“Not bad leave, six days every month,” the first speaker said. “As soon as a Course is through I’ll be up to town like a bat out o’ hell.”
He was undoubtedly Irish, and his voice, though lacking the quality of the other’s, was far more attractive. Through my almost closed eyelids I took a peep at him too, and a huge fellow he was, with hands like legs of mutton. He looked as if beer, or whisky, had been no inconsiderate portion of his ration, and yet he was good-looking enough in a florid kind of way. His face was shaved so clean that it actually shone where the light caught it, and I put his age at about thirty. His name, I was soon to gather, was Flick. The other was called Staff.
“You’ve got to have plenty of leave in a job like ours,” Staff said. “I mean, you can’t keep going at full stretch—what? I mean, we’re not all Mortars.”
“What’s that boy-o like?” asked Flick.
“Damn-great chap like a bullock. Bigger than you, Flick. You’ll see him if he comes in for lunch.”
“He must be a one, the same lad,” Flick said.
“Damned unpopular though,” drawled Staff. “Makes you wonder how he’ll fit in with the rest of us. Always a remedy though. You can always keep yourself to yourself.”
“Will they still be calling him Hairy?”
“Hairy?”
“Sure,” said Flick. “That was the name they had on him at the other school.”
“I still don’t get it.”
Flick laughed. “Well, he always used to reckon himself as a he-man. You know, the hairy-chested sort. A fellow called O’Brien who was there gave me the low-down on him. He used to call himself a fighting soldier, the same lad.”
“You mean, Mortar did.”
“Sure. That’s how he used to describe himself in his lectures.”
“Sheer affectation,” Staff said, “We’re all fighting soldiers, aren’t we? Not at the moment, perhaps, because we’re doing a special job of work. What I mean is, that fighting’s our game. It’s only outsiders like Mortar who make a song about it.”
“All the same he’s one hell of a lad,” insisted Flick. “Cripes, what a book he could write! And what a picture it’d make! The last war, and Mexico, and Bolivia and then Spain, and they say he cursed like hell because he couldn’t be in South America and Abyssinia at the same time. Some boy-o that!”
“Oh, he’s picturesque enough,” granted Staff. “And he does sound a bit like the films. But it’s a bit unreal, don’t you think, this mercenary stuff? And if he was really all that good, why didn’t he stay in the Service after the last war?”
“I did hear some yarn from this chap O’Brien about his mother and sister being wiped out in an air raid on London in the last war,” Flick said. “That’s why he’s been looking for scraps ever since.”
“Well, I suppose the Home Guard will simply lap him up. They’re a very mixed lot, you know.”
“They’re some good lads all the same,” Flick said. “But won’t those boy-os love a fellow like Mortar, who sprouts barbed wire on his chest.”
“My idea,” said Staff, “is that there’ll be a pretty strong conservative element at Peakridge that’ll keep men like Mortar toeing the line. I liked Topman, didn’t you?”
Flick hesitated, and I wondered why. Then he dodged the question by saying that it’d be hard going to make men like Mortar toe a line.
“Well, if you come to think of it,” Staff said, “what was this ruddy Spanish war they all keep harping on?”
“Just a good back-yard scrap.”
“Exactly. That’s what Mortar and a lot of those so-called Spanish instructors won’t realise. And that’s what they’ve got to be made to realise. I don’t mean openly, of course, but by—well, by force of example, if you know what I mean. I think the Colonel thinks that way, and I know Major Collect does.”
I decided that the time had come to lend more realism to my supposed sleep, so with a gentle movement of the knees I made my paper slither to the floor. Evidently the touch was not a bad one, for Staff was producing from his pocket the list which I had also been given, of the Peakridge staff.
“Collect’s a sound man,” Staff said, eyes evidently on the list. “He was at Sandhurst the same year as my father. A personal friend of Topman, too, I believe. What’s this Major Travers like? Heard anything about him?”
What happened then I can only surmise, but it was really amusing. Probably the eye of one of them caught again the crown on my British warm, and immediately there was a hush and a wonder. On the attaché-case at my side were the letters L. T., and I could imagine the two interchanging glances and raising eyebrows. What they thought of my six-foot three of lamp-post leanness and my huge horn-rims, I can’t say, but the voices became an inaudible whisper, though they still persisted. I am vain enough to say that I would at that moment have given the whole of the overheard conversation for only an inkling of what they might have said about myself.
The whispering continued for another quarter of an hour, and then the voice of the restaurant attendant was heard coming nearer. His head was popped into our compartment.
“Take your seats for the first lunch, please.”
On he went, and I made what I hoped was an artistic awakening.
“I don’t know if you’ve ordered lunch, sir,” Staff was saying in his best Guardee manner, “but it’s ready now.”
“Thank you very much,” I said graciously, and followed the two to the corridor. They soon out-distanced me, but there were plenty of vacant pews, and I secured one at the far end, with a strategic view of the restaurant car entrance. I was looking out for the Fighting Soldier, and in less than a minute I saw him coming in. He hesitated a moment near the table where Staff and Flick were sitting, then made straight for a table just in front of my own. During his brief progress I had a first-class front view of him.
He reminded me somewhat of Victor McLaglen, with a toughness that still showed plenty of what we are accustomed to call breeding. His eyes were held level and both his look and his movements had an assurance that were inoffensive, but part of the massive strength of the man himself. His face, curiously enough, was rather sallow, for the whole man was an embodiment of action. He had an M.C. ribbon and a double row after it, and as our eyes met for a casual moment when he turned to take his seat, I saw that his were either grey or a cold blue. His voice when I first heard it as he spoke to the waiter, was a pleasant surprise, for it was a resonant baritone and definitely attractive.
My table filled soon after that and I could see little but the broad shoulders and bull neck of Captain Mortar. When the car began gradually clearing after the meal, I saw a shortish, very plump major standing by the table of Staff and Flick. Staff was doing the talking and being most deferential. Flick was smirking a good deal and standing stiffly to attention, but all I could really see of the major was a perfect tonsure of a bald spot at the back of his head. When he moved off, both Staff and Flick gave incipient salutes, and I guessed, and rightly, that there went Major Collect, who had been at Sandhurst with Staff’s father in the dear, dim, distant post-Boer-war days when Sandhurst was Sandhurst and soldiering was—well, you doubtless have your own ideas.
Mortar went out almost at once, but I stayed on over coffee and a pipe. If those two young officers had guessed who I was, and precious few brains were required for the purpose, then my presence in the compartment might make things rather awkward. The attendant told me we were only twenty minutes off Derby, so I lingered out a few minutes in a lavatory, and the brakes of the train were actually grinding when I went in to collect my gear. When the train for Peakridge drew in after a few minutes’ wait, I avoided the pair and was lucky enough to get a compartment to myself.
At Peakridge station I had my first sight of Colonel Topman. He was a six-footer and as thin as myself. If you ever saw those caricatures of British Army officers that used to abound in the foreign comics, then you can visualise Topman, for he had a hooked beak, slightly protruding teeth, a red-pi
nk complexion and a white moustache with brushed-up ends. His lips, when they closed over the teeth, made a thin, fretful kind of mouth, and his manner struck me at once as fussy, and I was having considerable apprehensions. After being my own master, as it were, for best part of a couple of years, I had every reason to wonder if this man, under whom I was about to work, was one with whom I could work without friction.
He had a big car by which he was standing. Collect and he greeted each other like old friends. My salute was met with a wintry smile, I was introduced to Collect, and we two were asked to get in. The rest of the staff I should see later, Topman said. Then as the car moved off he began talking about the school, and his remarks were directed at me. Collect, I gathered, already knew all there was to know; and while the Colonel spoke of this and that, put leading questions to find out my experience and capabilities, or paused to wave at some essential part of the landscape, I was aware that a most unpleasant idea was creeping into the back of my mind. George Wharton has made bitter remarks about my theorising, but if a man is right once in four times, then I claim that the fourth time is worth all. What I was now deducing was this. The Colonel was not talking to me as if I were his veritable second-in-command. It was as if he were trying to let me down gently by hinting that perhaps there was a better man for the job, none other than Major Collect, who sat nodding in assent to his superior officer’s remarks, and occasionally reinforcing them with some experience or theory of his own.
As that short ride progressed, I began to be rather amused. Collect amused me, with his precise little voice; placid, parochial, and vicarial, as if indeed he had done nothing all his life but minister soothingly to some peaceful and accepting hamlet. Thank God, I am not cursed with intellectual arrogance; men, not brains, birth, and breeding, are the things that matter more than ever, but I can only present old Collect as I saw him. As for a subtle ousting of myself, well, I love a good scrap. There might be quite a lot of fun, I thought, in making sure of my ground, and standing it.
“A magnificent site for a school of this kind, don’t you think?” Collect was asking me.
The camp was now in sight, and I agreed. It was certainly very open, very spacious, and all beautifully new. Behind it towered enormous hills and country that looked lovely in the late autumn sun. The actual hutments formed a rough crescent in the immediate front of which was a parade ground, large enough to be used for small demonstrations. The very large building was the lecture room, Collect said. The other large one, on the right, was the dining-room where we all fed together, building on the left, by the Adjutant’s office, was the hospital.
“Must have a hospital in a show like this,” the Colonel said as he got out of the car. “You never know what might happen.”
An ambulance car drew in behind us, and I saw it had been used to transport some more of the staff from the station. Behind was a truck with our luggage. Orderlies appeared under a corporal, like railway porters on the platform of an incoming train. Then I noticed Ferris getting down from the ambulance. Wharton’s description had been a good one, for Ferris certainly looked an intellectual. But he also looked decidedly foreign, and at once he was reminding me of someone. Almost at once I knew who that someone was—a rather better-looking De Valera, as a young man. Then I had to smile. Ferris was a Spaniard and was so De Valera, so there wasn’t anything very remarkable in the resemblance after all.
It turned out that the Colonel had met the whole of his staff except myself, so Harness, who appeared from nowhere, did the introductions all round as soon as the Colonel disappeared inside the Staff Mess. Harness, a tubby, but extremely imposing little man with waxed moustaches, was obviously a Warrant Officer who had been commissioned for this new job of Adjutant to the school. He struck me as highly competent and a disciplinarian. Of such, as far as the Army is concerned, are the Kingdom of Heaven.
“Where do you want this, Captain?”
It was a Cockney voice and came from a soldier in a brand new suit of battle-dress, standing by a tin trunk that had come from the luggage truck.
“Leave it where it is, you bloody fool,” Mortar told him, but not in the least annoyedly. Then he turned amiably to Harness. “That’s my batman. He’s a bit of a tough, but he’s quite a good chap.”
Harness’s eyes had goggled and his face had purpled. I thought it was because of the decidedly unorthodox conversation between master and man, but there was more to it than that, as I was to learn later. But Harness said nothing then and merely handed us over to our orderlies. I found I was sharing a man with Collect.
The living-quarters were very comfortable, and except that the Colonel’s room was larger than the rest, we were all housed in similar rooms partitioned off in one very long hutment. Lavatories, baths and showers lay immediately behind, while just off to the right was the Mess, as it was called, which was a large lounge and a bar for the use of the officers of the staff. After I’d had a clean up and unpacked my frugal gear, I saw that pinned on the notice-board of my room was an announcement that there was tea at four o’clock to be followed immediately by a conference in the Mess.
There was half an hour to go, so I thought I’d get my camp bearings. As I stepped out on the parade ground, Harness joined me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t mention the fact to the officers just now, sir,” he said. “I mean that you’re the second-in-command.”
“I expect they’ll soon pick up the fact,” I told him, but I don’t mind saying I was a bit relieved, and even gratified, for an Adjutant wouldn’t be wrong in his facts.
“A very fine camp you’ve got here,” I told him, and at once he said he’d show me round. As we strolled along we got somehow to telling each other all about ourselves and we actually found that in the Great War we’d been wounded in the same engagement. I was to have quite a good friend in Harness.
As for the camp—by which term one means the material layout, as it were—if you consult the map, you should have it well in your mind, though an additional note or two might be helpful. The Magazine and the Armoury were built into the sheer walls of the rocky hills which towered round the camp and made a vast amphitheatre to its west side. N.A.A.F.I., for the benefit of the uninitiated, is a canteen and recreation hut combined of the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes, and the two huts of the camp were for other rank staff and students respectively. The Home Guard is a democratic institution, and the officers and N.C.O.s who comprised the students would naturally expect to share the same recreation room and bar.
Perhaps, too, when I refer to the staff, you will understand that I mean the officer, or lecturing staff. When I say general staff, I mean the hundred or so men employed in the school as assistant lecturers and instructors, sappers, gunners, general utility men, orderlies, cooks, clerical workers, and what not. Compress, who was an R.A.M.C. lieutenant, slept in the hospital. In the centre of the levelled parade ground you must imagine a flagstaff, and from it all sorts of paths led to the wide area used as ranges. There was also a drying-room for wet clothes, and I should have told you that the Staff Mess had a reading-and-writing room in addition to its bar and smoking lounge.
By the time Harness and I were strolling back across the parade ground, we were very definitely old friends. That may explain why he spoke so openly.
“What did you think about that man Feeder, sir?”
“Feeder?” I said.
“Captain Mortar’s batman.”
“I thought he certainly looked very much of a tough,” I said. “And I wondered why a man of his age and ribbons should address his officer as Captain.”
“The whole thing’s very irregular,” Harness said, frowning. “There’s a rule that none of the officers bring their own batmen, and when I spoke to Captain Mortar just now he said he thought that applied only to the student officers. Then it turned out that Feeder had no right to wear uniform. He’s not a re-enlisted man.”
“What did Captain Mortar say about that?”
“He said he had p
ermission to use Feeder at the last school, and for him to wear battle-dress. He said Feeder had been with him all over the world for the last twenty years, and that was good enough. If we wanted to fight the matter out with anybody, ‘I’m a fighting man, Harness, and so’s Feeder.’ That’s what he said.”
I couldn’t help smiling. Feeder had looked even more of a fighting man than his master. He looked rather like a gorilla somewhat the worse for wear, and the kind who is always spoiling for a scrap.
“I hate to have trouble just when we are starting this show,” Harness was going on. “Between you and me, sir, the Colonel doesn’t cotton to officers like Captain Mortar, though he’s just the right sort for a school like this.”
“Was he a Regular?”
“Oh, yes,” said Harness promptly. “He was a Gunner and he was one of those who got fed up with things after the last war, so he sent in his papers and started out on his own, so to speak.”
There was no more talk about Mortar because Harness glanced at his watch and remarked that it was after four o’clock, so we hurried to the Mess. I noticed that Mortar and Ferris had already got well acquainted, for they were sharing some joke or reminiscence with each other. My old friends Staff and Flick gave me a quick look, but I hope my face was as impassive as it had been at the moment of our first official introduction. Then the Colonel called me over to where he was sitting with Collect.
“I thought of making tea very much of a scratch meal, Travers,” he said, “and we’d have it here. We ought to get away from the dining-room sometimes.”
Then he was showing me an almost final draft of the syllabus for the Course, and saying what he proposed to do in the week before the first class assembled. As the same ground was gone over at the conference which followed, I shall go into no details. In fact I shall bother you with nothing about the conference either, but give you a very short summary in my own words. I preface it with the remark that Topman rose very much in my estimation after I had grasped those preliminary ideas of his. I was always to regard him as curiously prim, secretive, in many ways biased, and as one who took himself too seriously and was inclined to fuss in an emergency. But the man was no fool. And I was to gather that he was much more under the thumb of Collect than the other way about. Out of Collect’s company I found in him much that was genuinely likeable.
The Case of the Fighting Soldier: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 3