The Roll-Call - Arnold Bennett (top ten books to read TXT) 📗

sir."

The bus, having stopped by order at the second tea-house on the left in Piccadilly, was immediately assaulted, without success, by several would-be passengers. A policeman, outraged by the spectacle of a bus stationary at a spot where buses are absolutely forbidden to be stationary, hurried forward in fury. But the Major, instantly excited, was ready for him.

"This motor-bus is a military vehicle on service, and I'll thank you to mind your own business. If you've any complaints to make, you'd better make them to Lord Kitchener."

The policeman touched his hat.

"They have music here," said the Major mildly, entering the tea-house. "I always like music. Makes things so much jollier, doesn't it?"

During tea the Major inquired about George's individual circumstances, and George said that he was an architect.

"Student of bricks and mortar, eh?" said the Major benevolently. "How long have you been in the Army?"

"Rather less than half a day, sir."

The Major, raising his eyebrows, was very interested and kind. Perceiving that he had virgin material under his hands, he began to shape the material, and talked much about the niceties of the etiquette of saluting. George listened, yet at intervals his attention would wander, and he would be in Elm Park Road. But the illusion of home was very faint. His wife and family seemed to be slipping away from him. "How is it," he thought, "that I am not more upset about Lois than I am?" The various professional and family matters which in his haste he had left unsettled were diminishing hourly in their apparent importance. He came back to the tea-house with a start, hearing the Major praise his business capacity as displayed during the afternoon. The friendly aspect of the thin, pallid face inspired him with a sort of emotional audacity, and in ten words he suddenly informed the Major of his domestic situation.

"H'm!" said the Major. "I'm a bachelor myself."

There was a pause.

"I'll give you a tip," said the Major, resuming the interrupted topic. "War is a business. The more business capacity you have, the more likely you are to succeed. I'm a business man myself."

On leaving the tea-house they discovered the military vehicle surrounded by an enchanted multitude who were staring through its windows at the merchandise--blankets, pans, kettles, saddles, ropes, parcels, stoves, baskets, and box of nibs--within, while the policeman strove in vain to keep both the road and the pavement clear. George preceded the Major, pushing aside with haughty military impatience the civilians so reluctant to move. He felt as though he had been in the Army for years. No longer did his uniform cause him the slightest self-consciousness.

At Wimbledon in the dusk the bus was met by several military wagons each from a different unit, and each anxious to obtain goods. This piece of organization rather impressed George.

"Well, my boy," said the Major, "you'd better go and report yourself. You've been a great help to me."

George saluted according to the Major's own doctrine, and departed. At Battery Headquarters he met Captain Resmith.

"How did you get on with Auntie?" asked Resmith in his loud, firm voice.

George winked.

Resmith gave a scarcely perceptible smile.

"Look here," he said. "I'm just going round the horse-lines. If you'll come with me I'll show you a thing or two, and we can choose a mount for you. Then after dinner if you like I'll take you through the orders for to-morrow. By the way, there's a telegram for you."

The telegram read:

"Girl. Everything fairly satisfactory. Don't worry too much. Laurencine sleeps here.--NUNKS"

The telegram was entirely characteristic of his stepfather--curt, exact, realistic, kind.

He thought:

"Three girls, by Jove!"


V


The early sun, carrying into autumn the tradition of a magnificent summer, shone on the artillery camps. The four guns of the No. 2 Battery of the Second Brigade were ranged side by side in the vast vague space in front of the officers' hutments. Each gun had six horses in three pairs, and a rider for each pair. On the guns and the gun-teams everything glittered that could glitter--leather, metal, coats of horses, faces of men. Captain Resmith rode round, examining harness and equipment with a microscope that he called his eye. George rode round after him. Sometimes Captain Resmith spoke to a N.C.O., sometimes even to a man, but for the most part the men stared straight in front of them into eternity. Major Craim trotted up. Captain Resmith approached the Major and saluted, saying in his best military voice:

"The Battery is all correct and ready to move off, sir."

The Major in his drawing-room voice replied:

"Thank you, Captain Resmith."

Silence reigned in No. 2 Battery, except for the faint jingling restlessness of the horses.

Then Colonel Hullocher and his Adjutant pranced into sight. The Adjutant saluted the Major and made an inquiry. The Major saluted, and all three chatted a little.

George, who had accompanied Captain Resmith into the background, murmured to him, as cautiously as a convict talking at exercise:

"He's got his knife into me."

"Who?"

"The Colonel."

"Don't you know why?"

"No. I was specially recommended to him."

"Well, that's one reason, isn't it? But there was a difficulty between him and the Major as to when you should come. The old man got the better of him--always does. But he's a good officer."

"Who?"

"Hullocher. Shut up."

These two had reached familiarity with the swiftness characteristic of martial life.

During the brief colloquy Resmith had sat very upright on his horse, the chin slightly lifted, the head quite still, even the lips scarcely moving to articulate. Colonel Hullocher seemed now to be approaching. It was a false alarm. The Colonel and his Adjutant pranced off. After a long time, and at a considerable distance, could just be heard the voice of the Colonel ordering the Brigade to move. But No. 2 Battery did not stir for another long period. Suddenly, amid a devolution of orders, No. 2 Battery moved. The Major, attended by his trumpeter, and followed by the Battery staff of range-takers, director-men, telephonists, and the serjeant-major, inaugurated a sinuous procession into the uneven, rutted track leading to the side-road. Then the guns one by one wheeled to the right, the horses' hoofs stamping into the damp ground as they turned, and became part of the procession. Then the quartermaster and other N.C.O.'s and men joined; and last were Captain Resmith, attended by _his_ trumpeter, and George. Resmith looked over his shoulder at the Third Battery which surged behind. There were nearly two hundred men and over a hundred and fifty horses and many vehicles in the Battery. The Major was far out of sight, and the tail of the column was equally out of sight in the rear, for the total length of Major Craim's cavalcade exceeded a mile; and of the Brigade three miles, and two other similar Brigades somewhere in the region of Wimbledon were participating in the grand Divisional trek.

Captain Resmith cantered ahead to a bend in the track, and anxiously watched a gun-team take the sharp curve, which was also a sharp slope. The impression of superb, dangerous physical power was tremendous. The distended nostrils of horses, the gliding of their muscles under the glossy skin, the muffled thud of their hoofs in the loose soil, the grimacing of the men as they used spur and thong, the fierce straining of straps and chains, the creaking, the grinding, and finally the swaying of the 90-millimetre gun, coddled and polished, as it swung helplessly forward, stern first, and its long nose describing an arc in the air behind--these things marvellously quickened the blood.

"Good men!" said Captain Resmith, enthusiastic. "It's great, isn't it? You know, there's nothing so fine as a battery--nothing in the whole world."

George heartily agreed with him.

"This is the best Battery in the Division," said Resmith religiously.

And George was religiously convinced that it was.

He was astoundingly happy. He thought, amazed, that he had never been so happy, or at any rate so uplifted, in all his life. He simply could not comprehend his state of bliss, which had begun that morning at 6.30 when the grey-headed, simple-minded servant allotted to him had wakened him, according to instructions, with a mug of tea. Perhaps it was the far, thin sound of bugles that produced the rapturous effect, or the fresh air blowing in through the broken pane of the hut, or the slanting sunlight, or the feeling that he had no responsibility and nothing to do but blindly obey orders.

He had gone to sleep as depressed as he was tired. A sense of futility had got the better of him. The excursion of the afternoon had certainly been ridiculous in a high degree. He had hoped for a more useful evening. Captain Resmith had indeed taken him to the horse-lines, and he had tried a mount which was very suitable, and Captain Resmith had said that he possessed a naturally good seat and hands, and had given him a few sagacious tips. It was plain to him that Resmith had the Major's orders to take him in tutelage and make an officer of him. But the satisfactoriness of the evening had suddenly ceased. Scarcely had Resmith begun to expound the orders, and George to read the thrilling words, 'Second Lieutenant G.E. Cannon to ride with Captain Resmith,' when the mess had impulsively decided to celebrate the last night in camp by a dinner at the hotel near the station, and George, fit for nothing more important, had been detailed to run off and arrange for the rich repast. The bulk of the mess was late to arrive, and George spent the time in writing a descriptive and falsely gay letter on slips of yellow Army paper to Lois. The dinner, with its facile laughter and equally facile cynicism, had bored him; for he had joined the Army in order to save an Empire and a world from being enslaved. He had lain down in his truckle-bed and listened to the last echoing sounds in the too-resonant corridor of the hutments, and thought of the wisdom of Sir Isaac Davids, and of the peril to his wife, and of the peril to the earth, and of his own irremediable bondage to the military machine. He, with all his consciousness of power, had been put to school again; deprived of the right to answer back, to argue, even to think. If one set in authority said that black was white, his most sacred duty was to concur and believe. And there was no escape....

And then, no sooner had he gone to sleep than it was bright day, and the faint, clear call of bugles had pierced the clouds of his depression and they had vanished! Every moment of the early morning had been exquisite. Although he had not been across a horse for months, he rode comfortably, and the animal was reliable. Resmith in fact had had to warn him against fatiguing himself. But he knew that he was incapable of fatigue. The day's trek was naught--fifteen miles or less--to Epsom Downs, at a walk!... Lois? He had expected a letter from 'Nunks' or his mother, but there was no letter, and no news was good news, at any rate with 'Nunks' in charge of communications. Lois could not fail to be all right. He recalled the wise generalization of 'Nunks' on that point ... Breakfast was a paradisiacal meal. He had never 'fancied' a meal so much. And Resmith had greatly enheartened him