Men at Arms

by Evelyn Waugh

  ‘I believe they would greatly prefer something about elephants or cannibals.

  ‘Take it or leave it, Sarum-Smith.’

  Sarum-Smith left it.

  Guy lectured on the Art of Wine Making and had a surprising success. The men relished information on any technical subject.

  Extraneous figures came to add to the congestion. An odd old captain like a cockatoo in the gaudy service dress of a defunct regiment of Irish cavalry. He said he was the cipher officer and was roped in to lecture on ‘Court Life at St Petersburg’.

  Dunn and his men turned up. They had got to France and travelled in a great arc of insecurity behind the breaking lines from Boulogne to Bordeaux, without once leaving their railway coach. This experience of foreign travel, within sound of the guns, under fire once when an agitated airman passed their way, added perceptibly to Dunn’s self-confidence. Sarum-Smith tried to induce him to give a lecture on ‘the lessons learned in combat’ but Dunn explained that he had spent the journey in holding a Court of Inquiry under the authority of the senior officer in the train, to examine the case of the carved boot. The verdict had been one of deliberate damage but since he had parted company with the convening officer he was not sure where the papers should be sent. He was reading the matter up in his Manual of Military Law.

  A sinister super-cargo labelled ‘Chemical Warfare (Offensive)’ was delivered to the quay and left there for all to see.

  Guy got a second-in-command, a dull young regular named Brent, and a third subaltern. So the days passed. Suddenly there was a warning order and another move. They disembarked. The Dutch gunners waved them a farewell as their train steamed away into the unknown. The maps of County Limerick were collected. They jolted slowly for ten hours, with many stops at sidings and many altercations with Transport Officers. They detrained at night, a magnificent, moonlit, scented night, and bivouacked in the woods surrounding a park, where all the paths glowed underfoot with phosphorescent deadwood. They were put into buses and dispersed along the sounding coast where Guy received the news of his cousin Tony.

  He had two miles of cliff to defend against invasion. When de Souza was shown his platoon front he said: ‘But, Uncle, it doesn’t make sense. The Germans are mad as hatters but not in quite this way. They aren’t going to land here.’

  ‘They might put agents ashore. Or some of their landing craft might drift off course.’

  ‘I think we’ve been sent here because we aren’t fit for the likely beaches.’

  After two days an inspecting general arrived with several staff officers and Ritchie-Hook, sulking; three car-loads of them. Guy showed them his gun pits, which were sited to cover every bathers path from the shore. The general stood with his back to the sea and gazed inland.

  ‘Not much field of fire,’ he said.

  ‘No, sir. We expect the enemy from the other direction.’

  ‘Must have all-round defence.’

  ‘Don’t you think they’re a bit thin on the ground for that?’ said Ritchie-Hook. ‘They’re covering a battalion front.’

  ‘Parachutes,’ said the general, ‘are the very devil. Well, remember. The positions are to be held to the last man and the last round.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Guy.

  ‘Do your men understand that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And remember, you must never speak of “If the enemy comes” but “When they come”. They are coming here, this month. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘All right, I think we’ve seen everything.’

  ‘May I say a word?’ asked a neat young staff officer. ‘Carry on’

  ‘Fifth Columnists,’ said the Intelligence Officer, ‘will be your special concern. You know what they did on the Continent. They’ll do the same here. Suspect everyone – the vicar, the village grocer, the, farmer whose family have lived here a hundred years, all, the most unlikely people. Look out for signalling at night – lights, short-wave transmitters. And here’s a bit of information for your ears alone. It mustn’t go below platoon-commander level. We happen to know that the telegraph posts have been marked to lead the invading units to their rendezvous. Little metal numbers. I’ve seen them myself. Remove them and report to headquarters when you find them.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The three cars drove on. Guy had been with de Souza’s platoon when the final words of encouragement were spoken. Here the high road ran almost on the edge of the cliff. He and Brent walked to the next platoon position. On the way they counted a dozen telegraph poles, each marked with a metal number.

  ‘All telegraph poles are,’ said Brent, ‘by the Post Office.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  Local Defence Volunteers helped patrol the area at night and reported frequent lamp-signals from fifth columnists. One story was so well told that Guy spent a night alone with Halberdier Glass, armed to the teeth, on the sands of a little cove; a boat was said to beach there often in darkness. But no one came their way that night. The only incident was a single tremendous flash which momentarily lit the whole coast. Guy remembered afterwards that in the momentary stillness he foolishly said: ‘Here they come.’ Then from far away came the thump and tremor of an explosion.

  ‘Land-mine,’ said Glass. ‘Plymouth probably.’

  In his vigils Guy thought often of Tony, with three, four, perhaps five years cut clean out of his young life just as those eight had been cut from his own.

  Once on an evening of dense sea-mist a message came that the enemy were attacking with arsenical smoke. That was Apthorpe, momentarily left in charge at Headquarters. Guy took no action. An hour later a message came cancelling the alarm. That was Colonel Tickeridge back at his post.

  3

  AT the end of August Guy was sitting in his company office in the hotel in when two captains of a county regiment entered and saluted.

  ‘We’re A Company, 5th Loamshires.’

  ‘Good morning. What can I do for you?’

  ‘You’re expecting us, aren’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ve come to take over from you.’

  ‘First I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘Damn. I suppose we’ve come to the wrong place again. You aren’t D Company, 2nd Halberdiers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s all right then. I expect the orders will get through in time. My chaps are due to arrive this afternoon. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind showing us round?’

  For weeks they had waited for fifth columnists. Here they were at last.

  There was a field telephone, which sometimes worked, connecting D Company with Battalion Headquarters. Guy, as he had seen done in the films, wrote on a piece of paper Ask Bn. H.Q. if these chaps are genuine and turned to Brent: ‘Just attend to this will you, Bill? I’ll see to our visitors,’ and to the Loamshires: ‘Come outside, It’s rather a good billet, isn’t it?’

  They stepped out to the hotel terrace; bright blue overhead and before them; warm gravel underfoot; roses all round them; at his side, the enemy. Guy studied the two men. They were in service uniforms. They should have been in battledress. The junior had not yet spoken – a German accent perhaps; the senior was altogether too good to be true, clipped voice, clipped moustache, a Military Cross.

  ‘You want to see my L.M.G. positions, I expect?’

  ‘Well, I suppose we ought to some time. At the moment I’m more interested in accommodation and messing arrangements. Is the bathing good? How do you get down to the beach? As far as I’m concerned this is going to be my summer holidays. We’d no sooner got straightened out after Dunkirk than they put us on defence duty on the invasion coast.’

  ‘Would you like a bathe now?’

  ‘Sound scheme, eh, Jim?’

  The junior officer gave a grunt which might have been Teutonic.

  ‘We usually undress up here and go down in great-coats. I can fit you out.’

  Brent joined them to say that he had no
t been able to get an answer from Headquarters.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Guy, ‘I’ll see to it. I want you now to take our visitors bathing. Show them up to my room. They’ll leave their things there. Find them a couple of great-coats and towels.’

  As soon as the Loamshires had gone Guy turned back and found Sergeant-Major Rawkes.

  ‘Sergeant Major,’ he said. ‘Did you see anything odd about those two officers who came in just now?’

  ‘We have never had much of an opinion of the Loamshires, Sir.’

  ‘I suspect them. They’ve just gone down to bathe with Mr Brent. I want you to relieve the man at the gun covering the bathing place.’

  ‘Me, sir? At the gun?’

  ‘Yes. This is a security matter. I can’t trust anyone else. I want you to keep them covered all the time, on the way down, in the water, on the way up. If they try anything funny, fire.’

  Sergeant Major Rawkes, who had in recent weeks formed a good opinion of Guy, looked at him with mild despair.

  ‘Shoot Mr Brent, sir?’

  ‘No, no. Those fellows who say they are in the Loamshires.’

  ‘What exactly would you mean by funny, sir?’

  ‘If they attack Mr Brent, try to drown him, or push him over the cliffs.’

  Rawkes shook his head sadly: He had let himself be taken in. He should never have come near trusting a temporary officer.

  ‘That’s orders, sir?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Get on with it quick.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  He walked slowly to the gun pit.

  ‘’Op it, you two,’ he said to the men on duty. ‘Don’t ask me why. Just ’op it and be grateful.’

  Then he lowered himself to the Bren, stiffly, in protest. But as he put the weapon to his shoulder, he relaxed a little. This was a rare sport, officer-shooting.

  Guy ran to his room and examined the intruders’ kit. One of them instead of a service revolver was carrying a Luger. Guy pocketed the cartridge-clips of both weapons. There was no other suspicious feature; everything else in their pockets was English including a very correct move-order. Guy tried to telephone again and got through to Sarum-Smith.

  ‘I must speak to the C.O.’

  ‘He’s at a conference at Brigade.’

  ‘Well, the second-in-command or the adjutant then.’

  ‘They’re out. There’s only me and the quartermaster left.’

  ‘Can you get a message through to the C.O. at Brigade?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Is it important?’

  ‘Yes. Take it down.’

  ‘Wait a jiffy till I get a pencil.’

  There was a pause and then the voice of Apthorpe spoke.

  ‘Hullo, old man, something up?’

  ‘Yes, will you get off the line. I’m trying to pass a message to Sarum-Smith.’

  ‘He’s gone off to find a razor blade to sharpen his pencil.’

  ‘Well, will you take it? Message begins: “D Coy to 2 Bn via Bde HQ.”‘

  ‘I’m not sure that’s the correct form.’

  ‘Damn the correct form. Tell the C.O. that I’ve got two men here who claim to be Loamshires. They say they have orders to take over my positions. I want to know if they’re genuine.’

  ‘I say, old man, that sounds a bit hot. I’ll come right over myself.’

  ‘Don’t do anything of the sort. Just get my message to the C.O.

  ‘I could be with you in twenty minutes on my motor-bike.’

  ‘Just pass my message to the C.O., there’s a good chap.’

  Huffily: ‘Well, if you don’t want me, that’s your look-out. But it seems to me far too serious a matter to settle singlehanded.’

  ‘I’m not single-handed. I’ve a hundred men here. Just pass the message.’

  Very huffily: ‘Here is Sarum-Smith, It’s his pigeon to pass messages. I’m very busy here, I can tell you, on pretty confidential business.’

  Sarum-Smith, back at the telephone, took the message.

  ‘Sure you’ve got it clear?’

  ‘Yes. But I think there’s an order that has some bearing on your query. It came just as the adjutant was leaving. He told me to pass it on but I’ve not got round to it. Wait a sec. It’s somewhere here. Yes. Second Battalion will hand over their positions to Fifth Loamshires and concentrate forthwith at Brook Park with full stores and equipment. That’s the place we first arrived at. Sorry for the delay.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘Do you want that message sent to the C.O.?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s all been rather a flap about nothing, hasn’t it?’

  As Guy rang off he saw the bathers return up the cliff under the sights of the entrenched Bren gun. They had enjoyed their swim, they said. They lunched with Guy, slept, and bathed again, then drove back to their unit. It would surprise them, Guy supposed, when they found their pistols unloaded. They would never know they had been as near death that sunny first day of their holidays as on the dunes at Dunkirk. One untimely piece of horse-play and they might have been goners.

  Another series of jolts, buffer on buffer down the train.

  The brigade assembled and went under canvas at Brook Park. ‘Dispersal’ was the prevailing fashion now. Instead of the dressed lines which had given Penkirk the airs and some of the graces of a Victorian colour-print, there was now a haphazard litter of tents, haunting the shadows round the solitary oaks of the park, or shrinking in the immature surrounding coverts. A great taboo fell on the making of tracks. Special sentries were posted to shout at men approaching Brigade Headquarters across the lawn, directing them to creep through the shrubberies.

  The nature of Apthorpe’s ‘confidential business’ was soon revealed. He had been helping the quartermaster arrange an unexpected consignment of tropical uniforms. In the first two days at Brook Park the Halberdiers paraded company by company and were issued with sun helmets and ill-fitting khaki drill. Few looked anything but absurd. The garments were then put away and nothing was said about them. They aroused little curiosity. In the past months they had moved so suddenly, so often and so purposelessly, they had been alternately provided with, deprived of, and reprovided with so many different military objects, that speculation about their future had become purely facetious.

  ‘I suppose we’re going to reconquer Somaliland’ (which had just been precipitately abandoned), said de Souza.

  ‘It’s just part of a fully equipped Halberdier’s normal kit,’ said Brent.

  However it produced one climax in the process which de Souza called ‘the Languishing of Leonard’.

  During their defence of the Cornish cliffs the Second Battalion had seen very little of one another. Now they were reunited and Guy found a sad change evident in Leonard. Mrs Leonard had planted herself and her baby in lodgings near him and she had worked hard on his divided loyalty. Bombs were beginning to fall in appreciable numbers. An invasion was confidently predicted for the middle of September. Mrs Leonard wanted a man about the house. When Leonard moved from the coast with his company, Mrs Leonard came too and settled in the village inn.

  She asked Guy to dinner and explained her predicament.

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ she said. ‘You’re an old bachelor. You’ll make yourself very comfortable, I daresay, in India with native servants and all you want to eat. What’s going to happen to me, that’s what I’d like to know?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any prospect of our going to India,’ said Guy.

  ‘Then what’s Jim’s new hat for then?’ asked Mrs Leonard. ‘That’s an Indian hat, isn’t it? Don’t you tell me they’ve given him that hat and those size six shorts to wear here in the winter.’

  ‘It’s just part of a fully equipped Halberdier’s normal kit,’ said Guy.

  ‘D’you believe that?’

  ‘No,’ said Guy. ‘Frankly, I don’t.’

  ‘Well then?’ said Mrs Leonard triumphantly.

  ‘Daisy won’t understand it’s what a
soldier’s wife has to put up with,’ said Leonard. He had said this often obviously. ‘I didn’t marry a soldier,’ said Mrs Leonard. ‘If I’d known you were going to be a soldier I’d have married into the RAF. Their wives live comfortable and what’s more they’re the people who are winning the war. It says so on the wireless, doesn’t it? It isn’t as though it was only me; there’s the baby to think of.’

  ‘I don’t think that in case of invasion, you could expect to have Jim expressly detailed for the defence of your baby, you know, Mrs Leonard.’

  ‘I’d see he stayed around; anyway, he wouldn’t go surf bathing and lying about under palm trees and playing the ukulele.’

  ‘I don’t think those would be his duties if we went abroad.’

  ‘Oh come off the perch,’ said Mrs Leonard. ‘I’ve asked you here to help. You’re in with the high-ups.’

  ‘Lots of men have young babies, too.’

  ‘But not my baby.’

  ‘Daisy, you’re being unreasonable. Do make her see sense Uncle.’

  ‘It isn’t as though the whole army was going abroad. Why should they pick on Jim?’

  ‘I suppose you could apply for transfer to barrack duties,’ said Guy at last. ‘There must be a lot of chaps there who’d be eager to come with us.’

  ‘I bet there would,’ said Mrs Leonard. ‘It’s just evacuation that’s what it is, sending you off thousands of miles from the war, with bearers and sahibs and chota pegs.’

  It was a sad little party. As. Leonard walked back to camp with Guy, he said: ‘It’s getting me down. I can’t leave Daisy in the state she’s in. Isn’t it true women sometimes go off the heads for a bit just after having a baby?’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s the trouble with Daisy.’

  Meanwhile the sun-helmets were laid aside and long, hot days were spent in biffing Brook House from every possible direction.

  Some days later Leonard met Guy and said gloomily: ‘I went to see the colonel this morning.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About what Daisy has been saying.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He was awfully sporting about it.’