He tossed something out of the further darkness into the darkness where Guy stood. It passed for a moment through the candle light, hit Guy on the chest and fell to the ground.
“Butter fingers,” said the laird. “That’s dynamite. Didn’t know I had any left. Throw it back, there’s a good fellow.”
Guy groped and at last found the damp paper-wrapped cylinder. He held it out cautiously.
“That won’t hurt you. Thousand-to-one chance of trouble with dynamite. Not like some things I’ve had in my time.”
They turned to the door. Guy was sweating in the bitter cold. At last they were in the open air, between the walls of snow. The door was locked.
“Well,” said the laird, “I’ve let you spy out the poverty of the land. You understand now why I’m appealing for help. Now let me show you some of the things that need doing.”
They walked for two hours, examining falls of rock, derelict buildings, blocked drains, tree stumps and streams which needed damming.
“I couldn’t get the ranker fellow really interested. I don’t suppose he ever caught a fish in his life.”
For every problem the laird had a specific, drawn from a simple range of high or low explosive.
When they parted the laird seemed to wait for thanks, as might an uncle who has been round Madame Tussaud’s with a nephew and put himself out to make the tour amusing.
“Thank you,” said Guy.
“Glad you enjoyed it. I shall expect to hear from your colonel.”
They were standing at the castle gates.
“By the way,” said the laird. “My niece, whom you met the other evening. She doesn’t know about the magazine. It’s not really any business of hers. She’s just here on a visit.” He paused and regarded Guy with his fine old blue, blank eyes and then added, “Besides she might waste it, you know.”
But the prodigies of the island were not yet exhausted.
As Guy returned to the hotel, he paused to observe a man with a heavy load on his back who stood on the edge of the sea, bent double among the rocks and clawing at them, it appeared, with both hands. He rose when he saw Guy, and advanced towards him carrying a dripping mass of weed; a tall wild man, hatless and clothed in a suit of roughly dressed leather; his gray beard spread in the wind like a baroque prophet’s; the few exposed portions of skin were as worn and leathery as his trousers; he wore gold-rimmed pince-nez and spoke in the accents of Mugg but in precise academic tones.
“Do I, perhaps, address Colonel Blackhouse?”
“No,” said Guy. “No, not at all. Colonel Blackhouse is in London.”
“He is expecting me. I arrived this morning. The journey took me longer than I expected. I came north on my bicycle and ran into some very rough weather. I was just getting my lunch before making myself known. Can I offer you some?”
He held out the seaweed.
“Thank you,” said Guy. “No, I am just going to the hotel. You must be Dr. Glendening-Rees!”
“Of course.” He filled his mouth with weed and chewed happily, regarding Guy with fatherly interest. “Lunch at the hotel?” he said. “You won’t find hotels on the battlefield, you know.”
“I suppose not.”
“Bully beef,” said the doctor. “Biscuit, stewed tea. Poison. I was in the first war. I know. Nearly ruined my digestion for life. That’s why I’ve devoted myself to my subject.” He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of large limpets. “Try these. Just picked them. Every bit as agreeable as oysters and much safer. There’s everything a man can want here,” he said, gazing fondly at the desolate foreshore. “A rare banquet. I can warrant your men will miss it when they get inland. Things aren’t made quite so easy for them there, particularly at this time of year. Not much showing above ground. You have to grub for it and know what you’re looking for. It’s all a matter of having a flair. The young roots of the heather, for instance, are excellent with a little oil and salt, but get a bit of bog myrtle mixed with them and you’re done. I don’t doubt we can train them.”
He sucked greedily at the limpets.
“I’m attached to headquarters. We heard you were coming. The colonel will be very sorry to miss you.”
“Oh, I can start without him. I have a schedule prepared. Now don’t let me keep you. Go along to your hotel lunch. I shall be a little time here. One of the lessons you will have to learn is to eat slowly in the natural, rational way. Where shall I find someone in authority?”
“At the hotel”—it was not a word to placate Dr. Glendening-Rees—“I’m afraid.”
“There were no hotels in Gallipoli.”
*
Some two hours later, when he had completed his natural and rational luncheon, Dr. Glendening-Rees sat opposite Jumbo and Guy in the regimental office, explaining his plan of action.
“I shall want a demonstration squad from you. Half a dozen men will be enough at this stage. Pick them at random. I don’t want the strongest or the youngest or the fittest—just a cross-section. We will be out five days. The essential thing is to make a thorough inspection first. My last experiment was ruined by bad discipline. The men were loaded with concealed food. Their officer even had a bottle of whisky. As a result their whole diet was unbalanced and instead of slowly learning to enjoy natural foods, they broke camp at night, killed a sheep and made themselves thoroughly sick. The only supplement they can possibly need is a little olive oil and barley sugar. I shall keep that and dole it out if I detect any deficiency in the roots. At the end of five days I suggest we hold a little tug-of-war between my squad and six men who have been normally victualed and I’ll guarantee my men give a good account of themselves.”
“Yes,” said Jumbo. “Yes. That should be most interesting. A pity the C.O. isn’t here.”
“No doubt he will be here to see the tug-of-war. I’ve been studying the map of Mugg. It is ideal for our purpose. On the west coast there is a large tract that seems quite uninhabited. There will be no temptation for them to pilfer from farms. Eggs, for instance, would be fatal to the whole conception. I have a full training routine worked out for them—marching, P.T., digging. They will get invaluable experience in making a snow bivouac. Nothing more snug if you go the right way about it.”
“Well,” said Jumbo. “The thing to do is just to stand by, eh? The C.O. will be back tomorrow or the next day.”
“Oh, but I’ve got my orders, direct from H.O.O. I’m to start ‘forthwith.’ Didn’t they notify you?”
“We had a chit to say you were coming.”
“This, was it not?” The doctor produced from his fleecy bosom a carbon copy of the letter that lay in the pending tray. “Correct me if I am wrong, but I read that as a direct order to give me every facility for my research.”
“Yes,” conceded Jumbo. “It could be read in that sense. Why not go out and make a recce on your own? I’ve never been across to the west coast. Map may be out of date, you know. Often are. I daresay the whole place has been built over now. Why not take a few days off and make sure?”
Jumbo was replete with unnatural and irrational foods; he was drowsy and no match for an opponent exhilarated with rare marine salts and essences.
“That’s not how I read my orders,” said the doctor, “or yours.”
Jumbo looked anxiously at Guy. “I can’t see any of the troop-leaders playing on this one.”
“Except Major Graves.”
“Yes, it’s a case for the Specialists, plainly.”
“For Trimmer and the sappers.”
“They constitute a cross-section?”
“Yes, Dr. Glendening-Rees. I think that would be a very fair description.”
*
Major Graves seemed to take a fierce relish in relaying these instructions.
“From tomorrow you cease to be under my command. Your section will report in full marching order to a civilian medico, under whose orders you will remain until further notice. You will live in the open on heather and seaweed. I can tell you
no more than that. H.O.O. has spoken.”
“I take it, sir, that I shall not be required to go with them?”
“Oh yes, McTavish. There’s a job of work for you, quite a job. You have to see that your men get nothing to eat, and of course set them an example yourself.”
“Why us, sir?”
“Why, McTavish? Because we aren’t the Guards or the Green Jackets, that’s why. Because we’re a troop of odds and sods, McTavish. That’s why you are here.”
Thus with no kind word to speed him Trimmer led his detachment into the unknown.
III
“A familiar sight surely?” said Ivor Claire.
Guy examined the yacht through his field-glasses.
“Cleopatra,” he read.
“Julia Stitch,” said Claire. “Too good to be true.”
Guy also remembered the ship. She had put into Santa Dulcina not many summers ago. It was a tradition of the Castello, which Guy rather reluctantly observed, to call on English yachts. He dined on board. Next day the yacht-party, six of them, had climbed up to lunch with him, lightly, hyperbolically, praising everything.
A large dish of spaghetti had been fomented. A number of fleshless fowls had been dismembered and charred; some limp lettuces drenched in oil and sprinkled with chopped garlic. It was a depressing luncheon which even Mrs. Stitch’s beauty and gaiety could barely enliven. Guy told the story of the romantic origin of the “Castello Crauccibac.” The vino scelto began its soporific work. Conversation lapsed. Then as they sat rather gloomily in the loggia, while Josefina and Bianca were removing the meat-plates, there rose from above them the wild tocsin: “C’è scappata la mucca.” It was the recurring drama of Santa Dulcinese life, the escape of the cow, more pit-pony than minotaur, from her cellar under the farmhouse.
Josefina and Bianca took up the cry: “Accidente!” “Porca miseria. C’è scappata la mucca,” dropped everything and bounded over the parapet.
“C’è scappata la mucca,” cried Mrs. Stitch, precipitately following.
The dazed animal tumbled from low terrace to terrace among the vines. Mrs. Stitch was up with her first. Mrs. Stitch was the one to grasp the halter and lead her back with soothing words to her subterranean stall.
“I was on board once,” Guy said.
“I sailed in her. Three weeks of excruciating discomfort. The things one did in peacetime!”
“It seemed a lap of luxury to me.”
“Not the bachelors’ cabins, Guy. Julia was brought up in the old tradition of giving hell to bachelors. There was mutiny brewing all the time. She used to drag one out of the casino like a naval picket rounding up a red-light quarter. But there’s no one, no one in the world I’d sooner see at the moment.” In the weeks of their acquaintance Guy had never seen Claire so moved with enthusiasm. “Let’s go down to the quay.”
“Can she know you’re here?”
“Trust Julia to keep in touch with chums.”
“No chum of mine, alas.”
“Everyone is a chum of Julia’s.”
But as the Cleopatra drew alongside, a chill struck the two watchers.
“Oh God,” said Claire, “uniforms.”
Half a dozen male figures stood at the rail. Tommy Blackhouse was there beside a sailor deeply laced with gold; General Whale was there; Brigadier Ritchie-Hook was there. Even, preposterously, Ian Kilbannock was there. But not Mrs. Stitch.
The newcomers, even the admiral, looked unwell. Guy and Claire stood to attention and saluted. The admiral raised a feeble hand. Ritchie-Hook bared his teeth. Then, as if by previous arrangement, the senior officers went below to seek the repose which had been denied them on their voyage. The Cleopatra, rudely commandeered, had taken her revenge; she had been built for more friendly waters.
Tommy Blackhouse and Ian Kilbannock came ashore. Tommy’s servant, gray ghost of a guardsman, followed with luggage.
“Is Jumbo in the office?”
“Yes, colonel.”
“We’ve got to lay on that exercise for tomorrow night.”
“Shall I come too?”
“This is where we part company, Guy. Your brigadier is taking you over now. Our brigadier. For your information we are now part of ‘Hookforce,’ Brigadier Ritchie-Hook commanding. Why the hell aren’t you with your troop, Ivor?”
“We’re training by sections today,” said Claire.
“Well, you can come and help get out tomorrow’s orders.”
Ian said: “I think Tommy might have done something about my suitcase. The R.A.F. does not understand about servants.”
“What have you done with your air marshal?”
“I got him down,” said Ian. “I got him right down in the end. All the preliminary symptoms of persecution mania. He had to let me go—like Pharaoh and Moses if you appreciate the allusion. I didn’t actually have to slay his first-born but I made him break out in boils and blains from social inferiority—literally. A dreadful sight. So now I’m at Hostile Offensive Operations, appropriately enough. Have you got a man you can send for my luggage?”
“No.”
“You may have noticed I’ve gone up in rank.” He showed his cuff.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what that means.”
“But surely you can count? I don’t expect people to know the names of R.A.F. ranks, but you must notice there is one more of these things. It looks newer than the others. I rather think I equal a major. It’s monstrous I should have to carry my own bag.”
“You won’t need your bag. There’s nowhere to sleep on the island. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“There was to have been a conference on board—most secret operational planning. Sea-sickness intervened. Like a lunatic,” said Ian, “I came for the trip. I thought it would be a nice change from the blitz, God help me. I’ve had no sleep or food. An awful inside cabin over the screws.”
“The bachelors’ quarters?”
“Slave quarters, I should think. I had to share with Tommy. He was disgustingly sick. As a matter of fact I think I might be able to eat something now.”
Guy took him to the hotel. Food was found, and while Ian ate he explained his new appointment.
“It might have been made for me. In fact, I rather think it was made for me, on Air Marshal Beech’s entreaty. I liaise with the Press.”
“You haven’t come to write us up?”
“Good God, no. You’re a deadly secret still. That’s the beauty of my job. Everything at H.O.O. is secret, so all I have to do is drink with the American journalists at the Savoy from time to time and refuse information. I tell them I’m a newspaper-man myself and know how they feel. They say I’m a regular guy. And so I am, dammit.”
“Are you, Ian?”
“You’ve never seen me with my fellow journalists. I show them the democratic side of my character—not what Air Marshal Beech saw.”
Guy had nothing to do that morning. He watched Ian eat and drink and smoke. As an illusion of well-being returned, Ian became confidential.
“There’s a ship coming for you today.”
“We’ve heard that before.”
“My dear fellow, I know. Hookforce sails in the next convoy. The three other Commandos are on board their ships already. You’ll be quite an army if you aren’t sunk on the way out.” He progressed from confidence to indiscretion. “This exercise is all a blind. Tommy doesn’t know, of course, but the moment you’re all safely below the hatches, you up sticks and away.”
“There was some loose talk about an island.”
“Operation Bottleneck? That was off weeks ago. Since then there’s been Operation Quicksand and Operation Mousetrap. They’re both off. It’s Operation Badger now, of course.”
“And what is that?”
“If you don’t know, I oughtn’t to tell you.”
“Too late to go back now.”
“Well, frankly it’s simply Quicksand under another name.”
“And they tell you all this, Ian, at H.O.O.?”
/>
“I pick things up. Journalist’s training.”
That afternoon, as on every preceding afternoon, the troopship failed. Tommy devised his orders for the exercise and issued them to the troop-leaders; troop-leaders relayed them to section commanders. The Cleopatra held her own secrets of recuperation and planning. At evening the hotel filled. X Commando was always the gayer for Tommy’s presence. Most of the mess were old acquaintances of Ian’s. They welcomed him with profusion until at length after midnight he sought assistance in finding his way back to the yacht. Guy led him.
“Delightful evening,” he said. “Delightful fellows.” His voice was always slower and higher when he was in liquor. “Just like Bellamy’s without the bombing. How right you were, Guy, to fix yourself up with this racket. I’ve been round the other Commandos. Not at all the same sort of fellows. I should like to write a piece about you all. But it wouldn’t do.”
“No, it would not. Not at all.”
“Don’t misunderstand me”—the night air was taxing his residue of self-command—“I don’t refer to security. There’s an agitation now from the Ministry of Information to take you off the secret list. Heroes are in strong demand to boost civilian morale. You’ll see pages about the Commandos in the papers soon. But not about your racket, Guy. They just won’t do, you know. Delightful fellows, heroes too, I daresay, but the Wrong Period. Last-war stuff, Guy. Went out with Rupert Brooke.”
“You find us poetic?”
“No,” said Ian, stopping in his path and turning to face Guy in the darkness. “Perhaps not poetic, exactly, but upper class. Hopelessly upper class. You’re the ‘Fine Flower of the Nation.’ You can’t deny it and it won’t do.”