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

would have to be up half the night. He seemed to Sylvia a blazingly contemptible personage⁠—too contemptible really for Father Consett to employ as an agent, in clearing the room⁠ ⁠… But the omen was given. She had to consider her position. It meant⁠—or did it?⁠—that she had to be at war with the heavenly powers!⁠ ⁠… She clenched her hands⁠ ⁠…

In passing by Tietjens in his chair the general boomed out the words:

“I got your chit of this morning, Tietjens I must say⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens lumbered out of his chair and stood at attention, his leg-of-mutton hands stiffly on the seams of his breeches.

“It’s pretty strong,” the general said, “marking a charge-sheet sent down from my department: Case explained. We don’t lay charges without due thought. And Lance-Corporal Berry is a particularly reliable N.C.O. I have difficulty enough to get them. Particularly after the late riots. It takes courage, I can tell you.”

“If,” Tietjens said, “you would see fit, sir, to instruct the G.M.P. not to call Colonial troops ‘damned conscripts,’ the trouble would be over⁠ ⁠… We’re instructed to use special discretion, as officers, in dealing with troops from the Dominions. They are said to be very susceptible of insult⁠ ⁠…”

The general suddenly became a boiling pot from which fragments of sentences came away: damned insolence; court of inquiry; damned conscripts they were too. He calmed enough to say:

“They are conscripts, your men, aren’t they? They give me more trouble⁠ ⁠… I should have thought that you would have wanted⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“No, sir. I have not a man in my unit, as far as it’s Canadian or British Columbian, that is not voluntarily enlisted⁠ ⁠…”

The general exploded to the effect that he was bringing the whole matter before the G.O.C.I.C.’s department. Campion could deal with it how he wished: it was beyond himself. He began to bluster away from them; stopped; directed a frigid bow to Sylvia who was not looking at him; shrugged his shoulders and stormed off.

It was difficult for Sylvia to get hold again of her thoughts in the smoking-room, for the evening was entirely pervaded with military effects that seemed to her the pranks of schoolboys. Indeed, after Cowley, who had by now quite a good skinful of liquor, had said to Tietjens:

“By Jove, I would not like to be you and a little bit on if old Blazes caught sight of you tonight,” she said to Tietjens with real wonder:

“You don’t mean to say that a gaga old fool like that could have any possible influence over you⁠ ⁠… You!”

Tietjens said:

“Well, it’s a troublesome business, all this⁠ ⁠…”

She said that it so appeared to be, for before he could finish his sentence an orderly was at his elbow extending, along with a pencil, a number of dilapidated papers. Tietjens looked rapidly through them, signing one after the other and saying intermittently:

“It’s a trying time.” “We’re massing troops up the line as fast as we can go.” “And with an endlessly changing personnel⁠ ⁠…” He gave a snort of exasperation and said to Cowley: “That horrible little Pitkins has got a job as bombing instructor. He can’t march the draft⁠ ⁠… Who the deuce am I to detail? Who the deuce is there?⁠ ⁠… You know all the little⁠ ⁠…” He stopped because the orderly could hear. A smart boy. Almost the only smart boy left him.

Cowley barged out of his seat and said he would telephone the mess to see who was there⁠ ⁠… Tietjens said to the boy:

“Sergeant-Major Morgan made out these returns of religions in the draft?”

The boy answered: “No, sir, I did. They’re all right.” He pulled a slip of paper out of his tunic pocket and said shyly:

“If you would not mind signing this, sir⁠ ⁠… I can get a lift on an A.S.C. trolley that’s going to Boulogne tomorrow at six⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“No, you can’t have leave. I can’t spare you. What’s it for?”

The boy said almost inaudibly that he wanted to get married.

Tietjens, still signing, said: “Don’t⁠ ⁠… Ask your married pals what it’s like!”

The boy, scarlet in his khaki, rubbed the sole of one foot on the instep of the other. He said that saving madam’s presence it was urgent. It was expected any day now. She was a real good gel. Tietjens signed the boy’s slip and handed it to him without looking up. The boy stood with his eyes on the ground. A diversion came from the telephone, which was at the far end of the room. Cowley had not been able to get on to the camp because an urgent message with regard to German espionage was coming through to the sleeping general.

Cowley began to shout: “For goodness’ sake hold the line⁠ ⁠… For goodness’ sake hold the line⁠ ⁠… I’m not the general⁠ ⁠… I’m not the general⁠ ⁠…” Tietjens told the orderly to awaken the sleeping warrior. A violent scene at the mouth of the quiescent instrument took place. The general roared to know who was the officer speaking⁠ ⁠… Captain Bubbleyjocks⁠ ⁠… Captain Cuddlestocks⁠ ⁠… what in hell’s name! And who was he speaking for?⁠ ⁠… Who? Himself?⁠ ⁠… Urgent was it?⁠ ⁠… Didn’t he know the proper procedure was by writing?⁠ ⁠… Urgent damnation!⁠ ⁠… Did he not know where he was?⁠ ⁠… In the First Army by the Cassell Canal⁠ ⁠… Well then⁠ ⁠… But the spy was in L. of C. territory, across the canal⁠ ⁠… The French civilian authorities were very concerned⁠ ⁠… They were, damn them!⁠ ⁠… And damn the officer. And damn the French maire. And damn the horse the supposed spy rode upon⁠ ⁠… And when the officer was damned let him write to First Army Headquarters about it and attach the horse and the bandoliers as an exhibit⁠ ⁠…

There was a great deal more of it. Tietjens, reading his papers still, intermittently explained the story as it came in fragments over the telephone in the general’s repetitions⁠ ⁠… Apparently the French civilian authorities of a place called Warendonck had been alarmed by a solitary horseman in English uniform who had been wandering desultorily about their neighbourhood for several days, seeming to want to cross