Ian knew what he meant.
‘Trimmer?’
‘Trimmer. McTavish. Whatever he’s called. You’ve gone and got the politicians interested. We’re stuck with him now for the rest of the war.’
‘I’ve been giving some thought to the matter.’
‘Decent of you.’
‘You know,’ said Ian, who, since he and his General had become, as it were, accomplices in fraud, had adopted an increasingly familiar tone in the office, ‘you’ll never get the best out of your subordinates by being sarcastic. I’ve been thinking about Trimmer and I’ve learned something. He’s got sex appeal.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘I’ve seen evidence of it in my own immediate circle – particularly since his outing to France. I’ve had the Ministries of Information, Supply, Aircraft Production and the Foreign Office after him. They want a hero of just Trimmer’s specifications to boost civilian morale and Anglo-American friendship. You can give him any rank you please and second him indefinitely.’
Major-General Whale was silent.
‘It’s an idea,’ he said at length.
‘It’s particularly important to get him out of London. He’s always hanging round my house these days.’
4
CORPORAL-MAJOR Ludovic’s journal comprised not only pensées but descriptive passages which reviewers in their season later commended.
Major Hound is bald and both his face and scalp shine. Early in the morning after shaving there is a dry shine. After an hour he begins to sweat and there is a greasy shine. Major Hound’s hands begin to sweat before his face. The top of his head is always dry. The sweat starts two inches above his eyebrows and never extends to his scalp. Does he use a cigarette-holder in order to protect his teeth and fingers from stain, or in order to keep smoke from his eyes? He often tells the orderly to empty his ash-tray. Captain Crouchback despises Major Hound but Colonel Blackhouse finds him useful. I am barely aware of Major Hound’s existence. It is in order to fix him in my mind that I have set down these observations.
The defeat in Greece was kept secret until the remnants of the army arrived in Alexandria. They were collected and dispersed for reorganization and equipment. ‘We live,’ wrote Corporal-Major Ludovic, ‘in the Age of Purges and Evacuation. To empty oneself, that is the task of contemporary man. Cultivate the abhorred vacuum.“The earth is the Lord’s and the emptiness thereof.”’ Every available unit in the area was sent west into Cyrenaica. Hookforce were the only fighting troops in Alexandria. They found themselves called on to find guards for government buildings and banks. They were assigned a role in the defence of the city in the event of a German break-through. Early in May Tommy Blackhouse, Major Hound and Guy drove out with a Brigadier from Area Command to inspect the sandy ridge between Lake Mariout and the sea where they were expected to hold Rommel’s armour with their knives and toggle-ropes and tommy-guns.
‘What’s to stop him coming round the other side?’ asked Tommy.
‘According to the plan – the Gyppos,’ said the Brigadier.
He laughed, Tommy laughed, they laughed all four.
Guy spent long hours in the club library with bound copies of Country Life. Sometimes he joined his old friends of X Commando at the Cecil Hotel or the Union Bar. X Commando had not gone to the trouble of organizing an officers’ mess. B Commando dined as punctually and solemnly as Halberdiers in barracks, with Colonel Prentice’s great-great-grandfather’s sabre displayed on the table. X Commando kept a pile of hard-boiled eggs, oranges and sardines in their tent; they roared at their scuttling and giggling Berber servants for tea and gin, threw down cigar-ends and cigarette-packets and matches and corks and peel and tins round their feet.
‘One might be on the Lido,’ said Ivor Claire, regarding with disgust the littered sand of the tent floor.
Half a dozen wealthy Greek houses opened their doors to them. And there was Mrs Stitch. Guy did not repeat his visit but her name was everywhere. X Commando felt her presence as that of a beneficent, alert deity, their own protectress. Things could not go absolutely wrong with them while Mrs Stitch was about.
Guy set his intelligence section to make a map of the camp, for Major Hound had returned from one of his trips to Cairo with a case labelled ‘intelligence stores’ which proved to contain a kindergarten outfit of coloured inks and drawing materials. He fought a daily battle with Major Hound to preserve his men from guard-duties.
So the days passed until in the third week of May war came to Major Hound.
It was heralded by the customary ceremonial fanfare of warning-orders and counter-orders, but before the first of these notes sounded, Mrs Stitch had told Ivor Claire and he had told Guy.
‘I hear we’re off to Crete at any moment,’ Guy said to Major Hound.
‘Nonsense.’
‘Well. Wait and see,’said Guy.
Major Hound pretended to be busy at his desk. Then he sat back and fitted a cigarette into his holder.
‘Where did you hear this rumour?’
‘X Commando.’
‘Both attacks in Crete have been held,’ said Major Hound, “The situation is well under control. I know this.’
‘Good,’ said Guy.
There was another pause during which Major Hound pretended to read his files. Then:
‘It doesn’t occur to you, I suppose, that we have a priority commitment in the defence of Alexandria?’
‘I gathered that Crete was first priority at the moment.’
‘The garrison there is larger than they can supply as it is.’
‘Well, I dare say I’m wrong.’
‘Of course you’re wrong. You should know better than to listen to rumours.’
Another pause; this was the witching hour, noted by Corporal. Major Ludovic, when the shine on the Brigade Major’s face changed from dry to greasy.
‘Besides,’ he said, ‘this brigade hasn’t the equipment for defensive action.’
‘Then why are we defending Alexandria?’
‘That would be an emergency.’
‘Perhaps there’s an emergency in Crete.’
‘I’m not arguing with you, Crouchback. I’m telling you.’
Silence; then:
‘Why doesn’t that orderly empty the ash-trays? What do you know about the shipping situation, Crouchback?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Exactly. Well, for your information we aren’t in a position to reinforce Crete even if we wanted to.’
‘I see.’
Another pause. Major Hound was not at ease that day. He resorted to his old method of attack.
‘How, by the way, is your section employed this morning?’
‘Ruling thin red lines. The map of Crete is a straight off-print from the Greek issue, so I am having a half-inch grid put on for our own use.’
‘Maps of Crete? Who authorized anyone to draw maps of Crete?’
‘I fetched them myself yesterday evening from Ras-el-Tin.’
‘You had no business to. That’s exactly how rumours start.’
Presently Tommy came into the office. Guy and Major Hound stood up.
‘Anything through from Cairo yet?’ he asked.
‘The mail has gone to the registry, Colonel. Nothing of immediate importance.’
‘No one at GHQ starts work before ten. The wires will start buzzing in a few minutes. Meanwhile get out a warning order to the units. I suppose you know we’re off?’
‘Back to Canal Area for reorganization?’
‘Christ, no. Where’s that Staff Captain? We must work out a loading table. I met the Flag Officer in command of destroyers at Madame Kaprikis’s last night. He’s all ready for us. Guy, collect some maps of Crete for issue down to section leaders.’
‘That’s all laid on, Colonel,’ said the Brigade Major.
‘Well done.’
At quarter-past ten the telephone from GHQ Cairo began its day-long litany of contradictions. Major Hound listened, noted, relayed with the ani
mation of a stockbroker.
‘Yes, sir. Very good, sir. All understood. All informed,’ he said to GHQ. ‘Get cracking,’ he said to the units.
But this show of zeal did not deceive Ludovic.
‘Major Hound seems strangely lacking in the Death-Wish,’ he noted.
It was Major Hound’s first operational embarkation, Guy’s third. He callously watched the transactions, first earnest, then anxious, then embittered, between Brigade Major, Staff Captain and ESO, the lines of over-burdened, sulky soldiers moving on and off the narrow decks, the sailors fastidiously picking their way among the heaps of military equipment. He knew it all of old and he kept out of it. He talked to a Marine AA gunner who said:
‘No air cover. The RAF have packed up in Crete. If we don’t make the run in and out in darkness we haven’t a hope of getting through. Your chaps will have to be a lot quicker getting ashore than they are coming aboard.’
A mine-laying cruiser and two destroyers were lying in for Hookforce; all bore the scars of the evacuation of Greece. The ship detailed for brigade headquarters was the most battered.
‘She needs a month in dock,’ said the Marine. ‘We’ll be lucky if she makes the trip, enemy action apart.’
They sailed at dusk. On board the destroyer with headquarters were three troops of B Commando. The men lay about on the flats and mess decks, the officers in the wardroom. Tommy Blackhouse was invited to the bridge. Peace of a kind reigned.
‘Crouchback,’ said Major Hound, ‘has it occurred to you that Ludovic is keeping a diary?’
‘No.’
‘It’s contrary to regulations to take a private diary into the front line.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you’d better warn him. He’s writing something unofficial I’m pretty sure.’
At eight o’clock the Maltese steward laid the table for dinner, setting a bowl of roses in the centre. The captain remained on the bridge. The first officer apologized for him and for the accommodation.
‘We aren’t equipped for hospitality on this scale,’ he said. ‘Not enough of anything, I’m afraid.’
The soldiers took out their mugs and canteens and knives and forks. The batmen helped the steward. Dinner was excellent.
‘No cause for alarm until dawn,’ said the first officer cheerfully as he left them.
The captain had given up his cabin to Tommy and Major Hound and the second-in-command of B Commando. Valises and bedrolls had been left in camp. The army officers arranged themselves on chairs and benches and floor in the wardroom. Soon they were all asleep.
Guy awoke at dawn and went up into the fresh air; a delicious morning after the breathless night, a calm sea, no other ship in sight, no land, the destroyer steaming rather slowly, it seemed, into the luminous void. Guy met the Marine gunner.
‘Is this where our troubles begin?’ he asked.
‘Not here.’ Then as Guy seemed surprised he added; ‘Notice anything odd about the sun?’
Guy looked. It was well above the horizon now, ahead on their left, cool and brilliant.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Just where you expected to see it?’
‘Oh,’ said Guy, ‘I see what you mean – it ought to be on the other side.’
‘Exactly. We shall be back in Alex in an hour. Engine trouble.’
‘That’s going to be awkward.’
‘She was overdue for an overhaul, as I told you, and she caught a packet in the Aegean. Suits me all right. I haven’t had any shore leave this year.’
‘At breakfast Tommy scowled silently, not so Major Hound who was openly jubilant. He put the nozzle of his Mae West in his mouth and made a little pantomime of playing the bagpipes.
‘This is the hell of a thing,’ Tommy said to Guy. ‘But there’s a good chance of their laying on another destroyer in Alexandria.’
‘I should rather doubt that, Colonel,’ said Major Hound. ‘The navy is fully committed.’
‘We’re one of their commitments. I’ve made a signal to Prentice on board the cruiser putting him in command until we turn up. I’ve told him his main job is to keep the brigade intact as a formation. The danger is that they’ll try and lump the units into the general reserve of Creforce. Then there’ll be trouble winkling them out and getting them together again for our proper role. I hope Prentice is up to it. He hasn’t much experience of the tricks of GOCs.’
‘Did you mention that matter to Ludovic, Crouchback?’
‘Not yet.’
‘This will be a good time.’
‘What matter?’ asked Tommy.
‘Just a matter of routine security, Colonel.’
They were in sight of land when Guy found Corporal-Major Ludovic.
‘It has come to my ears that you are keeping a diary,’ he said.
Ludovic regarded him with his disconcerting grey-pink stare.
‘I should hardly call it that, sir.’
‘You realize that anything written which is liable to fall into the enemy’s hands is subject to censorship.’
‘So I have always understood, sir.’
‘I’m afraid I must ask to see what it is.’
‘Very good, sir.’
He took his message-pad from the pocket of his shorts. I have left the typewriter in camp, sir, with the rest of the office equipment. I don’t know if you’ll be able to read it.’
Guy read:
‘Captain Crouchback has gravity. He is the ball of lead which in a vacuum falls no faster than a feather.’
‘That’s all you’ve written?’
‘All I have written since we left camp, sir.’
‘I see. Well, I don’t think that compromises security in any way, I wonder how I’m meant to take it.’
‘It was not intended for your eyes, sir.’
‘As a matter of fact I have never believed that theory about feathers in a vacuum.’
‘No, sir. It sounds totally against nature. I merely employed it figuratively.’
When the ship berthed Tommy and Major Hound went ashore. There were high staff-officers, naval and military, awaiting them on the quay and they went with them to one of the port-offices to confer. The troops leant over the rails, spat and swore.
‘Back to Sidi Bishr,’ they said.
Quite soon Tommy and Hound returned on board, Tommy cheerful.
‘Off again,’ he said to Guy. ‘They’ve laid on another destroyer. Here’s the latest intelligence. Everything in Crete is under control. The navy broke up the sea landings and sunk the lot. The enemy only hold two pockets and the New Zealanders have got them completely contained. Reinforcements are rolling in every night for the counter-attack. The BGS from Cairo says it’s in the bag. We’ve got a very nice role, raiding lines of communications on the Greek mainland.’
Tommy believed all this. So did Major Hound; no part of his training or previous experience had made him a sceptic. But he remained glum.
The change of ships was quickly done. Like a line of ants the laden men followed one another down one gang plank and up another, swearing quietly. They found quarters indistinguishable from those they had left. New naval officers gave the old greetings and the old apologies. By sunset everyone had settled in.
‘We sail at midnight,’ said Tommy. ‘They don’t want to reach the Karso channel until after dark tomorrow. No reason why we shouldn’t dine ashore.’
He and Guy went to the Union Bar. It did not occur to them to ask Major Hound to join them. The restaurant seemed as full as ever, despite the notorious crisis in man-power. They ate lobster pilaff and a great dish of quail cooked with Muscat grapes.
‘It may be our last decent meal for some time,’ Tommy remarked. ‘The BGS heard from someone that fresh food is rather short in Crete.’
They ate six birds each and drank a bottle of champagne. Then they had green artichokes and another bottle.
‘I dare say in a day or two we shall think of this dinner,’ said Tommy, gazing fondly at the leaves which littered
their plates, ‘and wish we were back here.’
‘Not really,’ said Guy, washing the butter from his fingers.
‘No, not really. Not for all the quail in Egypt.’
They were gay as they drove down to the lightless docks. They found their ship and were asleep before she sailed.
Major Hound awoke to feel his bunk rise and fall, to hear the creaking of plates and the roll and thump of shifting stores. He began to shiver and sweat and swallow. He lay flat on his back, gripping the blankets, open eyed in the darkness, desperately sad. His servant found him thus at seven o’clock when he lurched in with a mug of tea in one hand, a mug of shaving water in the other and a cheerful greeting. Major Hound remained rigid. The man began to polish the boots which still shone from his labours of the previous morning.
‘For God’s sake,’ said Major Hound, ‘do that outside.’
‘Hard to find anywhere to move, sir.’
‘Then leave them.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Major Hound cautiously raised himself on one elbow and drank the tea. Immediately the nausea which he had fought through the long small hours returned irresistibly. He reached the wash-basin, clung there and remained for ten minutes with his head resting on the heavy rim. At length he ran some water, dried his eyes and breathing heavily returned to his bed; not, however, before he had seen his face in the little looking-glass. It gave him a further fright.
Rain and spray swept the decks all day, keeping the men below. The little ship wallowed in a heavy long swell.
‘This low cloud is a godsend,’ said the captain. ‘We’re near the spot where Juno copped it.’
Guy was not often troubled by sea-sickness. He had, however drunk a quart of wine the previous evening and that, with the movement of the ship, subdued him; not so Tommy Blackhouse, who was in high spirits, now in the wardroom, now on the bridge, now on the troop decks; nor Corporal-Major Ludovic, who early in the afternoon attracted respect in the petty-officers’ mess as with a travelling manicure set he prepared his toe-nails for whatever endurances lay ahead.
Lassitude settled on the soldiers.
An hour after dark Tommy Blackhouse fell. He was returning from the bridge when the ship took an unusually heavy plunge; his nailed boots slipped on the steel ladder and he fell to the steel deck with a crash that was clearly heard in the wardroom. Then he was heard shouting and after a minute the first officer announced: