Brideshead Revisited(4)

‘Sorry. I do try to remember. It just slips out.’

When Hooper left the sergeant-major returned.

‘C.O. just coming up the path, sir,’ he said.

I went out to meet him.

There were beads of moisture on the hog-bristles of his little red moustache.

‘Well, everything squared up here?’

‘Yes, I think so, sir.’

‘Think so? You ought to know.’

His eyes fell on the broken window. ‘Has that been entered in the barrack damages?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘Not yet? I wonder when it would have been, if I hadn’t seen it.’ He was not at ease with me, and much of his bluster rose from timidity, but I thought none the better of it for that. He led me behind the huts to a wire fence which divided my area from the carrier-platoon’s, skipped briskly over, and made for an overgrown ditch and bank which had once been a field boundary on the farm. Here he began grubbing with his stick like a truffling pig and presently gave a cry of triumph. He had disclosed one of those deposits of rubbish which are dear to the private soldier’s sense of order: the head of a broom, the lid of a stove, a bucket rusted through, a sock, a loaf of bread, lay under the dock and nettle among cigarette packets and empty tins.

‘Look at that,’ said the commanding officer. ‘Fine impression that gives to the regiment taking over from us.

‘That’s bad,’ I said.

‘It’s a disgrace. See everything there is burned before you leave camp.’

‘Very good, sir. Sergeant-major, send over to the carrier-platoon and tell Captain Brown that the C.O. wants this ditch cleared up.’

I wondered whether the colonel would take this rebuff; so did he. He stood a moment irresolutely prodding the muck in the ditch, then he turned on his heel and strode away.

‘You shouldn’t do it, sir,’ said the sergeant-major, who had been my guide and prop since I joined the company. ‘You shouldn’t really.’

‘That wasn’t our rubbish.’

‘Maybe not, sir, but you know how it is. If you get on the wrong side of senior officers they take it out of you other ways.’



As we marched past the madhouse, two or three elderly inmates gibbered and mouthed politely behind the railings.

‘Cheeroh, chum, we’ll be seeing you’; ‘We shan’t be long now’; ‘Keep smiling till we meet again’, the men called to them.

I was marching with Hooper at, the head of the leading platoon.

‘I say, any idea where we’re off to?’

‘None.’

‘Do you think it’s the real thing?’

‘No.’

‘Just a flap?’

‘Yes.’

‘Everyone’s been saying we’re for it. I don’t know what to think really. Seems so silly somehow, all this drill and training if we never go into action.’

‘I shouldn’t worry. There’ll be plenty for everyone in time.’

‘Oh, I don’t want much you know. Just enough to say I’ve been in it.’

A train of antiquated coaches was waiting for us at the siding; an R.T.O. was in charge; a fatigue party was loading the last of. the kit-bags from the trucks to the luggage vans. In half an hour we were ready to start and in an hour we started.

My three platoon commanders and myself had a carriage to ourselves. They ate sandwiches and chocolate, smoked and slept. None of them had a book. For the first three or four hours they noted the names of the towns and leaned out of the windows when, as often happened, we stopped between stations. Later they lost interest. At midday and again at dark some tepid cocoa was ladled from a container into our mugs. The train moved slowly south through flat, drab main-line scenery.

The chief incident in the day was the — C.O.’s ‘order group’. We assembled in his carriage, at the summons of an orderly, and found him and the adjutant wearing their steel helmets and equipment. The first thing he said was: ‘This is an Order Group. I expect you to attend properly dressed. The fact that we happen to be in a train is immaterial.’ I thought he was going to send us back but, after glaring at us, he said, ‘Sit down.’

‘The camp was left in a disgraceful condition’. Wherever I went I found evidence that officers are not doing their duty. The state in which a camp is left is the best possible test of the efficiency of regimental officers. It is on such matters that the reputation of a battalion and its commander rests. ‘And’ — did he in fact say this or am I finding words for the resentment in his voice and eye? I think he left it unsaid — ‘I do not intend to have my professional reputation compromised by the slackness of a few temporary officers.’

We sat with our notebooks and pencils waiting to take down the details of our next jobs. A more sensitive man would have seen that he had failed to be impressive; perhaps he saw, for he added in a petulant schoolmasterish way: ‘All I ask is loyal cooperation.’

Then he referred to his notes and read:

‘Orders.

‘Information. The battalion is now in transit between location A and location B. This is a major L of C and is liable to bombing and gas attack from the enemy.

‘Intention. I intend to arrive at location B.

‘Method. Train will arrive at destination at approximately 2315 hours …’ and so on.