lifted a quart stein of lager beer to salute Mark. Cheers, old boy, tell me all about it. Dicky was silent at last, although he did the curry full justice, while Mark told him about it, about the beauty and the solitude, about the busliveld dawn and the starry silent nights, and he sighed occasionally and shook his head wistfully. Wish I could do it, old boy. You could, Mark pointed out, and Dicky looked startled. It's out there now. It won't go away. But what about my job, old boy? Can't just drop everything and walk away. Do you enjoy your job that much? Mark asked softly. Does peddling motorcars feed your soul? Hey! Dicky began to look uncomfortable. It's not a case of enjoying it. I mean nobody really enjoys having to work, do they? I mean it's just something one does, you know. One is lucky to find something one can do reasonably well where one can earn an honest coin, and one does I wonder, Mark mused. Tell me, Dicky, what is most important, the coin or the good feeling down there in your guts? Dicky stared at him, his lower jaw sagging slightly, exposing a mouthful of half-masticated rice. Out there, I felt clean and tall, Mark went on, fiddling with his beer stein. There were no bosses, no clients, no hustling for a commission. I don't know, Dicky, out there I felt important. Important? Dicky swallowed the unchewed curry noisily. Important?
Hey now, old boy, they're selling rakes like you and me on the street corners at ninepence a bunch. He washed down the rice with a swallow of beer, and then patted the froth from his upper lip with the crisp white handkerchief from his breast pocket. Take an old dog's advice, when you say your prayers at night give thanks that you are a good motorcar salesman, and that you have found that out. just do it, old son, and don't think about it, or it will break your heart. He spoke with an air of finality that declared the subject closed, and stooped to open his brief case on the floor beside his chair. Here, I've something for you. There were a dozen thick letters in Marion Littlejohn's neat feminine hand, all in blue envelopes, a colour which she had explained in previous letters indicated undying love; there was also an account for a disputed twelve and sixpence which his tailor insisted Mark had underpaid; and there was another envelope of marbled paper, pale beige and watered expensively, with Mark's name blazoned across it in a peremptory, arrogant hand, and no address.
Mark singled it out and turned it over to examine the crest, thickly crusted in heavy embossing that stood out on the flap.
Dicky watched him open it and then leaned forward to read it unashamedly, but Mark saved him the effort and flipped it across to him.
Regimental dinner, he explained. You'll just make it, Dicky pointed out. Friday the 16th. Then his voice changed, imitating a regiment sergeant-major. Two oh hundred hours sharpish. Dress formal and R. S. bloody V. P. Take your dressing from the right, you lucky brighter, your guinea has been paid by your Colonel-in-Chief, Lord Muck-a-Muck General Courtney his exalted self. Off you go, my boy, drink his champagne and steal a handful of cigars. Up the workers! say! I think I'll give it a miss, murmured Mark, and placed Marion's letters in his inside pocket, to prevent Dicky reading those also. You've gone bush-crazy, the sun touched you, old boy, Dicky declared solemnly. Think of those three hundred potential owners of Cadillacs sitting around one table, pissed to the wide, and smoking free cigars. Captive audience. Whip around the table and peddle them a Cadillac each while they are still stunned by the speeches. Were you in France? Mark asked. Not France. Dicky's expression changed. Palestine, Gallipoli and suchlike sunny climes. The memory darkened his eyes. Then you'll know why I don't feel like going up to the old fort to celebrate the experience, Mark told him, and Dicky Lancome studied him across the loaded table. He had made himself a judge of character, of men and their workings. He had to be a good judge to be a good salesman, so he was surprised that he had not recognized the change in Mark sooner. Looking at him now, Dicky knew that he had acquired something, some new reserve of strength and resolution the likes of which few men gathered about them in a lifetime. Suddenly he felt a humility in Mark's presence, and although it was tinged with envy, the envy was without rancour. Here was a man who was going somewhere, to a place where he would never be able to follow, a path that needed a man with a lion's liver to tread. He wanted to reach across the table and shake Mark's hand and wish him well on the journey, but instead he spoke quietly, dropping the usual light and cavalier facade. I wish you'd think about it, Mark. General Courtney came to see me himself, and he went on to tell him of the visit, of Sean Courtney's anger when he had heard that Mark had been discharged at his daughter's behest. He asked for you to be there especially, Mark, and he really meant it. Mark showed his invitation at the gates, and was passed through the massive stone outer fortifications, There were fairy lights strung in the trees along the pathway that led through the gardens of the old fort, giving the evening a frivolous carnival feeling at odds with the usual atmosphere this bastion had known from the earliest British occupation, through siege and war with Dutch and Zulu; many of the Empire's warriors who had paused here on their occasions.
There were other guests ahead of and behind him on the pathway, but Mark avoided them, feeling self- conscious in the dinner-jacket he had hired from the pawnbroker when he retrieved his decorations. The garment had the venerable greenish tinge of age, and was ventilated in places by the ravages of moths. It was too tight across the shoulders and too full in the belly, and it exposed too much cuff and sock, but when he had pointed this out to the pawnbroker, the man had asked him to finger the pure silk lining and had reduced the hire fee to five shillings.
Miserably he joined the file of other dinner-jacketed figures on the steps of the drillhall and when his turn came, he stepped up to the reception! Then, So! said General Sean Courtney. You came. The craggy features were suddenly boyish, as he took Mark's hand in a grip that felt like tortoise-shell, cool and hard and calloused. He stood at the head of the reception line like a tower, broad and powerful, resplendent in immaculately cut black and crisp starched white with a gaudy block of silk ribbons and enamel crosses and orders across his chest. With a twitch of an imperial eyebrow, he summoned one of his staff. This is Mr Mark Anders, he said. You remember the old firm of Anders and MacDonald, 1 st brigade? Indeed, sir. The officer looked at Mark with quick interest, his eye dropping from his face to the silk ribbons on his lapel and back to his face. Look after him, said General Courtney, and then to Mark, Get yourself a drink, son, and I'll talk to you later. He released Mark's hand and turned to the next in line, but such was the magnetism and charm of the big man that after the brief contact and the few gruff words, Mark was no longer the gawky stranger, callow and awkward in cast-off clothes, but an honoured guest, worthy of special attention.
The subaltern took his charge seriously and led Mark into the dense crowd of black-clad mates, all of them still subdued and self-conscious in their unaccustomed finery, standing in stiff knots, although the waiters moved among them bearing silver trays laden with the regiment's hospitality. Whisky, is it? asked the subaltern, and picked a glass from one of the trays. All liquid refreshment tonight is with the General's compliments, and took another glass for himself. Cheers! Now let's see, 1 st brigade -'and he looked around. You must remember Hooper, or Dennison? He remembered them and others, dozens of them, some were vaguely familiar features, just shades at the edge of his memory, but others he knew well, had liked, or disliked, and even hated. With some he had shared food, or passed a cigarette butt back and forth, with others he had shared moments of terror or exquisite boredom; the good ones, the workers, the cowards and the shirkers and the bullies were all there, and the whisky came endlessly on silver trays.
They remembered him also, men he had never seen in his life came up to him. You remember me, I was section leader at D'Arcy Wood when you and MacDonald -'And others, Are you the Anders, I thought you'd be older somehow, your glass is empty, and the whisky kept coming on the silver trays, and Mark felt tall and clever, for men listened when he talked, and witty, for men laughed when he jested.
They sat at a table that stretched the full length of the hall and was covered with a damask cloth of dazzling white; the regimental silver blinked like heliographs in the candlelight, and now it was champagne cascading into crystal glass in showers of golden bubbles. All around, the comradely uproar of laughter and of raised voices, and each time Mark lowered his glass, there was a turbaned figure at his side and a dark hand poising the green bottle over his glass.
