“Look.”
Guy read: “POLLITICAL PRISNER” and asked with genuine curiosity:
“Did you pass your exams at Edinburgh, Miss Carmichael?”
“Never. I was far too busy with more important things.”
She began vigorously rubbing the cloth with breadcrumbs and suddenly, disconcertingly, assumed party manners saying:
“I miss the music so. All the greatest masters come to Edinburgh, you know.”
While she wrote, Guy had managed to remove the venison from his mouth to his plate. He took a draft of claret and said clearly:
“I wonder if you came across a friend of mine at the University. Peter Ellis—he teaches Egyptology or something like that. He used to seethe awfully when I knew him.”
“He did not seethe with us.”
The laird had finished his plateful and was ready to resume the subject of explosives.
“They need practice,” he roared, interrupting his wife and Tommy who were discussing submarines.
“We all do, I expect,” said Tommy.
“I will show them just the place. I own the hotel, of course,” he added without apparent relevance.
“You think it spoils the view? I’m inclined to agree with you.”
“Only one thing wrong with the hotel. Do you know what?”
“The heating?”
“It doesn’t pay. And d’you know why not? No bathing beach. Send those sappers of yours up to me and I can show them the very place for their explosion. Shift a few tons of rock and what do you find? Sand. There was sand there in my father’s time. It’s marked as sand on the Survey and the Admiralty chart. But part of the cliff came down; all it needs is just lifting up again.”
The laird scooped the air as though building an imaginary sand-castle.
With the pudding came the nine-o’clock news. A wireless-set was carried to the center of the table, and the butler tried to adjust it.
“Lies,” said Miss Carmichael. “All lies.”
There was a brief knock-about turn such as Scots often provide for their English guests, between the laird and his butler, each displaying feudal loyalty, independence, pure uncontrolled crossness and ignorance of the workings of modern science.
Sounds emerged but nothing which Guy could identify as human speech.
“Lies,” repeated Miss Carmichael. “All lies.”
Presently the machine was removed and replaced with apples.
“Something about Khartoum, wasn’t it?” said Tommy.
“It will be retaken,” announced Miss Carmichael.
“But it was never lost,” said Guy.
“It was lost to Kitchener and the Gatling-gun,” said Miss Carmichael.
“Mugg served under Kitchener,” said Mrs. Campbell.
“There was something I never liked about the fellow. Something fishy, if you know what I mean.”
“It is a terrible thing,” said Miss Carmichael, “to see the best of our lads marched off, generation after generation, to fight the battles of the English for them. But the end is upon them. When the Germans land in Scotland, the glens will be full of marching men come to greet them, and the professors themselves at the universities will seize the towns. Mark my words, don’t be caught on Scottish soil on that day.”
“Katie, go to bed,” said Colonel Campbell.
“Have I gone too far again?”
“You have.”
“May I take some apples with me?”
“Two.”
She took them and rose from her chair.
“Good night, all,” she said jauntily.
“It was those exams,” said Mrs. Campbell. “Far too advanced for a girl. I will leave you to your port,” and she followed Miss Carmichael out, perhaps to chide her, perhaps to calm her.
Colonel Campbell was not by habit a drinker of port. The glasses were very small indeed and it did not need the seventh child of a seventh child to detect that the wine had been decanted for some time. Two wasps floated there. The laird, filling his own glass first, neatly caught one of them. He held it up to his eye and studied it with pride.
“It was there when the war began,” he said solemnly. “And I was hoping it could lie there until we pledged our victory. Port, you understand, being more a matter of ceremony here than of enjoyment. Gentlemen, the King.”
They swallowed the noxious wine. At once Mugg said:
“Campbell, the decanter!”
Heavy cut-glass goblets were set before the three men; a trumpery little china jug of water and a noble decanter of almost colorless, slightly clouded liquid.
“Whisky,” said Mugg with satisfaction. “Let me propose a toast. The Coldstream, the Halberdiers and the Sappers.”
They sat round the table for an hour or more. They talked of military matters with as much accord as was possible between a veteran of Spion Cop and tyros of 1940. They reverted in their talk, every few minutes, to the subject of high explosive. Then Mrs. Campbell returned to them. They stood up. She said:
“Oh dear, how quickly the evening goes. I’ve barely seen anything of you. But I suppose you have to get up so early in the mornings.”
Mugg put the stopper in the whisky decanter.
Before Tommy or Guy could speak, the piper was among them. They mouthed their farewells and followed him to the front door. As they got into their car they saw a storm-lantern waving wildly from an upper window. Tommy made a gesture of taking a salute, the piper turned about and blew away up the corridor. The great doors shut. The lantern continued to wave and in the silence came the full and friendly challenge. “Heil Hitler.”
Tommy and Guy did not exchange a word on the road home. Instead they laughed, silently at first, then loud and louder. Their driver later reported that he had never seen the colonel like it, and as for the new Copper Heel, he was “well away.” He added that his own entertainment below stairs had been “quite all right too.”
Tommy and Guy were indeed inebriated, not solely, nor in the main, by what they had drunk. They were caught up and bowled over together by that sacred wind which once blew freely over the young world. Cymbals and flutes rang in their ears. The grim Isle of Mugg was full of scented breezes, momentarily uplifted, swept away and set down under the stars of the Aegean.
Men who have endured danger and privation together often separate and forget one another when their ordeal is ended. Men who have loved the same woman are blood brothers even in enmity; if they laugh together, as Tommy and Guy laughed that night, orgiastically, they seal their friendship on a plane rarer and loftier than normal human intercourse.
When they reached the hotel Tommy said:
“Thank God you were there, Guy.”
They moved from the heights of fantasy into an unusual but essentially prosaic scene.
The hall had become a gaming-house. On the second day of the Commando’s arrival Ivor Claire had ordered the local carpenter, a grim Calvinist with an abhorrence of cards, to make a baccarat shoe on the pretext that it was an implement of war. He now sat at the central table, which was now neatly chalked into sections, paying out a bank. At other tables there was a game of poker and two couples of back-gammon. Tommy and Guy made for the table of drinks.
“Twenty pounds in the bank!”
Without turning round Tommy called “Banco,” filled his glass and joined the large table.
Bertie from the poker table asked Guy:
“Want a hand? Half-crown ante and five-bob raise.”
But the cymbals and flutes were still sounding faintly in Guy’s ears. He shook his head and wandered dreamily upstairs to a dreamless sleep.
“Tight,” said Bertie. “Tight as a drum.”
“Good luck to him.”
Next morning at breakfast Guy was told: “Ivor cleaned up more than one hundred and fifty pounds last night.”
“They weren’t playing a big game when I saw them.”
“Things always tend to get bigger when Colonel Tommy is about.”
&nbs
p; It was still dark outside at breakfast-time. The heating apparatus was not working yet; the newly rekindled peat fire sent a trickle of smoke into the dining-room. It was intensely cold.
Civilian waitresses attended them. Presently one of them approached Guy.
“Lieutenant Crouchback?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a soldier outside asking for you.”
Guy went to the door and found the driver from last night. There was something indefinably cheeky about the man’s greeting.
“I found these in the car, sir. I don’t know whether they are the colonel’s or yours.”
He handed Guy a bundle of printed papers. Guy examined the top sheet and read, in large letters:
CALL TO SCOTLAND
ENGLANDS PERIL IS SCOTLANDS HOPE
WHY HITLER MUST WIN
This, he realized, was Katie’s doing.
“Have you ever seen anything like these before?”
“Oh, yes, sir. All the billets are full of them.”
“Thank you,” Guy said: “I’ll take charge.”
The driver saluted. Guy turned about and his feet slipped on the frozen surface of the steps. He dropped the papers, breaking the frail bond of knitting-wool which held them together and saved himself from falling only by clutching at the departing driver. A great gust of wind came as they stood embracing and bore away the treasonable documents, scattering them high in the darkness.
“Thank you,” said Guy again and returned more cautiously indoors.
The regimental orderly room was upstairs, two communicating bedrooms. Gray dawn had broken when Guy went to report officially to his commanding officer.
Bertie, the large Grenadier whom Eddie had described as being “in a sort of way” the adjutant, was in the outer room.
“Oh, hullo. D’you want to see Colonel Tommy? Come in.”
Guy saluted at the door, as he had been taught in the Halberdiers, marched to the center of Tommy’s table and stood to attention until Tommy said: “Good morning, Guy. That was a surprisingly funny evening we had last night,” and then to Bertie: “Have you found out anything about this officer, Bertie?”
“Yes, colonel.”
Tommy took a paper from his adjutant.
“Where was it?”
“On my table, colonel.”
Tommy read the letter carefully. “See the reference CP oblique RX? That’s the same reference as they used when they sent Kong here if I’m not mistaken. It looks as though H.O.O. H.Q. have got into a muddle with their filing system. We at least leave our bumf handy on the table.” He flicked the paper into a wire tray.
“Well, Guy, you aren’t to be one of us, I’m afraid. You’re the personal property of Colonel Ritchie-Hook, Royal Halberdiers, sent here until he’s passed fit. I’m sorry. I could have used you to take over Ian’s section. But it’s not fair on the men to keep switching officers about. We’ll have to get a proper replacement for Ian. The question now is, what’s to be done with you?”
In the thirteen years of Guy’s acquaintance with Tommy he had spent few hours in his company, yet their relationship was peculiar. He had known him first as an agreeable friend of his wife’s; then, when momentarily she took him as her lover, as some kind of elemental which had mindlessly sent all Guy’s world spinning in fragments; later, without bitterness, as an odd uncomfortable memory, someone to be avoided for fear of embarrassment; Tommy had lost as much as he by his adventure. Then the war came, collecting, as it seemed, the scattered jigsaw of the past and setting each piece back into its proper place. At Bellamy’s he and Tommy were amiable acquaintances, as they had been years before. Last night they had been close friends. Today they were colonel and subaltern.
“Is there no chance of the Halberdiers seconding me to you?”
“None by the look of this letter. Besides, you’re getting a bit long in the tooth for the kind of job we’re going to do. Do you think you could climb those cliffs?”
“I could try.”
“Any damn fool can try. That’s why I’m five officers short. Do you think you could handle the office bumf better than Bertie?”
“I am sure he could, colonel,” said Bertie.
Tommy looked at them both sadly. “What I want is an administrative officer. An elderly fellow who knows all the ropes and can get round the staff. Bertie doesn’t fit; I’m afraid you don’t either.”
Suddenly Guy remembered Jumbo.
“I think I’ve got the very thing for you, colonel,” he said, and described Jumbo in detail.
When he finished Tommy said: “Bertie, go and get him. People like that are joining the Home Guard in hundreds. Catch him before they do. He’ll have to come down in rank, of course. If he’s all you say he is, he’ll know how to do it. He can transfer to the navy or something and come here as an R.N.V.R. Lieutenant. For Christ’s sake, Bertie, why are you standing there?”
“I don’t know how to fetch him, colonel.”
“All right, go out to C Troop and take over Ian’s section. Guy, you’re assistant adjutant. Go and get your man. Don’t stand there like Bertie. See the harbormaster, get a life-boat, get moving.”
“I’ve also got a three-ton lorry, shall I bring that?”
“Yes, of course. Wait.”
Guy recognized the look of the professional soldier, as he had seen it in Jumbo, overclouding Tommy’s face. The daemon of caution by which the successful are led, was whispering: “Don’t go too far. You won’t get away with a lorry.”
“No,” he said. “Leave the lorry and bring the naval candidate.”
Six
Happy Warriors
I
Neither character nor custom had fitted Trimmer to the life of a recluse. For a long time now he had been lying low doing nothing to call himself to the notice of his superiors. He had not reported the condition of his piece of artillery. So far there had been no complaints. His little detachment were well content; Trimmer alone repined as every day his need for feminine society became keener. He was in funds, for he was not admitted to the gambling sessions at the hotel. He was due for leave and at last he took it, seeking what he called “the lights.”
Glasgow in November 1940 was not literally a ville lumière. Fog and crowds gave the black-out a peculiar density. Trimmer, on the afternoon of his arrival, went straight from the train to the station hotel. Here, too, were fog and crowds. All its lofty halls and corridors were heaped with luggage and thronged by transitory soldiers and sailors. There was a thick, shifting mob at the reception office. To everybody the girl at the counter replied: “Reserved rooms only. If you come back after eight there may be some cancellations.”
Trimmer struggled to the front, leered and asked: “Have ye no a wee room for a Scottish laddie?”
“Come back after eight. There may be a cancellation.”
Trimmer gave her a wink and she seemed just perceptibly responsive, but the thrust of other desperate and homeless men made further flirtation impossible.
With his bonnet on the side of his head, his shepherd’s crook in his hand and a pair of major’s crowns on his shoulders (he had changed them for his lieutenant’s stars in the train lavatory), Trimmer began to saunter through the ground floor. There were men everywhere. Of the few women each was the center of a noisy little circle of festivity, or else huddled with her man in a gloom of leave-taking. Waiters were few. Everywhere he saw heads turned and faces of anxious entreaty. Here and there a more hopeful party banged the table and impolitely shouted: “We want service.”
But Trimmer was undismayed. He found it all very jolly after his billet on Mugg and experience had taught him that anyone who really wants a woman, finds one in the end.
He passed on with all the panache of a mongrel among the dustbins, tail waving, ears cocked, nose a-quiver. Here and there in his passage he attempted to insinuate himself into one or other of the heartier groups, but without success. At length he came to some steps and the notice: CHATEAU de MADRID. Restauran
t de première ordre.
Trimmer had been to this hotel once or twice before but he had never penetrated into what he knew was the expensive quarter. He took his fun where he found it, preferably in crowded places. Tonight would be different. He strolled down rubber-lined carpet and was at once greeted at the foot of the stairs by a head waiter.
“Bon soir, monsieur. Monsieur has engaged his table?”
“I was looking for a friend.”
“How large will monsieur’s party be?”
“Two, if there is a party. I’ll just sit here a while and have a drink.”
“Pardon, monsieur. It is not allowed to serve drinks here except to those who are dining. Upstairs…”
The two men looked at one another, fraud to fraud. They had both knocked about a little. Neither was taken in by the other. For a moment Trimmer was tempted to say: “Come off it. Where did you get that French accent? The Mile End Road or the Gorbals?”
The waiter was tempted to say: “This isn’t your sort of place, chum. Hop it.”
In the event Trimmer said: “I shall certainly dine here if my friend turns up. You might give me a look at the menu while I have my cocktail.”
And the head waiter said: “Tout suite, monsieur.”
Another man deprived Trimmer of his bonnet and staff.
He sat at the cocktail bar. The decoration here was more trumpery than in the marble and mahogany halls above. It should have been repainted and re-upholstered that summer, but war had intervened. It wore the air of a fashion magazine, once stiff and shiny, which too many people had handled. But Trimmer did not mind. His acquaintance with fashion magazines had mostly been in tattered copies.
Trimmer looked about and saw that one chair only was occupied. Here in the corner was what he sought, a lonely woman. She did not look up and Trimmer examined her boldly. He saw a woman equipped with all the requisites for attention, who was not trying to attract. She was sitting still, looking at the half-empty glass on her table and she was quite unaware of Trimmer’s brave bare knees and swinging sporran. She was, Trimmer judged, in her early thirties; her clothes—and Trimmer was something of a judge—were unlike anything worn by the ladies of Glasgow. Less than two years ago they had come from a grand couturier. She was not exactly Trimmer’s type but he was ready to try anything that evening. He was inured to rebuffs.