The Command

by Christopher Nicole

  Proud drank. ‘What will you do?’

  Murdoch shrugged. ‘Same as I’m doing now. Wait for the next one to come along. I’ve been doing that for nineteen years.’

  ‘Suppose there isn’t a next one? Isn’t this the war to end all wars?’

  ‘If you’ll believe that you’ll believe anything. What are your plans?’ He knew Proud was not a regular soldier, but had been a Territorial.

  ‘I have no idea. I was just setting up a little practice as a solicitor in 1914, down in Cornwall. I imagine everyone in Newquay has forgotten my name, by now.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to remind them.’

  ‘Yes,’ Proud said glumly. He was clearly not looking forward to it, and Murdoch suspected there might be financial problems...but he didn’t know how to go about offering to help.

  They were disturbed by the frantic hooting of a horn.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ Reynolds said. It’s Mr Caspar.’

  ‘Captain Caspar, you nut,’ Harry said, striding into the room with his hand outstretched, and then coming to attention to salute. ‘Oops, I almost forgot.’

  ‘Harry!’ Murdoch shook hands. Harry wore American army service uniform, and had a revolver slung on his belt — he managed to look like a Wild West gunman. ‘Where have you been these last couple of years?’

  ‘Trying to get to you, believe it or not. How I wanted to be with you outside Amiens in August. But...duty called. Say, you guys coming out for a drink?’ He looked at Proud a trifle uncertainly.

  ‘You haven’t met John Proud, my adjutant.’

  They shook hands.

  ‘We’re gonna celebrate,’ Harry announced. ‘Weren’t you gonna celebrate?’

  ‘Well...I suppose we were.’

  ‘So come on. I have some spare cans of gas in the back of that thing.’

  Murdoch suddenly realized that he wanted to celebrate, more than ever before in his life. ‘You’re on. Only, leave that howitzer behind.’

  ‘I’d be improperly dressed. And suppose we met a Jerry?’

  ‘You’re in the company of two British officers,’ Murdoch said enigmatically.

  Harry hesitated, then took off the gun belt and laid it on a chair. ‘Just remind me where I left it,’ he said.

  *

  ‘Where are we going?’ Murdoch asked.

  Harry twisted the wheel, and the touring car negotiated both a pothole and stalled lorry. The waiting soldiers cheered the officers. ‘A little place called St Omer. It’s not far. Maybe a hundred kilometres.’

  ‘St Omer? Murdoch cried.

  ‘Sure, you must know it. Hell, you were stationed just outside it, back in 1915. We used to nip in there for a quick drink. Remember?’

  ‘I remember,’ Murdoch said. ‘What are we going all the way over there for?’

  ‘What do you think? I’m told it has the best little place in all France. Cleaned up by the British three years ago. You must’ve heard about it.’

  ‘I’ve heard about it,’ Murdoch said.

  ‘Well, now it caters for officers only. I’ve been trying to get there for three years. But first, a drink. Say, Johnnie, old fellow, there’s some bottles of champagne left in that crate beside you. Break one out.’

  Proud obliged, and they drank from the neck. The champagne was warm, but the more bubbly for that. Murdoch’s head started to spin, but it was more than the champagne. He was thirty-seven years old, and he was being taken to a brothel for the first time in his life — by his own brother-in-law. The surprising thing was that he wanted to go. It was more than a year’s separation from Lee. It was a residue of the simmering emotional upheaval that had been Chand Bibi, and all that she had stood for, deep down in a man’s gut.

  And he wanted to celebrate. He wanted to let his hair down for almost the first time in his life. As Lee had once told him, he was too much the soldier. But then, his very first colonel had told him that, within a few days of his joining the regiment. He had always been too much the soldier.

  Besides, he wanted to see Madame Leboeuf again. Madame apparently wanted to see him again. She had been engaged in conversation with a major, but she turned away from him immediately the three newcomers entered her crowded salon. ‘Monsieur le Colonel!’ she cried. ‘Oo-la-la,’ as she observed the crossed sword and baton. ‘Monsieur le général.’ She draped her arms around his neck and herself up and down his chest. ‘You ’ave been so long, coming to see poor Aimee,’ she complained.

  Murdoch was astonished as he looked around him, over her head. The dowdy, odorous room had been transformed, with new drapes and cushion covers, new carpets, freshly papered walls, a new chandelier; Madame Leboeuf herself was wearing a splendid gown, slashed in a deep décolletage to expose her small but very attractive breasts, while her auburn hair smelt of expensive perfume; the half-dozen young women also in the room were hardly less well-dressed; and the place was packed with officers.

  ‘You know the dame!’ Harry cried in exasperation.

  ‘We have met, in the line of duty.’ Murdoch dutifully kissed Madame, and she reluctantly slid down his chest. ‘You have done very well for yourself, Aimee.’

  ‘All because of you, General. When it became known that I was the only safe house north-west of Paris, why, I had to turn away custom. So, I decided to bar enlisted men, and my business has grown.’

  ‘Poor enlisted men,’ Murdoch commented.

  ‘It is all thanks to you. Now for you, it is I, and...’ she kissed him again. ‘It is on the ’ouse, eh?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t accept that.’

  ‘On the ’ouse,’ she insisted. And lowered her voice. ‘I, me, am very expensive, General. You come with me.’ She held his hand.

  ‘Well, I’ll be God damned,’ Harry remarked.

  ‘The Brigadier has hidden talents,’ Proud commented. ‘Fifi, Brigitte, look after these gentlemen,’ Madame Leboeuf commanded.

  ‘Here, I say, sir,’ protested the major on whom she had been lavishing attention when Murdoch and his friends had entered.

  ‘Be patient, Major,’ Aimee told him. ‘Your turn will come. The General is my oldest friend.’

  As old friends go, she was the best. But he found himself thinking of Chand Bibi.

  *

  To the family’s great disappointment — and his own — Murdoch did not get home for Christmas. The Light Brigade was one of those assigned to overseeing the German surrender, and then to occupying a bridgehead across the Rhine.

  ‘Germany,’ Proud remarked, as they walked their horses through the streets of Coblenz. ‘To think we have been fighting for four years to get here.’

  ‘We’re here,’ Murdoch told him. ‘That’s all that matters.’ He wondered how Paul von Reger was feeling now. But more important, he wondered if that other Paul von Reger had survived. He felt that he was entitled to find out, and wrote to Colonel and Frau Paul von Reger, at the address in Prussia he had been given by Margriet. To his surprise, he received a fairly rapid reply — from Margriet:

  My dear Murdoch,

  What a treat it is to hear from you in these sad times. Not for you. Times have never been sad for you, have they? You are the epitome of British dominance. Here, alas, things are not good any more. Would you believe I have had to queue for bread? I? Things have improved slightly these past couple of weeks, as regards food, but now we are surrounded by red revolutionaries. Only two days ago Paul had to use his revolver and shoot two men who just walked into our house and claimed it was their own, because all property belonged to all men. I was so afraid!

  The Paul I refer to is your son. From which you will gather that he is alive and well and restored to his grateful mother. He fought long and well, and wears the Iron Cross. But he was wounded, slightly, at the Battle of Amiens, and sent home to recuperate. He had not yet rejoined his regiment when the Armistice was signed, and I have prevailed upon him to remain here with me, for our mutual protection. I am speaking of the girls and myself, of course. Are you not proud of
him?

  Of my husband, I have only occasional news. He is in Berlin, I believe, which is not so very far, but has not the time to spare for his family. It is all politics. Who will rule Germany now that the Kaiser has so cravenly fled our country? I wish we were back in South Africa. I wish we had never left.

  I wish so many things.

  But as I am here, and you also are in Germany, Murdoch, I would be so happy to see you. So would young Paul, even if he does not know you are his father. He will, one day, when I can tell him without enraging his legal father. To have you here, for a single night, would make me happy, at least for that night.

  Write to me.

  Your loving Margriet

  Murdoch laid down the letter, and gazed at the wall. She had not changed. He did not suppose she ever would. So beautiful, so proud, so unhappy in her marriage and, he thought, in herself. But he could no longer accept the responsibility of making her happy.

  And Paul. A war hero! He had been at Amiens, watching the tanks rolling towards him. Perhaps even watching the cavalry swinging their sabres without knowing that his father was amongst them. Had Paul been one of those who had turned and run? Not Paul Mackinder — even if his name was von Reger.

  He wrote back to say that now peace was restored he would certainly visit them when he could — with his wife. And showed Lee the letter when, as he could not go home, she came over to Germany early in the new year. When they had confessed their past experiences on their honeymoon, they had each had only one to confess. And none since? It had never occurred to him to worry about Lee, left alone at Broad Acres so much of the time; he knew she loved him, and that was enough. As she knew of him.

  ‘Oh, Murdoch,’ she said. ‘I feel so sorry for her. But so proud of young Paul. I really would like to meet him.’

  ‘You shall,’ he promised. ‘But I think, for everyone’s sake, it should be when things really have returned to normal, Reger is back with his family, and some of the bitterness has gone. At least we know he is alive, and not actually starving, and healthy.’

  Because millions weren’t. There were cases of men and women starving to death in Vienna at the Christmas of 1918, and by then the whole world, it seemed, was in the grip of an outbreak of a new strain of influenza, which killed almost as many people as the war itself had done. Murdoch worried about Lee, and the children, who were all now at school, but her letters were constantly reassuring.

  *

  And at last it was time to go home. The Light Brigade was relieved, and sailed for England in the early summer of 1919. It had already been drastically reduced, as conscripts and wartime volunteers had been demobilized as quickly as possible. Each regiment was down to two squadrons of a hundred and fifty men when they left Germany, approximately half the men Murdoch had commanded into the battle of Amiens, and many of these were also due for an early release. John Proud had already left, and Murdoch’s adjutant was a captain named Lawrie; he had been a lieutenant when Murdoch had taken command of the brigade, in the Lancers, so at least they knew each other.

  There were the usual homecoming parades, the invariable medals. Murdoch’s already multicoloured left breast was enhanced by the even more eye-dazzling colours of the Mons Star, the British Victory Medal, 1914-1918, and the French and Belgian Croix de Guerre — difficult to tell apart.

  But going home was the important factor. It was like stepping into a dream world. Given extended leave for the first time since 1913, Murdoch for a few days felt quite disoriented. Even in Germany, with the war over, there had been so much civil strife and so much the atmosphere of a vast military camp, at least in the Rhineland, that it was possible to feel the war had just dwindled, not ended. England had not actually known the war, save for the few zeppelin raids. There had been, and were, privations enough, but few to be encountered down in Somerset. Broad Acres was as he remembered it, peacefully serene, a place of refuge when strong winds flowed across the Somerset moors, a place of sheer joy when the sun shone and the winds were light.

  Ian was now ten years old, and Fergus nine. They were attending the prep school Murdoch had been to, which meant they were already boarding, but they were home for the long summer vacation. They wanted to do nothing but play with their lead soldiers, and refight the battles of the war, and they wanted their father to tell them how and why each had been fought. He spent hours lying on his stomach in the playroom, while his mind drifted back to that sand table in Surrey in 1914, and those other lead soldiers. How long ago it seemed. But it was good to know that Swinton had at last received the recognition due to him as the inventor of the tank, and long overdue promotion.

  Helen, who was seven, and attending a school in Bath itself, was no less interested in the warlike activities of her brothers, but was seldom allowed to join in. Harry, who was just four, was also permitted only as a spectator.

  For Murdoch, to be in the midst of his family was an utter delight. When the weather was fine they played cricket or croquet, and he taught the boys the rudiments of tennis. As he had promised back in 1914, he sold the Rolls and bought a new car, a Daimler drophead. Lee had kept up her driving, and now he took it up as well.

  ‘I’d never thought to see you behind the wheel of a car rather than on a horse,’ Philippa remarked.

  ‘Ah, well, according to the powers that be, I may have to find myself behind the wheel of a tank before too much longer,’ Murdoch told her.

  But no one knew for sure. No one knew anything. The huge army Great Britain had accumulated from all her empire as well as from her own people was being disbanded as quickly as possible, and there were all manner of rumours as to the form the new, post-war army was going to take...if any, should the pacifists have their way.

  ‘Same thing’s happening in the States,’ Harry told him, coming over for a visit. ‘Even more so. Seems everyone wants to forget about the war, and about Europe, just as quickly as they can. You know the Republicans are running on a ticket of repudiating the League of Nations?’

  ‘But Wilson will win, surely.’

  ‘Don’t quote me, but I wouldn’t put money on it, Murdoch. For one thing, he isn’t actually campaigning for himself. That might carry some weight, but he can’t stand for a third term. And then there’s this big feeling that we sorted out your problems for you and now you should be left to get on with it.’

  ‘Sorted out our problems? That’s pitching it a bit strong.’

  ‘Sure it is. But to the uninformed masses of Americans — or at least, the trouble is, they are informed, by political newspapers — you and the French fought and fought and fought for three years with no result save one hell of a big casualty list. The doughboys arrive, and bingo, the war is won.’

  ‘I suppose there is something in that. It would be rather a catastrophe, though, if you didn’t join the League. I mean, it was your idea. Collective security to prevent another war. Collective has to mean everybody. Or at least, everybody who matters.’

  ‘Sure. I agree with you. But most Americans are determined there isn’t going to be another war anyway — leastways, not one involving them.’ He grinned. ‘In another couple of years you wouldn’t want us in the League: we won’t have an army worth a damn. And when you think that you have to cross the Atlantic to get a decent drink...I reckon I’m gonna give up being a foreign correspondent and settle in St Omer and write a novel.’

  *

  But whatever the Americans were doing, there would always have to be a British army, that was certain, as long as there was a British empire. The end of the war did not mean any end to the commitments which British soldiers had been undertaking for more than a century. Within the next two years there was confrontation with the resurgent Turkish nationalists across the Bosphorus, and as usual, trouble in the north-west of India, where General Dyer, a fine commander of men, got himself into trouble by opening fire on a Sikh crowd in Amritsar and was cashiered, and even a campaign against the Mahsuds. Murdoch studied the newspapers, and came across the name of Sh
ere Khan often enough. The English treated the ‘old devil’ with a certain amount of amused respect. But these were newspaper correspondents, who did not know enough about the actual conditions in the valley of the Kurram — or were afraid of reporting them lest they shock even their war-inured readers — and there was no mention of Shere Khan’s daughters.

  Glad as he was to be home, Murdoch found himself chafing at the relativity light duties of commander of a brigade which was steadily being run down. He was also not terribly amused by the newfangled ideas which were creeping into the army. The one which most affected him, and most annoyed him, was the decision to do away with the rank of brigadier-general. Instead he, and every other brigade commander, became a colonel-commandant. This made a little sense as the brigade idea itself was being phased out in favour of smaller units — mainly for reasons of economy — but the title smacked too much of continental usage.

  ‘I might as well be a bloody German,’ he growled to Lee. ‘Colonel-Commandant Mackinder, by God! Father must be turning in his grave.’

  At least he was still in the army, and prospering as much as anyone. The fallout amongst his contemporaries and superiors was alarming. Field Marshal Sir John French found himself Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, at a time when the Irish troubles were just raising their head again. Among the casualties claimed by the IRA gunmen was Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, who retired as Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1922, returned to his home in Ireland, and was promptly murdered.

  Field Marshal Sir William Robertson became Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine, and as such was Murdoch’s commanding officer, briefly, in 1919. Field Marshal Sir Edward Allenby, as a result of his triumphs in Palestine and Syria, became a Viscount, Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe — but found himself condemned to remaining in the Middle East, as High Commissioner for Egypt.

  Sir Henry Rawlinson went to India as Commander-in-Chief. General Sir Horace Smith-Dorien, Murdoch’s old commander at the battle of Le Cateau, became Governor of Gibraltar. General Plumer also became a viscount, and was made Governor of Malta. General Byng became Governor-General of Canada. General Gough was retired. General Sir William Marshall, who had succeeded Maude in Mesopotamian command, also found himself in India, commanding the south.