“Yes.”
“That’s what’s so heartening. That’s where we’ve got the Germans beaten. It was just the same in the first war. We’ve got no junker class in this country, thank God. When the country needs them, the right men come to the fore. There was this young fellow curling women’s hair on a liner, calling himself by a French name; no one suspected what he had in him. Might never have had the chance to show it. Then war comes along. He downs his scissors and without any fuss carries out one of the most daring exploits in military history. It couldn’t happen in any other country, Mrs. Tickeridge.”
“It wasn’t a very attractive photograph of him, was it?”
“He looks what he is—a hairdresser’s assistant. And all honor to him. I expect he’s a very shy sort of fellow. Brave men often are. My son never mentioned him and they must have been together in Scotland for quite a time. I daresay he felt rather out of it up there. Well, he’s shown them.”
When they reached the hotel Miss Vavasour said:
“Oh, Mr. Crouchback, I’ve been waiting to ask you. Would you mind if I cut something out of your newspaper when you’ve quite finished with it?”
“Of course. Not at all. Delighted.”
“It’s the photograph of Captain McTavish. I’ve got a little frame that will just take it.”
“He deserves a frame,” said Mr. Crouchback.
*
The news of Operation Popgun reached Sidi Bishr first on the B.B.C. news, later in the form of a signal of congratulation to Force H.Q. from the C.-in-C.
“I suppose I’d better pass this on to X Commando?” said Major Hound.
“Of course. To all the units. Have it read out on parade.”
“To the Spaniards too?”
“Particularly the Spaniards. They’re always boasting about convents they blew up in their civil war. This’ll show ’em we can play the same game. Get that fat interpreter to work.”
“You know this chap McTavish, colonel?”
“Certainly. I took him on when I had X Commando. You remember, Guy?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“You and Jumbo Trotter tried to keep him out. Remember? I wish I had a few more officers like McTavish out here. I’d like to have seen old Jumbo Trotter’s face when he read the news.”
*
Jumbo in fact had beamed. He had proclaimed to the ante-room of the Halberdier Barracks:
“Poor old Ben Ritchie-Hook; no judge of men. A first-class fighting man, but he had his blind spots, you know. If he took a down on a man, he could be unreasonable. He turned McTavish out of the corps, you know. Fellow had to join a Highland regiment in the ranks. I spotted him at once. Not a peacetime soldier, mind you, but no more was Ben. If you ask me, the two of them were a chip off the same block. That’s why they never could hit it off. Often happens like that. Seen it dozens of times.”
*
The ladies of Eaton Terrace said:
“What about our Scottie now?”
“What indeed?”
“Were we beastly to him?”
“Not really.”
“Not often.”
“I always had a soft spot.”
“Shall we ask him round?”
“D’you think he’d come?”
“We can try.”
“It would jolly well serve us right if he despised us.”
“I despise myself rather.”
“Virginia. You haven’t said anything. Shall we try and get hold of Scottie?”
“Trimmer? Do what you like, my dears, only count me out.”
“Virginia, don’t you want to make amends?”
“I don’t,” said Virginia and left them.
*
Ty. Lt. A/g Capt. McTAVISH. H.M.C. Future employment of.
“Really,” said the chairman, “I don’t understand why this is a matter for our committee.”
“Minute from the War Cabinet, sir.”
“Extraordinary. I should have thought they had more important things on their minds. What’s it all about?”
“Well, sir, you remember McTavish?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“You haven’t seen the Daily Beast?”
“Of course not.”
“Exactly, sir. You know that Lord Copper has always had it in for the regular army—old school tie, and that sort of rot.”
“I did not,” said the general, filling his pipe. “I never see the rag.”
“Anyway, they’ve dug up the story that McTavish began the war as an officer on probation in the Halberdiers and got turned down. They say it was because he’d been a barber.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“No, sir. But all the Halberdiers who had anything to do with him are in the Middle East. We’ve asked for a report, but it will take some time and if, as I presume it is, it’s an adverse one, we can’t very well use it.”
“What a lot of fuss about nothing.”
“Exactly, sir. The Daily Beast are making McTavish an example. Saying the army is losing its best potential leaders through snobbery. You know the kind of thing.”
“I do not,” said the general.
“One of the Labour members has put down a question about him.”
“Oh Lord, has he? That’s bad.”
“The Minister wants an assurance that McTavish has been found employment suitable to his merits.”
“Well, that oughtn’t to be difficult. It was decided last week to raise three more Commandos. Can’t he be given one of those?”
“I don’t think he’s quite up to it.”
“Really, Sprat, I should have thought he was just the kind of young officer you’re always trying to poach. You don’t object to his having been a barber, do you?”
“Of course not, sir.”
“You were full of his praises last week. Make a note that he is to be found suitable employment in your outfit.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And by suitable I don’t mean your A.D.C.”
“God forbid,” Sprat breathed.
“I mean something that will satisfy those Labour fellows in the House of Commons that we know how to use good men when we find them.”
“Very good, sir.”
D.L.F. H.O.O. returned to his headquarters, as he usually returned from attendance at the War Office, in black despair. He sent for Ian Kilbannock.
“You overdid it,” he said.
Ian knew what he meant.
“Trimmer?”
“Trimmer. McTavish. Whatever he’s called. You’ve gone and got the politicians interested. We’re stuck with him now for the rest of the war.”
“I’ve been giving some thought to the matter.”
“Decent of you.”
“You know,” said Ian, who, since he and his general had become, as it were, accomplices in fraud, had adopted an increasingly familiar tone in the office, “you’ll never get the best out of your subordinates by being sarcastic. I’ve been thinking about Trimmer and I’ve learned something. He’s got sex appeal.”
“Nonsense.”
“I’ve seen evidence of it in my own immediate circle—particularly since his outing to France. I’ve had the Ministries of Information, Supply, Aircraft Production and the Foreign Office after him. They want a hero of just Trimmer’s specifications to boost civilian morale and Anglo-American friendship. You can give him any rank you please and second him indefinitely.”
Major-General Whale was silent.
“It’s an idea,” he said at length.
“It’s particularly important to get him out of London. He’s always hanging round my house these days.”
VI
Corporal-Major Ludovic’s journal comprised not only pensées but descriptive passages which reviewers in their season later commended.
Major Hound is bald and both his face and scalp shine. Early in the morning after shaving there is a dry shine. After an hour he begins to sweat and there is a greasy shine. Major Hound’s
hands begin to sweat before his face. The top of his head is always dry. The sweat starts two inches above his eyebrows and never extends to his scalp. Does he use a cigarette-holder in order to protect his teeth and fingers from stain, or in order to keep smoke from his eyes? He often tells the orderly to empty his ashtray. Captain Crouchback despises Major Hound but Colonel Blackhouse finds him useful. I am barely aware of Major Hound’s existence. It is in order to fix him in my mind that I have set down these observations.
The defeat in Greece was kept secret until the remnants of the army arrived in Alexandria. They were collected and dispersed for reorganization and equipment. “We live,” wrote Corporal-Major Ludovic, “in the Age of Purges and Evacuation. To empty oneself, that is the task of contemporary man. Cultivate the abhorred vacuum. The earth is the Lord’s and the emptiness thereof.”
Every available unit in the area was sent west into Cyrenaica. Hookforce were the only fighting troops in Alexandria. They found themselves the sole defendants of the city.
Guy spent long hours in the club library with bound copies of Country Life. Sometimes he joined his old friends of X Commando at the Cecil Hotel or the Union Bar. X Commando had not gone to the trouble of organizing an officers’ mess. They kept a pile of hard-boiled eggs, oranges and sardines in their tent; they roared at their scuttling and giggling Berber servants for tea and gin, threw down cigar-ends and cigarette-packets and matches and corks and peel and tins round their feet.
“One might be on the Lido,” said Ivor Claire, regarding with disgust the littered sand of the tent floor.
Half a dozen wealthy Greek houses opened their doors to them. And there was Mrs. Stitch. Guy did not repeat his visit but her name was everywhere. X Commando felt her presence as that of a beneficent, alert deity, their own protectress. Things could not go absolutely wrong with them while Mrs. Stitch was about.
So the days passed until in the third week of May war came to Major Hound.
It was heralded by the customary ceremonial fanfare of warning orders and counter-orders, but before the first of these notes sounded, Mrs. Stitch had told Ivor Claire and he had told Guy.
“I hear we’re off to Crete at any moment,” Guy said to Major Hound.
“Nonsense.”
“Well. Wait and see,” said Guy.
Major Hound pretended to be busy at his desk. Then he sat back and fitted a cigarette into his holder.
“Where did you hear this rumor?”
“X Commando.”
“Both attacks in Crete have been held,” said Major Hound. “The situation is well under control. I know this.”
“Good,” said Guy.
There was another pause during which Major Hound pretended to read his files. Then:
“It doesn’t occur to you, I suppose, that we have a priority commitment in the defense of Alexandria?”
“I gathered that Crete was first priority at the moment.”
“The garrison there is larger than they can supply as it is.”
“Well, I daresay I’m wrong.”
“Of course you’re wrong. You should know better than to listen to rumors.”
Another pause; this was the witching hour, noted by Corporal-Major Ludovic, when the shine on the brigade major’s face changed from dry to greasy.
“Besides,” he said, “this brigade hasn’t the equipment for defensive action.”
“Then why are we defending Alexandria?”
“That would be an emergency.”
“Perhaps there’s an emergency in Crete.”
“I’m not arguing with you, Crouchback. I’m telling you.”
Silence, then:
“Why doesn’t that orderly empty the ashtrays? What do you know about the shipping situation, Crouchback?”
“Nothing.”
“Exactly. Well, for your information we aren’t in a position to reinforce Crete even if we wanted to.”
“I see.”
Another pause. Major Hound was not at ease that day. He resorted to his old method of attack.
“How, by the way, is your section employed this morning?”
“Ruling thin red lines. The map of Crete is a straight offprint from the Greek issue, so I am having a half-inch grid put on for our own use.”
“Maps of Crete? Who authorized anyone to draw maps of Crete?”
“I fetched them myself yesterday evening from Ras-el-Tin.”
“You had no business to. That’s exactly how rumors start.”
Presently Tommy came into the office. Guy and Major Hound stood up.
“Anything through from Cairo yet?” he asked.
“The mail has gone to the registry, colonel. Nothing of immediate importance.”
“No one at G.H.Q. starts work before ten. The wires will start buzzing in a few minutes. Meanwhile get out a warning order to the units. I suppose you know we’re off?”
“Back to Canal Area for reorganization?”
“Christ, no. Where’s that staff-captain? We must work out a loading table. I met the flag officer in command of destroyers at Madame Kaprikis’s last night. He’s all ready for us. Guy, collect some maps of Crete for issue down to section leaders.”
“That’s all laid on, colonel,” said the brigade major.
“Well done.”
At quarter past ten the telephone from G.H.Q. Cairo began its day-long litany of contradictions. Major Hound listened, noted, relayed with the animation of a stockbroker.
“Yes, sir. Very good, sir. All understood. All informed,” he said to G.H.Q. “Get cracking,” he said to the units.
But this show of zeal did not deceive Ludovic.
“Major Hound seems strangely lacking in the Death-Wish,” he noted.
*
It was Major Hound’s first operational embarkation, Guy’s third. He callously watched the transactions, first earnest, then anxious, then embittered, between brigade major, staff-captain and E.S.O., the lines of over-burdened, sulky soldiers moving on and off the narrow decks, the sailors fastidiously picking their way among the heaps of military equipment. He knew it all of old and he kept out of it. He talked to a Marine A.A. gunner who said:
“No air cover. The R.A.F. have packed up in Crete. If we don’t make the run in and out in darkness we haven’t a hope of getting through. Your chaps will have to be a lot quicker getting ashore than they are coming aboard.”
A mine-laying cruiser and two destroyers were lying in for Hookforce; all bore the scars of the evacuation of Greece. The ship detailed for brigade headquarters was the most battered.
“She needs a month in dock,” said the Marine. “We’ll be lucky if she makes the trip, enemy action apart.”
They sailed at dusk. On board the destroyer with headquarters were three troops of B Commando. The men lay about on the flats and mess decks, the officers in the wardroom. Tommy Blackhouse was invited to the bridge. Peace of a kind reigned.
“Crouchback,” said Major Hound, “has it occurred to you that Ludovic is keeping a diary?”
“No.”
“It’s contrary to regulations to take a private diary into the front line.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’d better warn him. He’s writing something unofficial I’m pretty sure.”
At eight o’clock the Maltese steward laid the table for dinner, setting a bowl of roses in the center. The captain remained on the bridge. The first officer apologized for him and for the accommodation.
“We aren’t equipped for hospitality on this scale,” he said. “Not enough of anything, I’m afraid.”
The soldiers took out their mugs and canteens and knives and forks. The batmen helped the steward. Dinner was excellent.
“No cause for alarm until dawn,” said the first officer cheerfully as he left them.
The captain had given up his cabin to Tommy and Major Hound and the second-in-command of B Commando. Valises and bed-rolls had been left in camp. The army officers arranged themselves on chairs and benches and floor
in the wardroom. Soon they were all asleep.
Guy awoke at dawn and went up into the fresh air; a delicious morning after the breathless night, a calm sea, no other ship in sight, no land, the destroyer steaming rather slowly, it seemed, into the luminous void. Guy met the Marine gunner.
“Is this where our troubles begin?” he asked.
“Not here.” Then as Guy seemed surprised he added: “Notice anything odd about the sun?”
Guy looked. It was well above the horizon now, ahead on their left, cool and brilliant.
“No,” he said.
“Just where you expected to see it?”
“Oh,” said Guy. “I see what you mean. It ought to be on the other side.”
“Exactly. We shall be back in Alex in an hour. Engine trouble.”
“That’s going to be awkward.”
“She was overdue for an overhaul, as I told you, and she caught a packet in the Aegean. Suits me all right. I haven’t had any shore leave this year.”
At breakfast Tommy scowled silently; not so Major Hound who was openly jubilant. He put the nozzle of his Mae West in his mouth and made a little pantomime of playing the bagpipes.
“This is the hell of a thing,” Tommy said to Guy. “But there’s a good chance of their laying on another destroyer in Alexandria.”
Major Hound turned to Guy.
“Did you mention that matter to Ludovic, Crouchback?”
“Not yet.”
“This will be a good time.”
They were in sight of land when Guy found Corporal-Major Ludovic.
“It has come to my ears that you are keeping a diary,” he said.
Ludovic regarded him with his disconcerting gray-pink stare.
“I should hardly call it that, sir.”
“You realize that anything written which is liable to fall into the enemy’s hands is subject to censorship.”
“So I have always understood, sir.”
“I’m afraid I must ask to see what it is.”
“Very good, sir.” He took his message-pad from the pocket of his shorts. “I have left the typewriter in camp, sir, with the rest of the office equipment. I don’t know if you’ll be able to read it.”
Guy read: