Presently Colonel Tickeridge cheerfully intruded on his despondency.
“Well, uncle, nice to have seen you; I expect you want to get back to your own people. You’ll have to walk, I’m afraid. The adj. and I are going round the companies again.”
“Can I come too?”
Colonel Tickeridge hesitated, then said: “The more the merrier.”
As they went forward he asked news of Matchet. “You staff wallahs get all the luck. We’ve had no mail since we went into Greece.”
The Second Halberdiers and the New Zealanders lay across the main road, their flanks resting on the steep scree that enclosed the valley. D Company were on the far right flank, strung out along a water-course. To reach them there was open ground to be crossed. As Colonel Tickeridge and his party emerged from cover a burst of fire met them.
“Hullo,” he said, “the Jerries are a lot nearer than they were this morning.”
They ran for some rocks and approached cautiously and circuitously. When they finally dropped into the ditch they found Sergeant-Major Rawkes.
“They’ve brought up another mortar.”
“Can you pin-point it?”
“They keep moving. They’re going easy with their ammunition at present but they’ve got the range.”
Colonel Tickeridge stood and searched the land ahead through his field-glasses. A bomb burst ten yards behind; all crouched low while a shower of stone and metal rang overhead.
“We haven’t anything to spare for counter-attack,” said Colonel Tickeridge. “You’ll have to give a bit of ground.”
In training Guy had often wondered whether the exercises at Penkirk bore any semblance to real warfare. Here they did. This was no Armageddon, no torrent of uniformed migration, no clash of mechanical monsters; it was the conventional “battalion in defense,” opposed by lightly armed, equally weary small forces. Ritchie-Hook had done little to inculcate the arts of withdrawal, but the present action conformed to pattern. While Colonel Tickeridge gave his orders, Guy moved down the bank. He found de Souza and his depleted platoon. He had a picturesque bandage round his head. Under it his sallow face was grave.
“Lost a bit of my ear,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt. But I’ll be glad when today is over.”
“You’re retiring at midnight, I gather.”
“ ‘Retiring’ is good. It sounds like a maiden aunt going to bed.”
“I daresay you’ll be in Alexandria before me,” said Guy. “Hookforce is last out, covering the embarkation. I don’t get the impression that the Germans are anxious to attack.”
“D’you know what I think, uncle? I think they want to escort us quietly into the ships. Then they can sink us at their leisure from the air. A much tidier way of doing things.”
A bomb exploded short of them.
“I wish I could spot that damned mortar,” said de Souza.
Then an orderly summoned him to company headquarters. Guy went with him and rejoined Colonel Tickeridge.
It took little time to mount the withdrawal on the flank. Guy watched the battalion adjust itself to its new line. Everything was done correctly. Colonel Tickeridge gave his orders for the hours of darkness and for the final retreat. Guy made notes of times and lines of march in which the Halberdiers and New Zealanders would pass through Hookforce. Then he took his leave.
“If you run across any blue jobs,” said Colonel Tickeridge, “tell them to wait for us.”
For the third time Guy followed the road south. Night fell. The road filled with many men. Guy found the remnants of his headquarters where he had left them. They fell in and set out into the darkness. They marched all night, one silent component of the procession of lagging, staggering men.
Another day; another night.
VII
“Night and day,” crooned Trimmer, “you are the one. Only you beneath the moon and under the sun, in the roaring traffic’s boom—”
“Listen,” said Ian Kilbannock severely, “you are coming to the Savoy to meet the American Press.”
“In the silence of my lonely room, I think of you.”
“Trimmer.”
“I’ve met them.”
“Not these. These are Scab Dunz, Bum Schlum and Joe Mulligan. They’re great fellows. Scab, Bum and Joe. Their stories are syndicated all over the United States. Trimmer, if you don’t stop warbling I shall recommend your return to regimental duties in Iceland. Bum and Scab are naturally anti-fascist. Joe is more doubtful. He’s Boston Irish and he doesn’t awfully care for us.”
“I’m sick of the Press. D’you see what the Daily Beast are calling me—‘The Demon Barber’?”
“Their phrase, not ours. I wish I’d thought of it.”
“Anyway, I’m lunching with Virginia.”
“I’ll get you out of that.”
“It isn’t exactly a hard date.”
“Leave it to me.”
Ian picked up the telephone and Trimmer lapsed into song.
“There’s oh such a burning, yearning, churning under the hide of me.”
“Virginia? Ian. Colonel Trimmer regrets he’s unable to lunch today, madam.”
“The Demon Barber? It never occurred to me to lunch with him. Ian, do something, will you? for an old friend. Persuade your young hero that he utterly nauseates me.”
“Is that quite kind?”
“There are dozens of girls eager to go out with him. Why must he pick on me?”
“He says there’s a voice within him keeps repeating, ‘You, you, you.’ ”
“Tell him to go to hell, Ian, like an angel.”
Ian rang off.
“She says you’re to go to hell,” he reported.
“Oh.”
“Why don’t you lay off Virginia? There’s nothing in it for you.”
“But there is, there was. She can’t put on this standoffish turn with me. Why, in Glasgow—”
“Trimmer, you must have seen enough of me to know that I’m the last man in the world you should choose to confide in—particularly on questions of love. You must forget all about Virginia, all about these London girls you’ve been going about with lately. I’ve got a great treat in store for you. I’m going to take you round the factories. You’re going to boost production. Lunch-hour talks. Canteen dances. We’ll find you all kinds of delicious girls. You’re in for a lovely time, Trimmer, in the midlands, in the north, far away from London. But meanwhile you must do your bit for Anglo-American relations with Scab and Bum and Joe. There’s a war on.”
In the staff-car which took them to the Savoy, Ian tried to put Trimmer in the picture.
“… You won’t find Joe much interested in military operations, I’m glad to say. He’s been brought up to distrust the ‘red coats.’ He looks on us all as feudal colonial oppressors, which, I will say for you, Trimmer, you definitely are not. We’ve got to sell him the new Britain that is being forged in the furnace of war. Dammit, Trimmer, I don’t believe you’re listening.”
Nor was he. A voice within him kept forlornly repeating, “You, you, you.”
Ian Kilbannock, like Ludovic, had a gift of tongues. He spoke one language to his friends, another to Trimmer and General Whale, another to Bum, Scab and Joe.
“Hiya, boys,” he cried, entering the room. “Look what the cat’s brought in.”
It was not for economy that these three fat, untidy men lived cheek by jowl together; their expense accounts were limitless. Nor was it, as sometimes in the past, for motives of professional rivalry; in this city of communiqués and censorship there were no scoops to be had, no need to watch the opposition. It was the simple wish for companionship; their common condition of exile; the state of their nerves. Low diet, deep drinking and nightly alarms had transformed them, or rather had greatly accelerated processes of decay that were barely noticeable in the three far-feared ace reporters who had jauntily landed in England more than a year ago. They had covered the fall of Addis Ababa, of Barcelona, of Vienna, of Prague. They were here to cover t
he fall of London and the story had somehow gotten stale. Meanwhile they were subject to privations and dangers which, man and boy, they had boastfully endured for days at a time, but which, prolonged indefinitely and widely shared, became irksome.
Their room overlooked the river but the windows had been criss-crossed with sticking plaster and few gleams of sunshine penetrated them. Inside, the electric light burned. There were three typewriters, three cabin-trunks, three beds, a tumbled mass of papers and clothes, numberless cigarette-ends, dirty glasses, clean glasses, empty bottles, full bottles. Three pairs of bloodshot eyes gazed at Trimmer from three putty-colored faces.
“Bum, Scab, Joe, this is the boy you’ve all been wanting to meet.”
“Is that a fact?” asked Joe.
“Colonel McTavish, I’m pleased to meet you,” said Bum.
“Colonel Trimmer, I’m pleased to meet you,” said Scab.
“Hey,” said Joe. “Who is this joker? McTavish? Trimmer?”
“That is still being discussed at a high level,” said Ian. “I’ll let you know for certain before your story is released.”
“What story?” asked Joe balefully.
Scab came to the rescue.
“Don’t mind Joe, colonel. Let me fix you a drink.”
“Joe isn’t feeling too hot this morning,” said Bum.
“I just asked what’s the guy’s name and what’s the story. What’s not too hot about that?”
“What say we all have a drink?” said Bum.
Of Trimmer’s abounding weaknesses hard drinking was not one. He did not enjoy whisky before luncheon. He refused the glass thrust upon him.
“What’s wrong with the guy?” asked Joe.
“Commando training,” said Ian.
“Is that so? Well, I’m just a goddam newsman and I don’t train. When a guy won’t drink with me, I drink alone.”
Scab was the most courtly of the trio.
“I can guess where you want to be right now, colonel,” he said.
“Yes,” said Trimmer, “Glasgow, in the station hotel, in a fog.”
“No, sir. Where you want to be right now is in Crete. Your boys are putting up a wonderful fight there. You heard the Old Man on the radio last night? There is no question, he said, of evacuating Crete. The attack has been held. The defense is being reinforced. It’s a turning-point. There’s going to be no more withdrawal.”
“We’re with you in this,” said Bum generously, “all the way. I don’t say there haven’t been times I’ve hated you limeys’ guts. Abyssinia, Spain, Munich, that’s all done with, colonel. What wouldn’t I give to be in Crete. That’s where the news is today.”
“You may remember,” said Ian, “you asked me to bring Colonel McTavish to lunch. You thought he could give you a story.”
“That’s right. We did, didn’t we? Well, how about we have another drink first, even if the colonel can’t join us?”
They drank and they smoked. The hands which lit the cigarettes became steadier with each glass, the genial tones more emotional.
“I like you, Ian, even if you are a lord. Hell, a man can’t help it if he’s a lord. You’re all right, Ian, I like you.”
“Thank you, Bum.”
“I like the colonel, too. He don’t say much and he don’t drink any but I like him. He’s a regular guy.”
Even Joe softened enough to say: “Anybody says the colonel isn’t all right, I’ll punch his teeth in.”
“Everyone says the colonel’s all right, Joe.”
“They better.”
Presently the time for luncheon passed.
“There isn’t anything fit to eat around here, anyway,” said Joe.
“I’m not hungry right now myself,” said Bum.
“Food? I can take it or leave it,” said Scab.
“Now, boys,” said Ian. “Colonel McTavish is a pretty busy man. He’s here to give you his story. How about asking him anything you want now?”
“All right,” said Joe. “What else have you done, colonel? That raid of yours was good copy. They ate it up back home. You got decorated. You got made colonel. So what? Where else have you been? Tell us what you did this week and the week before. How come you’re not in Crete?”
“I’ve been on leave,” said Trimmer.
“Well, that’s a hell of a story.”
“Here’s the angle, boys,” said Ian. “The colonel here is a portent—the new officer which is emerging from the old hide-bound British Army.”
“How do I know he’s not high-bound?”
“Joe, you don’t have to be so suspicious,” said Scab. “Anyone with eyes in his head can see he isn’t hide-bound.”
“He doesn’t look high-bound,” Joe conceded, “but how do I know he isn’t. Are you high-bound?”
“He’s not hide-bound,” said Ian.
“Why don’t you let the colonel answer for himself? I put it to you colonel, are you or are you not high-bound?”
“No,” said Trimmer.
“That’s all I wanted to know,” said Joe.
“You asked him. He told you,” said Bum.
“Now I know, so what the hell?”
Presently through the fumes of tobacco and whisky a great earnestness enveloped Scab.
“You’re not hide-bound, colonel, and I’ll tell you why. You’ve had advantages these stuff-shirts haven’t had. You’ve worked, colonel. And where have you worked? On an ocean liner. And who have you worked for? For American womanhood. Am I right or am I right? It all ties in. I can make a great piece out of this. How it’s the casual personal contacts that make international alliances. The beauty parlor as the school of democracy. You must have had some very very lovely contacts on that ocean liner, colonel.”
“I had the pick of the bunch,” said Trimmer.
“Tell them,” said Ian, “about your American friends.”
A small pink gleam of professional interest broke in the journalists’ eyes while Trimmer by contrast lapsed into trance.
“There was Mrs. Troy,” he began.
“I don’t think that’s quite what the boys want,” said Ian.
“Not every voyage, of course, but two or three times a year. Four times in 1938 when half our regulars were keeping away because of the situation in Europe. She wasn’t afraid,” mused Trimmer. “I always looked for her name on the passenger list. Before it was printed I used to slip into the office and take a dekko. There was something about her—well, you know how it is—like music. When she had a hangover I was the only one who could help. There was something about me, she said, the way I massaged the back of her neck.”
“But you must have met other, more typical Americans?”
“She isn’t typical. She isn’t American except she married one and she hadn’t any use for him. She’s something quite apart.”
“They aren’t interested in Mrs. Troy,” said Ian. “Tell them about the others.”
“Old trouts mostly,” said Trimmer, “Mrs. Stuyvesant Oglander. There were smart ones too, of course, Astors, Vanderbilts, Cuttings, Whitneys—they all came to me, but nobody was like Mrs. Troy.”
“What I had in mind for my readers, colonel, was something a little more homey.”
Trimmer had his pride. He awoke now from his reverie, sharply piqued.
“I never touched the homey ones,” he said.
“Goddammit,” cried Joe in triumph. “What d’you know? The colonel is high-bound.”
Then Ian abandoned this phase of Anglo-American friendship and within a few minutes he and Trimmer stood in the Strand vainly searching for a taxi. It was the moment of Guy’s despair at Babali Hani. Their prospect, too, was dismal. The London crowd shuffled past, men in a diversity of drab uniforms, women in the strange new look of the decade—trousered, turbaned, cigarettes adhering and drooping from grubby weary faces; all of them surfeited with tea and Woolton pies, all of them bearing gas-masks which bumped and swung to their ungainly tread.
“You didn’t do very well,”
said Ian severely.
“I’m hungry.”
“You won’t find anything to eat at this time of day. I’m going home.”
“Shall I come with you?”
“No.”
“Will Virginia be there?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“She was when you telephoned.”
“She was just going out.”
“I haven’t seen her for a week. She’s given up her job at the Transit Camp. I’ve asked the other girls. They won’t say where she’s working. You know how girls are.”
Ian looked sorrowfully at his protégé. It was in his mind to offer some sort of exhortation, to remind him of the coming delights of the armament industry, but Trimmer looked so sorrowfully back at him that he merely said: “Well, I’m walking to H.O.O. You’ll be hearing from me,” and turning, set off towards Trafalgar Square.
Trimmer followed as far as the tube station, then broke off without a word and descended, a sad little song in his heart, to a platform lined with bunks where he waited long for a crowded train.
At Marchmain House H.O.O., revitalized by the new exalted enthusiasm for Special Service troops, was expanding. More flats were added and more faces. It was here, in Ian’s office, that Virginia Troy had taken refuge.
“Have you shaken off the Demon?” she asked.
“He just melted away, humming horribly. Virginia, I’ve got to talk to you seriously about Trimmer. The welfare of the department is at stake. Do you realize that he constitutes our sole contribution to the war effort to date? I have never seen a man so changed by success. A month ago he was all bounce. With that accent, that smile, and that lock of hair he was absolutely cut out to be a great national figure. Look at him today. I doubt if he’ll last the summer. I’ve already seen Air Marshal Beech break up under my eyes. I know the symptoms. It mustn’t happen again. I shall get a bad name in the service and this time it isn’t my fault at all. As the victim has remarked, it’s you, you, you. Do I have to remind you that you came to me with tears and made my home life hideous until I got you this job? I expect a little loyalty in return.”
“But, Ian, why d’you suppose I wanted to leave the canteen except to get away from Trimmer?”