V
Lieutenant-Colonel Kinjack (to give him his new rank) exceeded all our expectations. He was the personification of military efficiency. Personal charm was not his strong point, and he made no pretension to it. He was aggressive and blatant, but he knew his job, and for that we respected him and were grateful. His predecessor had departed in his Brigadier’s cap without saying goodbye to anyone. For that we were less grateful; but as Dottrell said, “He’d had Brigadier on the brain ever since he came back off leave, and now he’d never be satisfied till he’d got a Division and another decoration to go with it.” Dottrell had just got his D.S.O., so he had no cause to feel jealous, even if he had been capable of that feeling, which he wasn’t. His only complaint was that they didn’t make his “acting rank” permanent. He aired that grievance several evenings a week, especially when he had got back late with the ration party, and his reference to the “permanent” Quartermaster (at Army Headquarters) were far from flattering.
Colonel Kinjack stopped one night in Morlancourt, and on the following afternoon I guided him up to the Line, going by the shortcut across the open country and the half-dug and feebly wired reserve trench which, we hoped, would never be utilized. The new C.O. had inspected the Transport in the morning without active disapproval, but he was less pleased when our appearance on the ridge (half a mile behind the front line) attracted a few shells, none of which exploded near us. This was considered quite a good joke in the battalion, and I was often reminded afterwards of how I’d got Kinjack welcomed with whizzbangs.
“The Boches saw Kinjack coming all right. The Transport Officer made sure of that!” Barton would say, with a chuckle.
For in spite of my easy job, it was supposed that I could be a bit of a daredevil if I liked. Not that I wanted to be, that afternoon; Kinjack frightened the life out of me, and was so sceptical of my ability to find the way that I began to feel none too sure about it myself. … It is, however, just conceivable that at that time I didn’t care what happened to the new Colonel or anybody else. …
That same day, at about midnight, I was awakened by Dottrell, who told me that I was to go on leave next morning. I drove to the station in the Maltese cart; the train started at 9:30, crawled to Havre, and by ten o’clock next day I was in London. I had been in France less than four months. As regards war experience I felt a bit of an impostor. I had noticed that officers back from their ten days’ leave were usually somewhat silent about it. Then, after a few weeks, they began to look forward to their next leave again, and to talk about this future fact. But there wasn’t much to be said about mine, for it was bitterly cold and a heavy fall of snow knocked my hopes of hunting on the head. So I remained quietly with Aunt Evelyn at Butley, telling myself that it was a great luxury to have a hot bath every day, and waiting for a thaw. If it thawed I should have two or three days with the Ringwell on Colonel Hesmon’s horses. And I should stay at Hoadley Rectory. But no thaw came, and I returned to France without having been to the Rectory, which had been a painful idea, in any case. The Rector evidently felt the same, for he wrote me a sad letter in which he said “as I think of all the suffering and death, the anxieties and bereavements of this terrible struggle, I feel that in our ignorance we can only rest on the words, ‘What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter.’ Obedience and self-sacrifice for right and truth in spite of suffering and death is Christianity. …” I received this letter on my last day at Butley. Sitting alone in the schoolroom late at night, I felt touched by the goodness and patience of my old friend, but I was unable to accept his words in the right spirit. He spoke too soon. I was too young to understand. And England wasn’t what it used to be. I had been over to say goodbye to Captain Huxtable that afternoon; but the War was making an old man of him, though he did his best to be bright. And kind Aunt Evelyn talked bitterly about the Germans and called them “hellhounds.” I found myself defending them, although I couldn’t claim acquaintance with a single one of them (except Willie Regel, and I shouldn’t have known him by sight if I’d met him).
Looking round the room at the enlarged photographs of my hunters, I began to realize that my past was wearing a bit thin. The War seemed to have made up its mind to obliterate all those early adventures of mine. Point-to-point cups shone, but without conviction. And Dixon was dead. …
Perhaps, after all, it was better to be back with the battalion. The only way to forget about the War was to be on the other side of the Channel. But the fire burnt brightly and the kettle was hissing on the hob. It was nice to be wearing my old civilian clothes, and to make myself a cup of tea. Old Joe will be
