A Test to Destruction (7 page)

The battalion moved into the rear Battle Zone known as The Aviary. Battalion H.Q. was in a quarry about fifty yards back from the road which led to Corunna Camp and the transport lines. Blocks of stone had been cut to make a bunker, with baulks of timber for the roof overlaid with tarred felt, then sheets of corrugated iron covered by a triple layer of sandbags. There were three compartments; C.O.’s bedroom, orderly room, and headquarters mess connected by a blanket curtain with the cookhouse adjoining. At this end a tunnel had been started into the quarry face, apparently to lead to a series of dug-outs; but this work had been abandoned.

Phillip felt that he would never learn to do all the hundreds of things an adjutant was responsible for, even with the help of Tonks, the orderly room sergeant, who had been a bookmaker’s clerk before the war. “I’ll be here, on the two-way blower.”

“The two-way blower, Sergeant?”

“A manner of speaking, sir. You know the old blower which they used in offices before telephones, sir? You take out the whistle-plug your end, blow down the pipe, the whistle downstairs gives the warning, and then you speak down the pipe? Never seen one, sir, no? Old-fashioned, but I’ve retained the idea, sir. I suppose from habit. Well, to come back to the organisation in the orderly room, it’s my job to prepare the outgoing routine returns, what have to go to the Brigade Staff captain. Of what comes in from Brigade some concerns the province of Major Marsden as second-in-command, some goes to the Quartermaster and some to you, sir, for the Commanding Officer. Generally speaking, Major Marsden takes care of reinforcements and training, with the battalion sergeant major. That roughly speaking is the ‘A’ side, while Colonel Mogger-’anger looks after ‘Q’.”

“Who actually makes the plans?”

“The Commanding Officer, sir, in conjunction with the Brigadier, who either holds converse with ’im direct, or communicates via the Brigade-major. Major Marsden works out the details, with the Adjutant, usually. Now if you’ll be so good as to deal with this little lot, sir, about the Pig, sir. I’ll be be’ind the blanket if you want me. Do you object to smokin’, sir? Captain Sisley permitted it.”

The excellent fellow retired. Phillip heard the match strike, imagined the sergeant drawing deep at his Woodbine, heard the long blowing out of satisfying smoke. He decided to keep his pipe in his pocket, for it would not do to appear too casual at first, and taking the top sheaf from what Sisley had called the pile of bumff, read it carefully. It was an amazing dossier: no wonder the Staff-newspaper from Corps was called Comic Cuts!

It began with the findings of a Court of Enquiry presided over by Captain Kidd, late of the 8th battalion. This dealt with the burning of a barn at Senlis, a back-area village where the 2nd battalion had gone out to rest some time before. No direct cause of fire had been found; the barn had gone up in flames while the company occupying it as a billet had been out on a route march. Previous to this, there had been a heap of smoking manure against one wall. The wall was made of
pisé.
He remembered Aunt Dora at Lynmouth telling him that
pisé
was the equivalent of cob in Devon, a pounded mixture of loamy subsoil, lime-ash, cowdung, and straw. Only cob wasn’t made in blocks first. The
pisé
blocks had been weather-worn, according to the findings of the court, the cracks between them stuffed in places with straw. It had been decided that this straw had got hot beside the manure heap and finally ignited. The finding of the Court of Enquiry was, according to its President, Captain Kidd, that ‘the barn was destroyed by fire caused by spontaneous combustion’.

In the barn, at the time of the fire, had been a sickly pig. It had not been burned, but got out in time, to wander off and refresh itself, according to Kidd, in the battalion latrines. From that refreshment, claimed the farmer at Senlis, the animal had died.

Reading through the dossier again, Phillip saw that it had been travelling quite a lot: from Corps to Division to Brigade to Battalion and back again by various new channels, with some short cuts here and there. He began to laugh; then feeling that he could do better than some of the old jossers who spent their time in a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan outlook, wrote a facetious parody of the whole thing; but on reflection, screwed it up and popped it in the stove. He must be serious, like Mr. Fazackerley Hollis in the office at Wine Vaults Lane.

At this point he hid his pipe when ‘Spectre’ West came in and said, “I want you to come with me round the Brigade Battle Zone at eleven o’clock. You will require a horse; send a chit and ask for Denis’s mount, will you? Well, how are you getting on? Sit down. May I borrow some of your ’baccy? What is it, Hignett’s Cavalier? That’s a good old Crocodile pouch you’ve got; one doesn’t see red rubber nowadays.”

“I bought it with my first salary in the City, Colonel. Also a curved ‘Artist’s’ pipe which held half an ounce, and a top hat.”

“What, did you smoke your hat? Whole, or in pieces?” He filled his slim curved Loewe ‘Captain’ pipe. “Evidently you felt the need for conformity and respectability early. Well, keep it up,” and having lit his pipe, he went out: whereupon Phillip re-filled his pipe and unfastened the four brass buttons of his tunic, as Denis Sisley had done when the stove got too hot. Light-heartedly he took up the sheaf of papers. Then, remembering the order for a horse, he called the sergeant,
who said he would write out a chit and ask him to sign it. This being done, Phillip, feeling himself to be almost a barrister with his first brief, considered further evidence ‘In
re
Porcus Porcorum
v.
Rex’.

He stared at the signature. Could
Bagshott-Brendon
be
the same Brendon who had been A.P.M. at Ypres the previous year? The cove who had all but put him under arrest as a supposed deserter when he had been ordered by ‘Spectre’ to take a message to Advanced G.H.Q. at Westcappelle? The same old Brendon at Heathmarket in 1915, and Grantham in 1916? He asked the sergeant.

“I’ve no idea, sir.” Phillip felt that his question had been silly. Of course a sergeant could not have known. Now for it. He must reply. The Assistant Director of Veterinary Supplies obviously had ignored double-barrel’d Brendon’s Punch-like humour: perhaps the horse-doctor disliked Brendon, for he had replied somewhat curtly, it seemed.

The next minute was from G.S.O. 1 Division, the senior staff-officer to the General. It declared, very politely, that “as considerable time has elapsed since the pig’s death, the course suggested in Minute 9 will probably serve no useful purpose. The claim should therefore be adjusted.”

In other words, no more mucking about, get on with it. The writer of the next Minute asked for particulars of age, weight, and breed, so that ‘a fair valuation can be arrived at’. Signed by the Claims Officer of Division. Whereupon the gilded and double-barrel’d Bagshott-Brendon had written whimsically to a mere colonel of footsloggers.

The reference to Fat Stock was slightly alarming. Had Brendon, by some remote chance, censor’d his letter home, with the supposed boars being entered for the mythical Fat Stock Show? Divisional Intelligence might have set a trap for him. Putting on a casual air, he took the Minute to the Orderly Room sergeant.

“The Quartermaster may be able to tell you, sir,” said Tonks. “Colonel Moggerhanger usually arrives about this time.”

“Righty-ho, sergeant. I’ll go and meet him. I know absolutely nothing about Fat Stock——” he checked and added, “—in this country. It’s rather hot in here, don’t you think?”

“Can’t be too warm for me, sir!”

Phillip, wearing a driver’s issue cape, walked down the road. He passed a Chinese labour company on the way, traipsing along behind a steam-roller. He wondered what use it was, for ‘Spectre’ had told him that road-metalling was so scarce in the Fifth Army area that stone was being shipped from Cornish quarries, even from Lundy. He was wondering if the quarry was about to be opened up—would chalk do for roads, surely it was too soft?—when he saw Moggers coming towards him, riding his cob and about to be passed by a motorcar. The Vauxhall was going at a speed well over the 12 m.p.h. limit allowed in the Fifth Army area. As it went by Moggers there was a roar of “Stop, you b——r, you! You’re under arrest!”

The Vauxhall bore a small pennant on its bonnet, with the three wheat-sheaves of the divisional sign. It appeared to be empty, except for the driver; but as Moggers trotted up to it, Phillip, less than a dozen paces away, saw a cap with a red band
under the crown lift itself out of a bearskin coat in the back and heard a little voice from the wrapped-up figure of the Divisional Commander say, “I don’t think my driver meant any harm, Moggers.”

Colonel Moggerhanger, erect on his cob and staring ahead, said, “Contravening General Routine Orders by exceedin’ twelve miles per hour is an offence to be dealt with by the Provost Marshal’s office, sir.”

“Oh, do you really think it is as serious as that, Moggers?” The voice was gentle, but there was steel behind it. The General turned his head around to look at Moggers.

“I do, sir!”

“I am in a hurry, Moggers.”

“I do not consider that is any reason for careless drivin’ on the part of your orderly, sir!”

“I am still in a hurry, and if you do not release my driver, I shall be late for the Army Commander’s conference, Moggers.”

“I regret the momentary inconvenience, sir, but the driver should have considered that before showering me and my charger with trash and muck.”

Phillip saw that the near-side of the cob, which was taking advantage of the halt to stale, was dripping with grey mud. So was the Quartermaster’s size 13 boot, and the bulky breeches of his off-side leg. Sitting upright, Moggers said stonily, “I consider that the driver should remain under arrest, sir.”

“Very well, Moggers, I shall expect you at my headquarters tomorrow. Come to luncheon, and afterwards we’ll see what can be done.”

With a slight smile and a wave of his hand the Divisional General drove away. Phillip went up to Moggers, whose manner towards him was not encouraging.

“I wonder, Colonel, if you would be so good as to——”

“Not you agen?” groaned Moggers. Phillip was not to be put off; nor was Moggers, who, asked about the Senlis incident, replied with an explosive word relative to the pig. And you, replied Phillip under his breath.

When he got back to the quarry the steam-roller was blowing off a lot of steam among the Chinese labourers whose blue cotton blouses and trousers were augmented by old khaki tunics, bombers’ aprons, dark civilian clothing, including cut-up women’s skirts; while an assortment of hats upon their heads had
apparently been scrounged from house ruins and salvage dumps. Bowler hats; one crenellated top hat; peasants’ peaked caps; a tam-o’-shanter, a
pickelhaube,
and several round grey-and-red German pork-pie caps. One man waddled with a sandbag on either flank and fastened over his shoulders by rifle slings, filled with lumpy objects. Seeing Phillip looking at him the man grinned and pulled out a Mills bomb.

“Me Chum Poo, mister. Me done one piecee bad boy Jelly one piecee Millee bomb—bang!—one piecee bad boy Jelly flucked!”

Captain Kidd’s loud, slightly rasping voice said behind Phillip, “You be careful, Chum Poo! If one piecee bad boy Jelly catchee Chum Poo mit Millee bombee, Chum Poo flucked pronto, and don’t you forget it, you yellow bellee. Now vamoose! Sling your hook! Depart in peace, or else in pieces! Otherwise, in the King’s English, piss off!”

The speaker turned to Phillip. “These bastards have a pleasant little habit of sallying forth after an air-raid at night to bomb Jerry prisoner-of-war camps.”

“I didn’t know China had joined the Allies, Captain Kidd. Are these troops an addition to your company?” asked Phillip, as though seriously.

“God’s teeth, I haven’t come down to be a Toe-rag ganger, old boy! Have a heart! Now about our shackles next week, when we go into the Bird Cage——”

“Will you excuse me for a moment.” Turning to the N.C.O. with the Chinese labourers, he said, “What are these idealists doing here?”