by David Lodge
Time passed with indescribable slowness. When we came off our first stag I already felt exhausted. The supper which had been brought to the guard-room at nine was cooling and congealing in aluminium canisters. I forced down a few mouth-fuls, lubricated with lukewarm tea, and then dropped on to the hard bunk. Baker, beside the stove, was reading Tit-bits with sober concentration,—somehow he made it last all night,—while the Sergeant was snoring under his great-coat. I found it difficult to sleep under the bright lights, wearing boots and gaiters, my high-waisted trousers uncomfortably tight about the crutch. When I did manage to fall asleep I was woken—immediately it seemed—by the order to fall in on the guardroom veranda, where Booth-Henderson inspected us again. After that it was impossible to sleep until 2.30 when Mike and I commenced our second stag.
2.30 a.m., on guard, was a physical and spiritual nadir. At no other time was one more overwhelmed by the meaninglessness of National Service. There we were, guarding nothing against nobody; or, if anyone had been insane enough to covet the nissen huts full of mouldering blanco and damp mattresses that we guarded, we were ludicrously ill-equipped to defend them. Soldiers of the modern Army, armed with wooden clubs a cave-man would have disdained.
It was November now, and bitterly cold, but we were too tired to restore our circulation by walking briskly. We moved slowly between the dark buildings, swaying slightly with weariness, dragging our pick-shafts along the ground. Painfully we climbed the hill that overlooked the camp, where some stores were situated, to check the padlocks. They were locked, though the moorings were rusty, and could have been pulled away with a sharp tug. Nearby was a derelict hut, its doors and windows missing. Inside we found two old chairs, one minus a leg, the other with its back wrenched off. We were both seized by an overwhelming desire to sit down. The hut smelled of sheep dirt, so we dragged the chairs to the doorway, and seated ourselves precariously. Mike took out a packet of cigarettes and offered me one.
‘Suppose Baker or someone comes snooping round?’ I said.
‘It’s all right. This is a good position. We can see anyone coming before they see us. First principle of military strategy: take the high ground.’
I accepted the cigarette, and we smoked in silence for a while, keeping the cigarettes in our lips so that we could warm our gloved hands in our pockets. The camp sprawled out beneath us, asleep. In the huts, smelling sourly of sweat and boot-polish, bodies groaned and stirred restlessly in their sticky dreams, while consciousness and the grey reality of another day in the Army stole noiselessly up on them from beneath the eastern horizon. In the cookhouse, where soon pasty-faced cooks would be warming up yesterday’s sausages for breakfast, only the cockroaches disturbed the silence, scuttling across the greasy floors. I said aloud:
‘I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.’
‘What’s that?’ said Mike. ‘Eliot, isn’t it.’
‘The Swan-song of Trooper J. Alfred Prufrock,’ I confirmed. Mike repeated the lines meditatively.
‘What does it mean?’ he asked.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘It’s good. D’you ever feel that suddenly you don’t know who you are or why you’re here?’
‘In the Army you mean? Frequently.’
‘One day you’re marching along to the typing class, or some such stupid nonsense, and suddenly you don’t know why on earth you’re putting one foot in front of the other. There seems no reason why you shouldn’t just stop, let the others cannon into you, or walk past.’
‘The reason is you’d be put on a charge.’
‘But that shouldn’t make any difference. That’s giving in. The fact that you’d be punished for not doing something you regard as purposeless is the very worst reason for doing it. I mean, I know I wasn’t put on this earth to wear army boots and put one foot in front of the other just because somebody tells me to, and to stop because he tells me to.’
‘What were you put on this earth for then?’
He paused before saying, in the curiously pedantic tone he reserved for such statements: ‘To exercise my free will, and to save my soul.’ After another pause he added, more conversationally: ‘Now I’ve no free will, and my soul is drying up like a prune. The Army’s evil, Jon. It’s intolerable, isn’t it, that pacifism is considered the only ground for conscientious objection. I don’t object to war,—a just war. I object to conscription, to being forced into uniform and being made into an automaton so that I can be pushed into the front line when some politician decides that he’s going to embark on a war which he may consider just but I may not.’
I vaguely murmured my agreement. I objected to conscription too, but not on these grounds. I objected to having my studies interrupted, my liberty curtailed, my comforts removed. I objected to being woken up at 5.30, being offered revolting food, being made to do menial tasks. The theoretical questions of war and conscience which Mike raised scarcely touched me. The possibility of having actually to fight in the Army seemed infinitely remote.
‘We’d better move,’ I said, getting stiffly to my feet, ‘or we’ll get frost-bite.’
We made our way down the hill, and resumed our futile perambulations. It was still dark. I looked at my watch. Only 3.25. More than an hour to go.
We were looking up the road towards the guard-room, when the door opened, and a man was silhouetted against the light from within. The door closed again.
‘It’s Baker,’ I said. ‘Coming to snoop. Lucky we saw him in time. We’d better separate.’ (Guards were not supposed to patrol together.)
‘Who’s going to challenge him?’ said Mike.
‘You can,’ I said. I could not trust myself to pronounce the challenge with proper seriousness. ‘Who goes there, friend or foe?’ sounded so archaic. And my voice might crack with nervousness, for I didn’t like the idea of Baker stalking us in the shadows.
‘What about laying a little trap for him?’ said Mike. ‘Giving him a little shock.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said apprehensively.
‘Well, you walk up the road under the lamps so that he can see you, and then sidle off round the bedding store as if you’re going for a smoke or a pee. He’ll follow you, hoping to catch you napping. I’ll wait in these shadows, and as he goes by I’ll roar out a challenge that’ll make him jump out of his boots.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said doubtfully, ‘isn’t it a bit risky?’
There was a just perceptible curl to Mike’s smile. Had he penetrated my mask of sardonic self-assurance, and perceived the timid, cautious soul beneath?
‘You haven’t got anything to worry about. All you’ve got to do is——’
‘All right,’ I agreed hastily. ‘I’ll go.’
I stepped out into the road and walked slowly down the middle of it. I restrained myself with difficulty from glancing over my shoulder, fearing that Baker, having eluded Mike, might at any moment hiss some sarcastic remark into my ear, or even grip me in a half-nelson. I turned the corner of the bedding store without any pretended furtiveness such as Mike had suggested. Then I wheeled round, and took up a stance facing the corner of the store, clenching my bicycle lamp and pick-shaft, my heart thudding absurdly. I could see nothing of course, and I could hear nothing. It suddenly occurred to me that Baker might have made a detour to come round behind me on the other side of the hut. I turned again and peered round the back of the store. It was like hide-and-seek, a game I had always detested in childhood. By this time my head was almost revolving on my shoulders, as I tried to look in two directions at once. I cursed Mike and his crazy schemes.
Suddenly the silence was broken. I heard a faint crack, and a thud. I stumbled to the corner of the stores and looked up the road. About fifty yards from me Mike was standing astride Baker’s prostrate form, leaning on his pick-shaft like some primitive warrior surveying his vanquished enemy. He lifted his face towards me, white under the lamps. Then, deliberately, he shouted into the s
ilence: ‘Who goes there? Friend or foe?’ After a brief pause he raised his whistle to his lips and blew three short blasts on it. I ran up the road towards him.
‘Christ. What have you done?’ I gasped.
‘He didn’t answer my challenge,’ said Mike slowly.
‘But you challenged him after you hit him!’
A light went on in the nearest store, and further up the road the door of the guardroom opened, spilling light on to the road. There was a noise of boots thudding on the boards of the veranda.
‘No, Jon, you heard me give the challenge quite clearly, and then I hit him. Because he didn’t answer.’
I lost my temper. ‘Look, Mike, if you want to get yourself court-martialled, that’s your business. I think you’re a bloody fool, but I’m not getting myself dragged into it.’
Mike’s lips curled openly now. ‘I may not have the virtue of Christian prudence,’ he said with deliberation, ‘but God help me from the unchristian sort.’
We glared at each other in silence, in declared conflict at last. There was a shout of inquiry from the direction of the guard-room.
‘Look, Mike,’ I appealed desperately. ‘What do you expect me to do? Be reasonable.…’
He gave a swift look over his shoulder. ‘All right. All you need do is say that you saw nothing. Just that you heard me give the challenge. It’ll be up to them to prove——’
He stopped as the door of the store opened, and the security man came out rubbing his eyes, a great-coat over his pyjamas and boots on his sockless feet.
‘Wha’s a’ this?’ he mumbled; and then, as he saw Baker’s recumbent form, ‘Christ!’
It was raining as I came out of Turnpike Lane station, and I pulled up the hood of my duffle coat. I looked down the toggles of the coat to my fawn Bedford cord trousers with satisfaction, and with satisfaction reminded myself that under the coat I was wearing my slate-blue corduroy jacket. I was glad that this time I would not be presenting myself to Pauline in the dung-coloured garb of a soldier.
As I left the main road, busy with Saturday-morning shoppers, and stepped, strangely light-footed in shoes, down the grey, gaunt street in which Pauline lived, I told myself severely that mine was not a mission of pleasure. To Pauline I would be either a bearer or a confirmer of bad news, depending on whether or not she had heard from Mike. Yet I could not suppress a certain feeling of exhilaration and excitement at the prospect of seeing her alone. However, I adjusted my face to an expression of suitable gravity as I pushed open the sagging gate, and walked up the tiled path. It was as well I did so, for, as I approached the porch, I glanced involuntarily up at Pauline’s window, and met her startled eyes staring down at me, as she stood pressing a duster against the window, arrested in the act of cleaning it. I lifted my hand and smiled wanly. She disappeared from the window, and I waited for her to open the door.
When she did so I saw that she was dressed in trousers and an old, hand-knitted jumper,—both garments agreeably tight, as women’s old clothes tend to be.
‘Jonathan! What a surprise. Michael said in his letter that we were meeting you this evening …’
‘What letter was this?’ I asked.
‘I got it on Wednesday. Why? Anyway, come in. You must excuse these awful clothes, but I’m doing some housework.’
I stepped into the hall and wiped my feet. ‘Oh, I see. He’s probably written again, but you haven’t received it yet.’ I was perversely pleased to be the one to break the news. As she led me up the stairs I said: ‘I’m afraid Mike won’t be coming this week-end.’
‘Not coming. Why?’ She stopped and turned on the staircase. Her face was suddenly pouchy with disappointment, making me feel simultaneously jealous and ashamed.
‘Shall we go up first?’ I said gently.
As soon as she had closed the door of the bed-sitting-room she asked anxiously:
‘Michael is all right, isn’t he? There hasn’t been an accident or anything?’
‘No, there hasn’t been an accident. But Mike’s not all right, I’m afraid. He’s in trouble.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘He’s under arrest for assaulting an N.C.O.,’ I said, suddenly struggling to keep a straight face. For the first time, at the most inopportune time, I was struck by the essentially comic quality of Mike’s action in clubbing Baker with a pick-shaft. Pauline cupped her face in her hands and sank down on the nearest chair.
‘Oh no,’ she murmured.
I told her briefly the events of Thursday night. I had considered very carefully what version I should give her of what I knew about the incident, and had decided to tell her what I should say when Mike was charged. My motives were, firstly, to rehearse the story properly, and secondly, to position myself as favourably as possible in relation to Pauline. This latter problem was by no means simple. If I told her the truth,—that I knew Mike had struck Baker first, and challenged him afterwards, but that I was going to say, for his sake, that I had only heard the challenge, and could not say whether it preceded or followed the blow,—I would certainly ingratiate myself with Pauline as Mike’s defendant. But if I was willing to lie to that extent, she might argue, might I not as well go the whole hog and testify that I had definitely heard or seen the challenge precede the blow? The short answer to that was that if, as was highly probable, Mike was found guilty, I would, in such a case, lie under suspicion of perjury: but it was an answer that I could not give to Pauline without indicating some lack of real loyalty and concern for Mike. So I cut my losses, and told Pauline that I had only heard the challenge, and had no means of judging the sequence of events. I gained no glory from this, but I was in a strong position when Pauline later hinted that I might support Mike’s claim that he had not recognized Baker, that he had challenged him and, as he had not answered, had struck him.
‘I’m sorry, Pauline,’ I said gravely. ‘I’d do anything to help Mike … except perjury.’
She lowered her eyes and blushed charmingly.
‘I’m sorry, Jonathan, I shouldn’t have——’
‘Forget it. I understand how you must feel.’
She got wearily to her feet, shaking her head. ‘Oh dear, oh dear … what a fool that boy is … just a wild Irish boy that never grew up … not a scrap of common sense.… I’m sorry, Jonathan, I haven’t even asked you to take off your coat. It must be wet. Do take it off, and I’ll make a cup of coffee.’
‘Let me make it,’ I said solicitously, rising from my chair.
‘No, I’ll do it,—oh darn, the gas is going. Have you a shilling by any chance? I’ve run out.’
I rooted in my pocket. ‘Yes, here’s one. Where’s the meter?’
‘You’d better let me do it. It’s terribly tricky unless you know how.’
She squatted down by the sideboard, and fumbled with the meter, which was awkwardly situated underneath. The broken zip at the side of her trousers gaped, displaying a segment of blue nylon pants. I felt that somehow it was not playing the game to enjoy this in the circumstances, and looked away. Then I thought, what the hell, I might as well look my fill while I’ve got the chance. But as I turned back the coin fell noisily into the meter, the gas-fire flared, and Pauline stood up. When she came back from the kitchenette with the coffee she said:
‘What do you think, Jonathan? Do you think Michael hit this man deliberately? Why should he?’
‘The man was Baker. I don’t know if you remember hearing about him before.’
‘Baker. Wasn’t he the Corporal who was so beastly to both of you in Basic Training?’
‘He was beastly to Percy Higgins. I think that was what Mike’s motives might have been. Sort of revenge I suppose. Some crazy idea like that. Mike thought Baker had got off too lightly, I do know that.’
‘So you think he did hit him deliberately?’
I paused cautiously before replying.
‘Yes, Pauline, I’m afraid I do. I shan’t say so to the Army of course, but from his manner immediately afterward
s, I would say he did. God knows what good he thought it would do.’ Or when the idea came to him. Had he been waiting all along for an opportunity to avenge Percy, or did the temptation to split Baker’s head open seize him irresistibly as he stood in the shadows and Baker passed him, falling neatly into our trap in his eagerness to catch us out? A thought struck me:
‘Has Mike ever had a nervous breakdown, or anything like that?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I just thought it might be a possible defence.’
‘No. He’s always been a wild, wayward boy. Never did any work,—well you know that. Never had any money. Never any thought for the future. But no nervous breakdown, or anything like that.’
We sipped our coffee in silence for a few minutes. Pauline, untypically, sat hunched on the edge of her chair; but whether this was because of her perturbed state of mind, or because she felt self-conscious in her trousers, I couldn’t decide. Her eyes fell on a heap of dirty linen; she scooped it up with an apology and took it out to the kitchenette. When she sat down again she asked me what would happen now.
‘Well, Mike’s under close arrest on suspicion of having assaulted Baker. I suppose they can’t bring a charge until Baker recovers.
‘Recovers!’
‘Yes, he’s got concussion.’
Suddenly Pauline began to cry, mumbling between sobs:
‘He might have killed … what will they do to him? They’ll put him in prison … for years.…’
I rejected the comforting arm around the shoulder as too corny a gambit. Instead I leaned forward towards her as far as I could without actually getting off my chair.
‘Don’t get upset, Pauline. It’s not as bad as all that. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Baker didn’t respond to the challenge. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought you ought to be prepared for the worst. But in any case Mike stands a good chance of getting off. After all, it’s only Baker’s word against Mike’s.’
‘But they’ll never believe Mike’s word against a corporal’s.’
‘That’s not necessarily true.’ I spoke without conviction, but Pauline looked up hopefully at me. She took a wrinkled paper tissue from her pocket and blew her nose delicately. Then she treated me to an embarrassed half-smile.
