form your own conclusion that there is a state of
unusual danger. This morning, as you know, the brigade signallers were
withdrawn. Some of you may think this was a consequence of yesterday's
unsuccessful exercise. It was not. This afternoon we shall lose all our
transport and carriers. The reason is this. We are not, as you know,
fully equipped or trained. All specialists and all equipment is needed
at once in France. That may give you some further idea of the
seriousness of the situation there.'

He continued with his customary explanation of dents and bulges and of
armour breaking through and fanning out. For the first time these things
seemed to his hearers to have become a force in their own lives.

That evening a report, emanating from the clerks, filled the camp that
the brigade was going immediately to the Orkneys. The Brigadier was
known to be back in London and the Castle to be surrounded by cars from
Scottish Command.

Next day Guy's servant called him with the words: 'Sounds like I shan't
be doing this many more days, sir.'

Halberdier Glass was a regular soldier. Most of the conscripts had been
shy of volunteering as batmen, holding that 'that wasn't what they'd
joined the bloody army for'. Old soldiers knew that menial duties
brought numerous comforts and privileges, and competed for the job.
Halberdier Glass was a surly man who liked to call his master with bad
news. 'Two of our platoon overstayed their leave this morning'; 'Major
Trench made a visit to the lines last night. Went on something awful
about the bread in the swill tubs'; 'Corporal Hill shot himself just
down by the bridge. They're bringing the body in now'; some small titbit
of gossip of the kind calculated to make Guy start the day in low
spirits. But this announcement was more serious.

'What d'you mean, Glass?'

'Well, that's the buzz, sir. Jackson got it in the sergeants' mess last
night.'

'What's happening?'

'All regulars standing by to move, sir. Nothing said about the National
Service men.'

When Guy reached the mess-tent everyone was talking about this rumour.
Guy asked Major Erskine: 'Is there anything in it, sir?'

And Major Erskine answered: 'You'll hear soon enough. The C.O. wants all
officers in here at eight-thirty.'

The men were set to Physical Training and fatigue duties under their
non-commissioned officers and the officers duly assembled. In every
Halberdier battalion at that moment the Commanding Officers were
breaking bad news, each in his way. Colonel Tickeridge said:

'What I have to say is most unpleasant for most of you. In an hour's
time I shall be telling the men. It is all the harder for me to tell you
because, for myself, I cannot help being glad. I had hoped we should
have gone into action together. That is what we have all been working
for. I think we should have given a good account of ourselves. But you
know as well as I do that we aren't ready. Things are pretty sticky in
France, stickier than most of you realize. Fully trained reinforcements
are needed at once to make a decisive counterattack. It has therefore
been decided to send a regular battalion of Halberdiers to France _now_.
I expect you can guess who will lead us. The Brigadier has been in
London two days and has persuaded them to let him go down a step and
command the battalion. I am very proud to say he's picked me to go down
a step too and join him as second-in-command. We are taking most of the
regular officers and other ranks now in camp. Those of you who are being
left behind will naturally want to know what is to become of you. That,
I am afraid, I can't answer. You realize, of course, that you will be
enormously weakened, particularly in senior NCOs. You also realize that
for the moment at any rate the brigade ceases to exist as a separate
formation with a special role. It's just one of those things you have to
accept in army life. You may be sure that the Captain-Commandant will do
all he can to see that you keep your identity as Halberdiers and don't
get pushed about too much. But at a time of national danger even
regimental tradition has to go by the board. If I knew what was going to
happen to you, I'd tell you. I hope we all join up together one day.
Don't count on it or feel a grievance if you find yourselves attached
elsewhere. Just show the Halberdier spirit wherever you are. Your duty
now, as always, is to your men. Don't let their _morale_ drop. Get some
football going. Organize concerts and housey-housey. All ranks are
confined to camp until further notice.'

The temporary officers left the tent, went out into the brilliant
sunshine, in deep gloom.

Apthorpe's comment was: 'Wheels within wheels, old man. It's all the
work of those signallers.'

Later the battalion paraded. Colonel (now Major) Tickeridge made much
the same speech as he had made to the officers, but that simple man
contrived to give a slightly different impression. They would all join
up together again soon, he seemed to say; the Expeditionary Battalion
was merely an advance party. They would all be united for the final
biff.

In these conditions Guy at last got command of a company.

Chaos prevailed. The order was always to stand by for orders. The
regulars who were leaving attended the medical officers for final
examination. Venerable figures emerged from their places of concealment,
were pronounced unfit, and sent back to store. The conscripts played
football and under the chaplain's aegis sang '_We'll hang out the
washing on the Siegfried Line_'.

In order, it was supposed, to avoid confusion, the remaining battalions
were named X and Y. Guy sat in a tent in X Battalion lines attended by a
sergeant major with fallen arches. All through the afternoon he received
requests for week-end leave on urgent compassionate grounds from men
whom neither he nor his decrepit assistant had ever seen before. 'My
wife's expecting, sir', 'My brother's on embarkation leave, sir',
'Trouble-at-home, sir', 'My mother's been evacuated, sir'.

'We know nothing about them, sir,' said the sergeant major. 'If you give
in to one you'll only have trouble.'

Guy miserably refused them all.

It was his first experience of that common military situation, 'a
general flap'.

Not until 'Retreat' had been sounded, did a move-order arrive for the
Expeditionary Battalion.

At reveille that Sunday morning X and Y Battalions turned out to see the
battalion off. The call for breakfast sounded and they dispersed. At
length a fleet of buses appeared up the valley. The battalion embussed.
The remnants of the brigade cheered as they left and then turned back to
the part-deserted camp and an empty day.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Chaos remained, without animation. Guy's commander in X Battalion was a
major whom he did not know. At this season of prodigies Apthorpe emerged
as second-in-command of Y Battalion with Sarum-Smith as his adjutant.

The week-end yawned before them.

On Sunday mornings at Penkirk a priest came out from the town and said
mass at the Castle. He came that Sunday too, untroubled by the 'flap',
and for three-quarters of an hour all was peace.

When Guy returned he was asked: 'You didn't by any chance pick up any
orders at the Castle?'

'Not a word. Everything seemed dead quiet.'

'I expect everyone has forgotten about us. The best thing would be to
send everyone on long leave.'

The company office, all company offices, were besieged with applications
for leave. The remnant who were, for want of another name, still called
'Brigade Headquarters' were standing by for orders.

Rumours spread everywhere that they were to return to the Barracks and
the Depot; that they were to be broken up and sent to Infantry Training
Centres; that they were to be brigaded with a Highland regiment and sent
to guard the docks; that they were to be transformed into Anti-Aircraft
units. The men kicked footballs about and played mouth-organs. Not for
the first time Guy was awed by their huge patience.

Halberdier Glass, who, despite his prognostications, had contrived to
remain with Guy, reported these 'buzzes' to him at intervals throughout
the day.

At last, late at night, orders were issued.

They were preposterous.

An enemy landing by parachute was imminent in the neighbourhood of
Penkirk. All ranks were confined to camp. Each battalion was to keep a
company, night and day, in immediate readiness to repel the attack.
These would sleep in their boots, their rifles beside them with charged
magazines; they would stand to at dusk, at dawn and once during the
night. Guards were doubled. A platoon would ceaselessly patrol the
perimeter of the camp. Other platoons would stop all traffic, day and
night, on all roads within a five-mile radius and examine civilian
identity cards. All officers would carry loaded revolvers, anti-gas
capes, steel helmets and maps at all hours.

'I have _not_ received these orders,' said the unknown major, giving his
first, indeed his only, hint of character. 'I'll have them brought with
my tea to-morrow morning. If Germans land to-night they will have no
opposition from X Battalion. That, I think, is called the Nelson touch.'

Monday passed in the defence of Penkirk and two cowmen were arrested
whose strong Scottish accents gave colour to the suspicion that they
were conversing in German.

It was fine parachuting weather. The storm had quite passed and
premature summer bathed the valley. On Monday night Guy's company was on
emergency duty. He had an outlying patrol on the hill above the camp
which he visited at midnight. Later he sat gazing into the stars, with
the men bivouacked round him. The regular battalion was probably in
France, by now, he reflected; perhaps in the battle. Halberdier Glass
had it for certain that they were in Boulogne. Suddenly from below came
the sound of bugles and whistles. The platoon doubled back and found the
whole camp astir. Apthorpe had distinctly seen a parachute land a few
fields distant. Patrols, pickets and duty-companies rushed to the scene.
Two or three rounds were waywardly fired.

'They always bury their parachutes,' said Apthorpe. 'Look for newly dug
ground.'

All night they trampled down the young wheat until at reveille they
handed over the duty to their reliefs. Several bus-loads of kilted
soldiers had meanwhile arrived from a neighbouring camp. These were
seasoned men who were sceptical of Apthorpe's vision. An indignant
farmer spent most of the morning at the Castle computing the damage done
him.

On Wednesday a move-order arrived. X and Y Battalions were to stand by
at two hours' notice. Late that evening buses again appeared. There was
no 'unconsumed portion of the day's ration' to encumber them. Halberdier
Glass reported that the whole brigade staff were moving too.

'Iceland,' he said; 'that's where we're off to. I got it straight from
the Castle.'

Guy asked his Commanding Officer where they were going.

'Aldershot Area. No information about what happens when we get there.
What does it sound like to you?'

'Nothing.'

'It doesn't sound like a Halberdier establishment, does it? If you want
to know what I think it sounds like, it sounds like Infantry Training
Centres. I don't suppose _they_ sound like anything to you?'

'Not much.'

'They sound like hell on earth to me. You fellows have had a raw deal.
You've been in the Halberdiers, you've lived with us and been one of us.
Now you'll probably find yourself in the Beds and Herts or the Black
Watch. But you've only had six months of us. Look at me. God knows when
I shall get back to the Corps, and it's been my whole life. All the
fellows I entered with are at Boulogne now. D'you know why I'm left
behind? One bad mark, my second year as a subaltern. That's the army all
over. One bad mark follows you wherever you go till you die.'

'The battalion is definitely in Boulogne, sir?' asked Guy, anxious to
stem these confidences.

'Definitely. And there's the hell of a fight going on there now, from
all I hear.'

They were driven to Edinburgh and put into a lightless train. Guy shared
a compartment with a subaltern he hardly knew. Almost at once the
fatigue of the last days overcame him. He slept long and heavily, not
waking until another brilliant day was creeping through the black-out.
He raised a blind. They were still in Edinburgh station.

There was no water on that train and all the doors were locked. But
Halberdier Glass appeared, mysteriously provided with a jug of shaving
water and a cup of tea, carried Guy's belt into the corridor and began
polishing. Presently they started and very slowly jolted their way
south.

At Crewe the train stopped for an hour. Base little men with bands on
their arms trotted about the platform bearing lists. Then a hand-wagon
from Movement Control deposited a tank of warm cocoa in each coach, some
tins of bully beef and a number of cardboard packets of sliced bread.

The journey continued. Guy could hear mouth-organs and singing above the
roll of the wheels. He had nothing to read. The young officer opposite
him whistled when he was awake, but mostly he slept.

Another stop. Another night. Another dawn. They were travelling now
through an area of red brick and carefully kept little gardens. They
passed a red London omnibus.

'This is Woking,' said his companion.

Soon the train stopped.

'Brookwood,' said the knowledgeable subaltern.

There was a Railway Transport Officer on the platform with lists. The
Commander of X Battalion, redolent of anonymity, came down the platform
peering anxiously through the steamy windows, looking for his officers.

'Crouchback,' he said. 'Davidson. We're getting out here. Fall in by
companies in the station yard. Tell off a platoon to handle stores. Call
the roll and inspect the men. They can't shave, of course, but see they
are respectable otherwise. We've two miles march to camp.'

Somehow the dishevelled, comatose figures transformed themselves into
Halberdiers. No one seemed lost. Everyone had a rifle. The kitbags came
bouncing out.

X Battalion moved off first. Guy marched at the head of his company,
following the company in front, through the suburban lanes and delicious
morning air. Presently they came to a field gate and the familiar smell
of Soyer stoves. He followed the company commander in front in calling
his men to march at attention. He heard the command ahead: 'Eyes left.'
His turn came. He gave the command, saluting, and saw a Halberdier guard
fallen in at the guard-house.

He gave the command: 'C Company, eyes front.'

From the distance of a hundred marching men he heard ahead: 'B Company,
eyes right.'

What was it this time? he wondered.

'C Company, eyes right.'

He swung his head and found himself gazing straight into a single,
glittering eye.

It was Ritchie-Hook.

A guide had been posted to lead the battalion to their parade ground.
They formed close column of companies, ordered arms, stood easy.
Brigadier Ritchie-Hook was standing beside the major.

'Glad to see you all again,' he roared. 'I expect you want breakfast.
Get cleaned up first. You are all confined to camp. We're at two hours'
notice to go overseas.'

The major saluted and turned to face the battalion he had so briefly
dominated.

'For the time being this is our battalion area.' He said: 'I gather it
won't be long. Guides will show you where to clean up. Battalion, shun.
Slope arms. Fall out the officers.'

Guy marched forward, ranged himself with the other officers, saluted and
marched off the parade ground. The battalion was dismissed. He heard the
non-commissioned officers break out into a babble of orders. He was
dazed. So was the major with the black mark against him.

'What does it mean, sir?'

'I only know what the Brigadier said as we marched in. Apparently
there's a complete as-you-were. He's been fighting the War Office for
days to keep the brigade in existence. As usual, he's won. That's all
there is to it.'

'Does that mean things are better in France?'

'No. They're so bloody well worse that the Brigadier has got us all
accepted as fully trained and ready for action.'

'D'you mean we're off to France too?'

'I shouldn't get too excited about that if I were you. The Regular
Battalion got turned off their ship just as they were sailing. I rather
feel in my bones that it may be some time yet before we go to France.
There's been a lot happening over there while we were hunting
parachutists in Scotland. It appears, among other things, that the
Germans took Boulogne yesterday.'




BOOK THREE
APTHORPE IMMOLATUS


[I]

Nine weeks of 'flap', of alternating chaos and order. The Halberdiers
were far from the battle, out of sight and hearing, but delicate nerves
stretched to them from the front where the Allied armies were falling
apart; each new shock carried its small painful agitation to the
extremities. Chaos came from without in sudden, unexplained commands and
cancellations; order grew from within as company, battalion and brigade
each rearranged itself for the new unexpected task. They were so busy in
those weeks with their own home-building, repairing, rearranging,
improvising, that the great storm that was shaking the world passed
overhead unnoticed until the crash of a bough set all the hidden roots
again vibrating.

First, the task was Calais. No secret was made of their destination.
Maps of that _terra incognita_ were issued and Guy studied the street
names, the approaches, the surrounding topography of the town he had
crossed countless times, settling down to an aperitif in the Gare
Maritime, glancing idly at the passing roofs from the windows of the
restaurant-car; windy town of Mary Tudor, and Beau Brummel, and Rodin's
Burghers; the most frequented, least known town in all the continent of
Europe. There, perhaps, he would leave his bones.

But it was only at night that there was time for study or speculation.
The days were spent in ceaseless, ant-like business. In the move from
Penkirk much had been lost, objects such as anti-tank rifles and aiming
stands which no man could covet or conceal; among them Hayter, who went
on his course of Air Liaison and was not seen again among the
Halberdiers. Various regular officers, too, had proved medically unfit
and left for Barracks or the Training Depot. Guy found himself back in
the Second Battalion and still in command of a company.

It was far different from 'taking over' in normal conditions. When
Ritchie-Hook spoke of his brigade as being at two hours' readiness to
move into action, he was, indeed, 'shooting a line'. It was two days
before it could take over its routine duties in the Area. These were
arduous, for parachutists were hourly expected at Aldershot as at
Penkirk. Standing Orders kept almost every man on duty every hour of the
day. And first the men had to be collected. None had deserted but most
were lost.

'You don't know what your battalion was?'

'First it was one and then another, sir.'

'Well, which was the first?'

'Can't say, sir.'

'Do you know who commanded it?'

'Oh yes, sir. C.S.M. Rawkes.'

Few of the conscripts knew the names of their officers.

When they joined, Rawkes had said: 'I am Company Sergeant Major Rawkes.
Take a good look so you'll know me again. I'm here to help you if you
behave yourselves right. Or I'm here to make your life hell if you
don't. It's for you to choose.'

They remembered that. Rawkes drew up the leave roster and detailed the
fatigues. Officers, for men who had not yet been in battle, were as
indistinguishable as Chinese. Few men, regular or conscript, had
associations beyond their company. They knew of the Earl of Essex's
Honourable Company of Free Halberdiers, they were proud to be dubbed
'Copper Heels' and 'Applejacks', but the brigade was a complex and
remote conception. They did not know where the biffs came from; they
were one of the hindmost wagons in a shunting train. A Kingdom was lost
in Europe and somewhere in the Home Counties a Halberdier found himself
with his leave stopped, manhandling stores for another move.

Guy in D Company was short of a second-in-command and a platoon
commander, but he had Sergeant Major Rawkes and Quartermaster Sergeant
Yorke, both elderly, experienced and, above all, calm assistants. Ten
men were unaccounted for; one man had broken camp; the company roll had
been sent to Records; G.1098 Stores were arriving.

'Carry on, Sergeant Major.' 'Carry on, Colour Sergeant.' And they
carried on.

Guy felt giddy but protected, as though the victim of an accident,
dozing in bed, scarcely aware of how he had got there. Instead of
medicine and grapes they brought him at regular intervals sheafs of
paper that required his signature. A great forefinger, capped by what
looked like a toe-nail, would point out the place for his name. He felt
like a constitutional monarch of tender years, living in the shadow of
world-respected, inherited councillors-of-state. He felt like a
confidence trickster when at last, at noon the second day, he reported D
Company as all present and correct.

'Good work, Uncle,' said Colonel Tickeridge. 'You're the first report
in.'

'The senior NCOs really did everything, sir.'

'Of course they did. You don't have to tell me that. But you'll have to
take all the rockets when things go wrong, whether it's your fault or
not. So take the occasional dew drop in the same spirit.'

Guy was a little shy of giving orders to the two platoon commanders who
had so lately been his fellows. They took them with perfect
correctitude. Only when he said: 'Any questions?' de Souza's drawl would
sometimes break in with: 'I don't quite understand the _purpose_ of the
order. What exactly are we looking for, when we stop civilian cars and
ask for their identity cards?'

'Fifth columnists, I understand.'

'But, surely, they would have identity cards? They were issued
compulsorily, you know, last year. I tried to refuse mine but the
policeman positively pressed it on me.'

Or: 'Could you please explain why we have to have both a lying-in
fire-picket _and_ an anti-parachute platoon? I mean to say if I was a
parachutist and I saw all the gorse on fire underneath I should take
jolly good care to jump somewhere else.'

'Damn it, I didn't invent these orders. I'm just passing them on.'

'Yes, I know that. I just wondered if they make any sense to you. They
don't to me.'

But whether orders made sense or not de Souza could be trusted to carry
them out. Indeed he seemed to find a curious private pleasure in doing
something he knew to be absurd, with minute efficiency. The other
officer, Jervis, needed constant supervision.

The sun blazed down, withering the turf until it was slippery as a
dance-floor and starting fires in the surrounding scrub. Routine was
resumed. On the fourth evening of his command, Guy marched his company
at nightfall into the training area where the place names are
incongruously taken from Central Africa, the memorial to a long-departed
explorer; 'the heart of the Apthorpe country' as de Souza called it.
They performed an exercise of 'company in the attack', became entirely
intermixed, extricated themselves and bivouacked under the stars. A warm
night, smelling of dry furze. Guy made a round of the sentries and then
lay awake. Dawn came quickly, bringing momentary beauty even to that
sorry countryside. They fell in and marched back to camp. Rather
light-headed after his sleepless night Guy marched in front beside de
Souza. From behind them came the songs: 'Roll out the barrel'; 'There
are rats, rats, rats as big as cats in the quartermaster's store';
'We'll hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line'.

'That sounds a little out of date at the moment,' said Guy.

'Do you know what it always makes me think of, Uncle? A drawing of the
last war, in one of the galleries, of barbed wire and a corpse hanging
across it like a scarecrow. Not a very good drawing. I forget who did
it. A sort of sham Goya.'

'I don't think the men really like it. They hear it at Ensa concerts and
pick it up. I suppose as the war goes on, some good songs will grow out
of it, as they did last time.'

'Somehow I rather doubt it,' said de Souza. 'There's probably a
department of martial music in the Ministry of Information. Last-war
songs were all eminently lacking in what's called morale-building
qualities. "We're here because we're here, because we're here, because
we're here", and "Take me back to dear old Blighty", "Nobody knows how
bored we are and nobody seems to care". Not at all the kind of thing
that would get official approval to-day. This war has begun in darkness
and it will end in silence.'

'Do you say these things simply to depress me, Frank?'

'No, Uncle, simply to cheer myself up.'

When they reached camp, they found all the evidences of another 'flap'.

'Report at once to the orderly room, sir.'

Guy found the battalion clerk and Sarum-Smith packing papers; the
adjutant, telephoning, waved him into the presence of Colonel
Tickeridge.

'What the devil do you mean by taking your company out at night without
establishing a signal link with Headquarters? Do you realize that if it
wasn't for Movement Control having made their usual balls-up, the whole
brigade would have up-sticked and off and you'd have found the whole
camp empty and bloody well serve you right? Don't you know that any
training scheme has to be sent in to the adjutant with full map
references?'

Guy had done this. Sanders was out at the time and he had given it to
Sarum-Smith. He said nothing.

'Nothing to say?'

'I'm sorry, sir.'

'Well, see that D Company is ready to move by twelve hundred hours.'

'Very good, sir. May we know where we're going?'

'Embarking at Pembroke Dock.'

'For Calais, sir?'

'That's about the wettest question I've ever heard asked. Don't you even
follow the news?'

'Not last night or this morning, sir.'

'Well, they've chucked in at Calais. Now go back to your company and get
a move on.'

'Very good, sir.'

As he returned to his lines he remembered that, when last he heard, Tony
Box-Bender's regiment was at Calais.


[II]

For a fortnight the Halberdier Brigade got no mail. When Guy at length
heard news of Tony it was in two letters from his father written at an
interval of ten days.

    _Marine Hotel, Matchet,_
    _2nd June._

    _My dear Guy,_

    _I do not know where you are and I suppose you are not allowed
    to tell me, but I hope this letter will reach you wherever you
    are to tell you that you are always in my thoughts and prayers._

    _You may have heard that Tony was at Calais and that none of
    them came back. He is posted as missing. Angela has made up her
    mind he is a prisoner but I think you and I know him and his
    regiment too well to think of them giving themselves up._

    _He was always a good and happy boy and I could not ask a better
    death for anyone I loved. It is the_ bona mors _for which we
    pray._

    _If you get this, write to Angela._


    _Ever your affec. father,_
    _G. Crouchback._
    _Marine Hotel, Matchet,_
    _12th June._

    _My dear Guy,_

    _I know you would have written to me if you could._

    _Have you heard the news of Tony? He is a prisoner and Angela,
    naturally I suppose, is elated simply that he is alive. It is
    God's will for the boy but I cannot rejoice. Everything points
    to a long war--longer perhaps than the last. It is a terrible
    experience for someone of Tony's age to spend years in idleness,
    cut off from his own people--one full of temptation._

    _It was not the fault of the garrison that they surrendered.
    They were ordered to do so from higher up._

    _Well, now our country is quite alone and I feel that that is
    good for us. An Englishman is at his best with his back to the
    wall and often in the past we have had quarrels with our allies
    which I believe were our own fault._

    _And last Tuesday was Ivo's anniversary, so that he has been
    much in my thoughts._

    _I am not quite useless yet. A boy's preparatory school
    (Catholic) has moved here from the East Coast. I can't remember
    whether I told you. A charming headmaster and his wife stayed
    here while they moved in. They were very short of masters and to
    my great surprise and delight they asked me to take a form for
    them. The boys are very good and I even get paid! which is a
    help as they have had to put their prices up in the hotel. It
    has been interesting brushing up my rusty Greek._

    _Ever your affec. father,_
    _G. Crouchback._

These letters arrived together on the day when the Germans marched into
Paris. Guy and his company were then quartered in a seaside hotel in
Cornwall.

Much had happened since they left Aldershot eighteen days before. For
those who followed events and thought about the future, the world's
foundations seemed to shake. For the Halberdiers it was one damned thing
after another. An urgent order came through Area Headquarters on the
morning of their departure that the men were to be fortified for bad
news. It was bad news enough that they were moving to Wales. They
embarked in three ancient heterogeneous merchantmen, and hung hammocks
in their dusty holds. They ate hard tack. During the warm night they lay
anywhere about the decks. Steam was up; all communication with the shore
forbidden.

Colonel Tickeridge said: 'I have no idea where we are going. I had a
talk with the E.S.O. He seemed surprised we were here at all.'

Next morning they disembarked and saw the three ships sail away empty.
The brigade split up and went into billets by battalions in neighbouring
market towns, in shops and warehouses that had stood empty nine years
since the slump. The units and sub-units began home-building, training,
playing cricket.

Then the brigade reassembled at the docks, re-embarked in the same
ships, shabbier still now, for in the meantime they had been ferrying a
broken army across the Channel from Dunkirk. There was a battery of
Dutch gunners, without their guns, ensconced in one of them. Somehow
they had got on board at Dunkirk. No one seemed to have a place for them
in England. There they remained, sad and stolid and very polite.

The ships resembled blocks of slum tenements. Guy was occupied mainly in
the effort of keeping his stores and men together. They disembarked for
an hour's Physical Training, a company at a time. For the rest of the
day they sat on their kitbags. A staff officer arrived from far away and
produced a proclamation which was to be read to all troops,
contradicting reports spread by the enemy, that the Air Force had been
idle at Dunkirk. If British planes had not been noticed there, it was
because they were busy on the enemy's lines of communication. The
Halberdiers were more interested in the rumour that a German army had
landed in Limerick and that their own role was to dislodge it.

'Hadn't we better dispel that rumour, sir?'

'No,' said Colonel Tickeridge. 'It's quite true. Not that the Germans
are there yet. But our little operation is to meet them there if they do
land.'

'Just us?'

'Just us,' said Colonel Tickeridge. 'So far as anyone seems to
know--except, of course, for our Dutch chums.'

They were at two hours' notice to sail. After two days orders were
relaxed to allow troops in formed bodies ashore for training and
recreation. They had to remain within sight of the mast of their ship,
which would hoist a flag to summon them in case of immediate sailing
orders.

Colonel Tickeridge had an officers' conference in the saloon where he
explained the details of the Limerick campaign. The Germans were
expected with a fully equipped mechanized corps and ample air support
and probably some help from the natives. The Halberdier Brigade would
hold them off as long as possible.

'As to how long that will be,' said Colonel Tickeridge, 'your guess is
as good as mine.'

Provided with a map of Limerick and this depressing intelligence, Guy
returned to his huddled company.

'Halberdier Shanks, sir, has put in a request for leave,' said Rawkes.

'But he must know it's no use.'

'Urgent compassionate grounds, sir.'

'What are they, Sergeant Major?'

'Won't say, sir. Insists, as is his right, on seeing the company
commander in private, sir.'

'Very well. He's a good man, isn't he?'

'One of the best, sir. That is to say of the National Service men.'

Halberdier Shanks was marched up. Guy knew him well, a handsome,
capable, willing man.

'Well, Shanks, what is the trouble?'

'Please, sir, it's the competition. I _must_ be at Blackpool to-morrow
night. I've promised. My girl will never forgive me if I'm not.'

'Competition for what, Shanks?'

'The slow valse, sir. We've practised together three years now. We won
at Salford last year. We'll win at Blackpool, sir. I know we will. And
I'll be back in the two days, honest, sir.'

'Shanks, do you realize that France has fallen? That there is every
likelihood of the invasion of England? That the whole railway system of
the country is disorganized for the Dunkirk men? That our brigade is on
two hours' notice for active service? Do you?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then how can you come to me with this absurd application?'

'But, sir, we've been practising three years. We got a first at Salford
last year. I can't give up now, sir.'

Was it 'the spirit of Dunkirk'?

'Request dismissed, Sergeant Major.'

In accordance with custom C.S.M. Rawkes had been waiting within view in
case the applicant for a private interview attempted personal violence
on his officer. He now took over.

'Request dismissed. About turn, quick march.'

And Guy remained to wonder: was this the already advertised spirit of
Dunkirk? He rather thought it was.

The days 'in the hulks', as de Souza called them, were few in number but
they formed a distinct period of Guy's life in the Halberdiers; real
discomfort for the first time, beastly food, responsibility in its most
irksome form, claustrophobia, all these oppressed him; but he was free
of all sense of national disaster. The rising and falling in the tides
in the harbour, the greater or smaller number of daily sick, the men up
on charges, the indications, more or fewer, of failing temper--these
were the concerns of the day. Sarum-Smith was appointed 'Entertainments
Officer' and organized a concert at which three senior non-commissioned
officers performed a strange piece of mummery traditional in the
Halberdiers and derived, de Souza said, from a remote folk ceremony,
dressed in blankets, carrying on a ritual dialogue under the names of
'Silly Bean', 'Black Bean' and 'Awful Bean'.

He organized a debate on the question: 'Any man who marries under thirty
is a fool' which soon became a series of testimonies. 'All I can say is
my father married at twenty-two and I never wish to see a happier homier
house or a better mother nor I've had.'

He organized boxing matches.

Apthorpe was asked to lecture on Africa. He chose, instead, an
unexpected subject: 'The Jurisdiction of Lyon King of Arms compared with
that of Garter King of Arms.'

'But, Uncle, do you think it will interest the men?'

'Not all of them perhaps. Those that _are_ interested will be very much
interested indeed.'

'I believe they would greatly prefer something about elephants or
cannibals.'

'Take it or leave it, Sarum-Smith.'

Sarum-Smith left it.

Guy lectured on the Art of Wine Making and had a surprising success. The
men relished information on any technical subject.

Extraneous figures came to add to the congestion. An odd, old captain
like a cockatoo in the gaudy service-dress of a defunct regiment of
Irish cavalry. He said he was the cipher officer and was roped in to
lecture on 'Court Life at St. Petersburg'.

Dunn and his men turned up. They had got to France and travelled in a
great arc of insecurity behind the breaking lines from Boulogne to
Bordeaux, without once leaving their railway coach. This experience of
foreign travel, within sound of the guns, under fire once when an
agitated airman passed their way, added perceptibly to Dunn's
self-confidence. Sarum-Smith tried to induce him to give a lecture on
'the lessons learned in combat' but Dunn explained that he had spent the
journey in holding a Court of Inquiry under the authority of the senior
officer in the train, to examine the case of the carved boot. The
verdict had been one of deliberate damage but since he had parted
company with the convening officer he was not sure where the papers
should be sent. He was reading the matter up in his Manual of Military
Law.

A sinister super-cargo labelled 'Chemical Warfare (Offensive)' was
delivered to the quay and left there for all to see.

Guy got a second-in-command, a dull young regular named Brent, and a
third subaltern. So the days passed. Suddenly there was a warning-order
and another move. They disembarked. The Dutch gunners waved them a
farewell as their train steamed away into the unknown. The maps of
County Limerick were collected. They jolted slowly for ten hours, with
many stops at sidings and many altercations with Transport Officers.
They detrained at night, a magnificent, moonlit, scented night, and
bivouacked in the woods surrounding a park, where all the paths glowed
underfoot with phosphorescent deadwood. They were put into buses and
dispersed along the sounding coast where Guy received the news of his
cousin Tony.

He had two miles of cliff to defend against invasion. When de Souza was
shown his platoon front he said: 'But, Uncle, it doesn't make sense. The
Germans are mad as hatters but not in quite this way. They aren't going
to land here.'

'They might put agents ashore. Or some of their landing craft might
drift off course.'

'I think we've been sent here because we aren't fit for the likely
beaches.'

After two days an inspecting general arrived with several staff officers
and Ritchie-Hook, sulking; three car-loads of them. Guy showed them his
gun pits, which were sited to cover every bathers' path from the shore.
The general stood with his back to the sea and gazed inland.

'Not much field of fire,' he said.

'No, sir. We expect the enemy from the other direction.'

'Must have all-round defence.'

'Don't you think they're a bit thin on the ground for that?' said
Ritchie-Hook. 'They're covering a battalion front.'

'Parachutes,' said the general, 'are the very devil. Well, remember. The
positions are to be held to the last man and the last round.'

'Yes, sir,' said Guy.

'Do your men understand that?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And remember, you must never speak of "_If_ the enemy comes" but
"_When_ they come". They are coming _here_, _this_ month. Understand?'

'Yes, sir.'

'All right, I think we've seen everything.'

'May I say a word?' asked a neat young staff officer.

'Carry on, I.O.'

'Fifth columnists,' said the Intelligence Officer, 'will be your special
concern. You know what they did on the Continent. They'll do the same
here. Suspect everyone--the vicar, the village grocer, the farmer whose
family have lived here a hundred years, all the most unlikely people.
Look out for signalling at night--lights, short-wave transmitters. And
here's a bit of information for your ears alone. It mustn't go below
platoon commander level. We happen to know that the telegraph posts have
been marked to lead the invading units to their rendezvous. Little metal
numbers. I've seen them myself. Remove them and report to headquarters
when you find them.'

'Very good, sir.'

The three cars drove on. Guy had been with de Souza's platoon when the
final words of encouragement were spoken. Here the high road ran almost
on the edge of the cliff. He and Brent walked to the next platoon
position. On the way they counted a dozen telegraph poles, each marked
with a metal number.

'All telegraph poles are,' said Brent, 'by the Post Office.'

'Sure?'

'Perfectly.'

Local Defence Volunteers helped patrol the area at night and reported
frequent lamp-signals from fifth columnists. One story was so well told
that Guy spent a night alone with Halberdier Glass, armed to the teeth,
on the sands of a little cove; a boat was said to beach there often in
darkness. But no one came their way that night. The only incident was a
single tremendous flash which momentarily lit the whole coast. Guy
remembered afterwards that in the momentary stillness he foolishly said:
'Here they come.' Then from far away came the thump and tremor of an
explosion.

'Land-mine,' said Glass. 'Plymouth probably.'

In his vigils Guy thought often of Tony, with three, four, perhaps five
years cut clean out of his young life just as those eight had been cut
from his own.

Once on an evening of dense sea-mist a message came that the enemy were
attacking with arsenical smoke. That was Apthorpe, momentarily left in
charge at Headquarters. Guy took no action. An hour later a message came
cancelling the alarm. That was Colonel Tickeridge, back at his post.


[III]

At the end of August Guy was sitting in his company office in the hotel
when two captains of a county regiment entered and saluted.

'We're A Company, 5th Loamshires.'

'Good-morning. What can I do for you?'

'You're expecting us, aren't you?'

'No.'

'We've come to take over from you.'

'First I've heard of it.'

'Damn. I suppose we've come to the wrong place again. You aren't D
Company, 2nd Halberdiers?'

'Yes.'

'That's all right then. I expect the orders will get through in time. My
chaps are due to arrive this afternoon. Perhaps you wouldn't mind
showing us round?'

For weeks they had waited for fifth columnists. Here they were at last.

There was a field telephone, which sometimes worked, connecting D
Company with Battalion Headquarters. Guy, as he had seen done in the
films, wrote on a piece of paper _Ask Bn. H.Q. if these chaps are
genuine_ and turned to Brent: 'Just attend to this will you, Bill? I'll
see to our visitors,' and to the Loamshires: 'Come outside. It's rather
a good billet, isn't it?'

They stepped out to the hotel terrace; bright blue overhead and before
them; warm gravel underfoot; roses all round them; at his side, the
enemy. Guy studied the two men. They were in service uniforms. They
should have been in battle-dress. The junior had not yet spoken--a
German accent perhaps; the senior was altogether too good to be true,
clipped voice, clipped moustache, a Military Cross.

'You want to see my L.M.G. positions, I expect?'

'Well, I suppose we ought to some time. At the moment I'm more
interested in accommodation and messing arrangements. Is the bathing
good? How do you get down to the beach? As far as I'm concerned this is
going to be my summer holidays. We'd no sooner got straightened out
after Dunkirk than they put us on defence duty on the invasion coast.'

'Would you like a bathe now?'

'Sound scheme, eh, Jim?'

The junior officer gave a grunt which might have been Teutonic.

'We usually undress up here and go down in great-coats. I can fit you
out.'

Brent joined them to say that he had not been able to get an answer from
Headquarters.

'Never mind,' said Guy, 'I'll see to it. I want you now to take our
visitors bathing. Show them up to my room. They'll leave their things
there. Find them a couple of great-coats and towels.'

As soon as the Loamshires had gone Guy turned back and found Sergeant
Major Rawkes.

'Sergeant Major,' he said. 'Did you see anything odd about those two
officers who came in just now?'

'We have never had much of an opinion of the Loamshires, sir.'

'I suspect them. They've just gone down to bathe with Mr. Brent. I want
you to relieve the man at the gun covering the bathing place.'

'Me, sir? At the gun?'

'Yes. This is a security matter. I can't trust anyone else. I want you
to keep them covered all the time, on the way down, in the water, on the
way up. If they try anything funny, fire.'

Sergeant Major Rawkes, who had in recent weeks formed a good opinion of
Guy, looked at him with mild despair.

'Shoot Mr. Brent, sir?'

'No, no. Those fellows who say they are in the Loamshires.'

'What exactly would you mean by funny, sir?'

'If they attack Mr. Brent, try to drown him, or push him over the
cliffs.'

Rawkes shook his head sadly. He had let himself be taken in. He should
never have come near trusting a temporary officer.

'That's orders, sir?'

'Yes, of course. Get on with it quick.'

'Very good, sir.'

He walked slowly to the gun pit.

''Op it, you two,' he said to the men on duty. 'Don't ask me why. Just
'op it and be grateful.'

Then he lowered himself to the Bren, stiffly, in protest. But as he put
the weapon to his shoulder, he relaxed a little. This was a rare sport,
officer-shooting.

Guy ran to his room and examined the intruders' kit. One of them instead
of a service revolver was carrying a Luger. Guy pocketed the
cartridge-clips of both weapons. There was no other suspicious feature;
everything else in their pockets was English including a very correct
move-order. Guy tried to telephone again and got through to Sarum-Smith.

'I must speak to the C.O.'

'He's at a conference at Brigade.'

'Well, the second-in-command or the adjutant then.'

'They're out. There's only me and the quartermaster left.'

'Can you get a message through to the C.O. at Brigade?'

'I don't think so. Is it important?'

'Yes. Take it down.'

'Wait a jiffy till I get a pencil.'

There was a pause and then the voice of Apthorpe spoke. 'Hullo, old man,
something up?'

'Yes, will you get off the line. I'm trying to pass a message to
Sarum-Smith.'

'He's gone off to find a razor blade to sharpen his pencil.'

'Well, will you take it? Message begins: "D Coy to 2 Bn via Bde HQ."'

'I'm not sure that's the correct form.'

'Damn the correct form. Tell the C.O. that I've got two men here who
claim to be Loamshires. They say they have orders to take over my
positions. I want to know if they're genuine.'

'I say, old man, that sounds a bit hot. I'll come right over myself.'

'Don't do anything of the sort. Just get my message to the C.O.'

'I could be with you in twenty minutes on my motor-bike.'

'Just pass my message to the C.O., there's a good chap.'

Huffily: 'Well, if you don't want me, that's your look-out. But it seems
to me far too serious a matter to settle single-handed.'

'I'm not single-handed. I've a hundred men here. Just pass the message.'

Very huffily: 'Here is Sarum-Smith. It's his pigeon to pass messages.
I'm very busy here, I can tell you, on pretty confidential business.'

Sarum-Smith, back at the telephone, took the message.

'Sure you've got it clear?'

'Yes. But I think there's an order that has some bearing on your query.
It came just as the adjutant was leaving. He told me to pass it on but
I've not got round to it. Wait a sec. It's somewhere here. Yes. Second
Battalion will hand over their positions to Fifth Loamshires and
concentrate forthwith at Brook Park with full stores and equipment.
That's the place we first arrived at. Sorry for the delay.'

'Damn.'

'Do you want that message sent to the C.O?'

'No.'

'It's all been rather a flap about nothing, hasn't it?'

As Guy rang off he saw the bathers return up the cliff under the sights
of the entrenched Bren gun. They had enjoyed their swim, they said. They
lunched with Guy, slept, and bathed again, then drove back to their
unit. It would surprise them, Guy supposed, when they found their
pistols unloaded. They would never know they had been as near death that
sunny first day of their holidays as on the dunes at Dunkirk. One
untimely piece of horse-play and they might have been goners.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Another series of jolts, buffer on buffer down the train.

The brigade assembled and went under canvas at Brook Park. 'Dispersal'
was the prevailing fashion now. Instead of the dressed lines which had
given Penkirk the airs and some of the graces of a Victorian
colour-print, there was now a haphazard litter of tents, haunting the
shadows round the solitary oaks of the park, or shrinking in the
immature surrounding coverts. A great taboo fell on the making of
tracks. Special sentries were posted to shout at men approaching Brigade
Headquarters across the lawn, directing them to creep through the
shrubberies.

The nature of Apthorpe's 'confidential business' was soon revealed. He
had been helping the quartermaster arrange an unexpected consignment of
tropical uniforms. In the first two days at Brook Park the Halberdiers
paraded company by company and were issued with sun-helmets and
ill-fitting khaki drill. Few looked anything but absurd. The garments
were then put away and nothing was said about them. They aroused little
curiosity. In the past months they had moved so suddenly, so often and
so purposelessly, they had been alternately provided with, deprived of,
and reprovided with so many different military objects, that speculation
about their future had become purely facetious.

'I suppose we're going to reconquer Somaliland' (which had just been
precipitately abandoned), said de Souza.

'It's just part of a fully equipped Halberdier's normal kit,' said
Brent.

However it produced one climax in the process which de Souza called 'the
Languishing of Leonard'.

During their defence of the Cornish cliffs the Second Battalion had seen
very little of one another. Now they were reunited and Guy found a sad
change evident in Leonard. Mrs. Leonard had planted herself and her baby
in lodgings near him and she had worked hard on his divided loyalty.
Bombs were beginning to fall in appreciable numbers. An invasion was
confidently predicted for the middle of September. Mrs. Leonard wanted a
man about the house. When Leonard moved from the coast with his company,
Mrs. Leonard came too and settled in the village inn.

She asked Guy to dinner and explained her predicament.

'It's all right for you,' she said. 'You're an old bachelor. You'll make
yourself very comfortable, I daresay, in India with native servants and
all you want to eat. What's going to happen to me, that's what I'd like
to know?'

'I don't think there's any prospect of our going to India,' said Guy.

'Then what's Jim's new hat for then?' asked Mrs. Leonard. 'That's an
Indian hat, isn't it? Don't you tell me they've given him that hat and
those size six shorts to wear here in the winter.'

'It's just part of a fully equipped Halberdier's normal kit,' said Guy.

'D'you believe that?'

'No,' said Guy. 'Frankly, I don't.'

'Well then?' said Mrs. Leonard triumphantly.

'Daisy won't understand it's what a soldier's wife has to put up with,'
said Leonard. He had said this often, obviously.

'I didn't marry a soldier,' said Mrs. Leonard. 'If I'd known you were
going to be a soldier I'd have married into the R.A.F. _Their_ wives
live comfortable and what's more they're the people who are winning the
war. It says so on the wireless, doesn't it? It isn't as though it was
only me; there's baby to think of.'

'I don't think that in case of invasion, you could expect to have Jim
expressly detailed for the defence of your baby, you know, Mrs.
Leonard.'

'I'd see he stayed around; anyway, he wouldn't go surf-bathing and lying
about under palm trees and playing the ukulele.'

'I don't think those would be his duties if we went abroad.'

'Oh, come off the perch,' said Mrs. Leonard. 'I've asked you here to
help. You're in with the high-ups.'

'Lots of the men have young babies, too.'

'But not _my_ baby.'

'Daisy, you're being unreasonable. Do make her see sense, Uncle.'

'It isn't as though the whole army was going abroad. Why should they
pick on Jim?'

'I suppose you _could_ apply for transfer to barrack duties,' said Guy
at last. 'There must be a lot of chaps there who'd be eager to come with
us.'

'I bet there would,' said Mrs. Leonard. 'It's just evacuation, that's
what it is, sending you off thousands of miles from the war, with
bearers and sahibs and chota pegs.'

It was a sad little party. As Leonard walked back to camp with Guy, he
said: 'It's getting me down. I can't leave Daisy in the state she's in.
Isn't it true women sometimes go off their heads for a bit just after
having a baby?'

'So I've heard.'

'Perhaps that's the trouble with Daisy.'

Meanwhile the sun-helmets were laid aside and long, hot days were spent
in biffing Brook House from every possible direction.

Some days later Leonard met Guy and said gloomily: 'I went to see the
colonel this morning.'

'Yes.'

'About what Daisy has been saying.'

'Yes?'

'He was awfully sporting about it.'

'He's an awfully sporting man.'

'He's going to send my name in for transfer to the Training Depot. It
may take some time, but he thinks it'll go through.'

'I hope your wife will feel relieved.'

'Uncle, do you think I'm behaving pretty poorly?'

'It's not my business.'

'I can see you do. Well, so do I.'

But he had not long in which to face whatever shame attached to his
decision. That night a warning-order arrived and everyone was sent on
forty-eight hours embarkation leave.


[IV]

Guy went for a day to Matchet. It was summer holidays for the school. He
found his father busy with North and Hillard's _Latin Prose_ and a pale
blue _Xenophon_ 'brushing up' for the coming term.

'I can't read a word of it unseen,' said Mr. Crouchback almost
gleefully. 'I bet the little blighters will catch me out. They did last
term again and again, but they were very decent about it.'

Guy returned a day early to see that everything was well with his
company's arrangements. Walking through the almost empty camp at dusk,
he met the Brigadier.

'Crouchback,' he said, peering. 'Not a captain yet?'

'No, sir.'

'But you've got your company.'

They walked together some way.

'You've got the best command there is,' said the Brigadier. 'There's
nothing in life like leading a company in action. Next best thing is
doing a job on your own. Everything else is just bumf and telephones.'
Under the trees, in the failing light, he was barely visible. 'It's not
much of a show we're going to. I'm not supposed to tell you where, so I
shall. Place called Dakar. I'd never heard of it till they started
sending me 'Most Secret' intelligence reports, mostly about ground-nuts.
A French town in West Africa. Probably all boulevards and brothels if I
know the French colonies. We're in support. Worse really--we're in
support of the supporting brigade. They're putting the Marines in before
us, blast them. Anyway it's all froggy business. They think they'll get
in without opposition. But it'll help training. Sorry I told you. They'd
court martial me if they found out. I'm getting too old for courts
martial.'

He turned away abruptly and disappeared into the woodland.

Next day the move-order was issued to entrain for Liverpool. Leonard was
left behind with the rear-party 'pending posting'. No one except Guy and
the colonel knew why. Most supposed him ill. He had been looking like a
ghost for some time.

Something of this kind had happened in Captain Truslove's regiment. A
showy polo-player named Congreve sent in his papers when they were under
orders for foreign service. The colonel announced at mess: 'Gentlemen, I
must request that Captain Congreve's name shall never again be mentioned
in my presence.' Congreve's fiancée returned his ring. From colonel to
drummer-boy all felt tainted and many of their subsequent acts of
heroism were prompted by the wish to restore the regiment's honour. (Not
until the penultimate chapter did Congreve turn up again, elaborately
disguised as an Afghan merchant with the keys of the Pathan fortress
where Truslove himself awaited execution by torture.) But Guy had no
shame about the defection of Leonard. It seemed, rather, as their train
moved spasmodically towards Liverpool, that it was they who were
deserting him. Their destination was not the Honolulu-Algiers-Quetta
station of Mrs. Leonard's film-clouded imagination, but it was a warm,
highly coloured, well-found place far from bombs and gas and famine and
enemy occupation; far from the lightless concentration-camp which all
Europe had suddenly become.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Chaos in Liverpool. Quays and ships in absolute darkness. Bombs falling
somewhere not far distant. Embarkation staff officers scanning
nominal-rolls with dimmed torches. Guy and his company were ordered into
one ship, ordered out again, stood-to on the dockside for an hour. An
all-clear siren sounded and a few lamps glowed here and there.
Embarkation officers who had gone to earth emerged and resumed their
duties. At last, at dawn they numbly climbed on board and found their
proper quarters. Guy saw them bedded down and went in search of his
cabin.

This was in the first-class part of the ship, unchanged from peace time
when it had been filled with affluent tourists. This was a chartered
ship with the Merchant Marine crew. Already Goanese stewards were up and
about in their freshly laundered white and red livery. They padded
silently about their work, arranging the ashtrays symmetrically in the
lounges, drawing the curtains for another day. They were quite at peace.
No one had told them about submarines and torpedoes.

But not all were at peace. Turning a corner in search of his cabin Guy
found a kind of pugnacious dance being performed in and out of his cabin
by Halberdier Glass and a Goanese of distinguished appearance--thin,
elderly, with magnificent white moustaches spanning his tear-wet
nut-brown face.

'Caught this black bastard in the very act, sir. Mucking about with your
kit, sir.'

'Please, sir, I am the cabin boy, sir. I do not know this rude soldier.'

'That's all right, Glass. He's just doing his job. Now clear out both of
you, I want to turn in.'

'You aren't surely going to have this native creeping round your
quarters, sir?'

'I am no native, sir. I am a Christian Portuguese boy. Christian mama,
Christian papa, six Christian children, sir.'

He produced from his starched blouse a gold medal, strung round his
neck, much worn with the long swing and plunge of the ship rubbing it
year by year to and fro on his hairless dark chest.

Guy's heart suddenly opened towards him. Here was his own kin. He
yearned to show the medal he wore, Gervase's souvenir from Lourdes.
There were men who would have done exactly that, better men than he; who
would perhaps have said 'Snap' and drawn a true laugh from the sullen
Halberdier and so have made true peace between them.

But Guy, with all this in his mind to do, merely felt in his pocket for
two half-crowns and said: 'Here. Will this make things better?'

'Oh yes, sir, thank you. Very much better, sir,' and the Goanese turned
and went on his way rejoicing a little, but not as a fellow man at
peace; merely as a servant unexpectedly over-tipped.

To Glass Guy said: 'If I hear of you laying hands on the ship's company
again, I'll send you to the guard-room.'

'Sir,' said Glass, looking at Guy as though at Captain Congreve who let
down the regiment.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The men were given a 'long lie' that morning. At eleven o'clock Guy
paraded his company on deck. An unusually large and varied
breakfast--the normal third-class fare of the line--had dissipated the
annoyances of the night. They were in good heart. He handed them over to
their platoon commanders to check stores and equipment and went to
explore. The Second Battalion had done better than the others, who were
close packed in the ship moored next to them. They had their transport
to themselves except for Brigade Headquarters and a medley of
strangers--Free French liaison officers, Marine gunners, a naval
beach-party, chaplains, an expert on tropical hygiene and the rest. A
small smoking-room was labelled OPERATIONAL PLANNING. OUT OF BOUNDS TO
ALL RANKS.

Lying out in the stream might be descried the huge inelegant colourless
bulk of an aircraft carrier. All contact with the shore was forbidden.
Sentries stood at the gangways. Military police patrolled the quay. But
the object of the expedition was not long kept secret for at midday an
airman jauntily swinging a parcel charged '_Most Secret. By hand of
officer only_' allowed it to fall asunder as he approached his launch
and a light breeze caught, bore up and scattered abroad some thousands
of blue, white and red leaves printed with the slogan:

    _FRANÇAIS DE DAKAR!_
    _Joignez-vous à nous pour délivrer la France!_
    _GENERAL DE GAULLE._

No one, except one of the chaplains who was new to military life,
seriously expected that these preparations would bring anything about.
The Halberdiers had been too much shifted, exhorted and disappointed
during recent weeks. They accepted as part of their normal day the
series of orders and cancellations and mishaps. Shore leave was given
and then stopped; censorship of letters was raised and reimposed; the
ship cast off, fouled an anchor, returned to the quayside; the stores
were disembarked and reimbarked in 'tactical order'. And then quite
suddenly one afternoon, they sailed. The last newspaper to come aboard
told of heavier air-raids. De Souza called their transport 'the refugee
ship'.

It seemed barely possible that they would not turn back but on they
steamed into the Atlantic until they reached a rendezvous where the
whole wide circle of grey water was filled with shipping of every size
from the carrier and the battleship _Barham_, to a little vessel named
_Belgravia_, which was reputed to carry champagne and bath-salts and
other comforts for the garrison of Dakar. Then the whole convoy altered
course and sailed south, destroyers racing round them like terriers, an
occasional, friendly aeroplane swooping overhead and gallant little
_Belgravia_ wallowing on behind.

They practised doubling to 'action stations' twice a day. They carried
'Mae West' life-belts wherever they went. But they took their tone from
the smooth seas and the Goanese stewards who tinkled their musical gongs
up and down the carpeted passages. All was peaceful and when the cruiser
_Fiji_ was torpedoed in full sight of them a mile or two ahead, and all
the naval detachment became busy with depth-charges, the incident barely
disturbed their Sunday afternoon repose.

Dunn and his signalmen had reappeared and were on board with Brigade
Headquarters, but Apthorpe ignored them, perhaps never was aware of
their presence, so deep were his colloquies with the specialist on
tropical medicine. The men did Physical Training and boxed and listened
to lectures about Dakar and General de Gaulle and malaria and the
importance of keeping clear of native women; they lay about on the
forward deck and in the evenings the chaplains organized concerts for
them.

Brigadier Ritchie-Hook, alone, was unhappy. His brigade had a minor and
conditional role. It was thought that the Free French would find the
town beflagged for them. The only opposition expected was from the
battleship _Richelieu_. This the Royal Marines and a unit of unknown
character called a 'commando' would deal with. The Halberdiers might not
land at all; if they did it would be for 'cleaning up' and relieving the
Marines on guard duty. Little biffing. In his chagrin he quarrelled with
the ship's captain and was ordered off the bridge. He prowled about the
decks alone, sometimes carrying a weapon like a hedging implement which
he had found valuable in the previous war.

Presently the heat grew oppressive, the air stagnant and misty. There
was an odd smell, identified as that of ground-nuts, borne to them from
the near but invisible coast. And word went round that they were at
their destination. The Free French were said to be in parley with their
enslaved compatriots. There was some firing somewhere in the mist. Then
the convoy withdrew out of range and closed in. Launches went to and fro
among the ships. A conference was held on the flagship from which
Brigadier Ritchie-Hook returned grinning. He addressed the battalion,
telling them that an opposed landing would take place next day, then
went to the transport carrying his other battalions and gave them the
stirring news. Maps were issued. The officers sat up all night studying
their beaches, boundaries, second and third waves of advance. During the
night the ships moved near inland and dawn disclosed a grey line of
African coast across the steamy water. The battalion stood-to, at their
bomb-stations, bulging with ammunition and emergency rations. Hours
passed. There was heavy firing ahead and a rumour that _Barham_ was
holed. A little Unfree French aeroplane droned out of the clouds and
dropped a bomb very near them. The Brigadier was back on the bridge, on
the best of terms with the captain. Then the convoy steamed out of range
once more and at sundown another conference was called. The Brigadier
returned in a rage and called the officers together.

'Gentlemen, it's all off. We are merely awaiting confirmation from the
War Cabinet to withdraw. I'm sorry. Tell your men and keep their spirit
up.'

There was little need for this order. Surprisingly, a spirit of
boisterous fun suddenly possessed the ship. Everyone had been a little
more apprehensive than he had shown about the opposed landing. Troop
decks and mess 'danced and skylarked'.

Immediately after dinner Guy was called to the room marked 'Out of
Bounds to all Ranks'.

He found the Brigadier, the captain and Colonel Tickeridge all looking
gleeful and curiously naughty. The Brigadier said: 'We are going to have
a little bit of very unofficial fun. Are you interested?'

The question was so unexpected that Guy made no guess at the meaning and
simply said: 'Yes, sir.'

'We tossed up between the companies. Yours won. Can you find a dozen
good men for a reconnaissance patrol.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And a suitable officer to lead them?'

'Can I go myself, sir?' he said to Colonel Tickeridge.

This was true Truslove-style.

'Yes. Go off now and warn the men to be ready in an hour. Tell them it's
an extra guard. Then come back here with a map and get your orders.'

When Guy returned he found the conspirators very cheerful.

'I've been having a little disagreement with the Force Commander,' said
Ritchie-Hook. 'There was some discrepancy between the naval and military
intelligence about Beach A. Got it marked?'

'Yes, sir.'

'In the final plan it was decided to leave Beach A alone. Some damn fool
had reported it wired and generally impracticable. My belief is that
it's quite open. I won't go into the reasons. But you can see for
yourself that if we got ashore on Beach A we could have taken the frogs
in the rear. They had some damn fool photographs and pretended to see
wire in them and got windy. I saw no wire. The Force Commander said some
offensive things about two eyes being better than one with a
stereoscope. The discussion got a bit heated. The operation is cancelled
and we've all been made to look silly, but I'd just like to make my
point with the Force Commander. So I am sending a patrol ashore just to
make certain.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Very well, that is the intention of the operation. If you find the
place wired or get shot at come back quickly and we will say no more
about it. If it's open, as I think it is, you might bring back some
little souvenir that I can send the Force Commander. He's a suspicious
fellow. Any little thing that will make him feel foolish--a coco-nut or
something like that. We can't use the naval landing craft but the
Captain here has played up like a sportsman and is lending a launch for
the trip. Well, I'm turning in now. I shall be glad to hear your report
in the morning. Settle the tactical details with your C.O.'

Ritchie-Hook left them. The captain explained the position of the launch
and the sally-port.

'Any other questions?' asked Colonel Tickeridge.

'No, sir,' said Guy. 'It all seems quite clear.'


[V]

Two hours later Guy's patrol paraded in the hold from which the
sally-port opened. They were dressed in rubber-soled shoes, shorts, and
tunic-shirts; no caps; no gas-masks; their equipment stripped down to
the belt. Each had a couple of hand-grenades and his rifle, except for
the Bren pair who would set up their gun on the first suitable spot and
be ready to cover the retreat if they were opposed. All had blackened
faces. Guy carefully gave them their instructions. The sergeant would
board the boat first and land last, seeing everyone safely ashore. Guy
would land first and the men fan out on either side. He would carry a
torch stuffed with pink tissue paper which he would flash back from time
to time to give the direction. Wire, if it existed, would be above high
water. They would advance inland far enough to discover whether there
was wire or not. The first man to come on wire was to pass the word up
to him. They would investigate the extent of the wire. A single blast of
his whistle meant withdrawal to the boat... and so on.

'Remember,' he concluded, 'we're simply on reconnaissance. We aren't
trying to conquer Africa. We only fire if we have to cover our
withdrawal.'

Presently they heard the winch over their head and they knew that their
boat was being lowered.

'There's an iron ladder outside. It'll be about six foot to the water
level. See that the man before you has got into place before you start
going down. All set?'

The lights were all turned off in the hold before the sally-port was
opened by one of the crew. It revealed a faintly lighter square and a
steamy breath of the sea.

'All set below?'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'Then carry on, Sergeant.'

One by one the men filed from the darkness into the open night. Guy
followed last and took his place in the bow. There was barely room to
squat. Guy experienced the classic illusion of an unknown, unsought,
companion among them. The sally-port shut noisily above them. A voice
said: 'Any more for the _Skylark_?' Skylark was the _mot juste_, thought
Guy. They cast off. The engine started with what seemed a great noise
and the launch bounced gently away in the direction of Beach A.

It was nearly an hour's run, for the beach lay on the north of the town
in a position which, if captured, might have secured the landing to the
south. The reek of the engine, the tropic night, the cramped bodies, the
irregular smack of little waves on the bows. At last the man at the
wheel said: 'We must be getting in now, sir.'

The engine slowed. The line of the shore was plain to see, quite near
them. The clearer eyes of the seamen searched and found the wide gap of
the beach. The engine was shut down and in complete silence they drifted
gently inshore under their momentum. Then they touched sand. Guy was
standing with his hands on the gunwale, ready. He vaulted overboard and
found himself breast-high in the tepid water. He stumbled straight ahead
uphill, waist-deep, knee-deep, then clear of the sea on firm sand. He
was filled by the most exhilarating sensation of his life; his first
foothold on enemy soil. He flashed his torch behind him and heard
splashing; the boat was drifting out again and the last men had to swim
a few strokes to get into their depth. He saw shadowy figures emerge and
spread out on either side of him. He gave the two flashes which meant
'Forward'. He could just see and hear the gun pair move off to the flank
to find a position. The patrol moved on uphill. First hard wet sand,
then soft dry sand, then long spiky grass. They kept on quietly. Palm
trunks rose suddenly immediately in front. The first thing he met was a
fallen coco-nut. He picked it up and gave it to Halberdier Glass, next
to him on the left.

'Take this back to the boat and wait for us there,' he whispered.

Halberdier Glass had shown signs of respect during the early stages of
the expedition and an unwonted zeal.

'What, me, sir? This here nut, sir? Back to the boat?'

'Yes, don't talk. Get on with it.'

He knew then that he had lost all interest in whether he held or
forfeited Glass's esteem.

The second thing he met was wire, loosely tangled between the palm
trunks. He gave the three flashes that meant: 'Go carefully. Ware wire.'

He heard stumbling on both sides of him and whispered messages came up
to him: 'Wire on the left.' 'Wire on the right.'

Casting a dim light forward now, and exploring with hands and feet, he
discovered a low, thin, ill-made defensive belt of wire. Then he was
aware of a dark figure, four paces from him, plunging forward across it.

'Stand still, that man,' he said.

The figure continued forward, clear of the wire and noisily pushing
through scrub and grass and thorn.

'Come back, damn you,' Guy shouted.

The man was out of sight but still audible. Guy blew his whistle. The
men obediently turned about and made off downhill for the beach. Guy
stood where he was, waiting for the delinquent. He had heard that men
who ran amok had sometimes been brought to their senses by an automatic
response to command.

'That half-file in front,' he shouted as though in the barrack square.
'About turn. Quick march.'

The only response, quite near to his left, was a challenge. 'Halte-là!
Qui vive?' Then the explosion of a grenade. And then suddenly firing
broke out on all sides, the full span of the beach; nothing formidable,
a few ragged rifle shots whistling between the palms. At once his own
Bren on the flank opened up with three bursts which fell alarmingly near
him. It seemed to Guy rather likely that he would soon be killed. He
repeated the words which are dignified by the name 'act' of contrition;
words so familiar that he used them in dreams when falling from a
height. But he also thought: what a preposterous way in which to get
oneself killed!

He ran back to the beach. The boat was there, two men in the water held
it in to the shore. The remainder of the patrol stood near it.

'Get aboard,' said Guy.

He ran across to the gunners and called them in.

There was still a lot of shouting in French and some wild shooting
inland.

'All present and correct, sir,' reported the sergeant.

'No, there's a man adrift up there.'

'No, sir, I've counted them. All present. Jump in, sir, we'd better be
off while we can.'

'Wait one minute. I must just have another look.'

The R.N.V.R. lieutenant in command of the boat said: 'My orders are to
push off as soon as the operation is completed, or sooner if I think the
boat is being put into excessive danger.'

'They haven't seen you yet. They're firing quite wild. Give me two
minutes.'

Men, Guy knew, in the excitement of their first battle were liable to
delusions. It would be highly convenient to suppose that he had imagined
that dark, disappearing figure. But he went up the beach again and there
saw his missing man crawling towards him.

Guy's one emotion was anger and his first words were: 'I'll have you
court-martialled for this,' and then: 'Are you hit?'

'Of course I am,' said the crawling figure. 'Give me a hand.'

This was no German defence with searchlights and automatic weapons, but
there had plainly been some reinforcement and the rifle shots were
thicker. In his haste and anger Guy did not notice the man's odd tone.
He pulled him up, no great weight, and staggered with him to the boat.
The man was clutching something under his free arm. Not until they had
both been hoisted aboard and the boat was running full speed out to sea
did he give his attention to the wounded man. He turned his torch to the
face and a single eye flashed back at him.

'Get my leg out straight,' said Brigadier Ritchie-Hook. 'And give me a
field-dressing someone. It's nothing much but it hurts like the devil
and it's bleeding too much. And take care of the coco-nut.'

Then Ritchie-Hook busied himself with his wound but not before he had
laid in Guy's lap the wet, curly head of a negro.

And Guy was so weary that he fell asleep, nursing the trophy. The whole
patrol was asleep by the time they reached the ship. Only Ritchie-Hook
groaned and swore sometimes in semi-coma.


[VI]

'Would you want to be eating this nut now, sir, or later?'

Halberdier Hall looked down at Guy's bedside.

'What time is it?'

'Eleven sharp, sir, as was your orders.'

'Where are we?'

'Steaming along, sir, with the convoy, _not_ towards home. Colonel wants
to see you as soon as you're ready.'

'Leave the nut in here. I'm taking it for a souvenir.'

Guy still felt weary. As he shaved he recalled the final events of the
previous night.

He had woken much refreshed, bobbing under the high walls of the ship
with the head of a negro clasped in both hands.

'We've a wounded man here. Can you pass down a loop for hoisting?'

There was some delay above and then from the blind black door above a
light flashed down.

'I'm the ship's surgeon. Will you come up and make way for me?'

Guy climbed aboard into the hold. The surgeon descended. He and two
orderlies had a special apparatus for such occasions, a kind of cradle
which was swung down, fastened to the Brigadier and tenderly drawn up
again.

'Take him straight along to the sick bay and prepare him. Anyone else
injured.'

'That's the only one.'

'No one warned me to expect wounded. Luckily we had everything ready
this morning. No one told me to expect anything to-night,' the surgeon
grumbled, out of sight and out of earshot behind the laden orderlies.

The men came aboard.

'You've all done jolly well,' said Guy. 'Fall out now. We'll talk about
it to-morrow. Thanks, sailors. Good-night.'

He woke Colonel Tickeridge to report.

'Reconnaissance successful, sir. One coco-nut'--and placed the head
beside Colonel Tickeridge's ash-tray on the edge of his bunk.

Colonel Tickeridge came slowly awake.

'For Christ's sake what's that thing?'

'French colonial infantry, sir. No identifications.'

'Well, for God's sake take it away. We'll talk about it in the morning.
Everyone back safe?'

'All my patrol, sir. One supernumerary casualty. Stretcher case. He's
been put in the sick bay.'

'What the devil do you mean by "supernumerary"?'

'The Brigadier, sir.'

'_What?_'

Guy had assumed that Colonel Tickeridge was in the secret; had been
party to making him look a fool. Now he dropped something of his
stiffness.

'Didn't you know he was coming, Colonel?'

'Of course I didn't.'

'He must have hidden in the hold and crashed the party in the dark, sir,
with his face blacked.'

'The old devil. Is he badly hurt?'

'The leg.'

'That doesn't sound too bad.' Colonel Tickeridge, fully awake now, began
to chuckle, then turned grave. 'I say, though, this is going to be the
hell of a mess. Well, we'll talk about it to-morrow. Go to bed now.'

'And this?'

'For Christ's sake throw it in the drink.'

'Do you think I ought to, Colonel, without consulting the Brigadier?'

'Well, get it out of here.'

'Very good, sir. Good-night.'

Guy took a firm grip of the wool and walked down the breathless
corridor. He met a Goanese night steward and showed him the face. The
man gave a squeal and fled. Guy was light-headed now. Apthorpe's cabin?
No. He tried the door of the Operations Room. It was unlocked and
unguarded. All the maps and confidential papers had been tidied away. He
put his burden in the Brigadier's 'In' tray and, suddenly weary again,
turned to his own cabin, threw down his bloody shirt, washed his bloody
chest and hands, and fell deep asleep.

                 *        *        *        *        *

'How's the Brigadier, Colonel?' Guy asked when he reported to the
orderly room.

'Very cheerful. He's not been round from the chloroform long. He's
asking for his coco-nut.'

'I left it on his desk.'

'You'd better take it to him. He wants to see you. From his account you
seem to have put up rather a good show last night. It's jolly bad luck.'
This was not quite the form Guy had expected congratulations to take.
'Sit down, Uncle, you aren't on a charge--yet.'

Guy sat silent while Colonel Tickeridge paced the carpet.

'It's only once or twice in a chap's life he gets the chance of a gong.
Some chaps never get it. You got yours last night and did all right. By
all justice I ought now to be drafting a citation for your M.C. Instead
of which we're in the hell of a fix. I can't think what possessed us
last night. We can't even keep the thing quiet. If it was just the
battalion involved we might conceivably have tried, but the ship's full
of odds and sods and the thing just isn't on. If the Brigadier hadn't
stopped one, we might have made you carry the can. "Over-zealous young
officer... mild reprimand", you know. But there'll have to be a
medical report and an inquiry. You simply can't do things like that at
his age and get away with it. If I'd had any idea what was in his head,
I'd have refused co-operation. At least I think I should have this
morning. It won't look too good for the ship's captain either. It won't
do you any good. Of course you were acting under orders. You're in the
clear legally. But it'll be a black mark. For the rest of your life when
your name comes up, someone is bound to say: "Isn't he the chap who
blotted his copy-book at Dakar in '40?" Not, I suppose, that it matters
to you. You'll be out of the Corps and your name won't crop up, will it?
Come on, let's take the head to the Brig.'

They found him in the sick bay, alone in the officers' ward, his
machete, freshly scoured, beside him.

'It wasn't a clean stroke,' he said. 'The silly fellow saw me first so I
had to bung a grenade at him, then look for the head and trim it up
tidy. Well, Crouchback, how d'you like having a brigadier under your
command?'

'I found him most insubordinate, sir.'

'It was a potty little show, but you didn't do too badly for a first
attempt. Did I hear you threaten me with a court martial at one stage of
the proceedings?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Never do that, Crouchback, particularly in the field, unless you've got
a prisoner's escort handy. I've known a promising young officer shot
with a Lee-Enfield for threatening things in the field. Where's my
coco-nut?' Guy handed him the swaddled head. 'My word he's a beauty,
isn't he? Look at his great teeth. Never saw a better. I'm damned if I
give him to the Force Commander. I'll shrink and pickle him; it'll give
me an interest while I'm laid up.'

When they left Guy asked: 'Does he know what you told me, Colonel? I
mean about his being in for a row?'

'Of course he does. He's got out of more rows than anyone in the
Service.'

'So you think he'll be all right this time?'

Colonel Tickeridge answered sadly and solemnly:

'He's the wrong age. You can be an _enfant terrible_ or you can be a
national figure no one dares touch. But the Brig.'s neither of those
things. It's the end for him--at least he thinks it is and he ought to
know.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

The convoy sailed down the coast and then began to break up, first one
ship turning aside, then another. The men-o'-war steamed away to another
rendezvous--all save the damaged ships who limped down to dry docks at
Simonstown. The Free French pursued their mission of liberation
elsewhere, the faithful little _Belgravia_ with them. The two ships
containing the Halberdier Brigade berthed at a British port. Since the
night at Dakar a rare delicacy had kept everyone from questioning Guy.
They knew something had happened, that all was not right. They pretended
not to be curious. It was the same in the sergeant's mess and on the
troop deck, Guy's sergeant told him. The Brigadier was carried ashore to
hospital. The brigade resumed its old duty of standing by for orders.


[VII]

Three weeks later the brigade was still standing by for orders. Their
transports had steamed out to sea and they were in camp on shore. The
doctrine of 'dispersal' had not reached West Africa. The tents stood in
neat lines on a stretch of sandy plain, five miles from the town, a few
yards from the sea. The expert on tropical diseases had flown away and
the rigorous, intolerably irksome hygienic precautions he had imposed
fell into desuetude. Local leave to up-country stations was given to
officers for sporting purposes. Apthorpe was one of the first to go. The
town was out of bounds to all ranks. No one wished to go there. Later
when he came to read _The Heart of the Matter_ Guy reflected,
fascinated, that at this very time 'Scobie' was close at hand,
demolishing partitions in native houses, still conscientiously
interfering with neutral shipping. If they had not the services of the
new Catholic chaplain, Guy might have gone to 'Father Rank' to confess
increasing sloth, one dismal occasion of drunkenness, and the lingering
resentment he felt at the injustice he had suffered in the exploit to
which he had given the private name of Operation Truslove.

Wireless news from England was all of air-raids. Some of the men were
consumed with anxiety; most were consoled by a rumour, quite baseless,
which was travelling the whole world in an untraceable manner, that the
invasion had sailed and been defeated, that the whole Channel was full
of charred German corpses. The men paraded, marched, bathed, constructed
a rifle-range and were quite without speculation about their future.
Some said they were to spend the rest of the war here keeping fit,
keeping up their morale, firing on the new range; others said they were
bound for Libya, round the Cape; others that they were to forestall the
German occupation of the Azores.

Then, after three weeks, an aeroplane arrived bringing mail. Most of it
had been posted before the expedition even sailed but there was a more
recent, official bag. Leonard was still on the strength of the Second
Battalion, pending posting. It was now announced that he was dead,
killed by a bomb, on leave in South London. There was also a move-order
for Guy. His presence was required at an inquiry into the doings on
Beach A, which was to be held in England as soon as Brigadier
Ritchie-Hook was fit to move.

There was also a new brigadier. He sent for Guy on the day of his
arrival. He was a youngish, thick, moustachioed, naturally genial man,
plainly ill at ease in the present case. Guy had not seen him before,
but he would have recognized him as a Halberdier without studying his
corps buttons.

'You're Captain Crouchback?'

'Lieutenant, sir.'

'Oh, I've got you down here as captain. I must look into it. Perhaps
your promotion came through after you left U.K. Anyway it doesn't matter
now. It was only an Acting Rank of course while you had a company. I'm
afraid you'll be losing your company for the time being.'

'Does that mean I'm under arrest, sir?'

'Good God, no. At least not exactly. I mean to say this is simply an
inquiry not a court martial. The Force Commander made a great fuss about
it. I don't suppose it'll ever come to a court martial. The Navy are
being rather stiff too, but they do things their own way. I should say
myself you're in the clear--unofficially, mind. As far as I understand
the case you were simply acting under orders. You'll be attached here at
my headquarters for general duties. We'll get you all off as soon as
Ben--your brigadier, I mean--can move. I'm trying to get them to lay on
a flying-boat. Meanwhile just hang about until you're wanted.'

Guy hung about. He had had his captaincy without knowing it, and had now
lost it.

'That means six or seven pounds more pay, anyway,' said the staff
captain. 'It shouldn't take long to straighten out. Or I'd take a chance
and give it to you now if you're short.'

'Thanks awfully,' said Guy. 'I can manage.'

'Nothing much to spend money on here certainly. You can be sure of
getting it somewhere, sometime. Army pay follows you up, like income
tax.'

The battalion wanted to 'dine' him 'out', but Tickeridge forbade it.

'You'll be back with us in a day or two,' he said.

'Shall I?' Guy asked when they were alone.

'I wouldn't bet on it.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

Meanwhile there had been a series of disturbing bulletins from and about
Apthorpe.

Messages from up-country passed by telephone from one semi-literate
native telephonist to another. The first message was: '_Captain Apthorpe
him very sorry off collar requests extension leaves._'

Two days later there was a long and quite unintelligible message to the
Senior Medical Officer demanding a number of drugs. After that was the
request that the specialist in tropical diseases (who had left them some
time before) should come up-country immediately. Then silence. At last a
day or two before the mail arrived, Apthorpe appeared.

He was slung in a sheeted hammock between two bearers, looking like a
Victorian woodcut from a book of exploration. They deposited him on the
hospital steps and at once began an argument about their 'dash', they
talking very loudly in Mende, Apthorpe feebly in Swahili. He was carried
indoors protesting: 'They understand perfectly. They're only pretending.
It's their lingua franca.'

The boys remained like vultures day after day, disputing over their
'dash' and admiring the passing pageant of metropolitan life.

Everyone in the brigade mess was particularly pleasant to Guy, even Dunn
who was genuinely delighted to have the company of someone of more
ignominious position than himself.

'Tell me all about it, old chap. Is it true you went off and started a
battle on your own?'

'I'm not allowed to talk. The matter is _sub judice_.'

'Like that matter of the boot. You've heard the latest? That lunatic
Apthorpe has taken refuge in the hospital. I bet he's shamming.'

'I don't think so. He looked pretty sick when he came back from his
leave up-country.'

'But he's used to this climate. Anyway, we'll catch him when he comes
out. If you ask me I'd say he was in worse trouble than you are.'

This talk of Apthorpe brought back tender memories of Guy's early days
in barracks. He asked permission of the brigade major to visit him.

'Take a car, Uncle.' Everyone was anxious to be agreeable. 'Take a
bottle of whisky. I'll make it all right with the mess president.' (They
were rationed to one bottle a month in this town.)

'Will that be all right with the hospital?'

'Very much all wrong, Uncle. That's your risk. But it's always done. Not
worth while calling on a chap in hospital unless you bring a bottle. But
don't say I told you. It's your responsibility if you're caught.'

Guy drove up the laterite road, past the Syrian stores and the vultures,
noticing nothing except the dawdling natives who obstructed his way;
later a few printed pages would create, not recall, the scene for him
and make it forever memorable. People would say to him in eight years'
time: 'You were there during the war. Was it like that?' and he would
answer: 'Yes. It _must_ have been.'

Then out of the town by a steep road to the spacious, whitish hospital,
where there was no wireless to aggravate the suffering, no bustle; fans
swung to and fro, windows were shut and curtained against the heat of
the sun.

He found Apthorpe alone in his room, in a bed near the window. When Guy
entered he was lying doing nothing, staring at the sun-blind with his
hands empty on the counterpane. He immediately began to fill and light a
pipe.

'I came to see how you were.'

'Rotten, old man, rotten.'

'They don't seem to have given you much to do.'

'They don't realize how ill I am. They keep bringing me jig-saws and Ian
Hay. A damn fool woman, wife of a box-wallah here, offered to teach me
crochet. I ask you, old man, I just ask you.'

Guy produced the bottle he had been concealing in the pocket of his
bush-shirt.

'I wondered if you'd like some whisky.'

'That's very thoughtful. In fact I would. Very much. They bring us one
medicine-glassful at sundown. It's not enough. Often one wants more. I
told them so, pretty strongly, and they just laughed. They've treated my
case all wrong from the very first. I know more about medicine than any
of those young idiots. It's a wonder I've stayed alive as long as I
have. Toughness. It takes some time to kill an old bush hand. But
they'll do it. They wear one down. They exhaust the will to live and
then--phut. You're a goner. I've seen it happen dozens of times.'

'Where shall I put the whisky?'

'Somewhere I can reach it. It'll get damned hot in the bed, but I think
it's the best place.'

'How about the locker?'

'They're always prying in there. But they're slack about bed-making.
They just pull the covers smooth before the doctors' round. Tuck it in
at the bottom, there's a good chap.'

There was only a thin sheet and a thin cotton counterpane. Guy saw
Apthorpe's large feet, bereft of their 'porpoises', peeling with fever.
He tried to interest Apthorpe in the new brigadier and in his own
obscure position but Apthorpe said fretfully: 'Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's
all another world to me, old man.'

He puffed at his pipe, let it go out, tried with a feeble hand to put it
on the table beside him, dropped it, noisily in that quiet place, on the
bare floor. Guy stooped to retrieve it but Apthorpe said: 'Leave it
there, old man. I don't want it. I only tried to be companionable.'

When Guy looked up he saw tears on Apthorpe's colourless cheeks.

'I say, would you like me to go?'

'No, no. I'll feel better in a minute. Did you bring a corkscrew? Good
man. I think I could do with a nip.'

Guy opened the bottle, poured out a tot, recorked and replaced the
spirit under the sheet.

'Wash out the glass, old man, do you mind? I've been hoping you'd
come--you specially. There's something worrying me.'

'Not the signalman's boot?'

'No, no, no, no. Do you suppose I'd let a little tick like Dunn worry
me? No, it's something on my conscience.'

There was a pause during which the whisky seemed to perform its
beneficent magic. Apthorpe shut his eyes and smiled. At last he looked
up and said: 'Hullo, Crouchback, you here? That's lucky. There's
something I wanted to say to you. Do you remember years ago, when we
first joined, I mentioned my aunt?'

'You mentioned two.'

'_Exactly._ That's what I wanted to tell you. There's only one.'

'I _am_ sorry.' All the talk lately had been about people killed by
bombs. 'Was it an air-raid? Leonard caught one...'

'No, no, no. I mean, there never was more than one. The other was an
invention. I suppose you might call it a little joke. Anyway, I've told
you.'

After a pause Guy could not resist asking: 'Which did you invent, the
one at Peterborough or the one at Tunbridge Wells?'

'The one at Peterborough, of course.'

'Then where did you hurt your knee?'

'At Tunbridge Wells.' Apthorpe giggled slightly at his cleverness like
Mr. Toad in _The Wind in the Willows_.

'You certainly took me in thoroughly.'

'Yes. It was a good joke, wasn't it? I say, I think I'd like a drop more
whisky.'

'Sure it's good for you?'

'My dear fellow, I've been just as ill as this before and pulled
through--simply by treating it with whisky.'

He sighed happily after this second glass. He really did seem altogether
better and stronger.

'There's another point I want to talk about. My will.'

'You needn't start thinking about that for years yet.'

'I think about it _now_. A great deal. I haven't much. Just a few
thousand in "gilt-edged" my father left me. I've left it all back to my
aunt of course. It's family money, after all, and ought to go back. The
one at Tunbridge Wells not'--roguishly--'the good lady at Peterborough.
But there's someone else.'

Guy thought: could this inscrutable man have a secret, irregular ménage?
Little dusky Apthorpes, perhaps?

'Look here, Apthorpe, please don't go telling me anything about your
private affairs. You'll be awfully embarrassed about it later, if you
do. You're going to be perfectly fit again in a week or two.'

Apthorpe considered this.

'I'm tough,' he admitted. 'I'll take some killing. But it's all a
question of the will to live. I must set everything in order just in
case they wear me down. That's what keeps worrying me so.'

'All right. What is it?'

'It's my gear,' said Apthorpe. 'I don't want my aunt to get hold of it.
Some of it's at the Commodore's at Southsand. The rest is at that place
in Cornwall, where we last camped. I left it in Leonard's charge. He was
a trustworthy sort of chap, I always thought.'

Guy wondered: should he make it plain about Leonard? Better leave it
till later. He had probably left Apthorpe's treasure at the inn when
they went to London. It might be traced eventually. This was no time to
add to Apthorpe's anxieties.

'If my aunt got it, I know exactly what she'd do. She'd hand the whole
thing over to some High Church boy-scouts she's interested in. I don't
want High Church boy-scouts playing the devil with my gear.'

'No. It would be most unsuitable.'

'Exactly. You remember Chatty Corner?'

'Vividly.'

'I want him to have it all. I haven't mentioned it in my will. I thought
it might hurt my aunt's feelings. I don't suppose she really knows it
exists. Now I want you to collect it and hand it over to Chatty on the
quiet. I don't suppose it's strictly legal but it's quite safe. Even if
she did get wind of it, my aunt is the last person to go to law. You'll
do that for me, won't you, old man?'

'Very well. I'll try.'

'Then I can die happy--at least if anyone ever does die happy. Do you
think they do?'

'We used to pray for it a lot at school. But for goodness' sake don't
start thinking of dying _now_.'

'I'm a great deal nearer death now,' said Apthorpe, suddenly huffy,
'than you ever were at school.'

There was a rattle at the door and a nurse came in with a tray.

'Why! Visitors! You're the first he's had. I must say you seem to have
cheered him up. We have been down in the dumps, haven't we?' she said to
Apthorpe.

'You see, old man, they wear me down. Thanks for coming. Good-bye.'

'I smell something I shouldn't,' said the nurse.

'Just a drop of whisky I happened to have in my flask, nurse,' Guy
answered.

'Well, don't let the doctor hear about it. It's the _very_ worst thing.
I ought really to report you to the S.M.O., really I ought.'

'Is the doctor anywhere about?' Guy asked. 'I'd rather like to speak to
him.'

'Second door on the left. I shouldn't go in if I were you. He's in a
horrid temper.'

But Guy found a weary, foolish man of his own age.

'Apthorpe? Yes. You're in the same regiment, I see. The Applejacks, eh?'

'Is he really pretty bad, doctor?'

'Of course he is. He wouldn't be here if he wasn't.'

'He talked a lot about dying.'

'Yes, he does to me, except when he's delirious. Then he seems worried
about a bomb in the rears. Did he ever have any experience of the kind,
do you know?'

'I rather think he did.'

'Well, that accounts for that. Queer bird, the mind. Hides things away
and then out they pop. But I mustn't get too technical. It's a
hobbyhorse of mine, the mind.'

'I wanted to know, is he on the danger list?'

'Well, I haven't actually put him there. No need to cause unnecessary
alarm and despondency. His sort of trouble hangs on for weeks often and
just when you think you've pulled them through, out they go, you know.

'Apthorpe's got the disadvantage of having lived in this God-forsaken
country. You chaps who come out fresh from England have got stamina.
Chaps who live here have got their blood full of every sort of
infection. And then, of course, they poison themselves with whisky. They
snuff out like babies. Still, we're doing the best for Apthorpe. Luckily
we're rather empty at the moment so everyone can give him full
attention.'

'Thank you, sir.'

The R.A.M.C. man was a colonel but he was seldom called 'sir' by anyone
outside his own staff. 'Have a glass of whisky?' he said gratefully.

'Thanks awfully, but I must be off.'

'Any time you're passing.'

'By the way, sir, how is our Brigadier Ritchie-Hook?'

'He'll be out of here any day now. Between ourselves he's rather a
difficult patient. He made one of my young officers pickle a negro's
head for him. Most unusual.'

'Was the pickling a success?'

'Must have been, I suppose. Anyway he keeps the thing by his bed
grinning at him.'


[VIII]

Next morning at dawn a flying-boat landed at Freetown.

'That's for you,' said Colonel Tickeridge. 'They say the Brig. will be
fit to move to-morrow.'

But there was other news that morning. Apthorpe was in a coma.

'They don't think he'll ever come out of it,' Colonel Tickeridge said.
'Poor old Uncle. Still there are worse ways of dying and he hasn't got a
madam or children or anything.'

'Only an aunt,' said Guy.

'Two aunts, I think he told me.'

Guy did not correct him. Everyone at Brigade Headquarters remembered
Apthorpe well. He had been a joke there. Now the mess was cast into
gloom, less at the loss of Apthorpe than at the thought of death so
near, so unexpected.

'We'll lay on full military honours for the funeral.'

'He'd have liked that.'

'A good opportunity to show the flag in the town.'

Dunn fussed about his boot.

'I don't see how I'll be able to recover now,' he said. 'It seems rather
ghoulish somehow, applying to the next of kin.'

'How much is it?'

'Nine shillings.'

'I'll pay.'

'I say, that's very sporting of you. It'll keep my books in order.'

The new brigadier went to the hospital that morning to inform
Ritchie-Hook of his imminent departure. He returned at lunch-time.

'Apthorpe is dead,' he said briefly. 'I want to talk to you, Crouchback,
after lunch.'

Guy supposed the summons was connected with his move-order and went to
the brigadier's office without alarm. He found both the brigadier and
the brigade major there, one looking angrily at him, the other looking
at the table.

'You heard that Apthorpe was dead?'

'Yes, sir.'

'There was an empty whisky bottle in his bed. Does that mean anything to
you?'

Guy stood silent, aghast rather than ashamed.

'I asked: "Does that mean anything to you?"'

'Yes, sir. I took him a bottle yesterday afternoon.'

'You knew it was against orders?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Any excuse?'

'No, sir, except that I knew he liked it and I didn't realize it would
do him any harm. Or that he'd finish it all at once.'

'He was half delirious, poor fellow. How old are you, Crouchback?'

'Thirty-six, sir.'

'Exactly. That's what makes everything so hopeless. If you were a young
idiot of twenty-one I could understand it. Damn it, man, you're only a
year or two younger than I am.'

Guy stood still saying nothing. He was curious how the brigadier would
deal with the question.

'The S.M.O. of the hospital knows all about it. So do most of his staff,
I expect. You can imagine how he feels. I was with him half the morning
before I could get him to see sense. Yes, I've begged you off, but
please understand that what I've done was purely for the Corps. You've
committed too serious a crime for me to deal with summarily. The choice
was between hushing it up and sending you before a court martial.
There's nothing would give me more personal satisfaction than to see you
booted out of the army altogether. But we've one sticky business on our
hands already--in which incidentally you are implicated. I persuaded the
medico that we had no evidence. You were poor Apthorpe's only visitor
but there are orderlies and native porters in and out of the hospital
who _might_ have sold him the stuff' (he spoke as though whisky, which
he regularly and moderately drank, were some noxious distillation of
Guy's own). 'Nothing's worse than a court martial that goes off
half-cock. I also told him what a slur it would be on poor Apthorpe's
name. It would all have had to come out. I gather he was practically a
dipsomaniac and had two aunts who think the world of him. Pretty gloomy
for them to hear the truth. So I got him to agree in the end. But don't
thank me, and, remember, I don't want to see you again ever. I shall
apply for your immediate posting out of the brigade as soon as they've
finished with you in England. The only hope I have for you is that
you're thoroughly ashamed of yourself. You can fall out now.'

Guy left the office unashamed. He felt shaken, as though he had seen a
road accident in which he was not concerned. His fingers shook but it
was nerves not conscience which troubled him; he was familiar with
shame; this trembling, hopeless sense of disaster was something of quite
another order; something that would pass and leave no mark.

He stood in the ante-room sweating and motionless and was presently
aware of someone at his elbow.

'I see you aren't busy.'

He turned and saw Dunn. 'No.'

'Perhaps you wouldn't mind my mentioning it then? This morning you very
kindly offered to settle that matter of the boot.'

'Yes, of course. How much was it? I forget. Nine pounds, wasn't it?'

'Good Lord, no. Nine shillings.'

'Of course. Nine shillings.' Guy did not want to show Dunn his trembling
hands. 'I've no change now. Remind me to-morrow.'

'But you're off to-morrow, aren't you?'

'So I am. I forgot.'

His hands when he took them out of his pockets trembled less than he had
feared. He counted out nine shillings.

'I'll make out the receipt in Apthorpe's name if it's all the same to
you.'

'I don't want a receipt.'

'Must keep my books straight.'

Dunn left to put his books straight. Guy remained standing. Presently
the brigade major came out of the office.

'I say, I'm awfully sorry about this business,' he said.

'It was a damned silly thing to do. I see that now.'

'I did say it was your responsibility.'

'Of course. Of course.'

'There was nothing I could possibly have said.'

'Of course not. Nothing.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

They took Ritchie-Hook out of the hospital before Apthorpe. Guy had half
an hour to wait on the quay. The flying-boat lay out. All round the
bum-boats floated selling fruit and nuts.

'Have you got my nut packed up safely, Glass?'

'Yes, sir.'

Halberdier Glass was in a black mood. Ritchie-Hook's servant was
travelling home with his master. Glass had to stay behind.

Colonel Tickeridge had come down to the quay.

He said: 'I don't seem to bring luck to the officers I pick for
promotion. First Leonard, then Apthorpe.'

'And now me, sir.'

'And now you.'

'Here comes the party.'

An ambulance drove up followed by the Brigadier's car. Ritchie-Hook, one
leg huge, as though from elephantiasis, in plaster. The brigade major
took his arm and led him to the edge of the quay.

'No prisoners' escort?' said Ritchie-Hook. 'Morning, Tickeridge.
Morning, Crouchback. What's all this I hear about you poisoning one of
my officers? The damn nurses couldn't stop talking about it all
yesterday. Now jump to it. Junior officers into the boat first, out of
it last.'

Guy jumped to it and sat as far as he could out of everyone's way.
Presently they hoisted Ritchie-Hook down. Before the boat had reached
the aircraft, the brigade car was honking its way through the listless,
black crowds; they had run things pretty close for the funeral parade.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The flying-boat was a mail carrier. The after half of the cabin was
piled high with bags among which the Halberdier servant luxuriously
disposed himself for sleep. Guy remembered the immense boredom of
censoring those letters home. Here and there one came across a man who
through some oddity of upbringing had escaped the state schools. These
wrote with wild phonetic mis-spellings straight from the heart. The rest
strung together clichés which he supposed somehow communicated some
exchange of affection and need. The old soldiers wrote _SWALK_ on the
envelope, meaning 'sealed with a loving kiss'. All these missives served
as a couch for Ritchie-Hook's batman.

The flying-boat climbed in a great circle over the green land, then
turned over the town. Already it was much cooler.

It had been the heat, Guy thought, all the false emotions of the past
twenty-four hours. In England where winter would be giving its first
hints of sharpness, where the leaves would be falling among the falling
bombs, fire-gutted, shattered, where the bodies were nightly dragged
half-clothed, clutching pets, from the rubble and glass
splinters,--things would look very different in England.

The flying-boat made another turn over White Man's Grave and set its
course across the ocean, bearing away the two men who had destroyed
Apthorpe.

                 *        *        *        *        *

White Man's Grave. The European cemetery was conveniently near the
hospital. Six months of changing stations and standing by for orders had
not corroded the faultless balance of the Halberdier slow march. The
Second Battalion had called a parade the moment the news of Apthorpe's
death arrived and the regimental sergeant major had roared under the
fiery sun and the boots had moved up and down the blistering road. This
morning it was perfect. The coffin bearers were exactly sized. The
bugles sounded Last Post in perfect unison. The rifles fired as one.

As a means of 'showing the flag' it was not greatly appreciated. The
civil population were _afficionados_ of funerals. They liked more
spontaneity, more evident grief. But as a drill parade it was something
that the Colony had never seen before. The flag-covered coffin descended
without a hitch. The vital earth settled down. Two Halberdiers fainted,
falling flat and rigid, and were left supine.

When it was all over Sarum-Smith, genuinely moved, said: 'It was like
the burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna.'

'Sure you don't mean the Duke of Wellington at St. Paul's?' said de
Souza.

'Perhaps I do.'

Colonel Tickeridge asked the adjutant: 'Ought we to pass the cap round
to put up a stone or something?'

'I imagine his relations in England will want to fix that.'

'They're well off?'

'Extremely, I believe. And High Church. They'd probably want something
fancy.'

'Both Uncles gone the same day.'

'Funny, I was thinking the same. I rather preferred Crouchback on the
whole.'

'He seemed a nice enough fellow. I could never quite make him out. Pity
he made an ass of himself.'

Already the Second Battalion of the Halberdiers spoke of Guy in the past
tense. He had momentarily been of them; now he was an alien; someone in
their long and varied past, but forgotten.






[End of Men at Arms, by Evelyn Waugh]