Private's Progress (6 page)

They let her in and stood by respectfully, faces red with their recent merry-making, till she and the barrister went off to the privacy of his cell. Then they burst again to the window.

“Smasher, eh?” they said. “Nice bitta stuff. ’Ere, now, gissa fag. Go on. Giss one.”

They cadged one apiece and then rushed away to
telephone
for their tea to be brought from the cook-house.

Stanley’s corporal came up with his documents, sent Stanley back for his belt and bayonet, and the two of them moved off to Gravestone East station. On the way the corporal explained the strategy of escorts.

“Best way,” he explained, “is drag it out much as you can, and get subsistence allowance. You’re not allowed to travel at night so, stands to reason; the further you have to go—say Liverpool, that’s quite nice—the longer you can make it last. You got to use yer loaf, of course, and you want to make sure you get in all the time you can
before
you collect the prisoner. Why, what with just missing trains and that, one escort I was on to a bit north of Glasgow lasted nigh on a week. Just right,” he added with some satisfaction as they came down the station approach to see the up-train disappearing beyond the platform, “that’s an hour forty minutes. We’ll just ’ang about till the Green Dog opens up. You got your shaving and tooth kit, ’ave you?”

“Well, no,” said Stanley.

“Never mind, lad,” said the corporal. “Now about these escorts. Once we get the geezer we mustn’t leave him both at once. That’s what I say: pick him up at the last possible moment. And you mustn’t draw your bayonet, only if he gets dangerous, and I ’ear this one isn’t. Now if only it was Scotland,” he sighed. “Ah well, mussengrumble.”

They hung about for the Green Dog, and the corporal went into details about his recent leave.

He was still enlarging on it after their two pints apiece, pausing only to change the railway warrants for tickets at the booking-office.

“Yes,” said Stanley, “I should imagine she
would
be looking forward to your next leave.”

In the train the corporal brought out some primitive handcuffs.

“We don’t use these,” he said, “being he’s not dangerous. Anyhow, watch.” He clicked them on himself and then banged them on the window ledge, denting the woodwork and causing the bracelets to snap open.

By the time they had changed at an obscure South London junction and reached Woolwich the stars were coming out.

“’Ere we are,” said the corporal cheerfully. “Now we phone up the barracks here and they say: ‘Leave it till the morning.’ Best thing—we go along and book in there and fix things up for nippin’ orf out and back at reveille. Then we collect this bloke from the
Guard-Room
after breakfast.”

“A
DISCOVERY
!”
CRIED
Desmond, holding up half a whole-wheat loaf. “In the recesses of this
cupboard
this fine green mould has been blushing unseen ever since the nasty Nita left.”

He was a pale young man, temporarily associated with a group of indecisive anarchists in the Charlotte Street area. He had a thin, weakly aquiline face and wavy blond hair. Since Nita’s passionate departure from their flat back to somebody else’s husband Catherine had adopted both Desmond and a Wykehamist-
turned-tramp
, introduced as a friend of a friend by a man she knew at the Parapluie. Both of them irritated Philip even more than Nita had done.

“Could that frightful Philip of yours use it for a still-life, I wonder?” said Desmond, putting it gingerly down.

“Don’t be tiresome, Desmond,” said Catherine. “Philip’s a sweet, even if he doesn’t understand you like I do. I shall be Hoovering this place in a minute—aren’t you going to your bookshop? It’s nine.”

“And
he
’s
still asleep,” said Desmond furiously. He sat down and gazed bitterly at the gas fire.

“He never speaks to me,” went on Desmond. “Every day he just says: ‘You still here?’ Beast.”

“Does he call you a beast?” asked Catherine with
some interest, locking the sugar away in the corner cupboard. “Poor Desmond! Never mind, pet. I don’t, do I?”

“No, no,” said Desmond. “
I
call
him
a beast. Not
to
him. I wouldn’t let him know it. But you understand, don’t you?”

“It’s all a bit dramatised for this time of the
morning
,” said Catherine mildly. “Look at all these squash rackets mixed up with the vacuum flex. Whose are they?”

“Now you’re getting maternal,” cried Desmond in anguish, leaping up from the sofa and kicking it pettishly. “It’s hateful of you. I’m going.”

“Cheerio, then,” said Catherine, plugging in the cleaner.

A little while later the Wykehamist appeared, bleared and unshaven. He was a well-built, amiable fellow of thirty-two, who from the age of nineteen had taken to an eccentric and wandering life. Throughout the ’thirties he had travelled the world, contriving, wherever
possible
, to avoid working his passage. On four of his many steamers, after having been reluctantly signed on by dubious skippers, he had finished the trip locked in a hold on a restricted diet, in vain attempts to cure a persistent idleness. One irate Greek captain had had him towed astern in a boat halfway across the Pacific. When the war broke out he had made a short incursion into the Army and had secured a commission in the Railways branch of the Royal Engineers on the strength of experience in Bolivia; but finding it insufficiently profitable, he had taken to the roads in the confusion after Dunkirk. For some time now he had been in the
second-hand furniture business. In all this time he had not lost a refined and insouciant accent and manner, which had disconcerted countless lorry-drivers in his tramping days.

“Hullo, old girl,” he observed now. “How charming you look as a hausfrau.”

“Herbert,” said Catherine, “are those your squash rackets? There are eight there. It’s a lot, and they’re a bit in the way.”

“I’m looking after them till Sid comes out,” said Herbert, stretching at the window. “College Sid, his acquaintances call him. I was with him at prep school.”

“Can’t he keep them at college?” asked Catherine. “Where is he?”

“Oh, in the Scrubbs,” said Herbert, examining all the empty packets for cigarettes. “He burgles, you see. This time he got half a stretch—six months, for Being On Premises. It’d have been more if he’d had
housebreaking
tools on him, but then, he never has. Anyway, I saw him on Wednesday and he wanted these from a chap in Putney to flog when he comes out. He’s due out today.”

“How wonderful,” said Catherine. “But don’t bring him here because of Philip.”

“Oh, he’s fixed up,” said Herbert, wandering off. “Be not affrighted. He’s terribly nice, anyway.”

Philip did not appear till the afternoon. The lack of air-raids was beginning to tell. For some time now there had been no sleepers to paint in the Underground, and he had begun an entirely new canvas called “Sewer”. This involved a clandestine arrangement with a man living in Bermondsey who did nights, and who for a
small consideration supplied overalls and two powerful lamps to illuminate the great sewer junction, where Philip painted the fat circles of the pipes and the graceful curves of the effluent spilling into the main channels below. He came in at five-thirty in the
morning
and slept till lunchtime.

Philip went out after lunch for his war effort. This took the form of voluntary infection by anopheles mosquitoes as part of a test group for malaria research. So far he had successfully resisted infection, even though his left arm was bitten avidly every time, and he was beginning to be regarded as unnaturally immune.

“Don’t let too many of them bite you, darling,” said Catherine as she kissed him goodbye. “I’m sure none of these new things will be any good. I’ll be packing Balaclavas this afternoon at the Lady Ongar Club and putting enigmatic loving messages in. Luckily they’re going to Iceland, so there won’t be any
come-backs
.”

“That chap Desmond,” said Philip irritably. “He was peering in and declaiming at me at half-past eight this morning. I told him to push off.”

Stanley knocked on the door just after eight in the evening.

“I’m on escort duty, Kat,” he explained. “I’ve got the night off.”

“Good gracious,” said Catherine. “You haven’t come for Herbert, have you?”

“I’ve never heard of Herbert,” said Stanley. “It’s a man in Woolwich.”

“Well, you shall meet Herbert, darling,” said
Catherine. “He’s a sort of tramp. Let’s all go along to the Parapluie for supper.”

“There’s the question of another train,” said Stanley as they walked along the Embankment, “6.10 in the morning this time, and I mustn’t miss it. I have to get my breakfast in the cookhouse at Woolwich with my corporal by eight.”

“That’s all right,” said Philip. “I’ll give you a shout when I get back from my sewers.”

The Parapluie was crowded and hilarious. The Armenian proprietor, still stroking his cat, was only intermittently visible through the press of people at and around the tables.

When they were eating a rather lumpy apple tart the Wykehamist arrived at their side.

“Ah!” he bawled cheerily. “What’s the form?”

He had acquired a green corduroy jacket since the morning and wore it with the sand-coloured trousers of his appalling suit.

“Hullo, Herbert,” said Catherine. “This is Stanley. He’s on escort duty.”

Herbert flinched a little.

“My brother,” said Catherine.

“Oh,” said Herbert, recovering. “Founder’s kin? That’s all right, then. Just for the moment I thought …’

He went off and returned a little later with a
ginger-haired
man in pop-bottle glasses.

“Meet my friend,” he said. “He stutters, I’m afraid.”

“H-h-how,” said the friend, “d’you d-d-do.”

At this they both at once went away, laughing
uproariously
.

“I think I’ll disappear down my manhole,” said Philip abruptly, and left.

“Have you any money, pet?” asked Catherine.

“Twenty-three shillings,” said Stanley.

“Then it’ll have to be the Brass Farthing,” sighed Catherine. “Do hurry up with your commission and get some cash. Isn’t there any way of buying one or blackmailing someone? Philip’s mother is being courted by a major-general. Would that help, d’you suppose?”

“I don’t think so,” said Stanley hastily. “I’d really rather you didn’t say anything about it.”

“He’s not just any old major-general,” said Catherine. “He
is
in the War Office.”

At the Brass Farthing several strange young men were sipping gins, giggling and thrusting each other coyly away.

“Hullo, Gilbert,” waved Catherine. “Look at that,” she said to Stanley. “He’s in with those appalling queers again.”

“Which one is Gilbert?” asked Stanley.

“That one, the musical one,” said Catherine.

“But he’s indistinguishable from the others.”

“
They
don’t play the ’cello,” explained Catherine.

Gilbert came over and gave them a very large gin each.

“Catherine, how
marvellous
!” he said. “Who
is
this cute soldier? Stanley? Hullo, Stanley. That lovely
rough
material! So bold. So
martial
. I bet you have a wonderful time with all those other soldiers. Catherine, my dear, it’s been
appalling
. An absolute
dégringolade.
I’ve been chucked from the Central Symphony.
Imagine!
And what next but that that simply
leprous
 
Adrian
broke
my ’cello. Yes,
broke
it. Cut it up with a chopper and then simply
vanished
. Jealousy, of course. As you can imagine, he was
livid
over that sweet Pole.”

“Poor Gilbert!” said Catherine.

“It’s sweet of you,” said Gilbert, laying a hand on her arm, “but I’m
resilient
.”

“I don’t much care for it here, Kat,” said Stanley when Gilbert had gone. “Isn’t there anywhere else to go?”

“It’s exactly like this anywhere else, darling,” said Catherine.

When they got back to the flat a small party seemed to be in progress.

Herbert and his friend were filling up each other’s glasses with gin; two Canadian officers were singing quietly in one corner, while in another sat a genial middle-aged man repeating to himself in a puzzled tone: “Mr. Chairman—gentlemen. Mr.
Chair
man—gen’lemen.”

“Come in, come in,” said Herbert, handing Catherine a glass. “Meet my friend. He’s celebrating.”

“How do you do again,” said Catherine. “Who is he?”

“College Sid,” said Herbert. “These three other chaps were outside so we asked them in.”

“I’m completely charmed,” said College Sid, offering another glass. “And who is Fly-fornication Foster here, may I ask?”

“My brother Stanley,” said Catherine.

“Good evening,” said College Sid, flashing his spectacles at Stanley. “Where are you stationed, my dear chap? Foreign parts?”

“Gravestone,” said Stanley. “About forty miles away.”

“Grand,” said College Sid. “How are the Wogs? Friendly? I was in the Army once,” he added, toeing a bottle tidily under the sofa. “I finished up in the
glasshouse
. It all started with being on jankers. I really couldn’t be bothered answering that blessed trumpet thing they kept blowing.”

The middle-aged man in the corner raised his voice.

“Mr. Chairman—gen’lemen. I now propose a song. A song which will remind us all of the happy days of our childhood. It is entitled, I think, ‘Kelly Put the Bottle On’.”

He stared glassily for a second and then abruptly fell asleep.

“This is all very nice,” said Catherine to Stanley. “But I am going to bed.”

Within the hour the gin had run out and College Sid and Desmond were arguing fiercely about private property. The two Canadian officers had gone out to fight each other, and the middle-aged man had vanished.

Stanley found an iron bedstead in one of the rooms, assembled it and slept on it.

He woke suddenly at twenty-past five. All was quiet.

In the kitchen, however, sat College Sid, one trouser leg rolled up.

“Hullo, old boy,” he said, dabbing at a gash in his calf.

“What on earth’s that?” asked Stanley, alarmed at the size of it and the sight of blood.

“Some negro, old boy,” said College Sid. “I think I was on a table at the time. Extraordinary business.
Are you looking for breakfast? What would you like?” He gazed round the shelves. “Cocoa? Oxydol? Robin starch? There doesn’t seem to be any food.”

“Are you staying here, then?” asked Stanley. “No, I’ll just have some orange juice. I’m having breakfast in the cookhouse at Woolwich.”

“Chacun à son gout,”
said College Sid.

At Woolwich, Stanley’s corporal got out of the same train, and they walked together to the barracks.

“You get on all right, then?” asked the corporal. “Very very nice it was, really, only a bit early to have to get up.”

They had breakfast and went to the Guard-Room to collect the deserter.

“He’s all right, this geezer,” said the provost sergeant, getting out the documents. “Wanted to join the Engineers, only when they wouldn’t transfer ’im ’e just sloped arms. Sixteen months ’e was out.”

“Go on,” said the corporal. “Tidy old break that’d make.”

“Then ’e goes and give ’imself up,” said the provost sergeant.

“Cor stone me,” said the corporal, shocked. “Fancy doin’ that. Gorblimey, the Army musta given ’
im
up by that time. Some blokes. I dunno. Still.”

The deserter was brought out, a miserable man of about thirty in civilian clothes. He signed for a packet of articles taken from him on admission, and the corporal then signed for him.

“One body,” he said. “Right, off we go, then. Givin’ ’imself up. I dunno.”

When the three of them were walking to the station the corporal said: “I see you still got your uniform,” indicating the rolled bundle under the deserter’s arm. “You didn’t flog it then?”

“No,” said the deserter. “I thought it best, keeping it.”

“Quite right, too,” said the corporal. “Always very difficult for them, proving desertion, if you ’aven’t sold it. You can plead anything you fancy, long as you ’aven’t sold it. We’ll go through the side streets to save your feelings, if you like.”

When they got into the train the deserter brought out cigarettes and handed them round.

“What gets me,” said the corporal, “you just come back, and not ’ang on till the redcaps pick you up. Honest, you must be a dead stupid bugger.”

“No, well,” said the deserter, “I laid up at my
main-law’s
until she got too niggly. Too dodgy tryin’ for a regular job, and I didn’t go out before black-out much. In the end I got brassed off.”