“Can I help at all?”
He greeted me warmly, as though he had known me for years.
“My dear old pal, you can indeed! First of all I want a bottle of
champagne-une bouteille de champagne-” it was wonderful how much music
he put into those words--“and after that I want my runaway horse, as I
have explained to these good people who do not understand a bloody word,
in spite of my excellent French accent. I stole the colonel's horse to
come for a joy-ride to Amiens. The colonel is one of the best of men,
but very touchy, very touchy indeed. You would be surprised. He also has
the worst horse in the world, or did, until it ran away half an hour
ago into the blackness of this hell which men call Amiens. It is quite
certain that if I go back without that horse most unpleasant things will
happen to a gallant young British officer, meaning myself, who with most
innocent intentions of cleansing his soul from the filth of battle, from
the horror of battle, from the disgusting fear of battle--oh yes, I've
been afraid all right, and so have you unless you're a damned hero or
a damned liar--desired to get as far as this beautiful city (so fair
without, so foul within!) in order to drink a bottle, or even two or
three, of rich, sparkling wine, to see the loveliness of women as they
trip about these pestilential streets, to say a little prayer in la
cathedrale, and then to ride back, refreshed, virtuous, knightly, all
through the quiet night, to deliver up the horse whence I had pinched
it, and nobody any the wiser in the dewy morn. You see, it was a good
scheme.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“It happened thuswise,” he answered, breaking out into fresh eloquence,
with fantastic similes and expressions of which I can give only the
spirit. “Leaving a Pozieres, which, as you doubtless know, unless you
are a bloody staff-officer, is a place where the devil goes about like
a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, where he leaves his victims'
entrails hanging on to barbed wire, and where the bodies of your friends
and mine lie decomposing in muddy holes--you know the place?--I put my
legs across the colonel's horse, which was in the wagonlines, and set
forth for Amiens. That horse knew that I had pinched him--forgive my
slang. I should have said it in the French language, vole--and resented
me. Thrice was I nearly thrown from his back. Twice did he entangle
himself in barbed wire deliberately. Once did I have to coerce him with
many stripes to pass a tank. Then the heavens opened upon us and it
rained. It rained until I was wet to the skin, in spite of sheltering
beneath a tree, one branch of which, owing to the stubborn temper of my
steed, struck me a stinging blow across the face. So in no joyful spirit
I came at last to Amiens, this whited sepulcher, this Circe's capital,
this den of thieves, this home of vampires. There I dined, not
wisely, but too well. I drank of the flowing cup--une bouteille de
champagne--and I met a maiden as ugly as sin, but beautiful in my
eyes after Pozieres--you understand--and accompanied her to her poor
lodging--in a most verminous place, sir--where we discoursed upon the
problems of life and love. O youth! O war! O hell!... My horse, that
brute who resented me, was in charge of an 'ostler, whom I believe
verily is a limb of Satan, in the yard without. It was late when I left
that lair of Circe, where young British officers, even as myself, are
turned into swine. It was late and dark, and I was drunk. Even now I am
very drunk. I may say that I am becoming drunker and drunker.”
It was true. The fumes of bad champagne were working in the boy's brain,
and he leaned heavily against me.
“It was then that that happened which will undoubtedly lead to my
undoing, and blast my career as I have blasted my soul. The horse was
there in the yard, but without saddle or bridle.
“'Where is my saddle and where is my bridle, oh, naughty 'ostler?' I
shouted, in dismay.
“The 'ostler, who, as I informed you, is one of Satan's imps, answered
in incomprehensible French, led the horse forth from the yard, and,
giving it a mighty blow on the rump, sent it clattering forth into the
outer darkness. In my fear of losing it--for I must be at Pozieres at
dawn--I ran after it, but it ran too fast in the darkness, and I stopped
and tried to grope my way back to the stableyard to kill that 'ostler,
thereby serving God, and other British officers, for he was the devil's
agent. But I could not find the yard again. It had disappeared! It was
swallowed up in Cimmerian gloom. So I was without revenge and without
horse, and, as you will perceive, sir--unless you are a bloody
staff-officer who doesn't perceive anything--I am utterly undone. I am
also horribly drunk, and I must apologize for leaning so heavily on your
arm. It's awfully good of you, anyway, old man.”
The crowd was mostly moving, driven indoors by the rain. The woman
who had spoken to me said, “I heard a horse's hoofs upon the bridge,
la-bas.”
Then she went away with her apron over her head.
Thomas and I walked each side of the officer, giving him an arm. He
could not walk straight, and his legs played freakish tricks with him.
All the while he talked in a strain of high comedy interlarded with grim
little phrases, revealing an underlying sense of tragedy and despair,
until his speech thickened and he became less fluent. We spent a
fantastic hour searching for his horse. It was like a nightmare in
the darkness and rain. Every now and then we heard, distinctly, the
klip-klop of a horse's hoofs, and went off in that direction, only to be
baffled by dead silence, with no sign of the animal. Then again, as we
stood listening, we heard the beat of hoofs on hard pavements, in the
opposite direction, and walked that way, dragging the boy, who was
getting more and more incapable of walking upright. At last we gave up
hope of finding the horse, though the young officer kept assuring us
that he must find it at all costs. “It's a point of honor,” he
said, thickly. “Not my horse, you know Doctor's horse. Devil to pay
to-morrow.”
He laughed foolishly and said:
“Always devil to pay in morning.”
We were soaked to the skin.
“Come home with me,” I said. “We can give you a shake-down.”
“Frightfully good, old man. Awfully sorry, you know, and all that. Are
you a blooming general, or something? But I must find horse.”
By some means we succeeded in persuading him that the chase was useless
and that it would be better for him to get into our billet and start out
next morning, early. We dragged him up the rue des Augustins, to the rue
Amiral Courbet. Outside the iron gates I spoke to him warningly:
“You've got to be quiet. There are staff-officers inside...”
“What?... Staff officers?... Oh, my God!”
The boy was dismayed. The thought of facing staff-officers almost
sobered him; did, indeed, sober his brain for a moment, though not his
legs.
“It's all right,” I said. “Go quietly, and I will get you upstairs
safely.”
It was astonishing how quietly he went, hanging on to me. The little
colonel was reading The Times in the salon. We passed the open door, and
saw over the paper his high forehead puckered with perplexity as to the
ways of the world. But he did not raise his head or drop The Times at
the sound of our entry. I took the boy upstairs to my room and guided
him inside. He said, “Thanks awfully,” and then lay down on the floor
and fell into so deep a sleep that I was scared and thought for a moment
he might be dead. I went downstairs to chat with the little colonel and
form an alibi in case of trouble. An hour later, when I went into my
room, I found the boy still lying as I had left him, without having
stirred a limb. He was a handsome fellow, with his head hanging
limply across his right arm and a lock of damp hair falling across his
forehead. I thought of a son of mine, who in a few years would be as
old as he, and I prayed God mine might be spared this boy's tragedy...
Through the night he slept in a drugged way, but just at dawn he woke
up and stretched himself, with a queer little moan. Then he sat up and
said:
“Where am I?”
“In a billet at Amiens. You lost your horse last night and I brought you
here.”
Remembrance came into his eyes and his face was swept with a sudden
flush of shame and agony.
“Yes... I made a fool of myself. The worst possible. How can I get back
to Pozieres?”
“You could jump a lorry with luck.”
“I must. It's serious if I don't get back in time. In any case, the loss
of that horse--”
He thought deeply for a moment, and I could see that his head was aching
to the beat of sledge-hammers.
“Can I wash anywhere?”