He had reddish hair, inclined to curl: eyes of clear cold blue: flat
auburn moustache over firm lips. The tight long-skirted tunic, beltless
for dinner, fitted like a skin over the muscled shoulders, the in-curved
back: his slacks fell straightly creased to shining brown shoes. His
hands—clean capable hands—showed a hint of freckling, the suspicion of
auburn fluff. The domed forehead betrayed intelligence. A brand-new
D.S.O. ribbon completes the picture.
Alice Stark (once, as Alice Sewell, the object of Jack Baynet’s
none-too-stable affections) was a comfortable little person, brown-eyed,
a little rabbity about the mouth. Her low dress, blue and girlish,
revealed excellent shoulders, firm arms and slim hands.
The pair had been married six months: three of which the husband had
spent on active service. A wound in the foot, now almost healed, had
re-united them.
“Almost time for dinner, I think,” said the Colonel, putting his empty
glass on the mantelshelf behind him.
“Yes, dear.” Alice looked up; saw, pushing squirrel-wise through the
revolving door, a familiar figure.
The figure came towards her, and she recognized—after a minute’s
hesitation at the disguise of khaki—our Mr. Jameson.
Bromley, following leisurely, heard her say, “Is it really you, Peter?”
and then, “This is Douglas.”
“How do you do, sir,” Peter shook hands, introduced his friend.
“Cocktails, I think,” remarked the Weasel.
“Who is he?” he asked his wife, while the two were depositing hats and
coats in the cloak-room opposite.
“Peter Jameson. He married a great friend of mine,” she whispered.
“Better invite ’em both to dinner.”
Alice nodded: and the invitation was accepted over the cocktail glasses.
They passed through the glass door into the dining-room—Bromley, always
shy with strangers, last—and were escorted through the crowd to an
empty table.
Said the Colonel, handling the wine-list, “We can manage a Magnum, I
think.”
They settled down to hors d’œuvres and gossip.
“Are you on leave, sir?” Bromley ventured his first remark.
“Leave? No such luck. I’m commanding one of these Kitchener Brigades.”
He gave the number. “Southdown Division, I believe they call it.”
“Then we are going to have some Artillery,” put in Peter. “I was told at
the War Office, when I applied for my commission that there wasn’t going
to be any Artillery with the new Armies.”
“Who told you that fairy-tale?” said Stark.
“A Colonel Thompson.”
“Oh, Cocky Thompson. Just like him. Pulling your leg, of course. So you
joined the Infanteers, thinking the war would be done before you could
get your kit. And you”—he turned to Bromley—“you’re a Cavalryman if
ever I saw one!”
Bromley explained himself: the Colonel, who never put questions without
a reason, following sharply.
“Like the Chalkshires?” he queried suddenly: and gathered, from the tone
of the answer, all he wanted to know. The Weasel, in addition to having
one of the best heads for strong liquor in the Gunners, was no mean
judge of a man. Also, the “fourth Southdown Brigade” of the R.F.A.[2]
needed officers badly. He let his wife change the conversation.
“And how does Pat like you’re being a soldier?” she said to Peter.
“Fancy her being only a subaltern’s ‘poor thing,’ and me a ‘Colonel’s
lady’! Does she come down here often?”
“She’s coming down for Christmas.”
Bromley and the Weasel began to talk horse; the dinner went on. . . .
“And Francis?” asked Alice. “What is our Francis Gordon doing for his
country?”
Bromley broke off from a discussion on “Birdcatcher blood,” said “That
isn’t _the_ Francis Gordon, is it? The chap who wrote ‘The Nut Errant’?”
“Extraordinary,” thought Peter, having explained the relationship, “how
many people _do_ know that weird cousin of mine.” And he wondered, for
the fiftieth time, what could have happened to Francis. But of Mr.
“Raymond P. Sellers” and the Amsterdam trip, he said nothing. . . .
Dinner over, they settled themselves with coffee, liqueurs and cigars,
before the fire in the hall. The band was playing in the Winter Garden,
the hall almost deserted.
Stark, whom two cocktails, the best part of a bottle of fizz and three
liqueur brandies had left quite unmoved, began a tactful catechism. He
wanted to know the number of subalterns in the Chalkshires; what chance
they had of promotion: who their Colonel was; and how they got on with
him: if Peter knew anything about horses; and why he had given up
fox-hunting. Having assured himself on these points, he threw his cigar
into the grate, and asked suddenly:
“I suppose neither of you two would care for a change?”
Bromley said, “I don’t quite understand?” Peter, who had followed the
drift of the conversation almost from the first, did not speak.
“Well, quite _entre nous_,” began Stark, “I’m eight officers short of my
twenty-four. I’ve written to Dawson at the W.O. and he says”—drawing a
letter from his tunic-pocket—“‘Why not hunt about among the Infanteers?
They’re hundreds over establishment in your Division.’ . . . So I
thought perhaps. . . .”
There fell a short silence: then Peter said: “It’s the men I’m thinking
about;” and Bromley: “I shouldn’t care to leave the old Major.”
“Well, take your time about it. There’s no hurry. We’ve only got fifty
horses out of our seven hundred so far.” The Weasel pulled down his
tunic; rang the bell; ordered three whiskies and sodas, a lemonade.
Shortly afterwards, with a “See you two again, I hope,” from the
Colonel, and a “Yes. Do come in and dine with us, won’t you?” from his
wife, the couple stepped across to the lift, shot upwards out of sight.
“Another drink?” asked Peter, lighting a cigar.
“Not much.” Bromley, a little flushed about the gills, tapped a
cigarette on the back of his case. “That Colonel friend of yours must
have a head like a balk of teak.”
They settled themselves comfortably in front of the fire. It lacked five
minutes to half-past ten. Thought Bromley: “P.J. doesn’t realize how
near we are to a bust-up. If anything happened to the old Major,
Locksley would soon put his foot on _us_.” Thought Peter: “If ‘B’
Company weren’t so jolly good: and if we hadn’t made it ourselves: there
might be something in a transfer.” But the evening had yet to provide
its finale.
“Hallo, P.J.” interrupted a voice.
Peter looked up; saw the bow legs, the unpleasant features of
Locksley-Jones. The fellow came over to the fire; stood with his back to
it; said—taking no notice of Bromley—“Care for a drink, P.J.?”
“Thanks. No.”
“Devilish pretty woman you were talking to just now. Wish you’d
introduce me, some time. . . .” Peter did not answer: he thought,
suddenly, of the tears in Bareton’s eyes.
“By the way,” went on Locksley, taking no notice of the snub, “have you
chaps got a taxi? My car’s broken down. The magneto’s gone wrong, I
believe. If you have, I’d like a lift. . . .”
Bromley never moved.
“I’m sorry,” said Peter, very politely, “but our taxi only holds _two_.
However”—he glanced at his wrist-watch—“You’re in nice time for the
last train.”
* * * * *
“That’s put the lid on it,” remarked Bromley in the darkness of the
jolting car: and, just before they went to sleep, “Mark my words,
there’ll be some trouble in this ruddy Battalion.”
There was!
-----
[2] Royal Field Artillery.
§ 5
It started with Bareton. Bareton, disregarding both Locksley and his new
Company-Commander (a full Lieutenant by right of being over thirty),
went straight to Colonel Andrews. He told the Colonel, very respectfully
until he began to lose his temper, that on no account would he, Jack
Bareton, continue to serve in the same regiment as Locksley-Jones. The
Colonel asked him, very mildly, why he objected to Locksley.
Said Bareton—they were alone in the Orderly Room—“With all due respect
to you, sir, the man isn’t fit to hold His Majesty’s Commission.”
Said the Colonel, “If you have any accusation to make against my
Adjutant, you must make it in his presence. Meanwhile, go back to your
billet and consider yourself under open arrest till I send for you.”
The Mess seethed.
On the following day, Jack Bareton (without his belt) confronted
Locksley before the Colonel’s table:—Major Fox-Goodwin, as temporary
second-in-command, lounging, slightly contemptuous, by the fireplace.
Decided the Colonel, having listened to ten minutes of tight-lipped
vituperation—all true, but entirely incapable of proof, and some clever
dialectics for the defence: “It doesn’t, er, seem to me, Bareton, that
you’ve made out any case at all. It seems to me that, er, having heard
the Adjutant’s explanation of what are, er, obvious misconceptions on
your part, it’s your duty to apologize.”
Jack Bareton stood very quietly for six seconds. Then he said: “As I am
not satisfied with your ruling, sir”—he was, it will be remembered, a
lawyer by profession—“I believe I am entitled to call for a Court of
Enquiry.”
The Colonel sent both juniors out of the room. “What had we better do?”
he asked Fox-Goodwin. The Major’s eyes twinkled.
“Get rid of ’em both, me dear fellow. Get rid of ’em _both_.”
“I can’t do that. Locksley’s a very capable fellow, very capable indeed.
Locksley’s saved me a great deal of trouble.”
“Has he?” thought the Major. But discipline is discipline.
“A Court of Enquiry won’t do the Regiment any good,” went on Andrews.
“Besides, it might break Bareton. Bareton’s a good subaltern, and a
patriotic chap. . . . I hate trouble,” he added pathetically. . . .
Bareton, re-called, found himself alone with the Major who said: “Look
here, me lad, take a tip from a fellow who’s old enough to be your
grandfather. Don’t you press this Court of Enquiry. Ask for a transfer,
see!”
“But it’s so damned unfair, sir.”
“I know that as well as you do, me lad. But we’ve got to think of the
men. . . .”
A week later, Bareton _and_ Fanshawe transferred to the Reserve
Battalion. (Fanshawe died at Festhubert: Bareton still lives—all that
the Hun prison-camps have left of him).
But matters did not end there. Locksley-Jones, confirmed in his
position, sent for Peter privately. Peter, who was shooting on the
miniature range at the time, finished his score with a “highest
possible”; looked about for Bromley; couldn’t find him; strolled very
slowly to the Orderly Room. Locksley, alone, went on writing for a clear
minute. Then he said, “Oh, is that you, Jameson? I just wanted to have a
private talk with you. You know, you’re a very clever fellow, Jameson.
But you’re not clever enough to tackle _me_.”
Peter deliberately took off his cap, and sat down—at the Colonel’s
table.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose I must take your word for that. Go on.”
Our Mr. Jameson was not an easy person to “discipline”—especially if
one happened to have put oneself in the wrong by making the talk
unofficial.
“Can’t we pull together, P.J.?” went on Locksley. “You know I can do you
much more good than your pal Bromley. There’s your second star, for
instance. . . .”
Peter couldn’t help admiring the audacity of the fellow. He wanted to
consolidate his position; didn’t care how, so long as he achieved his
purpose.
“And supposing I were to tell the C.O. what you’ve just suggested?”
“He wouldn’t believe you—any more than he believed Bareton. The old
man’s as weak as water. You know that as well as I do.”
Peter controlled the impulse to hit Locksley in the face, and asked: “Is
that all?”
“Oh, of course”—Locksley fell into the trap—“when we come to alloting
the Captaincies. Let’s see”—he referred to a list—“you haven’t got any
Captains in ‘B’ yet. If the Major goes. . . .”
This was news indeed. Now, Peter saw the plan whole. With complacent
Company-Commanders and a weak Colonel, Locksley’s position would be
unique.
“_Is_ the Major going?” he asked—playing for time.
“Between you and me and the gatepost”—Locksley winked—“the W.O. has
just asked if he is ‘considered fit to command a battalion.’”
Thought Peter: “What a swine! Still—if it weren’t for Bromley, I’d
accept. I could run the show as well as most people.” Said 2nd
Lieutenant Peter Jameson: “There’s a good deal in what you say. But I
must have a little time to make up my mind. By the way, you don’t object
to my taking a day or so extra at Christmas.”
“Not a bit, my dear fellow, not a bit.”
* * * * *
Meanwhile, men died in Flanders.
PART NINE
TWO EXCUSES FOR FAILURE
§ 1
Peter’s Patricia was essentially a simple woman. The early training
received from her father, her education, her first nine years of married
life, had all taught her the necessity of “balance,” the advantage of
reasoning things out for herself—but they had only developed, not
altered, her original character: the matehood and the motherhood in her.
This new love for Peter, suddenly (and as she now believed reasonlessly)
conceived on the night he informed her of his decision to apply for a
commission, had struck deep roots. But, as yet, it gave neither leaf nor
blossom.
Always, she felt conscious of it. Nearly always, the consciousness
irritated her. To begin with, married women with completed families—she
argued—ought to have got over that sort of thing. Secondly, there was
no likelihood—“very little likelihood” corrected instinct—of the love
developing into a mutual passion: they had become too set in their
matrimonial comradeship for any such occurrence. And thirdly—this
formed the main irritation—her sudden change of feeling towards the man
was not _reasonable_.
One might—she decided—hate a husband because he wouldn’t fight for his
country. One needn’t on the other hand fall madly in love with him
(after eight tranquil years) just because he decided to do the right
thing. Besides, he hadn’t “gone out,” yet—perhaps he never would. For
Patricia’s experiences in driving tired mud-stained men from the cold
darkness of Victoria Station to their outlying homes, had taught her the
sharp difference between training in England, however uncomfortable, and
the rigours of active service: taught her that difference better than
her brother Jack’s careful letters from the front itself.
Resultantly, she arrived at the “Royal York,” (tooling the Crossley like
a professional chauffeur), very much on her guard.
§ 2
Brighton-on-Sea’s first war-Christmas betrayed no lack of prosperity.
Its hotels, booked up weeks in advance, its saloons, its piers, its
theatres and its picture-houses palpitated gaiety. From their billets in
Shoreham Town and Portslade, in Worthing and beyond Worthing, the
Southdown Division poured in a constant stream of blue-clad men and
khaki-clad officers: London sent flappers and chorus-ladies, middle-aged
business men and elderly idlers, frisky matrons and demure maidens. The
whole town seemed one strolling, dancing, theatre-going, drinking
promenade.
“Preston must be making a lot of money,” said Peter, as he and his wife
took their first meal together in the crowded dining-room.
“I suppose so.” She had never known him quite so absorbed. “Is there
anything the matter, Peter?” she went on.
“Lots. I’ll tell you after lunch. I wrote you about Alice being here,
didn’t I?”
“Yes, but you didn’t say where she was staying.”
“At the Metropole. We’re to dine with them this evening. There’s a dance
or something, I believe.”
He was enormously glad to have her with him: but far too occupied about
regimental and other matters to shew it. The handsome woman sitting
opposite to him—tight chinchilla motor-bonnet and plain Lovat-tweed
tailor-made accentuated both figure and fairness—summoned many eyes in
that room: but not her husband’s.
Luncheon over, they settled themselves in the little apartment leading
off the lounge; drew chairs to the fire: and he sketched for her the
position as between himself and Locksley, Bromley and Locksley, the
regiment and Locksley.
Her limited experience of men could not grasp it.
“But, Peter, it all seems so childish. Like a lot of boys at school. And
surely, with people being killed every day, this is not the time for you
others to quarrel.”
“You’re perfectly right, old thing. That’s what I told Harold only last
night. What makes me mad is that one man can do so much harm. Honestly,
if it weren’t for Locksley I believe we should never have had any of
this trouble. As it is,” he paused a moment, “we two have decided to get
out.”
“But isn’t that,” she said the words deliberately, “an admission of
failure?”
“I suppose it is,” he reflected. “But what am I to do? It wouldn’t be
playing the game to accept promotion over a friend’s head.” . . .
“No. I suppose not.” She began to realize that his seriousness had its
reasons. “But the men?” she asked.
“I know.” He grew very silent. In those three months Peter had learned a
great affection for “B” Company, which he had watched grow from a mere
mob to an orderly body; a body to be moved at will and by a word.
Individuals too, he would be sorry to part from: Gladeney, Sergeant
Atkins, his servant Priestley, “long” Longstaffe who started the
choruses from the leading “four” in Number Five platoon, a funny little
chap called Haddock, always untidy but always willing. “It’s best for
them, though. Rows between officers don’t do the men any good. But
you’re right about it being a failure, Pat. I suppose that’s what’s
making me so mad.”
Only then, did she quite understand. It _was_ failure: but failure
excused by loyalty: loyalty to a friend, loyalty to his sense of playing
the game, loyalty to that intangible thing—the spirit of a regiment,
against which individuals do not count.
“I’m sorry.” She laid a hand on his arm. He took it, rather
shamefacedly: said “Come on, old thing. Let’s go out for a walk.”
§ 3
They walked straight out of the hotel into the arms of a voluble stout
little civilian, with eyebrows like the horns of a stag-beetle, a blue
silk muffler round his throat and a bowler hat, not quite clean, crammed
down over his big head.
“And how are you, Mr. Jameson? Very glad to see you, I’m sure. My cousin
Sam told me I might run into you down here.”
Peter introduced Marcus Bramson, owner of Bramson’s Pullman Virginia’s
(“the cigarette you _must_ try”) to a slightly standoffish Patricia.
“A fine fellow, your husband, Mrs. Jameson. Everybody in the trade is
proud of the way he enlisted. Right at the start, too. I was telling my
cousin Sam, only the other night, how grateful he ought to be to work
for such a man.”
They couldn’t get rid of Marcus! He stood there, looking like a strapped
mummy in his tight overcoat, pouring out compliments and trade-gossip
alternately.
“Poor young Schornstein. He’s been killed, you know. Sam Elkins gave his
car to the Red Cross. I’m an old man, worse luck. Still, I’m trying to
do my bit. And Mrs. Bramson, she’s running a canteen.
“Well, I mustn’t be keeping you like this,” he said at last. “We’re
spending Christmas at this hotel. So if you’re passing again, drop in
and take a drink with us. I’d like to have a little private talk with
you, Mr. Jameson,” he added, as he wrenched off his hat and passed in
through the glass doors.
“Quaint old bird, Marcus,” announced Peter, still smarting under the
compliments. “Did you see what he was driving at?”
“No.” Patricia swung down the crowded parade. “I only thought of his
clothes. How _can_ he afford to stay at the ‘Royal York?’”
“Marcus must be worth at least a quarter of a million. He’s one of those
chaps who simply can’t help making money. And he spends nothing. They
live in an eighty-pound villa at Maida Vale, keep two servants, and take
a holiday like this three times a year.”
They threaded their way out of the crowd; made towards Hove. It was a
mild, misty afternoon: sun hanging low and scarlet over a dun sea.
“And what _was_ he driving at?” she asked.
“Nirvana.”
“But you’re not going to sell it, Peter?” She looked round at him; but
his eyes avoided her.
“I’m afraid so, dear.”
They walked on.
“Failure again!” he commented bitterly.
Now, she was loving him madly, reasonlessly. And she couldn’t help him.
He had gone back beyond her reach, into the old world: the world of
denied accomplishment.
“Failure,” he repeated.
“It isn’t.” Her eyes lit. “It isn’t. It’s splendid. To give up something
you really loved for the sake of your country—_that_ can’t be failure.”
“Oh, _the country_. . . .” The word was almost a sneer. This man’s
patriotism lay deep down in his nature, a thing of whispers and
suggestions, a thing to die for but not to discuss.
“The country!” he went on. “‘We don’t want to lose you, but we think you
ought to go’. . . . And once you have gone, we’ll take devilish good
care to snaffle anything you’ve left behind you.”
“You don’t mean a word you’re saying.” The hostility in her tone caught
his ear. In eight years, they had never quarrelled. This Patricia was as
new to her husband as to herself. He walked on in silence.
“You could resign your commission, I suppose?” She said it purposely,
meaning to provoke him.
“Resign! Damn it, woman, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” It
was the first time he had ever sworn at her. Inwardly she laughed.
“I’m sorry, old thing,” he said a minute later.
She stalked on haughtily. She was flirting, deliberately flirting, with
her own husband. And she felt a fool. Rather a delicious fool, though.
Suddenly, he became aware of her; acutely, physically almost. . . . Then
the custom of years overwhelmed both.
“The trout,” remarked Patricia, “took the May-fly with a rush. . . .”
He caught her meaning at once. “But you shouldn’t rag about that sort of
thing, Pat.”
“You deserved it. And besides, you lost your temper with me. That means
a forfeit—fizz for dinner.”
They had drifted back—neither quite realizing—to the early days of
their marriage.
“There’ll be plenty of bubbly tonight, without my standing any.” He
began to talk about Alice’s husband. She countered with a relation of
Violet’s sudden prosperity. Peter had not told about his quarrel with
Herbert Rawlings: Pat objected to criticism of her relatives—even when
she knew the criticism justified. His little mood of bitterness passed;
leaving only a caustic humour in its wake.
“Great man, that brother-in-law of yours,” he laughed. “I saw his
picture in one of the illustrateds last week. They called him ‘a
patriotic war-worker.’ I think. Something of the sort. . . .”
§ 4
They returned for tea in the lounge; and were unavoidably buttonholed by
Marcus Bramson, looking shabbier than ever in a greasy tail-coat and
elastic-sided boots.
“Mrs. Bramson would be so glad to know you,” he told Patricia, “but
she’s lying down at the moment. So you won’t mind, Mrs. Jameson, if your
husband and I have a little talk?”
He drew a chair to their table, began to gossip. Tea over, Pat accepted
the cigarette he offered; leaned back in her sofa. They made a curious
contrast: her husband, workmanlike in his khaki, cigar in the corner of
his mouth, very deliberate, (it was the first time she had ever seen him
talking business to a stranger); and the voluble little old man,
wheedling, gesticulating,—but never missing a point.
“That cousin of mine,” began Bramson, “he’s always been a bit of a
waster, you know. Good fellow, excellent salesman—but no head for
money.”
“Oh, come,” began Peter.
“Nice of you to stand up for him, Mr. Jameson. Very nice of you, I must
say. But I know him better than you do. Now, between you and me”—the
voice dropped—“he’s not doing you any good.”
Much as Peter hated the idea of parting with Nirvana, he could not but
appreciate Marcus’ opening.
The old man paused. “I always did wonder” he went on reflectively, “why
you wanted to bother yourself with that factory. It isn’t as if you
hadn’t got another business. A rich young man like you don’t want to
trouble himself about making cirgarettes. Now Jamesons, that’s a good
business, that is. . . .”
“Trying to buy me out?” The attack came suddenly—and to Patricia,
unexpectedly.
“I wouldn’t mind.” Bramson lit himself a cigarette. “I’m always buying
businesses, I am.”
He waited for his opponent to speak; waited vainly.
“Well? What do you think about it, Mr. Jameson?”
“To tell you the truth,” prevaricated Peter, “I’ve never contemplated
such a thing.”