“I thought of giving them weed-killer,” said Mr. Harkness wistfully.
“Yes,” said Basil, “that would be one way. Do you think Marlene could keep it down?
“Or hanging.”
“Come, come, Mr. Harkness, this is mere wishful thinking. We must be more practical.”
“Everything I’ve thought of has had Death in it; ours or theirs.”
“I’m sure there must be a way,” said Basil, and then, delicately, watching Mr. Harkness while he spoke for any expression of distrust or resentment, he outlined a scheme which had come to him, vaguely, when he first saw the Connollies, and had grown more precise during the past week. “The difficulty about billeting on the poor,” he said, “is that the allowance barely covers what the children eat. Of course, where they are nice, affectionate children people are often glad enough to have them. But one wouldn’t call the Connollies nice or affectionate,”—Mr. Harkness groaned. “They are destructive, too. Well I needn’t tell you that. The fact is that it would be inflicting a very considerable hardship—a financial hardship—to put them in a cottage. Now if the meager allowance paid by the Government were supplemented—do you follow me?”
“You mean I might pay someone to take them. Of course I will, anything—at least almost anything. How much shall I offer? How shall I set about it?”
“Leave it to me,” said Basil, suddenly dropping his urbane manner. “What’s it worth to you to have those children moved?”
Mr. Harkness hesitated; with the quickening of hope came a stir of self-possession. One does not work in the East without acquiring a nose for a deal. “I should think a pound a week would make all the difference to a poor family,” he said.
“How about a lump sum? People—poor people that is—will often be dazzled by the offer of a lump sum who wouldn’t consider an allowance.”
“Twenty-five pounds.”
“Come, Mr. Harkness, that’s what you proposed paying over six months. The war is going to last longer than that.”
“Thirty. I can’t go higher than thirty.”
He was not a rich man, Basil reflected; very likely thirty was all he could afford. “I daresay I could find someone to take them for that,” he said. “Of course, you realize that this is all highly irregular.”
“Oh, I realize that.” Did he? Basil wondered; perhaps he did. “Will you fetch those children to-day?”
“To-day?”
“Without fail.” Mr. Harkness seemed to be dictating terms now. “The check will be waiting for you. I will make it out to bearer.”
“What a long time you’ve been,” said Barbara. “Have you pacified him?”
“I’ve got to find a new home for the Connollies.”
“Basil, you’ve let him off!”
“He was so pathetic. I softened.”
“Basil, how very unlike you.”
“I must get to work with that address book again. We shall have to have the Connollies here for the night. I’ll find them a new home in the morning.”
He drove over to North Grappling in the twilight. On either side of the lane the new-dug snow was heaped high, leaving a narrow, passable track. The three Connollies were standing outside the apple-green door waiting for him.
“The man with the beard said to give you this,” said Doris.
It was an envelope containing a check; nothing more. Neither Harkness appeared to see them off.
“Mister, am I glad to see you again!” said Doris.
“Jump in,” said Basil.
“May I come in front with you?”
“Yes, jump in.”
“Really? No kidding?”
“Come on, it’s cold.” Doris got in beside Basil. “You’re here on sufferance.”
“What does that mean?”
“You can sit here as long as you behave yourself, and as long as Micky and Marlene do too. Understand?”
“Hear that, you brats?” said Doris with sudden authority. “Behave, or I’ll tan yer arses for yer. They’ll be all right, Mister, if I tell ’em.”
They were all right.
“Doris, I think it’s a very good game of yours making the kids be a nuisance, but we’re going to play it my way in future. When you come to the house where I live you’re to behave, always. See? I may take you to other houses from time to time. There you can usually be as bad as you like, but not until I give the word. See?”
“O.K. partner. Give us a cig.”
“I’m beginning to like you, Doris.”
“I love you,” said Doris with excruciating warmth, leaning back and blowing a cloud of smoke over the solemn children in the back. “I love you more than anyone I ever seen.”
“Their week with the Harknesses seems to have had an extraordinary effect on the children,” said Barbara after dinner that night. “I can’t understand it.”
“Mr. Harkness said there were imponderabilia at Mill House. Perhaps it’s that.”
“Basil, you’re up to something. I wish I knew what it was.”
Basil turned on her his innocent blue eyes, as blue as hers and as innocent; they held no hint of mischief. “Just war work, Babs,” he said.
“Slimy snake.”
“I’m not.”
“Crawly spider.” They were back in the school-room, in the world where once they had played pirates. “Artful monkey,” said Barbara, very fondly.
V
Companies paraded at quarter past eight; immediately after inspection men were fallen out for the company commander’s orderly room; that gave time to sift out the genuine requests from the spurious, deal with minor offences, have the charge sheets made out properly and the names entered in the guard report of serious defaulters for the C.O.
“Private Tatton charged with losing by neglect one respirator, anti-gas, value 18s. 6d.”
Private Tatton fell into a rambling account of having left his respirator in the NAAFI and going back for it ten minutes later, having found it gone.
“Case remanded for the commanding officer.” Captain Mayfield could not give a punishment involving loss of pay.
“Case remanded for the commanding officer. About turn. As you were. I didn’t say anything about saluting. About turn. Quick march.”
Captain Mayfield turned to the “IN” basket on his table.
“O.C.T.U. candidates,” said the company sergeant-major.
“Who have we got? The adjutant doesn’t take nil returns.”
“Well, sir, there’s Brodie.”
Brodie was a weedy solicitor who had appeared with the last draft.
“Really, sergeant-major, I can’t see Brodie making much of an officer.”
“He’s not much good in the company, sir, and he’s a man of very superior education.”
“Well, put him down for one. What about Sergeant Harris?”
“Not suitable, sir.”
“He’s a man of excellent character, fine disciplinarian, knows his stuff backwards, the men will follow him anywhere.”
“Yessir.”
“Well, what have you got against him?”
“Nothing against him, sir. But we can’t get on without Sergeant Harris in the company football.”
“No. Well, who do you suggest?”
“There’s our baronet, sir.” The sergeant-major said this with a smile. Alastair’s position in the ranks was a slight embarrassment to Captain Mayfield but it was a good joke to the sergeant-major.
“Trumpington? All right, I’ll see him and Brodie right away.”
The orderly brought them. The sergeant-major marched them in singly. “Quick march. Halt. Salute. Brodie, sir.”
“Brodie. They want the names of two men from this company as O.C.T.U. candidates. I’m putting your name in. Of course the C.O. makes the decision. I don’t say you will go to an O.C.T.U. I take it you would have no objection if the C.O. approves.”
“None, sir, if you really think I should make a good officer.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll ma
ke a good officer. They’re very rare. But I daresay you’ll make an officer of some kind.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And as long as you’re in my company you won’t come into my office with a fountain pen sticking out of your pocket.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Not so much talk,” said the sergeant-major.
“All right, that’s all, sergeant-major.”
“About turn. Quick march. As you were. Swing the right arm forward as you step out.”
“I believe we’ll have to give him a couple of stripes before we can get rid of him. I’ll see the adjutant about that.”
Alastair was marched in. He had changed little since he joined the army. Perhaps there was a slight shifting of bulk from waist line to chest, but it was barely perceptible under the loose battle-dress.
Captain Mayfield addressed him in precisely the same words as he had used to Brodie.
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t want to take a commission?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s very unusual, Trumpington. Any particular reason?”
“I believe a lot of people felt like that in the last war.”
“So I’ve heard. And a very wasteful business it was. Well if you won’t, I can’t make you. Afraid of responsibility, eh?”
Alastair made no answer. Captain Mayfield nodded and the sergeant-major marched him out.
“What d’you make of that?” asked Captain Mayfield.
“I’ve known men who think it’s safer to stay in the ranks.”
“Shouldn’t think that’s the case with Trumpington. He’s a volunteer, over age to have been called up.”
“Very rum, sir.”
“Very rum, sergeant-major.”
Alastair took his time about returning to his platoon. At this time of the morning they were doing P.T. It was the one part of the routine he really hated. He lurked behind the cookhouse until his watch told him that they would have finished. When he reported back the platoon were putting on their jackets, panting and sticky. He fell in and marched with them to the dining hut, where it was stuffy and fairly warm, to hear a lecture on hygiene from the medical officer. It dealt with the danger of flies; the medical officer described with appalling detail the journey of the fly from the latrine to the sugar basin; how its hairy feet carried the germs of dysentery; how it softened its food with contaminated saliva before it ate; how it excreted while it fed. This lecture always went down well. “Of course,” he added rather lamely, “this may not seem very important at the moment”—snow lay heavy on every side of them, “but if we go to the East…”
When the lecture was finished the company fell out for twenty minutes; they smoked and ate chocolate and exchanged gossip, qualifying every noun, verb or adjective with the single, unvarying obscenity which punctuated all their speech like a hiccup; they stamped their feet and chaffed their hands.
“What did the—company commander want?”
“He wanted to send me to a—O.C.T.U.,” said Alastair.
“Well some—are—lucky. When are you off?”
“I’m staying here.”
“Don’t you want to be a—officer?”
“Not—likely,” said Alastair.
When people asked Alastair, as they quite often did, why he did not put in for a commission, he sometimes said, “Snobbery. I don’t want to meet the officers on social terms”; sometimes he said, “Laziness. They work too hard in wartime”; sometimes he said, “The whole thing’s so crazy one might as well go the whole hog.” To Sonia he said, “We’ve had a pretty easy life up to now. It’s probably quite good for one to have a change sometimes.” That was the nearest he ever came to expressing the nebulous satisfaction which lay at the back of his mind. Sonia understood it, but left it undefined. Once, much later, she said to Basil, “I believe I know what Alastair felt all that first winter of the war. It sounds awfully unlike him, but he was a much odder character than anyone knew. You remember that man who used to dress as an Arab and then went into the air force as a private because he thought the British Government had let the Arabs down? I forget his name but there were lots of books about him. Well, I believe Alastair felt like that. You see he’d never done anything for the country and though we were always broke we had lots of money really and lots of fun. I believe he thought that perhaps if we hadn’t had so much fun perhaps there wouldn’t have been any war. Though how he could blame himself for Hitler I never quite saw… At least I do now in a way,” she added. “He went into the ranks as a kind of penance or whatever it’s called that religious people are always supposed to do.”
It was a penance whose austerities, such as they were, admitted of relaxation. After the stand-easy they fell in for platoon training. Alastair’s platoon commander was away that morning. He was sitting on a Court of Enquiry. For three hours he and two other officers heard evidence, and recorded it at length, on the loss of a swill tub from H.Q. lines. At length it was clear either that there was a conspiracy of perjury on the part of all the witnesses, or that the tub had disappeared by some supernatural means independent of human agency; the Court therefore entered a verdict that no negligence was attributable to anyone in the matter and recommended that the loss be made good out of public funds. The President said, “I don’t expect the C.O. will approve that verdict. He’ll send the papers back for fresh evidence to be taken.”
Meanwhile the platoon, left in charge of the sergeant, split up into sections and practiced immediate action on the Bren gun.
“Gun fires two rounds and stops again. What do you look at now, Trumpington?”
“Gas regulator…” Off with the magazine. Press, pull back, press. “Number Two gun clear.”
“What’s he forgotten?”
A chorus, “Butt strap.”
One man said, “Barrel locking nut.” He had said it once, one splendid day, when asked a question, and he had been right when everyone else was stumped, and he had been commended. So now he always said it, like a gambler obstinately backing the same color against a long run of bad luck; it was bound to turn up again one day.
The corporal ignored him. “Quite right, he’s forgotten the butt strap. Down again, Trumpington.”
It was Saturday. Work ended at twelve o’clock; as the platoon commander was away, they knocked off ten minutes earlier and got all the gear stowed so that as soon as the call was sounded off on the bugle they could run straight for their quarters. Alastair had his leave pass for reveille on Monday. He had no need to fetch luggage. He kept everything he needed at home. Sonia was waiting in the car outside the guardroom; they did not go away for week-ends but spent them mostly in bed, in the furnished house which they had taken nearby.
“I was pretty good with the Bren this morning,” said Alastair. “Only one mistake.”
“Darling, you are clever.”
“And I managed to shirk P.T.”
They had packed up ten minutes early too; altogether it had been a very satisfactory morning. And now he could look forward to a day and a half of privacy and leisure.
“I’ve been shopping in Woking,” said Sonia, “and I’ve got all kinds of delicious food and all the weekly papers. There’s a film there we might go and see.”
“We might,” said Alastair doubtfully. “It will probably be full of a lot of—soldiers.”
“Darling, I’ve never before heard words like that spoken. I thought they only came in print, in novels.”
Alastair had a bath and changed into tweeds. (It was chiefly in order that he might wear civilian clothes that he stayed indoors during week-ends; for that and the cold outside and the ubiquitous military.) Then he took a whisky and soda and watched Sonia cooking; they had fried eggs, sausages, bacon and cold plum pudding; after luncheon he lit a large cigar; it was snowing again, piling up round the steel framed windows, shutting out the view of the golf course; there was a huge fire and at tea time they toasted crumpets.
“There’s all this eve
ning, and all tomorrow,” said Sonia. “Isn’t it lovely. You know, Alastair, you and I always seem to manage to have fun, don’t we, wherever we are.”
This was February 1940, in that strangely cozy interlude between peace and war, when there was leave every week-end and plenty to eat and drink and plenty to smoke, when France stood firm on the Maginot Line and the Finns stood firm in Finland, and everyone said what a cruel winter they must be having in Germany. During one of these week-ends Sonia conceived a child.
VI
As Mr. Bentley had foretold, it was not long before Ambrose found himself enrolled on the staff of the Ministry of Information. He was in fact one of the reforms introduced at the first of the many purges. Questions had been asked about the Ministry in the House of Commons; the Press, hampered in so much else, was free to exploit its own grievances. Redress was promised and after a week of intrigue the new appointments were made. Sir Philip Hesketh-Smithers went to the folk-dancing department; Mr. Pauling went to wood-cuts and weaving; Mr. Digby-Smith was given the Arctic circle; Mr. Bentley himself, after a dizzy period in which, for a day, he directed a film about postmen, for another day filed press-cuttings from Istanbul, and for the rest of the week supervised the staff catering, found himself at length back beside his busts in charge of the men-of-letters. Thirty or forty officials retired thankfully into competitive commercial life, and forty or fifty new men and women appeared to take their place; among them, he never quite knew how, Ambrose. The Press, though skeptical of good results, congratulated the public upon maintaining a system of government in which the will of the people was given such speedy effect. The lesson of the muddle at the Ministry of Information—for muddle there undoubtedly was—is not that such things occur under a democracy, but that they are susceptible to remedy, they wrote; the wind of democratic criticism has blown, clear and fresh, through the departments of the Ministry; charges have been frankly made and frankly answered. Our enemies may ponder this portent.
Ambrose’s post as sole representative of Atheism in the religious department was not, at this stage of the war, one of great importance. He was in no position, had he wished it, to introduce statuary into his quarters. He had for his use a single table and a single chair. He shared a room and a secretary with a fanatical young Roman Catholic layman who never tired of exposing discrepancies between Mein Kampf and the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, a bland Nonconformist minister, and a Church of England clergyman who had been brought in to succeed the importer of the mahogany prie-dieu. “We must reorientate ourselves to Geneva,” this cleric said; “the first false step was taken when the Lytton report was shelved.” He argued long and gently, the Roman Catholic argued long and fiercely, while the Nonconformist sat as a bemused umpire between them. Ambrose’s task consisted in representing to British and colonial atheists that Nazism was at heart agnostic with a strong tinge of religious superstition; he envied the lot of his colleagues who had at their finger-tips long authentic summaries of suppressed Sunday Schools, persecuted monks, and pagan Nordic rites. His was uphill work; he served a small and critical public; but whenever he discovered in the pile of foreign newspapers which passed from desk to desk any reference to German church-going, he circulated it to the two or three magazines devoted to his cause. He counted up the number of times the word “God” appeared in Hitler’s speeches and found the sum impressive; he wrote a pointed little article to show that Jew-baiting was religious in origin. He did his best, but time lay heavy on his hands and, more and more, as the winter wore on, he found himself slipping away from his rancorous colleagues, to the more human companionship of Mr. Bentley.