by John Masters
Laurence had died doing his best. It was a tragedy that his best was not enough, in war. But he had tried, and suffered – far more, and worse, for months, before the firing squad relieved him of his misery. Let the name stand; and be remembered.
Garrod came in with a pink telegraph form. ‘The boy just rode up with it,’ she said. ‘He’s waiting in case you want to send a reply.’
Cate ripped open the envelope and read aloud: OF COURSE ARRANGE WEDDING SOONEST CATCHING FIRST BOAT LOVE LOVE LOVE ISABEL.
Cate leaped to his feet with a yell and, grabbing Garrod by the shoulders, swung her round the table in a waltz, finally kissing her roundly on the lips. Tears were in her eyes as she gasped, ‘Oh sir, oh sir, how happy we are!’
Cate felt in his breast pocket and found his wallet. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘give the boy this … They used to execute the bearer of bad news, so the bearer of good news ought to get his desserts, too.’
‘Five pounds!’ Garrod gasped, tucking up her now dishevelled grey hair under her white maid’s cap – ‘Well, all the other boys will be touching him for luck, when they hear of this!’
Chapter 26
Cologne, Paris, London: August, 1919
The 1st Battalion, the Weald Light Infantry, was parading through Cologne, in honour of Minden Day, every man wearing a red rose tucked into the right side of the chinstrap of his peaked cap – for steel helmets were no longer worn on ceremonial occasions: the Germans no longer needed reminding that there was a war on, for with the signing of the peace treaties in May, it was over.
The colonel led the parade, followed by the adjutant, both with swords drawn; then A and B Companies; then the Colours, carried by two 2nd lieutenants, with an escort of two sergeants with fixed bayonets, but the scabbards still on the bayonets so that the fluttering Colours would not be ripped by naked steel; then C and D Companies, and finally the battalion’s 2nd-in-command, and the RSM.
Sergeant Fagioletti, MM, and a private soldier, the former wielding a swagger cane, the latter a short heavy club, marched fast along the sidewalk behind the spectators. The roadway had been cleared by the German police fifteen minutes ago, and the sidewalks were crowded with Germans, perforce spectators of the parade. Fagioletti and the soldier kept level with the waving Colours; and most German men took off their hats as the Colours passed. They had been raised in a militaristic country and they knew that that was an honour due to them. Some did not raise their hats, and here Fagioletti tipped their hats off their heads with a quick flick of his swagger cane. When the man turned angrily round, to see who had done it, he was confronted by the private soldier, the club rested on his shoulder and a cold look in his eye.
This was being done on the direct orders of Regimental Sergeant Major Bolton. ‘These buggers know they’re supposed to salute Colours,’ he’d said, the points of his waxed moustache twitching. ‘And they’re bloody well going to salute ours, just the way they’d make us salute theirs, if they’d won. Besides, Minden is only a hundred miles away, the colonel says, and then they were on our side … So, don’t let anyone get away with anything.’
Fagioletti didn’t have to tip off many hats. The regiment was popular in Cologne; fraternisation had become a way of life, as the German economy grew worse. The naval blockade had finally been lifted, but irreparable damage had been done to the health of most of the children, and the minds of most of the adults. The conquering nations had won the war, but were now hard and successfully at work losing the peace.
The battalion dismissed on the barrack square, and as the Colour escort marched the Colours off to the Officers’ Mess, where they were kept, Fagioletti walked to his married quarter … What would Ethel want him to try today? Yesterday it was some bloody stuff she’d made him drink. It tasted so awful he’d had to rush to the bathroom and be sick. She’d never get a baby from a man who was busy sicking his guts out. Day before he had to fuck her from behind, like a dog; and she’d stayed on the bed for an hour afterwards, her bare arse stuck up in the air, mumbling some sort of prayer or magic. And sometimes he had to rub his prick and her cunt with butter, and put on a green shirt before beginning to fuck … And whenever there was a thunderstorm she’d grab his hand, even in the middle of breakfast, and drag him upstairs, and wait till the lightning was flashing and the thunder crashing all round the house, then shriek, ‘Now, now, Niccolo!’ like a mad woman, her legs round his neck … Another time she’d set the alarm for midnight, and he’d had to do it three times before one o’clock in the morning, holding a big chunk of seaweed; God knew where she’d got that from, but it smelled horrible. The whole house smelled pretty funny, come to that, with the things she was cooking up for him, or her, or both of them to drink, facing east, one foot on a bed …
She was waiting for him at the door, her arms out, face up for a kiss. ‘Everything go off all right?’ she asked.
‘’Course,’ he said. ‘I knocked a dozen caps and hats off … didn’t have any fights. Brennan’s a big man and that was a big club he was carrying … What’s for dinner?’
‘Spaghetti and meat,’ she said. ‘Bolognese.’
He rubbed his hands – ‘Good! You’re learning … But don’t go putting any of your potions into the meat sauce, now.’
Her face fell. ‘There’s a little special stuff in it, dear. Probyn’s Woman said to be sure to give it you every Friday in August …’
‘What’s in it?’
‘I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.’
Mama mia, he thought, it’ll be frogs’ eyes, and cats’ livers …
‘You won’t be able to taste it, I promise … There’s a bottle of beer in the larder for you.’
‘German beer? I’d rather have some wine. German wine’s not bad.’
She went out, returning soon with a bottle of white wine and a glass. ‘Sit down, dear … drink up … I’ll have some too. This is my first Minden Day with the regiment.’
‘Didn’t know you were becoming so GS,’ he said. ‘I remember when you wouldn’t ‘a given a fig for the regiment.’
‘Ah, but that was before you became a soldier – a real soldier. And now you’re going to stay on, as a Regular … so it’s my life, isn’t it, as well as yours?’
‘Suppose so,’ Fagioletti said, drinking some wine. ‘Who’d ’a thought it would ever come to this … Sergeant and Mrs Fagioletti!’
‘Sergeant Major soon.’
‘Not a hope yet. Too many sergeants senior to me soldiering on. It’s not so easy to get jobs back home as they thought, when they was all so eager to get demobbed.’
‘Perhaps the battalion will go to India.’
‘No, the 2nd battalion’s there,’ he said. ‘We’ll stay back till they come home … but I might be sent out to them. There might be a vacancy for a CSM out there. But I don’t want to go to India. In your brother Fred’s last letter he said it was 121 in the shade where he is, in Hassanpore … only there isn’t no shade. An’ if I went out p’raps Fred would be my company commander. Don’t know ’ow you’d like that.’
He drank again. Ethel watched him and when he had drunk about a third of the bottle touched his sleeve and whispered, ‘Let’s go upstairs …’
He said, ‘You’ll kill me, Ethel.’ But his body was responding to her invitation; and in a moment he followed her up the stairs.
Later that day, when Fagioletti was out on the sports field, playing soccer with men of his platoon, Ethel was receiving three other women in her front parlour. One was the wife of another sergeant, one of a corporal, and one of a long-service private: very few private soldiers were eligible for married quarters, but this one was.
The sergeant’s wife said, ‘We all have the same problem, Mrs Fagioletti. We found out about it by accident. Mrs Palmer ’ere caught me crying when she came over to borrow a cup of sugar, that’s the truth … and Mrs Jones was with me, chatting, like … so it all came out. That was months ago, soon after we was allowed out to join our ’usbands … It’s money, Mrs Fag
ioletti. Our ’usbands don’t give us enough of their pay to run the house properly. An’ we all got kids …’
‘I haven’t,’ Ethel said sadly.
‘Oh, you will, you will, Mrs Fagioletti, we’re all praying for you … So, we talked round and round and up and down, but our ’usbands get angry, really lose their tempers, if we say anything to them, so … we come to you.’
Ethel thought, to me? Why me? How can I help? No one’s ever come to me for anything before: I’ve always been told what to do, by Mother, or Father, or her brothers, even Ruthie, and finally by her husband.
The corporal’s wife answered her unspoken question – ‘Everyone respects you, Mrs Fagioletti … and your husband. We all know what he did in the war, and you … you haven’t been out here long, but you’re kind, you listen. We ’oped you would speak to our ’usbands. Or get your ’usband to do it, off the square, like.’
Ethel said slowly, ‘I don’t think it would help if Niccolo did. That might make your husbands feel that everyone was against them … You could go to your husbands’ company commanders, couldn’t you?’
The woman chorused – ‘We could, but …’ They all stopped; then the private’s wife said, ‘That’s worse than having Sergeant Fagioletti speak to them … All GS, caps off, it would be. They might ’ave to pay up the extra money, but they wouldn’t be loving husbands.’
Ethel said, ‘I could try, myself … but it would have to be alone, with each of your husbands, one at a time, in your house … You’d have to trust me alone in the house with him for half an hour.’
‘Of course we trust you, Mrs Fagioletti,’ the women chorused.
‘Well, we must fix times … make the opportunities,’ Ethel said. She could help, after all, she thought. She was respected: and in the army, which she had once thought of as so standoffish. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘let’s have the details … what money you are actually getting, what your husband’s pay is, what you think he’s spending it on, and how much you must have …’
‘What on earth are we doing in a Parisian night club, in the middle of August?’ Noel Coward cried theatrically, his questioning arms embracing all the others at his table – two young actresses, Tom Rowland, and Charlie Bennett, English all.
Tom said, ‘If it has to be a night club, better here than in London. Here, it’s sort of natural – there … well, imagine ex-Guardees managing places like this, before the war … the police extorting large bribes to look the other way as the licensing laws – and a lot of other laws – are being broken … our sacred incorruptible bobbies!’
‘It’s the war done it,’ Charlie said phlegmatically.
The girls did not appear to have been listening, for one, giggling, cried, ‘If it wasn’t August this place would be full of Frenchmen, and there wouldn’t be any room for us.’
‘I’d rather be in Deauville or Quimper, where they all are,’ Coward said, pouring more champagne from the magnum in the silver bucket beside him. He began to hum in tune with the tall thin Negro at the piano a few feet away, in the Montmartre cellar that was Rum à Gogo, the newest and most fashionable boîte in Paris, and crowded even in August. The Negro, catching his eye, raised one hand momentarily off the keys in salute, then began to sing a very dirty ballad, in French. Coward’s party bent forward, listening and chuckling. Every now and then Tom would translate to Charlie, while Coward did as much for the girls.
The door at the far end opened and four people in evening dress came in, wending their way through the haze of cigarette smoke, between the crowded tables, round the tiny dance floor, towards a vacant table close to Coward’s. Tom looked up as the party came close and exclaimed, ‘Guy! It’s my nephew, Noel – the tall one with the sandy hair.’ He rose, smiling, Guy Rowland saw him and cried, ‘Uncle Tom! I haven’t seen you since heaven knows when! You know Billy Bidford … and Florinda, of course … Maria von Rackow.’
Coward stood, hand extended, as Tom made the introductions – ‘Sir Guy Rowland … Noel Coward …’
‘Ah, the South Atlantic hero! Congratulations! Why don’t you join us … if you don’t mind sitting with commoners?’
Guy laughed and said, ‘Delighted.’ Two waiters bustled up and moved the other table up to Coward’s; they all sat, while Guy beckoned imperiously, and called ‘Champagne!’
He’s a little drunk, already, Tom thought; the eyes, usually so disconcerting in their disparity of blue and brown, now disarmed by a sort of blurry film; the grin more lopsided than ever, from a slackening of the jaw. Well, it was one o’clock in the morning. They’d probably been on the binge since eight or earlier.
Coward said to Florinda, ‘What brings you over to Paris in August? Ah, I remember, you’re opening in a revue next week, aren’t you?’
Florinda nodded and said, ‘Yes, and Billy came over to chaperone me, I don’t think.’
Coward turned to Guy – ‘And you?’
‘Consultation with the French on a joint bombing policy, in case the Germans start the war again,’ Guy said briefly. ‘And Maria’s chaperoning me … What are we talking about that for?’ He stopped, listening – ‘Hey, that’s a filthy song … jolly funny, too!’ He clapped loudly, interrupting the singer at the piano. Maria von Rackow tugged gently at his arm, muttering, ‘Not so loud, Guy. The poor man can’t hear himself …’
Guy patted her hand and said, ‘Sorry, Maria …. Gimme a little more champagne … I thought you were slaving for Arthur Gavilan, Uncle.’
Tom said, ‘For God’s sake call me Tom, or I’ll have to call you Sir Guy … Business is always very slack in London during August and Arthur closes the place down for the whole month. He usually goes to Spain to watch bullfights – his family was originally Spanish – and, well, I thought we’d come to Paris … Charlie and I … then probably Scandinavia.’
‘He’s showing me the world,’ Charlie said, grinning. ‘Bit different from what it looks like from the lower deck.’
Nice man, Guy thought lazily – a Geordie, probably a miner’s son, and doesn’t try to hide it or pretend otherwise; or about the nature of his relationship with Uncle Tom. And Uncle Tom was so much less tense than he used to be … the navy was slowly being leached out of him, for better or worse. His mind was blurring and he took another drink of champagne. Good old Uncle Tom … he’d found what he was.
Florinda said to her escort, ‘Let’s dance.’ Billy escorted her to the floor, where they sank into the close embrace of a slow foxtrot, as the pianist was joined by two other Negroes, one with a saxophone and one with a banjo. Maria muttered, ‘I’m feeling quite tired, Guy … Could we go home soon?’
‘In a minute,’ Guy said. ‘Let’s have a dance.’ He stood up, controlling his balance with difficulty. On the floor Maria guided him in the steps. He felt her firm full-breasted body conforming to the contours of his. She was good and kind, and she loved him. But he didn’t love her. He loved Florinda … dancing there with Billy Bidford. What sort of understanding did they have? Was she as torn as he himself was? Was she wondering about the true situation between himself and Maria? In fact they were both staying at the Meurice, Maria in a connecting room with her three-month-old baby boy, Guy von Rackow, and his old English Nanny. Guy and Maria had not made love; and would not do so unless he asked her to marry him. She had come to Paris so that they could talk, feel, think, decide … Not yet. Just more champagne. Answers used to come so clear and fast to him, in the air, in the cockpit of a Camel. Not now …
After fifteen minutes, dancing two foxtrots and a new dance Guy didn’t know, called apparently the Bunny Hug, they returned to their tables. The pianist stood, announcing, ‘Mesdames, messieurs … quinze minutes de repos pour le personnel. Merci … As I see English and Americans here … fifteen minutes’ break for the musicians. Thank you.’
Coward was on his feet, calling – ‘Hold on a minute, Henri … I’ve been composing a little poem myself. What else is there to do in Paris in August? While you’re having a rest, I’ll recite it.�
�
Henri grinned and indicated the piano stool – ‘Be my guest, Noel.’
Coward sat down, sweeping up his tailcoat with a flourish. He played a few chords on the piano then swung round to the audience – ‘Esquimo Nell … or, Pride Goeth before a Fall … with apologies to Mr Robert Service …’ More chords, then a low, gentle massaging of the keys as he swung back and in a clear, slightly nasal tenor began to declaim:
Now Dead Eye Dick & Mexican Pete had been working Wild Horse Creek
And they’d had no luck in the way of a fuck for well nigh over a week,
Except for a couple of caribou, and a bison cow or so – And Dead Eye Dick had an itching prick, and he found life fucking slow.
So Dead Eye Dick and Mexican Pete set out for the Rio Grande,
Dead Eye Dick with his cast iron prick and Pete with his gun in his hand.
The young actresses gasped, one muttering, ‘Oh Noel, you are awful!’ Maria whispered to Guy, ‘What’s prick?’
He said, ‘You’ll guess.’
The outrageous verses poured out, all in the rhythm of Service’s Yukon ballads. The audience was slow to catch fire, partly because it could not believe what it was hearing; but soon it began to respond to the wealth of Coward’s comic invention, the wonderfully evocative lines –
All the ladies knew his ways, down there on the Rio Grande,
So forty whores tore down their drawers at Dead Eye Dick’s command.
As forty arses were bared to view, with lecherous snorts and grunts,
Did Dead Eye Dick start breathing quick, at the sight of forty cunts.
Now forty arses and forty cunts, you’ll know if you use your wits,
And if you’re slick at arithmetic, also means eighty tits. And eighty tits is a gladsome sight to a man with the hell of a stand.
It might be rare in Berkeley Square … but it’s not on the Rio Grande!
Guy was laughing outright, tears rolling down his cheeks. Florinda was doubled up, holding her sides, Billy staring open-mouthed, Maria giggling helplessly.
