— Yes — yes. . Bertie? Stanley has spoken too loudly and the skull-head’s china jaw shatters, tea slops from the lip of his cup to the saucer below — a startled fly sways away and banks between the ham and the jam. — Corporal De’Ath — he steeples his skeletal fingers — I’ve no wish to insult you or in any way malign your patriotism, let alone call into question your volunteering — yet permit me to assume, from your presence here alone, that you share a few of our misgivings? There is a crack in the human warmth through which the old house whistles languidly — Stanley thinks it pretty enough, in its way, what with its mossy mortaring and the drowsy blink of the dark windows, and the nigger spiritual chorus of the yew hedge, Oh, we do-on’t want to loo-oose you, But we think you ought to go-o-o . . Yes, Stanley says eventually, yes, I do share your misgivings — this show with the Turks has got lots of us thinking. The crack is sealed, the corkscrews screwed in, the wire strung, the duckboard put down, the sandbag heaved up — it takes five clear feet of hard-packed earth to stop a machine-gun bullet. The magic lantern clacks, the skull-head snaps . . — Well, Feydeau, with a few thousand like this young stalwart here, we’ll be in with a chance when the Derby scheme gives way and the Dark Wizard promulgates his Act. Willis, yanking on his beard with both hands, tears a satisfied grin and says, I believe it also, Bertie, which is why the Fellowship would like you to put out a pamphlet of some sort right away. It’s bound to attract considerable attention, and we could use it — if, that is, you’re amenable — as the point of departure for a lecture tour either late this year or early in the new one. Adeline’s strong white hand swaggers past the sugar bowl to fall upon Stanley’s, the grievous twitching of which he only realises as she stills it, not with her pressure but the with the blatancy of this naked clasp. Her fingers stroke the powder-burnt backs of his, her thumb slides over the mound of his. . — Stanley will never become accustomed to the seemingly casual acceptance of their liaison — not only by the likes of Willis, Bertie and the curse-spot-woman, but also by those in her family home. At Norr, where she had lured him after he had spent only a day with his people, her husband lauded Stanley’s sacrifice, imposed a suit of good American cloth on him and turned upon them an eye not simply blind but indulgent. When Cameron had caught the boy’s nursemaid sucking on safety pins, so indignant was she to see them walking in the garden arm in arm, he threatened her with dismissal — and would have sacked her had Adeline not intervened. For all his polish Stanley knew Cameron’s sort — his frank face hid a gentleman’s relish that he shared with the most appallingly coarse types. The sergeant of the Buffs he’d burst in on at Bethune, and who simply kept on battering at the drab on the wooden ledge, the two patches of hair on his arse cheeks thick as fur. Having been tricked by a snide one into believing the queue of men snaking down the stairs was for loads of eats to which men fresh out from Blighty would have first dibs, Stanley havered between the grunting in the candlelight and the mockery of the Tommies behind the door. The sergeant took his time, the suck out of her cunny was his satisfied belch, then he pulled up his breeches by his braces and moved aside to reveal gaping wet lips, hag hairs, brown-eyed teats — a likeness of a raddled old woman’s countenance that had nothing to do with the young girl whose body it was. The sergeant had turned to Stanley, his panting subsiding, his belly all shivery — he was neither annoyed nor discomfited and his hand said, Your turn. Three weeks later Stanley spotted his corpse in the no-man’s-land of the Hohenzollern Redoubt — the sergeant had done a somerset into the wire and sprawled there deadstock, all swole up — the maggots were having a terrific feed . . — Stanley frees his hand from hers and tongs a sugar lump from the bowl with his fingers. They say it’s difficult to come by now — fivepence a pound. He puts the lump on his tongue
.. she is a sweet thing, Adeline, in her suit of ash-coloured suede cloth and Russian squirrel embroidered in silk. On her shapely breast lies a redingote of lie-de-vin duvelyn and skunk. When she came into him at the Albany, dressed and ready to go out, Stanley made her say it several times over: red-ing-ote, du-ve-lyn, charmed by the sweet sounds. Now the skunk’s small dead head nuzzles at her buttons, she should find it a wet nurse . . Steam rises in front of Stanley’s eyes — They’ve forgotten to fill ’er up again, the water in Vicky’s redingote is boiling! The steam’ll give away our fucking position —! Would you like another cup, sir? asks the maid he kissed in the kitchen garden — she has been resurrected with a heavy teapot in her hands. Oh, yes. . he says, thank you. She pours, then goes, disappearing like her mistress before her around the omnibus prow of the yew hedge. Adeline and the others are engrossed in talk of some bugger pal, dead in Greece of a gnat bite . . — they notice nothing, see not the London Omnibus Company ‘B’ Type, which might’ve been one of Rothschild’s own, that was boarded by the quarante-deux hommes — the lucky ones, just disembarked at Boulogne from the packet boat Invicta — which then carried them gingerly towards Ypres, its soft tyres feeling the potholed road ahead. The ’bus as much its driver was aware that Death was among their passengers. At Poperinghe there’s a change of plan and the machine gunners are turfed out. A staff officer with a dummy pack comes mincing up, followed by his batman struggling under a heavy valise. Stanley’s section is turned south, to march the forty miles to Givenchy, where they are detailed to join the 6th Battalion of the Royal East Kents at Hohenzollern. It is the first time he hears the name of a Minnie and the first time he hears the crashing howl of one being fired. The canister, which is the size of a barrel and packed with explosive and grapeshot, is so very heavy that it strains slowly up its funicular rail into the late spring sky, appearing between two of the house’s massive chimneystacks and hanging there for so long that a couple of rooks flap in to perch on it . .So long that, had he been inclined, Stanley could have suggested to his companions they draw lots in order to decide which way they should run for cover. He says nothing, only watches, faintly bemused, as the Minnie at last