Parade's End

dawn. But there were no shells falling in that neighbourhood. So it might not be the barrage opening the Great Strafe! Very likely they were being visited by some little German Prince and wanted to show him what shooting was. Or by Field Marshal Count von Brunkersdorf! Who had ordered them to shoot down the chimney of the Bailleul steam laundry. Or it might be sheer irresponsibility such as distinguished all gunners. Few Germans were imaginative enough to be irresponsible, but no doubt their gunners were more imaginative than other Germans.

He remembered being up in the artillery O.P. — what the devil was its name? — before Albert. On the Albert-Becourt-Becordel Road! What the devil was its name? A gunner had been looking through his glasses. He had said to Tietjens: “Look at that fat!…” And through the glasses lent him, Tietjens had seen, on a hillside in the direction of Martinpuich, a fat Hun, in shirt and trousers, carrying in his right hand a food tin from which he was feeding himself with his left. A fat, lousy object, suggesting an angler on a quiet day. The gunner had said to Tietjens:

“Keep your glass on him!”

And they had chased that miserable German about that naked hillside, with shells, for ten minutes. Whichever way he bolted, they put a shell in front of him. Then they let him go. His action, when he had realised that they were really attending to him, had been exactly that of a rabbit dodging out of the wheat the reapers have just reached. At last he just lay down. He wasn’t killed. They had seen him get up and walk off later. Still carrying his bait can!

His antics had afforded those gunners infinite amusement. It afforded them almost more when all the German artillery on that front, imagining that God knew what was the matter, had awakened and plastered heaven and earth and everything between for a quarter of an hour with every imaginable kind of missile. And had then, abruptly, shut up. Yes… Irresponsible people, gunners!

The incident had really occurred because Tietjens had happened to ask that gunner how much he imagined it had cost in shells to smash to pieces an indescribably smashed field of about twenty acres that lay between Bazentin-le-petit and Mametz Wood. The field was unimaginably smashed, pulverised, powdered…. The gunner had replied that with shells from all the forces employed it might have cost three million sterling. Tietjens asked how many men the gunner imagined might have been killed there. The gunner said he didn’t begin to know. None at all, as like as not! No one was very likely to have been strolling about there for pleasure, and it hadn’t contained any trenches. It was just a field. Nevertheless, when Tietjens had remarked that in that case two Italian labourers with a steam plough could have pulverised that field about as completely for, say, thirty shillings, the gunner had taken it quite badly. He had made his men poop off after that inoffensive Hun with the bait can, just to show what artillery can do.

... At that point Tietjens had remarked to McKechnie:

“For my part, I shall advise the M.O. to recommend that the Colonel should be sent back on sick leave for a couple of months. It is within his power to do that.”

McKechnie had exhausted all his obscene expletives. He was thus sane. His jaw dropped:

“Send the C.O. back!” he exclaimed lamentably. “At the very moment when…”

Tietjens exclaimed:

“Don’t be an ass. Or don’t imagine that I’m an ass. No one is going to reap any glory in this Army. Here and now!”

McKechnie said:

“But what price the money? Command pay! Nearly four quid a day. You could do with two-fifty quid at the end of his two months!”

Not so very long ago it would have seemed impossible that any man could speak to him about either his private financial affairs or his intimate motives.

He said:

“I have obvious responsibilities…”

“Some say,” McKechnie went on, “that you’re a b—y millionaire. One of the richest men in England. Giving coal mines to duchesses. So they say. Some say you’re such a pauper that you hire your wife out to generals…. Any generals. That’s how you get your jobs.”

To that Tietjens had had to listen before….

Max Redoubt… It had come suddenly on to his tongue – just as, before, the name of Bemerton had come, belatedly. The name of the artillery observation post between Albert and Becourt-Becordel had been Max Redoubt! During the intolerable waitings of that half-forgotten July and August the name had been as familiar on his lips as… say, as Bemerton itself…. When I forget thee, oh, my Bemerton… or, oh, my Max Redoubt… may my right hand forget its cunning!… The unforgettables!… Yet he had forgotten them!

If only for a time he had forgotten them. Then, his right hand might forget its cunning. If only for a time…. But even that might be disastrous, might come at a disastrous moment…. The Germans had suppressed themselves. Perhaps they had knocked down the laundry chimney. Or hit some G.S. wagons loaded with coal…. At any rate, that was not the usual morning strafe. That was to come. Sweet day so cool — began again.

McKechnie hadn’t suppressed himself. He was going to get suppressed. He had just been declaring that Tietjens had not displayed any chivalry in not reporting the C.O. if he, Tietjens, considered him to be drunk — or even chronically alcoholic. No chivalry….

This was like a nightmare!… No it wasn’t. It was like fever when things appear stiffly unreal…. And exaggeratedly real! Stereoscopic, you might say!

McKechnie with an accent of sardonic hate begged to remind Tietjens that if he considered the C.O. to be a drunkard he ought to have him put under arrest. King’s Regs. exacted that. But Tietjens was too cunning. He meant to have that two-fifty quid. He might be a poor man and need it. Or a millionaire, and mean. They said that was how millionaires became millionaires: by snapping up trifles of money that, God knows, would be godsends to people like himself, McKechnie.

It occurred to Tietjens that two hundred and fifty pounds after this was over, might be a godsend to himself in a manner of speaking. And then he thought:

“Why the devil shouldn’t I earn it?”

What was he going to do? After this was over.

And it was going over. Every minute the Germans were not advancing they were losing. Losing the power to advance…. Now, this minute! It was exciting.

“No!” McKechnie said. “You’re too cunning. If you got poor Bill cashiered for drunkenness you’d have no chance of commanding. They’d put in another pukka colonel. As a stop-gap, whilst Bill’s on sick leave, you’re pretty certain to get it. That’s why you’re doing the damnable thing you’re doing.”

Tietjens had a desire to go and wash himself. He felt physically dirty.

Yet what McKechnie said was true enough! It was true!… The mechanical impulse to divest himself of money was so strong that he began to say:

“In that case…” He was going to finish: “I’ll get the damned fellow cashiered.” But he didn’t.

He was in a beastly hole. But decency demanded that he shouldn’t act in panic. He had a mechanical, normal panic that made him divest himself of money. Gentlemen don’t earn money. Gentlemen, as a matter of fact, don’t do anything. They exist. Perfuming the air like Madonna lilies. Money comes into them as air through petals and foliage. Thus the world is made better and brighter. And, of course, thus political life can be kept clean!… So you can’t make money.

But look here: This unit was the critical spot of the whole affair. The weak spots of Brigade, Division, Army, British Expeditionary Force, Allied Forces…. If the Hun went through there… Fuit Ilium et magna gloria…. Not much glory!

He was bound to do his best for that unit. That poor b—y unit. And for the b—y knockabout comedians to whom he had lately promised tickets for Drury Lane at Christmas…. The poor devils had said they preferred the Shoreditch Empire or the old Balham. That was typical of England. The Lane was the locus classicus of the race, but those rag-time… heroes, call them heroes! — preferred Shoreditch and Balham!

An immense sense of those grimy, shuffling, grouching, dirty-nosed pantomime-supers came over him and an