‘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 alclass="underline" 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.
COURT OF INQUIRY
I
‘You free for a bit this afternoon, Jock?’ Major Raleigh asked me in the Mess ante-room one lunch-time in 1944.
‘I think so, Major,’ I said. ‘Provided I can get away about half-three. I’ve got some line-tests laid on for then. What do you want me for, anyway?’
‘Here, let me top that up for you, old boy.’ Raleigh seized a passing second-lieutenant by the elbow. ‘Ken, run and get my batman to bring me one of my bottles of Scotch, will you? Oh, and incidentally what’s become of your vehicle tool-kit deficiency return? It was supposed to be on my desk by ten-hundred this morning. Explanation?’
During this and what followed it, I first briefly congratulated myself on being directly responsible to the CO (the most incurious officer in the whole unit) rather than coming under Raleigh’s command. Then I wondered what was in store for me after lunch. Perhaps a visit to another binoculars establishment or camera warehouse the major had discovered. My alleged technical proficiency had made me in some demand for such expeditions. Finally I looked about me. The Mess occupied a Belgian provincial hotel and this was its lounge, a square room lined with burst leather-padded benches. Officers sat on them reading magazines. Only the fact that two or three of them were also drinking stopped the place looking like a barber’s waiting-room. Outside it was raining a little.
The major returned, smiling deprecatingly and resembling more than ever a moustached choirboy in battledress. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, ‘but you’ve got to keep them on their toes. Now about this business this afternoon. Young Archer’s made another nonsense.’
‘What’s he done this time?’
‘Lost a charging-engine. Left it behind on the last move, and naturally when he sent a party back the natives had removed it. Or so the story goes. I reckon that sergeant of his — Parnell, isn’t it? — held a wayside auction and flogged it for a case of brandy. Anyway, it’s gone.’
‘Wait a minute, Major — wouldn’t it have been one of those wee 1,260-watt affairs that take about a fortnight to charge half a dozen batteries? The ones nobody ever uses?’
‘I wouldn’t go all the way with you there, old boy.’ The major rarely went all the way with anyone anywhere. Very often he went no distance at all.
‘Aren’t they obsolete?’ I persisted. ‘And wouldn’t I be right in thinking they’re surplus too?’
‘That’s not the point. This one was on young Archer’s charge. The Quartermaster has his signature. Ah, here we are. Give me your glass, Jock.’
‘Thanks… Well, where do I come into this, sir? Do I hold Archer for you while you beat him up, or what?’
The major smiled again, fixedly this time. ‘Good idea. Seriously, though, I’ve had just about enough of young Archer. I want you to serve on the Court of Inquiry with me and Jack Rowney, if you will. In my Office. I’ll take you over after lunch.’
The major’s modes of operation within his Company were often inventive to the point of romanticism. But even for him this was a far-fetched creation. ‘Court of Inquiry? But couldn’t we get this thing written off? There’s surely no need…’
‘I’d get someone else if I could, but everybody’s got their hands full except you.’ He looked me in the eye, and since I knew him well I could see he was wondering whether to add something like: ‘How nice it must feel to be a mathematical wizard and live a life of leisure.’ Instead, he waved to someone behind me, called: ‘Hallo, Bill, you old chiseller’, and went to greet the Adjutant, just arrived, presumably, on a goodwill mission from Unit HQ. There was much I wanted to ask Raleigh, but now it would have to keep.
II
Lunch in the heavily panelled dining-room was served by three Belgian waitresses wearing grey dresses and starched aprons. Their ugliness was too extreme to be an effect of chance. Perhaps they had been selected by a burgomagisterial committee as proof against the most licentious of soldiery. Such efforts would have been wasted. Libido burnt feebly in Raleigh’s domain.
The meal was stew and diced vegetables followed by duff full of grape-pips. While he ate it the Adjutant, resplendent in a new Canadian battledress, chaffed Raleigh in the quacking voice which Archer was so good at imitating. I thought about Archer and one or two of his nonsenses.
The trailer nonsense had been a good instance of the bad luck he seemed to attract. The trailer had had a puncture on a long road convoy led by him and, since trailers carried no spare wheel, had clearly been unable to proceed farther. But if General Coles, commanding the 11th/17th Army Corps Group, was going to be able to communicate with his lower formations that evening it was as clearly essential that the convoy should proceed farther, and soon. With rather uncharacteristic acumen, Archer had had the trailer unloaded and then jacked up with both its wheels removed, reasoning that it would take very energetic intervention to steal the thing in that state. But someone did.