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

Tietjens said carelessly:

“This is rather painful. Perhaps you would let me tell you exactly what did happen last night⁠ ⁠…”

Levin said:

“If you only would!” He added rather diffidently: “If you would not mind remembering that I am a military court of inquiry. It makes it easier for me to report to the general if you say things dully and in the order they happened.”

Tietjens said:

“Thank you⁠ ⁠…” and after a short interval, “I retired to rest with my wife last night at⁠ ⁠… I cannot say the hour exactly. Say half-past one. I reached this camp at half-past four, taking rather over half an hour to walk. What happened, as I am about to relate, took place therefore before four.”

“The hour,” Levin said, “is not material. We know the incident occurred in the small hours. General O’Hara made his complaint to me at three-thirty-five. He probably took five minutes to reach my quarters.”

Tietjens asked:

“The exact charge was⁠ ⁠…”

“The complaints,” Levin answered, “were very numerous indeed⁠ ⁠… I could not catch them all. The succinct charge was at first being drunk and striking a superior officer, then merely that of conduct prejudicial in that you struck⁠ ⁠… There is also a subsidiary charge of conduct prejudicial in that you improperly marked a charge-sheet in your orderly room⁠ ⁠… I did not catch what all that was about⁠ ⁠… You appear to have had a quarrel with him about his red caps⁠ ⁠…”

“That,” Tietjens said, “is what it is really all about.” He asked: “The officer I was said to have struck was⁠ ⁠… ?”

Levin said:

“Perowne⁠ ⁠…” dryly.

Tietjens said:

“You are sure it was not himself. I am prepared to plead guilty to striking General O’Hara.”

“It is not,” Levin said, “a question of pleading guilty. There is no charge to that effect against you, and you are perfectly aware that you are not under arrest⁠ ⁠… An order to perform any duty after you have been placed under arrest in itself releases you and dissolves the arrest.”

Tietjens said coolly:

“I am perfectly aware of that. And that that was General Campion’s intention in ordering me to accompany him round my cookhouses⁠ ⁠… But I doubt⁠ ⁠… I put it to you for your serious attention whether that is the best way to hush this matter up⁠ ⁠… I think it would be more expedient that I should plead guilty to a charge of striking General O’Hara. And naturally to being drunk. An officer does not strike a general when he is sober. That would be a quite inconspicuous affair. Subordinate officers are broken every day for being drunk.”

Levin had said “Wait a minute,” twice. He now exclaimed with a certain horror:

“Your mania for sacrificing yourself makes you lose all⁠ ⁠… all sense of proportion. You forget that General Campion is a gentleman. Things cannot be done in a hole-and-corner manner in this command⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“They’re done unbearably⁠ ⁠… It would be nothing to me to be broke for being drunk, but raking up all this is hell.”

Levin said:

“The general is anxious to know exactly what has happened. You will kindly accept an order to relate exactly what happened.”

Tietjens said:

“That is what is perfectly damnable⁠ ⁠…” He remained silent for nearly a minute, Levin slapping his leggings with his riding-crop in a nervously passionate rhythm. Tietjens stiffened himself and began:

“General O’Hara came to my wife’s room and burst in the door. I was there. I took him to be drunk. But from what he exclaimed I have since imagined that he was not so much drunk as misled. There was another man lying in the corridor where I had thrown him. General O’Hara exclaimed that this was Major Perowne. I had not realized that this was Major Perowne. I do not know Major Perowne very well and he was not in uniform. I had imagined him to be a French waiter coming to call me to the telephone. I had seen only his face round the door: he was looking round the door. My wife was in a state⁠ ⁠… bordering on nudity. I had put my hand under his chin and thrown him through the doorway. I am physically very strong and I exercised all my strength. I am aware of that. I was excited, but not more excited than the circumstances seemed to call for⁠ ⁠…”

Levin exclaimed:

“But⁠ ⁠… At three in the morning! The telephone!”

“I was ringing up my headquarters and yours. All through the night. The O.I.C. draft, Lieutenant Cowley, was also ringing me up. I was anxious to know what was to be done about the Canadian railway men. I had three times been called to the telephone since I had been in Mrs. Tietjens’ room, and once an orderly had come down from the camp. I was also conducting a very difficult conversation with my wife as to the disposal of my family’s estates, which are large, so that the details were complicated. I occupied the room next door to Mrs. Tietjens and till that moment, the communicating door between the rooms being open, I had heard when a waiter or an orderly had knocked at my own door in the corridor. The night porter of the hotel was a dark, untidy, surly sort of fellow⁠ ⁠… Not unlike Perowne.”

Levin said:

“Is it necessary to go into all this? We⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“If I am to make a statement it seems necessary. I would prefer you to question me⁠ ⁠…”

Levin said:

“Please go on⁠ ⁠… We accept the statement that Major Perowne was not in uniform. He states that he was in his pyjamas and dressing-gown. Looking for the bathroom.”

Tietjens said: “Ah!” and stood reflecting. He said:

“May I hear the⁠ ⁠… purport of Major Perowne’s statement?”

“He states,” Levin said, “what I have just said. He was looking for the bathroom. He had not slept in the hotel before. He opened a door and looked round it, and was immediately thrown with great violence down into the passage with his head against the wall. He says that this dazed him so that, not really appreciating what had happened, he shouted various accusations against the person who had assaulted him⁠ ⁠… General O’Hara then came