Parade's End

“Isn’t there a poem… ‘Ah me, the dawn, the dawn, it comes too soon!’… said of course by lovers in bed?… Who was the poet?”

Cowley went visibly red to the roots of his hair and evidently beyond. Tietjens finished his speech to Cowley, who had remonstrated against his going up to the camp so early by saying that he had not been able to get hold of an officer to march the draft. He then said in his leisurely way:

“There were a great many poems with that refrain in the Middle Ages…. You are probably thinking of an aubade by Arnaut Daniel, which someone translated lately…. An aubade was a song to be sung at dawn when, presumably, no one but lovers would be likely to sing….”

“Will there,” Sylvia asked, “be anyone but you singing up in your camp to-morrow at four?”

She could not help it…. She knew that Tietjens had adopted his slow pomposity in order to give the grotesque object at the table with them time to recover from his confusion. She hated him for it. What right had he to make himself appear a pompous ass in order to shield the confusion of anybody?

The second-lieutenant came out of his confusion to exclaim, actually slapping his thigh:

“There you are, madam…. Trust the captain to know everything!… I don’t believe there’s a question under the sun you could ask him that he couldn’t answer…. They say up at the camp…” He went on with long stories of all the questions Tietjens had answered up at the camp….

Emotion was going all over Sylvia… at the proximity of Tietjens. She said to herself: “Is this to go on for ever?” Her hands were ice-cold. She touched the back of her left hand with the fingers of her right. It was ice-cold. She looked at her hands. They were bloodless…. She said to herself: “It’s pure sexual passion… it’s pure sexual passion… God! Can’t I get over this? Father!… You used to be fond of Christopher…. Get our Lady to get me over this…. It’s the ruin of him and the ruin of me. But, oh damn, don’t!… For it’s all I have to live for…. When he came mooning back from the telephone I thought it was all right…. I thought what a heavy wooden-horse he looked…. For two minutes…. Then it’s all over me again…. I want to swallow my saliva and I can’t. My throat won’t work….”

She leaned one of her white bare arms on the table-cloth towards the walrus-moustache that was still snuffling gloriously:

“They used to call him Old Sol at school,” she said. “But there’s one question of Solomon’s he could not answer…. The one about the way of a man with… Oh, a maid!… Ask him what happened before the dawn ninety-six — no, ninety-eight days ago….”

She said to herself: “I can’t help it…. Oh, I can’t help it….”

The ex-sergeant-major was exclaiming happily:

“Oh, no one ever said the captain was one of these thought-readers…. It’s real solid knowledge of men and things he has…. Wonderful how he knows the men considering he was not born in the service…. But there, your born gentleman mixes with men all his days and knows them. Down to the ground and inside their puttees….”

Tietjens was looking straight in front of him, his face perfectly expressionless.

“But I bet I got him,” she said to herself and then to the sergeant-major:

“I suppose now an army officer — one of your born gentlemen — when a back-from-leave train goes out from any of the great stations — Paddington, say — to the front…. He knows how all the men are feeling…. But not what the married women think… or the… the girl….”

She said to herself: “Damn it, how clumsy I am getting!… I used to be able to take his hide off with a word. Now I take sentences at a time….”

She went on with her uninterrupted sentence to Cowley:

“Of course he may never be going to see his only son again, so it makes him sensitive…. The officer at Paddington, I mean….”

She said to herself: “By God, if that beast does not give in to me to-night he never shall see Michael again…. Ah, but I got him…. Tietjens had his eyes closed, round each of his high-coloured nostrils a crescent of whiteness was beginning. And increasing…. She felt a sudden alarm and held the edge of the table with her extended arm to steady herself…. Men went white at the nose like that when they were going to faint…. She did not want him to faint…. But he had noticed the word Paddington…. Ninety-eight days before…. She had counted every day since…. She had got that much information…. She had said Paddington outside the house at dawn and he had taken it as a farewell. He had… He had imagined himself free to do what he liked with the girl…. Well, he wasn’t…. That was why he was white about the gills….

Cowley exclaimed loudly:

“Paddington!… It isn’t from there that back-from-leave trains go. Not for the front: the B.E.F…. Not from Paddington…. The Glamorganshires go from there to the depot…. And the Liverpools… They’ve got a depot at Birkenhead…. Or is that the Cheshires?…” He asked of Tietjens: “Is it the Liverpools or the Cheshires that have a depot at Birkenhead, sir?… You remember we recruited a draft from there when we were at Penhally…. At any rate, you go to Birkenhead from Paddington…. I was never there myself…. They say it’s a nice place….”

Sylvia said — she did not want to say it:

“It’s quite a nice place… but I should not think of staying there for ever….”

Tietjens said:

“The Cheshires have a training camp — not a depot — near Birkenhead. And of course there are R.G.A.s there….” She had been looking away from him…. Cowley exclaimed:

“You were nearly off, sir,” hilariously. “You had your peepers shut….” Lifting a champagne glass, he inclined himself towards her. “You must excuse the captain, ma’am,” he said. “He had no sleep last night…. Largely owing to my fault…. Which is what makes it so kind of him…. I tell you, ma’am, there are few things I would not do for the captain….” He drank his champagne and began an explanation: “You may not know, ma’am, this is a great day for me…. And you and the captain are making it the greatest day of my life….” Why, at four this morning there hadn’t been a wretcheder man in Ruin town. And now… He must tell her that he suffered from an unfortunate — a miserable — complaint…. One that makes one have to be careful of celebrations…. And to-day was a day that he had to celebrate…. But he dare not have done it where Sergeant-Major Ledoux is along with a lot of their old mates…. “I dare not… I dussn’t!” he finished. “So I might have been sitting, now, at this very moment, up in the cold camp…. But for you and the captain…. Up in the cold camp… You’ll excuse me, ma’am….”

Sylvia felt that her lids were suddenly wavering:

“I might have been myself,” she said, “in a cold camp, too… if I hadn’t thrown myself on the captain’s mercy!… At Birkenhead, you know…. I happened to be there till three weeks ago…. It’s strange that you mentioned it…. There are things like signs… but you’re not a Catholic! They could hardly be coincidences….”

She was trembling…. She looked, fumblingly opening it, into the little mirror of her powder-box — of chased, very thin gold with a small blue stone, like a forget-me-not in the centre of the concentric engravings…. Drake — the possible father of Michael — had given it to her…. The first thing he had ever given her. She had brought it down to-night out of defiance. She imagined that Tietjens disliked it. She said breathlessly to herself: “Perhaps the damn thing is an ill omen….” Drake had been the first man who had ever… A hot-breathed brute!… In the little glass her features were chalk-white…. She looked like… she looked like… She had a dress of golden tissue…. The breath was short between her white set teeth…. Her face was as white as her teeth…. And… Yes! Nearly! Her lips…. What was her face like?… In the chapel of the convent of Birkenhead there was a tomb all of alabaster…. She said to herself:

“He was near fainting…. I’m near fainting…. What’s this beastly thing that’s between us?… If I let myself faint… But it would not make that beast’s face any less wooden!…”

She leaned across the table and patted the ex-sergeant-major’s lack-haired hand:

“I’m sure,” she said, “you’re a very good man….” She did not try to keep the tears out of her eyes, remembering his words: “Up in the cold camp.”… “I’m glad the captain, as you call him, did not leave you in the cold camp…. You’re devoted to him, aren’t you?… There are others he does leave… up in… the cold camp…. For punishment, you know….”

The ex-sergeant-major, the tears in his eyes too, said:

“Well, there is men you ’as to give the C.B. to…. C.B. means confined to barracks….”

“Oh, there are!” she exclaimed. “There are!… And women, too… Surely there are women, too?…”