He asks me when I can join up.
“At once, sir, if you will take me.”
He smiles.
“I shall be glad of an officer who has had active experience. None of my officers have been out. We expect to be ordered abroad within the next three months.”
“I shall be very glad to join you, sir. Do I leave all the formalities to you?”
“Yes, Brent, I’ll arrange everything. But you ought to join as a captain after your year’s service. I’ll take the matter up with our A.D.M.S. Let’s go and have some tea. You can go back home until we notify you.”
He takes me down to the mess. There are two other officers there, Margetson, a little stout sandy man who I am to find is known as Margery, and Hallard, who smiles at me and shows many teeth under a black moustache. I like both of them, for they are easy and friendly. Another officer comes in with a great, round, genial baby face and a sleek cap of reddish hair. This is Gibbs, a junior. He is immensely strong, and gives me a grip that almost hurts. I have a feeling that I shall not be treated as a stranger here, or be subjected to jealousies and petty intrigues. Fairfax strikes me as being too big a man for that sort of thing. He can be one with us, joke and tease, without losing either his touch or his dignity.
I feel that I have fallen into a happy crowd.
“Where are you staying the night, Brent?”
“At the Golden Crown, sir.”
“Dreary hole. Better come up and dine with us.”
I do.
* * *
How mysterious and provoking are one’s likes and dislikes! My impression is that I like Fairfax because he is my opposite, deliberate where I am impetuous, jocund and ironic over some business that makes me angry. He is like a very large dog, good-tempered and serene, and wise. He can tease, but there is never any venom in his teasing. It is a sign of affection.
It is the naturalness of the man, a kind of spacious simplicity that attracts me.
I suppose that is why I have always disliked your reformer Socialist, or what not. One may agree with some of his theories, and dislike the theorist. People with urges are apt to be superior, and to provoke one with their assumption of high rectitude and moral ardour. It is so obvious that they wish to possess the world, and that the theory may seem of more importance than the practice and I, like many others, object to being lectured and labelled. Also, one is suspicious of the fellow’s smell, the essential odour that seems to attach itself to the very righteous.
Any sort of sacerdotalism repels me, especially the sacerdotalism of Socialism, but the man in the surplice is often more repellent than the priest.
* * *
I have a suspicion that all this regimentation, this classifying and numbering of men, and their being treated like cattle, and all this growth of ministries and officials promises to interfere with our future freedom. The country will be dominated by what one might call “The Ministry of Interference.” We shall be at the mercy of the Schoolmaster Mind, of a clique whose passion is to exert authority, to instruct, and to make such a wordy mystery of their new Whitehall Bible that no plain man can understand it or challenge its authority.
I make this note in my journal, for in the F.A. Mess on that first night the subject somehow came up for discussion. I think it was Hallard of the ironic mouth and vigorous masseter muscles who started it. He is Fairfax’s adjutant, and as such, is in closer contact with authority and its official fuss.
“It is going to be a world of Paper Pushing, and its god and autocrat will be a sort of glorified Inspector of Taxes. You will have to make returns, sir, on how many bottles of gentian and soda you have prescribed per week. And you will have to report whether the proletarian mothers have changed their babies’ nappies properly six times a day.”
I remember Fairfax’s jocund, sceptical laugh.
“Get along with you, Hallard. Do you think this country is going to stomach that sort of thing?”
“Wait and see, sir. This paper-pushing game can spread like a blizzard. We shall be so busy trying to sweep our own particular doorstep that we shan’t even have time to go and hang the paper-mongers.”
* * *
I travel back next day after interviewing the A.D.M.S. of the 81st Division, a tall person with cold and cynical eyes. He is curt with me, especially when I hint to him that Colonel Fairfax has suggested that I ought to join with the rank of captain. A Territorial M.O. has to serve six months before obtaining his captaincy, and I have already served a year.
“Fudge, man. You temporaries seem to expect to have it every way.”
“I shall not be a temporary officer, sir.”
“No, my lad, you won’t. You’ll be in for the duration, as it should be. You will be treated as an ordinary Territorial officer.”
“Very good, sir.”
But my journey home is on the whole a happy one, for the personality of my new C.O. has heartened and reassured me. If one has to serve, the secret of happy service rests with the man under whom you serve. Instead of being the tyrant he can stand between you and tyranny.
* * *
Mary is waiting for me. She looks anxiously at my face, but I imagine my countenance must be cheerful, for that searching look goes out of her eyes.
“Anything arranged, Stephen?”
“Colonel Fairfax is taking me. I don’t think I have ever liked a man better on first impressions.”
She kisses me.
“I’m so glad. It must make all the difference.”
“All the difference in the world, my dear.”
My second going promises to be less poignant than my first. We are both of us much more calm about it, and it is not till the evening before my leaving that Mary shocks me with the news of something she has been hiding.
She is pregnant.
So, that is why I have had the feeling that she had something to confess. But what a blind and self-centred ass I have been not to have suspected. It is only the second month, but even then——!
“Why didn’t you tell me, dear? I’ve no apologies to make.”
“I didn’t want to——”
“Put anything in my way?”
“Yes. And, after all, Stephen, there is something in me that is deeply glad. You know, we always——”
“Yes, I know. But now——! I hate the idea of leaving you to all this.”
“Are we exceptions?”
“One is always inclined to regard one’s own case as the exception. But I’ll have a talk to Randall.”
She smiles at me.
“I’m a normal woman, Steevie. We are not going to get in a panic over what is normal. You are not to worry.”
“All right. I’ll take my orders. But you make me feel a little ashamed.”
“Oh, no. Why not feel glad with me?”
“If you are glad, so am I.”
XIII
Here, in Ebchester, reading through my journal, I accuse myself of being a sentimentalist, and of not having recorded certain human reactions.
Since no one will see this scrawl, or trouble to read it should it survive me, I may as well be a truthful and exact historian.
I was jealous of that fellow Murchison. Though Mary may not have been conscious of it I suspect that he had touched her imagination, and part of my restlessness was a reaction due to jealousy. I may have felt that by rejoining the army I was taking the stage again and was appearing as the plumed hero to impress the feminine soul.
I have argued in favour of emotion, but how base it can be.
I was worried by the thought of having to leave a pregnant wife behind.
I was reassured by the thought that a pregnant woman is less likely to be physically attractive to a man like Murchison.
We have nice minds!
One may turn and kick the elemental Adam downstairs, but one can never forget that he is smirking and leering in the basement.
Will the problem of the elemental Adam ever be solved? Are those people right who argue that he sh
ould be stripped even of his fig-leaves and allowed to wander openly and without shame in our highways and by-ways, churches and law-courts? Is it our hypocrisy that gives Pan cloven hoofs?
* * *
But again I sit with these new friends round the mess table, and we are all good fellows together. It might be regarded as a perfect partnership, with Fairfax as the senior member. There appear to be no jealousies. He is too wise and impartial to show favours.
But we are in no danger here.
What of the acid test of danger? What of those crises when ugly jobs have to be handed out? I know how the little, mean, self-preserving ego can assert itself when bloody occasions have to be faced. Shall we remain such good friends, one with another, or shall we hate each other in secret, and hope that fate will favour one of us at the expense of the others?
I hope not. I have sworn to myself that whatever my fear may be I will not suffer it to be mean.
* * *
Moreover, there are other distractions, or rather one particular elemental distraction in a town like this that vexes one’s crude flesh. Ebchester is a garrison town, and I suppose such a town is accustomed to satisfying the hunting male, but the war appears to have reversed the order of things. It is the women who hunt and solicit. A large part of the feminine population seems to have abandoned all the subtleties of self-restraint. In the evening hundreds of girls seem to parade the place, and to invite adventure.
Since the garrison accommodation is limited I am billeted out in a little house near the Abbey. It looks a discreet, sober, straight up and down little place with a neat back garden, and an aspidistra in the front window, and its parlour furnished with a cheap suite in red plush. My landlady is a stoutish, bustling, black and white woman in the middle thirties whose husband, a builder’s foreman, is on active service. My impression of her is that she is a motherly sort of person, a little inclined perhaps to be fussy and familiar. I always seem to be meeting a large and succulent smile, and a person that appears somewhat undressed like that of a woman ready to give the breast to a child. Whenever I come in she seems to be crowding the passage or the stairs.
I suppose she does not appeal to me physically, and no doubt she thought me shy, but when I woke up one night to find her in my bedroom and sitting on my bed, I’m afraid the occasion was not satisfying to her vanity, and that we said certain embarrassing things to each other. At all events she bundled out of my room in a rage, leaving an insult behind her.
“I thought you were a man!”
I packed up next morning and sent my servant for my kit, but when I confessed in the mess to the adventure, I realized that I should not hear the end of it. And how, in my prose, I am mixing the past and the present! Hallard teases me unmercifully, talking of lost opportunities, and of poor starved women denied adequate sex expressions. From what I hear Hallard’s youth was a hectic and strenuous orgy, but now he sits down daily and writes long letters to his wife and kids. He is full of the most septic stories, and his life is that of a domestic celibate.
But I do not want this sort of thing. I ask Fairfax if there is any reason why my wife should not join me in rooms here. I assure him that it will make no difference to my work.
“By all means, Brent.”
I have insisted on Mary giving up her commandantship. She can rest and be quiet here, and at the moment she has two elderly servants who can be trusted to look after the house. She seems glad to join me, and I manage to find comfortable rooms in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Ebchester. It means biking in and out, but that’s no hardship. We have a garden and an orchard to sit in, and khaki does not crowd too close upon us.
Though the khaki world is my world, and I am working hard to make it so. This unit is thorough, and though Fairfax may be the most tolerant of C.O.s, he can be fierce for efficiency. That pleases me. I have no further use for myself as an amateur. I have been given C Section, but my knowledge of drill does not exist. I cannot even move the men off in fours, but after a month’s mugging of infantry-and stretcher-drill, and of watching a very capable sergeant at work, I get the hang of the thing. I have my section out and drill it myself. At my first attempt, with all those eyes watching me to see if I shall make an ass of myself, I feel horribly nervous, but I do not make an ass of myself, and I feel master of my voice and of the men.
I wish to be completely efficient in my knowledge of a Field Ambulance’s functioning and of its interior economy. I memorize the equipment, how many stretchers we have, how many blankets, and hot-water bottles and plates and what not. I make myself familiar with the contents of all the panniers. There is something beautiful and reassuring in this thoroughness, in being able to fit all the detail instantly and correctly into the pattern. I give my men gas-drill and stretcher-drill, and I invent war-games and make the men deal with hypothetical wounded. I find that they respond to my keenness. I want C Section to be the section in the 202 F.A.
Hallard as adjutant has A Section, Margetson B, with Gibbs under him. Margetson is rather a shy person, and mute on parade; he is prone to stammer in public, and sometimes his orders are fantastic. Gibbs has a stentorian voice and much confidence, but like many large, strong men he is apt to be lazy. We can beat B Section as we like on a field day, but A and Hallard are worthy rivals.
Simpson, my senior sergeant, is a man after my own heart, fresh-faced and forty and thickset, with a temper that never wears thin. I shall be glad of Simpson over there.
My two corporals are contrasts: one, Block, a little, bright, wiry fellow with mischievous eyes; the other, Saintly, a rather refined, vain and supercilious young man who looks as though he should be a social reformer. He is somewhat of a weed physically. I don’t like him, and I rather doubt whether he will prove reliable when guts are more important than vapourings.
* * *
Horses! We are supposed to be mounted officers. Fairfax is a good horseman and used to hunting; Hallard and Gibbs are both keen, but I have never been astride a horse.
The S.-M. of our Transport agrees to give me private riding lessons, and I go out early in the morning before breakfast, and when the business is not too public. It is a form of exercise that chastens my pride. Besides, formal occasions may demand my appearance on horse-back.
S.-M. Banyard has chosen for me a quiet beast, but the wretched animal seems to divine my innocence. It will respond to a word from Banyard, but it treats me with deliberate inattention.
I bring Bob sugar and try to ingratiate myself.
Banyard assures me that I am getting on splendidly, but I always wish I could get off. Also, my posterior seems more sensitive than it should be.
Pride goes before a fall. I ride round one morning to Holly Farm and show myself off to Mary. Bob behaves like a gentleman and has his nose stroked. Next day we parade and march out on one of those formal occasions. My place is with my section. The whole division is out for a route march and an inspection, and for the first mile Bob’s behaviour is flawless.
I don’t know what irks the wretched beast. Perhaps he is bored. I hear later that he and Fairfax’s mount are particular friends. He sets off with me at a canter up the line of march. I can’t stop the animal, and all the men’s heads are turning. Bob carries me to the head of our column, and places himself placidly beside Fairfax’s Tom.
Fairfax turns a startled head and looks at me reproachfully.
“What are you doing here, Brent?”
“Don’t ask me, sir, ask my damned horse!”
He is able to see the joke, but my position is impossible on so formal an occasion. The General is waiting for us up the road.
“You had better get off and fall out, Brent, unless you can manage the brute.”
I pull angrily at Bob’s mouth, but without effect. I give him the spurs, and for the next minute or two I am absorbed in a scramble in and out of a hedge. The unit goes by, and I am aware of grinning faces. Bob and I are left to settle the matter, for the Field Ambulance is at the tail of the Brigade. But my
blood is up. I’m not going to be made a fool of by this creature. I use spurs and crop and language, and suddenly Bob becomes as meek as mutton. I suppose he could have pitched me off had his blood been up like mine, but I am to discover that Bob, like many men, is just a bluffer and trying it on. Apparently, he decided that this funny business is not worth while.
Victory! He trots respectably up the road after those swinging legs and slogging boots. He suffers me to put him in his place, and he remains there, walking debonairly. I am saved. We have not yet passed the Great Man.
There is some chatter among the men. They are marching at ease. I turn in the saddle, catch Sergeant Simpson’s eyes and smile.
I say, “I hope everybody enjoyed the circus stunt.”
There is laughter, but I feel it is with me, not at me.
The command comes down, “March at attention.”
I give C Section the order. A minute later I am giving the “Eyes right,” and saluting the great man on his horse. He returns my salute. Bob walks doucely like an old ruffian who has signed the pledge.
But, for days, my battle with Bob is one of the jokes of the mess. I do not mind, for I know that the last laugh was with me.
* * *
What a lot of platitudes I am producing in this journal, but never mind. I am a plain man, and not a literary gent. The powers of our adaptation are marvellous. Man seeks to control his environment even in a mud-hole, and here are Mary and I settled in our farmhouse as though we were to be here for ever. Possibly we pretend a little, but even the pretence comes to possess an air of permanence. I go down to Brackenhurst one evening, and drive my car up by night, and we garage it in the wagon shed. Mary and I picnic on the river, tying up under the willows and watching the sunlight reflected from the water playing on the green bank and the leaves of the trees. I take Mary for drives. We get to know some of the Ebchester people, and I find myself playing tennis. We give one or two informal little parties to which we ask Fairfax and Hallard. Mary and my C.O. are instantly friends. She likes him as much as I do.
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