‘Well, your boy Cleaver doesn’t impress me all that much, Bill,’ Thurston, who hated the Adjutant, said to him. ‘The only time we’ve tried him on duty he flapped.’
‘Just inexperience, Tom,’ the Adjutant said. ‘He’d soon snap out of that if we gave him command of the section. Sergeant Beech would carry him until he found his feet.’
‘Mm, I’d like to see that, I must say. The line duty-officer getting his sergeant out of bed to hold his hand while he changes a valve.’
‘Now look here, old boy.’ The Adjutant levered a piece of meat out from between two teeth and ate it. ‘You know as well as I do that young Cleaver’s got the best technical qualifications of anyone in the whole unit. It’s not his fault he’s been stuck on office work ever since he came to us. There’s a fellow that’d smarten up that bunch of goons and long-haired bloody mathematical wizards they call a line-maintenance section. As it is, the NCOs don’t chase the blokes and Dally isn’t interested in chasing the NCOs. Isn’t interested in anything but his bloody circuit diagrams and test-frames and what-have-you.’
To cover his irritation, Thurston summoned the Mess corporal, who stood by the wall in a posture that compromised between that of an attendant waiter and the regulation stand-at-ease position. The Adjutant had schooled him in Mess procedure, though not in Mess etiquette. ‘Gin and lime, please, Gordon… Just as well in a way he is interested in line apparatus, isn’t it, Bill? We’d have looked pretty silly without him during the move out of Normandy and across France. He worked as hard as any two of the rest of us. And as well.’
‘He got his bouquet from the Colonel, didn’t he? I don’t grudge him that, I admit he did good work then. Not as good as some of his chaps, probably, but still, he served his turn. Yes, that’s exactly it, Tom, he’s served his—’
‘According to Major Rylands he was the linchpin of the whole issue,’ Thurston said, lighting a cigarette with fingers that were starting to tremble. ‘And I’m prepared to take his word for it. The war isn’t over yet, you know. Christ knows what may happen in the spring. If Dally isn’t around to hold the line-maintenance end up for Rylands, the whole unit might end up in the shit with the Staff jumping on its back. Cleaver might be all right, I agree. We just can’t afford to take the risk.’
This was an unusually long speech for anyone below the rank of major to make in the Adjutant’s presence. Temporarily gagged by a mouthful of stew, that officer was eating as fast as he could and shaking his forefinger to indicate that he would as soon as possible propose some decisive amendment to what he had just been told. With his other hand he scratched the crown of his glossy black head, looking momentarily like a tick-tack man working through his lunch-break. He said indistinctly: ‘You’re on to the crux of the whole thing, old boy. Rylands is the root of all the trouble. Bad example at the top, do you see?’ Swallowing, he went on: ‘If the second-in-command goes round looking like a shithouse detail and calling the blokes by their Christian names, what can you expect? You can’t get away from it, familiarity breeds contempt. Trouble with him is he thinks he’s still working in the Post Office.’
A hot foam of anger seemed to fizz up in Thurston’s chest. ‘Major Rylands is the only field officer in this entire unit who knows his job. It is due to him and Dally, plus Sergeant Beech and the lineman-mechs, that our line communications have worked so smoothly during this campaign. To them and to no one else. If they can go on doing that they can walk about with bare arses for all I care.’
The Adjutant frowned at Thurston. After running his tongue round his upper teeth, he said: ‘You seem to forget, Tom, that I’m responsible for the discipline of officers in this unit.’ He paused to let the other reflect on the personal implications of this, then nodded to where Corporal Gordon was approaching with Thurston’s drink.
As he signed the chit, Thurston was thinking that Gordon had probably been listening to the conversation from the passage. If so, he would probably discuss it with Hill, the Colonel’s batman, who would probably report it to his master. It was often said, especially by Lieutenant Dalessio, the ‘Dally’ now under discussion, that the Colonel’s chief contact with his unit was through the rumours and allegations Hill and, to a less extent, the Adjutant took to him. A tweak of disquiet made Thurston drink deeply and resolve to say no more for a bit.
The Adjutant was brushing crumbs off his battledress, which was of the greenish hue current in the Canadian Army. This little affectation, like the gamboge gloves and the bamboo walkingstick, perhaps suited a man who had helped to advertise men’s clothes in civilian life. He went on to say in his rapid quacking monotone: ‘I’d advise you, Tom, not to stick your neck out too far in supporting a man who’s going to be out of this unit on his ear before very long.’
‘Rylands, you mean?’
‘No no no. Unfortunately not. But Dally’s going.’
‘That’s gen, is it?’
‘Not yet, but it will be.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
The Adjutant looked up in Gordon’s direction, then leaned forward across the table to Thurston. ‘It only needs one more thing,’ he said quietly, ‘to turn the scale. The CO’s been watching Dally for some time, on my suggestion. I know the old man pretty well, as you know, after being in his Company for three years at North Midland Command. He’s waiting to make up his mind, do you see? If Dally puts up a black in the near future — a real black — that’ll be enough for the CO. Cleaver’ll get his chance at last.’
‘Suppose Dally doesn’t put up a black?’
‘He will.’
‘He hasn’t yet, you know. The terminal equipment’s all on the top line, and Dally knows it inside out.’
‘I’m not talking about that kind of a black. I’m talking about the administrative and disciplinary side. Those vehicles of his are in a shocking condition. I thought of working a snap 406 inspection on one of them, but that wouldn’t look too good. Too much like discrimination. But there’ll be something. Just give me time.’
Thurston thought of saying that those vehicles, though covered with months-old mud and otherwise offensive to the inspecting eye, were in good running order, thanks to the efficiency of the section’s transport corporal. Instead, he let his mind wander back to one of the many stories of the Colonel’s spell as a company commander in England. Three weeks running he had presented his weekly prize of £1 for the smartest vehicle to the driver of an obsolete wireless-truck immobilized for lack of spare parts. The Company Sergeant-Major had won a bet about it.
‘We’ll have some fun then, Tom old boy,’ the Adjutant was saying in as festive a tone as his voice allowed. He was unaware that Thurston disliked him. His own feelings towards Thurston were a mixture of respect and patronage: respect for Thurston’s Oxford degree and accent, job at a minor public school, and efficiency as a non-technical officer; patronage for his practice of reading literary magazines and for his vaguely scholarly manner and appearance. The affinity between Thurston’s unmilitary look and the more frankly ragamuffin demeanour of Dalessio could hardly explain, the Adjutant wonderingly felt, the otherwise unaccountable tendency of the one to defend the other. It was true that they’d known each other at the officers’ training unit at Catterick, but what could that have to do with it? The Adjutant was unaccustomed to having his opinions contested and he now voiced the slight bafflement that had been growing on him for the last few minutes. ‘It rather beats me,’ he said, ‘why you’re taking this line about friend Dally. You’re not at all thick with him. In fact he seems to needle you whenever he speaks to you. My impression is, old boy, for what it’s worth, you’ve got no bloody use for him at all. And yet you stick up for him. Why?’