GREY TOWERS

At eight o’clock one morning of the following week, Richard took a letter coming through the box of the front door as he passed on his way to breakfast. It was addressed to his son. The flimsy envelope from France was franked by a signature which he made out to be H. J. West, Capt., and bore the oval red rubber stamp of the Base Censor. It had been redirected from Brickhill House, Beau Brickhill, Gaultshire.

Richard had to leave the house at eight twenty-two a.m. to catch his train from Wakenham station over the hill. His daughter Mavis caught the next train, which enabled her to get to the office in time for its opening for business at half-past nine. The younger girl, Doris, was still at school, and left at twenty-five to nine.

Breakfast was usually silent. Richard, looking at The Daily Trident, spoke only when he had some fault to point out, such as taps left to drip, bedrooms left untidy “for your mother to attend to”; or the boot-cleaning box in the scullery had not been put back, with its brushes and Japanese blacking pot upright, under the scullery table.

Phillip, urged by his mother to come down for breakfast with the others, “out of courtesy to your Father, dear”, appeared just as Richard was putting his table-napkin into its ivory ring.

“Good morning, Father. Good morning, Mother. How do you do, Mavis. Hullo, Doris. Thanks for purring, Zippy.”

“There’s a letter for you, from France,” said Doris.

“Good lord! ‘Spectre’ West!” He sat down. “May I have permission to open it, sir?”

The unexpected courtesy surprised Richard.

“Good news, I hope,” he said, when his son had read the letter.

“Yes, Father. A friend of mine in hospital is getting on well.”

“I see it has been re-directed from Brickhill, Phillip,” said Hetty.

“Westy is in the Gaultshires, Mother.”

Phillip put the letter in his pocket, and added milk to his porridge. He still felt sick, and would have preferred a glass of cold water.

“Pass your brother the sugar, Mavis.”

“No thanks—really. I never have sugar——”

As soon as Richard had shut the front door behind him, Mavis cried, “Why do you pretend that you live at Brickhill, can you tell us that?”

When he did not reply, she went on, “I know! It’s because it’s a swankier address than poor old Wakenham.”

Hetty screwed up her eyes, and made a moue with her lips to Mavis, meaning be quiet. “Won’t you tell us what it says, Phillip?”

“Oh, it’s just an ordinary letter, Mother.” He went on trying to eat his porridge, while calculating from experience how long it would be before he would have to get rid of it. Not, he hoped, while Mavis was in the house.

Experience did not betray him. Afterwards, alone with his mother, he showed her the letter. “On the condition, Mother, that you do not breathe a word of what it says to anyone.”

“Well, perhaps it would be better if I did not see it, if it’s like that, dear.”

“No, it’s not that. Only it isn’t true, that’s all.”

He gave her the letter, and Hetty read with surprise that grew to tearful emotion. The writer declared that the bar to his Military Gross, “which came up with the rations”, should have gone to Phillip, and would have gone, too, if he had not left the regiment after the damned fine show he put up during the flank attack on Lone Tree Ridge.

“‘Spectre’ West wasn’t there, you see. He was hit before we started. It was all over when we got to Lone Tree. The Germans had chucked it. No more ammunition. Anyway, the Welch had already got right behind them. Itwas awful good luck for us.”

“He says he is sorry you have left the ‘Mediators’, Phillip. That surely shows——”

“I told the Colonel afterwards that I was up at Cambridge before the war. I was nervous because I had only been to a grammar school when all the other officers were public school men. So I pretended I was a ‘’varsity m’n’. I’ve got no guts, I never had any. Tell that to Father if you like, but not that other rot.”

“Why, I wonder, must you always insist on showing yourself in the worst light? Always as a boy you were without reserve of any kind. You should have more pride, Phillip.”

“Oh Mother, for God’s sake——” He hastened away to the lavatory. Later—“I feel better now. But no bacon, for heaven’s sake. Just a cup of weak tea. A large one. Put it in a basin. Here, let me get one. That’s the sort, holds a quart. Thank God tea at home doesn’t taste of chloride of lime.” The thought made him quaver; the quaver took him back to the lavatory.

“You ought never to drink spirits, you know, Phillip. You have a weak stomach. That was always your trouble as a child. Now try and eat a little dry toast, and later on I’ll make you some beef tea. It was always good for you, after train sickness, do you remember?”

“Yes, and so was brandy,” replied Phillip. “But I’d rather have some plain hot water at the moment. If it’s all the same to you, Hetty,” he added, almost jauntily.

Saturday morning; his leave was up. “Everything is flat, Des, now I’m leaving you.” Just one more drink at Freddy’s; but when they came out of Freddy’s after only two half-pints of beer, Phillip ready to run and vault into the saddle and dash away to the thuds of his open exhaust, music in his ears, there was the motor bike sunken down on its rear, with a flat tyre.

“She must have heard my very words, and taken them literally,” said Phillip. “Good old girl. Let’s shove her to Wetherley’s, and get him to mend the puncture.” The inner tube was perished. Wetherley had no replacement in stock.

A For Sale notice on a runabout motor car caught Phillip’s eye. Only £60! He bought it at once, not so much for its appearance, as the thought of his own appearance driving his own motor car. Having bought it, he asked what it was, and if it was in good condition. Mr. Wetherley assured him that it was the best 1909 model of a Swift he had driven. It had a two-cylinder water-cooled engine. The grey paint was new, and so was the varnish. Mr. Wetherley folded and put into his pocket-book the cheque for £60, and said he would try and sell the motor cycle for £15 without taking commission. The sudden transaction now had its effect; Phillip wondered if his cheque would be dishonoured by Cox & Co., his bankers.

“However, it will be all right by the first of the month. Then some field allowances are due, Mr. Wetherley, so don’t worry.”

“I do not worry, sir,” said Mr. Wetherley. “I have had the pleasure of serving your father for many years now. Indeed I sold him the first All-Black Sunbeam in the district. There is no question, sir, of doubting the word of the son of such a gentleman as Mr. Maddison.”

Phillip felt that he must hope for the best, as the garage owner showed him how to get to Hornchurch, pointing out the route on the map, by way of the Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames. This done, he explained about the oiling of the engine, by the drip feed visible behind glass on the dashboard.

“Don’t forget to push down the hand pump as soon as the oil stops dripping into the bowl.”

Mr. Wetherley checked the milled screw controlling the drip, and gave it two extra clicks.

“Don’t turn it on more unless you want to go fast, say over thirty-five. Otherwise you may oil a plug. You’ll find her a useful little runabout.”

Phillip’s two-mindedness now showed itself. “I suppose,” he said, doubtfully, “you wouldn’t let me have a test run before I actually—well, I have, haven’t I? Anyway, I think I’ll test it, before I really start off.”

“I’d be very pleased to take you for a run, sir.”

“Well, thanks. Could you take me to my home a minute? It’s quite a steep hill.” A wild hope that Helena Rolls or her mother would see the car pierced him.

Desmond was left at the garage, since three in front would be a squeeze. Mr. Wetherley drove as far as Randiswell, then Phillip took the wheel. The Swift went easily up Hillside Road, and to his alarmed delight, there was Helena coming out of her gate with her mother.

The motor was praised, then—“Why have you not been to see us, Phillip?” He could not reply; and Mrs. Rolls said, “Well, when you are next on leave, don’t forget, will you?” The full look of Helena’s eyes was upon him; he felt enveloped and dissolved, and was relieved when they had gone on down the road, for now he could release his feelings of joy, rush in and bang at the door and tell Mother the terrific news, in which the Swift was for the moment forgotten.

His mother and younger sister Doris came out to admire it, though Hetty looked a little anxious. “Are you sure you can drive it, Phillip?”

“Easily! I’ll take you all out to Reynard’s Common and the Fish Ponds when I come home next. Well, cheerho. I mustn’t keep old Wetherley waiting. Give my love to everyone.” Mr. Wetherley was on the opposite pavement, apparently interested in the sheep on the slopes of the Hill beyond the railings. Together they went down the road, the tyres crackling on the flinty surface. Waving at Mrs. Neville in her window, Phillip drove safely back to the High Street. There Desmond was awaiting him on the kerb.

Phillip had driven a motor car before, and soon he felt mastery of the Swift. With Desmond beside him he drove up the hill and on to the Heath, and down into Greenwich. At the mouth of the Blackwall Tunnel stood a military policeman on duty. He said that a brigade of field guns had just gone through, and another was expected, the tunnel being temporarily closed to all other traffic. “You have a pass, sir, of course?”

Phillip pointed to the O.H.M.S. plate tied on the side of the bonnet. Standing aside, the redcap saluted. Phillip raised a negligent hand, as a staff officer might, he thought, and praying that he would not grate the gears when starting off, let in the clutch and drove on with a wild feeling of possible self-destruction into the circular brick mouth of the tunnel.

“My God, and we’ve got no lamps!” he said to Desmond, with a laugh, as they rushed into darkness.

The car drove itself; then gradually seemed to be guided by two golden threads overhead. These were carbon-filament bulbs lining the roof, stretching away to a minuteness that dipped in the centre, the middle of the river. Suddenly he became aware of an army lorry just in front of him. The tunnel was ammoniacal with horse-dung; he too, like the solid-tyred ’bus in front, was slipping about.

With relief he drove into cold fresh air to see masts and funnels of steamers rising above rows of black and crushed-in little sooty brick houses, with black sheds and warehouses, cranes, army lorries, and, as he drove on, sudden rows of field guns, olive-green and wheel to wheel along a sort of wharf. A notice board by a tall iron gate set with spikes and barbed wire was headed East India Dock. The surface of the cobbled streets came up through the shackle bolts of the springs and reproduced myriad contours in their bones.

There was a market, with stalls and donkey shallows, a litter of paper and rotten fruit all across the road, lean dogs routing and fleeing from boys with sticks held as guns, and wearing old badgeless khaki caps. Other boys with pails were collecting horse dung.

It was a mild November day, with no wind. The river mist and smoke hung as daze in the low arc of the iodine-brown sun. Tall chimneys and towers darkened the dull skyline rising upon the ancient flats of the riverside. Smells, industrial and chemical, moved in layers upon them: paint, iodoform, picric acid, and a whiff of pear-drops, from the waterside factories of Silvertown.

“There is the great chemical concern of Brunner, Mond and Company,” said Desmond. “The Zeppelins are always trying to find it. The whole district is given over almost entirely to war work.”

They drove away from the sprawl of street and factory, coming to an open level prospect of deep brown ploughlands, of dark and stunted oak trees in sooted hedgerows, acid pastures, sad-looking stacks of hay and corn, and untidy fields of cabbages and roots—the environs of industrial London. Phillip began to feel depressed with the level colourlessness of the extending country, which seemed to have upon it the mark of death. Here the bittern and the duck among the reeds had seen the marching of the Romans, while the sails moved up the broad Thames, not then held back by wall and bank; the marshman went, and the ploughman came, and now the factories were waiting to kill the land forever with their weight of brick and steel, a countryside sentenced to industrial death.

“I suppose there is still some wildfowling down on the marshes somewhere, Desmond?”

“It’s been stopped since the war, all down this coast. My cousins on my father’s side live in Essex, and they told me.”

It was the first time Desmond had spoken to Phillip about his father’s people. Phillip wanted to hear more, and waited for him to speak. When he did not, Phillip glanced at his face. Desmond said, looking straight ahead, “My father’s people have lived in Essex for centuries.”

“Are your mother’s people from Essex, too?”

“My mother hasn’t got any relations.”

Desmond was holding his head so still, staring ahead, that Phillip wondered what was the matter. Desmond’s usually pale face was faintly pink.

Phillip drove on, silence between them. He felt slight distress that Desmond had never wanted to confide in him, his great friend. He had always shared everything with Desmond—secrets of his nests in the old days, his permits in Knollyswood Park and elsewhere, his holy-of-holies the Lake Woods—where Desmond had taken his school-friend Eugene, without first asking if he might do so. He had told Desmond everything about himself; but Desmond had never really shared any of his secrets with him.

“I say, Des, I’ve had most frightful luck.” He told his friend about the invitation from Mrs. Rolls. “I’ll call there next time I come on leave!”

Feeling happy, he stopped to examine the engine under the bonnet. Everything looked clean and polished and painted.

“It’s worth the money, don’t you think, Des?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t driven her.”

“Of course, why didn’t I think of it! You take the wheel now. After all, you let me drive your uncle’s Singer. You can take her back this afternoon, if you like. That is, if I can’t get week-end leave.”

Desmond drove on for a mile, then he put on the brake, turned the switch, and sat still. Looking at Phillip intently with his pale blue eyes he said slowly and quietly, “I’ve wanted to tell you something for a long time.”

Surprised by his manner, Phillip asked what it was.

“It concerns Helena Rolls.”

“You may not like what I am going to say.”

“Go on, say it.”

“I consider that you are wasting yourself on something quite vain.”

“But how do you know it is quite vain?” said Phillip, feeling weak.

“Because it is obvious to everyone except yourself. She isn’t your sort. She laughs at you behind your back.”

“How do you know, Des? Who told you?”

“I shan’t say. But I do know. Just as I know that you are losing your happiness because of her. She isn’t worth it.”

Phillip hardly knew what to say. What did Desmond know? Had he been talking to someone who knew the truth? No doubt Mrs. Rolls was only being kind. She was sorry for him, that was it. The Swift, his hopes of the new life with the Navvies’ battalion, all seemed grey, like the mist over the fields.

“Why can’t we be as we were? Aren’t I enough for you?” asked Desmond.

“Well Des, of course you’re my great friend, but honestly, what I think about her does not affect you and me.”

“I say it does.”

Phillip laughed, partly from nervousness. Desmond gripped his arm.

“Does it seem a matter only for laughing, that I am concerned for our friendship?”

“Let go my arm! Aren’t you being just a little melodramatic, old chap?”

“Very well, if that’s your attitude, I’ve no more to say.”

The Swift was standing under a large oak. A labourer in front was digging in a deep ditch beside the road, on which lay many acorns, some squashed by carts which were unloading dung on the stubble field over the hedge.

“Is this the way to Becontree Heath?” Phillip called out.

“Straight on, sir, and turn left at the village.”

“What’s the name of the village?”

“Thet be Dagenham.”

Desmond drove on unspeaking, and in half an hour they were at Hornchurch. Asking for the headquarters of the battalion, Phillip was told it was at Grey Towers, the turrets of which could be seen among trees.

Fifty yards inside the gate was a wooden hut, set to one side of the gravel drive. He stopped, and knocked at the door, entered, and saw a red-faced youth half-risen from a blanket-covered trestle table and shouting, “What the bloody hell do you want? I told you I haven’t got the blasted book of railway warrants, didn’t I?”

To Phillip’s surprise the young captain was addressing an old major, whose face showed amusement.

“Second Lieutenant Maddison reporting for duty, sir!”

“——off!” replied the captain amiably. “This isn’t the Orderly Room. Anyway you’re bloody late.”

“Can you direct me to the Orderly Room, sir.”

“The Old Man and the Adj. are in town. This is ‘A’ Company’s Office. —— off!”

“Where shall I —— off to, sir?” asked Phillip, observing a look of humour in the eyes of this very young captain. Before the captain could reply, he gave brief details of himself, standing to attention, aware that the large hands before him on the blanket table were red and raw, the lips thick, the band of the new service cap already saturated with hair-oil, the fingers yellow with nicotine.

The old major looked at Phillip quizzically. “Weren’t you the young feller that come to see Colonel Broad at Alexandra Palace, on a motor-cycle with O.H.M.S. painted across the forks?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You had a nerve, didn’t you, to call yourself O.H.M.S.?”

“I was on His Majesty’s Service, sir.”

“Is that your car outside?” asked the captain suddenly looking up.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is that O.H.M.S. likewise?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who’s the tommy sitting in it?”

“He’s a friend taking the runabout back to London for me.”

“You couldn’t have timed it better, cock! The major and I’ve got to hop up to town On His Majesty’s Service, so your friend can take us. You’ve been posted to Captain Kingsman’s Company. Go and ask the mess sergeant where that is. I’ll show you the mess, I’m just going there myself.”

He got up, shook himself into a greatcoat, with red piping on the epaulettes set with very new gilt stars, and said to the major, “We’re in Meredith, we’re in! I’ll bring your old iron back tonight O.H.M.S. You don’t mind my borrowing it, do you?”

“It’s got no lamps, sir.”

Outside the mess house Phillip gave Desmond a pound note, saying, “In case you need some petrol. If not, borrow it. Shove the ’bus in Wetherley’s before lighting-up time. I must get some carbide head-lamps. Meanwhile, ask him if he’s got any oil lamps, though O.H.M.S. will get past any copper.”

With mixed feelings Phillip watched the major getting in beside Desmond, to slam the door with violence. What about my new paint and varnish, he thought, as the captain put a nailed boot on a mudguard to get into the dickey seat, where he lolled sideways, knees up, breeched thighs and leather legs angular as he rested his spurs on the other mudguard. With a grating of gears the runabout drove away round the drive, the captain giving him a wave of his heavy ash-wood riding-crop.

“Of all the blasted cheek,” said Phillip, as he walked towards the ivy-covered house, and went through the porch into the hall.

“Good afternoon,” said a short, spruced-up officer, coming down the uncarpeted wooden stairs. “My name is Milman. May I be of assistance? I’m going away on four days’ leave, and my bed is at your disposal if you need one. Perhaps I may show you your room? The mess president is away, at the moment. What about your valise?”

“I didn’t bring it. I hoped to be able to go back for it. Can you tell me where I can find Captain Kingsman?”

“He’s just gone on week-end leave.”

“Oh hell. Who’s in command of the Company, in his absence, d’you know?”

“Captain Bason.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He’s just left for Town,” said a tall dark subaltern coming down the stairs.

“I think I can fix you up with some kit,” smiled Milman. Phillip had liked him at once. He was alert, dapper, with brown upturned moustaches, and looked about twenty-five.

“I’d like to introduce to you my great friend, Thompson,” he said.

“How do you do?” said Phillip.

“Very well, thank you. And you?”

“Not so dusty.”

“Splendid! Let me show you the geography of the place.”

“This way,” said Milman, giving way for Phillip to follow Thompson.

Upstairs, in a large bare room with camp-beds, Phillip waited while one found him a towel, the other offered use of razor, soap, and folding camp mirror. An ancient batman stood by, a thin broken-pearly forelock pressed with water on his brow. Long horizontal waxed strings of a Matabele moustache wandered around the lobes of his ears. His left breast had all the old ribands.

While this was going on, a third officer at the far end of the room remained standing there with his back turned to the others. He was dipping a toothbrush into a saucer, and rubbing it into his hair. Milman, doing the honours, called to him across the room, “May I introduce——” whereupon a lined face set with sandy eyes under sparse hair lying back in streaks from the forehead was turned in their direction.

“Permit me to finish my toilet before you assault me in my dressing-room with your blasted pretentiousness, will you?” and the owner of the voice returned to work with the toothbrush.

Milman, for a moment, seemed to be quelled. He looked a little helpless, then recovering, said to Phillip, “May I offer you the services of my batman to show you the geography of the place?”

“Don’t forget the ‘laounge’,” called out the man with the toothbrush.

“Very good, sir!” cried the batman. “It’s a nice little place, you’ll find, and very comfortable, is the laounge. You can enjoy yourself there.”

Phillip imagined himself telling Mrs. Neville all about the comic scene: the batman’s head on his stringy neck shaking slightly; his cheeks sunken, the spikes of his waxed moustache sticking out wider than his ears, despite the ears being set almost at right angles to the skull. The ears of an earnest, human cabbage, saying, “We’ll come to the laounge presently, sir. I’ll show you it all in good time. First, here is the geography of the place!” He flung open a door, inviting Phillip to enter. “A moment, sir!” as he pushed past him, apparently to remove a solitary floating match-stick by pulling the plug. “Very comfortable, sir, you see.”

“And this is the bath-room,” as he flung open another door. As though to demonstrate further the principle of water seeking the lowest level, he turned on first one tap, then the other.

“Nothing like a good ’ot bath once-ta-week, sir!”

“I prefer a cold tub, myself,” said Phillip.

“Yes, sir, a pukka sahib’s cold tub, quite right, sir! This way, sir, mind the stairs, sir, they’re slippery with elbow grease.”

At the bottom by the newel post the small officer with the Kaiser moustache was waiting. With a wave of the hand he stepped back from the open door of a room, to allow Phillip to enter before him. The batman hurried in afterwards, saying, “This ’ere’s the laounge, sir. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s my turn to be the wine-waiter straight away.” He disappeared.

“Will you care to have a drink with me?” said Milman, with a couple of twists upon his moustache. “You will? I’ll ring for the wine-waiter.”

The old batman reappeared, wearing a white jacket, and apologising for not wearing what he called the ‘mascot’. He took the order, and while he was away, Milman’s friend, Thompson, joined them. Phillip began to enjoy himself. It was better than he had expected. The batman came in with a tray bearing three glasses of whiskey, and a siphon of soda. He now wore, proudly it seemed, a small silver shield on a chain round his neck, engraved PORT. He nodded and smiled at Phillip like an old friend, and said, “Sorry, gents, I forgot me gloves this time. Wood, all wood,” as he tapped his head.

Phillip thought that he would show no surprise at this unusual sort of mess. Seeing his eyes on the silver label, Milman said, when the waiter had gone, “The label should be worn for mess dinner, of course, and then only on social nights when the King’s health is proposed by the orderly officer.”

“I see. Is that an old regimental custom?”

“I rather think it was an idea of Major Fluck, the Mess President.”

At this point Thompson said to Milman that they had not too much time if they were to catch their train, and making their excuses for leaving him alone, the two friends went upstairs together; to reappear, as Phillip was ordering himself another whiskey, in identical greatcoats with slung haversacks, calf-skin gloves, and leather-covered short canes. Both looked in the door to say, “Au revoir”, before departing. He watched the two walking down the drive in step, Milman taking long strides and Thompson short ones.

He sat down with The Daily Trident. Opening it, he read that fireworks had been forbidden in London “under severe penalties”, on Guy Fawkes’ night. Then the communique from the Western Front. Nothing of further interest, so throwing down the newspaper, he collected a pile of periodicals on his lap. The first was an old copy of Land and Water. An article on Strategy by Hilaire Belloc caught his eye. Uncle Hugh used to quote a poem about the Boer War by Belloc, something about gold and diamond mines, a satire. Belloc’s article proving to be unreadable, he turned the pages of Punch, They reminded him of unfunny jokes in the dreary dentists’ room in the High Road, so Punch fell to the floor with Land and Water. Tit Bits flopped on top of Punch. He read the Things we want to know column in London Mail, then took The Times, to seek in the Roll of Honour casualties in the Gaultshires; a few names only, none he recognised; obviously the Loos casualties were not yet published. His eye ran down The London Gazette, wondering if there had been any promotions in the other regiments with which he had served. Ah, Flynn, the bed-wetter, had resigned his commission in the Cantuvellaunians, on grounds of ill-health. Who else had been hoofed out? He sought other entries of officers coming unstuck, or stellenbosched, as Lieut. Brendon, who had served in the Boer War, called it. There were several ways in which an officer could be turfed out of the army, beginning with resigns on account of ill-health, otherwise incompetence, for genuine ill-health would merit invalided out of the service, which meant a pension. Resigns his commission was rather bad, but Resigns his commission, the King having no further use for his services, was worse. Dismissed the service by sentence of a General Court Martial was a disgrace. Cashiered was the end of all things, for you would not then serve again, even as a private.

He pressed the bell, and ordered a large whiskey and soda; then taking out his pocket book, added the sum of £1 to the column of figures which represented previous loans to Desmond, now a total of £19 10s. He had kept account of these items as he kept his own column of receipts each month from pay and allowances, and also half-quarterly payments of salary from the Moon Fire Office. With relief he determined that his account, when Wetherley’s cheque had been presented, would still be about £11 in credit. Officers who gave dud cheques, or stumers as they were called, faced court-martial, and at best dismissal from the service; at worst, they were cashiered. He had known that his account was in funds, and knew also that Wetherley had some security for £10 at least in the motor-bike.

There was another column for money borrowed by Eugene, totalling £13. He had no thoughts of money ever being paid back; both were his friends, and money anyway was to be spent, or used, on behalf of friends. He had given his mother £5, to help with the housekeeping—which meant Mavis’s constant demands for money, as she spent most of her salary on clothes, which were a sort of fetish with her—some women were mad on clothes, why, he could not think.

He was putting away his pocket diary when he was aware of somebody else in the room, although he had heard no sound. Turning his head, he saw the elderly subaltern, who had been at work with toothbrush and saucer in the bedroom. It seemed polite to stand up, since he was a newcomer.

“No need to get up,” said an even voice. “Although one appreciates the courtesy to another senior by age. Has Milman gone? He gets my goat with his damned mincing ways. Bogus little man!”

Phillip thought that the less he said the better; he was wary of this man with the face of a faded desert cat.

The hard yellow eyes in the rutted face seemed to be weighing him up as he leaned sideways and pressed the bell. Almost at once the wine-waiter or butler labelled PORT wobbled through the door. His scanty hair was flatter than before, his moustaches curled upwards in thin strings, and white cotton gloves seemed about to drop off his fingers as he put his tray down.

“Bring me a large pink gin, and see that it is Pickelson’s this time, not Hooth’s.”

“Certainly, sir, very good, sir!”

The old fellow picked his way out, a model of Victorian military earnestness.

“What did you think of our Cabin Boy? He was an apprentice in the Merchant Service last week, and came straight to the battalion on his eighteenth birthday as a captain. What it is, to have a socialist member of Parliament for a father! Was that your motor?”

“Did you lend it, may I ask?”

“Well——”

“Probably you are quite right. The thing here is to be on the right side, as apparently you have already realised. I should advise an upstanding, handsome young man like yourself to pay court to the Colonel’s daughter, then you may find yourself with three pips instead of one. But you’ll find Milman a keen rival, I warn you.”

The speaker walked up and down in front of the fire, and went on, “If you’re not doing anything else, would you care to come to Town with me, and look for a couple of girls? The place is beginning to swarm with enthusiastic amateurs, as you probably know.”

Phillip had never been to the West End at night, and from what he had heard from his mother, it was a highly dangerous place; there it was that Uncle Hugh had come a cropper. This man was obviously a bad companion.

“I’m orderly officer, I’m afraid.”

A tall motor car stopped outside the window. “I would have appreciated your company. I’ve got very few friends in London, having lived abroad before the war.”

Phillip offered the other a cigarette; which, without a glance, was refused.

“I smoke my own. Turkish. American tobaccos offend my sense of smell.”

He selected a fat oval cigarette from a gold case, and fitted it carefully, after tapping, to his dry lips. “I was in tobacco before the war, at Smyrna, and managed to bring back a thousand or so with me. Turkish leaf will soon be unobtainable in this country, there is little left in bond. What will happen after the war, I dare not think. The Gyppies are capturing the market now, since Turkey is blockaded. Well, it was a good life while it lasted. For all its filth, Smyrna is the place to live! Give me a twelve-year-old Circassian girl who has been properly trained, to come into a man’s bed, slowly, past his feet, gradually to his knees, and you can have all your English flappers!”

Discomposed and silent, attracted yet repelled, Phillip stood by while the other put on a short fawn-coloured pea-jacket with flapped pockets that ended on the same line as his tunic. Then he fitted on a floppy trench cap, the brim of which was set at an angle to cut the line of the brow: and having put up jacket collar, stuck hands in pockets, hunched shoulders, thrust out chin, he turned his face so that a wolfish profile was visible.

“That’s the stance. The bum-freezer gets a girl, where the common or garden greatcoat with its protective swaddling has no attraction at all.”

“How do you mean?”

“The hunched shoulders and slightly bowed back tend to emphasise the look of a lonely soldier. It arouses the maternal instinct. Next, the prowling young female notices the bum-freezer, the shortness of which emphasises the desirability of the buttocks and the length of one’s legs. One must stand still, of course, the quintessence of a lonely soldier, thus inducing in the girl that baby-in-the-bulrushes feeling.”

The driver sitting at the wheel of the Argyll landaulette beyond the window gave two hoarse honks on the horn. The man in the pea-jacket swirled the remains of the pink gin in his glass, tossed the liquid into his mouth, appearing to catch it at the back of his gold teeth without touching either tongue or metal; then holding back his head, he let the liquid run down his throat.

“I can see that your education has been neglected, my young friend. Another time let us pursue further the all-important subject of l’amour.” With a short cane under one arm he turned at the door to say, “No good with a walking-stick! That’s the prop of the English country gentleman, making love as he rushes his fences in the hunting field.”

With considerable relief Phillip saw him getting in beside the driver; then with a grind of Glaswegian machinery the Argyll moved off, and out of sight, but not of sound, around the bend of the carriage sweep.

Phillip returned to the fire. What could he do? He saw the mess waiter in the doorway, and called him. The man wobbled forward. The ends of his moustaches, he noticed, were wet.

“Who was that officer?”

“Mr. Wigg, sir. A real gent, sir.”

“Oh! Are there any other officers about?”

“Most on’m’s already gone on leaf, sir.”

“Where’s the mess sergeant?”

“Gone ’ome to see ’is missus, sir. On week-end leaf, sir.”

“Are you going on week-end leaf?”

“What me, sir? I’m the wine-waiter, sir!”

“Good. Let me have another large whiskey and soda, will you.”

When it had been brought, he said, “What do you all do here, when you are here, I mean? Dig trenches?”

“We ’ave done a spot o’ diggin’ in the past, sir, but not lately. The boys goes for rowt marches, drills like on the square, care of arms in ’uts; and generally prepares themselves for what’s to come.”

“What is to come, do you know?”

“Well, if you arst my opinion, sir, I say the future will always come with what it brings. More I wouldn’t like for to say, sir.”

“I see. What else do the boys do, wine-waiter?”

“We provides guards for bridges and factories dahn by the river, sir. Some goes on detachment, guarding prisoners of war, and providin’ escort duties, sir.”

“Lines of communication, in fact,” said Phillip with satisfaction. With any luck he would see out the war in England from now on.

And then remembering ‘Spectre’ West and the Gaultshires, he ordered another whiskey, to drink the health of lost faces.

What the hell could he do? Risk going back to Wakenham, in the hope of meeting Desmond and Eugene in Freddy’s? Supposing, meanwhile, he was sent for? Or a Zeppelin dropped thermite canisters on the huts while he was absent? If only he had reported earlier, he might have got leave, too. However, he must hang around, in case he were wanted. No more miking with this new lot! He must make a good impression. He rang the bell.

“Bring me another whiskey and soda, will you?”

When he had signed a chit for this, he said, “Is there Church Parade tomorrow?”

“Oh yes, sir! The Ganger allus takes it, sir.”

“Beg pardon, no offence, sir, that’s what we call the Colonel, sir.”

“Really? Now can you tell me, is there any geography on the ground floor?”

“Oh yes, sir. Follow me, sir. Choice of two, sir.”

“One will be enough for the moment.”

On returning to the ante-room, or lounge as it was called, he picked up La Vie Parisienne, and returned to his creaking wickerwork armchair. Remembering what Wigg had said about Circassian girls, he refrained from looking at the picture on the cover until he was lying back with his feet up, cigarette smoke straying past eyes, preparatory to using his imagination with the slightly yellow, svelte, and semi-naked body in diaphanous underwear. But somehow the picture did not give the benison hoped for; the more he tried to imagine it real, the flatter surface it remained. Had poor old Father felt like that when he had looked at the same sort of pictures in the Artist’s Sketch Book of Parisian Models which he kept locked in his desk in the sitting room? He recalled his own feeling of fascination, after he had opened the desk with a key on his mother’s ring and gone through the contents of Father’s desk, to look for the revolver kept there, and had come upon the book, which he had smuggled into the lavatory, the only private reading room in the house. He must have been about nine or ten at the time. Even now, the thought of Father looking at such pictures flurried him. He flung away La Vie, scornfully.

Then he picked it up again, and tried once more to find in it rest, light, and relief from dark depression overcoming him. Damn the bloody rag! He hid it under a large and heavy Atlas of the World, before lying back in the chair, wondering how he could possibly get through the rest of the day, the rest of his barren life. What was there left in his life? Then through his depression arose the face and hair and eyes, like a dream of everlasting summer, of Helena Rolls.

He sighed, and thrust away the vision. It was no good thinking of her ever again. She had loved cousin Bertie, and now that he was dead, she would keep him in her heart for ever. Even though dead, Bertie was still real to her; while he, Philip, had never been real even to himself. That was the terrifying truth.

Thinking of cousin Bertie, such a splendid man in contrast to his feeble self, Phillip’s depression became so acute, his thoughts so devastating, so annihilating, that he uttered an involuntary shout of acceptance of his own shame and damnation.

The mess waiter appeared at the doorway. “Ready for another little drop, sir? Keeps the cold out, sir, in a manner of speakin’.” He grinned somewhat unsteadily, as though he had been keeping the bottle warm.

Phillip pretended to be asleep. The mess waiter tottered away. Lying in the chair he felt himself sinking under the helplessness of his thoughts. He would always feel the dark weight within when he thought of Helena. What could he do about it? Desmond had tried to help him; he had rebuffed Desmond. What could he do, what could he do, he shrieked within himself. He could no longer force himself on her, as he had, idiotically, in the past. O, the damned silly idiocies of himself! Humiliations, silly lies which everyone saw through—his life was ruined. Why had he not remained in France with the Gaultshires? By now he might have found release from the dark shadow that had, so far back as he could remember, always been near him, sometimes threatening to press his life away. Only in death perhaps would he be free from the shadow of himself.

Was death the end? Mother believed in life after death; Father scoffed at her for it. Yet how could the person, who was his mind, or self, survive when it was made up of myriads of impressions, all from his feelings, all little cell-like photographs of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. When a bullet broke the store-house of self, inside the skull, how could those myriads of photographs survive, or the personality that they made up? Why should they survive, what use were they to life? If only he could stop his thoughts.

To remain alive was to continue to endure the nihilism of time rushing by, soundless and vain, atoms whirling in a void, creating life that must be destroyed, leaving blanks to be filled by other speck-like atoms whirling in darkness. Life was sadness, sadness, sadness; ache, ache, ache; until you were dead. His mother’s words came into his mind—Happiness comes only when we can forget ourselves. And yet she was seldom if ever really happy. How could anyone forget himself or herself?

He pulled from his pocket a letter he had forgotten, given him by his mother that morning, before he left home. Mother had asked him to read it slowly, and to consider very very carefully every word that his grandfather had written to him.

I spoke to your Mother last night about your incipient but regrettable propensity for strong drink—There is nothing stationary in this world—our lives, character, thoughts are always rising or falling and perhaps the most insidious and awful in its result is drink—but not that alone—Indiscretions. Thoughtless folly of all sorts is paid for in months and years to come in the most painful suffering—now, my dear Phillip, have the strength of mind to disregard the habits and minds of any companions. You will learn with experience how rare commonsense thought and conscience are but you can never visualise what remorse, and physical suffering, is accrued by acts lightly and thoughtlessly made in youth. Cut them now and firmly resolve not to drink any spirits except a medicinal dose under exceptional circumstances such as a little rum after severe exposure and trench work.

If you are beyond the influence of reason—think of your Mother and her noble conduct and example and how she has sacrificed herself to start her children on the road to happiness, and think of the result of your folly to her. She is not strong, and the consequences of your folly may be far more awful than you think now.

I have a little money for my children and their children, and I have not exercised self denial and much thought and work to have that money fooled away. You have the potentiality of a successful and with moderation in all things a happy life. Be master of your mind and don’t throw your chance away——

It was obvious what the old man was driving at. His eldest son, Uncle Hugh, had died of syphilis, which he had got after being sent down from Cambridge. As though he would be such a fool as to go with one of those awful prostitutes he and Desmond had heard about in London! Gran’pa was old-fashioned. And who wanted his money? If he ever left him any in his will, he would give it away to the nearest hospital.

He thought to throw the letter on the fire, but something stopped him. Somehow it was like hurting poor old Gran’pa, to do that. Putting it in his pocket book, he lay back, feeling himself to be drawn once more into the flow of empty Time. The image of Helena floated before him, her face under her fair crowning hair shining with the sun, her eyes blue and frank as the sky. It was all over now, he had deliberately destroyed his ideal on the night of his return from Loos, after the Zeppelin raid, when he had gone into the sheepfold on the Hill with cousin Polly. Henceforward his ideal was dead to him; dead, dead, dead.

Such was life; everything passed away; the fields and woodlands of boyhood became built upon; streets and pavements and lamp posts arose where warblers and willow wrens had sung; nothing ever remained the same. All the dead lying at that very moment upon the battlefield of Loos were slowly becoming part of the chalky soil—the chalk that was one vast tumulus of shells, aeons of shells of the salt, salt sea. Each shell had once been a house of life, born but to die, each in its dying to add to the salt of the sea, or the soil of the earth. So it was with men. And nothing could ever be done about it.

He lay still, floating through time; he thought of the sadness of Mother’s face, as he remembered it before he could walk, before he could speak; he recalled Father’s angry voice, the fear of himself and his sisters, sitting still under Father’s pale-blue-eyed anger, his voice thin as a fret-saw—poor old Father, he had never had a chance, from what Aunt Belle used to say about his early life at home, with his angry and often tipsy father. What a grind his life had been from the start: how many thousand times did Father say he had walked over London Bridge to the office, that very office which he himself could never return to after the war, if he lived until after the war? Father taking long strides over London Bridge, on the same worn paving stones, thirty thousand times was it? Without a friend in the world—Father who had once spoken so happily, Mother had said, of having a friend in his son. And what a son: selfish, cowardly, a liar, deceitful: better if he had been killed.

He lived again the glassy, beyond-fear feeling of the attack on that Sunday, the second day of the battle, across the Lens—La Bassée road, when most of the Cantuvellaunian crowd had copped it. Poor old Strawballs, Jonah the Whale, O’Connor, and all the old faces that had ragged him after he had set fire to the Colonel’s Times during one guest night, for a joke. It had not been the drink he had taken, for he always knew much clearer what he was doing when tight than when he was sober. What a bounder they must have considered him. Now, like cousin Bertie, they were all dead on the field of honour.

What did it really mean, on the field of honour? Father spoke of honour, as though it was part of life, his own life, for instance. Well, if living like that was honour, he was quite content to remain as Father had often told him he was, lacking in all sense of honour. Field of honour—that ghastly mess at Loos!

“Bring me another spot of old-man whiskey, will you?” He would wait until the winter was over, and then apply to go back to the Gaultshires. He lay back in the armchair, eyes closed, legs crossed at ankles, hands folded on chest, resting himself in the terrible beauty of gun-flashes filling the darkness with light.