For some days now, this mannerism had refused to work. It was as if Napoleon the Great had suddenly found that the device of pinching the ear of a grenadier on parade, had suddenly become ineffective. After the ‘Eh, what!’ like a pistol shot the man to whom it was addressed had not all but shuffled nor had any other men within earshot tittered and whispered to their pals. They had all remained just loutish. And it is a considerable test of courage to remain loutish under the Old Man’s eyes!
All this the C.O. knew by the book, having been through it. And Tietjens knew that the C.O. knew it; and he half suspected that the C.O. knew that he, Tietjens, knew it… . And that the Pals and the Other Ranks also knew: that, in fact, everyone knew that everyone knew. It was like a nightmare game of bridge with all hands exposed and all the players ready to snatch pistols from their hip-pockets.
And Tietjens, for his sins, now held the trump card and was in play!
It was a loathsome position. He loathed having to decide the fate of the C.O. as he loathed the prospect of having to restore the morale of the men – if they survived.
And he was faced now by the conviction that he could do it. If he hadn’t felt himself get his hand in with that dozen of disreputable tramps he would not have felt that he could do it. Then he must have used his moral authority with the doctor to get the Old Man patched up, drugged up, bucked up, sufficiently to carry the battalion at least to the end of the retreat of the next few days. It was obvious that that must be done if there was no one else to take command – no one else that was pretty well certain to handle the men all right. But if there was anyone else to take over didn’t the C.O.’s condition make it too risky to let him remain in authority? Did it, or didn’t it? Did it, or didn’t it?
Looking at McKechnie coolly as if to see where next he should plant his fist he had thus speculated. And he was aware that, at the most dreadful moment of his whole life his besetting sin, as the saying is, was getting back on him. With the dreadful dread of the approaching strafe all over him, with a weight on his forehead, his eyebrows, his heavily labouring chest, he had to take … Responsibility. And to realise that he was a fit person to take responsibility.
He said to McKechnie:
‘The M.O. is the person who has to dispose of the Colonel.’
McKechnie exclaimed:
‘By God, if that drunken little squit dares …’
Tietjens said:
‘Terry will act along the lines of my suggestions. He doesn’t have to take orders from me. But he has said that he will act along the lines of my suggestions. I shall accept the moral responsibility.’
He felt the desire to pant, as if he had just drunk at a draft a too great quantity of liquid. He did not pant. He looked at his wrist-watch. Of the time he had decided to give McKechnie, thirty seconds remained.
McKechnie made wonderful use of the time. The Germans sent over several shells. Not such very long-distance shells either. For ten seconds McKechnie went mad. He was always going mad. He was a bore. If that were only the German customary popping off… . But it was heavier. Unusual obscenities dropped from the lips of McKechnie. There was no knowing where the German projectiles were going. Or aimed at. A steam laundry in Bailleul as like as not. He said:
‘Yes! Yes! Aranjuez!’
The tiny subaltern had peeped again, with his comic hat, round the corner of the pinkish gravel buttress… . A good, nervous boy. Imagining that the fact that he had reported had not been noticed! The gravel certainly looked more pink now the sun was come up … It was rising on Bemerton! Or perhaps not so far to the west yet. The parsonage of George Herbert, author of Sweet day so cool, so calm, so bright, the bridal of the earth and sky!
It was odd where McKechnie who was still shouting got his words for unnatural vice. He had been Latin Prize Man. But he was probably quite pure. The words very likely meant nothing to him… . As to the Tommies! … Then, why did they use them?
The German artillery thumped on! Heavier than the usual salvoes with which methodically they saluted the dawn. But there were no shells falling in that neighbourhood. So it might not be the barrage opening the Great Strafe! Very likely they were being visited by some little German Prince and wanted to show him what shooting was. Or by Field Marshal Count von Brunkersdorf! Who had ordered them to shoot down the chimney of the Bailleul steam laundry. Or it might be sheer irresponsibility such as distinguished all gunners. Few Germans were imaginative enough to be irresponsible, but no doubt their gunners were more imaginative than other Germans.
He remembered being up in the artillery O.P. – what the devil was its name? – before Albert. On the Albert–Bécourt–Bécordel Road! What the devil was its name? A gunner had been looking through his glasses. He had said to Tietjens: ‘Look at that fat! …’ And through the glasses lent him, Tietjens had seen, on a hillside in the direction of Martinpuich, a fat Hun, in shirt and trousers, carrying in his right hand a food tin from which he was feeding himself with his left. A fat, lousy object, suggesting an angler on a quiet day. The gunner had said to Tietjens:
‘Keep your glass on him!’
And they had chased that miserable German about that naked hillside, with shells, for ten minutes. Whichever way he bolted, they put a shell in front of him. Then they let him go. His action, when he had realised that they were really attending to him, had been exactly that of a rabbit dodging out of the wheat the reapers have just reached. At last he just lay down. He wasn’t killed. They had seen him get up and walk off later. Still carrying his bait can!
His antics had afforded those gunners infinite amusement. It afforded them almost more when all the German artillery on that front, imagining that God knew what was the matter, had awakened and plastered heaven and earth and everything between for a quarter of an hour with every imaginable kind of missile. And had then, abruptly, shut up. Yes … Irresponsible people, gunners!
The incident had really occurred because Tietjens had happened to ask that gunner how much he imagined it had cost in shells to smash to pieces an indescribably smashed field of about twenty acres that lay between Bazentin-le-petit and Mametz Wood. The field was unimaginably smashed, pulverised, powdered… . The gunner had replied that with shells from all the forces employed it might have cost three million sterling. Tietjens asked how many men the gunner imagined might have been killed there. The gunner said he didn’t begin to know. None at all, as like as not! No one was very likely to have been strolling about there for pleasure, and it hadn’t contained any trenches. It was just a field. Nevertheless, when Tietjens had remarked that in that case two Italian labourers with a steam plough could have pulverised that field about as completely for, say, thirty shillings, the gunner had taken it quite badly. He had made his men poop off after that inoffensive Hun with the bait can, just to show what artillery can do.
… At that point Tietjens had remarked to McKechnie:
‘For my part, I shall advise the M.O. to recommend that the Colonel should be sent back on sick leave for a couple of months. It is within his power to do that.’
McKechnie had exhausted all his obscene expletives. He was thus sane. His jaw dropped:
‘Send the C.O. back!’ he exclaimed lamentably. ‘At the very moment when …’
Tietjens exclaimed:
‘Don’t be an ass. Or don’t imagine that I’m an ass. No one is going to reap any glory in this Army. Here and now!’
McKechnie said:
‘But what price the money? Command pay! Nearly four quid a day. You could do with two-fifty quid at the end of his two months!’
Not so very long ago it would have seemed impossible that any man could speak to him about either his private financial affairs or his intimate motives.
He said:
‘I have obvious responsibilities …’
‘Some say,’ McKechnie went on, ‘that you’re a b—y millionaire. One of the richest men in England. Giving coal mines to duchesses. So they say. Some say you’re such a pauper that you hire your
wife out to generals… . Any generals. That’s how you get your jobs.’
To that Tietjens had had to listen before… .
Max Redoubt … It had come suddenly on to his tongue – just as, before, the name of Bemerton had come, belatedly. The name of the artillery observation post between Albert and Bécourt-Bécordel had been Max Redoubt! During the intolerable waitings of that half-forgotten July and August the name had been as familiar on his lips as … say, as Bemerton itself… . When I forget thee, oh, my Bemerton … or, oh, my Max Redoubt … may my right hand forget its cunning! … The unforgettables! … Yet he had forgotten them!
If only for a time he had forgotten them. Then, his right hand might forget its cunning. If only for a time… . But even that might be disastrous, might come at a disastrous moment… . The Germans had suppressed themselves. Perhaps they had knocked down the laundry chimney. Or hit some G.S. wagons loaded with coal… . At any rate, that was not the usual morning strafe. That was to come. Sweet day so cool – began again.
McKechnie hadn’t suppressed himself. He was going to get suppressed. He had just been declaring that Tietjens had not displayed any chivalry in not reporting the C.O. if he, Tietjens, considered him to be drunk – or even chronically alcoholic. No chivalry… .
This was like a nightmare! … No it wasn’t. It was like fever when things appear stiffly unreal… . And exaggeratedly real! Stereoscopic, you might say!
McKechnie with an accent of sardonic hate begged to remind Tietjens that if he considered the C.O. to be a drunkard he ought to have him put under arrest. King’s Regs. exacted that. But Tietjens was too cunning. He meant to have that two-fifty quid. He might be a poor man and need it. Or a millionaire, and mean. They said that was how millionaires became millionaires: by snapping up trifles of money that, God knows, would be godsends to people like himself, McKechnie.
It occurred to Tietjens that two hundred and fifty pounds after this was over, might be a godsend to himself in a manner of speaking. And then he thought:
‘Why the devil shouldn’t I earn it?’
What was he going to do? After this was over.
And it was going over. Every minute the Germans were not advancing they were losing. Losing the power to advance… . Now, this minute! It was exciting.
‘No!’ McKechnie said. ‘You’re too cunning. If you got poor Bill cashiered for drunkenness you’d have no chance of commanding. They’d put in another pukka colonel. As a stop-gap, whilst Bill’s on sick leave, you’re pretty certain to get it. That’s why you’re doing the damnable thing you’re doing.’
Tietjens had a desire to go and wash himself. He felt physically dirty.
Yet what McKechnie said was true enough! It was true!
… The mechanical impulse to divest himself of money was so strong that he began to say:
‘In that case …’ He was going to finish: ‘I’ll get the damned fellow cashiered.’ But he didn’t.
He was in a beastly hole. But decency demanded that he shouldn’t act in panic. He had a mechanical, normal panic that made him divest himself of money. Gentlemen don’t earn money. Gentlemen, as a matter of fact, don’t do anything. They exist. Perfuming the air like Madonna lilies. Money comes into them as air through petals and foliage. Thus the world is made better and brighter. And, of course, thus political life can be kept clean! … So you can’t make money.
But look here: This unit was the critical spot of the whole affair. The weak spots of Brigade, Division, Army, British Expeditionary Force, Allied Forces… . If the Hun went through there … Fuit Ilium et magna gloria… . Not much glory!
He was bound to do his best for that unit. That poor b—y unit. And for the b—y knockabout comedians to whom he had lately promised tickets for Drury Lane at Christmas… . The poor devils had said they preferred the Shoreditch Empire or the old Balham. That was typical of England. The Lane was the locus classicus of the race, but those rag-time … heroes, call them heroes! – preferred Shoreditch and Balham!
An immense sense of those grimy, shuffling, grouching, dirty-nosed pantomime-supers came over him and an intense desire to give them a bit of luck, and he said:
‘Captain McKechnie, you can fall out. And you will return to duty. Your own duty. In proper head-dress.’
McKechnie, who had been talking, stopped with his head on one side like a listening magpie. He said:
‘What’s this? What’s this?’ stupidly. Then he remarked:
‘Oh, well, I suppose if you’re in command …’
Tietjens said:
‘It’s usual to say “sir”, when addressing a senior officer on parade. Even if you don’t belong to his unit.’
McKechnie said:
‘Don’t belong! … I don’t … To the poor b—y old pals! …’
Tietjens said:
‘You’re attached to Division Headquarters, and you’ll get back to it! Now! At once! … And you won’t come back here. Not while I’m in command… . Fall out… .’
That was really a duty – a feudal duty! – performed for the sake of the rag-time fellows. They wanted to be rid – and at once! – of dipsomaniacs in command of that unit and having the disposal of their lives… . Well, the moment McKechnie had uttered the words: ‘To the poor b—y old pals’, an illuminating flash had presented Tietjens with the conviction that, alone, the C.O. was too damn good an officer to appear a dipsomaniac, even if he were observably drunk quite often. But, seen together with this fellow McKechnie, the two of them must present a formidable appearance of being alcoholic lunatics!
The rest of the poor b—y old pals didn’t really any more exist. They were a tradition – of ghosts! Four of them were dead: four in hospital, two awaiting court martial for giving worthless cheques. The last of them, practically, if you excepted McKechnie, was the collection of putrescence and rags at that moment hanging in the wire apron… . The whole complexion of Headquarters would change with the going of McKechnie.
He considered with satisfaction that he would command a very decent lot. The Adjutant was so inconspicuous you did not even notice him. Beady-eyed, like a bird! Always preoccupied. And little Aranjuez, the signalling officer! And a fat fellow called Dunne, who had represented Intelligence since the Night Before Last! ‘A’ Company Commander was fifty, thin as a pipe-stem, and bald; ‘B’ was a good, fair boy, of good family; ‘C’ and ‘D’ were subalterns, just out. But clean… . Satisfactory!
What a handful of frail grass with which to stop an aperture in the dam of – of the Empire! Damn the Empire! It was England! It was Bemerton Parsonage that mattered! What did we want with an Empire! It was only a jerry-building Jew like Disraeli that could have provided us with that jerry-built name! The Tories said they had to have someone to do their dirty work… . Well, they’d had it!
He said to McKechnie:
‘There’s a fellow called Bemer – I mean Griffiths, O Nine – Griffiths, I understand you’re interested in for the Divisional Follies. I’ll send him along to you as soon as he’s had his breakfast. He’s first-rate with the cornet.’
McKechnie said:
‘Yes, sir,’ saluted rather limply and took a step.
That was McKechnie all over. He never brought his mad fists to a crisis. That made him still more of a bore. His face would be distorted like that of a wildcat in front of its kittens’ hole in a stone wall. But he became the submissive subordinate. Suddenly! Without rhyme or reason!
Tiring people! Without manners! … They would presumably run the world now. It would be a tiresome world.
McKechnie, however, was saluting. He held a sealed envelope, rather small and crumpled, as if from long carrying. He was talking in a controlled voice after permission asked. He desired Tietjens to observe that the seal on the envelope was unbroken. The envelope contained ‘The Sonnet’.
McKechnie must, then, have gone mad! His eyes, if his voice was quiet, though with an Oxford-Cockney accent – his prune-coloured eyes were certainly mad… . Hot prunes!
Men shuffled along the trenches, carrying by rope-handles very heavy, lead-coloured wooden cases; two men to each case. Tietjens said:
‘You’re “D” Company … Get a move on!’
McKechnie, however, wasn’t mad. He was only pointing out that he could pit his Intellect and his Latinity against those of Tietjens; that he could do it when the great day came!
The envelope, in fact, contained a sonnet. A sonnet Tietjens, for distraction, had written to rhymes dictated by McKechnie … for distraction in a moment of stress.
Several moments of stress they had been in together. It ought to have formed a bond between them. It hadn’t… . Imagine having a bond with a Highland-Oxford Cockney!
Or perhaps it had! There was certainly the sonnet. Tietjens had written it in two and a half minutes, he remembered, to stave off the thought of his wife who was then being a nuisance… . Two and a half minutes of forgetting Sylvia! A bit of luck! … But McKechnie had insisted on regarding it as a challenge. A challenge to his Latinity. He had then and there undertaken to turn that sonnet into Latin hexameters in two minutes. Or perhaps four… .
But things had got in the way. A fellow called O Nine Morgan had got himself killed over their feet. In the hut. Then they had been busy with the Draft!
Apparently McKechnie had sealed up that sonnet in an envelope. In that envelope. Then and there. Apparently McKechnie had been inspired with a blind, Celtic, snorting rage to prove that he was better as a Latinist than Tietjens as a sonneteer. Apparently he was still so inspired. He was mad to engage in competition with Tietjens.
It was perhaps that that made him not quite mad. He kept sane in order to be fit for this competition. He was now repeating, holding out the envelope, seal upwards:
‘I suppose you believe I have not read your sonnet, sir. I suppose you believe I have not read your sonnet, sir… . To prepare myself to translate it more quickly.’
Tietjens said:
‘Yes! No! … I don’t care.’
He couldn’t tell the fellow that the idea of a competition was loathsome to him. Any sort of competition was loathsome to Tietjens. Even competitive games. He liked playing tennis. Real tennis. But he very rarely played because he couldn’t get fellows to play with, that beating would not be disagreeable… . And it would be loathsome to be drawn into any sort of competition with this Prize Man… . They were moving very slowly along the trench, McKechnie retreating sideways and holding out the seal.