Parade's End

The general had paused, He began to say:

“But there are finer things in Marvell than that….”

Tietjens thought:

“He’s trying to gain time…. Why on earth should he?… What is this all about?” His mind slipped a notch. The general was looking at his finger-nails on the blanket. He said:

“There’s, for instance:

The grave’s a fine and secret place

But none I think do there embrace….”

At those words it came to Tietjens suddenly to think of Sylvia, with the merest film of clothing on her long, shining limbs…. She was working a powder-puff under her armpits in a brilliant illumination from two electric lights, one on each side of her dressing-table. She was looking at him in the glass with the corners of her lips just moving. A little curled…. He said to himself:

“One is going to that fine and secret place…. Why not have?” She had emanated a perfume founded on sandalwood. As she worked her swansdown powder-puff over those intimate regions he could hear her humming. Maliciously! It was then that he had observed the handle of the door moving minutely. She had incredible arms, stretched out amongst a wilderness of be-silvered cosmetics. Extraordinarily lascivious! Yet clean! Her gilded sheath gown was about her hips on the chair….

Well! She had pulled the strings of one too many shower-baths!

Shining; radiating glory but still shrivelled so that he reminded Tietjens of an old apple inside a damascened helmet; the general had seated himself once more on the bully-beef case before the blanketed table. He fingered his very large, golden fountain-pen. He said:

“Captain Tietjens, I should be glad of your careful attention!”

Tietjens said:

“Sir!” His heart stopped.

The general said that that afternoon Tietjens would receive a movement order. He said stiffly that he must not regard this new movement order as a disgrace. It was promotion. He, Major-General Campion, was requesting the colonel commanding the depot to inscribe the highest possible testimonial in his, Tietjens’, small-book. He, Tietjens, had exhibited the most extraordinary talent for finding solutions for difficult problems. The colonel was to write that! In addition he, General Campion, was requesting his friend, General Perry, commanding the sixteenth section…

Tietjens thought:

“Good God. I am being sent up the line. He’s sending me to Perry’s Army…. That’s certain death!”

... To give Tietjens the appointment of second in command of the VIth Battalion of his regiment!

Tietjens said, but he did not know where the words came from:

“Colonel Partridge will not like that. He’s praying for McKechnie to come back!”

To himself he said:

“I shall fight this monstrous treatment of myself to my last breath.”

The general suddenly called out:

“There you are…. There is another of your infernal worries….”

He put a strong check on himself, and, drily, like the very great speaking to the very unimportant, asked:

“What’s your medical category.”

Tietjens said:

“Permanent base, sir. My chest’s rotten!”

The general said:

“I should forget that, if I were you…. The second in command of a battalion has nothing to do but sit about in arm-chairs waiting for the colonel to be killed.” He added: “It’s the best I can do for you…. I’ve thought it out very carefully. It’s the best I can do for you.”

Tietjens said:

“I shall, of course, forget my category, sir….”

Of course he would never fight any treatment of himself!…

There it was then: the natural catastrophe! As when, under thunder, a dam breaks. His mind was battling with the waters. What would it pick out as the main terror? The mud, the noise, dread always at the back of the mind? Or the worry! The worry! Your eyebrows always had a slight tension on them…. Like eye-strain!

The general had begun, soberly:

“You will recognise that there is nothing else that I can do.”

His answering:

“I recognise, naturally, sir, that there is nothing else that you can do…” seemed rather to irritate the general. He wanted opposition — he wanted Tietjens to argue the matter. He was the Roman father counselling suicide to his son; but he wanted Tietjens to expostulate so that he, General Campion, might absolutely prove that he, Tietjens, was a disgraceful individual…. It could not be done. Tietjens was not going to give him the opportunity. The general said:

“You will understand that I can’t — no commander could! — have such things happening in my command…”

Tietjens said:

“I must accept that, if you say it, sir.”

The general looked at him under his eyebrows. He said:

“I have already told you that this is promotion. I have been much impressed by the way you have handled this command. You are, of course, no soldier, but you will make an admirable officer for the militia, that is all that our troops now are…” He said: “I will emphasise what I am saying…. No officer could — without being militarily in the wrong — have a private life that is as incomprehensible and embarrassing as yours…”

Tietjens said:

“He’s hit it!…”

The general said:

“An officer’s private life and his life on parade are as strategy to tactics…. I don’t want, if I can avoid it, to go into your private affairs. It’s extremely embarrassing…. But let me put it to you that… I wish to be delicate. But you are a man of the world!… Your wife is an extremely beautiful woman…. There has been a scandal… I admit not of your making…. But if, on the top of that, I appeared to show favouritism to you…”

Tietjens said:

“You need not go on, sir…. I understand…. ” He tried to remember what the brooding and odious McKechnie had said… only two nights ago…. He couldn’t remember…. It was certainly a suggestion that Sylvia was the general’s mistress. It had then, he remembered, seemed fantastic…. Well, what else could they think? He said to himself: “It absolutely blocks out my staying here!” He said aloud: “Of course, it’s my own fault. If a man so handles his womenfolk that they get out of hand, he has only himself to blame.”

The general was going on. He pointed out that one of his predecessors had lost that very command on account of scandals about women. He had turned the place into a damned harem!

He burst out, looking at Tietjens with a peculiar goggle-eyed intentness:

“If you think I’d care about losing my command over Sylvia or any other damned Society woman….” He said: “I beg your pardon…” and continued reasoningly:

“It’s the men that have to be considered. They think — and they’ve every right to think it if they wish to — that a man who’s a wrong ‘un over women isn’t the man they can trust their lives in the hands of….” He added: “And they’re probably right…. A man who’s a real wrong ‘un…. I don’t mean who sets up a gal in a tea-shop…. But one who sells his wife, or… At any rate, in our army. The French may be different!… Well, a man like that usually has a yellow streak when it comes to fighting…. Mind, I’m not saying always…. Usually…. There was a fellow called…”

He went off into an anecdote….

Tietjens recognised the pathos of his trying to get away from the agonising present moment, back to an India where it was all real soldiering and good leather and parades that had been parades. But he did not feel called upon to follow. He could not follow. He was going up the line….