On the next Friday night Phillip’s hopes of getting home to see Desmond were dashed when he saw in Orders that he was Orderly Officer for the next day. Well, he would do his duty strictly, like cousin Bertie. The entire camp needed to be smartened up. Grey Towers, a well-to-do tradesman’s villa of mid-Victorian days, was in a disgraceful state. Cinders and eggshells strewed the muddy paths through the trees, with potato peelings and empty bully beef cans. Old sodden newspapers lay about. He would put in a report about the extremely slack condition of the camp.

As he walked towards the hutments an old shaky man with watery eyes and forage cap perched precariously on the centre of his skull approached him, obviously preparing with some anxiety to salute. Up went a hand with thick fingers spread between nobbly joints, jerk went the poor old head sideways, knees came up so that he just avoided a stagger, and a hand wavered at him. Philip returned his best salute, and stopped to speak.

“Didn’t I see you at Alexandra Palace, last August? I thought so. How are you?” He shook hands.

The old fellow said he mustn’t grumble, but his boots hurt something terrible. It was his blue veins, he explained.

“I had frost bite in France, and so I can sympathise. Ask your company quarter-master sergeant to try and get you a more comfortable pair. Take his name and number, sergeant!”

“Very good, sir.”

The old fellow looked nearer eighty than seventy as he walked away. The orderly sergeant, cane under arm, waxed moustache, thin like trench bayonets said, “There’s several old ’uns ’ere.”

He was an old sweat himself if ever there was one, thought Phillip, noting the beery face, the medal ribands of Egyptian campaigns.

“We’ve grandads, and not a few great-grandads. They sign on for the pay, six bob a day, sir, more’n twice a time-servin’ sergeant instructor gets. But queer things goes on everywhere in time o’ war, sir.”

“Yes, your old Adjutant went to quod for half-inching Government property, didn’t he?”

“Yes sir, and he’s not the only one. I mean, sir,” said the sergeant, stopping and facing him. He hesitated, then began again. “Well, sir, if you understand my meanin’, I could say a lot, sir, were I a mind to. The food we get in the sergeant’s mess is not fit for pigs. I reckon someone ought to write to John Bull about it.”

“Why that bloody rogue Bottomley? Why not me, as orderly officer, sergeant? Isn’t he supposed to receive all complaints? Come on, out with it!”

The sergeant gave him a glance in which surprise, fear, and evasive cunning were mixed.

“I don’t want to lose me pension, sir.”

“What’s wrong with the food, anyhow?”

“Mustn’t grumble, sir.”

“H’m. Well, we’ll go and see the guard room.”

“Tell you what, sir, there’s a prisoner there, and the orderly officer is within ’is dooty to ask if a prisoner ’as any complaints about his food, sir.”

“Lead on, sergeant.”

The sentry on guard outside carried a black swagger stick with nickel top instead of a rifle. He was a man younger than the run of navvies Phillip had seen so far, and managed a fair salute. The sergeant, however, rated him in a loud voice. “Can’t you do better’n that, my lad? Come smartly to attention when you see an orficer approachin’. Let me see the forefinger of your left ’and in line with the seam of the trouser next time!”

Phillip entered the creosoted building in time to see the N.C.O. in charge of the guard sweeping a heap of coppers into one hand, while another man thrust a pack of cards under the brown blanket covering the trestle table at which several soldiers were sitting.

“Guard—SHUN,” roared the N.C.O., saluting. “Guard present and correct, sir.”

“So I noticed. What is it, pontoon or nap?”

“Nap, sir.”

“Solo whist has its points, as a change. Stand easy. I would like to see the man in the cell.”

The guard sergeant looked at the orderly sergeant. Then staring at nothing the orderly sergeant cried, “Orfficer to see prisoner!” in a loud but hollow voice.

In silence the key was put in, the door was half opened, the guard sergeant shouted, “Prisoner, SHUN!”

The orderly sergeant said to Phillip that he had better follow him, and gave him a wink. “Troublesome customer in ’ere, sir.”

“Then he has a grievance. That’s what I’m here for.”

The room inside was lined, like the door, with sheet-iron. The brown iron on the door was dented, as from many kickings. It was lit by a single electric bulb high in the wooden ceiling. The prisoner seemed to have absorbed the grimness of iron-encasement as he stood by the only object in the room, a palliasse bed in three sections on the dirty floor. He had a sullen unshaven face, his dark eyes seemed to be darker with suppressed anger, or pain. He stood bootless, beltless, and minus his braces, so that his trousers were about to fall down. He was a huge man, with lips the thicker for being swollen, his nose was likewise swollen and blood-crusted. There was a long cut upon one swelled cheek-bone.

“Any complaints?” asked Phillip, deciding that the man had been brought in fighting drunk.

“No!” replied the prisoner, in a hoarse voice.

“How’s the food?”

“Bloody muck, not fit for a bloody pig.”

“Steady my lad, before an orfficer!” cried the sergeant.

“Oh, I heard ever so much worse language than that during the first battle of Ypres,” said Phillip, amiably. “Now tell me, how did you get hurt like that?”

“I falled down.”

“Yes, it happens to us all sometime or other.” To the orderly sergeant, “Has iodine been put on those cuts?”

“No sir.”

“Then he should be treated at once.”

“Medical orderly’s hut closed, sir.”

“Then it must be opened.”

“Next sick parade at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, sir.”

“Then we’ll have a special one now.”

He lifted the left side of his tunic and with a rip of stitches opened his field dressing. He broke the iodine capsule, and saying, “This will smart a bit on your cheek, but I’ll let you put it yourself on your lips. I saw a man with lock-jaw in France, and it was not a pleasant sight.”

“Don’t go near him, sir,” said the orderly sergeant, softly past one spike of his moustache. The prisoner heard, and glowered at the sergeant.

“He’s all right,” cried Phillip, enthusiastically. “So is anyone who wears both the Queen’s and King’s ribands for South Africa! Ask the sergeant of the guard to let him have a hot cup of fresh tea, with plenty of sugar. What is your name?” to the prisoner. “Pimm, that’s a very good name. Now be a good fellow, and let me treat that cut on your cheek-bone.”

He went forward, and in silence dabbed the iodine on the cut. The prisoner looked at him, unmoving. “There, that’s done. Like to have my handkerchief to do your lips? It’s quite clean. You can have it, if you like.”

The prisoner put the iodine on his lips. Phillip smiled at him, saying, “Good man. Sergeant, don’t forget that cup of char. Plenty of sugar in it, if Pimm wants it. Right, we’ll go and see the cookhouse now.”

“Want yer snot rag, sir?” said the prisoner, holding out the khaki handkerchief.

“It’s a present for you, Pimm. I’ve been under arrest in my time, and I know what it feels like. I’ll come and see you later on.”

They left the iron room. The door was locked again.

“Christ A’mighty, there ain’t many like you, if you’ll pardon the remark, sir,” said the sergeant, on the way to the cookhouse. “You took a risk, sir, you know.”

Feeling mellow and pleased with himself, Phillip replied, “Oh, surely not, sergeant? Pimm is a good fellow. The officers I knew when I was a private, in France, all looked after their men. That’s what an officer is for. In a good battalion, anyway. It’s you fellows, the N.C.O.’s, who have all the dirty work. An officer should be a soldier’s friend.”

“In the old army, yes sir, I agree, but this ain’t the old army.”

“But Pimm is an old soldier—in both senses of the term! How did he get those bruises on his face? I saw drops of blood on the floor, and they weren’t from deep cuts. Did he scrap in the guardroom?”

“It isn’t my business to say, sir.”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

“You ’eard what ’e said, sir, ’e fell down.”

“What’s all the mystery about?” said Phillip, stopping.

“I can’t say, sir, I’m only the orderly sergeant.”

They walked on towards the cookhouse, a place of lime-washed corrugated iron, grease, and coal. Thick smoke poured from a chimney. Beyond was a heap of white bread, hundreds of loaves piled together, thousands of loaves under the trees.

“My God, and a soldier in France is lucky if he can get two small slices of bread in his ration once a week! And what the hell is all that?”

He walked to a pit wherein joints and bones lay piled on top of each other. There was among them the whole side of a bullock.

“Does the Adjutant know about this waste?”

“The farmer takes it away, sir, for to feed his pigs.”

“And who gets the money?”

“Ah, now you’re asking something, sir!”

“No wonder the war is costing five million pounds a day. There’s several cartloads of meat wasted here, all going rotten, and at least a couple of lorry-loads of loaves.”

“It’s the same everywhere, sir. Everyone makin’ money except the tommy, what does the fightin’.”

“I don’t think I want to see the inside of the cookhouse. The outside is enough.”

“Cooks are off duty now, sir, anyway.”

“Do they wear smoke-helmets? They should. Right, I’ll see you at guard mounting at six o’clock. See to it that the prisoner Pimm gets his cup of tea.”

“Very good, sir.”

The sergeant changed his manner. “It was the colonel what marked ’m, sir. Only don’t fer Gawd’s sake let on that I told you. I don’t want to be broke, sir.”

“Colonel Broad?”

“Yes sir. It was that or a court martial, sir, for insubordination. The colonel goes to see Pimm, and offers him a good ’iding or a court martial, in which case the man will be for the glass ’ouse, sir, and his pay be stopped, and ’is missus and kids suffer. Pimm knows that, and before ’e can say which ’e’ll take, the Ganger, as they call the Colonel, batters ’is gums good and proper. ’E’ll let ’im out on Monday, sir, and there won’t be no more trouble.”

“Rough justice, sergeant.”

“Yes sir, and the men understand it.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks, then?”

“It’s what they all bin used to, sir.”

“Well, I take it that there are no complaints, sergeant?”

“None whatever, sir! I allus says, let sleeping dogs lie. Oh, before I forgets it, sir, the orderly orfficer ain’t supposed to go near the men’s quarters before lights out, sir.”

“Why is that?”

“To avoid trouble, sir. The men gets paid today, and they’re only navvies arter all, if you understand my meanin’.”

*

At guard mounting the orderly sergeant said, “Pimm ’ad his cup of char, sir, and we give ’im some sausages and bread. The men liked what you did, if you’ll excuse me tellin’ you. But you’ll remember to keep clear of them huts, won’t you, sir? We don’t want no trouble.”

This made Phillip all the more determined to see what went on. It reminded him of the music hall song

for these old navvies were like a lot of ancient Crusoes, who drew each Saturday afternoon the immense pay of forty-two shillings each.

After the pubs and canteen had been closed, the men staggered back to their quarters, singing, rolling and fighting. He watched from behind a tree two buck navvies taking terrific swings at each other, men who a few moments before had been coming along holding one another up, arms round necks. Phillip thought he knew all the swear words in the cockney’s vocabulary, but some of the things said were pretty awful, he thought, coming from the lowest level of slum living. He had heard remarks from wretched boys in the fever hospital which had made him wince, boys in whose thoughts nothing was sacred; but these navvies when fighting drunk taunted one another with far worse phrases. Could a father really make his small children do what was said? Incest took place, of course, often among the poor in crowded rooms, but that was nothing to what he heard from the two who had been calling one another “matey” only a few moments before, and then fallen out.

The scenes in the huts, or rather on the hut floors, were mild compared with the language. Taking care to remain hidden, he watched one scene beyond an open door; men lay about in all attitudes, in pools of their own urine. The sergeant had told him that a man might take as many as forty pints in a boozer at night, and it had seemed to be an exaggeration; but now he saw, in hut after hut, figures dispread and inert on wet floors, an occasional shaggy figure sitting up and singing. In one hut, asprawl with figures, four men of about forty years of age, real buck navvies, he thought, were doing what some of the senior boys in the school Cadet Corps at Bisley had done in a tent openly and without shame, to see who could race the others.

He went from hut to hut, all with doors open, and watched. In one a man was staggering about, the only one on his feet, roaring out that he had been home to see his old woman, but when he got there, he found she had on the kicking strap. A flow of obscenity followed, then:

“I give it to ’er, I give it to ’er jus’ like this——” and the man lurched at the stove, swinging his fist. He hit the iron pipe so that the chimney collapsed and fell on the floor and smoke came with flames out of the broken upright end of the pipe. The man went down on the floor, groaning.

Phillip went in to have a look and thought that it was unlikely to set fire to the room, as the stove was now a fire-pail and the fire would gradually die out. Six times the pay of the fighting tommy in France, no wonder they behaved like beggars on horseback! Before the war, sixteen shillings a week; now, forty-two.

The only report he would make, thought Phillip, would be to Mrs. Neville when he saw her next; and even to her, he would have to censor at least one of the scenes.

*

It certainly was a rag-time battalion of Kitchener’s Army he had come to, he thought, as he leaned against a wall of the drawing-room of Grey Towers, one of several other junior subalterns taking part in the weekly Social as it was called.

Dinner was over. The ladies were in the drawing-room, knitting and talking among themselves. With the exception of the Colonel’s daughter, the ladies were matronly, homely individuals of between forty and fifty years of age: Mrs. Broad, Mrs. Fluck, Mrs. Crump, Mrs. Gleeson, Mrs. Stiff. Their husbands had been time-served N.C.O.’s, retired for many years before the war. Now they were back again, and having the time of their lives—as majors, and prospective lieutenant-colonels; for, it was said, several new battalions were to be formed out of the original Navvies. There they sat: Crump, Fluck, Gleeson and Stiff, all together in one corner, smoking pipes and playing cards—not exactly bridge, but pontoon: a crafty lot taken altogether, he thought, wicked old devils who knew all the tricks, all trying to line nests which before the war had certainly not been feathered. Now some of the feathers were in evidence: round the necks, as boas, of Mesdames Crump, Fluck, Gleeson and Stiff.

Phillip laughed as he thought of what Wigg had told him: that every grocer in Ilford and Romford had been visited at various times by one or another of these gentry, in connection with possible deals for probable Regimental Institute “comforts for the troops”—extra rations such as custard powders, prunes, fresh vegetables, and cocoa for the canteens—to be bought with a secret commission returned to each C.O. when the new battalions were formed. “Jam,” it was called.

As the now-idle new broom leaned against the wall there were voices in the passage outside. “Steady!” “Take it easy!” “All right, keep your wool on”, etc.; then through the open door came a pushed piano. Miss Broad turned pale. Milman was going to accompany her on the piano; then they were going to sing a duet. After that, she was going to play the piano accompaniment of The Broken Melody. At intervals during the afternoon fragments of this ordeal had been audible in and around Grey Towers. Now the dreaded moment was come. Milman smiled at her reassuringly. She smiled back, her eyes still anxious. Phillip sympathised. He liked Milman.

When the violinist was rubbing resin on his bow, Wigg sauntered over to Phillip. “Look at Milman,” he said, sotte voce, “little gutscraper!”

Phillip gave Wigg an amiable look, and remained silent, thinking that sotty votshy just about summed up Wigg.

“By the way, did the Cabin Boy ever thank you for letting him use your motorcar, when you first arrived?”

“Yes, thanks. What’s more, he gave me four gallons of juice. I thought it quite decent of him.”

“Yes, at Curling’s expense.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He took two cans from the pit-store in the stable, didn’t he? Well, those cans were kept there, and had been paid for, by Little Boy Curling. The Cabin Boy took them without as much as a by-your-leave.”

“But surely Colonel Broad pays for the petrol Curling uses when he drives him about in his ‘Prince Henry’ Vauxhall?”

“Not on your life! Little Boy Curling takes the C.O. to the House of Commons, at other times he takes the Colonel’s wife shopping in Regent Street, or to a matinée, where I bet he pays for the tickets. What it is to have for father the richest grocer in London, who bought himself a baronetcy by paying thirty thousand pounds to the Liberal Party’s coffers.”

Phillip wondered about those two tins of petrol. After the tremulous singing of When you Come down the Vale, Lad, There’s Music Everywhere, he crossed the room to Curling and asked him. The duet, O that We Two were Maying! was about to begin.

“Tell me, Curling, have you missed four gallons——”

“S-sh!” said Curling, his head seeming to shrink into his shoulders. He put a finger half-heartedly to his lips, his eyes were those of a subdued little boy. He wore leggings and breeches; other subalterns had changed into slacks, but Curling was apparently on duty all the time, ready to drive Col. Broad, M.P. whenever he or England might require the services of his grey open motor-car with the beaky radiator and arrow-fluted bonnet. Second-lieutenant Curling had one main sorrow; he had been promised a second pip by the Colonel last July, and still he had only one on each sleeve.

After the duet, while Milman was tuning up his fiddle, Phillip asked about the petrol. Curling, lowering his eyes, and hoping that the other would not give so much as one glance at any member of the Broad family, whispered, “I was very pleased to be of use. Please forget it, Maddison.”

“Well, thanks, old chap.”

“Don’t mention it.”

While Milman was playing the dreamy, rather sad and beautiful Alice, Where Art Thou, that Uncle Hugh had played on his cigar-box fiddle with a brass horn so movingly, Phillip thought that Curling, despite his one pip, could not grumble. His father was very nearly a millionaire, and Curling was not likely to be sent out to France, when he was useful to the C.O. All the same, he was in half a mind to offer six shillings for the four gallons, but thinking of Curling’s ‘allowance from the guv’nor’ of £600 a year, plus his pay, he thought better of it.

Sitting beside Curling, he noticed on the brown leather of his boots the black marks of spurs and chains, but no signs of rubbing on leggings or breeches strappings. Evidently Curling had glorified himself to equestrian status when he was home on leave, and out of sight of Colonel Broad. How funny that a baronet’s son should want to swank. After the music, the piano was moved back for dancing. Phillip got away, before anyone could suggest that he dance with any of the girls sitting with their mothers. By the door he met Wigg, who said, “I met a friend of yours the other night in town. Her name is Frances. She says you know her cousin.”

Frances, Frances, thought Phillip, who could she be? Fearing Wigg’s cynical tongue, he asked no questions.