Parade's End

“There’s that way of looking at it…. It is quite true that most of… let’s say your friends… were killed off during the early days, or if they’re still going they’re in more active employments.” What she called presentableness was very largely a matter of physical fitness…. The horse, for instance, that he rode was rather a crock…. But though it was German and not thoroughbred it contrived to be up to his weight…. Her friends, more or less, of before the war were professional soldiers or of the type. Well, they were gone: dead or snowed under. But on the other hand, this vast town full of crocks did keep the thing going, if it could be made to go. It was not they that hindered the show; if it was hindered, that was done by her much less presentable friends, the ministry who, if they were professionals at all were professional boodlers.

She exclaimed with bitterness:

“Then why didn’t you stay at home to check them, if they are boodlers.” She added that the only people at home who kept social matters going at all with any life were precisely the more successful political professionals. When you were with them you would not know there was any war. And wasn’t that what was wanted? Was the whole of life to be given up to ignoble horseplay?… She spoke with increased rancour because of the increasing thump and rumble of the air-raid…. Of course the politicians were ignoble beings that, before the war, you would not have thought of having in your house…. But whose fault was that, if not that of the better classes, who had gone away leaving England a dreary wilderness of fellows without consciences or traditions or manners? And she added some details of the habits at a country house of a member of the Government whom she disliked. “And,” she finished up, “it’s your fault. Why aren’t you Lord Chancellor, or Chancellor of the Exchequer, instead of whoever is, for I am sure I don’t know? You could have been, with your abilities and your interests. Then things would have been efficiently and honestly conducted. If your brother Mark, with not a tithe of your abilities can be a permanent head of a department, what could you not have risen to with your gifts, and your influence… and your integrity?” And she ended up: “Oh, Christopher!” on almost a sob.

Ex-Sergeant-Major Cowley, who had come back from the telephone, and during an interval in the thunderings, had heard some of Sylvia’s light cast on the habits of members of the home Government, so that his jaw had really hung down, now, in another interval, exclaimed:

“Hear, hear! Madam!… There is nothing the captain might not have risen to…. He is doing the work of a brigadier now on the pay of an acting captain…. And the treatment he gets is scandalous…. Well, the treatment we all get is scandalous, tricked and defrauded as we are all at every turn…. And look at this new start with the draft….” They had ordered the draft to be ready and countermanded it, and ordered it to be ready and countermanded it, until no one knew whether he stood on ’is ’ed or ’is ’eels…. It was to have gone off last night: when they’d ’ad it marched down to the station they ’ad it marched back and told them all it would not be wanted for six weeks…. Now it was to be got ready to go before daylight to-morrow morning in motor-lorries to the rail Ondekoeter way, the rail here ’aving been sabotaged!… Before daylight so that the enemy aeroplanes should not see it on the road…. Wasn’t that a thing to break the ’earts of men and horderly rooms? It was outrageous. Did they suppose the ’Uns did things like that?

He broke off to say with husky enthusiasm of affection to Tietjens: “Look ’ere old… I mean, sir… There’s no way of getting hold of an officer to march the draft. Them as are eligible gets to ’ear of what drafts is going and they’ve all bolted into their burries. Not a man of ’em will be back in camp before five to- morrow morning. Not when they ’ears there’s a draft to go at four of mornings like this…. Now…” His voice became husky with emotion as he offered to take the draft hissclf to oblige Captain Tietjens. And the captain knew he could get a draft off pretty near as good as himself, or very near. As for the draft-conducting major he lived in that hotel and he, Cowley, ’ad seen ’im. No four in the morning for ’im. He was going to motor to Ondckoeter Station about seven. So there was no sense in getting the draft off before five, and it was still dark then — too dark for the ‘Un planes to see what was moving. He’d be glad if the captain would be up at the camp by five to take a final look and to sign any papers that only the commanding officer could sign. But he knew the captain had had no sleep the night before because of his, Cowley’s, infirmity, mostly, so he couldn’t do less than give up a day and a half of his leave to taking the draft. Besides, he was going home for the duration and he would not mind getting a look at the old places they’d seen in ‘fourteen, for the last time as a Cook’s tourist….

Tietjens, who was looking noticeably white, said:

“Do you remember O Nine Morgan at Noircourt?”

Cowley said:

“No…. Was ’e there? In your company, I suppose?… The man you mean that was killed yesterday. Died in your arms owing to my oversight. I ought to have been there.” He said to Sylvia with the gloating idea N.C.O.s had that wives liked to hear of their husband’s near escapes: “Killed within a foot of the captain, ’e was. An ‘orrible shock it must ’ave been for the captain.” A horrible mess… The captain held him in his arms while he died, as if he’d been a baby. Wonderful tender, the captain was! Well, you’re apt to be when it’s one of your own men…. No rank then! “Do you know the only time the King must salute a private soldier and the private takes no notice?… When ’e’s dead….”

Both Sylvia and Tietjens were silent — and silvery white in the greenish light from the lamp. Tietjens indeed had shut his eyes. The old N.C.O. went on rejoicing to have the floor to himself. He had got on his feet preparatory to going up to camp, and he swayed a little….

“No,” he said and he waved his cigar gloriously, “I don’t remember O Nine Morgan at Noircourt…. But I remember…”

Tietjens, with his eyes still shut, said:

“I only thought he might have been a man….”

“No,” the old fellow went on imperiously, “I don’t remember ’im…. But, Lord, I remember what happened to you!” He looked down gloriously upon Sylvia: “The captain caught ’is foot in…. You’d never believe what ’e caught ’is foot in! Never!… A pretty quiet affair it was, with a bit of moonlight. Nothing much in the way of artillery…. Perhaps we surprised the ‘Uns proper, perhaps they were wanting to give up their front-line trenches for a purpose…. There was next to no one in ’em…. I know it made me nervous…. My heart was fair in my boots, because there was so little doing! It was when there was little doing that the ’Uns could be expected to do their worst…. Of course there was some machine-gunning…. There was one in particular away to the right of us…. And the moon, it was shining in the early morning. Wonderful peaceful. And a little mist… and frozen hard… hard as you wouldn’t believe…. Enough to make the shells dangerous.”

Sylvia said:

“It’s not always mud, then?” and Tietjens, to her: “He’ll stop if you don’t like it.” She said monotonously: “No… I want to hear.”

Cowley drew himself up for his considerable effect:

“Mud!” he said. “Not then… Not by half…. I tell you, ma’am, we trod on the frozen faces of dead Germans as we doubled…. A terrible lot of Germans we’d killed a day or so before…. That was no doubt the reason they give up the trenches so easy; difficult to attack from, they was…. Anyhow, they left the dead for us to bury, knowing probably they were going, with a better ’eart!… But it fair put the wind up me anyhow to think of what their counter-attack was going to be…. The counter-attack is always ten times as bad as the preliminary resistance. They ‘as you with the rear of their trenches – the parados, we call it – as your front to boot. So I was precious glad when the moppers-up and supports come and went through us. Laughing, they was – Wiltshires…. My missus comes from that county…. Mrs. Cowley, I mean…. So I’d seen the captain go down earlier on and I’d said: ‘There’s another of the best stopped one….’” He dropped his voice a little; he was one of the noted yarners of the regiment: “Caught ‘is foot, ’e ’ad, between two ’ands… Sticking up out of the frozen ground… As it might be in prayer… like this!” He elevated his two hands, the cigar between the fingers, the wrists close together and the fingers slightly curled inwards: “Sticking up in the moonlight…. Poor devil!”

Tietjens said:

“I thought perhaps it was O Nine Morgan I saw that night… Naturally I looked dead…. I hadn’t a breath in my body…. And I saw a Tommy put his rifle to his pal’s upper arm and fire…. As I lay on the ground….”

Cowley said:

“Ah, you saw that… I heard the men talking of it…. But they naturally did not say who and where!”

Tietjens said with a negligence that did not ring true:

“The wounded man’s name was Stilicho…. A queer name… I suppose it’s Cornish…. It was B Company in front of us.”