dog-cart, emerging from mist, somewhere in Sussex — Udimore! — she had made him look silly. Over Catullus! Him, Tietjens!… Shortly afterwards old Campion had run into them with his motor that he couldn’t drive but
McKechnie, apparently assuaged, said:
“I don’t know if you know, sir, that General Campion is to take over this Army the day after to-morrow…. But, of course, you would know.”
Tietjens said:
“No. I didn’t…. You fellows in touch with Headquarters get to hear of things long before us.” He added:
“It means that we shall be getting reinforcements…. It means the Single Command.”
IV
IT MEANT that the end of the war was in sight.
In the next sector, in front of the Headquarters’ dug-out sacking they found only Second-Lieutenant Aranjuez and Lance-Corporal Duckett of the Orderly Room. Both good boys, the lance-corporal, with very long graceful legs. He picked up his feet well, but continually moved his ankles with his soles when he talked earnestly. Somebody’s bastard.
McKechnie plunged at once into the story of the sonnet. The lance-corporal had, of course, a large number of papers for Tietjens to sign. An untidy, buff and white sheaf, so McKechnie had time to talk. He wished to establish himself as on a level with the temporary C.O. At least intellectually.
He didn’t. Aranjuez kept on exclaiming:
“The Major wrote a sonnet in two and a half minutes! The Major! Who would have thought it!” Ingenuous boy!
Tietjens looked at the papers with some attention. He had been so kept out of contact with the affairs of the battalion, that he wanted to know. As he had suspected, the paper business of the unit was in a shocking state. Brigade, Division, even Army and, positively, Whitehall were
It appeared that Tietjens might well be thankful that he had not been allowed to handle the P.R.I. funds.
The second-in-command is the titular administrator of the Regimental Institute: he is the President, supposed to attend to the men’s billiard tables, almanacks, backgammon boards, football boots. But the C.O. had preferred to keep these books in his own hands. Tietjens regarded that as a slight. Perhaps it had not been!
It went quickly through his head that the C.O. perhaps had financial difficulties — though that was no real affair of his…. The House Guards was pressingly interested in the pre-enlistment affairs of a private called 64 Smith. They asked violently and for the third time for particulars of his religion, previous address and real name. That was no doubt the espionage branch at work…. But Whitehall was also more violently interested in answers to queries about the disposal of regimental funds of a training camp in January, 1915…. As long ago as that! The mills of God grind slowly…. That query was covered by a private note from the Brigadier saying that he wished for goodness’ sake the C.O. would answer these queries or there would have to be a Court of Enquiry.
These particular two papers ought not to have been brought to Tietjens. He held them between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and the query upon 64 Smith — which seemed rather urgent — between his first and second, and so handed them to Lance-Corporal Duckett. That nice, clean, fair boy was, at the moment, talking in intimate undertones to Second-Lieutenant Aranjuez about the resemblances between the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean sonnet form….
This was what His Majesty’s Expeditionary Force had come to. You had four of its warriors, four minutes before the zero of a complete advance of the whole German line, all interested in sonnets…. Drake and his game of bowls — in fact repeated itself! Differently, of course! But times change.
He handed the two selected papers to Duckett.
“Give this one to the Commanding Officer,” he said, “and tell the Sergeant-Major to find what Company 64 Smith is in and have him brought to me, wherever I am…. I’m going right along the trenches now. Come after me when you’ve been to the C.O. and the Sergeant-Major. Aranjuez will make notes of what I want done about revetting, you can put down anything about the personnel of the companies…. Get a move on!”
He told McKechnie amiably to be out of those lines forthwith. He didn’t want him killed on his hands.
The sun was now shining into the trench.
He looked again through Brigade’s morning communication concerning dispositions the unit was to make in the event of the expected German attack…. Due to begin — the preparatory artillery at least — in three minutes’ time.
Don’t we say prayers before battle?… He could not imagine himself doing it…. He just hoped that nothing would happen that would make him lose control of his mind…. Otherwise he found that he was meditating on how to get the paper affair of the unit into a better state…. “
He noted that Brigade’s injunctions about the coming fight were not only endorsed with earnestness by Division but also by very serious exhortations from Army. The chit from Brigade was in handwriting, that from Division in fairly clear typescript, that from Army in very pale type characters…. It amounted to this: that they were that day to stick it till they burst…. That meant that there was nothing behind their backs — from there to the North Sea!… The French were hurrying along probably…. He imagined a lot of little blue fellows in red breeches trotting along pink, sunlit plains.
(You cannot control your imagination’s pictures. Of course the French no longer wore red trousers.) He saw the line breaking just where the blue section came to; the rest, swept back into the sea. He saw the whole of the terrain behind them. On the horizon was a glistening haze. That was where they were going to be swept to. Or of course they would not be swept. They would be lying on their faces, exposing the seats of their breeches. Too negligible for the large dust-pan and broom…. What was death like — the immediate process of dissolution? He stuffed the papers into his tunic pocket.
He remembered with grim amusement that one chit promised him reinforcements. Sixteen men! Sixteen! Worcesters! From a Worcester training camp…. Why the deuce weren’t they sent to the Worcester battalion just next door? Good fellows, no doubt. But they hadn’t got the drill quiffs of our lot; they were not pals with our men; they did not know the officers by name. There would be no welcome to cheer them…. It was a queer idea, the deliberate destruction of regimental esprit de corps that the Home Authorities now insisted on. It was said to be imitated at the suggestion of a civilian of advanced social views from the French who in turn had imitated it from the Germans. It is of course lawful to learn of the Enemy; but is it sensible?
Perhaps it is. The Feudal Spirit was broken. Perhaps it would therefore be harmful to Trench-Warfare. It used to be comfortable and cosy. You fought beside men from your own hamlet under the leadership of the parson’s son. Perhaps that was not good for you?
At any rate, as at present arranged, dying was a lonely affair.
He, Tietjens, and little Aranjuez there, if something hit them would die — a Yorkshire territorial magnate’s son and the son of, positively, an Oporto Protestant minister, if you can imagine such a thing! — the dissimilar souls winging their way to heaven side by side. You’d think God would find it more appropriate if Yorkshire-men went with other North Country fellows, and Dagoes with other Papists. For Aranjuez, though the son of a Non-conformist of sorts, had reverted to the faith of his fathers.
He said:
“Come along, Aranjuez…. I want to see that wet bit of trench before the Hun shells hit it.”
Well…. They were getting reinforcements. The Home Authorities had awakened to their prayers. They sent them sixteen Worcesters. They would be three hundred and forty-four — no, forty-three, because he had sent back
