No More Parades - Ford Madox Ford (the gingerbread man read aloud .TXT) 📗

really only a fellow of his college⁠—who did not know his right hand from his left, Tietjens was engaged in the remains of the colonel’s furious argument as to the union of the Anglican and Eastern rites. The colonel⁠—he was a full colonel⁠—sat in his lovely private office, a light, gay compartment of a tin-hutment, the walls being papered in scarlet, with, on the purplish, thick, soft baize of his table-cover, a tall glass vase from which sprayed out pale Riviera roses, the gift of young lady admirers amongst the V.A.D.s in the town because he was a darling, and an open, very gilt and leather-bound volume of a biblical encyclopaedia beneath his delicate septuagenarian features. He was confirming his opinion that a union between the Church of England and the Greek Orthodox Church was the only thing that could save civilization. The whole war turned on that. The Central Empires represented Roman Catholicism, the Allies Protestantism and Orthodoxy. Let them unite. The papacy was a traitor to the cause of civilization. Why had the Vatican not protested with no uncertain voice about the abominations practised on the Belgian Catholics?⁠ ⁠…

Tietjens pointed out languidly objections to this theory. The first thing our ambassador to the Vatican had found out on arriving in Rome and protesting about massacres of Catholic laymen in Belgium was that the Russians before they had been a day in Austrian Poland had hanged twelve Roman Catholic bishops in front of their palaces.

Cowley was engaged with the adjutant at another table. The colonel ended his theologico-political tirade by saying:

“I shall be very sorry to lose you, Tietjens. I don’t know what we shall do without you. I never had a moment’s peace with your unit until you came.”

Tietjens said:

“Well, you aren’t losing me, sir, as far as I know.”

The colonel said:

“Oh, yes, we are. You are going up the line next week⁠ ⁠…” He added: “Now, don’t get angry with me⁠ ⁠… I’ve protested very strongly to old Campion⁠—General Campion⁠—that I cannot do without you.” And he made, with his delicate, thin, hairy-backed, white hands a motion as of washing.

The ground moved under Tietjens’ feet. He felt himself clambering over slopes of mud with his heavy legs and labouring chest. He said:

“Damn it all!⁠ ⁠… I’m not fit⁠ ⁠… I’m C3⁠ ⁠… I was ordered to live in an hotel in the town⁠ ⁠… I only mess here to be near the battalion.”

The colonel said with some eagerness:

“Then you can protest to Garrison⁠ ⁠… I hope you will⁠ ⁠… But I suppose you are the sort of fellow that won’t.”

Tietjens said:

“No, sir⁠ ⁠… Of course I cannot protest⁠ ⁠… Though it’s probably a mistake of some clerk⁠ ⁠… I could not stand a week in the line⁠ ⁠…” The profound misery of brooding apprehension in the line was less on his mind than, precisely, the appalling labour of the lower limbs when you live in mud to the neck⁠ ⁠… Besides, whilst he had been in hospital, practically the whole of his equipment had disappeared from his kit-bag⁠—including Sylvia’s two pairs of sheets!⁠—and he had no money with which to get more. He had not even any trench-boots. Fantastic financial troubles settled on his mind.

The colonel said to the adjutant at the other purple baize-covered table:

“Show Captain Tietjens those marching orders of his⁠ ⁠… They’re from Whitehall, aren’t they?⁠ ⁠… You never know where these things come from nowadays. I call them the arrow that flieth by night!”

The adjutant, a diminutive, a positively miniature gentleman with Coldstream badges up and a dreadfully worried brow, drifted a quarto sheet of paper out of a pile, across his tablecloth towards Tietjens. His tiny hands seemed about to fall off at the wrists; his temples shuddered with neuralgia. He said:

“For God’s sake do protest to Garrison if you feel you can⁠ ⁠… We can’t have more work shoved on us⁠ ⁠… Major Lawrence and Major Halkett left the whole of the work of your unit to us⁠ ⁠…”

The sumptuous paper, with the royal arms embossed at the top, informed Tietjens that he would report to his VIth battalion on the Wednesday of next week in preparation for taking up the duties of divisional transport officer to the XIXth division. The order came from Room G 14 R, at the War Office. He asked what the deuce G 14 R was, of the adjutant, who in an access of neuralgic agony, shook his head miserably, between his two hands, his elbows on the tablecloth.

Sergeant-Major Cowley, with his air of a solicitor’s clerk, said the room G 14 R was the department that dealt with civilian requests for the services of officers. To the adjutant who asked what the devil a civilian request for the employment of officers could have to do with sending Captain Tietjens to the XIXth division, Sergeant-Major Cowley presumed that it was because of the activities of the Earl of Beichan. The Earl of Beichan, a Levantine financier and racehorse owner, was interesting himself in army horses, after a short visit to the lines of communication. He also owned several newspapers. So they had been waking up the army transport-animals’ department to please him. The adjutant would no doubt have observed a Veterinary-Lieutenant Hotchkiss or Hitchcock. He had come to them through G 14 R. At the request of Lord Beichan, who was personally interested in Lieutenant Hotchkiss’s theories, he was to make experiments on the horses of the Fourth Army⁠—in which the XIXth division was then to be found⁠ ⁠… “So,” Cowley said, “you’ll be under him as far as your horse lines go. If you go up.” Perhaps Lord Beichan was a friend of Captain Tietjens and had asked for him, too: Captain Tietjens was known to be wonderful with horses.

Tietjens, his breath rushing through his nostrils, swore he would not go up the line at the bidding of a hog like Beichan, whose real name was Stavropolides, formerly Nathan.

He said the army was reeling to its base because of the continual interference of civilians. He said it was absolutely impossible to