One had known the place for years as a picturesque old house, standing
in a peaceful park; had watched the growth of certain young oaks along a
new-laid avenue, and applauded the owner’s enterprise in turning a
stretch of pasture to plough. There are scores of such estates in
England which the motorist, through passing so often, comes to look upon
almost as his own. In a single day the brackened turf between the oaks
and the iron road-fence blossomed into tents, and the drives were all
cut up with hoofs and wheels. A little later, one’s car sweeping home of
warm September nights was stopped by sentries, who asked her name and
business; for the owner of that retired house and discreetly wooded park
had gone elsewhere in haste, and his estate was taken over by the
military.
Later still, one met men and horses arguing with each other for miles
about that countryside; or the car would be flung on her brakes by
artillery issuing from cross-lanes—clean batteries jingling off to their
work on the Downs, and hungry ones coming back to meals. Every day
brought the men and the horses and the weights behind them to a better
understanding, till in a little while the car could pass a quarter of a
mile of them without having to hoot more than once.
‘Why are you so virtuous?’ she asked of a section encountered at a blind
and brambly corner. ‘Why do you obtrude your personality less than an
average tax-cart?’
‘Because,’ said a driver, his arm flung up to keep the untrimmed hedge
from sweeping his cap off, ‘because those are our blessed orders. We
don’t do it for love.’
No one accuses the Gunner of maudlin affection for anything except his
beasts and his weapons. He hasn’t the time. He serves at least three
jealous gods—his horse and all its saddlery and harness; his gun, whose
least detail of efficiency is more important than men’s lives; and, when
these have been attended to, the never-ending mystery of his art
commands him.
It was a wettish, windy day when I visited the so-long-known house and
park. Cock pheasants ducked in and out of trim rhododendron clumps, neat
gates opened into sacredly preserved vegetable gardens, the
many-coloured leaves of specimen trees pasted themselves stickily
against sodden tent walls, and there was a mixture of circus smells from
the horse-lines and the faint, civilised breath of chrysanthemums in the
potting sheds. The main drive was being relaid with a foot of flint; the
other approaches were churned and pitted under the gun wheels and heavy
supply wagons. Great breadths of what had been well-kept turf between
unbrowsed trees were blanks of slippery brown wetness, dotted with
picketed horses and field-kitchens. It was a crazy mixture of stark
necessity and manicured luxury, all cheek by jowl, in the
undiscriminating rain.