IV
THEY HAD GONE back up the hill so that Levin might telephone to headquarters for his own car in case the general’s chauffeur should not have the sense to return for him. But that was as far as Tietjens got in uninterrupted reminiscence of that scene… . He was sitting in his flea-bag, digging idly with his pencil into the squared page of his notebook which had remained open on his knees, his eyes going over and over again the words with which his report on his own case had concluded – the words: So the interview ended rather untidily. Over the words went the image of the dark hillside with the lights of the town, now that the air-raid was finished, spreading high up into the sky below them… .
But at that point the doctor’s batman had uttered, as if with a jocular, hoarse irony, the name:
‘Poor — O Nine Morgan! …’ and over the whitish sheet of paper on a level with his nose Tietjens perceived thin films of reddish purple to be wavering, then a glutinous surface of gummy scarlet pigment. Moving! It was once more an effect of fatigue, operating on the retina, that was perfectly familiar to Tietjens. But it filled him with indignation against his own weakness. He said to himself: Wasn’t the name of the wretched O Nine Morgan to be mentioned in his hearing without his retina presenting him with the glowing image of the fellow’s blood? He watched the phenomenon, growing fainter, moving to the right-hand top corner of the paper and turning a faintly luminous green. He watched it with a grim irony.
Was he, he said to himself, to regard himself as responsible for the fellow’s death? Was his inner mentality going to present that claim upon him? That would be absurd. The end of the earth! The absurd end of the earth … Yet that insignificant ass Levin had that evening asserted the claim to go into his, Tietjens of Groby’s, relations with his wife. That was an end of the earth as absurd! It was the unthinkable thing, as unthinkable as the theory that the officer can be responsible for the death of the man… . But the idea had certainly presented itself to him. How could he be responsible for the death? In fact – in literalness – he was. It had depended absolutely upon his discretion whether the man should go home or not. The man’s life or death had been in his hands. He had followed the perfectly correct course. He had written to the police of the man’s home town, and the police had urged him not to let the man come home… . Extraordinary morality on the part of a police force! The man, they begged, should not be sent home because a prize-fighter was occupying his bed and laundry… . Extraordinary common sense, very likely. They probably did not want to get drawn into a scrap with Red Evans of the Red Castle… .
For a moment he seemed to see … he actually saw … O Nine Morgan’s eyes, looking at him with a sort of wonder, as they had looked when he had refused the fellow his leave… . A sort of wonder! Without resentment, but with incredulity. As you might look at God, you being very small and ten feet or so below His throne when He pronounced some inscrutable judgment! The Lord giveth home-leave, and the Lord refuseth… . Probably not blessed, but queer, be the name of God-Tietjens!
And at the thought of the man as he was alive and of him now, dead, an immense blackness descended all over Tietjens. He said to himself: I am very tired. Yet he was not ashamed… . It was the blackness that descends on you when you think of your dead… . It comes, at any time, over the brightness of sunlight, in the grey of evening, in the grey of the dawn, at mess, on parade; it comes at the thought of one man or at the thought of half a battalion that you have seen, stretched out, under sheeting, the noses making little pimples; or not stretched out, lying face downwards, half buried. Or at the thought of dead that you have never seen dead at all… . Suddenly the light goes out… . In this case it was because of one fellow, a dirty enough man, not even very willing, not in the least endearing, certainly contemplating desertion… . But your dead … yours … your own. As if joined to your own identity by a black cord… .
In the darkness outside, the brushing, swift, rhythmic pacing of an immense number of men went past, as if they had been phantoms. A great number of men in fours, carried forward, irresistibly, by the overwhelming will of mankind in ruled motion. The sides of the hut were so thin that it was peopled by an innumerable throng. A sodden voice, just at Tietjens’ head, chuckled: ‘For God’s sake, sergeant-major, stop these —. I’m too — drunk to halt them… .’
It made for the moment no impression on Tietjens’ conscious mind. Men were going past. Cries went up in the camp. Not orders, the men were still marching. Cries.
Tietjens’ lips – his mind was still with the dead – said:
‘That obscene Pitkins! … I’ll have him cashiered for this… .’ He saw an obscene subaltern, small, with one eyelid that drooped.
He came awake at that. Pitkins was the subaltern he had detailed to march the draft to the station and go on to Bailleul under a boozy field officer of sorts.
McKechnie said from the other bed:
‘That’s the draft back.’
Tietjens said:
‘Good God! …’
McKechnie said to the batman:
‘For God’s sake go and see if it is. Come back at once …’
The intolerable vision of the line, starving beneath the moon, of grey crowds murderously elbowing back a thin crowd in brown, zigzagged across the bronze light in the hut. The intolerable depression that, in those days, we felt – that all those millions were the playthings of ants busy in the miles of corridors beneath the domes and spires that rise up over the central heart of our comity, that intolerable weight upon the brain and the limbs, descended once more on those two men lying upon their elbows. As they listened their jaws fell open. The long, polyphonic babble, rushing in from an extended line of men stood easy, alone rewarded their ears.
Tietjens said:
‘That fellow won’t come back… . He can never do an errand and come back… .’ He thrust one of his legs cumbrously out of the top of his flea-bag. He said:
‘By God, the Germans will be all over here in a week’s time!’
He said to himself:
‘If they so betray us from Whitehall that fellow Levin has no right to pry into my matrimonial affairs. It is proper that one’s individual feelings should be sacrificed to the necessities of a collective entity. But not if that entity is to be betrayed from above. Not if it hasn’t the ten-millionth of a chance… .’ He regarded Levin’s late incursion on his privacy as enquiries set afoot by the general… . Incredibly painful to him, like a medical examination into nudities, but perfectly proper. Old Campion had to assure himself that the other ranks were not demoralised by the spectacle of officers’ matrimonial infidelities… . But such enquiries were not to be submitted to if the whole show were one gigantic demoralization!
McKechnie said, in reference to Tietjens’ protruded foot:
‘There’s no good your going out… . Cowley will get the men into their lines. He was prepared.’ He added: ‘If the fellows in Whitehall are determined to do old Puffles in, why don’t they recall him?’
The legend was that an eminent personage in the Government had a great personal dislike for the general in command of one army – the general being nicknamed Puffles. The Government, therefore, were said to be starving his command of men so that disaster should fall upon his command.
‘They can recall generals easy enough,’ McKechnie went on, ‘or anyone else!’
A heavy dislike that this member of the lower middle classes should have opinions on public affairs overcame Tietjens. He exclaimed: ‘Oh, that’s all tripe!’
He was himself outside all contact with affairs by now. But the other rumour in that troubled host had it that, as a political manœuvre, the heads round Whitehall – the civilian heads – were starving the army of troops in order to hold over the allies of Great Britain the threat of abandoning altogether the Western Front. They were credited with threatening a strategic manœuvre on an immense scale in the Near East, perhaps really intending it, or perhaps to force the hands of their allies over some political intrigue.
These atrocious rumours reverberated backwards and forwards in the ears of all those millions under the black vault of heaven. All their comrades in the line were to be sacrificed as a rear-guard to their departing host. That whole land was to be annihilated as a sacrifice to one vanity. Now the draft had been called back. That seemed proof that the Government meant to starve the line! McKechnie groaned:
‘Poor — old Bird! … He’s booked. Eleven months in the front line, he’s been… . Eleven months! … I was nine, this stretch. With him.’
He added:
‘Get back into bed, old bean… . I’ll go and look after the men if it’s necessary… .’
Tietjens said:
‘You don’t so much as know where their lines are… .’ And sat listening. Nothing but the long roll of tongues came to him. He said:
‘Damn it! The men ought not to be kept standing in the cold like that… .’ Fury filled him beneath despair. His eyes filled with tears. ‘God,’ he said to himself, ‘the fellow Levin presumes to interfere in my private affairs… . Damn it,’ he said again, ‘it’s like doing a little impertinence in a world that’s foundering… .’
The world was foundering.
‘I’d go out,’ he said, ‘but I don’t want to have to put that filthy little Pitkins under arrest. He only drinks because he’s shell-shocked. He’s not man enough else, the unclean little Nonconformist… .’
McKechnie said:
‘Hold on! … I’m a Presbyterian myself… .’
Tietjens answered:
‘You would be! …’ He said: ‘I beg your pardon… . There will be no more parades… . The British Army is dishonoured for ever… .’
McKechnie said:
‘That’s all right, old bean… .’
Tietjens exclaimed with sudden violence:
‘What the hell are you doing in the officers’ lines? … Don’t you know it’s a court-martial offence?’
He was confronted with the broad, mealy face of his regimental quartermaster-sergeant, the sort of fellow who wore an officer’s cap against the regulations, with a Tommie’s silver-plated badge. A man determined to get Sergeant-Major Cowley’s job. The man had come in unheard under the roll of voices outside. He said:
‘Excuse me, sir, I took the liberty of knocking… . The sergeant-major is in an epileptic fit. I wanted your directions before putting the draft into the tents with the other men… .’ Having said that tentatively he hazarded cautiously: ‘The sergeant-major throws these fits, sir, if he is suddenly woke up… . And Second-Lieutenant Pitkins woke him very suddenly… .’
Tietjens said:
‘So you took on you the job of a beastly informer against both of them… . I shan’t forget it.’ He said to himself:
‘I’ll get this fellow one day …’ and he seemed to hear with pleasure the clicking and tearing of the scissors as, inside three parts of a hollow square, they cut off his stripes and badges.
McKechnie exclaimed:
‘Good God, man, you aren’t going out in nothing but your pyjamas. Put your slacks on under your British warm… .’
Tietjens said:
‘Send the Canadian sergeant-major to me at the double… .’ to the quarter. ‘My slacks are at the tailor’s, being pressed.’ His slacks were being pressed for the ceremony of the signing of the marriage contract of Levin, the fellow who had interfered in his private affairs. He continued into the mealy broad face and vague eyes of the quartermaster: ‘You know as well as I do that it was the Canadian sergeant-major’s job to report to me… . I’ll let you off this time, but, by God, if I catch you spying round the officers’ lines again you are for a D.C.M… .’
He wrapped a coarse, Red Cross, grey-wool muffler under the turned-up collar of his British warm.
‘That swine,’ he said to McKechnie, ‘spies on the officers’ lines in the hope of getting a commission by catching out – little squits like Pitkins, when they’re drunk… . I’m seven hundred braces down. Morgan does not know that I know that I’m that much down. But you can bet he knows where they have gone… .’
McKechnie said:
‘I wish you would not go out like that… . I’ll make you some cocoa… .’
Tietjens said:
‘I can’t keep the men waiting while I dress… . I’m as strong as a horse.’
He was out amongst the bitterness, the mist, and the moongleams on three thousand rifle barrels, and the voices… . He was seeing the Germans pour through a thin line, and his heart was leaden… . A tall, graceful man swam up against him and said, through his nose, like any American:
‘There has been a railway accident, due to the French strikers. The draft is put back till three pip emma the day after to-morrow, sir.’
Tietjens exclaimed:
‘It isn’t countermanded?’ breathlessly.
The Canadian sergeant-major said:
‘No, sir… . A railway accident … Sabotage by the French, they say… . Four Glamorganshire sergeants, all nineteen-fourteen men, killed, sir, going home on leave. But the draft is not cancelled… .’ Tietjens said:
‘Thank God!’
The slim Canadian with his educated voice said:
‘You’re thanking God, sir, for what’s very much to our detriment. Our draft was ordered for Salonika till this morning. The sergeant in charge of draft returns showed me the name Salonika scored off in his draft roster. Sergeant-Major Cowley had got hold of the wrong story. Now it’s going up the line. The other would have been a full two months’ more life for us.’
The man’s rather slow voice seemed to continue for a long time. As it went on Tietjens felt the sunlight dwelling on his nearly coverless limbs, and the tide of youth returning to his veins. It was like champagne. He said:
‘You sergeants get a great deal too much information. The sergeant in charge of returns had no business to show you his roster. It’s not your fault, of course. But you are an intelligent man. You can see how useful that news might be to certain people, people that it’s not to your own interest should know these things… .’ He said to himself: ‘A landmark in history …’ And then: ‘Where the devil did my mind get hold of that expression at this moment?’
They were walking in mist, down an immense lane, one hedge of which was topped by the serrated heads and irregularly held rifles that showed here and there. He said to the sergeant-major: ‘Call ’em to attention. Never mind their dressing, we’ve got to get ’em into bed. Roll-call will be at nine to-morrow.’
His mind said:
‘If this means the single command… . And it’s bound to mean the single command, it’s the turning point… . Why the hell am I so extraordinarily glad? What’s it to me?’
He was shouting in a round voice:
‘Now then, men, you’ve got to go six extra in a tent. See if you can fall out six at a time at each tent. It’s not in the drill book, but see if you can do it for yourselves. You’re smart men: use your intelligences. The sooner you get to bed the sooner you’ll be warm. I wish I was. Don’t disturb the men who’re already in the tents. They’ve got to be up for fatigues to-morrow at five, poor devils. You can lie soft till three hours after that… . The draft will move to the left in fours… . Form fours … Left …’ Whilst the voices of the sergeants in charge of companies yelped varyingly to a distance in the quick march order he said to himself:
‘Extraordinarily glad … A strong passion … How damn well these fellows move! … Cannon fodder … Cannon fodder … That’s what their steps say… .’ His whole body shook in the grip of the cold that beneath his loose overcoat gnawed his pyjamaed limbs. He could not leave the men, but cantered beside them with the sergeant-major till he came to the head of the column in the open in time to wheel the first double company into a line of ghosts that were tents, silent and austere in the moon’s very shadowy light… . It appeared to him a magic spectacle. He said to the sergeant-major: ‘Move the second company to B line, and so on’, and stood at the side of the men as they wheeled, stamp
ing, like a wall in motion. He thrust his stick half-way down between the second and third files. ‘Now then, a four and half a four to the right; remaining half-four and next four to the left. Fall out into first tents to right and left… .’ He continued saying ‘First four and half, this four to the right… . Damn you, by the left! How can you tell which beastly four you belong to if you don’t march by the left… . Remember you’re soldiers, not new-chum lumbermen… .’
It was sheer exhilaration to freeze there on the downside in the extraordinarily pure air with the extraordinarily fine men. They came round, marking time with the stamp of guardsmen. He said, with tears in his voice:
‘Damn it all, I gave them that extra bit of smartness… . Damn it all, there’s something I’ve done… .’ Getting cattle into condition for the slaughterhouse… . They were as eager as bullocks running down by Camden Town to Smithfield Market… . Seventy per cent of them would never come back… . But it’s better to go to heaven with your skin shining and master of your limbs than as a hulking lout… . The Almighty’s orderly room will welcome you better in all probability… . He continued exclaiming monotonously: ‘Remaining half-four and next four to the left… . Hold your beastly tongues when you fall out. I can’t hear myself give orders… .’ It lasted a long time. Then they were all swallowed up.
He staggered, his knees wooden-stiff with the cold, and the cold more intense now the wall of men no longer sheltered him from the wind, out along the brink of the plateau to the other lines. It gave him satisfaction to observe that he had got his men into their lines seventy-five per cent quicker than the best of the N.C.O.s who had had charge of the other lines. Nevertheless, he swore bitingly at the sergeants; their men were in knots round the entrance to the alleys of ghost-pyramids… . Then there were no more, and he drifted with regret across the plain towards his country street of huts. One of them had a coarse evergreen rose growing over it. He picked a leaf, pressed it to his lips and threw it up into the wind… . ‘That’s for Valentine,’ he said meditatively. ‘Why did I do that? … Or perhaps it’s for England… .’ He said: ‘Damn it all, this is patriotism! … This is patriotism… .’ It wasn’t what you took patriotism as a rule to be. There were supposed to be more parades about that job! … But this was just a broke to the wide, wheezy, half-frozen Yorkshireman, who despised everyone in England not a Yorkshireman, or from more to the North, at two in the morning picking a leaf from a rose-tree and slobbering over it, without knowing what he was doing. And then discovering that it was half for a pug-nosed girl whom he presumed, but didn’t know, to smell like a primrose; and half for … England! At two in the morning with the thermometer ten degrees below zero… . Damn, it was cold! …