A Test to Destruction (29 page)

The Duke held out a hand. “Good morning, Colonel Maddison. Pray sit yourself down.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

The Duke was wearing the blue patrol uniform of a full colonel of the regiment. He re-seated himself behind his desk. Phillip waited, entirely calm. His mind was made up: he would tell the truth.

The Duke said nothing. From afar, Phillip heard the out-of-tune cuckoo singing in the remote world. The Duke stared at his desk. He seemed to be considering what to say, consulting chin with hand; plucking at loosening skin with finger and thumb, until he reached a decision; only to reject it while regulating the two ends of his moustaches in an upward direction. Phillip continued to feel calm. This man was more nervous than himself. He wanted to help him; but remained silent, sitting back in his chair, and with detachment removed his smoked glasses, to pass his hand across his eyes. That would suggest something to the Duke.

“Are you gettin’ on well?”

“Yes, thank you, sir. It’s wonderful to be back in England, as Browning said, now that April’s here—or, rather, May!”

“Who?”

“Browning, sir, the poet.”

“Oh yes, of course.”

There was another fairly long interval. Putting on his glasses Phillip said, “Harold West and I used to discuss poetry in France, sir.”

“Really.”

Phillip became aware of several clocks ticking away in the panelled room. He must wait for the Duke to speak.

“You knew Colonel West, of course?”

“Yes, sir. I met him at Loos.”

“Where?”

“At Loos. The battle in September, ’fifteen.”

“Oh yes, of course. Loos, yes. Mowbray was wounded, I remember.”

He heard himself saying, “It was from Harold West that I first heard of the traditions of the regiment, sir, or rather the spirit of the county.” Oh, what a fool he must seem, talking so stiltedly.

“Really.”

More prolonged racing ticks of half a dozen clocks.

“You are gettin’ better? No after effects?”

“None, sir.”

The Duke’s forefinger and thumb seemed to spend much time with the Duke’s post-Crimea guardee moustache. Suddenly Phillip remembered having read in
The
Field,
when at school, of the South African cuckoo, which sang more slowly than the ordinary cuckoo, and the first note was lower, nearer in pitch to the second.

“I wonder if you can tell me if a South African cuckoo has ever been recorded in Gaultshire, sir?”

“What?” Ducal head was raised off shoulders, fingers forgot moustache, ornithological eyes grew larger behind spectacles. “What makes you say that?”

Phillip told him. “It’s only an idea, sir. But the slower singing, and the notes close together——”

“Remarkable. You did not mark its exact whereabouts, I suppose? Only by ear? Most interesting. Have you read Frank Buckland’s writings?”

“Yes, sir, but not since I was a boy.”

“A wonderful man, indeed. Yes, one’s hearing is improved, of course, when the sight is in abeyance, the auditory nerve is quickened.
Cuculus
gularis,
indeed. We have a record of
glandarius,
the so-called Great Spotted Cuckoo, which inhabits, as you know, south-western Europe and the Mediterranean countries, extending through Syria and Asia Minor to Persia, and migrating in the fall into Africa, as far as Cape Colony. Let me show you.”

He sprang up, and pulled out a volume, one of several on a shelf, while humming words to himself. “Here we are, Lydekker’s
Royal
Natural
History,
volume four. H’m, ha. At the beginnin’.”

A stubby forefinger pointed at an engraving—“Crested cuckoos. H’m. Hawk-cuckoos. Ha. True cuckoos … the
tail-feathers lack the transverse bars of the hawk-cuckoos. That’s our fellow,
gularis.
Where is it calling, you say? West of the house. Probably down by the Satchville brook, the moor, as we call it. Well, I am most grateful to you, Colonel—ah—Maddison. Thank you, indeed.”

The Duke held out a hand, while pulling a crimson bell-pull with the other. “We must foregather again. Do you shoot?”

“Yes, sir.”

The door opened, the chamberlain stood there, bowing.

“Good morning,” said the Duke.

All the way back, past the butterflies and sporting prints; and at the green baize door stood the butler, with a three-tiered trolley whereon stood bottles; while beside the butler was the aged footman with a mahogany tray of cigars, cigarettes, and packets of tobacco.

“I’d like a glass of beer, please.”

“I must regret, sir, that I have no beer to offer you. Beer at the Abbey, sir, is brewed only for polishing his Grace’s floors.”

“I’ll have a peg of whiskey, I think.”

He drank his whiskey and seltzer, selected a cigar, which the butler cut and pierced with a gold cutter; and, accepting the light of a taper from the footman, he thanked them and went through the door into the familiar echoes of the stone-flagged passage leading to the Royal Tennis Court of pre-1914.

*

Now the ward lights shone with friendly gleams, the little flames moving in the night airs which brought the songs of nightingales; but they were nightingales in the Croiselles valley before the Hindenburg Line in May 1917 that he was listening to, straining his mind to re-enter the past, to bring it back, even for one moment of life. Croiselles was again in German hands, so was Mory Copse, St. Leger, and Ervillers where his picket lines had stood, and Black Prince had whinnied to see him coming. He felt again the urge in his innermost being to be back, but there was little hope now, with part of his left lung drawn together like a scab.

Life was pleasant; he felt that he belonged there. The night-dreads were for the moment gone; a diet which included a bowl of chopped cabbage, seasoned with butter, salt, and a little pepper, had cured his constipation. He looked forward to the late evening, and the nightingales: almost the best period of the twenty-four
hours, when the night sister had taken over and gone out for her supper, leaving the ward like a deep pool, with twenty tallow candles standing in water within their glass bulbs, each the shape of a tulip, shining down the length of the refectory tables which, joined together, made forty-five feet in length. Before the war the tables had stood in the servants’ hall, or one of the many rooms of their quarters, for there had been very nearly a hundred of them in the Abbey then—coalmen, watermen, footmen, chauffeurs, grooms, stablemen, as well as all the kitchen staff, the butchers and poultrymen, the maid-servants and other women employed about the place, including the laundry, and the men in the brew-house. The Duke had been a model employer, insisting that his steward pay good wages to his estate workers; and if any man in any of the villages was out of work through no fault of his own, a job had been found for him. His generosity, said ‘Hen’ Sudley, was in the Whig tradition; the Duke had sold much of his off-lying land to the tenants, believing in progress. How little Uncle Jim Pickering at Beau Brickhill, an avowed Liberal, had failed to understand the Duke! Lloyd George again, ‘Mr. “George”’, as ‘Spectre’ had always spoken of him, who had broken Gough, and damned the Fifth Army.

It was said that before the war two men were continually employed boiling down deer fat to make the tallow tapers which lit the corridors behind the green baize doors—nearly half a mile of passages which connected the servants’ quarters, kitchens, stables, etc. One man’s full-time job had been to clean and polish the globes with methylated spirit.

After midnight many of the tapers were smoking. Each glass tulip was clear half-way up, then smoke tinged it; so they had burned behind the green baize doors for centuries. With the herds of deer and bison which roamed the Wilderness within the demesne walls were emus, gold and silver pheasants, peacocks, jungle fowl, and other foreign birds, all of them living wild within the sanctuary of six square miles of the Park.

And yet, underlying all, was a tragedy. The only child of the Duke, his son, was alienated from his father. The Marquess of Husborne was a conscientious objector. The two never met; it was forbidden to mention the name of the heir at the Abbey. He was a Socialist, and thought that the money system of the country was all wrong, and responsible for the war. What an
extraordinary thing to think. The other great interest in his life, ‘Hen’ Sudley had said, was wild animals and birds … as with his parents, the Duke and Duchess. What was the reason for it: could it be that, underneath everything, it was as in his own home? Surely not, for such rich people lived entirely different lives. Perhaps if ‘Spectre’ had not died, he would have known what was the matter, for ‘Spectre’ had hated the war, too, and saw only ruin in it. Aunt Dora had the same ideas, so had cousin Willie—it was all part of the tragedy of the world.

He had finished
Victory,
and the first story,
Youth,
of another volume lent by dear old ‘Hen’. Joseph Conrad was a noble writer, who knew the underlying truth of things. He was now half-way through
Lord
Jim
: had ‘Hen’ specially urged him to read it, because he suspected his secret? How much did he know? Did the Duke know, as well? Was that why the Duke had not spoken about ‘Spectre’? Because he had not liked to broach the subject? Was it being kept for the Regimental conference?

The lights, which had burned clearly down the ward, were beginning to thicken and glare. He hid his face under the sheet, but sleep would not come.

As the month of May advanced, thoughts of the Regimental conference gave Phillip dyspepsia, and brought a return of cold sweats, embarrassingly under the arm-pits. He believed that the conference was being called solely to deal with the matter of finding out why ‘Spectre’ had been drowned unnecessarily; the fact was that a certain number of senior officers of the Regiment were either on leave from the front, or doing duty at home, and the Duke had invited old friends and acquaintances to spend a weekend at the Abbey, to enjoy what amenities were remaining from the war. The private golf course was ploughed up, put down to beet-sugar—a crop introduced before the war by the Duke, as an experiment, together with new strains of Irish rye-grass, white French wheats, and (a failure) the sweet potato from Virginia (which he believed was the original tuber brought into England by Walter Raleigh) and other seeds; but there
was still the fishing in the several lakes which were stocked by rainbow trout reared beside one of his rivers in Scotland. Tennis, the original game played with lop-sided racquets and leather balls stuffed with feathers, was out of the question; the covered court was a hospital ward. It was not the season for deer-drives, fox-hunting, or shooting; but there was still cricket to be played, and watched, in the area of the Command depot; and towards the end of the month the Mayfly would be up.

*

He needed a new tunic, and went to London to get one made by a tailor recommended by Denis Sisley. All he possessed was the tommy’s tunic, brought over from the depôt, and his original knickerbockers and puttees bought early in 1915 at the Civil Service Stores; and a service cap, the inner band stuffed with newspaper, lent by ‘Hen’.

From St. Pancras station he took a taxi to Piccadilly Circus, and there decided to walk down to the Embankment and see the sights by Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square. After a cup of coffee in the Corner House he walked on down Whitehall, seeing that the Stars and Stripes was flying over No. 10 Downing Street, beside the Union Jack. Hawkers on the kerb were selling little flags for the button-hole. “Old Glory—a penny each—only a penny! Buy Old Glory, sir!” He bought one and stuck it behind his lapel; and walking towards Westminster, saw that the same two flags were flying from a tower above the Houses of Parliament. Had there been an advance in France, of the two Allies? Everyone seemed to be fairly jubilant. Then he heard that an American regiment was to be reviewed by the King at Buckingham Palace before going to France.

It was so fine a morning that he walked on to Mr. Kerr’s shop in Cundit Street, which Sisley had told him was a little way down from where it joined Regent Street. He walked through the Park, seeing the wildfowl on the lake, and thought that London could be beautiful—the water, the trees, the wide grasslands with their flower-beds and old elm-trees. He had to ask his way to Piccadilly Circus, then knew the way up the curve of Regent Street, with its Regency stucco buildings and pillars painted yellow, rather faded, and quite a different place by day than by night.

Entering the tailor’s shop, he was greeted by a pleasant-faced man with a quiet, “Good morning, sir.”

“I’d like a tunic, and a pair of riding breeches, please.”

This request produced in the middle-aged man a mild suggestion of enthusiasm subdued by deference as he held up a finger. At once a figure detached itself from among shadowy bolts of cloth and came forward with an impersonal smile.

“May I have your burberry, sir? Thank you.” It was deftly removed, and given to the secondary figure. Mr. Kerr, with a glance at the shoulder-strap badges, turned slightly, and said, “The barathea, Mr. Brown.”

At these words the figure hauled a bolt off the pile, using apparently all its strength, then held it upright a moment before lifting it as though about to toss the caber; then, changing his stance, he let the roll descend in a half spin which caused two folds to fall upon the carpet, thus revealing a pride of new cloth, which caused Phillip to say without hesitation, “I’d like that one.”

“If I may say so, an admirable choice, sir. Barathea is, as you know, a tenacious cross-weave, and worn by members of the Foot Guards.”

Mr. Kerr inquired if his visitor had recently returned from ‘out there’.

“About a month ago. I’m in the same hospital as Captain Sisley, who gave me your name.”

“Ah, the Mediators, sir?”

“Yes.”

“We had Captain Sisley in here with us a few days ago. Now if you will allow me, I’ll take your measurements.”

The tape went round his chest. “Thirty-six, Mr. Brown.”

“A nice man, Captain Sisley, sir. Neck, fourteen. Now your waist. Twenty eight.” Mr. Kerr paused. “Are you up to your usual weight, sir?”

“I’m normally eleven stone four pounds, I think.”

“If you’ll come with me——”

The scales balanced at nine stone, nine pounds. “I’ll allow a couple of inches on chest and waist, sir, to be on the safe side. Wounded, sir?”

“Mustard gas.”

“Wretched stuff, isn’t it? Now for the breeches, sir. Mr. Brown, the cavalry twill!”

From another bolt were shaken waves which settled soft as sand minutely ribbed aslant the electric light, which cast shadows almost imperceptible between the twills. Then the bolt was
turned round, so that the light relieved the shadows, causing Mr. Kerr to exclaim: “A beautiful cloth, sir, don’t you think? Like a field of loam, ploughed north and south, with the midday sun behind one. Do you know a well-ploughed loam, sir? It crumbles in the hand.”

“I’ll have this cloth, Mr. Kerr.”

“I knew as soon as I saw you, sir, that it would be your choice. Infinitely superior to a more commonplace cord, which is suitable enough for the administrative services, no doubt, but Bedford cord lacks
dash
, sir.”

“I know what you mean. I think I’d like to farm after the war.”

“A number of officers now serving feel that way, sir. Now I’ll take your measurements, if you’ll undo the two lower buttons of your tunic.”

Afterwards he invited Phillip into his office, a glass box among bolts of cloth and brown paper patterns hanging on the wall with partly hand-stitched tunics; and opening a large leather cigar case, offered a Corona. Phillip selected one. Mr. Kerr offered to cut and pierce one end, and when Phillip put it in his mouth, struck a large match, holding it until the wax had burned away before offering the flame.

“I have some rather special old whiskey, thirty years matured in the wood, and soft as milk. ‘Dew of Benevenagh’, sir. May I pour you a peg? Perhaps you will add your own soda. That glass is a real tumbler, by the way, you will notice that the base is oval.”

Phillip began to enjoy his first visit to a gentleman’s tailor. The whiskey
was
as soft as milk, with the power of the sun in it. The cigar, too, was gentle, burning evenly and leaving straight ash. The bluish smoke coming away in skeins that were pleasant to watch.

“The secret is in the storage in cedar wood cabinets at the correct temperature. Odd, isn’t it, that only the soil and climate of Havana can produce the perfect leaf. So you lost all your kit in the March affair, and again in the Flanders push? My word, you’ve seen some sights, I’ll be bound. London was greatly shaken, you know. You read about the Maurice debate, no doubt? If it had gone against him, Lloyd George would have had to resign, no doubt about that. He turned the tables on his critics very cunningly, I thought.”

“I haven’t seen any newspaper since I came back. In fact, I thought I was going to lose my sight!” laughed Phillip, accepting his second tumbler of ‘Dew of Benevenagh’ and soda-water.

“Mustard gas can be pretty horrible, I understand. You are fortunate, sir.”

“Well, here’s to your health, Mr. Kerr!”

“And to yours, sir!”

“You were saying something about Lloyd George nearly having to resign, Mr. Kerr?”

“Oh yes, the Maurice debate. General Maurice is, or was, head of the War Office, as you know. He wrote a letter to
The
Times,
saying in effect that Haig had been starved of reinforcements, although the Cabinet had received ample warning that the German attack was coming; and yet Lloyd George had persisted in retaining a million and a half troops here in England. There’s been a lot of talk about that letter, in fact, it’s not too much to say that it shook the country. The Asquith Liberals, led by Asquith himself, put down a motion of no confidence, based on General Maurice’s letter.”

“You know, Mr. Kerr, I heard about this from my Colonel, Lord Satchville, when I was adjutant in the reserve battalion, last February. And it was Mr. George, damn him, who broke Hubert Gough, when we in the Fifth Army had held the Germans from breaking through! It wasn’t Haig, you know, who sacked Gough.”

“So I understand, sir. Well, as I was saying, the Maurice debate, as the papers called it, was expected to provide some fireworks, and it did, but in the other direction. Lloyd George sent his critics spinning by reading from the document which had come from General Maurice himself, giving him the comparable figures for our troops with the B.E.F. in January 1917 and again in January 1918. There were more men in France at the later date, declared Lloyd George, and General Maurice’s own figures proved it. He waved the letter to a packed House. Someone went and told Maurice, who said that the figures were not those of the second amended list he had sent to the Prime Minister. Lloyd George replied, ‘I am quoting the General’s own figures! Here they are, signed by the General himself!’, as he waved the letter.”

“And it was the first list of figures, and not the corrected one?”

“I have heard that, sir.”

“It must have been, for we had fewer men in the B.E.F. last January than we had a year before! It’s obvious, because all infantry brigades were broken down from four battalions to three, throughout the entire B.E.F.! Even then, most battalions were far under strength.”

“Yes, I’ve heard the same thing from a number of officers. Lloyd George is a slippery customer. I did hear that when Asquith resigned, after Lloyd George had intrigued against him, all letters sent to 10 Downing Street to the Asquith family were marked ‘Gone Away’ in blue pencil, and returned through the Dead Letter Office of the G.P.O. Not quite the thing, was it?”

Mr. Kerr looked at his watch. “If you’re not doing anything better, would you care to be my guest at lunch? I know a chop-house not far from here, where one can still get a chump chop and some excellent Stilton cheese——”

*

At the senior officers’ meeting, held in one of the many large rooms crammed with gilt furniture, and hung with pictures in gilt frames on walls lined with watered crimson silk, the Duke, in the uniform of a Colonel Commandant of the Depôt, took the chair. With his cousin Satchville on his right, his adjutant on his left, he spoke about the circumstances of General West’s death. There was, he read from a paper before him, a proposal to place a mural tablet in the Cathedral, by permission of the Dean and Chapter, in memory of their fallen comrade. A suitable place would be near the corner where the Regimental colours of past generations were reposited.

Also, he continued, it had been suggested that a Fund be raised, to which all ranks could contribute, to provide for Harold West’s parents a sum to help them in their declining years. As they knew, Mr. West the father was an old member of the Regiment, having served in India, Burma, and China, among other stations, and all his three sons had given their lives in the service of their King and Country. In due course members of the Regimental Officers’ Association would be informed as to particulars.

While he was reading, Phillip, with concealed impersonal glances, was trying to recognise who was present; he recalled some of the faces from the book of photographs in the ante-room at Landguard. There was Major-General Mowbray, grave and courteous in silence; Colonel Vallum, who had played rugger for
England, and won the Victoria Cross at Neuve Chapelle; Lieutenant-Colonel K. T. F. S. (‘Knock Them For Six’) Percy, who having captained England at cricket had found immediate promotion in Kitchener’s Army—thereafter his senior rank prevented his being sent to the front, since he lacked experience of command in action; Lieut.-General the Earl of Tyrone, Colonel of the Regiment, a Guardsman commanding a corps in France; and dear old Moggers, in what looked like a home-made civvy suit, whose arrival on a diminutive Levis motorcycle, wearing a bright green velour hat too small for him, the brim turned down all round as in the pre-war fashion, had suggested to Phillip a bucolic Pan half disguised as a red toadstool springing up in the woods through the moss.

He recognised about one fifth of the faces, the others were strangers, all wearing South African and 1914 ribands after their decorations.

“It has been proposed that Harold West’s last act, inspired, like his behaviour in all circumstances, by the highest qualities of chivalry and selfless devotion to others, be brought to the notice of the appropriate authorities for His Majesty the King’s Commendation. Would anyone care to make any observation on this proposal, before I ask for a show of hands?”

Phillip stared at the carpet. He tried to breathe deeply, for steadiness. Why had he been asked to attend: was he supposed to second the motion, if that was what it was. Why had he come, he had no proper place there, his acting rank ended when he was gassed. If only he could get away; he couldn’t breathe in that atmosphere. And the shameful sweating under his armpits had started. Why had he not put a handkerchief pad there, instead of lending his only clean one to Brill?

His heart thudded in his ears as a voice said, “Has it been determined why O’Gorman was not wearing his cork belt when the mine struck the hospital ship?”

The Duke turned to his adjutant, Major Mills, who said, “The matter was not raised at the Court of Inquiry, sir.” The roof of Phillip’s mouth dried, the sweat dripped fast. The Duke was saying, “It can be presumed that Private O’Gorman, in the arduous circumstances, found the somewhat bulky cork-belt in the way while helping to lift the stretcher down the sloping deck, which was then canting at about thirty degrees.”