Parade's End (99 page)

Tietjens surprised himself by saying:

‘Oh, we’ll beat them yet!’ It was an expression of impracticable optimism. He sought to justify his words by saying that their Army Commander’s having put up such a damn good fight in spite of the most criminal form of civilian interference had begun to put a stopper on their games. Campion’s coming was a proof that soldiers were going to be allowed to have some say in the conduct of the war. It meant the single command… . Gibbs expressed a muted satisfaction. If the French took over those lines as they certainly would if they had the Single Command he would no doubt be able to go home and see his children. All their divisions would have to be taken out of the lines to be reorganised and brought up to strength.

Tietjens said:

‘As to what we were talking about… . Supposing you detailed outside section leaders and another file to keep in touch with the Wiltshires and they did the same. Supposing that for purposes of recognition they wore handkerchiefs round their right and left arms respectively… . It has been done… .’

‘The Huns,’ Captain Gibbs said grimly, ‘would probably pick them off specially. They’d probably pick off specially anyone who had any sort of badge. So you would be worse off.’

They were going at his request to look at a section of his trench. Orderly Room had ordered him to make arrangements for machine-gun performances there. He couldn’t. It didn’t exist. Nothing existed. He supposed that to have been the new Austrian gun. New probably,
but
why Austrian? The Austrians did not usually interest themselves much in high explosives. This one, whatever it was, threw something that buried itself and then blew up half the universe with astonishingly little noise and commotion; just lifted up, like a hippopotamus. He, Gibbs, had hardly noticed anything as you would have if it had been, say, a mine. When they came and told him that a mine had gone off there he would not believe them… . But you could see for yourself that it looked exactly as if a mine had been chucking things about. A small mine. But still a mine… .

In the shelter of the broken end of the trench a fatigue of six men worked with pick and shovel, patiently, two at a time. They threw up mud and stones and patted them and, stepping down into the thus created vacancy, threw up more mud and stones. Water oozed about, uncertain where to go. There must be a spring there. That hillside was honeycombed with springs… .

You would certainly have said there had been a mine there. If we had been advancing it would have been a small mine left by the Huns to cheer us up. But we had retreated on to ground we had always held. So it couldn’t have been a mine.

Also it kicked the ground forward and backward and relatively little laterally, so that the deep hole it had created more resembled the entry into a rudimentary shaft than the usually circular shell-hole. A mound existed between Tietjens and ‘B’ Company trench, considerably higher than you could see over. A vast mound; a miniature Primrose Hill. But much bigger than anything they had seen created by flying pigs or other aerial missiles as yet. Anyhow the mound was high enough to give Tietjens a chance to get round it in cover and shuffle down into ‘B’ Company’s line. He said to Gibbs:

‘We shall have to see about that machine-gun place. Don’t come any further with me. Make those fellows keep their heads down and send them back if the Huns seem like sending over any more dirt.’

VI

TIETJENS RECLINED ON
the reverse slope of the considerable mound in the sunlight. He had to be alone, to reflect
on
his sentimental situation and his machine-guns. He had been kept so out of the affairs of the unit that he had suddenly remembered that he knew nothing whatever about his machine-guns, or even about the fellow who had to look after him. A new fellow called Cobbe, who looked rather vacant, with an immense sunburnt nose and an open mouth. Not, on the face of him, alert enough for his job. But you never knew.

He was hungry. He had eaten practically nothing since seven the night before, and had been on his feet the greater part of the time.

He sent Lance-Corporal Duckett to ‘A’ Company dug-out, to ask if they could favour him with a sandwich and some coffee with rum in it. He sent Second-Lieutenant Aranjuez to ‘B’ Company to tell them that he was coming to take a look round on their men and quarters. ‘B’ Company Commander for the moment was a very young boy just out from an O.T.C. It was annoying that he had an outside Company. But Constantine, the former Commander, had been killed the night before last. He was, in fact, said to be the gentleman whose remains hung in the barbed wire which was what made Tietjens doubtful whether it could be he. He should not have been so far to the left if he had been bringing his Company in. Anyhow, there had been no one to replace him but this boy – Bennett. A good boy. So shy that he could hardly give a word of command on parade, but yet with all his wits about him. And blessed with an uncommonly experienced Company sergeant-major. One of the original old Glamorganshires. Well, beggars could not be choosers. The Company had reported that morning five cases of the influenza that was said to be ravaging the outside world. Here then was another thing for which they had to thank the outside world – this band of rag-time solitaries! They let the outside world severely alone; they were, truly, hermits. Then the outside world did this to them. Why not leave them to their monastic engrossedness?

Even the rotten and detestable Huns had it! They were said by the Divisional news-sheets to have it so badly that whole Divisions were incapable of effective action. That might be a lie, invented for the purpose of heartening us; but it was probably true. The German men were apparently beastly underfed, and, at that, only on substitute-foods
of
relatively small percentage of nutritive value. The papers brought over by that N.C.O. had certainly spoken urgently of the necessity of taking every precaution against the spread of this flail. Another circular violently and lachrymosely assured the troops that they were as well fed as the civilian populations and the Corps of Officers. Apparently there had been some sort of scandal. A circular of which he had not had time to read the whole ended up with an assertion something like: ‘Thus the honour of the Corps of Officers has been triumphantly vindicated.’

It was a ghastly thought, that of that whole vast territory that confronted them, filled with millions of half-empty stomachs that bred disorders in the miserable brains. Those fellows must be the most miserable human beings that had ever existed. God knows, the life of our own Tommies must be Hell. But those fellows … It would not bear thinking of.

And it was curious to consider how the hatred that one felt for the inhabitants of those regions seemed to skip in a wide trajectory over the embattled ground. It was the civilian populations and their rulers that one hated with real hatred. Now the swine were starving the poor devils in the trenches.

They were detestable. The German fighters and their Intelligence and staffs were merely boring and grotesque. Unending nuisances. For he was confoundedly irritated to think of the mess they had made of his nice clean trenches. It was like when you go out for an hour and leave your dog in the drawing-room. You come back and find that it has torn to pieces all your sofa-cushions. You would like to knock its head off… . So you would like to knock the German soldiers’ heads off. But you did not wish them much real harm. Nothing like having to live in that hell on perpetually half-empty, windy stomachs with the nightmares they set up! Naturally influenza was decimating them.

Anyhow, Germans were the sort of people that influenza
would
bowl over. They were bores because they came for ever true to type. You read their confounded circulars and they made you grin whilst a little puking. They were like continual caricatures of themselves and they were continually hysterical… . Hypochondriacal… . Corps of Officers… . Proud German Army… . His Glorious Majesty… . Mighty Deeds… . Not much of the Rag-time
Army
about that, and that was welling out continuously all the time … Hypochondria!

A rag-time army was not likely to have influenza so badly. It felt neither its moral nor its physical pulse… . Still, here was influenza in ‘B’ Company. They must have got it from the Huns the night before last. ‘B’ Company had had them jump in on top of them; then and there had been hand-to-hand fighting. It was a nuisance. ‘B’ Company was a nuisance. It had naturally been stuck into the dampest and lowest part of their line. Their company dug-out was reported to be like a well with a dripping roof. It would take ‘B’ Company to be afflicted with such quarters… . It was difficult to see what to do – not to drain their quarters, but to exorcise their ill-luck. Still, it would have to be done. He was going into their quarters to make a
strafe
, but he sent Aranjuez to announce his coming so as to give the decent young Company Commander a chance to redd up his house… .

The beastly Huns! They stood between him and Valentine Wannop. If they would go home he could be sitting talking to her for whole afternoons. That was what a young woman was for. You seduced a young woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her. You could not do that without living with her. You could not live with her without seducing her; but that was the by-product. The point is that you can’t otherwise talk. You can’t finish talks at street corners; in museums; even in drawing-rooms. You mayn’t be in the mood when she is in the mood – for the intimate conversation that means the final communion of your souls. You have to wait together – for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained … and exhausted. So that …

That in effect was love. It struck him as astonishing. The word was so little in his vocabulary… . Love, ambition, the desire for wealth. They were things he had never known of as existing – as capable of existing within him. He had been the Younger Son, loafing, contemptuous, capable, idly contemplating life, but ready to take up the position of the Head of the Family if Death so arranged matters. He had been a sort of eternal Second-in-Command.

Now what the Hell was he? A sort of Hamlet of the Trenches! No, by God he was not… . He was perfectly
ready
for action. Ready to command a battalion. He was presumably a lover. They did things like commanding battalions. And worse!

He ought to write her a letter. What in the world would she think of this gentleman who had once made improper proposals to her; balked; said ‘So long!’ or perhaps not even ‘So long!’ And then walked off. With never a letter! Not even a picture postcard! For two years! A sort of a Hamlet all right! Or a swine!

Well, then, he ought to write her a letter. He ought to say: ‘This is to tell you that I propose to live with you as soon as this show is over. You will be prepared immediately on cessation of active hostilities to put yourself at my disposal; please. Signed, Xtopher Tietjens, Acting O.C. 9th Glams.’ A proper military communication. She would be pleased to see that he was commanding a battalion. Or perhaps she would not be pleased. She was a Pro-German. She loved these tiresome fellows who tore his, Tietjens’, sofa-cushions to pieces.

That was not fair. She was a Pacifist. She thought these proceedings pestilential and purposeless. Well, there were times when they appeared purposeless enough. Look at what had happened to his neat gravel walks. And to the marl too. Though that served the purpose of letting him sit sheltered. In the sunlight! With any number of larks. Someone once wrote:

A myriad larks in unison sang o’er her, soaring out of sight!

That was imbecile really. Larks cannot sing in unison. They make a heartless noise like that produced by the rubbing of two corks one on the other… . There came into his mind an image. Years ago; years and years ago, probably after having watched that gunner torment the fat Hun, because it had been below Max Redoubt… . The sun was now for certain shining on Bemerton! Well, he could never be a country parson. He was going to live with Valentine Wannop! … he had been coming down the reverse side of the range, feeling good. Probably because he had got out of that O.P. which the German guns had been trying to find. He went down with long strides, the tops of thistles brushing his hips. Obviously the thistles contained things that attracted flies. They are apt to after a famous victory. So myriads of swallows pursued him,
swirling
round and round him, their wings touching; for a matter of twenty yards all round and their wings brushing him and the tops of the thistles. And as the blue sky was reflected in the blue of their backs – for their backs were below his eyes – he had felt like a Greek God striding through the sea… .

The larks were less inspiring. Really, they were abusing the German guns. Imbecilely and continuously, they were screaming imprecations and threats. They had been relatively sparse until just now. Now that the shells were coming back from a mile or so off, the sky was thick with larks. A myriad – two myriad – corks at once. Not in unison. Sang o’er him, soaring out of sight! … You might almost say that it was a sign that the Germans were going to shell you again. Wonderful ‘hinstinct’ set by the Almighty in their little bosoms! It was perhaps also accurate. No doubt the shells as they approached more and more shook the earth and disturbed the little bosoms on their nests. So they got up and shouted; perhaps warning each other; perhaps mere defiance of the artillery.

He was going to write to Valentine Wannop. It was a clumsy swine’s trick not to have written to her before. He had proposed to seduce her; hadn’t done it, and had gone off without a word… . Considering himself rather a swell, too!

He said:

‘Did you get a bit to eat, Corporal?’

The Corporal balanced himself before Tietjens on the slope of the mound. He blushed, rubbing his right sole on his left instep, holding in his right hand a small tin can and a cup, in his left an immaculate towel containing a small cube.

Tietjens debated whether he should first drink of the coffee and army rum to increase his zest for the sandwiches, or whether he should first eat the sandwiches and so acquire more thirst for the coffee… . It would be reprehensible to write to Valentine Wannop. The act of the cold-blooded seducer. Reprehensible! … It depended on what was in the sandwiches. It would be agreeable to fill the void below and inwards from his breast-bone. But whether do it first with a solid or warm moisture?