No Hero-This

by Warwick Deeping

  Peace. How strange that this rabbit-warren beside a devastated road should suggest peace! I have a queer feeling that somehow I have returned to headquarters as a little muddy hero. I, a hero! All I know is that Finch shinned on ahead of us, and when I got in there was a hot bath ready in my dug-out. I strip and get into the green canvas trough and soap myself and feel good. I am ready for more sleep. Finch has made my bed, and he appears with a hot-water bottle clasped to his tummy. It is an equipment bottle.

  This little man’s devoted service touches me.

  “Look here, Finch, you go and doss down. You must be done to the world.”

  “I’m feeling champion, sir.”

  I get into bed, and the Mess orderly pulls the blanket aside and puts his head in.

  “There’s steak and onions for lunch, sir. Can you manage some?”

  “Steak and onions! How did you manage it, Field?”

  “Special occasion, sir. And tinned peaches and milk.”

  I have finished my lunch when Fairfax comes in. He sits down on the box beside my bed.

  “You’ll stay there, Stephen, till to-morrow morning. How’s the head?”

  “O, better now, sir.”

  “Here’s some news to sleep on. The G.S.O.1 dropped in this morning. I am to put up the officer in charge of the Bakery for a decoration.”

  “That ought to be poor Hallard, sir.”

  Fairfax lays his hand on my shoulder.

  “Yes, that hurt me badly, old man. It has hurt both of us. I have written to his wife.”

  “A pretty horrible thing to have to do.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can see him now writing one of those daily letters. He drew the unlucky card.”

  “Hold on, Stephen. It doesn’t do to think too much. You go to sleep. The Division is coming out of the line to-morrow. We’re going back to quiet country.”

  “Any idea what we have lost, sir?”

  “Between three and four thousand killed and wounded.”

  “And captured a small strip of mud.”

  “A very small strip, Stephen.”

  He leaves me, and I lie and think of Sergeant Fosdyke’s furious outburst.

  Is he right? Are we losing the war because our supermen are not superlative as to brains?

  XVIII

  We are out in rest; Fairfax has gone on leave, and I am in command.

  Authority has its advantages. Man is a good beast, but a noisy one, and must bray his soul out under one’s window, but I have so arranged things that Gibbs and I are sleeping at the farm where we mess, some three hundred yards from the farm where the unit is quartered. I am glad of Gibby and his stout, serene humour, for the death of Hallard is still with me, and though this war makes one incredibly callous, Hallard was a man to whom one could uncover one’s soul. Again, the ego, and its passion for self-expression! But there are other things here to tranquillize one, a most splendid avenue of white poplars suddenly and strangely yellow under autumn skies, and framing in the distance the mysterious hill of Cassel. It is like looking along the nave of a cathedral and into a gilded choir whose great east window is filled with grey-blue glass.

  It is a dim place this farm, full of burrowing passages and low rooms and country smells. We are supposed to be here for a month while the Division is rested and reinforced before being fed again into the sausage-machine. It is possible that the weather and winter may intervene and prevent our supermen from making war in that slough of despond. Most devoutly do I pray that the mud may prove too potent even for their saurian strategy.

  There is a big, bouncing girl here to whom Finch is making furious love. They are as square as spades these Flemings, and not too friendly. I meet Monsieur occasionally as I go to and fro, and I salute him, and he gives me a grunt or a snarl. He is rather like a black boar, and his wife suggests a large white sow. I have seen her working a churn in the yard, and the calves of her legs come down to her slippers. As objects in the landscape they are in complete contrast to the towering, stately trees.

  I am full of the thought of leave. It should be good and complete and satisfying after the ordeal I have gone through. Perhaps I am too pleased with myself, yet ready to admit how narrow is the margin between what is called heroism and absolute poltroonery. I seem to have escaped the latter by the breadth of a hair.

  Life is packed with surprises.

  There’s a platitude for you!

  I am in our farm just before tea when one of the orderly-room clerks brings me a message.

  “The A.D.M.S., sir.”

  “Colonel Cleek?”

  “Yes, sir, at headquarters.”

  What can Cleek want with us? Just an official visit, I suppose, but I have not seen the man since we left the Menin Road. I put on my cap and British-warm, and half-way down the lane I see Cleek coming towards me. His shoulders are down, and his lean white face seems to poke forward out of the dusk. A melancholy figure this, somehow sick and shaken, and shorn of all its bristling assurance.

  I salute him, and wonder at his dead eyes.

  “Afternoon, Brent. I am just paying you a last visit. I’m afraid I’m a sick man.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  He looks at me almost like a beaten dog, to whom even a gesture of sympathy may suggest a kick.

  “Yes, sciatica.”

  We stand for a moment in that dim, wet lane, and I am wondering whether his nerve trouble is actual or a beneficent excuse. He gives me a queer, slanting look; his chin is a little tremulous, and suddenly the essential weakness of the man is revealed to me. He is starving for sympathy, and is so shamelessly greedy for it that he can even come to me and whimper. It seems incredible that any man can be so sorry for himself, so incapable of self-analysis, so crudely childish.

  “Yes, they have broken me, Brent.”

  He blurts out the truth like some poor simpleton who is ready to uncover himself to the first creature whom he meets in the village.

  “Most unfair. Prejudice. I had a cabal against me. No account taken of abnormal conditions.”

  I do not know what to say to him. Has the man no pride, no perceptions? Has he never suspected how we cursed him for leaving us to confront those same abnormal conditions? I can only suppose that Cleek is more emotional than he appears, and since sanity is—in a sense—the control of emotion, Cleek is not quite sane.

  It is not a text-book case, and I suppose the manifestations of a wounded self-regard can be classed as a war-neurosis, but this man’s shameless touting for sympathy is almost prostitution.

  “Won’t you come and have some tea, sir?”

  “No, Brent, thank you. I have to go on and say good-bye to Clayton of the 3rd. You see, they may break me, but I am not ashamed, not ashamed.”

  That is the most peculiar part of his reaction. I gather that there is a difference between humiliation and shame, and that though his lean self-love shivers in the wind, he is convinced that he is the victim of a conspiracy. I walk back with him to headquarters, and all the way he bleats to me about being “Stellenbosched” as he calls it.

  “I am going down sick to-morrow after more than thirty years’ service. Of course, you temporaries, Brent, can’t be expected to appreciate my feelings.”

  His bleatings are beginning to bore me. And I had regarded this man as a sinister and dangerous enemy! He had the power to make life unpleasant for his subordinates, and now he is no more than a petulant and innocuous pantaloon. Almost I look for the dewdrop at the end of his long nose. He is still talking about himself and his disaster when I walk across the farmyard with him and see him into his Ford ambulance.

  “I ought to have asserted myself more, Brent. No; I don’t know who my successor is. I can’t say that I envy him the job.”

  My last glimpse of Cleek is of a soul-sick man huddled up beside the driver of the Ford. I salute him for the last time, and he gives me a wintry little smile and a stilted jerk of the hand. Exit Colonel Cleek! I walk back through the autumn dusk
to the mess, and surprise Finch and the fat girl busy behind a door. I assume blindness, and go in to find Gibbs and Carless—who have been shopping at Cassel—eating buttered toast.

  I tell them the news, and Gibbs’s large, pink face remains incredulous.

  “I can imagine a man being caught with his breeches down, Steevie, but do you mean to say Cleek took his down to you? Tell me another.”

  I make sure of the last piece of toast.

  “It was an official leave-taking, my dear, and I happen to be C.O.”

  “Well, I’m damned! What’s the camouflage, senility?”

  “No, sciatica.”

  “I should like to have filled up his tally for him.”

  I pour myself out tea.

  “No, you wouldn’t have done anything of the kind, Gibbie. You’re much too soft-hearted.”

  “Shut up. You’ll soon be calling me a sentimentalist.”

  “So we are, all of us, in bits. The man was pathetic.”

  “O, get along with you!”

  “Yes, just because he didn’t seem to realize how filthily pathetic he was.”

  * * *

  The new A.D.M.S. has arrived. His name is Colonel Rankin, and he is a Territorial, which should be helpful.

  Fairfax has obtained an extension of leave, and I am still acting C.O. Responsibility has its advantages, for as C.O. I can arrange my day a little as I please. It is very extraordinary how one adapts oneself to communal coercion, but I am afraid my conviction is that in the Communist State the only pleasant position must be that of commissar.

  * * *

  Russia is letting us down very badly.

  * * *

  The new A.D.M.S. walks into our orderly-room one morning. He is a red-headed, well-set-up man in the early forties with a ruddy, vital face, and brown eyes that have tawny lights in them. I like him immediately. We are all standing, and with a smile he tells the staff to carry on, and then suggests that I take him round our quarters.

  “You are Captain Brent?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He is a man who combines authority with friendliness. Also, I feel that there will be no funking and sitting about in chairs on the part of this red-headed, virile person. I show him our brigade hospital, and the men’s quarters, and our transport lines, horses and wagons. He has a quick eye for everything. He examines our harness, and compliments the Transport S.-M. on the condition of the horses.

  “Someone here, Brent, is a little horse proud.”

  I tell him that Fairfax is a hunting man and knowledgeable about horses.

  “And you, Brent?”

  I smile at him.

  “I am not much of a horseman, sir.”

  He returns my smile, and I discover a little gleam of humour in his brown eyes.

  “By the way, I have some news for you. Rather a pleasant introduction, Brent. Your M.C. has come through.”

  I am conscious of flushing.

  “Has it, sir?”

  “Don’t say that it is more than you deserve!”

  “I won’t, sir! But when one thinks of what the infantry have to suffer——”

  “Dressing wounded under shell fire is a pretty nasty test of one’s courage. No adventitious excitement.”

  “Except funk, sir.”

  Again he smiles at me. I like this man; he is human, and not a creature of red tape.

  “You can put up the ribbon, Brent. I believe the official letter is in your orderly-room. I left it on the table.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Going on leave soon?”

  “I hope so, when Colonel Fairfax comes back.”

  “Well, it ought to be arranged for you to be invested. Buckingham Palace, Brent.”

  He is wearing the ribbon of the D.S.O., and I glance at it.

  “Is it a very formal affair, sir?”

  “No, quite easy. I rather expect that when this war is over it may become the fashion to scoff at these so-called baubles.”

  “Do you think so, sir?”

  “Yes, because the scoffers will be the gentlemen who were embusqué under beds.”

  * * *

  When I return to the orderly-room after seeing off Colonel Rankin I become aware of what I might describe as a conspiracy of clerkly silence. The orderly-room sergeant stands up, and lays a letter on the table. He has a pawky, sly look.

  “Official communication for you, sir.”

  I assume an air of casualness. I know that the news must be out sub rosa. I read the letter, and pass it back to him.

  “Quite pleasant news.”

  “I suppose it should be put ‘in orders,’ sir?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “The men will be very pleased, sir.”

  “Will they? It’s very good of them.”

  I detect one of the clerks making secret signs to somebody and, turning, discover Finch’s red face at the window. It disappears with grinning abruptness. Dinners are about to be served, and I see the men collecting with plates and mess-tins in the farmyard. I hear someone shouting.

  “Come on, C Section, come on, the boys.”

  I feel suddenly shy, and wise as to what is brewing. Informal demonstrations are not encouraged in the army. Sergeant-Major Jones comes into the orderly-room. He salutes me and tries to suppress a smirk.

  “Captain Carless should be inspecting dinners, sir, but the orderly sergeant can’t find him.”

  “I’ll take dinners, Sergeant-Major.”

  I go to the door of the farmhouse, and find the whole of C Section crowding round the doorway as though the occasion was somehow theirs. Men of the other sections are massing behind them. I see Finch in the front row. He waves a tin plate in the air.

  “Congratulations, sir.”

  I stand and smile.

  “Three cheers for Captain Brent, M.C., and for good old C Section.”

  Really, this sort of thing ought not to happen. It is too like vaudeville, or one’s maiden aunt’s idea of the family hero. I look at these men waving their plates, and cheering, and I realize that this show does mean something to them, and to me. I assume an air of severity and fix my gaze on Finch.

  “Finch, you’ll have seven days C.B. for this.”

  “Righto, sir. But I ain’t the only one.”

  A voice says, “Seven days C.B. for the whole of C Section.”

  I laugh, and try not to look embarrassed.

  “I think I’ll let you all off that. I might even persuade the S.-M. to issue a double rum ration. All the same, I do thank you. I’m not much good at making speeches, any more than I am on a horse.”

  There is a roar of laughter at this, but it is friendly laughter.

  I hear a voice say, “It ain’t so much the breeches as the pills that are inside ’em.”

  I pretend not to hear the remark, but turn to S.-M. Jones.

  “I think we’ll take dinner, Sergeant-Major, and adjourn to the cookhouse.”

  He salutes me.

  “Very good, sir.”

  * * *

  I have written the news to Mary.

  We have a lurid night in the mess. In the afternoon I took an ambulance to Cassel with Bond the Quartermaster, and managed to buy a barrel of beer for the men and two bottles of champagne for ourselves. There are only five of us but we make a great deal of noise. We even persuade Monsieur and Madame to come in and drink healths in whisky. I have invited the sergeants across for a drink, and about nine o’clock they arrive at the farmhouse door. Glasses are produced and Gibbs pours out the whisky. I notice that someone is being kept rather in the background, as though his state necessitated repression. It is Mills, the transport sergeant. He refuses to be repressed.

  “Three cheers for the Old Man.”

  Someone points out to him that Colonel Fairfax is not present.

  “Tell me another. I ain’t so blind as all that. Three cheers for the Old Man.”

  We drink Fairfax’s health in his absence, and again Mills gives tongue.
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br />   “Three cheers for the Little Un.”

  That, I suppose, is me. Anyhow, my health is drunk, and S.-M. Jones makes a short, set speech which is interrupted by Mills falling over something in the yard while attempting a pas seul. He has cut his head against a bucket that has been left there, and has to be taken back to headquarters to have his head dressed by Gibbs. The incident suggests to me that discipline has been sufficiently and humanly relaxed for the evening, and I feel suddenly very sober and rather tired.

  Carless suggests opening another bottle of whisky. He has become utterly sentimental and is singing of love.

  “Have another spot, daddy, M.C.”

  I say that I am going to bed.

  “O, rot, daddy. Why this thusness?”

  “I have had enough,” say I, and Carless mocks me.

  “I’ll tell you what M.C. stands for in your case, daddy. Mono-gam-atic celibate. Tootle-oo. Just one last spot.”

  But I want to be alone for a while, and my bedroom is the only place where I can be alone. I leave Carless turning the handle of the gramophone and putting on a record. More noise. I feel suddenly irritable, and I snap at Carless.

  “O, shut the damned thing up. We’ve had our evening.”

  He looks at me like a shocked child.

  “You are peevish to-night, daddy. You shouldn’t be. War, women and wine.”

  “Rot,” say I, “bed’s worth all three of them after a night like this.”

  * * *

  I am going on leave. I think no words describe the feeling so well as Tommy’s saying, “My pack felt like a balloon.”

  Is my head a little swollen? Perhaps. Captain Brent, M.C., with that mauve and white ribbon on his tunic, and within him a consciousness of mean impulses transcended, and some measure of manhood founded against fear. But there are also the sweet fears of this homeward adventure. Will my leave be stopped at the last moment? Will all leave be stopped? Will there be a fog in the Channel, or a scare because mines or a submarine have broken loose? One is as full of thrills and tremors as a boy home from school for the first time—some sensitive kid who has endured his first term’s bullying.