Soldier No More

'gather ye rosebuds while ye may'—and for dear Lottie Templeton too, for that matter... no one could say her nymphomaniacal instincts weren't well-advised in the dummy5

circumstances—the jolly old winged chariot collected her in the Blitz in 1940, didn't it, Clarkie? I rather lost touch with her after Jack Wallace-White succumbed to her charms . . .?'

'No, sir. It was a V-l in 1944,' said Mrs Clarke. 'She was driving a mobile canteen for the Church of Scotland, down in Camberwell it was.'

For the Church of Scotland?' Wimpy echoed her incredulously.

'That's what Colonel Deacon told me, sir. He said it was on account of her husband—him that was killed in the desert, I think ... or was it that one, or the other one?'

Wimpy nodded. 'Jack was certainly killed in the desert—Sidi Rezegh in '41. But the Church of Scotland . . . well, I suppose that was because all Jack's money was tied up in whisky distilling . . . and if Laurie Deacon said so, then it's not to be contested.' He grinned at Roche. 'That's Mr Laurie Deacon MP, QC et cetera now—he was one of the gang then, a smart young barrister who'd just taken silk ... in fact, it was probably him in that summer house with Lottie, the blighter

—Clarkie?'

Ada Clarke pursed her lips. 'That's not for me to say, sir, Mr William.'

“Or was it Georgie MacGibbon? He was killed at Kohima, Clarkie, so he won't mind if you tell me!'

Ada Clarke shook her head. 'All I'll say, sir, is ... it wasn't you.'

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Wimpy stared at her, and then nodded again, slowly. 'Fair enough . . . 'It is knightly to keep faith—even after a thousand years'.' His eyes came back to Roche. ' Puck of Pook's Hill—

Kipling's your set author for this exam, old boy, and don't ever forget it. We all knew it backwards—I read it to young David in this very room, by God! And the last party we ever had—do you remember that, Clarkie?— September the second, 1939—do you remember that—?'

'It was a Saturday, sir. I remember that because my Charlie was in uniform, and you brought him along with you—you and the Master, Mr Nigel, you were all in uniform—and I pressed three uniforms that night. . . those blooming battle-dresses with the pleats down the back—I had to put soap along the inside of them, to set the creases right—like knife-edges, they were, when I'd finished with them. . . and you all got horrid drunk that night— and my Charlie too, with you, what never got drunk normally— I remember!'

Wimpy's eyes glittered. 'That's right.And young David was banished— as usual—and I came down here ... I came down here while I could still walk, that is ... and I found him sitting in front of the window, and he was reading Puck—the chapter where the Saxon chieftains come to the young Roman officers under flag of truce and invite them to plunder Britain together instead of fighting each other on the Great Wall—I remember too!' The eyes came back to Roche, but this time they no longer saw him. 'And I went back to the house full of whisky and Kipling—they turned the Saxons dummy5

down, of course, the young Romans did . . . 'The Wall must be won at a price'. . . and I looked at Nigel and Georgie and the rest of them, and I said, like the Saxon said, 'We be a goodly company; I wonder what the ravens and the dogfish will make of us before the snow melts'. I remember.'

The little room was silent for a moment, full of memories in which Roche had no part to play, except as an archaeologist.

Then the schoolmaster blinked and focussed on him again.

'Pure melodrama, old boy! Because when the snows melted we were all still there, large as life and useless as a box of lead soldiers. The war didn't start off at all the way we expected—we'd readied ourselves up for battle and sudden death, and all we did was parade-ground drill and route marches for nine months.' He grinned. 'My first war wounds were two dislocated thumbs falling off a motor-bike and a broken collar-bone playing rugger!'

“Ah—but it made up for lost time after that, the war did,'

said Mrs Clarke grimly.

'Very true, Clarkie,' Wimpy nodded, no longer grinning.

'And the ravens and dogfish did get most of us in that party by '45, sure enough—only Laurie Deacon and I came back, in fact . . . and Laurie hardly counts, because he went straight into Intelligence—or straight in via the Judge Advocate's Department, anyway, and after that he knew too much to be allowed to risk his skin.' He paused. 'And Charlie, of course.'

Ada Clarke sighed. 'Only half of my Charlie came back, sir.

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He left half of hisself back in Dunkirk . . . and I sometimes think it was the half I knew best—' she caught herself quickly, with a half-glance at Roche, the stranger '—but you're right, sir—you and Mr Deacon and Charlie . . . and Master David, of course—we mustn't forget him!'

'We certainly mustn't,' agreed Wimpy, not looking at Roche.

'I never thought to see him go, that the war would go on so long, to take him as well as Mr Nigel—and I was sure that he was going to get killed too, he was that keen and pleased to go, being just a boy and not knowing any better . . . You know

—' she embraced them both with a proud look '—I pressed his battle-dress just the same as I did for you, sir ... and Mr Nigel . . . except Master David had a better one, what he'd got from a Canadian friend of his, he said . . . that last leave he had, before the old Wesdragons went off to France—' she nodded at Roche to emphasise the occasion '—that was just right after the Normandy landings they went—he was in the tanks, Master David was.'

'The 'Wesdragons' being the West Sussex Dragoons,'

explained Wimpy, almost as proprietorial as Mrs Clarke.

'That's right, sir. It's the cap badge, you see—Master David explained it to me. It's supposed to be a horse, because they used to be on horses in the old days, but it doesn't look like no sort of horse that ever lived, it's that badly done. So they reckon it's part horse and part dragon—the dragon being the proper badge of Wessex. It's all