The Hour of the Donkey

'Eh?' Major Tetley-Robinson looked up again, but this time at Lieutenant Davidson. 'No more of this damn Froggie stuff, Dickie —I won't have it! It's all crust and air, and you can't make toast out of crust and air.' He switched the look to Willis at last. 'Talking shop, Wimpy? Or did I mishear you, eh?'

Bastable was disappointed to observe that Tetley-Robinson was trying to let Willis off. Normally the Major could be relied on to savage Willis at every opportunity, his dislike of the man dating from the discovery that Willis's fluent French stemmed from the possession of a French grandmother, and from Alsace moreover, which was dangerously close to the German frontier. 'Fellow doesn't look like an Alsatian—more like a cross between a greyhound and a rat,' the Major had observed sotto voce on receiving this intelligence. 'Probably runs like a greyhound too.'

But now the prospect of action appeared to have mellowed this enmity, for the Major was regarding Wimpy with an expression bordering on tolerance.

Willis returned the look obstinately. 'No. I said 'drill'. My company—'

'I heard.' The Major lifted his chin and looked down his nose at Willis. 'Shop—and you know the rule.' He leaned back in his chair and half-turned towards the mess waiter without taking his eyes off Willis. 'Higgins—fetch Captain Willis's steel helmet.'

Willis licked his lips. 'My company—'

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'Not until you're wearing your steel helmet, if you please, Wimpy,' snapped the Major. 'Then you can talk as much as you like, if you can find anyone to listen to you . . .' He pointed down the table. 'Pass me the marmalade, will you, Bastable?'

Bastable's blossoming joy turned instantly into dismay. The pot of Cooper's Oxford Marmalade in front of him was his own, his very own, his private pot and his only pot—and possibly the only pot in the whole British Expeditionary Force, if not the only pot in France. And also a bitter-sweet reminder of his mother, who had given it to him.

But Major Tetley-Robinson outranked Mother in this company, and Bastable watched helplessly as the Major spooned out a huge dollop of Cooper's Oxford Marmalade on to his plate, and proceeded to consume it in the proportion of three parts of marmalade to one of French bread.

Fusilier Higgins reappeared with the steel helmet, which he offered rather apologetically to Captain Willis. But to Bastable's surprise, rather than bow to the pressure of the mess rule, Willis put it on his head and returned to the fray.

'Drill—' he began.

'Hah!' Major Tetley-Robinson assumed an inquiring expression. 'Very well then, Wimpy . . . since you choose to attire yourself so strangely at table . . . 'drill'?'

Willis set his jaw. 'My company—what there is of it—is under orders to drill this morning, Charlie—' the use of the dummy4

Christian name was permitted, but it always made the Major wince when Willis used it, '—orders from the CO, relayed by the Adjutant just now, Charlie!'

'So I gathered.'

'It's bloody mad— drill, Charlie!'

'Nothing wrong with drill, my dear chap. When you can fight as well as the Guards, then you can stop drilling, I always say

—and your fellows have become a shower, an absolute shower. Worse than Bastable's there, even.' Major Tetley-Robinson nodded at Bastable, noticed the marmalade pot again, and helped himself to another spoonful. 'Apart from which, drill used to be a PRO speciality—we've always drilled like regulars, not territorials. And ... if you ask me, that's why we've been sent out here, to France, when other chaps are still kicking their heels in Blighty. Because a smart soldier is a good soldier—'

Bastable raised his copy of The Times quickly to cut off the view. It wasn't that he disagreed with the Major, but he couldn't bear to see the Major finish his marmalade.

'—team-work, self-confidence . . . not having to think, because one already knows—'

Bastable tried to concentrate on his Times. It was nearly a week old, and he had already been through it twice, from cover to cover, so now he was rationing himself to one column per breakfast, nodding or shaking his head in exactly the same places and greeting remembered names like old dummy4

friends.

'—and although most territorial units are downright slovenly, we've always, been different—'

Major Tetley-Robinson was moving inexorably into the History and Traditions of the Regiment of which he was the acknowledged custodian.

'—we do not bear the royal honour of 'The Prince Regent's Own' for nothing—'

He was coming to the famous parade of 1801, when the Regent had reviewed the new Regiment in the skin- tight uniforms of his own design—red coats with primrose-yellow facings and dove-grey pantaloons, snowy pipe-clay and glittering brass and leather; the only pity was that the Prince had subsequently taken his custom to Brighton, which was a rather vulgar town, in preference to Captain Bastable's own native Eastbourne; but, to its credit, the regiment had done its best to correct that aberration in later years.

'—this lanyard, which every man wears as of right as a PRO—

'the primrose-yellow-and-dove-grey lanyard always formed the peroration of the Major's pep talk '—is the symbol of his pride in his regiment and in himself for being privileged to belong to it. Which, as an officer of the regiment, you ought to know, Wimpy, by God!'

'But I do know that, Charlie,' protested Captain Willis wearily. 'Prinnie granted it to us on account of the exceptionally stylish cut of our uniforms—it wasn't a battle dummy4

honour, it was a fashion honour, for heaven's sake.'