‘I see.’
‘Yes, it looks like that.’
And another conversation, towards the end of that visit, which James was hardly to remember later, so little impression did it make on him, compared with the vividness of Cape Town.
The Colonel had come on to the verandah, his boots loud on the wooden floor, and he stood looking at the soldier, who was lost to the present and staring, his mouth a little open.
‘James …’
James did hear, after a pause, then smiled, stood as the Colonel sat down. He sat down again himself.
The Colonel said, ‘You know, this isn’t an easy country for some of us - well, some do seem to flourish like the green bay tree. Not many. It takes it out of you.’ Now he hesitated, trying to think of the right thing to say. He shifted his lengthy legs about in the cream linen trousers which had a shine on them from someone’s iron. With one thin sunburned hand he rubbed his chin, while he stared thoughtfully, not at James, but into the garden.
‘Are you sleeping - may I ask?’
‘Not too well. It is so hot.’
‘Yes, it is, things’ll get better when the monsoon conies. Not long now.’
‘The monsoon, everyone talks about it as if it’s some kind of magic wand.’
‘Well, it is. Yes, that’s what it is. James - if I’m talking out of turn, then forget it. But I want to say, you mustn’t take things too hard. Bad idea anywhere, but in this country … it tips people over the edge, India does, if you don’t get a grip of yourself. We aren’t made for this climate. It does us in. I’ve seen it … I’ve been here forty years. Too long. I’d be home now if it wasn’t for the war.’
If James had taken this in, it didn’t show on his face; he didn’t move, or look at the Colonel.
‘Think about what I’m saying, will you? Try and take things a little easier.’
‘Yes, sir. Yes … it’s that ship, you see. I don’t think you can have any idea …’ One does not say to an old man that he hasn’t an idea, not about anything. ‘I mean … I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean …’And then, angry, white-faced: ‘It was terrible. It was . , .’ And he brought two clenched fists frustrated ly down on his chair arms. His book fell, and the Colonel picked it up, sat turning pages. He read aloud:
‘Cities and Thrones and Powers Stand in Time’s eye,
Almost as A0II$ as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
The Cities rise again.
I often recite that to myself when things get rough.’ ‘Yes, sir.’
‘A sense of proportion, one must keep that.’ ‘Yes, sir,’
‘And you do forget, you know, one does forget.’
‘I will never forget, sir, never, never;
‘I see. I’m sorry’ And the Colonel moved off.
On the day the cars came to take the Grants’ guests back to their camp, the air seemed full of rubbish. A wind was busy in the trees, whirling leaves and even small branches out into the roads where people scurried into doorways and holes in a jumble of shops and little houses, and shopkeepers struggled to put up their shutters to save their goods being whisked into the air. Mouths were dry. Eyes stung from the dust.
The cars passed a platoon, accompanied by their corporal, returning from some jaunt associated with the two weeks’ leave. Their eyes were screwed up, their mouths clenched tight, against the sun and the dust. This made them look indignant. Ten expostulating men with the dirt running off them as they marched, and the dust in clouds as high as their knees. The two cars passing raised the dust even more and looking back, the passengers saw a ghostly platoon vanish in a dirty cloud.
The men went to report their return, and James was told that ‘it had been suggested’ he should take a commission and then join Administration. Who had suggested? It could only be Colonel Grant, who was a friend, he had said, of Colonel Chase. ‘Nine to Five,’ thought James. ‘It’s my fate.’
‘Get to Medical tomorrow and then report back.’
James was in a long hut that housed twenty, rather like the hut which was his first home as a soldier getting on for three years ago. None of the men he had been with in Britain were here, but some were fellow sufferers from the ship. On twenty beds, ten to a side, young men sat, listening to the wind fling dust at their shelter.
‘Christ, what a country’
No one disagreed.
They began exchanging news about their two weeks’ leave. All grumbled; nothing to do, a couple of clubs, so called’ making a favour of admitting Other Ranks, a few Eurasian girls, anyone fucking those bints was asking for it, again a shortage of beer, the heat, the heat, the heat.
Then one said to James, ‘We hear we’re going to have to salute you, sir.’
This was unfriendly. James who had listened to routine criticisms, amounting to hatred, of the officers, realised he was now on the other side.
