‘If it becomes a question of a war of motion, sir, I don’t know that I should have much experience.’
The Colonel answered:
‘It won’t become a war of motion before I come back. If I ever do come back.’
Tietjens said:
‘Isn’t it rather like a war of motion now, sir?’ It was perhaps the first time in his life he had ever asked for information from a superior in rank – with an implicit belief that he would get an exact answer. The Colonel said:
‘No. This is only falling back on prepared positions. There will be positions prepared for us right back to the sea. If the Staff has done its work properly. If it hasn’t, the war’s over. We’re done, finished, smashed, annihilated, non-existent.’
Tietjens said:
‘But if the great strafe that, according to Division, is due now …’
The Colonel said: ‘What?’ Tietjens repeated his words and added:
‘We might get pushed beyond the next prepared position.’
The Colonel appeared to withdraw his thoughts from a great distance.
‘There isn’t going to be any great strafe,’ he said. He was beginning to add: ‘Division has got… .’ A considerable thump shook the hill behind their backs. The Colonel sat listening without much attention. His eyes gloomily rested on the papers before him. He said, without looking up:
‘Yes, I don’t want my battalion knocked about!’ He went on reading again – the communication from Whitehall. He said: ‘You’ve read this?’ and then:
‘Falling back on prepared positions isn’t the same as moving in the open. You don’t have to do more than you do in a trench-to-trench attack. I suppose you can get your direction by compass all right. Or get someone to, for you.’
Another considerable crump of sound shook the earth, but from a little further away. The Colonel turned the sheet of paper from Whitehall over. Pinned to the back of it was the private note of the Brigadier. He perused this also with gloomy and unsurprised eyes.
‘Pretty stiff, all this,’ he said, ‘you’ve read it? I shall have to go back and see about this.’
He exclaimed:
‘It’s rough luck. I should have liked to leave my battalion to someone that knew it. I don’t suppose you do. Perhaps you do, though.’
An immense collection of fire-irons: all the fire-irons in the world fell just above their heads. The sound seemed to prolong itself in echoes, though of course it could not have; it was repeated.
The Colonel looked upwards negligently. Tietjens proposed to go to see. The Colonel said:
‘No, don’t. Notting will tell us if anything’s wanted… . Though nothing can be wanted!’ Notting was the beady-eyed Adjutant in the adjoining cellar. ‘How could they expect us to keep accounts straight in August 1914? How can they expect me to remember what happened? At the Depot. Then!’ He appeared listless, but without resentment. ‘Rotten luck …’ he said. ‘In the battalion and … with this!’ He rapped the back of his hand on the papers. He looked up at Tietjens.
‘I suppose I could get rid of you; with a bad report,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps I couldn’t … General Campion put you here. You’re said to be his bastard.’
‘He’s my god-father,’ Tietjens said. ‘If you put in a bad report of me I should not protest. That is, if it were on the grounds of lack of experience. I should go to the Brigadier over anything else.’
‘It’s the same thing,’ the Colonel said. ‘I mean a godson. If I had thought you were General Campion’s bastard, I should not have said it… . No; I don’t want to put in a bad report of you. It’s my own fault if you don’t know the battalion. I’ve kept you out of it. I didn’t want you to see what a rotten state the papers are in. They say you’re the devil of a paper soldier. You used to be in a Government office, didn’t you?’
Heavy blows were being delivered to the earth with some regularity on each side of the cellar. It was as if a boxer of the size of a mountain were delivering rights and lefts in heavy alternation. And it made hearing rather difficult.
‘Rotten luck,’ the Colonel said. ‘And McKechnie’s dotty. Clean dotty.’ Tietjens missed some words. He said that he would probably be able to get the paperwork of the battalion straight before the Colonel came back.
The noise rolled downhill like a heavy cloud. The Colonel continued talking and Tietjens, not being very accustomed to his voice, lost a good deal of what he said but, as if in a rift, he did hear:
‘I’m not going to burn my fingers with a bad report on you that may bring a General on my back – to get back McKechnie who’s dotty… . Not fit to …’
The noise rolled in again. Once the Colonel listened to it, turning his head on one side and looking upwards. But he appeared satisfied with what he heard and recommenced his perusal of the Horse Guards letter. He took the pencil, underlined words and then sat idly stabbing the paper with the point.
With every minute Tietjens’ respect for him increased. This man at least knew his job – as an engine-driver does, or the captain of a steam tramp. His nerves might have gone to pieces. They probably had; probably he could not go very far without stimulants: he was probably under bromides now.
And, all things considered, his treatment of Tietjens had been admirable and Tietjens had to revise his view of it. He realised that it was McKechnie who had given him the idea that the Colonel hated him, but he would not have said anything. He was too old a hand in the Army to give Tietjens a handle by saying anything definite… . And he had always treated Tietjens with the sort of monumental deference that, in a Mess, the Colonel should bestow on his chief assistant. Going through a door at meal-times, for instance, if they happened to be side by side, he would motion with his hand for Tietjens to go first, naturally though, taking his proper precedence when Tietjens halted. And here he was, perfectly calm. And quite ready to be instructive.
Tietjens was not calm: he was too much bothered by Valentine Wannop and by the thought that, if the strafe was on, he ought to be seeing about his battalion. And of course, by the bombardment. But the Colonel said, when Tietjens with the aid of signs again made proposals to take a look around:
‘No. Stop where you are. This isn’t the strafe. There is not going to be a strafe. This is only a little extra Morning Hate. You can tell by the noise. That’s only four point twos. There’s nothing really heavy. The really heavies don’t come so fast. They’ll be turning on to the Worcesters now and only giving us one every half-minute… . That’s their game. If you don’t know that, what are you doing here?’ He added: ‘You hear?’ pointing his forefinger to the roof. The noise shifted. It went away to the right as a slow coal-wagon might. He went on:
‘This is your place. Not doing things up above. They’ll come and tell you if they want things. And you’ve got a first-rate Adjutant in Notting and Dunne’s a good man… . The men are all under cover: that’s an advantage in having your strength down to three hundred. There’s dug-outs for all and to spare… . All the same, this is no place for you. Nor for me. This is a young man’s war. We’re old ’uns. Three and a half years of it have done for me. Three and a half months will do for you.’
He looked gloomily at his reflection in the mirror that stood before him.
‘You’re a gone coon!’ he said to it. Then he took it and, holding it for a moment poised at the end of a bare white arm, flung it violently at the rough stones of the wall behind Tietjens. The fragments tinkled to the ground.
‘There’s seven years’ bad luck,’ he said. ‘God take ’em, if they can give me seven years worse than this last I’d find it instructive!’
He looked at Tietjens with infuriated eyes.
‘Look here you!’ he said. ‘You’re an educated man… . What’s the worst thing about this war? What’s the worst thing? Tell me that!’ His chest began to heave. ‘It’s that they won’t let us alone. Never! Not one of us! If they’d let us alone we could fight. But never… . No one! It’s not only the beastly papers of the battalion,
though I’m no good with papers. Never was and never shall be… . But it’s the people at home. One’s own people. God help us, you’d think that when a poor devil was in the trenches they’d let him alone… . Damn it: I’ve had solicitors’ letters about family quarrels when I was in hospital. Imagine that! … Imagine it! I don’t mean tradesmen’s dunnings. But one’s own people. I haven’t even got a bad wife as McKechnie has and they say you have. My wife’s a bit extravagant and the children are expensive. That’s worry enough… . But my father died eighteen months ago. He was in partnership with my uncle. A builder. And they tried to do his estate out of his share of the business and leave my old mother with nothing. And my brother and sister threw the estate into Chancery in order to get back the little bit my father spent on my wife and children. My wife and children lived with my father whilst I was in India… . And out here… . My solicitor says they can get it out of my share: the cost of their keep. He calls it the doctrine of ademption… . Ademption … Doctrine of… . I was better off as a sergeant,’ he added gloomily. ‘But sergeants don’t get let alone. They’ve always got women after them. Or their wives take up with Belgians and they get written to about it. Sergeant Cutts of “D” Company gets an anonymous letter every week about his wife. How’s he to do his duty! But he does. So have I till now… .’ He added with renewed violence:
‘Look here. You’re an educated man, aren’t you? The sort of man that could write a book. You write a book about that. You write to the papers about it. You’d be more use to the Army doing that than being here. I daresay you’re a good enough officer. Old Campion is too keen a commander to stick a rotten officer into this job, god-son or no god-son… . Besides, I don’t believe the whole story about you. If a General wanted to give a soft god-son’s job to a fellow, it would be a soft job and a fat one. He wouldn’t send him here. So take the battalion with my blessing. You won’t worry over it more than I have: the poor bloody Glamorgans.’
So he had his battalion! He drew an immense breath. The bumps began to come back along the line. He figured those shells as being like sparrow-hawks beating along a hedge. They were probably pretty accurate. The Germans were pretty accurate. The trenches were probably being knocked about a good deal, the pretty, pinkish gravel falling about in heaps as it would lie in a park, ready to be spread on paths. He remembered how he had been up on the Montagne Noire, still, thank God, behind where they were now. Why did he thank God? Did he really care where the Army was. Probably! But enough to say ‘thank God’ about? Probably too… . But as long as they kept on at the job did anything matter? Anything else? It was keeping on that mattered. From the Montagne Noire he had seen our shells bursting on a thinnish line in the distance, in shining weather. Each shell existing in a white puff, beautifully. Forward and backward along the line… . Under Messines village. He had felt exhilaration to think that our gunners were making such good practice. Now some Hun on a hill was feeling exhilaration over puffs of smoke in our line. But he, Tietjens, was … Damn it, he was going to make two hundred and fifty quid towards living with Valentine Wannop – when you really could stand up on a hill … anywhere!
The Adjutant, Notting, looked in and said:
‘Brigade wants to know if we’re suffering any, sir?’
The Colonel surveyed Tietjens with irony:
‘Well, what are you going to report?’ he asked… . ‘This officer is taking over from me,’ he said to Notting. Notting’s beady eyes and red-varnished cheeks expressed no emotions.
‘Oh, tell Brigade,’ the Colonel said, ‘that we’re all as happy as sand-boys. We could stand this till Kingdom Come.’ He asked: ‘We aren’t suffering any, are we?’
Notting said: ‘No, not in particular. “C” Company was grumbling that all its beautiful revetments had been knocked to pieces. The sentry near their own dug-out complained that the pebbles in the gravel were nearly as bad as shrapnel.’
‘Well, tell Brigade what I said. With Major Tietjens’ compliments, not mine. He’s in command.’
‘… You may as well make a cheerful impression to begin with,’ he added to Tietjens.
It was then that, suddenly, he burst out with:
‘Look here! Lend me two hundred and fifty quid!’
He remained staring fixedly at Tietjens with an odd air of a man who has just asked a teasing, jocular conundrum… .
Tietjens had recoiled – really half an inch. The man said he was suffering from a loathsome disease: it was being near something dirty. You don’t contract loathsome diseases except from the cheapest kind of women or through being untidy-minded… . The man’s pals had gone back on him. That sort of man’s pals do go back on him! His accounts were all out… . He was in short the sort of swindling, unclean scoundrel to whom one lent money… . Irresistibly!
A crash of the sort that you couldn’t ignore, as is the case with certain claps in thunderstorms, sent a good deal of gravel down their cellar steps. It crashed against their shaky door. They heard Notting come out of his cellar and tell someone to shovel the beastly stuff back again where it had come from.
The Colonel looked up at the roof. He said that had knocked their parapet about a bit. Then he resumed his fixed glaze at Tietjens.
Tietjens said to himself:
‘I’m losing my nerve… . It’s the damned news that Campion is coming… . I’m becoming a wretched, irresolute Johnny.’
The Colonel said:
‘I’m not a beastly sponger. I never borrowed before!’ His chest heaved… . It really expanded and then got smaller again, the orifice in the khaki at his throat contracting. Perhaps he never had borrowed before… .
After all, it didn’t matter what kind of man this was, it was a question of what sort of a man Tietjens was becoming. He said:
‘I can’t lend you the money. I’ll guarantee an overdraft to your agents. For two hundred and fifty.’
Well, then, he remained the sort of man who automatically lent money. He was glad.
The Colonel’s face fell. His martially erect shoulders indeed collapsed. He exclaimed ruefully:
‘Oh, I say, I thought you were the sort one could go to.’
Tietjens said:
‘It’s the same thing. You can draw a cheque on your bank exactly as if I paid the money in.’
The Colonel said:
‘I can? It’s the same thing? You’re sure?’ His questions were like the pleas of a young woman asking you not to murder her.
… He obviously was not a sponger. He was a financial virgin. There could not be a subaltern of eighteen in the whole army who did not know what it meant to have an overdraft guaranteed after a fortnight’s leave… . Tietjens only wished they didn’t. He said:
‘You’ve practically got the money in your hand as you sit there. I’ve only to write the letter. It’s impossible your agents should refuse my guarantee. If they do, I’ll raise the money and send it you.’
He wondered why he didn’t do that last in any case. A year or so ago he would have had no hesitation about overdrawing his account to any extent. Now he had an insupportable objection. Like a hatred!
He said:
‘You’d better let me have your address.’ He added, for his mind was really wandering a little. There was too much talk! ‘I suppose you’ll go to No. IX Red Cross at Rouen for a bit.’
The Colonel sprang to his feet:
‘My God, what’s that?’ he cried out. ‘Me … to No. IX.’
Tietjens exclaimed:
‘I don’t know the procedure. You said you had …’
The other cried out:
‘I’ve got cancer. A big swelling under the armpit.’ He passed his hand over his bare flesh through the opening of his shirt, the long arm disappearing to the elbow. ‘Good God … I suppose when I said my pals had gone back on me you thought I’d asked them for help and been refused. I haven’t… . They’re all killed. That’s the worst way you can go back on a pal, isn’t it! Don’t you understand men’s language?’
He sat heavily down on his bed again.
He said:
‘By Jove, if you hadn’t promised to let me have the money there would have been nothing for me but to make a hole in the water.’
Tietjens said:
‘Well, don’t contemplate it now. Get yourself well looked after. What does Derry say?’
The Colonel again started violently:
‘Derry! The M.O… . Do you think I’d tell him! Or little squits of subalterns? Or any man! You understand now why I wouldn’t take Derry’s beastly pill. How do I know what it mightn’t do to …’
Again he passed his hand under his armpit, his eyes taking on a yearning and calculating expression. He added:
‘I thought it a duty to tell you as I was asking you for a loan. You might not get repaid. I suppose your offer still holds good?’
Drops of moisture had hitherto made beads on his forehead; it now shone, uniformly wet.
‘If you haven’t consulted anybody,’ Tietjens said, ‘you mayn’t have got it. I should have myself seen to right away. My offer still holds good!’
‘Oh, I’ve got it, all right,’ the Colonel answered with an air of infinite sapience. ‘My old man – my governor – had it. Just like that. And he never told a soul till three days before his death. Neither shall I.’
‘I should get it seen to,’ Tietjens maintained. ‘It’s a duty to your children. And the King. You’re too damn good a soldier for the Army to lose.’
‘Nice of you to say so,’ the Colonel said. ‘But I’ve stood too much. I couldn’t face waiting for the verdict.’
… It was no good saying he had faced worse things. He very likely hadn’t, being the man he was.
The Colonel said:
‘Now if I could be any good!’
Tietjens said:
‘I suppose I may go along the trenches now. There’s a wet place …’
He was determined to go along the trenches. He had to … what was it … ‘find a place to be alone with Heaven’. He maintained also his conviction that he must show the men his mealsack of a body, mooning along; but attentive.