The Valley of Bones

  ‘How would you like to go up in an aircraft, Ivor?’

  ‘I would not mind that so much.’

  ‘I hope I do not have to do that.’

  ‘We are not in the RAF, lad, what are you thinking?’

  ‘I would not like it up there I am sure too.’

  ‘They will not put you up there, no worry.’

  ‘You do not know what they will do, look at those parachutists, indeed.’

  ‘You make me think of Dai and Shoni when they went up in a balloon.’

  ‘And what was that, I wonder.’

  ‘They took two women with them.’

  ‘Did they, then?’

  ‘When the balloon was in the sky, the air began to leak something terrible out of it, it did, and Dai was frightened, so frightened Dai was, and Dai said to Shoni, Look you, Shoni, this balloon is not safe at all, and the air is leaking out of it terrible, we shall have to jump for it, and Shoni said to Dai, But, Dai, what about the women? and Dai said, Oh, fook the women, and Shoni said, But have we time?’

  ‘We shall not have any time to sleep till morning break, I am telling you, if you will jaw all through the night,’ spoke another voice, certainly Lance-Corporal Gittins, the storeman, this time. ‘How many hundred and hundred of those Dai and Shoni stories have I in all my days had to hear, I should like to know, and most of them said by you, Ivor. Is tarts never out of your thought.’

  ‘Why, Gareth, you talk about tarts too,’ said Williams, W. H. ‘What was that you was telling my butty of Cath Pendry yesterday?’

  ‘What about her?’

  Gittins sounded more truculent this time.

  ‘Her and Evans the checkweighman.’

  ‘You was not meant to hear that, I tell you, Williams, W. H.’

  ‘Come on, Gareth,’ said Gwylt.

  ‘Never mind you, Ivor.’

  ‘Oh, that do sound something I would like to hear.’

  No one answered Gwylt. There was a lot more coughing, some throat clearing, then silence. They must all have gone to sleep. I was on the point of doing the same, had even reached a state of only semi-consciousness, when there was a sudden exclamation from the direction of Gwatkin’s bed. He had woken with a start and was feeling for his electric torch. He found the torch at last and, clambering out of bed, began to put up the blackout boards on the window frame.

  ‘What is it, Rowland?’

  ‘Turn the light on,’ he said, ‘I’ve got this board fixed now.’

  I switched on the light, which was nearer my bed than his.

  ‘I’ve just thought of something,’ Gwatkin said agitatedly. ‘Do you remember I said units had been issued with a new codeword for intercommunication within the Brigade?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did I do with it?’

  He seemed almost to be talking in his sleep.

  ‘You put it in the box, didn’t you?’

  Gwatkin’s usual treatment of the flow of paper that entered the Company Office daily was to mark each item with the date in the inked letters of the Company’s rubber-stamp, himself initialling the centre of its circular mauve impression. He would treat the most trivial printed matter in this way, often wryly smiling as he remarked: ‘This becomes a habit.’ The click of the instrument on an official document, together with his own endorsement ‘R. G.’ – written with a flourish – seemed to give him a feeling of having settled that matter once and for all, a faint but distinct sense of absolute power. If classified as ‘Secret’ or ‘Confidential’, the stuff was put in a large cashbox, of which Gwatkin himself kept the key. The Company’s ‘Imprest Account’ was locked away in this box, together with all sorts of other papers which had taken Gwatkin’s fancy as important. The box itself was kept in a green steel cupboard, the shape of a wardrobe, also locked, though its key was considered less sacred than that of the cashbox.

  ‘Are you sure I put it in the box?’

  ‘Pretty sure.’

  ‘Codewords are vital.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’d better make certain.’

  He put on a greatcoat over his pyjamas, because the nights were still fairly cold. Then he began fumbling about with the keys, opening the cupboard and bringing out the cash-box. There was not much room in the Company Office at the best of time, when both beds were erected, scarcely any space at all in which to operate, so that the foot of my own bed was the only convenient ledge on which to rest the box while Gwatkin went through its contents. He began to sort out the top layer of papers, arranging them in separate piles over the foot of my bed, all over my greatcoat, which was serving as eiderdown. I sat up in bed, watching him strew my legs with official forms and instructional leaflets of one kind or another. He dealt them out with great care, as if diverting himself with some elaborate form of Patience, military pamphlets doing duty for playing cards. The deeper he delved into the cashbox, the more meticulously he arranged the contents. Among other items, he turned out a small volume bound in faded red cloth. This book, much tattered, was within reach. I picked it up. Opening at the fly-leaf: I read: R. Gwatkin, Capt.’, together with the designation of the Regiment. The title-page was that of a pocket edition of Puck of Pook’s Hill. Gwatkin gave a sudden grunt. He had found whatever he was seeking.

  ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Thank God. I remember now. I put it in a envelope in a special place at the bottom of the box.’

  He began to replace the papers, one by one, in the elaborate sequence he had ordained for them. I handed him Puck of Pook’s Hill. He took the book from me, still apparently pondering the fearful possibilities consequent on failure to trace the codeword. Then he suddenly became aware I had been looking at the Kipling stories. He took the little volume from me, and pushed it away under a Glossary of Military Terms and Organization in the Field. For a second he seemed a shade embarrassed.

  ‘That’s a book by Rudyard Kipling,’ he said defensively, as if the statement explained something.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘Ever read anything by him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Read this one?’

  ‘Ages ago.’

  ‘What did you think of it?’

  ‘I liked it.’

  ‘You’ve read a lot of books, haven’t you, Nick?’

  ‘I have to in my profession.’

  Gwatkin locked the tin box and replaced it in the cupboard.

  ‘Turn the light out,’ he said. ‘And I’ll take the blackout down again.’

  I switched out the light. He removed the window boards. I heard him arranging the greatcoat over himself in the bed.

  ‘I don’t expect you remember,’ he said, ‘but there’s a story in that book about a Roman centurion.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That was the one I liked.’

  ‘It’s about the best.’

  ‘I sometimes read it again.’

  He pulled the greatcoat higher over him.

  ‘I’ve read it lots of times really,’ he said. ‘I like it. I don’t like any of the others so much.’

  ‘The Norman knight isn’t bad.’

  ‘Not so good as the centurion.’

  ‘Do you like his other books?’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Kipling’s.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. I know he wrote a lot of other books. I did try one of them. I couldn’t get on with it somehow.’

  ‘Which one did you try?’

  ‘I can’t remember the name. Can’t remember much about it, to tell the truth. I just didn’t like it. All written in a special sort of language I didn’t understand. I don’t read much. Got other things to do. It’s not like you, reading more or less as a business.’

  He stopped speaking, was almost immediately asleep and breathing heavily. This was the first evidence come to light that anyone in the unit had ever read a book for pleasure, unless Bithel’s ‘digests’ might be thought to have brought him to a public library in search of some work on sexual psychology. This w
as an interesting discovery about Gwatkin. By now snores were sounding from the store. I rolled over towards the wall and slept too. The following day Gwatkin made no reference to this nocturnal conversation. Perhaps he had forgotten about it. Leaving barracks that evening there was a small incident to illustrate the way in which he took failure to heart. This happened when Gwatkin, Kedward and I were passing the vehicle park, where the bren-carriers stood.

  ‘I’d like to try driving one of those buses,’ Kedward said.

  ‘They’re easy enough,’ said Gwatkin.

  He scrambled into the nearest carrier and started up the engine. However, when he put the vehicle in gear, it refused to move, only rocking backwards and forwards on its tracks. Gwatkin’s small head and black moustache bobbed up and down at the end of the carrier, so that he seemed part of the chassis, a kind of figurehead, even the front half of an armoured centaur. There was also something that recalled a knight in the game of chess, immensely large and suddenly animated by some inner, mysterious power. For a time Gwatkin heaved up and down there, as if riding one of the cars on a warlike merry-go-round; then completely defeated by the machinery, perhaps out of order, he climbed slowly to the ground and rejoined us.

  ‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ he said, humiliated.

  All the same, this sort of thing did not at all impair his confidence in himself when it came to dealing with the men. Gwatkin prided himself on his relationship with the ‘other ranks’ in his company. He did not talk about it much, but the conviction was implicit in his behaviour. His attitude towards Sayce provided a good example. That was clear even before I witnessed their great scene together. Sayce was the Company bad character. He had turned up with another couple of throw-outs voided as unsuitable for employment from one of the regular battalions. His previous unit must have been thankful to get rid of him. Small and lean, with a yellow face and blackened teeth, his shortcomings were not to be numbered. Apart from such recurrent items as lateness on parade, deficiency of shaving kit, lack of clean socks, mislaid paybook, filthy rifle, generally unsatisfactory turnout, Sayce would produce some new, hitherto unthought-of crime most days. Dirty, disobliging, quarrelsome, little short of mutinous, he was heartily disliked by all ranks. Although a near criminal, he possessed none of the charm J. G. Quiggin, as a reviewer, used to attribute to criminals who wrote memoirs. On the contrary, Sayce, immoderately vain, was also stupid and unprepossessing. From time to time, in order to give him a chance to redeem himself from a series of disasters, he would be assigned some individual task, easy to undertake, but within range of conferring credit by its simple discharge. Sayce always made a hash of it; always, too, for the worst of reasons. He seemed preordained for detention.

  ‘It will be the Glasshouse for that bugger Sayce,’ Sergeant Pendry, who got along pretty well with almost everyone, used often to remark.

  In dealing with Sayce, therefore, it might be thought Gwatkin would assume his favoured role of martinet, imposing a series of punishments that would eventually bring Sayce before the Commanding Officer; and certainly Sayce took his share of CBs from Gwatkin in the Company Office. At the same time, their point of contact, at least on Gwatkin’s side, was not entirely unsympathetic. The fact was, Sayce appealed to Gwatkin’s imagination. Those stylized pictures of army life on which Gwatkin’s mind loved to dwell did not exclude a soldier of Sayce’s type. Indeed, a professional bad character was obviously a type from which no army could remain wholly free. Accordingly, Gwatkin was prepared to treat Sayce with what many company commanders would have considered excessive consideration, to tolerate him up to a point, even to make serious efforts to reform him. Gwatkin had spoken to me more than once about these projects for Sayce’s reformation, before he finally announced that he had planned a direct appeal to Sayce’s better feelings.

  ‘I’m going to have a straight talk with Sayce,’ he said one day, when Sayce’s affairs had reached some sort of climax. I’d like you to be present, Nick, as he’s in your platoon.’

  Gwatkin sat at the trestle table with the army blanket over it. I stood behind. Sayce, capless, was marched in by CSM Cadwallader and a corporal.

  ‘You and the escort can leave the room, Sergeant-Major,’ said Gwatkin. ‘I want to have a word with this soldier in private – that is to say myself and his Platoon Commander, Mr Jenkins.’

  The Sergeant-Major and other NCO withdrew.

  ‘You can stand easy, Sayce,’ said Gwatkin.

  Sayce stood easy. His yellow face showed distrust.

  ‘I want to speak to you seriously, Sayce,’ said Gwatkin. ‘To speak to you as man to man. Do you understand what I mean, Sayce?’

  Sayce made some inaudible reply.

  ‘It is not my wish, Sayce, to be always punishing you,’ said Gwatkin slowly. ‘Is that clear? I do not like doing that at all.’

  Sayce muttered again. It seemed very doubtful that he found Gwatkin’s statement easy to credit. Gwatkin leant forward over the table. He was warming up. Within him were deep reserves of emotion. He spoke now with that strange cooing tone he used on the telephone.

  ‘You can do better, Sayce. I say you can do better.’

  He fixed Sayce with his eye. Sayce’s own eyes began to roll.

  ‘You’re a good fellow at heart, aren’t you, Sayce?’

  All this was now beginning to tell on Sayce. I had to admit to myself there was nothing I should have liked less than to be grilled by Gwatkin in this fashion. A week’s CB would be infinitely preferable. Sayce began swallowing.

  ‘You are, Sayce, aren’t you?’ Gwatkin repeated more pressingly, as if time were becoming short for Sayce to reveal that unexpected better side of himself, and gain salvation.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Sayce, very low.

  He spoke without much conviction. That could scarcely be because there was doubt in his mind of his own high qualifications. He probably suspected any such information, freely given, might be a dangerous admission, lead to more work.

  ‘Well, Sayce,’ said Gwatkin, ‘that is what I am going to believe about you. Believe you are a good fellow. You know why we are all here?’

  Sayce did not answer.

  ‘You know why we are all here, Sayce,’ said Gwatkin again, louder this time, his voice shaking a little with his own depths of feeling. ‘Come on, Sayce, you know.’

  ‘Don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘Don’t, sir.’

  ‘Come on, man.’

  Sayce made a great effort.

  ‘To give me CB for being on a charge,’ he offered wretchedly.

  It was a reasonable hypothesis, but Gwatkin was greatly disturbed at being so utterly misunderstood.

  ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean why we are in the Company Office at this moment. I mean why we are all in the army. You must know that, Sayce. We are here for our country. We are here to repel Hitler. You know that as well as I do. You don’t want Hitler to rule over you, Sayce, do you?’

  Sayce gulped again, as if he were not sure.

  ‘No, sir,’ he agreed, without much vigour.

  ‘We must all, every one of us, do our best,’ said Gwatkin, now thoroughly worked up. ‘I try to do my best as Company Commander. Mr Jenkins and the other officers of the Company do their best. The NCOs and privates do their best. Are you going to be the only one, Sayce, who is not doing his best?’

  Sayce was now in almost as emotional a state as Gwatkin himself. He continued to gulp from time to time, looking wildly round the room, as if for a path of escape.

  ‘Will you do your best in future, Sayce?’

  Sayce began sniffing frantically.

  ‘I will, sir.’

  ‘Do you promise me, Sayce.’

  ‘All right, sir.’

  ‘And we’re agreed you’re a good chap, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Indeed, Sayce seemed moved almost to tears by the thought of all his own hitherto unrevealed goodness.

  ‘Nev
er had a chance since I’ve been with the unit,’ he managed to articulate.

  Gwatkin rose to his feet.

  ‘We’re going to shake hands, Sayce,’ he said.

  He came round to the front of the table and held out his palm. Sayce took it gingerly, as if he still suspected a trick, a violent electric shock, perhaps, or just a terrific blow on the ear administered by Gwatkin’s other hand. However, Gwatkin did no more than shake Sayce’s own hand heartily. It was like the termination of some sporting event. Gwatkin continued to shake hands for several seconds. Then he returned to his seat behind the table.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’m going to call in the escort again, so stand to attention, Sayce. All right? Get them in, Mr Jenkins.’

  I opened the door and said the word. CSM Cadwallader and the corporal returned to their places, guarding Sayce.

  ‘Prisoner admonished,’ said Gwatkin, in his military voice.

  The Sergeant-Major was unable to conceal a faint tightening of the lips at the news of Sayce escaping all punishment. No doubt he had supposed it would be a matter for the Commanding Officer this time.

  ‘Prisoner and escort – about turn – quick march – left wheel—’

  They disappeared into the passage, like comedians retiring in good order from their act, only music lacking, CSM Cadwallader, with an agility perfected for such occasions, closing the door behind him without either pausing or turning.

  Gwatkin sat back in his chair.

  ‘How was that?’ he asked.

  ‘All right. Jolly good.’

  ‘You thought so?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘I think we shall see a change in Sayce,’ he said.

  ‘I hope so.’

  This straight talk to Sayce on the part of Gwatkin had a stimulating effect, as it turned out, on Gwatkin, rather than Sayce. It cheered up Gwatkin greatly, made him easier to work with; Sayce, on the other hand, remained much what he had been before. The fact was Gwatkin needed drama in his life. For a brief moment drama had been supplied by Sayce. However, this love of the dramatic sent Gwatkin’s spirits both up and down. Not only did his own defeats upset him, but also, vicariously, what he considered defeats for the Battalion. He felt, for example, deeply dishonoured by the case of Deafy Morgan, certainly an unfortunate incident.