The Valley of Bones

4

When, during those rare, intoxicating moments of solitude, I used to sit in a window seat at Castlemallock, reading Esmond, or watching the sun go down over the immense brick rampart of the walled garden, the Byronic associations of the place made me think of Don Juan:

I pass my evenings in long galleries solely,

And that’s the reason I’m so melancholy …

The long gallery at Castlemallock, uncarpeted, empty of furniture except for a few trestle tables and wooden chairs, had these built-in seats all along one side. Here one could be alone during the intervals between arrival and departure of Anti-Gas students, when Kedward and I would be Duty Officer on alternate days. That meant little more than remaining within the precincts of the castle in the evening, parading ‘details’ — usually a couple of hundred men — at Retreat, sleeping at night by the telephone. We were Gwatkin’s only subalterns now, for this was the period of experiment, later abandoned as unsatisfactory, when one platoon in each company was led by a warrant-officer. If an Anti-Gas course were in progress, we slept alternate nights in the Company Office, in case there was a call from Battalion. I often undertook Kedward’s tour of duty, as he liked to ‘improve his eye’, when training was over for the day, by exploring the neighbouring country with a view to marking down suitable sites for machine-gun nests and anti-tank emplacements. Lying in the window-seat, I would think how it felt to be a father, of the times during the latter part of the Aldershot course when I had been able to see Isobel and the child. She and the baby, a boy, were ‘doing well’, but there had been difficulty in visiting them, Stevens’s car by then no longer available. Stevens, as Brent prophesied, had been ‘Returned to Unit’.

‘I shan’t be seeing you lads after tomorrow,’ he said one afternoon.

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve been RTU-ed.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘I cut one of those bloody lectures and got caught.’

‘Sorry about this.’

‘I don’t give a damn,’ he said. ‘All I want is to get abroad. This may start me on the move. I’ll bring it off sooner or later. Look here, give me your sister-in-law’s address, so I can keep in touch with her about that brooch.’

There was a certain bravado about all this. To get in the army’s black books is something always to be avoided; as a rule, no help to advancement in any direction. I gave Stevens the address of Frederica’s house, so that he could send Priscilla back her brooch. We said goodbye.

‘We’ll meet again.’

‘We will, indeed.’

The course ended without further incident of any note. On its last day, I had a word with Brent, before our ways, too, parted.

‘Pleased we ran into each other,’ he said. ‘To tell the truth, I was glad to spill all that stuff about the Duports for some reason. Don’t quite know why. You won’t breathe a word, will you?’

‘Of course not. Where are you off to now?’

‘The ITC — for a posting.’

I sailed back across the water. Return, like the war news, was cheerless. The Battalion had been re-deployed further south, in a new area nearer the border, where companies were on detachment. Gwatkin’s, as it turned out, was quartered at the Corps School of Chemical Warfare, the keeps, turrets and castellations of which also enclosed certain Ordnance stores of some importance, which came under Command. For these stores, Gwatkin’s company provided security guards, also furnishing men, if required, for Anti-Gas demonstrations. When the Battalion operated as a unit, we operated with the rest, otherwise lived a life apart, occupied with our own training or the occasional demands of the School.

Isobel wrote that her aunt, Molly Jeavons — as a rule far from an authority on such matters — had lent her a book about Castlemallock, its original owner, a Lord Chief Justice (whose earldom had been raised to a marquisate for supporting the Union) having been a distant connexion of the Ardglass family. His heir — better known as Hercules Mallock, friend of d’Orsay and Lady Blessington — had sold the place to a rich linen manufacturer, who had pulled down the palladian mansion and built this neo-gothic castle. The second Lord Castlemallock died unmarried, at a great age, in Lisbon, leaving little or nothing to the great-nephew who inherited the title, father or grandfather of the Castlemallock who had run away with Dicky Umfraville’s second wife. Like other houses of similar size throughout this region, Castlemallock, too large and inconvenient, had lain untenanted for twenty or thirty years before its requisitioning. The book also quoted Byron’s letter (a fragment only, said to be of doubtful authenticity) written to Caroline Lamb who had visited the house when exiled from England by her family on his account. Isobel had copied this out for me:

‘… even though the diversions of Castlemallock may exceed those of Lismore, I perceive you are ignorant of one matter — that he to whose Labours you appear not insensible was once known to your humble servant by the chaste waters of the Cam. Moderate, therefore, your talent for novel writing, My dear Caro, or at least spare me an account of his protestations of affection & recollect that your host’s namesake preferred Hylas to the Nymphs. Learn, too, that the theme of assignations in romantick groves palls on a man with a cold & quinsy & a digestion that lately suffered the torment of supper at L ^d Sleaford’s…’

This glade in the park at Castlemallock was still known as ‘Lady Caro’s Dingle’, and thought of a Byronic interlude here certainly added charm to grounds not greatly altered at the time of the rebuilding of the house. An air of thwarted passion could be well imagined to haunt these grass-grown paths, weedy lawns and ornamental pools, where moss-covered fountains no longer played. However, such memories were not in themselves sufficient to make the place an acceptable billet. At Castlemallock I knew despair. The proliferating responsibilities of an infantry officer, simple in themselves, yet, if properly carried out, formidable in their minutiae, impose a strain in wartime even on those to whom they are a lifelong professional habit; the excruciating boredom of exclusively male society is particularly irksome in areas at once remote from war, yet oppressed by war conditions. Like a million others, I missed my wife, wearied of the officers and men round me, grew to loathe a post wanting even the consolation that one was required to be brave. Castlemallock lacked the warmth of a regiment, gave none of the sense of belonging to an army that exists in any properly commanded unit or formation. Here was only cursing, quarrelling, complaining, inglorious officers of the instructional and administrative staff, Other Ranks — except for Gwatkin’s company — of low medical category. Here, indeed, was the negation of Lyautey’s ideal, though food enough for the military resignation of Vigny.

However, there was an undoubted aptness in this sham fortress, monument to a tasteless, half-baked romanticism, becoming now, in truth, a military stronghold, its stone walls and vaulted ceilings echoing at last to the clatter of arms and oaths of soldiery. It was as if its perpetrators had re-created the tedium, as well as the architecture of mediaeval times. At fourteenth-century Stourwater (which had once caused Isobel to recall the Morte d’Arthur), Sir Magnus Donners was far less a castellan than the Castlemallock commandant, a grey-faced Regular, recovering from appendicitis; Sir Magnus’s guests certainly less like feudatories than the seedy Anti-Gas instructors, sloughed off at this golden opportunity by their regiments. The Ordnance officers, drab seneschals, fitted well into this gothic world, most of all Pinkus, Adjutant-Quartermaster, one of those misshapen dwarfs who peer from the battlements of Dolorous Garde, bent on doing disservice to whomsoever may cross the drawbridge. This impression — that one had slipped back into a nightmare of the Middle Ages — was not dispelled by the Castlemallock ‘details’ on parade. There were warm summer nights at Retreat when I could scarcely proceed between the ranks of these cohorts of gargoyles drawn up for inspection for fear of bursting into fits of uncontrollable demoniac laughter.

‘Indeed, they are the maimed, the halt and the blind,’ CSM Cadwallader remarked more than once.

In short, the atmosphere of Castlemallock told on the nerves of all ranks. Once, alone in the Company Office, a former pantry set in a labyrinth of stone passages at the back of the house, I heard a great clatter of boots and a frightful wailing like that of a very small child. I opened the door to see what was happening. A young soldier was standing there, red faced and burly, tears streaming down his cheeks, his hair dishevelled, his nose running. He looked at the end of his tether. I knew him by sight as one of the Mess waiters. He swayed there limply, as if he might fall down at any moment. A sergeant, also young, followed him quickly up the passage, and stood over him, if that could be said of an NCO half the private’s size.

‘What the hell is all this row?’

‘He’s always on at me,’ said the private, sobbing convulsively.

The sergeant looked uncomfortable. They were neither of them Gwatkin’s men.

‘Come along,’ he said.

‘What’s the trouble?’

‘He’s a defaulter, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Come along now, and finish that job.’

‘I can’t do it, my back hurts,’ said the private, mopping his eyes with a clenched hand.

‘Then you should report sick,’ said the sergeant severely, ‘see the MO. That’s what you want to do, if your back hurts.’

‘Seen him.’

‘See him again then.’

‘The Adjutant-Quartermaster said if I did any more malingering he’d give me more CB.’

The sergeant’s face was almost as unhappy as the private’s. He looked at me as if he thought I might be able to offer some brilliant solution to their problems. He was wrong about that. I saw no way out. Anyway, they were neither of them within my province.

‘Well, go away, and don’t make a disturbance outside here again.’

‘Sorry, sir.’

The two of them went off quietly, but, as they reached the far end of the stone passage, I heard it all starting up again. They were not our men, of course, amongst whom such a scene would have been inconceivable, even when emotions were allowed full rein, which sometimes happened. In such circumstances the display would have taken a far less dismal form. This sort of incident lowered the spirits to an infinitely depressed level. Even though there might be less to do here than with the Battalion, no road-blocks to man, for example, there were also no amusements in the evening, beyond the grubby pubs of a small, down-at-heel town a mile or two away.

‘There isn’t a lot for the lads to do’ said CSM Cadwallader.

He was watching, unsmilingly, a Red Indian war-dance a group of men were performing, led by Williams, I. G., whose eccentric strain probably accounted for his friendship with Lance-Corporal Gittins, the storeman. The dancers, with tent-peg mallets for tomahawks, were moving slowly round in a small circle, bowing their heads to the earth and up again, as they gradually increased the speed of their rotation. I thought what a pity that Bithel was not there to lead them in this dance.

‘What about organising some football?’

‘No other company there is to play, sir.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘Personnel of the School, C.3., they are.’

‘But there are plenty of our own fellows. Can’t they make up a game among themselves?’

‘The boys wouldn’t want that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Another company’s what they like to beat.’

That was a good straightforward point of view, no pretence that games were anything but an outlet for power and aggression; no stuff about their being enjoyable as such. You played a game to demonstrate that you did it better than someone else. If it came to that, I thought, how few people do anything for its own sake, from making love to practising the arts.

‘How do they amuse themselves when not doing Indian war-dances?’

‘Some of the lads has found a girl.’

The Sergeant-Major smiled quietly to himself, as if he might have been of that number.

‘Corporal Gwylt?’

‘Indeed, sir, Corporal Gwylt may have a girl or two.’

Meanwhile, since my return from Aldershot, I was aware of a change that had taken place in Gwatkin, though precisely what had happened to him, I could not at first make out. He had been immensely gratified, so Kedward told me, to find himself more or less on his own as a junior commander, keenly jealous of this position in relation to the Castlemallock Commandant, always making difficulties with him when men were wanted for demonstrational purposes. On the other hand, Gwatkin had also developed a new vagueness, even bursts of apparent indolence. He would pass suddenly into a state close to amnesia, sitting at his table in the Company Office, holding in the palm of his hand, lettering uppermost, the rubber-stamp of the Company, as if it were an orb or other symbol of dominion, while he gazed out on to the cobbled yard, where outbuildings beyond had been transformed into barrack rooms. For several minutes at a time he would stare into space, scanning the roofs as if he could descry beyond the yard and stables vision of battle, cavalry thundering down, long columns of infantry advancing through the smoke, horse artillery bringing up the guns. At least, that was what I supposed. I thought Gwatkin had at last ‘seen through’ the army as he had formerly imagined it, was experiencing a casting out of devils within himself, the devils of his old military ideas. Gwatkin seemed himself to some extent aware of these visitations, because, so soon as they were passed, his ‘regimental’ manner would become more obtrusive than ever. On such occasions he would indulge in tussles with the Commandant, or embark on sudden explosions of energy and extend hours of training. However, side by side with exertions that insisted upon an ever-increased standard of efficiency, he became no less subject to these lethargic moods. He talked more freely, too, abandoning all pretence of being a ‘man of few words’, formerly one of his favourite roles. Again, these bursts of talkativeness alternated with states of the blackest, most silent gloom.

‘Anything wrong with Rowland?’ I asked Kedward.

‘Not that I know of.’

‘He doesn’t seem quite himself.’

‘All right, so far as I’ve heard.’

‘Just struck me as a bit browned off.’

‘Has he been on your tail?’

‘Not specially.’

‘I thought he’d been better tempered lately. But, my God, it’s true he’s always forgetting things. We nearly ran out of Acquittance Rolls last Pay Parade owing to Rowland having shoved a lot of indents the CQMS gave him into a drawer. Perhaps you’re right, Nick, and he’s not well.’

For some reason, the matter of the Alarm brought home to me these developments in Gwatkin. Command had issued one of their periodic warnings that all units and formations were to be on their guard against local terrorist action of the Deafy Morgan sort, which, encouraged by German successes in the field, had recently become more common. A concerted attack by subversive elements was thought likely to take shape within the next week or two in the Castlemallock area. Accordingly, every unit was instructed to devise its own local Alarm signal, in addition to the normal Alert. The Alert was, of course, based on the principle that German invasion had taken place south of the Border, where British troops would consequently move forthwith. For training purposes, these Alerts were usually issued in code by telephone or radio — in the case of Gwatkin’s company, routine procedure being to march on the main body of the Battalion. For merely local troubles, however — to which the warning from Command referred — different action would be required, therefore a different warning given. At Castlemallock, for example, the Commandant decided that any such outbreak should be made known by blowing the Alarm on the bugle. All ranks were paraded to hear the Alarm sounded, so that its notes should at once be recognised, if need arose. Afterwards, Gwatkin, Kedward, CSM Cadwallader and I assembled in the Company Office to check arrangements. The question obviously arose of those men insufficiently musical to register in the head the sound they had just heard.

‘All those bugle calls have words to them,’ said Kedward. ‘What are the ones for the Alarm?’

‘That’s it,’ said Gwatkin, pleased at this opportunity to make practical use of military lore, Cookhouse, for instance:

Come to the cookhouse door, boys,

Come to the cookhouse door,

Officers’ wives have puddings and pies,

Soldiers’ wives have skilly.

How does the Alarm go, Sergeant-Major? That must have words too.’

It was the only time I ever saw CSM Cadwallader blush.

‘Rather vulgar words they are, sir,’ he said.

‘Well, what are they?’ said Gwatkin.

The Sergeant-Major seemed still for some reason unwilling to reveal the appropriate assonance.

‘Think most of the Company know the call now, sir,’ he said.

‘That’s not the point,’ said Gwatkin. ‘We can’t take any risks. There may be even one man only who won’t recognise it. He’ll need the rhyme. What are the words?’

‘Really want them, sir?’

‘I’ve just said so,’ said Gwatkin.

He was half irritated at the Sergeant-Major’s prevarication, at the same time half losing interest. He had begun to look out of the window, his mind wandering in the manner I have described. CSM Cadwallader hesitated again. Then he pursed his lips and gave a vocalized version of the bugle blaring the Alarm:

‘Sergeant-Major’s-got-a-horn!

Sergeant-Major’s-got-a-horn! …’

Kedward and I burst out laughing. I expected Gwatkin to do the same. He was normally capable of appreciating that sort of joke, especially as a laugh at CSM Cadwallader’s expense was not a thing to be missed. However, Gwatkin seemed scarcely to have heard the words, certainly not taken in their import. At first I thought he had been put out by receiving so broadly comic an answer to his question, feeling perhaps his dignity was compromised. That would have been a possibility, though unlike Gwatkin, because he approved coarseness of phrase as being military, even though he might be touchy about his own importance. It was then I realized he had fallen into one of his trances in which all around was forgotten: the Alarm, the Sergeant-Major, Kedward, myself, the Battalion, the army, the war itself.

‘Right, Sergeant-Major,’ he said, speaking abruptly, as if he had just woken from a dream. ‘See those words are promulgated throughout the Company. That’s all. You can fall out.’

By this time it was summer and very hot. The Germans had invaded the Netherlands, Churchill become Prime Minister. I read in the papers that Sir Magnus Donners had been appointed to the ministerial post for which he had long been tipped. The Battalion was required to send men to reinforce one of the Regular Battalions in France. There was much grumbling at this, because we were supposed to be something more than a draft-finding unit. Gwatkin was particularly outraged by this order, and the loss of two or three good men from his company. Otherwise things went on much the same at Castlemallock, the great trees leafy in the park, all water dried up in the basins of the fountains. Then, one Saturday evening, Gwatkin suggested he and I should walk as far as the town and have a drink together. There was no Anti-Gas course in progress at that moment. Kedward was Duty Officer. As a rule, Gwatkin was rarely to be seen in the Mess after dinner. No one knew what he did with himself during those hours. It was possible that he retired to his room to study the Field Service Pocket Book or some other military manual. I never guessed he might make a practice of visiting the town. However, that was what his next remark seemed to suggest.

‘I’ve found a new place — better than M’Coy’s,’ he said rather challengingly. ‘The porter there is bloody marvellous. I’ve drunk it now several times. I’d like to have your opinion.’

I had once visited M’Coy’s with Kedward. It was, in fact, the only pub I had entered since being stationed at Castlemallock. I found no difficulty in believing M’Coy’s could be improved upon as a drinking resort, but it was hard to guess why Gwatkin’s transference of custom from M’Coy’s to this new place should be an important issue, as Gwatkin’s manner seemed to suggest. In any case, it was unlike him to suggest an evening’s drinking. I agreed to make the trip. It would have been unfriendly, rather impolitic, to have refused. A walk into the town would be a change. Besides, I was heartily sick of Esmond. When dinner was at an end, Gwatkin and I set off together. We tramped along the drive in silence. We had almost reached the road, when he made an unexpected remark.

‘It won’t be easy to go back to the Bank after all this,’ he said.

‘All what?’

‘The army. The life we’re leading.’

‘Don’t you like the Bank?’

As Kedward had explained at the outset, most of the Battalion’s officers worked in banks. This was one of the aspects of the unit which gave a peculiar sense of uniformity, of existing almost within a family. Even though one was personally outside this sept, its homogeneous character in itself offered a certain cordiality, rather than the reverse, to an intruder. Until now, no one had given the impression he specially disliked that employment, over and above the manner in which most people grumble about their own job, whatever it is. Indeed, all seemed to belong to a caste, clearly defined, powerful on its home ground, almost a secret society, with perfect understanding between its members where outward things were concerned. The initiates might complain about specific drawbacks, but never in a way to imply hankering for another occupation. To hear absolute revolt expressed was new to me. Gwatkin seemed to relent a little when he spoke again.

‘Oh, the bloody Bank’s not that bad,’ he said laughing, ‘but it’s a bit different being here. Something better to do than open jammed Home Safes and enter the contents in the Savings Bank Ledger.’

‘What’s a Home Safe, and why does it jam?’

‘Kids’ money-boxes.’

‘Do the children jam them?’

‘Parents, usually. Want a bit of ready. Try to break into the safe with a tin-opener. The bloody things arrive back at the office with the mechanism smashed to pieces. When the cashier gets in at last, he finds three pennies, a halfpenny and a tiddly wink.’

‘Still, brens get jammed too. It’s traditional for machine-guns — you know, the Gatling’s jammed and the Colonel’s dead. Somebody wrote a poem about it. One might do the same about a Home Safe and the manager.’

Gwatkin ignored such disenchantment.

‘The bren’s a soldier’s job,’ he said.

‘What about Pay Parades and Kit Inspection? They’re soldiers’ jobs. It doesn’t make them any more enjoyable.’

‘Better than taking the Relief Till to Treorchy on a market day, doling out the money from a bag in old Mrs Jones-the-Milk’s front parlour. What sort of life is that for a man?’

‘You find the army more glamorous, Rowland?’

‘Yes,’ he said eagerly, ‘glamorous. That’s the word. Don’t you feel you want to do more in life than sit in front of a row of ledgers all day long? I know I do.’

‘Sitting at Castlemallock listening to the wireless announcing the German army is pushing towards the Channel ports isn’t particularly inspiring either — especially after an hour with the CQMS trying to sort out the Company’s sock situation, or searching for a pair of battle-dress trousers to fit Evans, J., who is such an abnormal shape.’

‘No, Nick, but we’ll be in it soon. We can’t stay at Castlemallock for ever.’

‘Why not?’

‘Anyway, Castlemallock’s not so bad.’

He seemed desperately anxious to prevent me from speaking hardly of Castlemallock.

‘I agree the park is pretty. That is about the best you can say for it.’

‘It’s come to mean a lot to me,’ Gwatkin said.

His voice was full of excitement. I had been quite wrong in supposing him disillusioned with the army. On the contrary, he was keener than ever. I could not understand why his enthusiasm had suddenly risen to such new heights. I did not for a moment, as we walked along, guess what the answer was going to be. By that time we had reached the pub judged by Gwatkin to be superior to M’Coy’s. The façade, it had to be admitted, was remarkably similar to M’Coy’s, though in a back alley, rather than the main street of the town. Otherwise, the place was the usual large cottage, the ground floor of which had been converted to the purposes of a tavern. I followed Gwatkin through the low door. The interior was dark, the smell uninviting. No one was about when we entered, but voices came from a room beyond the bar. Gwatkin tapped the counter with a coin.

‘Maureen …’ he called.

He used that same peculiar cooing note he employed when answering the telephone.

‘Hull-ooe … hull-ooe …’ he would say, when he spoke into the instrument. Somehow that manner of answering seemed quite inappropriate to the rest of his character.

‘I wonder whether what we call politeness isn’t just weakness,’ he had once remarked.

This cooing certainly conveyed no impression of ruthless moral strength, neither on the telephone, nor at the counter of this pub. No one appeared. Gwatkin pronounced the name again.

‘Maur-een … Maur-een …’

Still nothing happened. Then a girl came through the door leading to the back of the house. She was short and thick-set, with a pale face and lots of black hair. I thought her good-looking, with that suggestion of an animal, almost a touch of monstrosity, some men find very attractive. Barnby once remarked: ‘The Victorians saw only refinement in women, it’s their coarseness makes them irresistible to me.’ Barnby would certainly have liked this girl.

‘Why, it would be yourself again, Captain Gwatkin,’ she said.

She smiled and put her hands on her hips. Her teeth were very indifferent, her eyes in deep, dark sockets, striking.

“Yes, Maureen.’

Gwatkin did not seem to know what to say next. He glanced in my direction, as if to seek encouragement. This speechlessness was unlike him. However, Maureen continued to talk herself.

‘And with another military gentleman too,’ she said. ‘What’ll ye be taking this evening now? Will it be porter, or is it a wee drop of whiskey this night, I’ll be wondering, Captain?’

Gwatkin turned to me.

‘Which, Nick?’

‘Guinness.’

‘That goes for me too,’ he said. ‘Two pints of porter, Maureen. I only drink whiskey when I’m feeling down. Tonight we’re out for a good time, aren’t we, Nick?’

He spoke in an oddly self-conscious manner. I had never seen him like this before. We seated ourselves at a small table by the wall. Maureen began to draw the stout. Gwatkin watched her fixedly, while she allowed the froth to settle, scraping its foam from the surface of the liquid with a saucer, then returning the glass under the tap to be refilled to the brim. When she brought the drinks across to us, she took a chair, refusing to have anything herself.

‘And what would be the name of this officer?’ she asked.

‘Second-Lieutenant Jenkins,’ said Gwatkin, ‘he’s one of the officers of my company.’

‘Is he now. That would be grand and all.’

‘We’re good friends,’ said Gwatkin soberly.

‘Then why haven’t ye brought him to see me before, Captain Gwatkin, I’ll be asking ye?’

‘Ah, Maureen, you see we work so hard,’ said Gwatkin. ‘We can’t always be coming to see you, do you understand. That’s just a treat for once in a while.’

‘Get along with ye,’ she said, smiling provocatively and showing discoloured teeth again, ‘yourself’s down here often enough, Captain Gwatkin.’

‘Not as often as I’d like, Maureen.’

Gwatkin had now recovered from the embarrassment which seemed to have overcome him on first entering the pub. He was no longer tongue-tied. Indeed, his manner suggested he was, in fact, more at ease with women than men, the earlier constraint merely a momentary attack of nerves.

‘And what would it be you’re all so busy with now?’ she asked. ‘Is it drilling and all that? I expect so.’

‘Drilling is some of it, Maureen,’ said Gwatkin. ‘But we have to practise all kind of other training too. Modern war is a very complicated matter, you must understand.’

This made her laugh again.

‘I’d have ye know my great-uncle was in the Connaught Rangers,’ she said, ‘and a fine figure of a man he was, I can promise ye. Why, they say he was the best-looking young fellow of his day in all County Monaghan. And brave too. Why, they say he killed a dozen Germans with his bayonet when they tried to capture him. The Germans didn’t like to meet the Irish in the last war.’

‘Well, it’s a risk the Germans won’t have to run in this one,’ said Gwatkin, speaking more gruffly than might have been expected in the circumstances. ‘Even here in the North there’s no conscription, and you see plenty of young men out of uniform.’

‘Why, ye wouldn’t be taking all the young fellows away from us, would ye?’ she asked, rolling her eyes. ‘It’s lonely we’d be if they all went to the war.’

‘Maybe Hitler will decide the South is where he wants to land his invasion force,’ said Gwatkin. ‘Then where will all your young men be, I’d like to know.’

‘Oh God,’ she said, throwing up her hands. ‘Don’t say it of the old blackguard. Would he do such a thing? You think he truly may, Captain Gwatkin, do ye?’

‘Shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Gwatkin.

‘Do you come from the other side of the Border yourself?’ I asked her.

‘Why, sure I do,’ she said smiling. ‘And how were you guessing that, Lieutenant Jenkins?’

‘I just had the idea.’

‘Would it be my speech?’ she said.

‘Perhaps.’

She lowered her voice.

‘Maybe, too, you thought I was different from these Ulster people,’ she said, ‘them that is so hard and fond of money and all.’

‘That’s it, I expect.’

‘So you’ve guessed Maureen’s home country, Nick,’ said Gwatkin. ‘I tell her we must treat her as a security risk and not go speaking any secrets in front of her, as she’s a neutral.’

Maureen began to protest, but at that moment two young men in riding breeches and leggings came into the pub. She rose from the chair to serve them. Gwatkin fell into one of his silences. I thought he was probably reflecting how odd was the fact that Maureen seemed just as happy talking and laughing with a couple of local civilians, as with the dashing officer types he seemed to envisage ourselves. At least he stared at the young men, an unremarkable pair, as if there were something about them that interested him. Then it turned out Gwatkin’s train of thought had returned to dissatisfaction with his own peacetime employment.

‘Farmers, I suppose,’ he said. ‘My grandfather was a farmer. He didn’t spend his time in a stuffy office.’

‘Where did he farm?’

‘Up by the Shropshire border.’

‘And your father took to office life?’

‘That was it. My dad’s in insurance. His firm sent him to another part of the country.’

‘Do you know that Shropshire border yourself?’

‘We’ve been up there for a holiday. I expect you’ve heard of the great Lord Aberavon?’

‘I have, as a matter of fact.’

‘The farm was on his estate.’

I had never thought of Lord Aberavon (first and last of his peerage) as a figure likely to go down to posterity as ‘great’, though the designation might no doubt reasonably be applied by those living in the neighbourhood. His name was merely memorable to myself as deceased owner of Mr Deacon’s Boyhood of Cyrus, the picture in the Walpole-Wilsons’ hall, which always made me think of Barbara Goring when I had been in love with her in pre-historic times. Lord Aberavon had been Barbara Goring’s grandfather; Eleanor Walpole-Wilson’s grandfather too. I wondered what had happened to Barbara, whether her husband,

Johnny Pardoe (who also owned a house in the country of which Gwatkin spoke) had been recalled to the army. Eleanor, lifelong friend of my sister-in-law, Norah Tolland, was now, like Norah herself, driving cars for some women’s service. Gwatkin by his words had certainly conjured up the past. He looked at me rather uncomfortably, as if he could read my mind, and knew I felt suddenly carried back into an earlier time sequence. He also had the air of wanting to elaborate what he had said, yet feared he might displease, or, at least, not amuse me. He cleared his throat and took a gulp of stout.

‘You remember Lord Aberavon’s family name?’ he asked.

‘Why, now I come to think of it, wasn’t it “Gwatkin”?’

‘It was — same as mine. He was called Rowland too.’

He said that very seriously.

‘I’d quite forgotten. Was he a relation?’

Gwatkin laughed apologetically.

‘No, of course he wasn’t,’ he said.

‘Well, he might have been.’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘You never know with names.’

‘If so, it was miles distant,’ said Gwatkin.

‘That’s what I mean.’

‘I mean so distant, he wasn’t a relation at all,’ Gwatkin said. ‘As a matter of fact my grandfather, the old farmer I was talking about, used to swear we were the same lot, if you went back far enough — right back, I mean.’

‘Why not, indeed?’

I remembered reading one of Lord Aberavon’s obituaries, which had spoken of the incalculable antiquity of his line, notwithstanding his own modest start in a Liverpool shipping firm. The details had appealed to me.

‘Wasn’t it a very old family?’

‘So they say.’

‘Going back to Vortigern — by one of his own daughters? I’m sure I read that.’

Gwatkin looked uncertain again, as if he felt the discussion had suddenly got out of hand, that there was something inadmissible about my turning out to know so much about Gwatkin origins. Perhaps he was justified in thinking that.

‘Who was Vortigern?’ he asked uneasily.

‘A fifth-century British prince. You remember — he invited Hengist and Horsa. All that. They came to help him. Then he couldn’t get rid of them.’

It was no good. Gwatkin looked utterly blank. Hengist and Horsa meant nothing to him; less, if anything, than Vortigern. He was unimpressed by the sinister splendour of the derivations indicated as potentially his own; indeed, totally uninterested in them. Thought of Lord Aberavon’s business acumen kindled him more than any steep ascent in the genealogies of ancient Celtic Britain. His romanticism, though innate, was essentially limited — as often happens — by sheer lack of imagination. Vortigern, I saw, was better forgotten. I had deflected Gwatkin’s flow of thought by ill-timed pedantry.

‘I expect my grandfather made up most of the stuff,’ he said. ‘Just wanted to be thought related to a man of the same name who left three-quarters of a million.’

He now appeared to regret ever having let fall this confidence regarding his own family background, refusing to be drawn into further discussion about his relations, their history or the part of the country they came from. I thought how odd, how typical of our island — unlike the Continent or America in that respect — that Gwatkin should put forward this claim, possibly in its essentials reasonable enough, be at once attracted and repelled by its implications, yet show no wish to carry the discussion further. Was it surprising that, in such respects, foreigners should find us hard to understand? Odd, too, I felt obstinately, that the incestuous Vortigern should link Gwatkin with Barbara Goring and Eleanor Walpole-Wilson. Perhaps it all stemmed from that ill-judged negotiation with Hengist and Horsa. Anyway, it linked me, too, with Gwatkin in a strange way. We had some more stout. Maureen was now too deeply involved in local gossip with the young farmers, if farmers they were, to pay further attention to us. Their party had been increased by the addition of an older man of similar type, with reddish hair and the demeanour of a professional humorist. There was a good deal of laughter. We had to fetch our drinks from the counter ourselves. This seemed to depress Gwatkin still further. We talked rather drearily of the affairs of the Company. More customers came in, all apparently on the closest terms with Maureen. Gwatkin and I drank a fair amount of stout. Finally, it was time to return.

‘Shall we go back to barracks?’

This designation of Castlemallock on Gwatkin’s part added nothing to its charms. He turned towards the bar as we were leaving.

‘Good night, Maureen.’

She was having too good a joke with the red-haired humorist to hear him.

‘Good night, Maureen,’ Gwatkin said again, rather louder.

She looked up, then came round to the front of the bar.

‘Good night to you, Captain Gwatkin, and to you, Lieutenant Jenkins,’ she said, ‘and don’t be so long in coming to see me again, the pair of ye, or it’s vexed with you both I’d be.’

We waved farewell. Gwatkin did not open his mouth until we reached the outskirts of the town. Suddenly he took a deep breath. He seemed about to speak; then, as if he could not give sufficient weight to the words while we walked, he stopped and faced me.

‘Isn’t she marvellous?’ he said.

‘Who, Maureen?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘She seemed a nice girl.’

‘Is that all you thought, Nick?’

He spoke with real reproach.

‘Why, yes. What about you? You’ve really taken a fancy to her, have you?’

‘I think she’s absolutely wonderful,’ he said.

We had had, as I have said, a fair amount to drink — the first time since joining the unit I had drunk more than two or three half-pints of beer — but no more than to loosen the tongue, not sufficient to cause amorous hallucination. Gwatkin was obviously expressing what he really felt, not speaking in an exaggerated manner to indicate light desire. The reason of those afternoon trances, that daydreaming while he nursed the Company’s rubber-stamp, were now all at once apparent, affection for Castlemallock also explained. Gwatkin was in love. All love affairs are different cases, yet, at the same time, each is the same case. Moreland used to say love was like sea-sickness. For a time everything round you heaved about and you felt you were going to die — then you staggered down the gangway to dry land, and a minute or two later could hardly remember what you had suffered, why you had been feeling so ghastly. Gwatkin was at the earlier stage.

‘Have you done anything about it?’

‘About what?’

‘About Maureen.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, taken her out, something like that.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Why not?’

‘What would be the good?’

‘I don’t know. I should have thought it might be enjoyable, if you feel like that about her.’

‘But I’d have to tell her I’m married.’

‘Tell her by all means. Put your cards on the table.’

‘But do you think she’d come?’

‘I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘You mean — try and seduce her?’

‘I suppose that was roughly the line indicated — in due course.’

He looked at me astonished. I felt a shade uncomfortable, rather like Mephistopheles unexpectedly receiving a hopelessly negative reaction from Faust. Such an incident in opera, I thought, might suggest a good basis for an aria.

‘Some of the chaps you meet in the army never seem to have heard of women,’ Odo Stevens had said. ‘You never know in the Mess whether you’re sitting next to a sex-maniac of nineteen or a middle-aged man who doesn’t know the facts of life.’

In Gwatkin’s case, I was surprised by such scruples, even though I now recalled his attitude towards the case of Sergeant Pendry. In general, the younger officers of the Battalion were, like Kedward, engaged, or, like Breeze, recently married. They might, like Pumphrey, talk in a free and easy manner, but it was their girl or their wife who clearly preoccupied them. In any case, there had been no time for girls for anyone, married or single, before we reached Castlemallock. Gwatkin was certainly used to the idea of Pumphrey trying to have a romp with any barmaid who might be available. He had never seemed to disapprove of that. I knew nothing of his married life, except what Kedward had told me, that Gwatkin had known his wife all their lives, had previously wanted to marry Breeze’s sister.

‘But I’m married,’ Gwatkin said again.

He spoke rather desperately.

‘I’m not insisting you should take Maureen out. I only asked if you had.’

‘And Maureen isn’t that sort of girl.’

‘How do you know?’

He spoke angrily this time. Then he laughed, seeing, I suppose, that was a silly thing to say.

‘You’ve only met Maureen for the first time, Nick. You don’t realize at all what she’s like. You think all that talk of hers means she’s a bad girl. She isn’t. I’ve often been alone with her in that bar. You’d be surprised. She’s like a child.’

‘Some children know a thing or two.’

Gwatkin did not even bother to consider that point of view.

‘I don’t know why I think her quite so wonderful,’ he admitted, ‘but I just do. It worries me that I think about her all the time. I’ve found myself forgetting things, matters of duty, I mean.’

‘Do you go down there every night?’

‘Whenever I can. I haven’t been able to get away lately owing to one thing and another. All this security check, for instance.’

‘Does she know this?’

‘Know what?’

‘Does Maureen know you’re mad about her?’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said.

He spoke the words very humbly, quite unlike his usual tone. Then he assumed a rough, official voice again.

‘I thought it would be better if I told you about it all, Nick,’ he said. ‘I hoped the thing wouldn’t go on inside me all the time so much, if I let it out to someone. Unless it stops a bit, I’m frightened I’ll make a fool of myself in some way to do with commanding the Company. A girl like Maureen makes everything go out of your head.’

‘Of course.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yes.’

Gwatkin still did not seem entirely satisfied.

‘You really think I ought to take her out?’

‘That’s what a lot of people would do — probably a lot of people are doing already.’

‘Oh, no, I’m sure they’re not, if you mean from the School of Chemical Warfare. I’ve never seen any of them there. It was quite a chance I went in myself. I was looking for a short cut. Maureen was standing by the door, and I asked her the way. Her parents own the pub. She’s not just a barmaid.’

‘Anyway, there’s no harm in trying, barmaid or not.’

During the rest of the walk back to Castlemallock, Gwatkin did not refer again to the subject of Maureen. He talked of routine matters until we parted to our rooms.

‘The Mess will be packed out again tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘Another Anti-Gas course starts next week. I suppose all that business will begin again of wanting to take my men away from me for their bloody demonstrations. Well, there it is.’

‘Good night, Rowland.’

‘Good night, Nick.’

I made for the stables, where I shared a groom’s room with Kedward, rather like the sleeping quarters of Albert and Bracey at Stonehurst. As Duty Officer that night, Kedward would not be there and I should have the bedroom to myself, always rather a treat. I was aware now that it had been a mistake to drink so much stout. Tomorrow was Sunday, so there would be comparatively little to do. I thought how awful Bithel must feel on parade the mornings after his occasional bouts of drinking. Reflecting on people often portends their own appearance. So it was in the case of Bithel. He was among the students to arrive at the School the following week. We should, indeed, all have been prepared for Bithel to be sent on an Anti-Gas course. It was a way of getting rid of him, pending final banishment from the Battalion, which, as Gwatkin said, was bound to come sooner or later. I was sitting at one of the trestle tables of the Mess, addressing an envelope, when Bithel peered through the door. He was fingering his ragged moustache and smiling nervously. When he saw me, he made towards the table at once.

‘Nice to meet again,’ he said, speaking as usual as if he expected a rebuff. ‘Haven’t seen you since the Battalion moved.’

‘How have you been?’

‘Getting rockets, as usual,’ he said.

‘Maelgwyn-Jones?’

‘That fellow’s got a positive down on me,’ Bithel said, ‘but I don’t think it will be for long now.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m probably leaving the Battalion.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘There’s talk of my going up to Division.’

‘On the staff?’

‘Not exactly — a command.’

‘At Div HQ?’

‘Only a subsidiary command, of course. I shall be sorry to leave the Regiment in some ways, if it comes off, but not altogether sorry to see the back of Maelgwyn-Jones.’

‘What is it? Or is that a secret?’

Bithel lowered his voice in his accustomed manner when speaking of his own affairs, as if there were always a hint of something dubious about them.

‘The Mobile Laundry Unit,’ he said.

‘You’re going to command it?’

‘If I’m picked. There are at least two other names in for it from other units in the Division, I happen to know — one of them very eligible. As it happens, I have done publicity work for one of the laundries in my own neighbourhood, so I have quite a chance. In fact, that should stand very much in my favour. The CO seems very anxious for me to get the appointment. He’s been on the phone to Division about it himself more than once. Very good of him.’

‘What rank does the job carry?’

‘A subaltern’s command. Still, it’s promotion in a way. What you might call a step. The war news doesn’t look very good, does it, since the Belgian Government surrendered.’

‘What’s the latest? I missed the last news.’

‘Fighting on the coast. One of our Regular Battalions has been in action, I was told this morning. Got knocked about pretty badly. Do you remember a rather good-looking boy called Jones, D. Very fair.’

‘He was in my platoon — went out on the draft.’

‘He’s been killed. Daniels, my batman, told me that. Daniels gets all the news.’

‘Jones, D. was killed, was he. Anyone else from our unit?’

‘Progers, did you know him?’

‘The driver with a squint?’

‘That’s the fellow. Used to bring the stuff up to the Mess sometimes. Dark curly hair and a lisp. He’s gone too. Talking of messing, what’s it like here?’

‘We’ve had beef twice a day for just over a fortnight — thirty-seven times running, to be precise.’

‘What does it taste like?’

‘Goat covered with brown custard powder.’

We settled down to talk about army food. When I next saw CSM Cadwallader, I asked if he had heard about Jones, D. Corporal Gwylt was standing nearby.

‘Indeed, I had not, sir. So a bullet got him.’

‘Something did.’

‘Always an unlucky boy, Jones, D.,’ said CSM Cadwallader.

‘Remember how sick he was when we came over the water, Sergeant-Major?’ said Corporal Gwylt, ‘terrible sick.’

‘That I do.’

‘Never did I see a boy so sick,’ said Corporal Gwylt, ‘nor a man neither.’

This was the week leading up to the withdrawal through Dunkirk, so Jones, D. and Progers were not the only fatal casualties known to me personally at that period. Among these, Robert Tolland, serving in France with his Field Security Section, was also killed. The news came in a letter from Isobel. Nothing was revealed, then or later, of the circumstances of Robert’s death. So far as it went, he died as mysteriously as he had lived, like many other young men to whom war put an end, an unsolved problem. Had Robert, as Chips Lovell alleged, lived a secret life with ‘night-club hostesses old enough to be his mother?’ Would he have made a lot of money in his export house trading with the Far East? Might he have married Flavia Wisebite? As in musical chairs, the piano stops suddenly, someone is left without a seat, petrified for all time in their attitude of that particular moment. The balance-sheet is struck there and then, a matter of luck whether its calculations have much bearing, one way or the other, on the commerce conducted. Some die in an apparently suitable manner, others like Robert on the field of battle with a certain incongruity. Yet Fate had ordained this end for him. Or had Robert decided for himself? Had he set aside the chance of a commission to fulfil a destiny that required him to fall in France; or was Flavia’s luck so irredeemably bad that her association with him was sufficient — as Dr Trelawney might have said — to summon the Slayer of Osiris, her pattern of life, rather than Robert’s, dominating the issue of life and death? Robert could even have died to escape her. The potential biographies of those who die young possess the mystic dignity of a headless statue, the poetry of enigmatic passages in an unfinished or mutilated manuscript, unburdened with contrived or banal ending. These were disturbing days, lived out in suffocating summer heat. While they went by, Gwatkin, for some reason, became more cheerful. The war increasingly revealed persons stimulated by disaster. I thought Gwatkin might be one of this fairly numerous order. However, there turned out to be another cause for his good spirits. He revealed the reason one afternoon.

‘I took your advice, Nick,’ he said.

We were alone together in the Company Office.

‘About the storage of those live Mills bombs?’

Gwatkin shook his head, at the same time swallowing uncomfortably, as if the very thought of live grenades and where they were to be stored, brought an immediate sense of guilt.

‘No, not about the Mills bombs,’ he said, ‘I’m still thinking over the best place to keep them — I don’t want any interference from the Ordnance people. I mean about Maureen.’

For a moment the name conveyed nothing. Then I remembered the evening in the pub: Maureen, the girl who had so greatly taken Gwatkin’s fancy. Thinking things over the next day, I had attributed his remarks to the amount of stout we had drunk. Maureen had been dismissed from my mind.

‘What about Maureen?’

‘I asked her to come out with me.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She agreed.’

‘I said she would.’

‘It was bloody marvellous.’

‘Splendid.’

‘Nick,’ he said, ‘I’m serious. Don’t laugh. I really want to thank you, Nick, for making me take action — not hang about like a fool. That’s my weakness. Like the day we were in support and I made such a balls of it.’

‘And Maureen’s all right?’

‘She’s wonderful.’

That was all Gwatkin said. He gave no account of the outing. I should have liked to hear a little about it, but clearly he regarded the latest development in their relationship as too sacred to describe in detail. I saw that Kedward, in some matters no great psychologist, had been right in saying that when Gwatkin took a fancy to a girl it was ‘like having the measles’. This business of Maureen could be regarded only as a judgment on Gwatkin for supposing Sergeant Pendry’s difficulties easy of solution. Now, he had himself been struck down by Aphrodite for his pride in refusing incense at her altars. The goddess was going to chastise him. In any case, there was nothing very surprising in this sort of thing happening, when, even after an exhausting day’s training, the camp-bed was nightly a rack of desire, where no depravity of the imagination was unbegotten. No doubt much mutual irritation was caused by this constraint, particularly, for example, something like Gwatkin’s detestation of Bithel.

‘God,’ he said, when he set eyes on him at Castlemallock, ‘that bloody man has followed us here.’

Bithel himself was quite unaware of the ferment of rage he aroused in Gwatkin. At least he showed no sign of recognising Gwatkin’s hatred, even at times positively thrusting himself on Gwatkin’s society. Some persons feel drawn towards those who dislike them, or are at least determined to overcome opposition of that sort. Bithel may have regarded Gwatkin’s unfriendliness as a challenge. Whatever the reason, he always made a point of talking to Gwatkin whenever opportunity arose, showing himself equally undeterred by verbal rebuff or crushing moroseness. However, Gwatkin’s attitude in repelling Bithel’s conversational advances was not entirely based on a simple brutality. Their relationship was more complicated than that. The code of behaviour in the army which Gwatkin had set himself did not allow his own comportment with any brother officer to reach a pitch of unfriendliness he would certainly have shown to a civilian acquaintance disliked as much as he disliked Bithel. This code — Gwatkin’s picture of it, that is — allowed, indeed positively kindled, a blaze of snubs directed towards Bithel, at the same time preventing, so to speak, any final dismissal of him as a person too contemptible to waste time upon. Bithel was a brother officer; for that reason always, in the last resort, handed a small dole by Gwatkin, usually in the form of an incitement to do better, to pull himself together. Besides, Gwatkin, with many others, could never finally be reconciled to abandoning the legend of Bithel’s VC brother. Mythical prestige still hung faintly about Bithel on that account. Such legends, once taken shape, endlessly proliferate. Certainly I never heard Bithel himself make any public effort to extirpate the story. He may have feared that even the exacerbated toleration of himself Gwatkin was at times prepared to show would fade away, if the figure of the VC brother in the background were exorcised entirely.

‘Coming to sit with the Regiment tonight, Captain Gwatkin,’ Bithel would say when he joined us; then add in his muttered, confidential tone: ‘Between you and me, there’re not much of a crowd on this course. Pretty second-rate.’

Bithel always found difficulty in addressing Gwatkin as ‘Rowland’. In early days, Gwatkin had protested once or twice at this formality, but I think he secretly rather enjoyed the respect implied by its use. Bithel, like everyone else, possessed one or more initial, but no one ever knew, or at least seemed to have forgotten, the name or names for which they stood. He was always called ‘Bith’ or ‘Bithy’, in some ways a more intimate form of address, which Gwatkin, on his side, could never bring himself to employ. The relaxation Bithel styled ‘sitting with the Regiment’ took place in an alcove, unofficially reserved by Gwatkin, Kedward and myself for our use as part of the permanent establishment of Castlemallock, as opposed to its shifting population of Anti-Gas students. The window seat where I used to read Esmond was in this alcove, and we would occasionally have a drink there. Since the night when he had first joined the Battalion, Bithel’s drinking, though steady when drink was available, had not been excessive, except on such occasions as Christmas or the New Year, when no great exception could be taken. He would get rather fuddled, but no more. Bithel himself sometimes referred to his own moderation in this respect.

‘Got to keep an eye on the old Mess bill,’ he would say. ‘The odd gin-and-orange adds up. I have had the CO after me once already about my wine bill. Got to mind my p’s and q’s in that direction.’

As things turned out at Castlemallock, encouragement to overstep the mark came, unexpectedly, from the army authorities themselves. At least that was the way Bithel himself afterwards explained matters.

‘It was all the fault of that silly old instruction,’ he said. ‘I was tired out and got absolutely misled by it.’

Part of the training on the particular Castlemallock course Bithel was attending consisted in passing without a mask through the gas-chamber. Sooner or later, every rank in the army had to comply with this routine, but students of an Anti-Gas course naturally experienced a somewhat more elaborate ritual in that respect than others who merely took their turn with a unit. A subsequent aspect of the test was first-aid treatment, which recommended, among other restoratives, for one poisonous gas sampled, ‘alcohol in moderate quantities’. On the day of Bithel’s misadventure, the gas-chamber was the last item on the day’s programme for those on the course. When Bithel’s class was dismissed after this test, some took the advice of the text-book and had a drink; others, because they did not like alcohol, or from motives of economy, confined themselves to hot sweet tea. Among those who took alcohol, no one but Bithel neglected the manual’s admonition to be moderate in this remedial treatment.

‘Old Bith’s having a drink or two this evening, isn’t he,’ Kedward remarked, even before dinner.

Bithel always talked thickly, and, like most people who habitually put an unusually large amount of drink away, there was in general no great difference between him drunk or sober. The stage of intoxication he had reached made itself known only on such rare occasions as his dance round the dummy. At Castlemallock that night, he merely pottered about the ante-room, talking first to one group of anti-gas students, then to another, when, bored with him, people moved away. He did not join us in the alcove until the end of the evening. Everyone used to retire early, so that Gwatkin, Kedward and myself were alone in the room by the time Bithel arrived there. We were discussing the German advance. Gwatkin’s analysis of the tactical situation had continued for some time, and I was making preparations to move off to bed, when Bithel came towards us. He sat down heavily, without making his usual rather apologetic request to Gwatkin that he might be included in the party. For a time he listened to the conversation without speaking. Then he caught the word ‘Paris’.

‘Ever been to Paris, Captain Gwatkin?’ he asked.

Gwatkin shot out a glance of profound disapproval.

‘No,’ he said sharply.

The answer conveyed that Gwatkin considered the question a ridiculous one, as if Bithel had asked if he had ever visited Lhasa or Tierra del Fuego. He continued to lecture Kedward on the principles of mobile warfare.

‘I’ve been to Paris,’ said Bithel.

He made a whistling sound with his lips to express a sense of great conviviality.

‘Went there for a weekend once,’ he said.

Gwatkin looked furious, but said nothing. A Mess waiter appeared and began to collect glasses on a tray. He was, as it happened, the red-faced, hulking young soldier, who, weeping and complaining his back hurt, had made such a disturbance outside the Company Office. Now, he seemed more cheerful, answering Bithel’s request for a final drink with the information that the bar was closed. He said this with the satisfaction always displayed by waiters and barmen at being in a position to make that particular announcement.

‘Just one small Irish,’ said Bithel. ‘That’s all I want.’

‘Bar’s closed, sir.’

‘It can’t be yet.’

Bithel tried to look at his watch, but the figures evidently eluded him.

‘I can’t believe the bar’s closed.’

‘Mess Sergeant’s just said so.’

‘Do get me another, Emmot — it is Emmot, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘Do, do get me a whiskey, Emmot.’

‘Can’t sir. Bar’s closed.’

‘But it can be opened again.’

‘Can’t, sir.’

‘Open it just for one moment — just for one small whiskey.’

‘Sergeant says no, sir.’

‘Ask him again.’

‘Bar’s closed, sir.’

‘I beseech you, Emmot.’

Bithel rose to his feet. Afterwards, I was never certain what happened. I was sitting on the same side as Bithel and, as he turned away, his back was towards me. He lurched suddenly forward. This may have been a stumble, since some of the floorboards were loose at that place. The amount he had drunk did not necessarily have anything to do with Bithel’s sudden loss of balance. Alternatively, his action could have been deliberate, intended as a physical appeal to Emmot’s better feelings. Bithel’s wheedling tone of voice a minute before certainly gave colour to that interpretation. If so, I am sure Bithel intended no more than to rest his hand on Emmot’s shoulder in a facetious gesture, perhaps grip his arm. Such actions might have been thought undignified, bad for discipline, no worse. However, for one reason or another, Bithel lunged his body forward, and, either to save himself from falling, or to give emphasis to his request for a last drink, threw his arms round Emmot’s neck. There, for a split second, he hung. There could be no doubt about the outward impression this posture conveyed. It looked exactly as if Bithel were kissing Emmot — in farewell, rather than in passion. Perhaps he was. Whether or not that were so, Emmot dropped the tray, breaking a couple of glasses, at the same time letting out a discordant sound. Gwatkin jumped to his feet. His face was white. He was trembling with rage.

‘Mr Bithel,’ he said, ‘consider yourself under arrest.’

I had begun to laugh, but now saw things were serious. This was no joking matter. There was going to be a row. Gwatkin’s eyes were fanatical.

‘Mr Kedward,’ he said, ‘go and fetch your cap and belt.’

The alcove where we had been sitting was not far from the door leading to the great hall. There, on a row of hooks, caps and belts were left, before entering the confines of the Mess, so Kedward had not far to go. Afterwards, Kedward told me he did not immediately grasp the import of Gwatkin’s order. He obeyed merely on the principle of not questioning an instruction from his Company Commander. Meanwhile, Emmot began picking up fragments of broken glass from the floor. He did not seem specially surprised by what had happened. Indeed, considering how far I knew he could go in the direction of hysterical loss of control, Emmot carried off the whole situation pretty well. Perhaps he understood Bithel better than the rest of us. Gwatkin, who now seemed to be in his element, told Emmot to be off quickly, to clear up the rest of the debris in the morning. Emmot did not need further encouragement to put an end to the day’s work. He retired from the ante-room at once with his tray and most of the broken glass. Bithel still stood. As he had been put under arrest, this position was no doubt militarily correct. He swayed a little, smiling to himself rather foolishly. Kedward returned, wearing his cap and buckling on his Sam Browne.

‘Escort Mr Bithel to his room, Mr Kedward,’ said Gwatkin. ‘He will not leave it without permission. When he does so, it will be under the escort of an officer. He will not wear a belt, nor carry a weapon.’

Bithel gave a despairing look, as if cut to the quick to be forbidden a weapon, but he seemed to have taken in more or less what was happening, even to be extracting a certain masochistic zest from the ritual. Gwatkin jerked his head towards the door. Bithel turned and made slowly towards it, moving as if towards immediate execution. Kedward followed. I was relieved that Gwatkin had chosen Kedward for this duty, rather than myself, no doubt because he was senior in rank, approximating more nearly to Bithel’s two pips. When they were gone, Gwatkin turned to me. He seemed suddenly exhausted by this output of disciplinary energy.

‘There was nothing else I could do,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t sure what happened.’

‘You did not see?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Bithel kissed an Other Rank.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘Haven’t you got eyes?’

‘I could only see Bithel’s back. I thought he lost his balance.’

‘In any case, Bithel was grossly drunk.’

‘That’s undeniable.’

‘To put him under arrest was my duty. It was the only course I could follow. The only course any officer could follow.’

‘What’s the next step?’

Gwatkin frowned.

‘Cut along to the Company Office, Nick,’ he said in a rather calmer tone of voice. ‘You know where the Manual of Military Law is kept. Bring it to me here. I don’t want Idwal to come back and find me gone. He’ll think I’ve retired to bed. I must have a further word with him.’

When I returned with the Manual of Military Law, Gwatkin was just finishing his instructions to Kedward. At the end of these he curtly said good night to us both. Then he went off, the Manual under his arm, his face stern. Kedward looked at me and grinned. He was evidently surprised, not absolutely staggered, by what had taken place. It was all part of the day’s work to him.

‘What a thing to happen,’ he said.

‘Going to lead to a lot of trouble.’

‘Old Bith was properly pissed.’

‘He was.’

‘I could hardly get him up the stairs.’

‘Did you have to take his arm?’

‘Heaved him up somehow,’ said Kedward. ‘Felt like a copper.’

‘What happened when you arrived in his room?’

‘Luckily the other chap there went sick and left the course yesterday. Bith’s got the room to himself, so things weren’t as awkward as they might have been. He just tumbled on to the bed, and I left him. Off to bed myself now. You’re for the Company Office tonight, aren’t you?’

‘I am.’

‘Good night, Nick.’

‘Good night, Idwal.’

The scene had been exhausting. I was glad to retire from it. Confused dreams of conflict pursued throughout the night. I was in the middle of explaining to the local builder at home — who wore a long Chinese robe and had turned into Pinkus, the Castlemallock Adjutant-Quartermaster — that I wanted the front of the house altered to a pillared façade of Isobel’s own design, when a fire-engine manned by pygmies passed, ringing its bell furiously. The bell continued in my head. I awoke. It had become the telephone. This was exceptional in the small hours. There were no curtains to the room, only shutters for the blackout, which were down, so that, opening my eyes, I saw the sky was already getting light above the outbuildings of the yard. I grasped the instrument and gave the designation of the unit and my name. It was Maelgwyn-Jones, Adjutant of our Battalion.

‘Fishcake,’ he said.

I was only half awake. It was almost as if the dream continued. As I have said, Maelgwyn-Jones’s temper was not of the best. He began to get very angry at once, as it turned out, with good reason.

‘Fishcake …’ he repeated. ‘Fishcake — fishcake — fishcake …’

Obviously ‘Fishcake’ was a codeword. The question was: what did it mean? I had no recollection ever of having heard it before.

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘Fishcake!’

‘I heard Fishcake. I don’t know what it means.’

‘Fishcake, I tell you …’

‘I know Leather and Toadstool …’

‘Fishcake has taken the place of Leather — and Bathwater of Toadstool. What the hell are you dreaming about?’

‘I don’t think—’

‘You’ve bloody well forgotten.’

‘First I’ve heard of Fishcake.’

‘Rot.’

‘Sure it is.’

‘Do you mean to say Rowland hasn’t told you and Kedward? I gave him Bathwater a week ago — in person — when he came over to the Orderly Room to report.’

‘I don’t know about Fishcake or Bathwater.’

‘Oh, Christ, is this one of Rowland’s half-baked ideas about security? I suppose so. I told him the new code came into force in forty-eight hours from the day before yesterday. Didn’t he mention that?’

‘Not a word to me.’

‘Oh, Jesus. Was there ever such a bloody fool commanding a company. Go and get him, and look sharp about it.’

I went off with all speed to Gwatkin’s room, which was in the main part of the house. He was in deep sleep, lying on his side, almost at the position of attention. Only the half of his face above the moustache appeared over the grey-brown of the blanket. I agitated his shoulder. As usual, a lot of shaking was required to get him awake. Gwatkin always slept as if under an anaesthetic. He came to at last, rubbing his eyes.

‘The Adjutant’s on the line. He says it’s Fishcake. I don’t know what that means.’

‘Fishcake?’

‘Yes.’

Gwatkin sat upright in his camp-bed.

‘Fishcake?’ he repeated, as if he could hardly believe his ears.

‘Fishcake.’

‘But we were not to get Fishcake until we had been signalled Buttonhook.’

‘I’ve never heard of Buttonhook either — or Bathwater. All I know are Leather and Toadstool.’

Gwatkin stepped quickly out of bed. His pyjama trousers fell from him, revealing sexual parts and hairy brown thighs. The legs were small and boney, well made, their nakedness suggesting something savage and untaught, yet congruous to his nature. He grabbed the garments to him and held them there, standing scratching his head with the other hand.

‘I believe I’ve made a frightful balls,’ he said.

‘What’s to be done?’

‘Didn’t I mention the new codes to you and Idwal?’

‘Not a word.’

‘God, I remember now. I thought I’d leave it to the last moment for security reasons — and then I went out with Maureen, and forgot I’d never told either of you.’

‘Well, I should go along to the telephone now, or Maelgwyn-Jones will have apoplexy.’

Gwatkin ran off quickly down the passage, still holding up with one hand the untied pyjama trousers, his feet bare, his hair dishevelled. I followed him, also running. We reached the Company Office. Gwatkin took up the telephone.

‘Gwatkin…’

There was the hum of the Adjutant’s voice at the other end. He sounded very angry, as well he might.

‘Jenkins didn’t know …’ Gwatkin said, ‘I thought it best not to tell junior officers until the last moment … I didn’t expect to get a signal the first day it came into operation … I was going to inform them this morning …’

This answer must have had a very irritating effect on Maelgwyn-Jones, whose voice crepitated for several minutes. I could tell he had begun to stutter, a sure sign of extreme rage with him. Whatever the Adjutant was asserting must have taken Gwatkin once more by surprise.

‘But Bathwater was to take the place of Walnut,’ he said, evidently appalled.

Once more the Adjutant spoke. While he listened, Gwatkin’s face lost its colour, as always when he was agitated.

‘To take the place of Toadstool? Then that means—’

There was another burst of angry words at the far end of the line. By the time Maelgwyn-Jones had ceased to speak, Gwatkin had recovered himself sufficiently to reassume his parade ground manner.

‘Very good,’ he said, ‘the Company moves right away.’

He listened for a second, but Maelgwyn-Jones had hung up. Gwatkin turned towards me.

‘I had to tell him that.’

‘Tell him what?’

‘That I had confused the codewords. The fact is, I forgot, as I said to you just now.’

‘Forgot to pass on the new codewords to Idwal and me?’

‘Yes — but not only are the codewords new, the instructions that go with them are amended in certain respects too. But what I said was partly true. I had muddled them in my own mind. I’ve been thinking of other things. God, what a fool I’ve made of myself. Anyway, we mustn’t stand here talking. The Company is to march on the Battalion right away. Wake Idwal and tell him that. Send the duty NCO to CSM Cadwallader, and tell him to report to me as soon as the men are roused — he needn’t bother to be properly dressed. Get your Platoon on parade, Nick, and tell Idwal to do the same.’

He hurried off, shaking up NCOs, delivering orders, amplifying instructions altered by changed arrangements. I did much the same, waking Kedward, who took this disturbance very well, then returning to the Company Office to dress as quickly as possible.

‘This is an imperial balls-up,’ Kedward said, as we were on the way to inspect our platoons. ‘What the hell can Rowland have been thinking about?’

‘He had some idea of keeping the codeword up his sleeve till the last moment.’

‘There’ll be a God Almighty row about it all.’

I found my own Platoon pretty well turned out considering the circumstances. With one exception, they were clean, shaved, correctly equipped. The exception was Sayce. I did not even have to inspect the Platoon to see what was wrong. It was obvious a mile off. Sayce was in his place, no dirtier than usual at a casual glance, even in other respects properly turned out, so it appeared, but without a helmet. In short, Sayce wore no headdress at all. His head was bare.

‘Where’s that man’s helmet, Sergeant?’

Sergeant Basset had replaced Sergeant Pendry as Platoon Sergeant, since Corporal Gwylt, with his many qualities, did not seriously aspire to three stripes. Basset, basically a sound man, had a mind which moved slowly. His small pig eyes set in a broad, flabby face were often puzzled, his capacities included none of Sergeant Pendry’s sense of fitness. Sergeant Pendry, even at the time of worst depression about his wife, would never have allowed a helmetless man to appear on parade, much less fall in. He would have found a helmet for him, told him to report sick, put him under arrest, or devised some other method of disposing of him out of sight. Sergeant Basset, bull-necked and worried, began to question Sayce. Time was getting short. Sayce, in a burst of explanatory whining, set forth a thousand reasons why he should be pitied rather than blamed.

‘Says somebody took his helmet, sir.’

‘Tell him to fall out and find it in double-quick time, or he’ll wish he’d never been born.’

Sayce went off at a run. I hoped that was the last we should see of him that day. He could be dealt with on return. Anything was better than the prospect of a helmetless man haunting the ranks of my platoon. It would be the last straw as far as Gwatkin was concerned, no doubt Maelgwyn-Jones too. However, while I was completing the inspection, Sayce suddenly appeared again. This time he was wearing a helmet. It was too big for him, but that was an insignificant matter. This was no time to be particular, still less to ask questions. The platoon moved off to take its place with the rest of the Company. Gwatkin, who looked worried, but had now recovered his self-possession, made a rapid inspection and found nothing to complain of. We marched down the long drives of Castlemallock, out on to the road, through the town. As we passed the alley leading to Maureen’s pub, I saw Gwatkin cast an eye in that direction, but it was too early in the morning for Maureen herself, or anyone else much, to be about.

‘Something awful are the girls of this town,’ said Corporal Gwylt to the world at large, ‘never did I see such a way to go on.’

When we reached Battalion Headquarters, there was a message to say the Adjutant wanted an immediate word with Captain Gwatkin. Gwatkin returned from this interview with a set face. It looked as if subordinates might be in for a bad time, such as that after the Company’s failure to provide ‘support’. However, Gwatkin showed no immediate desire to get his own back on somebody, though he must have had an unenjoyable ten minutes with Maelgwyn-Jones. We set out on the day’s scheme, marching and countermarching across the mountains, infiltrating the bare, treeless fields. From start to finish, things went badly. In fact, it was a disastrous day. Still, as Maelgwyn-Jones had said, it passed, like other days in the army, and we returned at length to Castlemallock, bad-tempered and tired. Kedward and I were on the way to our room, footsore, longing to get our boots off, when we met Pinkus, the Adjutant-Quartermaster, the malignant dwarf from the Morte d’Arthur. His pleased manner showed there was trouble in the air. He had a voice of horrible refinement, which must have taken years to perfect, and somewhat recalled that of Howard Craggs, the left-wing publisher.

‘Where’s your Company Commander?’ asked Pinkus. ‘The Commandant wants him pronto.’

‘In his room, I suppose. The Company’s just been dismissed. He’s probably changing.’

‘What’s this about putting one of the officers of the course under arrest? The Commandant’s bloody well brassed off about it, I can tell you — and, what’s more, the Commandant’s own helmet is missing, too, and he thinks one of your fellows has taken it.’

‘Why on earth?’

‘Your Platoon falls in just outside his quarters.’

‘Much more likely to be one of the permanent staff on Fire Picquet. They pass just by the door.’

‘The Commandant doesn’t think so.’

‘I bet one of the Fire Picquet pinched it.’

‘The Commandant says he doesn’t trust your mob an inch.’

‘Why not?’

‘That’s what he says.’

‘If he wants to run down the Regiment, he’d better take it up with our Commanding Officer.’

‘Make enquiries, or there’ll be trouble. Now, where’s Gwatkin?’

He went off, mouthing refinedly to himself. I saw what had happened. In the stresses following realization that he had forgotten about the changed codewords, Gwatkin had also forgotten Bithel. During the exertions of the day in the field, I, too, had given no thought to the events of the previous night, at least none sufficient to consider how best the situation should be handled on our return. Now, back at Castlemallock, the Bithel problem loomed up ominously. Bad enough, in any case, to leave the matter unattended made it worse than ever. Even Kedward had no copybook solution.

‘My God,’ he said, ‘I suppose old Bith ought to have been under escort all day. Under my escort, too, if it comes to that. It was Rowland’s last order to me.’

‘Anyway, Bithel should have been brought up before the Commandant within twenty-four hours and charged, as a matter of routine. That’s the regulation, isn’t it?’

‘Twenty-four hours isn’t up yet.’

‘Still, it’s a bit late in the day.’

‘Rowland’s going to find this one tough to sort out.’

‘There’s nothing we can do about it.’

‘Look, Nick,’ said Kedward, ‘I’ll go off right away and see exactly what’s happened before I take my boots off. Christ, my feet feel like balloons.’

After a while, Kedward returned, saying Gwatkin was already with the Castlemallock Commandant, straightening out the Bithel affair. When I saw Gwatkin later, he looked desperately worried.

‘That business of Bithel last night,’ he said harshly.

‘Yes?’

‘We’d better forget about it.’

‘OK.’

‘This Anti-Gas course is almost at an end.’

‘Yes.’

‘Bithel goes back to the Battalion.’

‘He may be going up to Division.’

‘Bithel?’

‘Yes.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘To command the Mobile Laundry.’

‘I hadn’t heard that,’ said Gwatkin. ‘How do you know?’

‘Bithel himself told me.’

Gwatkin did not look best pleased, but he reserved judgment.

‘The CO will be glad to be rid of him,’ he said, ‘no doubt about that. The point of what I’m saying now is that Bithel may have made a bloody swine of himself last night, but it’s going to be too much of a business to see he gets his desserts.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘I suspect that Bithel himself got hold of the Mess waiter concerned. Between the two of them, they are prepared to swear that the whole thing was an accident. Bithel stayed in bed all day, saying he had ’flu.’

‘How did the Commandant know about the arrest?’

‘It leaked out. He seemed to think I’d been officious. I suppose he was just waiting to get something back on me for trying to prevent him from standing between me and my own men and their training. He said Bithel may have had a few drinks, even too many, but, after all, he’d been through the gas-chamber, and, as it turned out, was also sickening for ’flu. The Commandant said, too, he didn’t want a row of that undesirable sort at his School of Chemical Warfare. He’d already had trouble about that particular Mess waiter, and, if it came up for court-martial, there might be a real stink.’

‘Probably just as well to drop the whole affair.’

Gwatkin sighed.

‘Do you think that too, Nick?’

‘I do.’

‘Then you really don’t care about discipline either,’ said Gwatkin. ‘That’s what it means. You’re like the rest. Well, well, few officers seem to these days — or even decent behaviour.’

He spoke without bitterness, just regret. All the same, it was perhaps a relief to him — as it certainly was to everyone else — that the Bithel charge should be dropped. However, matters had gone too far at the outset for the whole story to be suppressed. Its discussion throughout the Castlemallock garrison eventually spread to the Battalion; no doubt, in due course, to the ears of the Commanding Officer. Bithel himself, as usual, took the whole business in his stride.

‘I made a proper fool of myself that night,’ he said to me, just before he left Castlemallock. ‘Ought to stick to beer really. Whiskey is always a mistake on top of gin-and-orange. Might have messed up my chances of getting that command. Captain Gwatkin does go off the deep-end, though. Never know what he’s going to do next. The Commandant was very decent. Saw my side. War news doesn’t look too good, does it? What do you think about Italy coming in? Just a lot of ice-creamers, that’s my opinion.’

Then, one sweltering afternoon, returning with the Platoon after practising attack under cover of a smokescreen, I found several things had happened which altered the pattern of life. When I went into the Company Office, Gwatkin and Kedward were both there. They were standing facing each other. Even as I came through the door and saluted, disturbance was in the air. In fact tension could be described as acute. Gwatkin was pale, Kedward rather red in the face. Neither of them spoke. I made some casual remark about the afternoon’s training. This was ignored by Gwatkin. There was a pause. I wondered what had gone wrong. Then Gwatkin spoke in his coldest, most military voice.

‘There will be some changes announced in Part II Orders next week, Nick,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘You’ll like to know them before they appear officially.’

I could not imagine why all this to-do should be made; why, if there were to be changes, Gwatkin could not quite simply state what the changes were, instead of behaving as if about to notify me that the British Government had surrendered, and Kedward and I were to make immediate arrangements for our platoons to become prisoners-of-war. He paused again. Behaviour like this was hard on the nerves.

‘Idwal is your new Company Commander,’ Gwatkin said.

Everything was explained in a flash. There was nothing to do but remain silent.

‘There have been other promotions too,’ said Gwatkin. He spoke as if this fact, that there were other promotions, was at least some small consolation. I looked at Kedward. Then I saw, what I had missed before, that he was in an ecstasy of controlled delight. I had not at first noticed this to be the reason for his tense bearing. The air of strain had been imposed by an effort not to grin too much. Even Kedward must have realized this was a painful moment for Gwatkin. Now, the presence of a third party slightly easing the situation, he allowed a slight smile to appear on his face. It spread. He could no longer limit its extent. The grin, by its broadness, almost concealed his little moustache.

‘Congratulations, Idwal.’

‘Thanks, Nick.’

‘And what about you, Rowland?’

I could hardly imagine Gwatkin was to be promoted major. If that were to happen, he would be looking more cheerful. There was a possibility he might be going to command Headquarter Company, an appointment he was known to covet. I doubted myself whether he were wholly qualified to deal with Headquarter Company’s many components, remembering, among other things, the incident with the bren-carrier. All the same, I was not prepared for the answer I received, even though I knew, as soon as I heard it, that the sentence pronounced on him should have been guessed at the first indication of upheaval.

‘I’m going to the ITC,’ said Gwatkin.

‘Pending—’

‘To await a posting,’ Gwatkin said abruptly.

He could not conceal his own mortification. The corner of his mouth worked a little. It was not surprising he was upset. There was no adequate comment at hand to offer in condolence. Gwatkin had been relieved of his Company. There was nothing more or less to it than that. He was being sent to the Regimental Depot — the Infantry Training Centre — whence he would emerge, probably posted to a Holding Battalion finding drafts for the First Line. His career as a military paragon was at an end, though not perhaps his visions as a monk of war, after the echoes and dreams of action died away. Gwatkin might get a company again, he might not. His Territorial captaincy at least was substantive, so that he could not, like holders of an emergency commission, be reduced in rank. However, a captaincy was not in every respect an advantage for someone who hoped to repair this catastrophe. An unreducible captain could find himself in some dead-end where three pips were by convention required, ship’s adjutant, for example, or like Pinkus at Castlemallock. That would not be much of fate for a Stendhalian hero, a man bent on making a romantic career in arms, the sort of figure I had supposed Gwatkin only a few months before; in Stendhal, I thought this fate would be attributed to malign political intrigue, the work of Ultras or Freemasons.

‘You can fall out, both of you, now,’ said Gwatkin, speaking with forced cheerfulness. ‘I’ll straighten out the papers for you, Idwal. We’ll go through them together tomorrow.’

‘What about the Imprest Account?’ asked Kedward.

‘I’ll bring it up to date.’

‘And the other Company accounts?’

‘Them, too.’

‘I only mention that, Rowland, because you’re sometimes a bit behindhand with them. I don’t want to have to waste a lot of time on paper work. There’s too much to do about the Company without that.’

‘We’ll check everything.’

‘Has that bren been returned we lent to the Anti-Gas School?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I shall want it formally handed over again, before I sign for the Company’s weapons.’

‘Of course.’

‘Then Corporal Rosser’s promotion.’

‘What about it?’

‘Did you decide to make him up?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you told him?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Then don’t tell him, Rowland.’

‘Why not?’

‘I want to see more of Rosser before I decide he’s to have a third stripe,’ said Kedward. ‘I shall think about it further.’

Gwatkin’s face took on a shade more colour. These were forcible reminders of Kedward’s changed position. I was myself a little surprised at the manner in which Kedward accepted the Company as his undoubted right. In one sense, he could have behaved in a more tactful manner about the take-over, anyway leave such questions until they were going through the papers together; in another, as Company Commander designate, he was there to arrange matters in the Company’s best interests — by Gwatkin’s own definition — not to be polite or spare Gwatkin’s feelings. Nevertheless, Gwatkin had not cared for being treated in this manner. He tapped with his knuckles on the blanket covering the trestle table, played with his beloved symbol, the rubber stamp. Gwatkin was deeply humiliated, even though keeping himself under control.

‘I want to be alone now, boys,’ he said.

He began to rustle papers. Kedward and I retired. We went along the passage together, Kedward deep in thought.

‘Rowland is taking this pretty hard,’ I said.

Kedward showed surprise.

‘Losing the Company?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘I do.’

‘He must have seen it coming.’

‘I don’t think he did for a moment.’

‘Rowland has been getting less and less efficient lately,’ Kedward said. ‘You must have noticed that. You said yourself something was wrong, when you came back from the Aldershot course.’

‘I somehow didn’t expect him to be unstuck just like this.’

‘The Company needs a thorough overhaul,’ said Kedward. ‘There are one or two points I shall want altered in your own Platoon, Nick. It is far from satisfactory. I’ve noticed there’s no snap about them when they march in from training. That’s always a good test of men. They are the worst of the three platoons at musketry, too. You’ll have to give special attention to the range. And another thing, Nick, about your own personal turn-out. Do get that anti-gas cape of yours properly folded. The way you have it done is not according to regulations.’

‘I’ll see to all that, Idwal. Who are you getting as another subaltern?’

‘Lyn Craddock. He’ll go in senior to you, of course. I think Lyn should help pull the Company together.’

‘When do you put your pips up?’

‘Monday. By the way, did I tell you Yanto Breeze is to become a captain too — in the Traffic Control Company. I just heard that this afternoon from one of the drivers who brought some stuff here. It isn’t like getting a company in a battalion, but it’s promotion all the same.’

‘Does Rowland know about Yanto?’

‘I was just telling him when you came into the Company Office — saying it was funny two of his subalterns should become captain at the same moment.’

‘How did Rowland take it?’

‘Didn’t seem much interested. Rowland never liked Yanto. I don’t know whether all that about his sister rankled. I say, Nick, do you know what?’

‘What?’

‘I’m going to write tonight and arrange about the wedding on my next leave.’

‘When’s that going to be?’

‘Getting the Company may mean a postponement, but even then it won’t be too far off. By the way, I’ve got a new snap of my fiancée. Like to see it?’

‘Of course.’

We gazed at the photograph.

‘She’s altered her hair,’ Kedward said.

‘So I see.’

‘I’m not sure I like it the new way,’ he said.

Nevertheless, he gave the photograph its routine kiss before putting it away. His promotion, his fiancée, the wedding in prospect, were matters of fact to him, not, as to Gwatkin, dreams come true. When Gwatkin was given the Company, that must have seemed the first important step in a glorious career; when he first took out Maureen, entry into an equally glorious romance. Kedward, it was true, accepted accession of rank with enthusiasm, but without the smallest romanticism, military or otherwise. As Moreland would have said, it is just the way you look at things. We crossed the hall. Emmot, the Mess waiter, appeared from a doorway. The whole Bithel affair had greatly cheered him up. He looked positively a new man. It was hard to believe he had been sobbing like a child only a few weeks before.

‘You’re wanted on the phone, sir,’ he said, grinning, as if he and I had shared most of the fun of the Bithel incident, ‘your unit.’

I went to the telephone in the Duty Officer’s room.

‘Jenkins here.’

It was the Adjutant.

‘Hold on a moment,’ he said.

I held on. At the other end of the line Maelgwyn-Jones began to talk to someone in the Orderly Room. I waited. He returned at last.

‘Who is that?’

‘Jenkins.’

‘What do you want?’

‘You rang up for me.’

‘What was it? Oh, yes. Here’s the chit. Second-Lieutenant Jenkins. You will report to Divisional Headquarters, DAAG’s office, by 1700 hrs tomorrow, taking all your kit with you.’

‘Do you know what I’m to do there?’

‘No idea.’

‘For how long?’

‘No idea of that either.’

‘What’s the DAAG’s name?’

‘Also unknown. He’s a new appointment. Old Square-arse got bowler-hatted.’

‘How shall I get to Div HQ?’

‘There’s a truck going up tomorrow with some details for hospital treatment. I’ll tell it to pick you up at Castlemallock on the way. I expect you’ve heard about certain changes in your Company.’

‘Yes.’

‘Strictly speaking, this instruction should have been issued by me through your Company Commander, but, to avoid confusion, I thought I’d tell you direct. There was another reason, too, why I wanted to speak personally. If the new DAAG is an approachable chap, find out about that Intelligence course I’m supposed to be going on. Also about those two officer reinforcements we’ve been promised. All right?’

‘All right.’

‘Report what I’ve just told you about yourself to the two officers concerned — Rowland and Idwal — right away. Tell them they’ll get it in writing tomorrow. All right?’

‘Yes.’

Maelgwyn-Jones hung up. Castlemallock was to be left behind. I heard the news without regret; although in the army — as in love — anxiety is an ever-present factor where change is concerned. I returned to Kedward and told him what was happening to me.

‘You’re leaving right away?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘What are you going to do at Div?’

‘No idea. Could be only temporary, I suppose. I may reappear.’

‘You won’t if you once go.’

‘You think not?’

‘As I’ve said before, Nick, you’re a bit old for a subaltern in an operational unit. I want to make the Company more mobile. I was a little worried anyway about having you on my hands, to tell the truth.’

‘Well, you won’t have to worry any longer, Idwal.’

These words of mine expressed, on my own part, no more, no less, than what they were, a mere statement of fact. They did not convey the smallest reverberation of acerbity at being treated so frankly as a more than doubtful asset. Kedward dealt in realities. There is much to be said for persons who traffic in this corn, provided it is always borne in mind that so-called realities present, as a rule, only a small part of the picture. On this occasion, however, I was myself in complete agreement with Kedward’s view about my departure, feeling even stimulated by a certain excitement at the thought of being on the move.

‘You’d better tell Rowland right away.’

‘I’m going to.’

I returned to the Company Office. Gwatkin was surrounded with papers. He looked as if he were handing over an Army in the field, rather than a Company on detachment for security duties. He glared when I came through the door at this disobeying of an order that he should be left undisturbed. I repeated Maelgwyn-Jones’s words. Gwatkin pushed back his chair.

‘So you’re leaving the Battalion too, Nick?’

‘The Adjutant didn’t say for how long.’

‘You won’t come back, if you go to Division.’

‘That’s what Idwal said.’

‘What can it be? They’d hardly give you a staff appointment. It’s probably something like Bithel. I hear he’s going to the Mobile Laundry. The CO must have rigged that.’

I saw that even Bithel’s new command was painful to Gwatkin, destined himself for the ITC. My own unexplained move was scarcely less disturbing to him. He frowned.

‘This must be part of a general shake-up,’ he said. ‘CSM Cadwallader is leaving the Battalion too.’

‘Why is the Sergeant-Major going?’

‘Age. I don’t understand why Maelgwyn-Jones did not pass the order about yourself to me in the first instance.’

‘He said he spoke to me personally because he wanted to explain about some questions I was to put to the new DAAG.’

‘He should have done that through me.’

‘He said you would get it in writing tomorrow.’

‘If the Adjutant ignores the correct channels, I don’t know what he expects other officers to do,’ said Gwatkin.

He laughed, as if he found some relief in the thought that the whole framework of the Company, as we had known it together, was now to be broken up; not, so to speak, given over unimpaired to the innovations of Kedward. There was no doubt, I saw now, that Gwatkin would have preferred almost anyone, rather than Kedward, to succeed him.

‘Idwal will get either Phillpots or Parry in your place, I expect,’ he said.

He began to fiddle with his papers again. I turned to go. Gwatkin looked up suddenly.

‘Doing anything special tonight?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Come for a stroll in the park.’

‘After Mess?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right.’

I went off to pack, and make such other preparations as were required for departure the following day. Gwatkin came into dinner late. I was already sitting in the ante-room when he joined me.

‘Shall we go?’

‘Right.’

We left the house by the steps leading to what remained of the lawn, its turf criss-crossed now with footpaths worn by the feet of soldiers taking short cuts. Shrubberies divided the garden from the park. When we were among the trees, Gwatkin took the way leading to Lady Caro’s Dingle. After the heat of the afternoon, these woods were wonderfully cool and peaceful. The moon was full, the sky almost as light as day. Now that I was about to leave Castlemallock, I began to regret having spent so little time in this park. All I knew was the immediate neighbourhood of the house. To have frequented its woods and glades would perhaps have only increased the melancholy inherent in the place.

‘Do you know, Nick,’ said Gwatkin, ‘although the Company used to mean everything to me, it’s leaving the Battalion that’s the real blow. Of course there will be up-to-date training at the ITC, opportunity to get to know the latest weapons and tactics thoroughly, not just rush through them and instruct, as we have to here.’

I did not know what to say to that, but Gwatkin was just getting it off his chest. He did not require answers.

‘Idwal is pretty pleased with himself now,’ he said. ‘Let him see what it’s like to be skipper. Perhaps it isn’t as easy as he thinks.’

‘Idwal certainly enjoys the idea of being a company commander.’

‘Then there’s Maureen,’ Gwatkin said. ‘This means leaving her. That was what I wanted to talk to you about.’

I had supposed that to be the reason for our coming to the park.

‘You’ll at least have time to say goodbye to her.’

That did not sound much consolation. It seemed to me he was well rid of Maureen, if she really was disturbing him to the extent that it appeared; but being judicious about other people’s love affairs is easy, often merely a sign one has not understood their force or complexity.

‘I’m going to try and get down there tomorrow,’ he said, ‘take her out for the evening.’

‘Have you been seeing much of her?’

‘Quite a bit.’

‘It’s bad luck.’

‘I know I’ve made a bloody fool of myself,’ Gwatkin said, ‘but I don’t know that I’d do different if I started again. Anyway, it isn’t quite over.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘Maureen.’

‘In what way?’

‘Nick—’

‘Yes?’

‘She’s pretty well said — you know—’

‘She has?’

‘I believe if I can manage to see her tomorrow — but I don’t want to talk about it. She can’t make up her mind, you see. I understand that.’

I thought of Dicky Umfraville’s comment: ‘Not tonight, darling, I don’t love you enough — not tonight, darling, I love you too much …’ It sounded as if Gwatkin had had his share of such reservations. As we walked, his mind continually jumped from one aspect of his vexations to another.

‘If I’m at the ITC and there’s an invasion,’ he said, ‘I’ll at least be nearer the scene of action than here. I don’t think the Germans will try this country, do you? There’d be no difficulty in landing here, but it would mean mounting another operation after their arrival.’

‘Hardly worth it, I’d have thought.’

‘Idwal didn’t take long to get hold of the idea he was to command the Company.’

‘He certainly did not.’

‘Do you remember my saying what we call good manners are just a form of weakness?’

‘Very well.’

‘I suppose if that’s true, Idwal was right to speak as he did.’

‘There’s a lot to be said for going straight to the point.’

‘But that’s what I’ve always tried to do since I’ve been in the army,’ Gwatkin said. ‘It doesn’t seem to have worked in my case. Here I am being sent back to the ITC as a dud. It’s not because I haven’t been keen, or slacked in any way — except I know I forgot about those bloody codewords — and other people make balls-ups too.’

He spoke without self-pity, just lack of understanding; deep desire to know the answer why, so far as he was concerned, things had gone so wrong. It would be no good attempting to explain. I was not even sure I knew the explanation myself. All Gwatkin said was true. He had worked hard. In many respects he was a good officer, so far as he went. He was even conscious of such moral aspects of military life as the fact that the army is a world of the will, accordingly, if the will is weak, the army is weak. I could see, however, that one of the fallacies that made him so vulnerable was the supposition that manners, good or bad, had anything to do with the will as such.

‘I loved commanding the Company,’ Gwatkin said. ‘Don’t you enjoy your Platoon, Nick?’

‘I might have once. I don’t know. It’s too late now. That’s certain. Thirty men are merely a responsibility without the least compensatory feeling of power. They only need everlasting looking after.’

‘Do you really feel that?’ he said, astonished. ‘When the war broke out, I was thrilled at the thought I might lead men into action. I suppose I may yet. This could be only a temporary set-back.’

He laughed unhappily. By this time we were approaching the dingle, a glade enclosed by a kind of shrubbery. A large stone seat was on one side of it, ornamental urns set on plinths at either end. All at once there was a sound of singing.

‘Arm in arm together,

Just like we used to be,

Stepping out along with you

Meant all the world to me …’

It was a man’s voice, a familiar one. The song, recalling old fashioned music-hall tunes of fifty years before, was, in fact, contemporary to that moment, popular among the men, perhaps, on account of such nostalgic tones and rhythm. The singing stopped abruptly. A woman began giggling and squeaking. Gwatkin and I paused.

‘One of our fellows?’ he said.

‘It sounds to me like Corporal Gwylt.’

‘I believe you’re right.’

‘Let’s have a look.’

We skirted the dingle by way of a narrow path among the bushes, stepping quietly through the undergrowth that surrounded the glade. On the stone seat a soldier and a girl were sprawled in a long embrace. The soldier’s arm bore two white stripes. The back of the huge head was unmistakably that of Corporal Gwylt. We watched for a moment. Suddenly Gwatkin gave a start. He drew in his breath.

‘Christ,’ he said very quietly.

He began to pick his way with great care through the shrubs and laurels. I followed him. I was not at first aware why he was moving so soon, nor that something had upset him. I thought his exclamation due to the scratch of a thorn, or remembrance of some additional item to be supervised before handing over the Company. When we were beyond the immediate outskirts of the dingle, he began walking quickly. He did not speak until we were on the path leading back to the house.

‘You saw who the girl was?’

‘No.’

‘Maureen.’

‘God, was she?’

There was absolutely no comment to make. This was even more unanswerable than the news that Gwatkin had been superseded in his command. If you are in love with a woman — and Gwatkin was undoubtedly in love — you can recognise her a mile off. The fact that I myself had failed to identify Maureen in the evening light did not make Gwatkin’s certainty in the least suspect. The statement could be accepted as correct.

‘Corporal Gwylt,’ he said. ‘Could you believe it?’

‘It was Gwylt all right.’

‘What do you think of it?’

‘There’s nothing to say.’

‘Rolling about with him.’

‘They were certainly in a clinch.’

‘Well, say something.’

‘Gwylt ought to pray more to Mithras.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know — the Kipling poem — “keep us pure till the dawn”.’

‘My God,’ said Gwatkin, ‘you’re bloody right.’

He began to laugh. That was one of the moments when I felt I had not been wrong in thinking there was some style about him. We reached the house, parting without further discussion on either side, though Gwatkin had again laughed loudly from time to time. I made my way up the rickety stairs of the stable. The light was out in the bedroom, the blackout down from the window, through which moonlight shone on to the floor. This would usually have meant Kedward was asleep. However, as I came through the door, he sat up in bed.

‘You’re late, Nick.’

‘I went for a walk in the park with Rowland.’

‘Is he browned off?’

‘Just a shade.’

‘I couldn’t get to sleep,’ Kedward said. ‘Never happened to me before. I suppose I’m so bloody pleased to get command of the Company. I keep on having new ideas about running it. I was thinking, I’ll probably get Phillpots or Parry in your place, now that you’re going up to Div.’

‘Phillpots is a nice chap to work with.’

‘Parry is the better officer,’ said Kedward.

He turned over, in due course going to sleep, I suppose, in spite of these agitations induced by the prospect of power. For a time I thought about Gwatkin, Gwylt and Maureen, then went to sleep myself. The following day there were farewells to be said. I undertook these in the afternoon.

‘I hear you’re leaving the Battalion too, Sergeant-Major.’

‘That I am, sir.’

‘I expect you’re sorry to go.’

‘I am that, sir, and then I’m not. Nice to see home again, that will be, but there needs promotion for these younger lads that must be getting on.’

‘Who is going to take your place?’

‘It will be Sergeant Humphries, I do believe.’

‘I hope Humphries does the job as well as you have.’

‘Ah, well, sir, Humphries is a good NCO, and he should be all right, I do think.’

‘Thank you for all your help.’

‘Oh, it was a pleasure, sir …’

Before CSM Cadwallader could say more — not a man to take lightly opportunity to speak at length on the occasion of such a leave-taking, he was certainly going to say more, much more — Corporal Gwylt came running up. He saluted perfunctorily. Evidently I was not the object of his approach. He was tousled and out of breath.

‘Excuse me, sir, may I speak to the Sergeant-Major?’

‘Go ahead.’

Gwylt could hardly contain his indignation.

‘Somebody’s broke in and stole the Company’s butter, Sergeant-Major, and the lock’s all bust and the wire ripped out of the front of the meat-safe where it was put, and the Messing Corporal do think it be that bugger Sayce again that has taken the butter to flog it, so will you come and see right away, the Messing Corporal says, that we have your witness, Sergeant-Major, if there’s a Summary of Evidence like there was those blankets …’

CSM Cadwallader shortened his speech in preparation to a mere goodbye and grip of the hand. There was no alternative in the circumstances. He looked disappointed, but characteristically put duty before even the most enjoyably sententious of valedictions. He and Corporal Gwylt hurried off together. By this time the truck that was to take me to Divisional Headquarters had driven up. An NCO was parading the men who were to travel up in it for medical treatment. Gwatkin appeared. He had been busy all the morning, but had promised he would turn up to see me off. We talked for a minute or two about Company arrangements, revisions proposed by Kedward. Gwatkin had resumed his formality of manner.

‘Perhaps you’ll arrive at the ITC yourself, Nick,’ he said, ‘on the way to something better, of course, but it’s used as a place of transit. I trust I’ll be gone by then, but it would be good to meet.’

‘We may both turn up on the same staff,’ I said, without great seriousness.

‘No,’ he said gravely, ‘I’ll never get on the staff. I don’t mind that. All I want is to carry out regimental duties properly.’

He tapped his gaiter with the swagger stick he carried. Then his tone changed.

‘I had some rather bad news from home this morning,’ he said.

‘You’re not in luck.’

‘My father-in-law passed away. I think I told you he had been ill for some time.’

‘You did. I’m sorry. Did you get on very well with him?’

‘Pretty well,’ said Gwatkin, ‘but this will mean Blodwen’s mother will have to move in with us. I like her all right, but I’d rather that didn’t have to happen. Look, Nick, you won’t speak to anyone about last night.’

‘Of course not.’

‘It was bloody awful,’ he said.

‘Of course.’

‘But a lesson to me.’

‘One never takes lessons to heart. It’s just a thing people talk about — learning by experience and all that.’

‘Oh, but I do take lessons to heart,’ he said. ‘What do you think then?’

‘That one just gets these knocks from time to time.’

‘You believe that?’

‘Yes.’

‘You really believe that everyone has that sort of thing happen to them?’

‘In different ways.’

Gwatkin considered the matter for a moment.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I can’t help thinking it was just because I was such a bloody fool, what with Maureen and making a balls of the Company too. I thought at least I was being some good as a soldier, but I was bloody wrong.’

I thought of Pennistone and his quotations from Vigny.

‘A French writer who’d been a regular officer said the whole point of soldiering was its bloody boring side. The glamour, such as it was, was just a bit of exceptional luck if it came your way.’

‘Did he?’ said Gwatkin.

He spoke without a vestige of interest. I was impressed for the ten thousandth time by the fact that literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity. Books are unconvertible assets, to be passed on only to those who possess them already. Before I could decide whether it was worth making a final effort to ram home Vigny’s point, or whether further energy thus expended was as wasteful of Gwatkin’s time as my own, Kedward crossed the yard.

‘Rowland,’ he said, ‘come to the cookhouse at once, will you. It’s serious.’

‘What’s happened?’ said Gwatkin, not pleased by this interruption.

‘The Company butter’s been flogged. So far as I can see, storage arrangements have been quite irregular. I’d like you to be present while I check facts with the CQMS and the Messing Corporal. Another thing, the galantine that’s just arrived is bad. Its disposal must be authorized by an officer. I’ve got to straighten out this butter business before I do anything else. Nick, will you go along and sign for the galantine. Just a formality. It’s round at the back by the ablutions.’

‘Nick’s just off to Div HQ,’ said Gwatkin.

‘Oh, are you, Nick?’ said Kedward. ‘Well best of luck, but you will sign for the galantine first, won’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘Goodbye, then.’

‘Goodbye, Idwal, and good luck.’

Kedward hastily shook my hand, then rushed off to the scene of the butter robbery, saying: ‘Don’t be long, Rowland.’

Gwatkin shook my hand too. He smiled in an odd sort of way, as if he dimly perceived it was no good battling against Fate, which, seen in right perspective, almost always provides a certain beauty of design, sometimes even an occasional good laugh.

‘I leave you to your galantine, Nick,’ he said. ‘Best of luck.’

I gave him a salute for the last time, feeling he deserved it. Gwatkin marched away, looking a trifle absurd with his little moustache, but somehow rising above that. I went off in the other direction, where the burial certificate of the galantine awaited signature. A blazing sun was beating down. For this, my final duty at Castlemallock, Corporal Gwylt, who was representing the Messing Corporal, elsewhere engaged in the butter investigation, had arranged the galantine, an immense slab of it, in its wrappings on a kind of bier, looking like a corpse in a mortuary. Beside the galantine, he had placed a pen and the appropriate Army Form.

‘Oh, that galantine do smell something awful, sir,’ he said. ‘Sign the paper without smelling it, I should, sir.’

‘I’d better make sure.’

I inclined my head with caution, then quickly withdrew it. Corporal Gwylt was absolutely right. The smell was appalling, indescribable. Shades of the Potemkin, I thought, wondering if I were going to vomit. After several deep breaths, I set my name to the document, confirming animal corruption.

‘I’m leaving now, Corporal Gwylt. Going up to Division. I’ll say goodbye.’

‘You’re leaving the Company, sir?’

‘That I am.’

The Battalion’s form of speech was catching.

‘Then I’m sorry, sir. Good luck to you. I expect it will be nice up at Division.’

‘Hope so. Don’t get into too much mischief with the girls.’

‘Oh, those girls, sir, they never give you any peace, they don’t.’

‘You must give up girls and get a third stripe. Then you’ll be like the Sergeant-Major and not think of girls any longer.’

‘That I will, sir. It will be better, though I’ll not be the man the Sergeant-Major is, I haven’t the height. But don’t you believe the Sergeant-Major don’t like girls. That’s just his joke. I know they put something in the tea to make us not want them, but it don’t do boys like me no good, it seem, nor the Sergeant-Major either.’

We shook hands on it. Any attempt to undermine the age-old army legend of sedatives in the tea would be as idle as to lecture Gwatkin on Vigny. I returned to the truck, and climbed up beside the driver. We rumbled through the park with its sad decayed trees, its Byronic associations. In the town, Maureen was talking to a couple of corner-boys in the main street. She waved and blew a kiss as we drove past, more as a matter of routine, I thought, than on account of any flattering recognition of myself, because she seemed to be looking in the direction of the men at the back of the truck, who, on passing, had raised some sort of hoot at her. Now they began to sing:

‘She’ll be wearing purple socks,

And she’s always in the pox,

And she’s Mickey McGilligan’s daughter,

Mary-Anne …’

There were no villages in the country traversed, rarely even farms or hovels. One mile looked like another, except when once we passed a pair of stone pillars, much battered by the elements, their capitals surmounted by heraldic animals holding shields. Here were formerly gates to some mansion, the gryphons, the shields, the heraldry, nineteenth century in design. Now, instead of dignifying the entrance to a park, the pillars stood.starkly in open country, alone among wide fields: no gates; no wall; no drive; no park; no house. Beyond them, towards the far horizon, stretched hedgeless ploughland, rank grass, across the expanses of which, like the divisions of a chess-board, squat walls of piled stone were beginning to rise. The pillars marked the entrance to Nowhere. Nothing remained of what had once been the demesne, except these chipped, over-elaborate coats of arms, emblems probably of some lord of the Law, like the first Castlemallock, or business magnate, such as those who succeeded him. Here, too, there had been no heirs, or heirs who preferred to live elsewhere. I did not blame them. North or South, this country was not greatly sympathetic to me. All the same, the day was sunny, there was a vast sense of relief in not being required to settle the Company butter problem, nor take the Platoon in gas drill. Respite was momentary, but welcome. At the back of the vehicle the hospital party sang gently:

‘Open now the crystal fountain,

Whence the healing stream doth flow:

Let the fire and cloudy pillar

Lead me all my journey through:

Strong Deliverer,

Strong Deliverer

Be thou still my strength and shield …’

Gwatkin, Kedward and the rest already seemed far away. I was entering another phase of my war. By this time we had driven for an hour or two. The country had begun to change its character. Mean dwellings appeared more often, then the outer suburbs of a large town. The truck drove up a long straight road of grim houses. There was a crossroads where half a dozen ways met, a sinister place such as that where Oedipus, refusing to give passage, slew his father, a locality designed for civil strife and street fighting. Pressing on, we reached a less desolate residential quarter. Here, Divisional Headquarters occupied two or three adjacent houses. At one of these, a Military Policeman stood on duty.

‘I want the DAAG’s office.’

I was taken to see a sergeant-clerk. No one seemed to have heard I was to arrive. The truck had to move on. My kit was unloaded. The DAAG’s office was consulted from the switchboard, a message returned that I was to ‘come up’. A soldier-clerk showed the way. We passed along passages, the doors of which were painted with the name, rank and appointment of the occupants, on one of them:

Major-General H. de C. Liddament, DSO, MC.

Divisional Commander

The clerk left me at a door on which the name of the former DAAG — ‘Old Square-arse’, as Maelgwyn-Jones designated him — was still inscribed. From within came the drone of a voice apparently reciting some endless chant, which rose and fell, but never ceased. I knocked. No one answered. After a time, I knocked again. Again there was no answer. Then I walked in, and saluted. An officer, wearing major’s crowns on his shoulder, was sitting with his back to the door dictating, while a clerk with pencil and pad was taking down letters in shorthand. The DAAG’s back was fat and humped, a roll of flesh at the neck.

‘Wait a moment,’ he said, waving his hand in the air, but not turning.

He continued his dictation while I stood there.

‘… It is accordingly felt … that the case of the officer in question — give his name and personal number — would be more appropriately dealt with — no — more appropriately regulated — under the terms of the Army Council Instruction quoted above — give reference — of which para II, sections (d) and (f), and para XI, sections (b) and (h), as amended by War Office Letter AG 27/9852/73 of 3 January, 1940, which, it would appear, contemplate exceptional cases of this kind … It is at the same time emphasised that this formation is in no way responsible for the breakdown in administration — no, no, better not say that — for certain irregularities of routine that appear to have taken place during the course of conducting the investigation of the case, vide page 23, para 17 of the findings of the Court of Inquiry, and para VII of the above quoted ACI, section (e) — irregularities which it is hoped will be adjusted in due course by the authorities concerned.

The voice, like so many other dictating or admonitory voices of even that early period of the war, had assumed the timbre and inflexions of the Churchill broadcast, slurred consonants, rhythmical stresses and prolations. These accents, in certain circumstances, were to be found imitated as low as battalion level. Latterly, for example, Gwatkin’s addresses to the Company could be detected, by an attentive ear, to have veered away a little from the style of the chapel elder, towards the Prime Minister’s individualities of delivery. In this, Gwatkin’s harangues lost not a little of their otherwise traditional charm. If we won the war, there could be no doubt that these rich, distinctive tones would be echoed for a generation at least. I was still thinking of this curious imposition of a mode of speech on those for whom its manner was totally incongruous, when the clerk folded his pad and rose.

‘Will you sign these, sir?’ he asked.

‘ “For Major General”,’ said the DAAG, ‘I’ll sign them “for Major-General”.’

He turned in his chair.

‘How are you?’ he said.

It was Widmerpool. He brought his large spectacles to bear on me like searchlights, and held out his hand. I took it. I felt enormously glad to see him. One’s associations with people are regulated as much by what they stand for, as by what they are, individual characteristics becoming from time to time submerged in more general implications. At that moment, although I had never possessed anything approaching a warm relationship with Widmerpool, his presence brought back with a rush all kinds of things, more or less desirable, from which I had been cut off for an eternity. I wondered how I could ever have considered him in the disobliging light that seemed so innate since we had been at school together.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

I looked about. The shorthand clerk had been sitting on a tin box. I chose the edge of a table.

‘Anyway, between these four walls,’ said Widmerpool, ‘don’t feel rank makes a gulf between us.’

‘How did you know it was me when I came into the room?’

Widmerpool indicated a small circular shaving-mirror, which stood on his table, almost hidden by piles of documents. He may have thought this question already presumed too far on our difference in rank, because he stopped smiling at once, and began to tap his knee. His battle-dress, like his civilian clothes, seemed a little too small for him. At the same time, he was undeniably a somewhat formidable figure in his present role.

‘I’ll put you in the picture right away,’ he said. ‘In the first place, I do not mean to stay on this staff long. That is between ourselves, of course. The Division is spoken of as potentially operational. So far as I am concerned, it is a backwater. Besides, I have to do most of the work here. Ack-and-Quack, a Regular, is a good fellow, but terribly slow. He is not too bad on supply, but possesses little or no grasp of personnel.’

‘What about the General?’

Widmerpool took off his spectacles. He leant towards me. His face was severe under his blinking. He spoke in a low voice.

‘I despair of the General,’ he said.

‘I thought everyone admired him.’

‘Quite a wrong judgment.’

‘As bad as that?’

‘Worse.’

‘He has a reputation for efficiency.’

‘Mistakenly.’

‘They like him in the units.’

‘People love buffoonery,’ said Widmerpool, ‘soldiers like everyone else. Incidentally, I don’t think General Liddament cares for me either. However, that is by the way. I make sure he can find nothing to complain of in my work. As a result, he contents himself with adopting a mock-heroic style of talk whenever I approach him. Very undignified in a relatively senior officer. I repeat, I do not propose to stay with this formation long.’

‘What job do you want?’

‘That’s my affair,’ said Widmerpool, ‘but in the meantime, so long as I remain, the work will be properly done. Now it happens lately there has been a spate of courts-martial, none of special interest, but all requiring, for one reason or another, a great deal of work from the DAAG. With his other duties, it has been more than one man can cope with. It was too much for my predecessor. That was to be expected. Now I thrive on work, but I saw at once that even I must have assistance. Accordingly, I have obtained War Office authority for the temporary employment of a junior officer to aid me in such matters as taking Summaries of Evidence. Various names were put forward within the Division, yours among them. I noticed this. I had no reason to suppose you would be the most efficient, but, since none of the others had any more legal training than yourself, I allowed the ties of old acquaintance to prevail. I chose you — subject to your giving satisfaction, of course.’

Widmerpool laughed.

‘Thanks very much.’

‘I take it you did not find yourself specially cut out to be a regimental officer.’

‘Not specially.’

‘Otherwise, I doubt if your name would have been submitted to me. Let’s hope you will be better adapted to staff duties.’

‘We can but hope.’

‘I remember when we last met, you came to see me with a view to getting help in actually entering the army. How did you get in?’

‘In the end I was called up. As I told you at the time, my name was already on the Emergency Reserve. I merely consulted you as to the best means of speeding up that process.’

I saw no reason to give Widmerpool further details about that particular subject. It had been no thanks to him that the calling-up process had been accelerated. By now he had succeeded in dispelling, with extraordinary promptness, my earlier apprehension that army contacts were necessarily preferable with people one knew in civilian life. I began to wonder whether I was not already regretting Gwatkin and Kedward.

‘Like so many units and formations at this moment,’ said Widmerpool, ‘the Division is under-establishment. You will be expected to help while you are here in other capacities than purely “A” duties. When in the field — on exercises, I mean — you will be something of a dogsbody, to use a favourite army phrase, with which you are no doubt familiar. You understand?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Good. You will be in F Mess. F is low, but not the final dregs of the Divisional Headquarters staff, if they can be so called. The Mobile Bath Officer, and his like, are in E Mess.

By the way, a body from your unit, one Bithel, is coming up to command the Mobile Laundry.’

‘So I heard.’

‘Brother of a VC, I understand, and was himself a notable sportsman when younger. Pity they could not find him better employment, for he should be a good type. But we must get on with the job, not spend our time coffee-housing here. Your kit is downstairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘I will give orders for it to be taken round to your billet — you had better go with it to see the place. Come straight back here. I will run through your duties, then take you back to the Mess to meet some of the staff.’

Widmerpool picked up the telephone. He spoke for some minutes about my affairs. Then he said to the operator: ‘Get me Major Farebrother at Command.’

He hung up the receiver and waited.

‘My opposite number at Command is one, Sunny Farebrother, a City acquaintance of mine — rather a slippery customer to deal with. He was my Territorial unit’s Brigade-Major at the beginning of the war.’

‘I met him years ago.’

The telephone bell rang.

‘Well, get cracking,’ said Widmerpool, without commenting on this last observation. ‘The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back. There’s a good deal to run through.’

He had already begun to speak on the telephone when I left the room. I saw that I was now in Widmerpool’s power. This, for some reason, gave me a disagreeable, sinking feeling within. On the news that night, motorized elements of the German army were reported as occupying the outskirts of Paris.