Love and the Loveless (20 page)

Drinking the third mugful of whiskey and chlorinated water alone in his tent, he felt a longing to lift, suddenly, all fears and sadness from them—release them—cry that a miracle of thought had happened, that all could go home. How easy to feel like that, cushy in a tent, with damn-all to face! Like Father, lying back in his armchair, and killing Germans with his mind. While he sat in a tent, saving them all with his mind! Vain feeling,
soft feeling, coward feeling, whiskey feeling! What did anything matter?

Carrying the Decca and box of records, he went to visit a neighbouring transport officer with whom, the day before, he had split a bottle of champagne outside the Expeditionary Force Canteen below Neuve Église, beside the light railway, while sitting on the grass.

It was now after midnight. The moon climbed a clear sky. The Germans were searching back areas; British counter-batteries were replying. As he walked towards his friend’s tent, the sky flushed over the Ridge, there was a rumbling roar—a German ammunition dump going up somewhere.

He found his friend in a camouflaged tent, playing Patience by the light of a candle. At once the two began to enliven one another with thoughts of their present happy life. Phillip was shown an item in
Comic
Cuts,
the Corps news-sheet.

“Read that, old boy! And then ask yourself if this isn’t Fred Karno’s Army!”

Reading it, he imagined an old professor with flat service hat, tie awry, spectacles, grey hair fringing collar, at work in an attempt to brighten up the war.

“Well,
mein
prächtig
kerl,”
said Phillip, feeling himself to be like All Weather Jack as he poured from a bottle he had brought along with him. “They’ll be diggin’ up the remains of some of our poor old donks in a thousand years’ time, what? Findin’ oxidised Mills bombs and bits of guns and limbers, and wonder who we were, and what we were scrappin’ about. Cheer ho! Knock that back, we mustn’t let the talkin’ stop the drinkin’!”

After half a bottle had disappeared, the following dialogue took place.

“Did you hear that Broncho Bill’s back?”

“Who’s he when he’s at home,
mein
prächtig
kerl?”

“Haven’t you heard of Broncho Bill?”

“Would I bloody well ask if I had?”

“All right, all right, keep your hair on! Cheerio!”

“Chin chin. Who’s Broncho Bill?”

“I’ll tell you if you’ll listen!”

“I
am
bloody well listening! Get on with it.”

“I will, if you’ll give me a chance. Right! Cheerio!”

“Cheerho!”

“Fancy not having heard of Broncho Bill! I can’t get over it!”

“Would you like to hear my gramophone for a changed?”

“What’jer mean?”

“Change from Broncho Bill,
mein
prächtig
kerl.”

“But I haven’t told you yet!”

“Well, go on, then! I won’t say a word. Continuez, mon ami!”

“Right. Broncho Bill’s an Australian deserter, who’s been playing merry hell with the Area Commandant, the A.P.M., and the Military Police for over a year. They say he was an actor before the war. His first known exploit was breaking into some officers’ quarters, and pinching a uniform and some blank chit books and a rubber stamp. He went to various Field Cashiers’ officers, and drew monthly advances for half a dozen books, each with its forged name, saying he was the second-in-command of his battalion. Then he pinched a car and went to other paymasters, and did the same thing again, several times, in fact.”

“Wasn’t he caught?”

“Yes, with some other deserters he’d palled up with, having a tremendous binge in Hazebrouck. They were put under arrest, but Broncho Bill escaped, leaving his pals in the prisoners’ cage. The M.P.’s looked everywhere for him, but he’d vanished. Wait a mo’! Three days afterwards a hell of a poshed up redcap sergeant with a black Kaiser moustache reported to the R.S.M. at the cage, and showed an order to take the prisoners away to court-martial. The warrant was in order, so the R.S.M. handed them over, and they were never seen again. The M.P. sergeant was Broncho Bill disguised!”

“Good lord! What a lad!”

“I know! Well, not long afterwards there were mysterious fires in houses in Bailleul, and robberies. The M.P.’s have agents, you know, or informers—it’s a dirty job being a cop—and through them they learned that it was the work of Broncho Bill and his gang. An informer tipped them off on the next job. The A.P.M., you may remember him at Grantham, Brendon––––”

“Brendon! My God, I know him! He was in my battalion at Heathmarket in ’fifteen!”

“Well, as I was saying, Brendon went in his car, and a lot of redcaps, and surrounded Baloo. All exits guarded. In the square, where he stopped, there was a smart squad under a sergeant with ginger eyebrows and Charlie Chaplin moustache. Terrific Guardsman salute, old Brendon returning it. Then the search for Broncho Bill began. When Brendon returned to the square, his motorcar was missing, and the driver sitting on the
pavé
with a whack over the head, minus his revolver, cartridge pouch, armlet, and cap. You’ve guessed it. Broncho Bill was the bloke with the false eyebrows and moustache.”

“Where did he go?”

“God knows, and he won’t split. I’ve heard that he has a hide-out on the old Somme battlefield. He travels about, been known at Amiens. A month ago he was at Pop. He got hold of a room and started a crown-and-anchor board. Also ‘one up’, you know tossing heads-or-tails, with coins with two heads. He was rumbled at that, but whipped out a revolver and threatened to shoot the first bloke who tried to stop him. Now he’s back here.”

“How d’you know?”

“A pal o’ mine works in the office of the Area Commandant, and told me that his chief was rung up by the A.P.M., saying he’d had a chap who’d done five years’ hard labour in a Dartmoor prison, and was sending him as a camp warden. He suggested that he be put in a dug-out next to the Area Commandant’s staff dug-out, so’s they could—keep an eye—on him. Hell, I’m blotto.”

“What happened?”

“Christ knows, and he won’t split.”

The story-teller pushed past him, and stumbled out of the tent. Phillip put on
The
Garden
of
Sleep,
which, Hobart said, had been written in Norfolk, near Sheringham, among fields red with poppies. Poppies—opium—sleep. The flowers of death, of Francis Thompson’s “after-sleeping”. How strange that they could be blooming everywhere, on the eve of a great battle.

After the record, he put on Kipling’s
Mother
o’
Mine.

When his host came back, saying that the fug in the tent had turned him up, Phillip waited to hear what the gaol-bird had to do with Broncho Bill.

“Well, he cleared off after a bit, and was caught, and brought back. Here’s the point. As he was being taken along the village street, to the cage, a redcap overheard an A.S.C. corporal coming out of an estaminet say, ‘That’s the bloke that’s been harbouring the Australian deserters.’ So the redcap reported it to my pal in the Area Commandant’s office, whose chief rang up Brendon. That night a ring was made round the dug-outs’ entrances in the field, and the redcaps went through the tunnels, checking every man in every platoon with their company officers. And caught Broncho Bill and two of his gang. They were handcuffed and taken to the M.P. Camp on the Dickebush road.”

“Were they shot?”

“What, Broncho Bill? Don’t be silly! He’s still at large! He had been a day in the camp when he knocked out the sentry sent to look after the three of them when they went to wash, got his rifle and went to a hut; his mates each got a rifle, and made for the gate, saying they’d let the daylight into anyone who tried to stop them.”

“Did he get away?”

“He got away, but not his pals. They got as far as the Poperinghe road, there was some shooting, one was hit in the arm and again in the leg, and the second gave up while trying to cross a muddy field. Broncho Bill got clear. A day or two later he pinched Brendon’s best breeches hanging out on a line, right outside his office. Then while they were all out looking for him, he came back and pinched Brendon’s horse, after knocking out the groom in charge of it.”

“Good lord, what a nerve! How long ago was that?”

“Last week.”

“What a lad! What a lad!” cried Phillip, and finding a record of Emmy Destinn singing
Ritorna
Vincitore,
put it on the turn-table and, kneeling down, listened to the deep, tender, and passionate notes of the singer. All yearning, all hope, all rest was in the music. When he looked up, the other chap was lying back on his camp-bed, his eyes closed.

He finished the bottle alone. The funny thing was the stuff didn’t make him swirl as in the old days. It was a food, and went very well with riding. Perhaps the shaking of the liver got rid
of the poison. “Cheer-ho,
mein
prächtig
kerl
!”
he toasted the recumbent one. “I heard that phrase on Christmas Day, ’fourteen, when we made friends with the Alleyman, as we called ’em then, and one showed me a meerschaum pipe with Little Willie’s face on it. Their Prince of Wales, y’ know. I can’t bear the kind of chap who sneers at their Kronprinz, they don’t sneer at our Pragger Wagger.” He felt the tent swirling about him. Christ, he was blotto. Getting up, he walked back to his transport lines, feeling better in the fresh air. Black Prince jet black in moonlight. Dear old Blacker Pragger, to whinny at him! Faithful Black Prince! He felt he loved him, and put his arms round the warm neck.

Beside the gelding stood, uneasily, the stocky bay mare once ridden by Fenwick. She was named Betty, after Darky’s girl at Sleaford. Good old Darky, back in England, safe with a nice wooden leg, soon to marry his girl of silk, and lie warm every night against the terrible softness of her body. He thought of Sasha, and how she must really despise him for being nothing. He felt twisted up, and gave a shout.
Bloody
fool!
Never, never would he go back to Flossie Flowers’ again.

“Did you call me, sir?”

“No, no, Sergeant Rivett. I was thinking of something, a long time ago. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, sir.” The sergeant walked away in dissolving moonlight.

For a long time, it seemed, he stood with his cheek against the warm silk of Prince’s neck, vaguely aware that the bay mare was turning her hindquarters, dumbly, to Prince. Perhaps all the light and flame had disturbed her: but how stupid he was, she was in season. Poor brown mare. As he imagined her feelings, sympathy flowed in him. Pushing between the mare and gelding, he put his arms round her neck, and talked to her, feeling her warmth flowing into him through his face. He felt to be nobody, to be of the moon. Was she appealing to him for relief, or sympathy? God, I’m tight, he thought: no matter, why shouldn’t I help the poor creature. With slight erotism, and thrusting aside a feeling of being seen, swiftly he took off his jacket, and baring an arm, prepared to ease the mare. She turned her head as though with understanding, while Prince, whose ears were alert, uttered a happy little sound, huf-huf-huf. I believe they understand, he thought. How superior animals were to men who raped, with daggers in their minds.

He put on his tunic, and was buttoning it up when he saw the short figure of Sergeant Rivett a few yards away. Had he been there all the time, camouflaged by the moonlight? Had he seen him? He spoke to Prince, pretending not to have seen the sergeant. Then he changed his mind.

“What’s the time, sergeant?”

“Nearly two o’clock, sir. I am about to change the picket.”

“I thought of going for a short ride, it’s such a beautiful night. And there’s nothing doing now until five ack emma.”

“Very good, sir. Shall I warn Morris?”

“Oh, don’t wake him.”

“He’s still up, sir. None of us can sleep in this moonlight.”

“Right ho, I’ll take him with me.”

Supposing something did come in, while he was absent? Rivett could deal with it. But supposing it was a job of taking ammunition up, and there was shelling? Rivett was windy, he might behave as he did to Cutts when a few 4.2’s had come over at Mory. Rivett had his mother with him all the time, thinking of her and what she would feel if he were killed, just as he himself had felt in 1914. It was fatal to have your mother with you at war; thank God he himself had broken away. And yet, was that only why he could keep his feelings down, when shells came over? No: it was Lily helping him. If he hadn’t the thought of Lily to keep him going, he would be windy himself: if he were going to be killed, he would be killed, and that was that. Rivett was where he had been, before he had been able to yield himself to Lily. So it was best to keep Rivett away from the line; he was very good for the routine work.

Hell, nothing could possibly come in. Only an attack from the Alleyman, what was called a spoiling attack, to catch our chaps on the hop, all ready for the advance, and so unready for defence. In which case he could soon get back. Even so, how would the limbers be needed? But what a schemozzle it would be if the Alleyman had decided to attack ten minutes before zero! It would be hell let loose. Would the order to blow the mines, prematurely, be given? That would scupper them all right! If not, our chaps and Germans would all be mixed up, and what would our machine guns do?