by Alan Hackney
Stanley knocked on the door just after eight in the evening.
“I’m on escort duty, Kat,” he explained. “I’ve got the night off.”
“Good gracious,” said Catherine. “You haven’t come for Herbert, have you?”
“I’ve never heard of Herbert,” said Stanley. “It’s a man in Woolwich.”
“Well, you shall meet Herbert, darling,” said Catherine. “He’s a sort of tramp. Let’s all go along to the Parapluie for supper.”
“There’s the question of another train,” said Stanley as they walked along the Embankment, “6.10 in the morning this time, and I mustn’t miss it. I have to get my breakfast in the cookhouse at Woolwich with my corporal by eight.”
“That’s all right,” said Philip. “I’ll give you a shout when I get back from my sewers.”
The Parapluie was crowded and hilarious. The Armenian proprietor, still stroking his cat, was only intermittently visible through the press of people at and around the tables.
When they were eating a rather lumpy apple tart the Wykehamist arrived at their side.
“Ah!” he bawled cheerily. “What’s the form?”
He had acquired a green corduroy jacket since the morning and wore it with the sand-coloured trousers of his appalling suit.
“Hullo, Herbert,” said Catherine. “This is Stanley. He’s on escort duty.”
Herbert flinched a little.
“My brother,” said Catherine.
“Oh,” said Herbert, recovering. “Founder’s kin? That’s all right, then. Just for the moment I thought …’
He went off and returned a little later with a ginger-haired man in pop-bottle glasses.
“Meet my friend,” he said. “He stutters, I’m afraid.”
“H-h-how,” said the friend, “d’you d-d-do.”
At this they both at once went away, laughing uproariously.
“I think I’ll disappear down my manhole,” said Philip abruptly, and left.
“Have you any money, pet?” asked Catherine.
“Twenty-three shillings,” said Stanley.
“Then it’ll have to be the Brass Farthing,” sighed Catherine. “Do hurry up with your commission and get some cash. Isn’t there any way of buying one or blackmailing someone? Philip’s mother is being courted by a major-general. Would that help, d’you suppose?”
“I don’t think so,” said Stanley hastily. “I’d really rather you didn’t say anything about it.”
“He’s not just any old major-general,” said Catherine. “He is in the War Office.”
At the Brass Farthing several strange young men were sipping gins, giggling and thrusting each other coyly away.
“Hullo, Gilbert,” waved Catherine. “Look at that,” she said to Stanley. “He’s in with those appalling queers again.”
“Which one is Gilbert?” asked Stanley.
“That one, the musical one,” said Catherine.
“But he’s indistinguishable from the others.”
“They don’t play the ’cello,” explained Catherine.
Gilbert came over and gave them a very large gin each.
“Catherine, how marvellous!” he said. “Who is this cute soldier? Stanley? Hullo, Stanley. That lovely rough material! So bold. So martial. I bet you have a wonderful time with all those other soldiers. Catherine, my dear, it’s been appalling. An absolute dégringolade. I’ve been chucked from the Central Symphony. Imagine! And what next but that that simply leprous Adrian broke my ’cello. Yes, broke it. Cut it up with a chopper and then simply vanished. Jealousy, of course. As you can imagine, he was livid over that sweet Pole.”
“Poor Gilbert!” said Catherine.
“It’s sweet of you,” said Gilbert, laying a hand on her arm, “but I’m resilient.”
“I don’t much care for it here, Kat,” said Stanley when Gilbert had gone. “Isn’t there anywhere else to go?”
“It’s exactly like this anywhere else, darling,” said Catherine.
*
When they got back to the flat a small party seemed to be in progress.
Herbert and his friend were filling up each other’s glasses with gin; two Canadian officers were singing quietly in one corner, while in another sat a genial middle-aged man repeating to himself in a puzzled tone: “Mr. Chairman—gentlemen. Mr. Chairman—gen’lemen.”
“Come in, come in,” said Herbert, handing Catherine a glass. “Meet my friend. He’s celebrating.”
“How do you do again,” said Catherine. “Who is he?”
“College Sid,” said Herbert. “These three other chaps were outside so we asked them in.”
“I’m completely charmed,” said College Sid, offering another glass. “And who is Fly-fornication Foster here, may I ask?”
“My brother Stanley,” said Catherine.
“Good evening,” said College Sid, flashing his spectacles at Stanley. “Where are you stationed, my dear chap? Foreign parts?”
“Gravestone,” said Stanley. “About forty miles away.”
“Grand,” said College Sid. “How are the Wogs? Friendly? I was in the Army once,” he added, toeing a bottle tidily under the sofa. “I finished up in the glasshouse. It all started with being on jankers. I really couldn’t be bothered answering that blessed trumpet thing they kept blowing.”
The middle-aged man in the corner raised his voice.
“Mr. Chairman—gen’lemen. I now propose a song. A song which will remind us all of the happy days of our childhood. It is entitled, I think, ‘Kelly Put the Bottle On’.”
He stared glassily for a second and then abruptly fell asleep.
“This is all very nice,” said Catherine to Stanley. “But I am going to bed.”
Within the hour the gin had run out and College Sid and Desmond were arguing fiercely about private property. The two Canadian officers had gone out to fight each other, and the middle-aged man had vanished.
Stanley found an iron bedstead in one of the rooms, assembled it and slept on it.
He woke suddenly at twenty-past five. All was quiet.
In the kitchen, however, sat College Sid, one trouser leg rolled up.
“Hullo, old boy,” he said, dabbing at a gash in his calf.
“What on earth’s that?” asked Stanley, alarmed at the size of it and the sight of blood.
“Some negro, old boy,” said College Sid. “I think I was on a table at the time. Extraordinary business. Are you looking for breakfast? What would you like?” He gazed round the shelves. “Cocoa? Oxydol? Robin starch? There doesn’t seem to be any food.”
“Are you staying here, then?” asked Stanley. “No, I’ll just have some orange juice. I’m having breakfast in the cookhouse at Woolwich.”
“Chacun à son gout,” said College Sid.
*
At Woolwich, Stanley’s corporal got out of the same train, and they walked together to the barracks.
“You get on all right, then?” asked the corporal. “Very very nice it was, really, only a bit early to have to get up.”
They had breakfast and went to the Guard-Room to collect the deserter.
“He’s all right, this geezer,” said the provost sergeant, getting out the documents. “Wanted to join the Engineers, only when they wouldn’t transfer ’im ’e just sloped arms. Sixteen months ’e was out.”
“Go on,” said the corporal. “Tidy old break that’d make.”
“Then ’e goes and give ’imself up,” said the provost sergeant.
“Cor stone me,” said the corporal, shocked. “Fancy doin’ that. Gorblimey, the Army musta given ’im up by that time. Some blokes. I dunno. Still.”
The deserter was brought out, a miserable man of about thirty in civilian clothes. He signed for a packet of articles taken from him on admission, and the corporal then signed for him.
“One body,” he said. “Right, off we go, then. Givin’ ’imself up. I dunno.”
When the three of them were walking to the station the corpora
l said: “I see you still got your uniform,” indicating the rolled bundle under the deserter’s arm. “You didn’t flog it then?”
“No,” said the deserter. “I thought it best, keeping it.”
“Quite right, too,” said the corporal. “Always very difficult for them, proving desertion, if you ’aven’t sold it. You can plead anything you fancy, long as you ’aven’t sold it. We’ll go through the side streets to save your feelings, if you like.”
When they got into the train the deserter brought out cigarettes and handed them round.
“What gets me,” said the corporal, “you just come back, and not ’ang on till the redcaps pick you up. Honest, you must be a dead stupid bugger.”
“No, well,” said the deserter, “I laid up at my main-law’s until she got too niggly. Too dodgy tryin’ for a regular job, and I didn’t go out before black-out much. In the end I got brassed off.”
He looked gloomily out of the window.
“When I was a nipper I was misunderstood,” he said.
The train pulled in at Gravestone.
“All change,” said the corporal. “We won’t put the cuffs on. Generally we don’t, ordinarily. Usually, that is, unless you get awkward. Best go through the back streets; save your feelings.”
At the Guard-Room the corporal knocked on the door.
The voice of the R.P. Fred came in a bellow from within:
“Wassup?”
There was a rattle of the large stagey keys.
“Bloke ’ere, Fred,” shouted the corporal.
The door opened.
“Ah, more customers,” said the policeman Fred, brightening up.
“Sign here, please,” said the corporal, producing the documents.
“Picked up, eh?” observed Fred, laboriously scratching his name.
“Give ’imself up,” said the corporal.
“You what?” asked Fred, astonished.
The other regimental policemen gathered briskly round.
“Bloke ’ere turned ’imself in,” said Fred.
“Must be bleedin’ barmy,” said the policeman Alf, aghast.
“Wants ’is ’ead seen to,” said the policeman Fred.
“Don’t know when ’e’s well off,” said the policeman Cyril. “Gittin there.”
The deserter was led away.
The regimental policemen cadged some more cigarettes before they let Stanley and the corporal out.
*
A large poster had been pinned up on the Depot Company notice-board. A three-coloured motif of clothes-pegs and square holes ran through the formalised head of a private soldier. All-pervading was the wording: “If you possess qualifications which cannot be utilised in the Army you are doing the right thing by remaining in your present job.”
“My trade’s really linoleum-laying,” said Cox to Stanley as they read it. “You’d be surprised what there is in it. I daresay your dad tries doin’ ’is own.”
“Well, not actually,” said Stanley.
“And what ’appens?” cried Cox. “Bits sliced orf ’ere and there, or it comes ’alf-way up the wall, so you call us in the end. You want to tell your dad.”
“You two men,” said a voice behind them.
It was the orderly sergeant with a notebook.
“You any trades?” he asked, pencil hovering.
“Electrical fitter, me,” said Cox promptly.
“I was at a university,” said Stanley.
“Names?” said the orderly sergeant. “Double away, then, to Company stores for buckets and brushes and get all that old distemper off the A.T.S. Rest Room. Come on! Should be there by now!”
Standing on chairs with their buckets of hot water, Stanley and Cox rubbed away at the coffee-coloured walls. Underneath the brown distemper they discovered other colours. First green, then pale blue, then white. They thought at first that the white was the basic colour, but a foolish experiment in one place revealed more green and then red beneath. Gradually their arms became coated to the elbows with a milky green deposit.
“It’s all go, this,” said Cox. “Too much ’eavy liftin’. A mate of mine in Camberwell once, he got this distemper to do one bedroom out and gets a sort of craving to keep at it. ’E spends a whole ’Oliday Monday at it—gets ’is missus to shift all the stuff gradually out of all the bedrooms, then the parlour. ’E’s just startin’ on the kitchen when ’e suddenly ups an falls down dead. Only thirty-five.”
Another member of Depot Company looked in at the window.
“Wotcher, Greensleeves,” he remarked cheerfully.
Cox heaved a bucket of the pea soup at the window.
At half-past three in the afternoon they began mopping the horrible liquid from the floor, the pavement outside, and the buckets. The walls were a patchy pale green.
“I ’ope the A.T.S. enjoy it,” said Cox. “They reckon green’s the most restful colour, only I knew a bloke in Wembley heard about it and got all ’is ’ouse done out pale green. ’E convinced ’imself it was doin’ ’im good and ’e got that way ’e fell asleep after ’is tea and in the morning ’e couldn’t ’ardly seem to get up ’alf the time, so in the end the warehouse ’e works for gives ’im the last-card-in-the-pack. Then ’is missus gets dead lazy, too, and can’t seem to get the nippers off to school in time or anything and they ’ave the attendance officer round creatin’. Then it turns out it’s not the green paint at all, but they got a bit of a gas leak they’ve not noticed for the smell of this paint.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“COX,” SAID STANLEY, “I think the best thing would be to get employed. I used to hear about Dicky’s Gardening Squad. Shall we try to get into it, if it doesn’t entail too much work? Anyway, it’s up at the camp, isn’t it, so one could lose a good deal of time getting there.”
“Well,” said Cox admiringly, “you’re learning, my old china. Best way is, work it so you get on it one day, then next day tell the orderly sergeant Dicky wants you again, then just keep on going up. Trouble is, you really got to wait for one of ’is regulars goin’ sick. Funny, I never did go much on gardening, only it’s dead steady with old Dicky.”
“Who is this Dicky?” asked Stanley.
“Sarnt-Major Sparrow. ’Ad ’im left over from the Bo’er Wo’er most probably. Failin’ that, we might get took on at the Company stores, do a bit of a fiddle.”
They were, in fact, queueing outside the Company Office for pay parade.
Suddenly a window just ahead of them was flung up and a pair of well-tailored arms shot out. They held a small ruler and proceeded without ado to measure the shoulder flashes of an astonished queuer.
“Half-an-inch out. Report with it properly stitched tomorrow,” shouted Major Hitchcock, withdrawing his arms and substituting his head. “Well, damn it! Salute me, can’t you? I’m a major; you’re only a private!”
The queue shuffled forward and Stanley and Cox were now in line with the window.
“Good morning!” hailed the major. “This is where we get ’em,” he added confidentially, leaning on the sill. “All the dodgy characters on the periphery of this company. They nearly all turn up for their pay. All, that is,” he went on, “except the people who do so well on the side that they don’t bother. Some of you OCTU boys must come to tea. Remind me some time next week.”
He departed with a wave of the hand.
“You’d be all right there, cock,” said Cox. “If I was you I wouldn’t ’esitate. Why, we ’ad a colonel once was so pleased with the mortar platoon ’e ’as the whole lot in for cocktails two nights running, only ’e was that tight ’e couldn’t think who they were. ’E seemed to think they was the General Staff and kept askin’ ’ow things was going in North Africa, except ’e wouldn’t wait for them to tell ’im, as it ’appened, and tells them for about an hour the sorta strategy ’e ’ad in mind. Only you could never tell with him. ’E invites them all next night and about ’alf turn up and ’e’s dead sober again and says: ‘Oo are you lot? Officers’ lines
is out of bounds’, and ’e rings up for the provost sarnt and ’as ’em all run in the nick. Sometimes ’e used to be in ’is car in the town and see some geezer ’angin’ about and ’e’d tell ’is driver to stop, and say, ‘You want a lift back to the camp, lad?’ and the bloke ’ops in by the driver, and then, soon as they get back there, ’e’d say, ‘Stop at the Guard-Room,’ and ’e’d tell the guard commander, ‘Run this man in for failin’ to salute the Commandin’ Officer.’”
“It doesn’t sound any too safe, from what you say,” said Stanley.
“Ah, no,” said Cox, “I said, this colonel, you couldn’t never tell with ’im, but old Hitchcock’s nutty all the time. You want to ’ear ’is batman sometimes on about ’im.”
He was interrupted by the window’s being flung open again. Major Hitchcock reappeared.
“One thing you must be very careful of,” he remarked to Stanley, “is my sergeant-major. He’ll have you by the short hairs if you don’t watch out. You can’t blame him, of course: some of my company are first-class shits.”
He fell silent and surveyed the queue.
“You’d be surprised at the Barrack Damages we have to knock off,” he resumed. “Last week one chap in one of the huts turned the water off and whipped all the taps from the basins. I’m having a parade after this to have a check-up.”
The parade turned out to be a remarkable affair.
The four “platoons” of Depot Company were lined up in threes on the square. At a time when the establishment for an infantry platoon was thirty-two, none of these consisted of less than seventy. Ninety-three others lined up with Stanley for No. 3 Platoon, muttering and cursing in low tones.
Major Hitchcock called the parade to attention.
A parade state was taken, revealing forty-seven absentees.
“All right!” called Major Hitchcock in a menacing tone, “I know all about it! Forty-seven bloody absentees! I’ve got their names here; they’ll suffer for it, all right. Now, does anyone here know about the taps in Khartoum? I thought not. Let me warn you. I’m Company Commander here, and let none of you forget it. You can’t fool me, let me tell you. Now I’ve got you! Get ’em out! You know what I mean!”
