black peas aimed at dragon-fleas, against the blue; the illuminated, pinkish, pretty things!… But his dislike of those guns was just dislike — a Tory prejudice. They were probably worth while. Just…
You naturally tried every argument in the unseen contest of wills that went on across the firmament. “Ho!” says our Staff, “they are going to attack in force at such an hour ackemma,” because naturally the staff thought in terms of ackemma years after the twenty-four-hour day had been established. “Well, we’ll send out a million machine-gun planes to wipe out any men they’ve got moving up into support!”
It was of course unusual to move bodies of men by daylight. But this game had only two resources: you used the usual; or the unusual.
On the other hand, our people might be sending over the planes, whose immense droning was then making your very bones vibrate, in order to tell the Huns that we were ready to be surprised, that the time had now about come round when we might be expecting the Hun brain to think out a surprise. So we sent out those deathly, dreadful things to run along just over the tops of the hedge-rows, in spite of all the guns! For there was nothing more terrifying in the whole war than that span of lightness, swaying, approaching a few feet above the heads of your column of men: instinct with wrath, dispensing the dreadful rain! So we had sent them. In a moment they would be tearing down….
Of course if this were merely a demonstration; if, say, there were no reinforcements moving, no troops detraining at the distant rail-head, the correct Hun answer would be to hammer some of our trenches to hell with all the heavy stuff they could put into them. That was like saying sardonically:
“God, if you interfere with our peace and quiet on a fine day we’ll interfere with yours!” And… Kerumph… the wagons of coal would fly over until we recalled our planes and all went to sleep again over the chess-board… You would probably be just as well off if you refrained from either demonstration or counter-demonstration. But Great General Staff liked to exchange these witticisms in iron. And a little blood!
A sergeant of sorts approached him from Bn.H.2 way, shepherding a man with a head wound. His tin hat, that is to say, was perched jauntily forward over a bandage. He was Jewish-nosed, appeared not to have shaved, though he had, and appeared as if he ought to have worn pince-nez to complete his style of Oriental manhood. Private Smith. Tietjens said:
“Look here, what was your confounded occupation before the war?”
The man replied with an agreeable, cultured throaty intonation:
“I was a journalist, sir. On a Socialist paper. Extreme Left!”
“And what,” Tietjens asked, “was your agreeable name?… I’m obliged to ask you that question. I don’t want to insult you.”
In the old regular army it was an insult to ask a private if he was not going under his real name. Most men enlisted under false names.
The man said:
“Eisenstein, sir!”
Tietjens asked if the man were a Derby recruit or compulsorily enlisted. He said he had enlisted voluntarily. Tietjens said: “Why?” If the fellow was a capable journalist and on the right side he would be more useful outside the army. The man said he had been foreign correspondent of a Left paper. Being correspondent of a Left paper with a name like Eisenstein deprived one of one’s chance of usefulness. Besides he wanted to have a whack at the Prussians. He was of Polish extraction. Tietjens asked the sergeant if the man had a good record. The Sergeant said: “First-class man. First-class soldier.” He had been recommended for the D.C.M., Tietjens said:
“I shall apply to have you transferred to the Jewish regiment. In the meantime you can go back to the First Line Transport. You shouldn’t have been a Left journalist and have a name like Eisenstein. One or the other. Not both.” The man said the name had been inflicted on his ancestry in the Middle Ages. He would prefer to be called Esau, as a son of that tribe. He pleaded not to be sent to the Jewish regiment, which was believed to be in Mesopotamia, just when the fighting there was at its most interesting.
“You’re probably thinking of writing a book,” Tietjens said. “Well, there are all Abanar and Pharpar to write about. I’m sorry. But you’re intelligent enough to see that I can’t take…” He stopped, fearing that if the sergeant heard any more the men might make it hot for the fellow as a suspect. He was annoyed at having asked his name before the sergeant. He appeared to be a good man. Jews could fight…. And hunt!… But he wasn’t going to take any risks. The man, dark-eyed and erect, flinched a little, gazing into Tietjens’ eyes.
“I suppose you can’t, sir,” he said. “It’s a disappointment. I’m not writing anything. I want to go on in the Army. I like the life.”
Tietjens said:
“I’m sorry, Smith. I can’t help it. Fall out!” He was sorry. He believed the fellow. But responsibility hardens the heart. It must. A very short time ago he would have taken trouble over that fellow. A great deal of trouble, very likely. Now he wasn’t going to….
A large capital “A” in whitewash decorated the piece of corrugated iron that was derelictly propped against a channel at right angles to the trench. To Tietjens’ astonishment a strong impulse like a wave of passion influenced his being towards the left — up that channel. It wasn’t funk: it wasn’t any sort of funk. He had been rather irritatedly wrapped up in the case of Private Smith-Eisenstein. It had undeniably irritated him to have to break the chances of a Jew and Red Socialist. It was the sort of thing one did not do if one were omnipotent — as he was. Then… this strong impulse?… It was a passionate desire to go where you could find exact intellect: rest.
He thought he suddenly understood. For the Lincolnshire sergeant-major the word Peace meant that a man could stand up on a hill. For him it meant someone to talk to.
V
THE COLONEL said:
“Look here, Tietjens, lend me two hundred and fifty quid. They say you’re a damn beastly rich fellow. My accounts are all out. I’ve got a loathsome complaint. My friends have all gone back on me. I shall have to face a Court of Enquiry if I go home. But my nerve’s gone. I’ve got to go home.”
He added:
“I daresay you knew all that.”
From the sudden fierce hatred that he felt at the thought of giving money to this man, Tietjens knew that his inner mind based all its. calculations on the idea of living with Valentine Wannop… when men could stand up on hills.
He had found the Colonel in his cellar — it really, actually was a cellar, the remains of a farm — sitting on the edge of his camp-bed, in his shorts, his khaki shirt very open at the neck. His eyes were a little bloodshot, but his cropped, silver-grey hair was accurately waved, his grey moustache beautifully pointed. His silver-backed hair- brushes and a small mirror were indeed on the table in front of him. By the rays of the lamp that, hung overhead, rendered that damp stone place faintly nauseating, he looked keen, clean, and resolute. Tietjens wondered how he would look by daylight. He had remarkably seldom seen the fellow by daylight. Beside the mirror and the brushes lay, limply, an unfilled pipe, a red pencil and the white buff papers from Whitehall that Tietjens had already read.
He had begun by looking at Tietjens with a keen, hard, bloodshot glance. He had said:
“You think you can command this battalion? Have you had any experience? It appears you suggest that I take two months’ leave.”
Tietjens had expected a violent outbreak. Threats even. None had come. The Colonel had continued to regard him with intentness, nothing more. He sat motionless, his long arms, bare to the elbow, dependent over each of his knees, which were far apart. He said that if he decided to go he didn’t want to leave his battalion to a man that would knock it about. He continued staring hard at Tietjens. The phrase was singular in that place and at that hour, but Tietjens understood it to mean that he did not want his battalion discipline to go to pieces.
Tietjens answered that he did not think he would let the discipline go to pieces. The Colonel had said:
“How do you know? You’re no soldier, are you?”
Tietjens said he had commanded in the line a Company at full strength — nearly as large as the battalion and, out of it, a unit of exactly eight times its present strength. He did not think any complaints had been made of
