“They don’t seem to have done it.”
“Oh.”
“It upsets all the storage arrangements if they don’t.”
“Oh.”
An orderly came up. “Mr. Lyne, sir, will you go and see the C.O.?”
Cedric went.
“Look here Lyne, aren’t those infernal Scotsmen out of our troop-deck yet? I ordered that deck to be clear two hours ago. I thought you were looking after that.”
“I’m sorry, Colonel. They’re getting a move on now.”
“I should bloody well hope so. And look here, half our men have had nothing to eat all day. Go up to the purser and see what you can rout out for them. And find out on the bridge exactly what the sailing orders are. When the troops come on board see that everyone knows where everything is. We don’t want anything lost. We may be in action before the end of the week. I hear these Highlanders lost a lot of kit on the way up. We don’t want them making up deficiencies at our expense.”
“Very good, sir.”
As he went out on deck the ghostly figure brushed past him in the darkness muttering in tones that seemed to echo from another and even worse world, “Nominal rolls in triplicate. Nominal rolls in triplicate…”
At seven o’clock the Colonel said, “For God’s sake someone take over from Lyne. He seems to have lain down on the job.”
Cedric went to his cabin; he was unspeakably tired; all the events and emotions of the last forty-eight hours were lost in the single longing for sleep; he took off his belt and his shoes and lay on his bunk. Within a quarter of a minute he was unconscious; within five minutes he was awakened by a steward placing a tray by his side; it contained tea, an apple, a thin slice of brown bread and butter. That was how the day always began on this ship, whether she was cruising to the midnight sun or the West Indies. An hour later another steward passed by, striking a musical gong with a little hammer. That was the second stage of the day in this ship. He passed, tinkling prettily, through the first-class quarters, threading his path delicately between valises and kit-bags. Unshaven, ill-tempered officers, who had not been asleep all night, scowled at him as he passed. Nine months ago the ship had been in the Mediterranean and a hundred cultured spinsters had welcomed his music. It was all one to him.
After breakfast the Colonel saw all his officers in the smoking-room. “We’ve got to get everything out of the ship,” he said. “It’s got to be loaded tactically. We shan’t be sailing until tonight anyway. I’ve just seen the Captain and he says he isn’t fuelled yet. Also we’re overloaded and he insists on our putting two hundred men ashore. Also, there’s a field hospital coming on board this morning, that we’ve got to find room for. There is also Field Security Police, Field Force Institute, N.A.A.F.I., two Pay Corps officers, four chaplains, a veterinary surgeon, a press photographer, a naval beach party, some Marine anti-aircraft gunners, an air support liaison unit ? whatever that is ? and a detachment of Sappers to be accommodated. All ranks are confined to the ship. There will be no communication of any kind with the shore. Duty company will find sentries for the post and telephone boxes on the quay. That’s all, gentlemen.”
Everyone said, “Lyne made a nonsense of the embarkation.”
When Mr. Bentley, in the first flush of patriotic zeal, left publishing and took service with the Ministry of Information, it was agreed between him and the senior partner that his room should be kept for his use and that he should come in whenever he could to keep an eye on his interests. Mr. Rampole, the senior partner, would see to the routine of the office.
Rampole and Bentley was not a large or a very prosperous firm; it owed its continued existence largely to the fact that both partners had a reasonable income derived from other sources. Mr. Bentley was a publisher because ever since he was a boy, he had had a liking for books; he thought them a Good Thing; the more of them the merrier. Wider acquaintance had not increased his liking for authors, whom he found as a class avaricious, egotistical, jealous and ungrateful, but he had always the hope that one day one of these disagreeable people would turn out to be a messiah of genius. And he liked the books themselves; he liked to see in the window of the office the dozen bright covers which were that season’s new titles; he liked the sense of vicarious authorship which this spectacle gave him. Not so old Rampole. Mr. Bentley often wondered why his senior partner had ever taken to publishing and why, once disillusioned, he persisted in it. Old Rampole deplored the propagation of books. “It won’t do,” he always said whenever Mr. Bentley produced a new author, “no one ever reads first novels.”
Once or twice a year old Rampole himself introduced an author, always with well-justified forecasts of the book’s failure. “Terrible thing,” he would say. “Met old So-and-so at the club. Got button-holed. Fellow’s just retired from Malay States. Written his reminiscences. We shall have to do them for him. No getting out of it now. One comfort, he won’t ever write another book.”
That was one superiority he had over Mr. Bentley which he was fond of airing. His authors never came back for more, like Mr. Bentley’s young friends.
The idea of the Ivory Tower was naturally repugnant to old Rampole. “I’ve never known a literary review succeed yet,” he said.
He had a certain grudging regard for Ambrose because he was one of the few writers on their list who were incontestably profitable. Other writers always involved an argument, Mr. Bentley having an ingenious way of explaining over-advances and overhead charges and stock in hand in such a way that he seemed to prove that obvious failures had indeed succeeded. But Ambrose’s books sold fifteen thousand copies. He didn’t like the fellow but he had to concede him a certain knack of writing. It shocked him that Ambrose should be so blind to his own interests as to propose such a scheme.
“Has the fellow got money?” he asked Mr. Bentley privately.
“Very little, I think.”
“Then what is he thinking of? What’s he after?”
To Ambrose he said, “But a literary review, now of all times!”
“Now is the time of all times,” said Ambrose. “Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t. Costs are up and going higher. Can’t get paper. Who’ll want to read this magazine anyway? It isn’t a woman’s paper. It isn’t, as I see it, a man’s. It isn’t even topical. Who’s going to advertise in it?”
