by Philip Child
At last at dusk, a staff captain came into Dan’s compartment and read a list of names, and Dan got down from the train onto a barren stretch of road, about a mile from a “town” somewhere in the hinterland of the Canadian Corps.
“Get your kit,” said the staff officer. “If you go to the Church Army hut, they’ll look after you tonight.”
“Right. How shall I get my bag — luggage there?”
“Don’t know, I’m sure.” The staff officer signified by a frigid look that a subaltern with a uniform just out of the bandbox and no active service experience might just as well stay where he was and fill up a shell hole in the road. Dan shouldered his Wolseley valise and strode out through the rain for the hut.
At the hut he found himself a section of floor that no one seemed to be occupying and crawled into his Kapok sleeping bag. Rain drummed on the metal roof of the hut, and when the door opened, he could see mules, GS wagons, and lorries sloshing past in the mud, the drivers’ faces buried deep in the collars of their coats — all going to some known destination to do something definite. Belonging. Dan’s mind was in a state of levitation, suspended between his past life and the different life which had not yet begun for him. He was longing for the war to begin so that he could slip into some sort of relation with it. About him, recumbent figures breathed stertorously, muttering and twitching in sleep that was troubled with premonitions. It was a lonely war. He went to sleep with unfamiliar sounds ringing in his ears: of dumb beasts and men trudging by on the muddy road; of trains puffing, grunting with mysterious shuntings, puffing off again full of hommes 40, chevaux 8 or bearing, for all he knew, a more sinister freight.… What will it be like?
II
Next morning the director of the hut accosted Dan. “Did you say you were posted to the Wellington Siege Battery?”
Dan nodded.
“ Well, I suppose they’ll send for you when they get round to it. Meantime there’s an officer of your battery here. Perhaps you could go up with him.”
“Where is he?”
“In my room. Go in and make yourself known, if you like. His name is Dolughoff. Some sort of a Russian, I believe.” The director gave Dan an amused, sidelong look. “Tell me what he says. I warn you, he’s a prickly person.”
The director’s room was not really a room at all, simply an enclosure curtained off from the rest of the hut, containing a hand basin, a stove, and an army cot. One could not very well knock at a curtain, so Dan pushed it aside and went in.
A man with his back to Dan was kneeling before a stove, tending it, Dan supposed: a slender, gracefully built man, not young.
Dan ventured: “Are you Dolughoff?”
The figure, curiously still for a man making a fire, did not stir. Thinking Dolughoff might be deaf (a good many artillerymen were), Dan repeated in a loud voice: “Are you Dolughoff? I’m Thatcher. I’m joining the battery and I thought —”
The figure stood up, turned slowly, and gave Dan the benefit of a cool stare which started at Dan’s chin and came to rest at the bridge of his nose — hostile. Confused, Dan gathered impressions of Dolughoff to be sorted out later. Two ribbons above his tunic pocket, MC and DCM — served in the ranks, then. Thin, straight lips, sensitive, and at the same time cruel; too ready to curve into sarcasm. A curiously delicate skin, like an alabaster statue. Eyes cold and proud; lids drooping but watchful; a stern pucker between the brows. A combative tilt to the head.… A face feline and dangerous.
“I am Dolughoff.”
His voice was defiant and yet oddly eager. But having taken Dan’s measure, disappointment swept over his face, as if he had been expecting not a stranger but someone important to him. “And who may you be?” he asked, and this time his sarcastic tone exactly matched his features.
“Whom did you expect to see?” countered Dan, annoyed. “You looked at me as if you expected to see someone important to you like the devil or the angel Gabriel!” He went through the rigmarole of introducing himself, and Dolughoff listened to him with that disconcerting stare. It suddenly struck Dan that he might be talking to a man a little drunk.
“You can’t be twenty!” said Dolughoff contemptuously. “Yes, a child! … Well, sit down. Sit down. Since you are here. Thatcher, hm? Your brother’s in the battery, eh? You are the pacifist, aren’t you?”
“No!”
“More fool you, then.”
Dan sat down on the camp stool indicated by Dolughoff with the casual flick of a single outstretched finger from an unmoving hand, arm, and body. The irritation Dan felt at this unfriendly reception vented itself in a frown of dislike.
Dolughoff pounced on this revelation of personality; instantly, a rictus of fury contorted his face. “You didn’t come here to spy on me, did you? You’re not one of those hell-begotten political soldiers, are you? The general’s nephew, eh? Something like that?”
“Wh — what do you mean?” stammered Dan.
“The politicians are against me. They hate me and fear me — that’s all.”
“I don’t know what in the devil you’re talking about,” asserted Dan, raising his voice. Tight or sober, this was a formidable chap. A prickly person, true enough, and one not easy to read, especially for a callow youth who rather expected all subalterns to be like Harry Lorrequer and Charles O’Malley.
Dolughoff passed his hand over his eyes. “Never mind. One doesn’t expect you to understand. You are a mere child. Here, smoke a cigar. It’s a man’s smoke. Usually I don’t like people and they don’t like me, but I feel like talking.… You think I am tight, eh? So I am a little, that’s why I want to talk. But I’m probably the sanest officer in the British Army. People don’t like me because I always say outright what everyone thinks. The British race hasn’t the slightest respect for originality or even genius, all they care about is ‘good form’ (his voice trampled on the phrase contemptuously) and what they call a ‘sound man,’ by which they mean an obstinate, stupid sheep. Thank God I’m not British.… You see, I don’t like people much.”
“So I see.”
“You don’t really. You only think you do.”
To light his cigar, Dolughoff came away from the stove, from which he had not previously budged. Then Dan saw something that gave him a shock. Spread open on top of the stove was a book. This book was the Bible. No sight could have struck him as more at variance with his first impression of Dolughoff. No wonder that Dolughoff had been irritated when he clumsily barged in and bawled his name at the top of his voice. He muttered:
“I’m awfully sorry for intruding. I didn’t realize …”
Dolughoff followed Dan’s glance to the Bible; then for the first time he laughed. “God bless you, I don’t mind that. I rather like being caught by an Anglo-Saxon reading the Bible. They look so stupidly ashamed and self-conscious . It is no disgrace to read the Bible, is it?”
In order to put himself at ease — it wasn’t a question of putting Dolughoff at ease — Dan blurted: “What book were you reading? My father used to read the book of Job once a month. He said it was the greatest piece of literature in the English language.”
Removing his cigar, Dolughoff stared at him as at a queer animal.
“Literature? … Well, so it is, I suppose. And I ought to know.… But my good chap, one doesn’t think of it as literature ! It’s holy writ. One is humble before the Creator. Take the voice in the whirlwind, that shows one where one stands in God’s universe: ‘What is man, that thou art mindful of him,’ eh? And what, indeed? Mind you, I don’t hate men. I simply despise them.”
“My God!” thought Dan. “I’m going to simply loathe this chap.”
Dolughoff blew a cloud of smoke and watched it rise. “I am talking too much,” he remarked, though not in the least apologetically, “because I am a little tight. One can’t expect a child like you to understand these things. Trouble with me
is I am a very sane person, a realist. I am what I am. I like what I like. Why not? God never made beauty to be gawked at from behind a stone wall with barred windows.… But you’re a virgin, aren’t you? One can always tell.”
“Will you please go to the devil!” said Dan, getting up angrily.
Dolughoff frowned at his cigar end. “Very likely,” said he. “As a matter of fact,” he added, as though it were the most natural statement in the world, “I wasn’t reading any particular part of the Bible. I opened it for a message … then you came. And I imagined for a moment — what can’t one imagine when one is hoping? … What did you want to see me for?”
“I thought you might take me to the battery, but I’m damned if —”
“Sorry, I can’t. They’ll send for you. Why are you in such a hurry? You see, I want to walk there by myself. There is something I want to think over. I think perhaps — if you don’t mind? — you’d better go now.”
Thus summarily dismissed, Dan reflected on the most extraordinary conversation in which he had ever taken part. A man who upon the very first acquaintance talked about himself without the least reserve or shame … like a page from Dostoyevsky! … “Of course he was tight.… But was he? Hope there aren’t anymore like Mister Dolughoff in the battery.”
III
Charles arrived in the battery light car and shouted to him as if he had seen him only yesterday. “Shake a leg, Dan! Throw your kit in beside Smith and sit here beside the skipper. Well, how are you? I came by myself so we could have a talk.”
“Hullo, sir. Is it a nuisance getting me?”
“Devil a bit! Good excuse for a joy ride to Amiens. I’ve had a splendid dinner at Godbert’s. Left early this morning and got some stuff for the mess. I give you my word, I’ll go after a sub any day!”
Charles Burnet had not changed — much. He had the same gleam in the eye, Dan thought. But — well, he was forty and looked it. Face sterner and sharper as if — what was the phrase? — as if three years had passed a sponge of hyssop over his features. He was amused to see his uncle wearing riding breeches of purplish-grey Bedford cord, what were called in the army “passionate breeches.”
“Yes,” said Charles complacently, “there’s life in the old dog yet.”
“You look fit, sir.”
“Fair to middling, thanks.… You don’t ‘sir’ me, of course, as you damned well know, except on parade. And if you ‘uncle’ me, I’ll break your neck.”
“Naturally.”
“‘Burnet’ is what you call me on ordinary occasions.”
“I shan’t forget.… I met Dolughoff at the Church Army hut.”
Charles Burnet’s expression became quizzical. “Did you, by George! Then you met one of the oddest specimens of human frailty in the British Army, or anywhere else for that matter. He’s back from a Lewis gun course.”
Dan told Charles about his conversation with Dolughoff.
“Sounds like Dolughoff when he’s a little tight and quarrelsome. When he’s tight he can be downright offensive. The religion, by the way, is apparently quite sincere; so is his smut. He’s not a gentleman, of course. He’s a bundle of contradictions. I can’t get to the bottom of him. No one can. If you could, I expect you’d find a mortal struggle of some sort going on, though it doesn’t show on the surface. He goes his own way like a cat; he’s a solitary, suspicious, quarrelsome, clever chap with artistic instincts and the worst possible taste in all human relations and no sense of shame whatsoever.… Odd thing, his religion — it’s almost an obsession with him, and yet God knows he isn’t what’s called a decent man. Quite unscrupulous. I wouldn’t play cards with him.”
“What does the mess think of him?”
“They don’t know what to think. Contempt for him in one way because he’s a dirty-minded bounder — not clean bawdiness either, if you know what I mean. No one minds that much out here. But in another way they tolerate him and respect him because he’s a daredevil and the best subaltern in the battery. Afraid of him, too. He’s a dangerous friend and a worse enemy. Lone wolf, you know, with a chip on his shoulder. He’s at daggers drawn with Lynch. There’s another chap with a sharp tongue. Irishman. They can sling words. Some of Dolughoff’s sayings are so odd that they got round to the colonel and the old boy, who is a dear old fire-eating dugout, had Dolly’s antecedents investigated. Foreign name and so on — thought he might be a spy. Well, he wasn’t a spy, but they certainly uncovered an unsavoury background.… Now Dolughoff is obsessed with the idea that the colonel is persecuting him.”
“I thought him a swine of the first water.”
“Takes all kinds to make up this civilian army; you’ll find some queer ducks in it that were never in the books of Charles Lever or G.A. Henty.”
“All right. But I’ll punch his head if he talks to me again the way he did at the hut.”
“By the way, Dan,” — Charles, as his custom was, had leapt sideways into an irrelevant thought — “why did you make me wangle you into this battery?”
“How’s Alastair?” said Dan through his teeth.
“Why, you young snake-in-the-grass ! So that’s it.… Still rankles?”
“Yes.… I bet he’s a good officer.”
“He is.”
“I’m glad.”
“Now mind you, Dan, no nonsense between you two. This is a civilized battery fighting a civilized war.”
“And Tripp’s here?”
“Jiffy is very much with us, the mad young devil. I never saw a chap take life with so much gusto.”
They went up the road with netting on high poles along one side and the sign: Under enemy observation. But still not a single gun spoke. The war seemed to have gone to sleep. A ramshackle ghost of a house inhabited by the last civilian in these parts said: Here one makes the washing. They passed a large gun on a railway mounting, snout erected, ready to bay the moon. An anti-aircraft battery was drawn up at the side of the road. A sausage balloon waved lazily in the upper aether. And Charles Burnet, heedless of mortality, chanted poetry about the splendour of the nightingales, though only the splendour of his passionate breeches sprawled out against the front seat, and of his really melodious voice, defied the devastation.
“O mistress mine, where are you roaming —” sang Charles and suspired through his teeth in a sort of ecstasy. “By Phoebus Apollo there’s beauty for you!” … It astonished Dan to find his uncle, though now a soldier, so very much himself. He wondered whether Uncle Charles had really noticed the war. The Burnets never took themselves too seriously in their environment. That was the secret of their freedom. Not like the Thatchers who never took a holiday from their seriousness.
“We are nearly there now, Dan.”
Ten minutes more, thought Dan, and I shall step into an absolutely different life. “How many officers are there?” he asked, hoping Charles would tell him about them.
“Let’s see — nine. Major D’Arcy is a prewar regular. He is constantly amazed at us amateurs, at our inability to take a matter-of-fact view of the war as a strictly professional affair; he’s a good fellow, though, and we amuse rather than annoy him. Then there is Kinney. He was some sort of a professor; he likes to lecture the mess as if they were a more than usually stupid class of freshmen. Imbrie. I call him the battery barometer because he is so abnormally average. If you want to know the opinion of the average subaltern on any subject whatsoever, you can get it from Imbrie. Currie. He’s the stolid one. Lynch. Look out for Lynch. He doesn’t care what he says. Celtic excitability. Clever chap; not ‘sound’ enough for the Anglo-Saxons . And, of course, Dolughoff. The Lord only knows where he came from. As a whole, the mess manages to be more or less normal members of the human race in spite of the war. They’re neither heroes nor hellions, but good, sound in-betweens ; they have guts, they’re likable, some of them are gentlemen in any sense of the word and
most are in the best sense.”
Charles began to whistle under his breath.
“Do you still say horas non numero nisi serenas , Uncle Ch— sir?”
“Between you and me, I still talk through my hat, Dan, and always shall. Nowadays I talk through a shrapnel helmet — through a tin hat — a ridiculous headgear; it’s always falling down and hitting you on the nose.… But never dully, I hope?”
IV
“Lynch,” said Charles Burnet, “This is Don Beer Thatcher, Alastair’s brother, you know.… Lynch is our mess president. See you later, Thatcher. I’ve got to go to the forward section.”
Lynch, a gangling individual with a dangerously solemn face, took Dan in hand. “Cheeroh. Glad you’ve come, Thatcher. Imbrie, this is Thatcher … Alastair’s brother, you know. A spot of whisky? Bombardier! Bring my bottle. Here’s mud in your eye! … Major, this is Thatcher, Alastair’s brother. Bound to be a good chap! … What’s that about conscientious objectors, Imbrie? What do you know about conchies; just hold on to that remark for a minute, I want to argue with you.… Everybody’s here, Thatcher, but Jiffy Tripp and the Skipper, who is relieving Jiffy at the forward section. That lanky individual with the expression of an imperturbable owl sitting across from me is Currie. He appears to be thinking of something, but as a matter of fact, he is merely waiting for the next event to happen to him. And that reminds me — Bombardier! Buck up with dinner, will you? … And the little squirt at the end of the table with the glasses is Brains Kinney. He’s an Egyptologist in civil life; he regards the present battlefield as an archaeological stratum in the making. And Dolughoff. Have you met Dolly? Or rather, has he met you? If he isn’t tight he might condescend to shake hands with you. Very exclusive bird, our Mr. Dolly — even with his friends.… All right, Dolly. Don’t get shirty! It’s only that crazy Irishman, Lynch.… Make yourself at home, Thatcher.… What were we saying about conchies, Imbrie?”