The Valley of Bones

by Anthony Powell

  However, there was an undoubted aptness in this sham fortress, monument to a tasteless, half-baked romanticism, becoming now, in truth, a military stronghold, its stone walls and vaulted ceilings echoing at last to the clatter of arms and oaths of soldiery. It was as if its perpetrators had re-created the tedium, as well as the architecture of mediaeval times. At fourteenth-century Stourwater (which had once caused Isobel to recall the Morte d’Arthur), Sir Magnus Donners was far less a castellan than the Castlemallock commandant, a grey-faced Regular, recovering from appendicitis; Sir Magnus’s guests certainly less like feudatories than the seedy Anti-Gas instructors, sloughed off at this golden opportunity by their regiments. The Ordnance officers, drab seneschals, fitted well into this gothic world, most of all Pinkus, Adjutant-Quartermaster, one of those misshapen dwarfs who peer from the battlements of Dolorous Garde, bent on doing disservice to whomsoever may cross the drawbridge. This impression – that one had slipped back into a nightmare of the Middle Ages – was not dispelled by the Castlemallock ‘details’ on parade. There were warm summer nights at Retreat when I could scarcely proceed between the ranks of these cohorts of gargoyles drawn up for inspection for fear of bursting into fits of uncontrollable demoniac laughter.

  ‘Indeed, they are the maimed, the halt and the blind,’ CSM Cadwallader remarked more than once.

  In short, the atmosphere of Castlemallock told on the nerves of all ranks. Once, alone in the Company Office, a former pantry set in a labyrinth of stone passages at the back of the house, I heard a great clatter of boots and a frightful wailing like that of a very small child. I opened the door to see what was happening. A young soldier was standing there, red faced and burly, tears streaming down his cheeks, his hair dishevelled, his nose running. He looked at the end of his tether. I knew him by sight as one of the Mess waiters. He swayed there limply, as if he might fall down at any moment. A sergeant, also young, followed him quickly up the passage, and stood over him, if that could be said of an NCO half the private’s size.

  ‘What the hell is all this row?’

  ‘He’s always on at me,’ said the private, sobbing convulsively.

  The sergeant looked uncomfortable. They were neither of them Gwatkin’s men.

  ‘Come along,’ he said.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘He’s a defaulter, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Come along now, and finish that job.’

  ‘I can’t do it, my back hurts,’ said the private, mopping his eyes with a clenched hand.

  ‘Then you should report sick,’ said the sergeant severely, ‘see the MO. That’s what you want to do, if your back hurts.’

  ‘Seen him.’

  ‘See him again then.’

  ‘The Adjutant-Quartermaster said if I did any more malingering he’d give me more CB.’

  The sergeant’s face was almost as unhappy as the private’s. He looked at me as if he thought I might be able to offer some brilliant solution to their problems. He was wrong about that. I saw no way out. Anyway, they were neither of them within my province.

  ‘Well, go away, and don’t make a disturbance outside here again.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  The two of them went off quietly, but, as they reached the far end of the stone passage, I heard it all starting up again. They were not our men, of course, amongst whom such a scene would have been inconceivable, even when emotions were allowed full rein, which sometimes happened. In such circumstances the display would have taken a far less dismal form. This sort of incident lowered the spirits to an infinitely depressed level. Even though there might be less to do here than with the Battalion, no road-blocks to man, for example, there were also no amusements in the evening, beyond the grubby pubs of a small, down-at-heel town a mile or two away.

  ‘There isn’t a lot for the lads to do’ said CSM Cadwallader.

  He was watching, unsmilingly, a Red Indian war-dance a group of men were performing, led by Williams, I. G., whose eccentric strain probably accounted for his friendship with Lance-Corporal Gittins, the storeman. The dancers, with tent-peg mallets for tomahawks, were moving slowly round in a small circle, bowing their heads to the earth and up again, as they gradually increased the speed of their rotation. I thought what a pity that Bithel was not there to lead them in this dance.

  ‘What about organising some football?’

  ‘No other company there is to play, sir.’

  ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘Personnel of the School, C.3., they are.’

  ‘But there are plenty of our own fellows. Can’t they make up a game among themselves?’

  ‘The boys wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Another company’s what they like to beat.’

  That was a good straightforward point of view, no pretence that games were anything but an outlet for power and aggression; no stuff about their being enjoyable as such. You played a game to demonstrate that you did it better than someone else. If it came to that, I thought, how few people do anything for its own sake, from making love to practising the arts.

  ‘How do they amuse themselves when not doing Indian war-dances?’

  ‘Some of the lads has found a girl.’

  The Sergeant-Major smiled quietly to himself, as if he might have been of that number.

  ‘Corporal Gwylt?’

  ‘Indeed, sir, Corporal Gwylt may have a girl or two.’

  Meanwhile, since my return from Aldershot, I was aware of a change that had taken place in Gwatkin, though precisely what had happened to him, I could not at first make out. He had been immensely gratified, so Kedward told me, to find himself more or less on his own as a junior commander, keenly jealous of this position in relation to the Castlemallock Commandant, always making difficulties with him when men were wanted for demonstrational purposes. On the other hand, Gwatkin had also developed a new vagueness, even bursts of apparent indolence. He would pass suddenly into a state close to amnesia, sitting at his table in the Company Office, holding in the palm of his hand, lettering uppermost, the rubber-stamp of the Company, as if it were an orb or other symbol of dominion, while he gazed out on to the cobbled yard, where outbuildings beyond had been transformed into barrack rooms. For several minutes at a time he would stare into space, scanning the roofs as if he could descry beyond the yard and stables vision of battle, cavalry thundering down, long columns of infantry advancing through the smoke, horse artillery bringing up the guns. At least, that was what I supposed. I thought Gwatkin had at last ‘seen through’ the army as he had formerly imagined it, was experiencing a casting out of devils within himself, the devils of his old military ideas. Gwatkin seemed himself to some extent aware of these visitations, because, so soon as they were passed, his ‘regimental’ manner would become more obtrusive than ever. On such occasions he would indulge in tussles with the Commandant, or embark on sudden explosions of energy and extend hours of training. However, side by side with exertions that insisted upon an ever-increased standard of efficiency, he became no less subject to these lethargic moods. He talked more freely, too, abandoning all pretence of being a ‘man of few words’, formerly one of his favourite roles. Again, these bursts of talkativeness alternated with states of the blackest, most silent gloom.

  ‘Anything wrong with Rowland?’ I asked Kedward.

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem quite himself.’

  ‘All right, so far as I’ve heard.’

  ‘Just struck me as a bit browned off.’

  ‘Has he been on your tail?’

  ‘Not specially.’

  ‘I thought he’d been better tempered lately. But, my God, it’s true he’s always forgetting things. We nearly ran out of Acquittance Rolls last Pay Parade owing to Rowland having shoved a lot of indents the CQMS gave him into a drawer. Perhaps you’re right, Nick, and he’s not well.’

  For some reason, the matter of the Alarm brought home to me these developments in Gwatkin. Comman
d had issued one of their periodic warnings that all units and formations were to be on their guard against local terrorist action of the Deafy Morgan sort, which, encouraged by German successes in the field, had recently become more common. A concerted attack by subversive elements was thought likely to take shape within the next week or two in the Castlemallock area. Accordingly, every unit was instructed to devise its own local Alarm signal, in addition to the normal Alert. The Alert was, of course, based on the principle that German invasion had taken place south of the Border, where British troops would consequently move forthwith. For training purposes, these Alerts were usually issued in code by telephone or radio – in the case of Gwatkin’s company, routine procedure being to march on the main body of the Battalion. For merely local troubles, however – to which the warning from Command referred – different action would be required, therefore a different warning given. At Castlemallock, for example, the Commandant decided that any such outbreak should be made known by blowing the Alarm on the bugle. All ranks were paraded to hear the Alarm sounded, so that its notes should at once be recognised, if need arose. Afterwards, Gwatkin, Kedward, CSM Cadwallader and I assembled in the Company Office to check arrangements. The question obviously arose of those men insufficiently musical to register in the head the sound they had just heard.

  ‘All those bugle calls have words to them,’ said Kedward. ‘What are the ones for the Alarm?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Gwatkin, pleased at this opportunity to make practical use of military lore, Cookhouse, for instance:

  Come to the cookhouse door, boys,

  Come to the cookhouse door,

  Officers’ wives have puddings and pies,

  Soldiers’ wives have skilly.

  How does the Alarm go, Sergeant-Major? That must have words too.’

  It was the only time I ever saw CSM Cadwallader blush.

  ‘Rather vulgar words they are, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Well, what are they?’ said Gwatkin.

  The Sergeant-Major seemed still for some reason unwilling to reveal the appropriate assonance.

  ‘Think most of the Company know the call now, sir,’ he said.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Gwatkin. ‘We can’t take any risks. There may be even one man only who won’t recognise it. He’ll need the rhyme. What are the words?’

  ‘Really want them, sir?’

  ‘I’ve just said so,’ said Gwatkin.

  He was half irritated at the Sergeant-Major’s prevarication, at the same time half losing interest. He had begun to look out of the window, his mind wandering in the manner I have described. CSM Cadwallader hesitated again. Then he pursed his lips and gave a vocalized version of the bugle blaring the Alarm:

  ‘Sergeant-Major’s-got-a-horn!

  Sergeant-Major’s-got-a-horn! …’

  Kedward and I burst out laughing. I expected Gwatkin to do the same. He was normally capable of appreciating that sort of joke, especially as a laugh at CSM Cadwallader’s expense was not a thing to be missed. However, Gwatkin seemed scarcely to have heard the words, certainly not taken in their import. At first I thought he had been put out by receiving so broadly comic an answer to his question, feeling perhaps his dignity was compromised. That would have been a possibility, though unlike Gwatkin, because he approved coarseness of phrase as being military, even though he might be touchy about his own importance. It was then I realized he had fallen into one of his trances in which all around was forgotten: the Alarm, the Sergeant-Major, Kedward, myself, the Battalion, the army, the war itself.

  ‘Right, Sergeant-Major,’ he said, speaking abruptly, as if he had just woken from a dream. ‘See those words are promulgated throughout the Company. That’s all. You can fall out.’

  By this time it was summer and very hot. The Germans had invaded the Netherlands, Churchill become Prime Minister. I read in the papers that Sir Magnus Donners had been appointed to the ministerial post for which he had long been tipped. The Battalion was required to send men to reinforce one of the Regular Battalions in France. There was much grumbling at this, because we were supposed to be something more than a draft-finding unit. Gwatkin was particularly outraged by this order, and the loss of two or three good men from his company. Otherwise things went on much the same at Castlemallock, the great trees leafy in the park, all water dried up in the basins of the fountains. Then, one Saturday evening, Gwatkin suggested he and I should walk as far as the town and have a drink together. There was no Anti-Gas course in progress at that moment. Kedward was Duty Officer. As a rule, Gwatkin was rarely to be seen in the Mess after dinner. No one knew what he did with himself during those hours. It was possible that he retired to his room to study the Field Service Pocket Book or some other military manual. I never guessed he might make a practice of visiting the town. However, that was what his next remark seemed to suggest.

  ‘I’ve found a new place – better than M’Coy’s,’ he said rather challengingly. ‘The porter there is bloody marvellous. I’ve drunk it now several times. I’d like to have your opinion.’

  I had once visited M’Coy’s with Kedward. It was, in fact, the only pub I had entered since being stationed at Castlemallock. I found no difficulty in believing M’Coy’s could be improved upon as a drinking resort, but it was hard to guess why Gwatkin’s transference of custom from M’Coy’s to this new place should be an important issue, as Gwatkin’s manner seemed to suggest. In any case, it was unlike him to suggest an evening’s drinking. I agreed to make the trip. It would have been unfriendly, rather impolitic, to have refused. A walk into the town would be a change. Besides, I was heartily sick of Esmond. When dinner was at an end, Gwatkin and I set off together. We tramped along the drive in silence. We had almost reached the road, when he made an unexpected remark.

  ‘It won’t be easy to go back to the Bank after all this,’ he said.

  ‘All what?’

  ‘The army. The life we’re leading.’

  ‘Don’t you like the Bank?’

  As Kedward had explained at the outset, most of the Battalion’s officers worked in banks. This was one of the aspects of the unit which gave a peculiar sense of uniformity, of existing almost within a family. Even though one was personally outside this sept, its homogeneous character in itself offered a certain cordiality, rather than the reverse, to an intruder. Until now, no one had given the impression he specially disliked that employment, over and above the manner in which most people grumble about their own job, whatever it is. Indeed, all seemed to belong to a caste, clearly defined, powerful on its home ground, almost a secret society, with perfect understanding between its members where outward things were concerned. The initiates might complain about specific drawbacks, but never in a way to imply hankering for another occupation. To hear absolute revolt expressed was new to me. Gwatkin seemed to relent a little when he spoke again.

  ‘Oh, the bloody Bank’s not that bad,’ he said laughing, ‘but it’s a bit different being here. Something better to do than open jammed Home Safes and enter the contents in the Savings Bank Ledger.’

  ‘What’s a Home Safe, and why does it jam?’

  ‘Kids’ money-boxes.’

  ‘Do the children jam them?’

  ‘Parents, usually. Want a bit of ready. Try to break into the safe with a tin-opener. The bloody things arrive back at the office with the mechanism smashed to pieces. When the cashier gets in at last, he finds three pennies, a halfpenny and a tiddly wink.’

  ‘Still, brens get jammed too. It’s traditional for machine-guns – you know, the Gatling’s jammed and the Colonel’s dead. Somebody wrote a poem about it. One might do the same about a Home Safe and the manager.’

  Gwatkin ignored such disenchantment.

  ‘The bren’s a soldier’s job,’ he said.

  ‘What about Pay Parades and Kit Inspection? They’re soldiers’ jobs. It doesn’t make them any more enjoyable.’

  ‘Better than taking the Relief Till to Treorchy on a market day, doling
out the money from a bag in old Mrs Jones-the-Milk’s front parlour. What sort of life is that for a man?’

  ‘You find the army more glamorous, Rowland?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said eagerly, ‘glamorous. That’s the word. Don’t you feel you want to do more in life than sit in front of a row of ledgers all day long? I know I do.’

  ‘Sitting at Castlemallock listening to the wireless announcing the German army is pushing towards the Channel ports isn’t particularly inspiring either – especially after an hour with the CQMS trying to sort out the Company’s sock situation, or searching for a pair of battle-dress trousers to fit Evans, J., who is such an abnormal shape.’

  ‘No, Nick, but we’ll be in it soon. We can’t stay at Castlemallock for ever.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Anyway, Castlemallock’s not so bad.’

  He seemed desperately anxious to prevent me from speaking hardly of Castlemallock.

  ‘I agree the park is pretty. That is about the best you can say for it.’

  ‘It’s come to mean a lot to me,’ Gwatkin said.

  His voice was full of excitement. I had been quite wrong in supposing him disillusioned with the army. On the contrary, he was keener than ever. I could not understand why his enthusiasm had suddenly risen to such new heights. I did not for a moment, as we walked along, guess what the answer was going to be. By that time we had reached the pub judged by Gwatkin to be superior to M’Coy’s. The façade, it had to be admitted, was remarkably similar to M’Coy’s, though in a back alley, rather than the main street of the town. Otherwise, the place was the usual large cottage, the ground floor of which had been converted to the purposes of a tavern. I followed Gwatkin through the low door. The interior was dark, the smell uninviting. No one was about when we entered, but voices came from a room beyond the bar. Gwatkin tapped the counter with a coin.