“I’m not going to burn my fingers with a bad report on you that may bring a General on my back — to get back McKechnie who’s dotty…. Not fit to…”
The noise rolled in again. Once the Colonel listened to it, turning his head on one side and looking upwards. But he appeared satisfied with what he heard and recommenced his perusal of the Horse Guards letter. He took the pencil, underlined words and then sat idly stabbing the paper with the point.
With every minute Tietjens’ respect for him increased. This man at least knew his job — as an engine-driver does, or the captain of a steam tramp. His nerves might have gone to pieces. They probably had; probably he could not go very far without stimulants: he was probably under bromides now.
And, all things considered, his treatment of Tietjens had been admirable and Tietjens had to revise his view of it. He realised that it was McKechnie who had given him the idea that the Colonel hated him, but he would not have said anything. He was too old a hand in the Army to give Tietjens a handle by saying anything definite…. And he had always treated Tietjens with the sort of monumental deference that, in a Mess, the Colonel should bestow on his chief assistant. Going through a door at meal-times, for instance, if they happened to be side by side, he would motion with his hand for Tietjens to go first, naturally though, taking his proper precedence when Tietjens halted. And here he was, perfectly calm. And quite ready to be instructive.
Tietjens was not calm: he was too much bothered by Valentine Wannop and by the thought that, if the strafe was on, he ought to be seeing about his battalion. And of course, by the bombardment. But the Colonel said, when Tietjens with the aid of signs again made proposals to take a look around:
“No. Stop where you are. This isn’t the strafe. There is not going to be a strafe. This is only a little extra Morning Hate. You can tell by the noise. That’s only four point twos. There’s nothing really heavy. The really heavies don’t come so fast. They’ll be turning on to the Worcesters now and only giving us one every half-minute…. That’s their game. If you don’t know that, what are you doing here?” He added! “You hear?” pointing his forefinger to the roof. The noise shifted. It went away to the right as a slow coal-wagon might. He went on:
“This is your place. Not doing things up above. They’ll come and tell you if they want things. And you’ve got a first-rate Adjutant in Notting and Dunne’s a good man…. The men are all under cover: that’s an advantage in having your strength down to three hundred. There’s dug-outs for all and to spare…. All the same, this is no place for you. Nor for me. This is a young man’s war. We’re old ’uns. Three and a half years of it have done for me. Three and a half months will do for you.”
He looked gloomily at his reflection in the mirror that stood before him.
“You’re a gone coon!” he said to it. Then he took it and, holding it for a moment poised at the end of a bare white arm, flung it violently at the rough stones of the wall behind Tietjens. The fragments tinkled to the ground.
“There’s seven years’ bad luck,” he said. “God take ‘em, if they can give me seven years worse than this last I’d find it instructive!”
He looked at Tietjens with infuriated eyes.
“Look here you!” he said. “You’re an educated man…. What’s the worst thing about this war? What’s the worst thing? Tell me that!” His chest began to heave. “It’s that they won’t let us alone. Never! Not one of us! If they’d let us alone we could fight. But never…. No one! It’s not only the beastly papers of the battalion, though I’m no good with papers. Never was and never shall be…. But it’s the people at home. One’s own people. God help us, you’d think that when a poor devil was in the trenches they’d let him alone…. Damn it: I’ve had solicitors’ letters about family quarrels when I was in hospital. Imagine that!… Imagine it! I don’t mean tradesmen’s dunnings. But one’s own people. I haven’t even got a bad wife as McKechnie has and they say you have. My wife’s a bit extravagant and the children are expensive. That’s worry enough…. But my father died eighteen months ago. He was in partnership with my uncle. A builder. And they tried to do his estate out of his share of the business and leave my old mother with nothing. And my brother and sister threw the estate into Chancery in order to get back the little bit my father spent on my wife and children. My wife and children lived with my father whilst I was in India…. And out here…. My solicitor says they can get it out of my share: the cost of their keep. He calls it the doctrine of ademption…. Ademption… Doctrine of…. I was better off as a sergeant,” he added gloomily. “But sergeants don’t get let alone. They’ve always got women after them. Or their wives take up with Belgians and they get written to about it. Sergeant Cutts of ‘D’ Company gets an anonymous letter every week about his wife. How’s he to do his duty! But he does. So have I till now….” He added with renewed violence:
“Look here. You’re an educated man, aren’t you? The sort of man that could write a book. You write a book about that. You write to the papers about it. You’d be more use to the Army doing that than being here. I daresay you’re a good enough officer. Old Campion is too keen a commander to stick a rotten officer into this job, god-son or no god-son…. Besides, I don’t believe the whole story about you. If a General wanted to give a soft god-son’s job to a fellow, it would be a soft job and a fat one. He wouldn’t send him here. So take the battalion with my blessing. You won’t worry over it more than I have: the poor bloody Glamorgans.”
So he had his battalion! He drew an immense breath. The bumps began to come back along the line. He figured those shells as being like sparrow-hawks beating along a hedge. They were probably pretty accurate. The Germans were pretty accurate. The trenches were probably being knocked about a good deal, the pretty, pinkish gravel falling about in heaps as it would lie in a park, ready to be spread on paths. He remembered how he had been up on the Montagne Noire, still, thank God, behind where they were now. Why did he thank God? Did he really care where the Army was. Probably! But enough to say “thank God” about? Probably too…. But as long as they kept on at the job did anything matter? Anything else? It was keeping on that mattered. From the Montagne Noire he had seen our shells bursting on a thinnish line in the distance, in shining weather. Each shell existing in a white puff, beautifully. Forward and backward along the line…. Under Messines village. He had felt exhilaration to think that our gunners were making such good practice. Now some Hun on a hill was feeling exhilaration over puffs of smoke in our line. But he, Tietjens, was… Damn it, he was going to make two hundred and fifty quid towards living with Valentine Wannop — when you really could stand up on a hill… anywhere!
The Adjutant, Notting, looked in and said:
“Brigade wants to know if we’re suffering any, sir?”
The Colonel surveyed Tietjens with irony:
“Well, what are you going to report?” he asked…. “This officer is taking over from me,” he said to Notting. Notting’s beady eyes and red-varnished cheeks expressed no emotions.
“Oh, tell Brigade,” the Colonel said, “that we’re all as happy as sand-boys. We could stand this till Kingdom Come.” He asked: “We aren’t suffering any, are we?”
Notting said: “No, not in particular. ‘C’ Company was grumbling that all its beautiful revetments had been knocked to pieces. The sentry near their own dug-out complained that the pebbles in the gravel were nearly as bad as shrapnel.”
“Well, tell Brigade what I said. With Major Tietjens’ compliments, not mine. He’s in command.”