by Various
‘Brigadier Fawcett,’ Thurston said unguardedly. But Dally probably didn’t know about the laundry rumour. He had little to do with the dispatch-rider sections.
‘Oh, the washerwoman’s friend. I heard a bit about that from Beech. Not on the old game again, is he? Sounded as if he wanted a special DR to me.’
‘Yes, he did.’ Thurston raised his voice: ‘Prosser!’
‘Sir!’ came from outside the partition.
‘Ask Sergeant Baker to come and see me, will you?’
‘Sir.’
Dalessio’s large pale face became serious. He pulled at his moustache. Eventually he said: ‘You’re letting him have one, are you?’ If asked his opinion of Thurston, he would have described him as a plausible bastard. His acquiescence in such matters as this, Dalessio would have added, was bloody typical.
‘I can’t do anything else.’
‘I would. There’s nothing to it. Get God’s Adjutant on the blower and complain. He’s an ignorant bugger, we know, but I bet he’d take this up.’
Thurston had tried this, only to be informed at length that the job of Signals was to give service to the Staff. Before he could tell Dalessio about it, Baker, the DR sergeant, arrived to be acquainted with the Lord Fawcett’s desires. Thurston thought he detected a glance of protest and commiseration pass between the other two men. When Baker had gone, he turned on Dalessio almost savagely and said: ‘Now look, Dally, leaving aside the properties of the thermionic bleeding valve, would you kindly put me in the picture about this teleprinter to the Poles? Is it working or isn’t it? Quite a bit of stuff has piled up for them and I’ve been holding it in the hope the line’ll be through on time.’
‘No harm in hoping,’ Dalessio said. ‘I hope it’ll be working all right, too.’ He dropped his fag-end on the swept floor and trod on it.
‘Is it working or is it not?’ Thurston asked very loudly. His eyes wandered up and down the other’s fat body, remembering how it had looked in a pair of shorts, doing physical training at the officers’ training unit. It had proved incapable of the simplest tasks laid upon it, crumpling feebly in the forward-roll exercise, hanging like a crucified sack from the wall-bars, climbing by slow and ugly degrees over the vaulting-horse. Perhaps its owner had simply not felt like exerting it. That would have been bloody typical.
While Dalessio smiled at him, a knock came at the plywood door Thurston had had made for his cubicle. In response to the latter’s bellow, the red-headed man came in. ‘Sergeant Fleming sent to tell you, sir,’ he said, ‘we’re just after getting them Polish fellows on the printer. You’ll be wanting me to start sending off the messages we have for them, will you, sir?’
Both Thurston and Dalessio looked up at the travelling-clock that stood on a high shelf in the corner. It said eight o’clock.
III
‘That’s just about all, gentlemen,’ the Colonel said. ‘Except for one last point. Now that our difficulties from the point of view of communication have been removed, and the whole show’s going quite smoothly, there are other aspects of our work which need attention. This unit has certain traditions I want kept up. One of them, of course, is an absolutely hundred-per-cent degree of efficiency in all matters affecting the disposal of Signals traffic, from the time the In-Clerk signs for a message from the Staff to the time we get…’
He means the Out-Clerk, Thurston thought to himself. The little room where the officers, warrant-officers and senior N C Os of the unit held their conferences was unheated, and the Colonel was wearing his knee-length sheepskin coat, another piece of merchandise supplied through the good offices of Jack Rowney in exchange, perhaps, for a few gallons of petrol or a couple of hundred cigarettes; Malone’s men’s cigarettes, probably. The coat, added to the CO’s platinum-blond hair and moustache, increased his resemblance to a polar bear. Thurston was in a good mood, having just received the letter which finally buttoned up arrangements for his forthcoming leave: four days with Denise in Oxford, and then a nice little run up to Town for five days with Margot. Just the job. He began composing a nature note on the polar bear: ‘This animal, although of poor intelligence, possesses considerable cunning of a low order. It displays the utmost ferocity when menaced in any way. It shows fantastic patience in pursuit of its prey, and a vindictiveness which…’
The Colonel was talking now about another tradition of his unit, its almost unparalleled soldier-like quality, its demonstration of the verity that a Signals formation of any kind was not a collection of down-at-heel scientists and long-haired mathematical wizards. Thurston reflected it was not for nothing that the Adjutant so frequently described himself as the Colonel’s staff officer. Yes, there he was, Arctic fox or, if they had them, Arctic jackal, smiling in proprietary fashion at his chief’s oratory. What a bunch they all were. Most of the higher-ranking ones had been lower-ranking officers in the Territorial Army during the thirties, the Colonel, for instance, a captain, the Adjutant a second-lieutenant. The war had given them responsibility and quick promotion, and their continued enjoyment of such privileges rested not on their own abilities, but on those of people who had arrived in the unit by a different route: Post Office engineers whipped in with a commission, older Regular soldiers promoted from the ranks, officers who had been the conscripts of 1940 and 1941. Yes, what a bunch. Thurston remembered the parting words of a former sergeant of his who had been posted home a few months previously: ‘Now I’m going I suppose I can say what I shouldn’t. You never had a dog’s bloody chance in this lot unless you’d been at North Midland Command with the Adj. and the CO. And we all know it’s the same in that Mess of yours. If you’d been in the TA like them you were a blue-eyed boy, otherwise you were done for from the start. It’s all right, sir, everybody knows it. No need to deny it.’
The exception to the rule, presumably, was Cleaver, now making what was no doubt a shorthand transcript of the Colonel’s harangue. Thurston hated him as the Adjutant’s blue-eyed boy and also for his silky fair hair, his Hitler Youth appearance and his thunderous laugh. His glance moved to Bentham, also busily writing. Bentham, too, fitted into the picture, as much as the Adjutant would let him, which was odd when compared with the attitude of other Regulars in the Mess. But Bentham had less individuality than they.
‘So what I propose,’ the Colonel said, ‘is this. Beginning next week the Adjutant and I will be making a series of snap inspections of section barrack-rooms. Now I don’t expect anything in the nature of spit-and-polish, of course. Just ordinary soldierly cleanliness and tidiness is all I want.’
In other words, just ordinary spit-and-polish, Thurston thought, making a note for his sergeant on his pad just below the polar-bear vignette. He glanced up and saw Dalessio licking the flap of an envelope; it was his invariable practice to write letters during the Colonel’s addresses, when once the serious business of line-communications had been got through. Had he heard what had just been said? It was unlikely.
The conference broke up soon afterwards and in the Mess anteroom, where a few officers had gathered for a drink before the evening meal, Thurston was confronted by an exuberant Adjutant who at once bought him a drink. ‘Well, Tom,’ he said, ‘I reckon that fixes things up nice and neat.’
‘I don’t follow you, Bill.’
‘Step number one in cooking your friend Dally’s goose. Step number two will be on Monday, oh-nine-thirty hours, when I take the Colonel round the line-maintenance billet. You know what we’ll find there, don’t you?’
Thurston stared blankly at the Adjutant, whose eyes were sparkling like those of a child who has been promised a treat. ‘I still don’t get you, Bill.’
‘Use your loaf, Tommy. Dally’s blokes’ boudoir, can’t you imagine what it’ll be like? There’ll be dirt enough in there to raise a crop of potatoes, fag-ends and pee-buckets all over the shop and the rest of it. The Colonel will eat Dally for his lunch when he sees it.’
‘Dally’s got three days to get it cleaned up, though.’
‘He would have if he paid attention to what his Commanding Officer says. But I know bloody well he was writing a letter when that warning was given. Serves the bastard right, do you see? He’ll be off to the mysterious East before you can turn round.’
‘How much does the Colonel know about this?’
‘What I’ve told him.’
‘You don’t really think it’ll work, do you?’
‘I know the old man. You don’t, if you’ll excuse my saying so.’
‘It’s a lousy trick and you know it, Bill,’ Thurston said violently. ‘I think it’s completely bloody.’
‘Not at all. An officer who’s bolshie enough to ignore a CO’s order deserves all he gets,’ the Adjutant said, looking sententious. ‘Coming in?’
Still fuming, Thurston allowed himself to be led into the dining-room. The massive green-tiled stove was working well and the room was warm and cheerful. The house had belonged to the commandant of the Belgian military school. Its solid furniture and tenebrous landscape pictures had survived German occupation, though there was a large burn in the carpet that had been imputed, perhaps rightly, to the festivities of the Schutzstaffel. Jack Rowney, by importing photographs of popular entertainers, half-naked young women and the Commander-in-Chief, had done his best to document the Colonel’s thesis that the Officers’ Mess was also their home. The Adjutant, in excellent spirits, his hand on Thurston’s shoulder, sent Corporal Gordon running for a bottle of burgundy. Then, before they sat down, he looked very closely at Thurston.
‘Oh, and by the way, old boy,’ he said, a note of menace intensifying the quack in his voice, ‘you wouldn’t think of tipping your friend Dally the wink about this little treat we’ve got lined up for him, would you? If you do, I’ll have your guts for garters.’ Laughing heartily, he dug Thurston in the ribs and added: ‘Your leave’s due at the end of the month, isn’t it? Better watch out you don’t make yourself indispensable here. We might not be able to let you go, do you see?’
IV
Early on Monday Thurston was walking up from the Signal Office towards the area where the men’s barrack-rooms were. He was going to find his batman and arrange to be driven some twenty miles to the department of the Advocate-General’s branch which handled divorce. The divorce in question was not his own, which would have to wait until after the war, but that of his section cook, whose wife had developed an immoderate fondness for RAF and USAAF personnel.
Thurston was thinking less about the cook’s wife than about the fateful inspection, scheduled to take place any minute now. He realized he had timed things badly, but his trip had only just become possible and he hoped to be out of the area before the Colonel and the Adjutant finished their task. He was keen to do this because the sight of a triumphant Adjutant would be more than he could stand, especially since his conscience was very uneasy about the whole affair. There were all sorts of reasons why he should have tipped Dalessio off about the inspection. The worst of it was, as he had realized in bed last night, when it was too late to do anything about it, that his irritation with Dalessio over the matter of the Polish teleprinter had been a prime cause of his keeping his mouth shut. He remembered actually thinking more than once that a thorough shaking-up would do Dalessio no harm, and that perhaps the son of an Italian café-proprietor in Cascade, Glamorganshire, had certain disqualifications for the role of British regimental officer. He twisted up his face when he thought of this and started wondering just why it was that the Adjutant was persecuting Dalessio. Perhaps the latter’s original offence had been his habit of doing bird-warbles while the Adjutant and Rowney listened to broadcast performances of The Warsaw Concerto, the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, and other sub-classics dear to their hearts. Cheeping, trilling and twittering, occasionally gargling like a seagull, Dalessio had been told to shut up or get out and had done neither.
Thurston’s way took him past the door of the notorious line-maintenance billet. There seemed to be nobody about. Then he was startled by the sudden manifestation of two soldiers carrying brooms and a bucket. One of them had once been in his section and had been transferred early that year to one of the cable sections, he had forgotten which one. ‘Good-morning, Maclean,’ he said.
The man addressed came sketchily to attention. ‘Morning, sir.’
‘Getting on all right in No. 1 Company?’
‘Yes, thank you, sir, I like it fine.’
‘Good. What are you fellows up to so early in the morning?’
They looked at each other and the other man said: ‘Cleaning up, sir. Fatigue party, sir.’
‘I see; right, carry on.’
Thurston soon found his batman, who agreed with some reluctance to the proposed trip and said he would see if he could get the jeep down to the signal office in ten minutes. The jeep was a bone of contention between Thurston and his batman, and the batman always won, in the sense that never in his life had he permitted Thurston to drive the jeep in his absence. He was within his rights, but Thurston often wished, as now, that he could be allowed a treat occasionally. He wished it more strongly when a jeep with no exhaust and with seven men in it came bouncing down the track from the No. 1 Company billet area. They were laughing and two of them were pretending to fight. The driver was a lance-corporal.
Suddenly the laughing and fighting stopped and the men assumed an unnatural sobriety. The reason for this was provided by the immediate emergence into view of the Colonel and the Adjutant, moving across Thurston’s front.
They saw him at once; he hastily saluted and the Adjutant, as usual, returned the salute. His gaze met Thurston’s under lowered brows and his lips were gathered in the fiercest scowl they were capable of.
Thurston waited till they were out of sight and hurried to the door of the line-maintenance billet. The place was deserted. Except in illustrations to Army manuals and the like, he had never seen such perfection of order and cleanliness. It was obviously the result of hours of devoted labour.
He leant against the door-post and began to laugh.
V
‘I gather the plot against our pal Dally misfired somewhat,’ Bentham said in the Mess dining-room later that day.
Thurston looked up rather wearily. His jeep had broken down on the way back from the divorce expert and his return had been delayed for some hours. He had made part of the journey on the back of a motor-bike. Further, he had just read a unit order requiring him to make the jeep available at the Orderly Room the next morning. It wasn’t his turn yet. The Adjutant had struck again.
‘You know, I’m quite pleased,’ Bentham went on, lighting a cigarette and moving towards the stove where Thurston stood.
‘Oh, so am I.’
‘You are? Now that’s rather interesting. Surprising, even. I should have thought you’d be downcast.’
Something in his tone made Thurston glance at him sharply and put down the unit order. Bentham was standing with his feet apart in an intent attitude. ‘Why should you think that, Ben?’
‘I’ll tell you. Glad of the opportunity. First of all I’ll tell you why it misfired, if you don’t already know. Because I tipped Dally off. Lent him some of my blokes and all, to get the place spick and span.’
Thurston nodded, thinking of the two men he had seen outside the billet that morning. ‘I see.’
‘You do, do you? Good. Now I’ll tell you why I did it. First of all, the Army’s not the place for this kind of plotting and scheming. The job’s too important. Secondly, I did it because I don’t like seeing an able man taken down by a bunch of ignorant jumped-up so-called bloody gentlemen from the Territorial Army. Not that I hold any brief for Dalessio outside his technical abilities. As you know, I’m a Regular soldier and I disapprove most strongly of anything damn slovenly. It’s part of my nature now and I don’t mind either. But one glance at the Adj.’s face when he was telling me the form for this morning and I knew where my duty lay. I hope I always do. I do my best to play it his way as a rule for the sake of peace and quiet. But
this business was different. Wasn’t it?’
Thurston had lowered his gaze. ‘Yes, Ben.’
‘It came as a bit of a shock to me, you know, to find that Dalessio needed tipping off.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean that I’d have expected someone else to have told him already. I only heard about this last night. I was the only one here later on and I suppose the Adj. felt he had to tell someone. I should have thought by that time someone else would have let the cat out of the bag to Dally. You, for instance. You were in on this from the start, weren’t you?’
Thurston said nothing.
‘I’ve no doubt you have your excuses for not letting on. In spite of the fact that I’ve always understood you were the great one for pouring scorn on the Adj. and Rowney and Cleaver and the rest of that crowd. Yes, you could talk about them till you were black in the face, but when it came to doing something, talking where it would do some good, you kept your mouth shut. And, if I remember rightly, you were the one who used to stick up for Dally when the others were laying into him behind his back. You know what I think? I don’t think you care tuppence. You don’t care beyond talking, any road. I think you’re really quite sold on the Adj.’s crowd, never mind what you say about them. Chew that over. And chew this over and all: I think you’re a bastard, just like the rest of ’em. Tell that to your friend the Adjutant, Captain bloody Thurston.’
Thurston stood there for some time after Bentham had gone, tearing up the unit order and throwing the pieces into the stove.
* * *
TED HUGHES
* * *
THE RAIN HORSE
As the young man came over the hill the first thin blowing of rain met him. He turned his coat-collar up and stood on top of the shelving rabbit-riddled hedgebank, looking down into the valley.