the new Canadian sergeant-major, who had his appointment, thank goodness, from his own authorities; wrote a report on the extreme undesirability of lecturing his men on the causes of the war, since his men were either graduates of one or other Canadian university and thus knew twice as much about the causes of the war as any lecturer the civilian authorities could provide, or else they were half-breed Micamuc Indians, Esquimaux, Japanese, or Alaskan Russians, none of whom could understand any English lecturer…. He was aware that he would have to re-write his report so as to make it more respectful to the newspaper-proprietor peer who, at that time, was urging on the home Government the necessity of lecturing all the subjects of His Majesty on the causes of the war. But he wanted to get that grouse off his chest and its disrespect would pain Levin, who would have to deal with these reports if he did not get married first. Then he lunched off army sausage-meat and potatoes, mashed with their skins complete, watered with an admirable 1906 brut champagne which they bought themselves, and an appalling Canadian cheese — at the headquarters table to which the colonel had invited all the subalterns who that day were going up the line for the first time. They had some h’s in their compositions, but in revenge they must have boasted of a pint of adenoid growths between them. There was, however, a charming young half-cast Goa second- lieutenant, who afterwards proved of an heroic bravery. He gave Tietjens a lot of amusing information as to the working of the purdah in Portuguese India.
So, at half-past one Tietjens sat on Schomburg, the coffin-headed, bright chestnut from the Prussian horse- raising establishment near Celle. Almost a pure thoroughbred, this animal had usually the paces of a dining-room table, its legs being fully as stiff. But to-day its legs might have been made of cotton-wool, it lumbered over frosty ground breathing stertorously and, at the jumping-ground of the Deccan Horse, a mile above and behind Rouen, it did not so much refuse a very moderate jump as come together in a lugubrious crumple. It was, in the light of a red, jocular sun, like being mounted on a brokenhearted camel. In addition, the fatigues of the morning beginning to tell, Tietjens was troubled by an obsession of O Nine Morgan which he found tiresome to have to stall off.
“What the hell,” he asked of the orderly, a very silent private on a roan beside him, “what the hell is the matter with his horse?… Have you been keeping him warm?” He imagined that the clumsy paces of the animal beneath him added to his gloomy obsessions.
The orderly looked straight in front of him over a valley full of hutments. He said:
“No, sir.” The ’oss ’ad been put in the ’oss-standings of G depot. By the orders of Lieutenant ’Itchcock. ’Osses, Lieutenant ’Itchcock said, ’ad to be ’ardened.
Tietjens said:
“Did you tell him that it was my orders that Schomburg was to be kept warm? In the stables of the farm behind No. XVI I.B.D.”
“The lieutenant,” the orderly explained woodenly, “said as ’ow henny departure f’m ‘is orders would be visited by the extreme displeasure of Lord Breech’em, K.C.V.O., K.C.B., etcetera.” The orderly was quivering with rage.
“You will,” Tietjens said very carefully, “when you fall out with the horses at the Hotel de la Poste, take Schomburg and the roan to the stables of La Volonte Farm, behind No. XVI I.B.D.” The orderly was to close all the windows of the stable, stopping up any chinks with wadding. He would procure, if possible, a sawdust stove, new pattern, from Colonel Gillum’s store and light it in the stables. He was also to give Schomburg and the roan oatmeal and water warmed as hot as the horses would take it… And Tietjens finished sharply, “If Lieutenant Hotchkiss makes any comments, you will refer him to me. As his C.O.”
The orderly seeking information as to horse-ailments, Tietjens said:
“The school of horse-copers, to which Lord Beichan belongs, believes in the hardening of all horse-flesh other than racing cattle.” They bred racing-cattle. Under six blankets apiece! Personally Tietjens did not believe in the hardening process and would not permit any animal over which he had control to be submitted to it… It had been observed that if any animal was kept at a lower temperature than of its normal climatic condition it would contract diseases to which ordinarily it was not susceptible…. If you keep a chicken for two days in a pail of water it will contract human scarlet-fever or mumps if injected with either bacillus. If you remove the chicken from the water, dry it, and restore it to its normal conditions, the scarlet-fever or the mumps will die out of the animal…. He said to the orderly: “You are an intelligent man. What deduction do you draw?”
The orderly looked away over the valley of the Seine.
“I suppose, sir,” he said, “that our ’osses, being kept alwise cold in their standings, ‘as hillnesses they wouldn’t otherwise ’ave.”
“Well then,” Tietjens said, “keep the poor animals warm.”
He considered that here was the makings of a very nasty row for himself if, by any means, his sayings came round to the ears of Lord Beichan; but that he had to chance. He could not let a horse for which he was responsible be martyred…. There was too much to think about… so that nothing at all stood out to be thought of. The sun was glowing. The valley of the Seine was blue-grey, like a Gobelin tapestry. Over it all hung the shadow of a deceased Welsh soldier. An odd skylark was declaiming over an empty field behind the incinerators’ headquarters…. An odd lark. For as a rule larks do not sing in December. Larks sing only when courting, or over the nest…. The bird must be oversexed. O Nine Morgan was the other thing, that accounting for the prize-fighter!
They dropped down a mud lane between brick walls into the town….
Part Two
IN THE ADMIRABLY APPOINTED, white-enamelled, wickerworked, be-mirrored lounge of the best hotel of that town Sylvia Tietjens sat in a wickerwork chair, not listening rather abstractedly to a staff-major who was lachrymosely and continuously begging her to leave her bedroom door unlocked that night. She said:
“I don’t know…. Yes, perhaps…. I don’t know….” And looked distantly into a bluish wall-mirror that, like all the rest, was framed with white-painted cork bark. She stiffened a little and said:
“There’s Christopher!”
The staff-major dropped his hat, his stick, and his gloves. His black hair, which was without parting and heavy with some preparation of a glutinous kind, moved agitatedly on his scalp. He had been saying that Sylvia had ruined his life. Didn’t Sylvia know that she had ruined his life? But for her he might have married some pure young thing. Now he exclaimed:
“But what does he want?… Good God!… what does he want?”
“He wants,” Sylvia said, “to play the part of Jesus Christ.”
Major Perowne exclaimed:
“Jesus Christ! But he’s the most foul-mouthed officer in the general’s command….”
“Well,” Sylvia said, “if you had married your pure young thing she’d have… what is it?… cuckolded you within nine months….”
Perowne shuddered a little at the word. He mumbled:
“I don’t see…. It seems to be the other way…”
“Oh, no, it isn’t,” Sylvia said. “Think it over…. Morally,
From his angle in the chair from which he had half-emerged Sylvia seemed to him to be looking at a blank wall.
“I don’t see him,” Perowne said.
“I can see him in the glass,” Sylvia said. “Look! From here you can see him.”
Perowne shuddered a little more.
“I don’t want to see him…. I have to see him sometimes in the course of duty…. I don’t like to….”
Sylvia said:
“You,” in a tone of very deep contempt. “You only carry chocolate boxes to flappers…. How can he come across you in the course of duty?… You’re not a
Perowne said:
“But what are we going to do? What will
“I,” Sylvia answered, “shall tell the page-boy when he comes with his card to say that I’m engaged…. I don’t know what
