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Title: Unconditional Surrender
U.S. title: The End of the Battle
Author: Waugh, Evelyn [Arthur Evelyn St John] (1903-1966)
Date of first publication: 1961
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Boston: Little, Brown and Company, March 1979
   ["The End of the Battle"]
Date first posted: 21 March 2020
Date last updated: 21 March 2020
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1646

This ebook was produced by
Al Haines, Cindy Beyer, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net



PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.






UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

by Evelyn Waugh




To
MY DAUGHTER MARGARET
Child of the Locust Years




TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Synopsis of Preceding Volumes
  PROLOGUE: Locust Years
  BOOK ONE: State Sword
  BOOK TWO: _Fin de Ligne_
  BOOK THREE: The Death Wish
  EPILOGUE: Festival of Britain




SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING VOLUMES


"The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise
cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms. Whatever the outcome there was
a place for him in that battle."

This was the belief of Guy Crouchback in 1939 when he heard the news of
the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty. What follows is the story of his attempt
to find his "place in that battle."

He is thirty-five years old, rising thirty-six, the only surviving son
of his father, Gervase. For some years he has lived alone in Italy in
the villa built by his grandfather. Of his brothers one was killed in
the first war, the other died insane. He has a sister Angela married to
an M.P., Arthur Box-Bender. The Crouchbacks are a family of old
established, west-country, Catholic gentry allied to most of the other
historic recusant families of the country. One of them was martyred
under Elizabeth I. Their estates have been sold. The family house,
Broome, remains in their possession but is let to a convent. Gervase
Crouchback lives in a small, seaside hotel at Matchet. He has a bachelor
brother, Peregrine, a notorious bore.

Guy married a wife named Virginia, who quickly deserted him for a
soldier, Tommy Blackhouse. At the time the story opens, she is in
process of separation from a third husband, an American named Troy. For
eight years she has lived in the world of rich, gay, cosmopolitan
society. Guy has grown lonely and joyless. His Church does not allow him
to seek a second wife. He sees the war as an opportunity to re-establish
his interest in his fellow men and to serve them.

After many difficulties he is commissioned in the Royal Corps of
Halberdiers, an unfashionable regiment of infantry, proud of its
achievements and peculiarities; he proves himself a reasonably efficient
officer. In the Halberdiers he serves under Ritchie-Hook, a ferocious
hero of the first war. Among his batch of officers in training are Franz
de Souza, a cynic, and Trimmer, a former hairdresser, whose probationary
commission is speedily terminated.

Virginia has returned to England at the moment when many are leaving it.
One evening on leave Guy attempts to make love to her in Claridge's
Hotel but is repulsed with mild ridicule.

He sails on the Dakar expedition, comes under official disapprobation
for an escapade arranged by Ritchie-Hook and is indirectly responsible
for the death of another officer, by the injudicious gift of a bottle of
whisky when he is down with fever. All this time he had ludicrously
aroused the suspicions of a secret department of counter-espionage
presided over by Grace-Groundling-Marchpole. He returns to England, and
becomes attached to the newly formed Commandos, one of which is
commanded by Blackhouse. Here he makes friends with Ivor Claire, a
dandy. "Jumbo" Trotter, an ancient Halberdier, deeply versed in service
lore, is also temporarily attached to the Commando. Claire has a
Corporal of Horse named Ludovic, a mysterious reservist recalled to the
regiment, who keeps a volume of _Penses_. Ludovic rises to be Brigade
Corporal-Major. The Commando, as part of "Hookforce," sails to Egypt.
Here a brigade-major named "Fido" Hound is attached to them from the
staff pool. Mrs. Stitch, a beauty, is in Alexandria with her husband,
who holds a cabinet appointment in the Middle East.

Hookforce--without Blackhouse, who has broken his leg--goes to Crete at
the moment when the defence is falling. "Fido" Hound and Ludovic
severally desert and meet in a cave on the south coast where an
irregular body of Spanish refugees have taken shelter. Nothing more is
ever heard of Hound. It is to be supposed that Ludovic perpetrated or
contrived at his murder. Blackhouse's Commando is ordered to provide the
rearguard for the disembarkation and surrender on the following morning.
That night Claire deserts his troop and insinuates himself into the
disembarkation. On the morning of the surrender Guy meets Ludovic on the
beach. They join a small party escaping by boat. They suffer acutely
from privation and exposure. Ludovic alone remains capable. The
delirious sapper officer who was originally in command disappears
overboard during the night. It is to be supposed that Ludovic
precipitated him. Finally they reach the African coast. Ludovic carries
Guy ashore and, while he is half-conscious in hospital, is sent back to
England to be decorated and commissioned. Ludovic believes that Guy
knows the truth of the disappearance of "Fido" Hound. He does know, and
has the proof in the written orders to the rearguard, the full
culpability of Claire's desertion. Mrs. Stitch, in order to save
Claire's reputation, gets Guy sent back to England by slow convoy to
rejoin the Halberdier Depot.

Virginia meanwhile is in difficulties. Troy no longer remits her
allowance. Trimmer is used by Lord Kilbannock, who is Press Officer in
Hazardous Offensive Operations HQ., an organization which from small
beginnings becomes one of the busiest departments of war, to carry out a
raid for publicity purposes. He becomes a national hero and falls deeply
in love with Virginia, whom he knew professionally, and with whom he had
a brief affair in Glasgow. At Kilbannock's instigation, in order to keep
Trimmer in heart for his public appearances, Virginia falls into a
prolonged and, to her, entirely distasteful liaison with Trimmer.

As Guy, in the late autumn of 1941, rejoins his regiment he believes
that the just cause of going to war has been forfeited in the Russian
alliance. Personal honour alone remains.

"The hallucination was dissolved, like the whales and turtles on the
voyage from Crete, and he was back after less than two years' pilgrimage
in a Holy Land of Illusion in the old ambiguous world, where priests
were spies and gallant friends proved traitors and his country was led
blundering into dishonour."




PROLOGUE
LOCUST YEARS


[1]


When Guy Crouchback returned to his regiment in the autumn of 1941 his
position was in many ways anomalous. He had been trained in the first
batch of temporary officers, had commanded a company, had been detached
for special duties, had been in action and acquitted himself with
credit; he had twice put up captain's stars and twice removed them;
their scars were plainly visible on his shoulder straps. He had been
invalided home on an order direct from G. HQ. M.E. and the medical
authorities could find nothing wrong with him. There were rumours that
he had "blotted his copy-book" in West Africa. When he was commissioned
in 1939 his comparative old age had earned him the soubriquet of
"Uncle." Now he was two years older and the second batch of officers in
training were younger than those who had joined with him. To them he
seemed a patriarch; to him they seemed a generation divided by an
impassable barrier. Once he had made the transition, had thrown himself
into the mle on the anteroom floor, had said "Here's how" when he
drank with them, and had been accepted as one of themselves. He could
not do it a second time. Nor were there any longer mles and guest
nights, nor much drinking. The new young officers were conscripts who
liked to spend their leisure listening to jazz on the wireless. The
First Battalion, his battalion, followed Ritchie-Hook, biffing across
the sands of North Africa. A draft of reinforcements was sent out to
them. Guy was not posted with them. Hookforce, all save four, had been
taken prisoner in Crete. He had no comrades-in-arms in England except
Tommy Blackhouse who returned to raise another Special Service Force.
They met in Bellamy's and Tommy offered him a post on his staff, but the
shadow of Ivor Claire lay dark and long over Commandos and Guy answered
that he was content to soldier on with the Halberdiers.

This he did for two blank years. A Second Brigade was formed and Guy
followed its fortunes in training, with periodic changes of quarters
from Penkirk in Scotland to Brook Park in Cornwall. Home Forces no
longer experienced the shocks, counter-orders and disorders of the first
two years of war. The army in the Far East now suffered as they had
done. In Europe the initiative was now with the allies. They were
laboriously assembled and equipped and trained. Guy rose to be a
competent second-in-command of his battalion with the acting rank of
major.

Then in August 1943 there fell on him the blow that had crushed Jumbo at
Mugg: "I'm sorry, Uncle, but I'm afraid we shan't be taking you with us
when we go to foreign parts. You've been invaluable in training. Don't
know what I should have done without you. But I can't risk taking a chap
of your age into action."

"Am I much older than you, Colonel?"

"Not much, I suppose, but I've spent my life in this job. If I get hit,
the second-in-command will have to take over. Can't risk it."

"I'd gladly come down in rank. Couldn't I have a company? Or a platoon?"

"Be your age, Uncle. No can do. This is an order from Brigade."

The new Brigadier, lately arrived from the Eighth Army, was the man to
whom, briefly, Guy had been attached in West Africa when he encompassed
the death of Apthorpe. On that occasion the Brigadier had said: "I don't
want to see you again, ever." He had fought long and hard since then and
won a D.S.O., but throughout the dust of war he remembered Guy.
Apthorpe, that brother-uncle, that ghost, laid, Guy had thought, on the
Island of Mugg, walked still in his porpoise boots to haunt him; the
defeated lord of the thunder-box still worked his jungle magic. When a
Halberdier said "No can do," it was final.

"We shall need you for the embarkation, of course. When you've seen us
off, take a spot of leave. After that you're old enough to find yourself
something to do. There's always 'barrack duties,' of course, or you
might report to the War House to the pool of unemployed officers.
There's plenty of useful jobs going begging for chaps in your position."

Guy took his leave and was at Matchet when Italy surrendered. News of
the King's flight came on the day the brigade landed at Salerno. It
brought Guy some momentary exhilaration.

"That looks like the end of the Piedmontese usurpation," he said to his
father. "What a mistake the Lateran Treaty was. It seemed masterly at
the time--how long? Fifteen years ago? What are fifteen years in the
history of Rome? How much better it would have been if the Popes had sat
it out and then emerged saying: 'What was all that? _Risorgimento?_
Garibaldi? Cavour? The House of Savoy? Mussolini? Just some hooligans
from out of town causing a disturbance. Come to think of it, wasn't
there once a poor little boy whom they called King of Rome?' That's what
the Pope ought to be saying today."

Mr. Crouchback regarded his son sadly. "My dear boy," he said, "you're
really making the most terrible nonsense, you know. That isn't at all
what the Church is like. It isn't what she's _for_."

They were walking along the cliffs returning at dusk to the Marine Hotel
with Mr. Crouchback's retriever, aging now, not gambolling as he used to
but loping behind them. Mr. Crouchback had aged too and for the first
time showed concern with his own health. They fell silent, Guy
disconcerted by his father's rebuke, Mr. Crouchback still, it seemed,
pondering the question he had raised; for when at length he spoke it was
to say: "Of course it's reasonable for a soldier to rejoice in victory."

"I don't think I'm much interested in victory now," said Guy.

"Then you've no business to be a soldier."

"Oh, I want to stay in the war. I should like to do some fighting.
But it doesn't seem to matter now who wins. When we declared war on
Finland..."

He left the sentence unfinished and his father said: "That sort of
question isn't for soldiers."

As they came into sight of the hotel, he added: "I suppose I'm getting
like a schoolmaster. Forgive me. We mustn't quarrel. I used often to get
angry with poor Ivo; and with Angela. She was rather a tiresome girl the
year she came out. But I don't think I've ever been angry with you."

Matchet had changed in the last two years. The army unit for whom Monte
Rosa had been cleared had gone as quickly as they came, leaving the
boarding-house empty. Its blank windows and carpetless floors stood as a
symbol of the little town's brief popularity. Refugees from bombing
returned to their former homes. Mrs. Tickeridge moved to be near a
school for Jennifer. The days when the Cuthberts could "let every room
twice over" were ended and they reluctantly found themselves obliged to
be agreeable. It was not literally true, as Miss Vavasour claimed, that
they "went down on their knees" to keep their residents, but they did
offer Mr. Crouchback his former sitting-room at its former price.

"No, thank you very much," he had said. "You'll remember I promised to
take it again _after_ the war, and unless things change very much for
the worse I shall do that. Meanwhile my few sticks are in store and I
don't feel like getting them out again."

"Oh, we will furnish it for you, Mr. Crouchback."

"It wouldn't be quite the same. You make me very comfortable as I am."

His former rent was now being paid as a weekly allowance to an unfrocked
priest.

The Cuthberts were glad enough to accommodate parents visiting their
sons at Our Lady of Victories and obscurely supposed that if they
antagonised Mr. Crouchback, he would somehow stop their coming.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Guy left next day and reported to the Halberdier barracks. He had little
appetite for leave now.

Three days later a letter came from his father:

    _Marine Hotel_
    _Matchet_

    _Sept 20th 1943_

    _My Dear Guy_,

    _I haven't been happy about our conversation on your last
    evening. I said too much or too little. Now I must say more._

    _Of course in the 1870s and 80s every decent Roman disliked the
    Piedmontese, just as the decent French now hate the Germans.
    They had been invaded. And, of course, most of the Romans we
    know kept it up, sulking. But that isn't the Church. The
    Mystical Body doesn't strike attitudes and stand on its dignity.
    It accepts suffering and injustice. It is ready to forgive at
    the first hint of compunction._

    _When you spoke of the Lateran Treaty did you consider how many
    souls may have been reconciled and have died at peace as the
    result of it? How many children may have been brought up in the
    faith who might have lived in ignorance? Quantitative judgments
    don't apply. If only one soul was saved, that is full
    compensation for any amount of loss of "face."_

    _I write like this because I am worried about you and I gather I
    may not live very much longer. I saw the doctor yesterday and he
    seemed to think I have something pretty bad the matter._

    _As I say, I'm worried about you. You seemed so much enlivened
    when you first joined the army. I know you are cut up at being
    left behind in England. But you mustn't sulk._

    _It was not a good thing living alone and abroad. Have you
    thought at all about what you will do after the war? There's the
    house at Broome the village calls "Little Hall"--quite
    incorrectly. All the records refer to it simply as the "Lesser
    House." You'll have to live somewhere and I doubt if you'll want
    to go back to the Castello even if it survives, which doesn't
    seem likely the way they are bombing everything in Italy._

    _You see I am thinking a lot about death at the moment. Well
    that's quite suitable at my age and condition._

    _Ever your affec. father_,

    G. CROUCHBACK




[2]


When Hookforce sailed without him, Jumbo Trotter abandoned all hope of
active service. He became Commandant of Number 6 Transit Camp, London
District, a post which required good nature, sobriety and little else
except friends of influence--in all of which qualities Jumbo was rich.
He no longer bore resentment against Ben Ritchie-Hook. He accepted the
fact that he was on the shelf. The threat of just such a surrender of
his own condition overcast Guy.

Jumbo often took a drive to the Halberdier barracks to see what was on.
There in late September he found Guy disconsolately installed as P.A.D.
officer and assistant adjutant.

"Put in to see the Captain Commandant," he advised. "Say there is
something coming through for you any day but you have to be in London.
Get posted to the 'unemployed pool' and come and stay at my little
place. I can make you quite comfortable."

So Guy moved to Jumbo's little place--Little Hall? Lesser House?--Number
6 Transit Camp, London District, and for a few days looked into the
depths of the military underworld. There was a waiting-room in an
outlying dependency of the War Office where daily congregated officers
of all ages whose regiments and corps had no use for them.

There had been a "Man-power Directive" from the highest source which
enjoined that everyone in the country should be immediately employed in
the "war effort." Guy was interviewed by a legless major who said: "You
seem to have done all right. I don't know why they've sent you to this
outfit. First Halberdier I've had through my hands. What have you been
up to?"

He studied the file in which was recorded all Guy's official biography
of the last four years.

"Age," said Guy.

"Thirty-nine, just rising forty. Yes, that's old for your rank. You're
back to captain now of course. Well all I can offer at the moment is a
security job at Aden and almoner at a civilian hospital. I don't suppose
either particularly appeals to you?"

"No."

"Well, stick around. I may find something better. But they don't look
for good fellows in my office. Look about outside and see what you can
find."

And, sure enough, one evening early in October, after his third
attendance on the legless major (who offered him, with undisguised
irony, an administrative post in Wales at a school of air photography
interpretation) he met Tommy Blackhouse once more in Bellamy's. Tommy
now had a brigade of Commandos. He was under orders to sail shortly for
Italy to rehearse the Anzio landing, and was keeping dead quiet about
his movements. He only said "Wish you'd decided to come to me, Guy."

"Too late now?"

"Far too late."

Guy explained his predicament.

"That's the hell of a mess."

"The fellow at the War Office has been very civil."

"Yes, but you'll find he'll get impatient soon. There's a flap about
man-power. They'll suddenly pitch you into something awful. Wish I could
help."

Later that evening he said: "I've thought of something that might do as
a stop-gap. I keep a liaison officer at H.O.O. HQ. God knows what he
does. Anyway I'm taking him away somewhere else. There are a few odd
bodies that have got attached to me. They come from H.O.O. You could
liaise with them for a bit if you liked."

When Jumbo heard of it, he said: "Strictly speaking I suppose you aren't
'in transit' any more."

"I hope I am."

"Well, anyway, stay on here as long as you like. We'll find a way of
covering you in the returns. London District are never much trouble. All
stockbrokers and wine merchants from the Foot Guards. Awfully easy
fellows to deal with."

But it was not for this that he had dedicated himself on the sword of
Roger of Waybroke that hopeful morning four years back.




BOOK ONE
STATE SWORD


CHAPTER I


In all the hosts of effigies that throng the aisles of Westminster Abbey
one man only, and he a sailor, strikes a martial attitude. The men of
the Middle Ages have sheathed their swords and composed their hands in
prayer; the men of the Age of Reason have donned the toga. A Captain
Montagu alone, in Flaxman's posthumous status, firmly grips his hilt;
and, because they had so many greater treasures to protect, the chapter
left him to stand there throughout the war unencumbered by sand-bags,
gazing across the lower nave as he had gazed at the ships of
revolutionary France in the waters off Ushant on the day of victory and
death.

His name is not well remembered and his portrait, larger than life and
portly for his years, has seldom attracted the notice of sightseers. It
was not his sword but another which on Friday, 29th October 1943, drew
the column of fours which slowly shuffled forward from Milbank, up Great
College Street, under a scarred brick wall on which during the hours of
darkness in the preceding spring a zealous, arthritic Communist had
emblazoned the words _SECOND FRONT NOW_, until they reached the door
under the blasted and bombed west window. The people of England were
long habituated to queues; some had joined the procession ignorant of
its end--hoping perhaps for cigarettes or shoes--but most were in a mood
of devotion. In the street few words were exchanged; no laughter.

The day was overcast, damp, misty and still. Winter overcoats had not
yet appeared. Each member of the crowd carried a respirator--valueless
now, the experts secretly admitted, against any gas the enemy was likely
to employ but still the badge of a people in arms. Women predominated;
here and there a service man--British, American, Polish, Dutch,
French--displayed some pride of appearance; the civilians were shabby
and grubby. Some, for it was their lunch hour, munched "Woolton Pies";
others sucked cigarettes made of the sweepings of canteen floors.
Bombing had ceased for the time, but the livery of the air-raid shelter
remained the national dress. As they reached the Abbey church, which
many were entering for the first time in their lives, all fell quite
silent as though they were approaching a corpse lying in state.

The sword they had come to see stood upright between two candles, on a
table counterfeiting an altar. Policemen guarded it on either side. It
had been made at the King's command as a gift to "the steel-hearted
people of Stalingrad." An octogenarian, who had made ceremonial swords
for five sovereigns, rose from his bed to forge it; silver, gold,
rock-crystal and enamel had gone to its embellishment. In this year of
the Sten gun it was a notable weapon and was first exhibited as a feat
of craftsmanship at Goldsmiths' Hall and at the Victoria and Albert
Museum. Some few took comfort at this evidence that ancient skills
survived behind the shoddy improvisations of the present. It was not
thus that it affected the hearts of the people. Every day the wireless
announced great Russian victories while the British advance in Italy was
coming to a halt. The people were suffused with gratitude to their
remote allies and they venerated the sword as the symbol of their own
generous and spontaneous emotion.

The newspapers and the Ministry of Information caught on. _The Times_
"dropped into poetry":

    _...saw the Sword of Stalingrad,_
    _Then bow'd down my head from the Light of it._
    _Spirit to my spirit, the Might of it_
    _Silently whispered--O Mortal, Behold..._
    _I am the Life of Stalingrad,_
    _You and its people shall unite in me,_
    _Men yet unborn, in the great Light in me_
    _Triumphs shall sing when my Story is told._

The gossip-writer of the _Daily Express_ suggested it should be sent
round the kingdom. Cardiff, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow
and Edinburgh paid it secular honours in their Art Galleries and Guild
Halls. Now, back from its tour, it reached its apotheosis, exposed for
adoration hard by the shrine of the St. Edward the Confessor and the
sacring place of the kings of England.

Guy Crouchback drove past the line of devotees on his way to luncheon.
Unmoved by the popular enthusiasm for the triumphs of "Joe" Stalin, who
now qualified for the name of "Uncle," as Guy had done and Apthorpe, he
was not tempted to join them in their piety. October 29th, 1943, had
another and more sombre significance for him. It was his fortieth
birthday and to celebrate the occasion he had asked Jumbo Trotter to
luncheon.

It was through Jumbo's offices that he now sat at ease behind a
F.A.N.N.Y. driver instead of travelling by bus. After four years of war
Jumbo preserved his immunity to sumptuary regulations. As also did
Ruben. In a famine-stricken world the little fish-restaurant dispensed
in their seasons Colchester oysters, Scotch salmon, lobsters, prawns,
gulls' eggs, which rare foods were specifically exempt from the law
which limited the price of hotel meals to five shillings, and often
caviar, obtained, only Ruben knew how, through diplomatic channels. Most
surprising of all, there sometimes appeared cheeses from France,
collected by intrepid parachutists and conveyed home by submarine. There
was an abundance of good wine, enormously costly, at a time when the
cellars of the hotels were empty and wine merchants dealt out meagre
monthly parcels only to their oldest customers. Ruben had for some years
enjoyed a small and appreciative clientle. Once he had served in
Bellamy's and there were always tables for its members. There was also
an increasing dilution of odd-looking men who called the proprietor "Mr.
Ruben" and carried large quantities of bank-notes in their hip pockets.
That restaurant was a rare candle in a dark and naughty world. Kerstie
Kilbannock, who had made noxious experiments with custard powder and
condiments, once asked: "Do tell me, Ruben, how do you make your
mayonnaise?" and received the grave reply: "Quite simple, my lady, fresh
eggs and olive oil."

Guy led Jumbo to a corner table. He had spent little time in London
since his return from Egypt and he could seldom afford to feast, but
Ruben was loyal to old faces and familiar names.

"Rather a change from the Senior," Jumbo remarked as he surveyed the
company. "A _great_ change," he added as he read the menu. They consumed
great quantities of oysters. As they rose surfeited from their table, it
was seized by a couple who had just come in: Kerstie Kilbannock and an
American soldier.

As though playing musical chairs, she was in Jumbo's warm place before
he had taken his cap from the peg above him.

"Guy, how are you?"

"Forty."

"We've been lunching with Ruby at the Dorchester and are so hungry we
had to pop in here and fill up. You know the Lootenant?"

"Yes, indeed. How are you, Loot?"

Everyone knew Lieutenant Padfield; even Guy who knew so few people. He
was a portent of the Grand Alliance. London was full of American
soldiers, tall, slouching, friendly, woefully homesick young men who
seemed always to be in search of somewhere to sit down. In the summer
they had filled the parks and sat on the pavements round the once august
mansions which had been assigned to them. For their comfort there
swarmed out of the slums and across the bridges multitudes of drab,
ill-favoured adolescent girls and their aunts and mothers, never before
seen in the squares of Mayfair and Belgravia. These they passionately
and publicly embraced, in the blackout and at high noon, and rewarded
with chewing-gum, razor-blades and other rare trade-goods from their PX
stores. Lieutenant Padfield was a horse of a different colour; not
precisely, for his face, too, was the colour of putty; he too slouched;
he, too was sedentary by habit. But he was not at all homesick; when not
in a chair he must have been in rapid motion, for he was ubiquitous. He
was twenty-five years old and in England for the first time. He had been
one in the advanced party of the American army and there was no corner
of the still intricate social world where he was not familiar.

Guy first met him when on leave he went reluctantly to call on his Uncle
Peregrine. This was during the Loot's first days in England.

"...Brought a letter from a fellow who used to come to Cowes. Wants
to see my miniatures..."

Then during that same week Guy was asked to dinner at the House of
Commons by his brother-in-law, Arthur Box-Bender. "...Told we ought
to do something about some of these Americans. They're interested in the
House, naturally. Do come along and give a hand..." There were six
young American officers, the Loot among them.

Very soon he had ceased to be a mere member of the occupying forces to
whom kindness should be shown. Two or three widows survived from the
years of hospitality and still tried meagrely to entertain. The
Lieutenant was at all their little parties. Two or three young married
women were staking claims to replace them as hostesses. The Loot knew
them all. He was in every picture gallery, every bookshop, every club,
every hotel. He was also in every inaccessible castle in Scotland, at
the sickbed of every veteran artist and politician, in the dressing-room
of every leading actress and in every university common-room, and he
expressed his thanks to his hosts and hostesses not with the products of
the PX store but with the publications of Sylvia Beach and sketches by
Fuseli.

When Guy went to have his hair cut the Loot seemed always to be in the
next chair. One of the few places where he was never seen was H.O.Q. HQ.
He had no apparent military function. In the years of peace he had been
the junior member of an important firm of Boston lawyers. It was said
that the Loot's duties were still legal. Either the American army was
exceptionally law-abiding or they had a glut of advocates. The Loot was
never known to serve on a court-martial.

Now he said: "I was at Broome yesterday."

"Broome? You mean our Broome? What on earth took you there, Loot?"

"Sally Sackville-Strutt has a daughter at the school. We went to see her
play hockey. She's captain of Crouchback. You know the school was
divided into two houses called 'Crouchback' and 'the Holy Family'?"

"The invidious distinction has been remarked on."

"Crouchback won." He began beckoning to Ruben. "Do we meet tonight at
the Glenobans?"

"No."

"Did you go to see the sword of Stalingrad? I went when it was first on
view at the Goldsmiths' Hall. I think it is a very lovely gesture of
your King's, but there was a feature no one could explain to me--the
escutcheon on the scabbard will be upside down when it is worn on a
baldric."

"I don't suppose Stalin will wear it on a baldric."

"Maybe not. But I was certainly surprised at your College of Arms
passing it. Well, I'll be seeing you around."

"Around" was the right word.

"Pretty fair cheek that young American finding fault with the sword,"
said Jumbo as they left the restaurant. "What's more _he_ didn't
discover the mistake. There was a letter about it in _The Times_ weeks
ago. I'll drop you back at your office. Can't have you using public
transport on your birthday. I haven't anything much on this afternoon.
That was the best lunch I've had for three years. I may take a little
nap."

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the autumn of 1943 Hazardous Offensive Operations Headquarters was a
very different organization from the modest offices which Guy had
visited in the winter of 1940. The original three flats remained part of
their property--an important part, for they housed Ian Kilbannock's busy
Press service--as did numerous mansions from Hendon to Clapham in which
small bands of experts in untroubled privacy made researches into
fortifying drugs, invisible maps, noiseless explosives and other
projects near to the heart of the healthy schoolboy. There was a Swahili
witch-doctor in rooms off the Edgware Road who had been engaged to cast
spells on the Nazi leaders.

"D'you know, Charles, I sometimes think that black fellow's something of
a charlatan," General Whale once remarked to Major Albright in a moment
of confidence. "He indents for the most extraordinary stores. But we
know Hitler's superstitions and there's a good deal of evidence that
with superstitious people these curses do sometimes work."

Even Dr. Glendening-Rees, fully recovered from the privations of Mugg,
had a dietary team in Upper Norwood, from whose experiments batches of
emaciated "conscientious objectors" were from time to time removed to
hospital. But the ostensible authority of these activities resided in
the Venetian-Gothic brick edifice of the Royal Victorian Institute, a
museum nobly planned but little frequented in the parish of Brompton.
Its few valuable exhibits had been removed to safe storage. Other less
portable objects had been left to the risks of bombardment and still
stood amid the labyrinth of ply-board partitions with which the halls
were divided.

The compartment assigned to the Special Service Forces Liaison
Office--Guy's--was larger than most but there was little floor space for
he shared it with the plaster reconstruction of a megalosaurus, under
whose huge flanks his trestle table was invisible from the door. This
table carried three wire trays--In, Out and Pending, all empty that
afternoon--a telephone, and a jig-saw puzzle. For the first few days of
his occupancy he had had an A.T. secretary, but she had been removed by
a newly installed civilian efficiency-expert. Guy did not repine, but to
fill his time, he prosecuted a controversy on the subject. Tommy had
said he did not know what the liaison officer was supposed to do; nor
did Guy.

A captain of Marines peered round the giant carnivore and presented him
with a file marked: Operation Hoopla. Most Secret. _By Hand of Officer
only._

"Will you minute this and pass it on to 'Beaches'?"

"I thought 'Hoopla' had been cancelled."

"Postponed," said the Marine. "The party, we had in training was sent to
Burma. But we're still working on it."

The intention of "Hoopla" was to attack some prodigious bomb-proof
submarine-pens in Brittany. A peremptory demand for immediate action
against these strongholds had been received from the War Cabinet. "If
the Air Force can't destroy the ships, we can kill the crews," General
Whale had suggested. Twelve men were to perform this massacre after
landing in a Breton fishing boat.

The latest minute read:

    _In view of Intelligence Report C/806/RT/12 that occupied France
    is being supplied with ersatz motor fuel which gives an easily
    recognizable character to exhaust fumes, it is recommended that
    samples of this fuel should be procured through appropriate
    agency, analysed, reproduced and issued to Hoopla Force for use
    in auxiliary engine of fishing boat._

Someone before Guy had added the minute: _Could not a substance be
introduced into standard fuel which would provide a characteristic odour
of ersatz?_

Someone else, an admiral, had added: _It was decided (see attached
minute) that auxiliary engine should be used only under a strong
offshore wind. I consider risk of detection of odour negligible in such
circumstances._

Guy more modestly wrote: _Noted and approved. Guy Crouchback. Capt. for
Brig. Commanding S.S. Forces._... and squeezed past the megalasaurus
to carry the file on its way.

"Beaches" was rather a jovial room. It housed an early Victorian
locomotive engine, six sailors and a library of naval charts. The
reappearance of "Hoopla" was here greeted with ironic applause. Some
time back, General Whale had forfeited the kindly sobriquet of "Sprat"
and was now known in the lower and more active regions of his command as
"Brides-in-the-Bath"; for the reason that all the operations he
sponsored seemed to require the extermination of all involved.

Next door to "Beaches" there lived three R.A.F. sergeants in what was
called "the studio." Here beaches were constructed in miniature, yards
and yards of them, reproducing from air-photographs miles and miles of
the coast of occupied Europe. The studio was full of tools and odd
scraps of material, wood, metals, pastes, gums, pigments, feathers,
fibres, plasters and oils, many of them strongly aromatic. The tone was
egalitarian in an antiquated, folky way distantly derived from the
disciples of William Morris. Two of the sergeants were mature craftsmen;
one, much younger, wore abundant golden curls such as the army would
have cropped. He was addressed as "Susie" and, like his predecessors in
the Arts and Crafts movement, professed communism.

In their ample spare time these ingenious men were building a model of
the Royal Victorian Institute. Guy took every opportunity to visit them
and admire their work, as it daily grew to perfection. He paused there
now.

"Been to see the Stalingrad sword?" Susie asked. "Nice bit of work. But
I reckon a few machine guns would be more to the point."

He was addressing a tall, grey civilian dandy who stood nonchalantly
posed beside him, twirling a single eyeglass on its black cord. This was
Sir Ralph Brompton, the diplomatic adviser to H.O.O. HQ. He seemed a
figure of obsolescent light comedy rather than of total war.

"It affords the People an opportunity for self-expression," said Sir
Ralph.

He was a retired ambassador who daily patrolled the building in the
self-imposed task of "political indoctrination," an old man with a
mission, but in no hurry.

He had called on Guy and after a very few words had despaired of him as
a sympathetic subject. He did not now disguise his annoyance at being
found with Susie.

"I just dropped in," he said, half to Guy, half to the senior sergeant,
"to see if you were getting the _Foreign Affairs Summary_ regularly."

"I don't know," said the senior sergeant. "Are we, Sam?" He looked
vaguely round the littered work-benches. "We don't get bothered with
much paper work here."

"But you _should_," said Sir Ralph. "I make a special point of it being
circulated to _all_ ranks. Much devoted labour went into the last issue.
You have to read between the lines sometimes. I'm at a disadvantage in
saying quite all that needs saying in black and white. There is still a
certain amount of prejudice to be cleared up--not in the highest
quarters, of course, or among the People. But _half way down_," he said,
gazing at Guy through his single eyeglass, without animosity, seeing him
with his back to a wall, facing a firing squad. "One learns a certain
amount of professional discretion in my absurd occupation. There will be
no need for that after the war. Meanwhile one can only hint. I can tell
you the main points: Tito's the friend, not Mihajlovic. We're backing
the wrong horse in Malaya. And in China too. Chiang is a
collaborationist. We have proof. The only real resistance is in the
northern provinces--Russian trained and Russian armed, of course. They
are the men who are going to drive out the Japs. I'll see you get a
copy. Don't forget this evening, Susie. I'm afraid I can't be there
myself, but they are counting on you."

He sauntered out twirling his eyeglass.

"What are you and the old geezer up to?" asked Sam.

"Party meetings," said Susie.

"I know better things to do in the blackout than meetings."

"So does the old geezer, it seems," said the third sergeant.

"He's a bit of bourgeois at heart for all his fine talk," Susie
admitted. All the time he spoke he was concentrating on his small lathe,
turning tiny spiral columns with exquisite precision.

"You'll soon have that finished," said Guy to the senior sergeant.

"Yes, barring interruptions. You can never tell when they'll come asking
for more beaches. There isn't the same satisfaction in beaches."

"They ought to have landed on them this summer," said Susie. "That's
what was promised."

"I didn't give no promises," said Sam, busy with the fretsaw cutting
little mahogany flagstones.

Guy left these happy, industrious men and paused in his progress at the
room of Mr. Oates, the civilian efficiency-expert.

No one could be reasonably described as "out of place" in H.O.O. HQ.,
but Mr. Oates, despite his unobtrusive appearance (or by reason of it),
seemed bizarre to Guy. He was a plump, taciturn little man and he alone
among all his heterogeneous colleagues proclaimed confidence. Of the
others some toiled mindlessly, passing files from tray to tray, some
took their ease, some were plotting, some hiding, some grousing; all
quite baffled. But Mr. Oates believed he was in his own way helping to
win the war. He was a profoundly peaceful man and his way seemed clear
before him.

"Any result of my application for the return of my typist?"

"Negative," said Mr. Oates.

"Kilbannock has three typists."

"Not now. I have just withdrawn two of them. There is another, Mrs.
Troy, who is officially attached to him, but her work seems mainly
extramural. In fact her position is somewhat anomalous in this
headquarters. I shall raise it at the next man-power conference."

There had been a showy addition to Mr. Oates's furniture since Guy's
last visit; an elaborate machine of more modern construction than any
permanent exhibit in the museum.

"What have you got there?"

Mr. Oates made a little grimace of gratification.

"Ah! You have found my tender spot. You might call it my pet. Absolutely
new. It's just been flown in from America. It took 560 man-hours to
instal. The mechanics came from America, too. There isn't another like
it in the country."

"But what is it?"

"An Electronic Personnel Selector."

"Have we any electronic personnel?"

"It covers every contingency. For example, suppose I want to find a
lieutenant-colonel who is a long-distance swimmer, qualified as a
barrister, with experience in catering in tropical countries--instead of
going through all the records I just press these buttons, one, two,
three, four and..." there was a whirring noise from the depths of the
engine, a series of clicks as though from a slot-machine telling
fortunes on a pier, a card shot up. "You see--totally blank--that means
negative."

"I think I could have guessed that."

"Yes, I was illustrating an extreme example. Now here"--he picked a chit
from his tray--"is a genuine enquiry. I've been asked to find an officer
for special employment; under forty, with a university degree, who has
lived in Italy and had Commando training--one, two, three, four, five--"
Whirr, click, click, click, click, click. "Here we are. Now that _is_ a
remarkable coincidence."

The card he held bore the name A/Ty. Captain Crouchback, G., R.C.H.,
att. H.O.O. HQ.

Guy did not attempt to correct the machine on the point of his age, or
of the extent of his Commando training.

"I seem the only one."

"Yes. I don't know what it's for, of course, but I will send your name
in at once."




CHAPTER II


Thirty-seven years old, six foot two in height, upright, powerful,
heavier than he had been in the Middle East and paler, with a hint of
flabbiness in the cheeks, wearing service dress, a well-kept Sam Brown
belt, the ribbon of the M.M. and the badges of a major in the
Intelligence Corps; noticeable, if at all, for the pink-grey irises of
his eyes; the man whom Hookforce had known as Corporal-Major Ludovic
paused reminiscently by the railings of St. Margaret's, Westminster.

This was the place where he and others of his regiment had paraded
twelve years and a few months ago, in King's Guard order as guard of
honour for the wedding of one of their officers. Ludovic was a corporal
then. The crowds had been enormous, less orderly and lighter of heart
than those who now shuffled forward towards the Abbey, for the bride was
a fashionable beauty and the bridegroom's name was familiar on
advertising hoardings and the labels of beer bottles.

They had lined the aisle; then, while the register was being signed, had
formed up along this path which led from the door to the motor car.
Their finery had excited cries of admiration. As the organ sounded the
first notes of the wedding march, they had drawn their swords and held
them in a posture for which no drill-book has a name, forming an arch
over the wedded couple. The bride had smiled right and left looking up
at each of them in the eyes, thanking them. The bridegroom held his top
hat in his hand and greeted by name those of his squadron he recognized.
Two manikins carried the train clothed at enormous cost in replicas of
Ludovic's own uniform; then the bridesmaids, plumper and plainer than
the bride but flowery in full June. Then they had lowered their swords
to the "carry"; a royal party had passed between them smiling also; then
parents and after them a long stream of guests; scarcely visible under
the peak of the helmet behind and all round them were reporters and
photographers and a cheering, laughing London crowd.

It was after that wedding, in the tented yard behind a house in St.
James's Square (now demolished by a bomb), that Sir Ralph Brompton had
first accosted Ludovic. The royal party sat in the ball-room on the
first floor, where the young couple received their guests. A temporary
wooden stair had been built from the ball-room balcony to the tent (for
it was a rule that no member of the royal family should be in a room
without an alternative egress) and the guests, after they had made their
salutations, went below, leaving that still little pool of humble duty
for the noisier celebrations under the canvas. Later, when they
discussed the question, as they often did, neither Sir Ralph nor Ludovic
was able to explain what distinguished the young corporal from his
fellows, except that he stood a little apart from them. He did not like
beer, and great jugs of special brew, made by the bridegroom's father
for the occasion, were being pressed on the guard of honour, the tenants
and foremen and old servants who segregated themselves in their own
corner of the marquee. Sir Ralph, as tall as any trooper and almost as
splendid in grey tail suit and full cravat, had joined this convivial,
plebeian group and said: "You're much better off with the ale. The
champagne is poison," and so had begun an association which developed
richly.

Sir Ralph was then doing a spell at the Foreign Office. When the time
came for him to go abroad on post, he arranged for Ludovic's release
from the regiment, who were sorry to lose him; he had lately been
promoted Corporal of Horse at an early age. Then had begun five years'
life abroad in Sir Ralph's company, as "valet" at the embassy, as
"secretary" when they travelled on leave. Sir Ralph discreetly attended
to his protg's education, lending him books on psychology which he
relished and on Marxist economics which he found tedious; giving him
tickets for concerts and the opera, leading him, when they were on
holiday, through galleries and cathedrals.

The marriage did not last long. There was an unusually early divorce.
Ludovic, as he now was, constituted the sole progeny of that union.

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was five o'clock. At 5:30 the Abbey had to be shut for the night.
Already the police were turning away the extremity of the queue, saying
"You won't get in today--Come back tomorrow morning, early," and the
people obediently drifted into the dusk to join other queues elsewhere.

Major Ludovic went straight to the Abbey entrance, laid his blank oyster
gaze on the policeman and raised his gloved hand to acknowledge a salute
that had not been given.

"'Ere, just a moment, sir, where are you going?"

"The--er--King's present to the--er--Russians--they tell me it's on show
here."

"Got to wait your turn. There's others before you, sir."

Ludovic spoke with two voices. He had tried as an officer; now he
reverted to the tones of the barrack-room. "That's all right, cock. I'm
here on duty same as yourself," and the puzzled man stood back to let
him by.

Inside the Abbey it seemed already night. The windows gave no light. The
two candles led the people forward, who, as they were admitted in
twenties, broke their column of fours, advanced in a group and then fell
into single file as they reached the sword. They knew no formal act of
veneration. They paused, gazed, breathed and passed on. Ludovic was the
tallest of them. He could see the bright streak from over their heads.
He held his cap and his cane behind his back and peered intently. He had
a special interest there, but when he came to the sword and tried to
linger he was pressed silently on, not jostled resentfully, but silently
conscribed into that unseeing, inarticulate procession who were
asserting their right to the fair share of everything which they
believed the weapon symbolised. He had no time to study the detail. He
glimpsed the keen edge, the sober ornament, the more luxurious scabbard
and then was borne on and out. It was not five minutes before he found
himself once more alone, in the deepening fog.

Ludovic had an appointment with Sir Ralph for 5:30. He had to meet by
appointment in these days. They were no longer on the old easy terms,
but Ludovic did not lose touch. In his altered and exalted status he did
not look for money, but there were other uses to which their old
association could be put. Whenever he came to London he let Sir Ralph
know and they had tea together. Sir Ralph had other companions for
dinner.

They met at their old place of assignment. Once Sir Ralph had a house in
Hanover Terrace, and his retreat in Ebury Street--rooms over a shop,
which had something of the air of expensive undergraduate digs--had been
a secret known to barely fifty men. Now these rooms were his home; he
had moved the smaller pieces of his furniture there; but not many more
people--fewer perhaps--knew the way there than in the old days.

Ludovic walked down Victoria Street, crossed the shapeless expanse at
the bottom and reached the familiar doorstep at the same moment as his
host. Sir Ralph opened the door and stood back for Ludovic to enter. He
had never lacked devoted servants. "Mrs. Embury," he called, "Mrs.
Embury," and his housekeeper appeared above them on the half landing.
She had known Ludovic in other days.

"Tea," he said, handing her a little parcel, "Lapsang Suchong--half a
pound of it. Bartered in what strange Eastern markets, I know not. But
the genuine article. I have a friend at our headquarters who gets me
some from time to time. We must go easy with it, Mrs. Embury, but I
think we might 'brew up' for the Major."

They went upstairs and sat in the drawing-room.

"No doubt you want to hear my opinion of your _Penses_."

"I want to hear Everard Spruce's."

"Yes, of course, I deserved that little snub. Well, prepare yourself for
good news--Everard is _delighted_ with them and wants to publish them in
_Survival_. He is quite content to leave them anonymous. The only thing
he doesn't quite like is the title."

"_Penses_," said Ludovic. "D'you know what they call our badge?" He
tapped the floral device on the lapel of his tunic. "'A pansy sitting on
its laurels.'"

"Yes, yes. Very good. I have heard the witticism before. No; Jack thinks
it dated. He suggests 'Notes in Transit' or something of the sort."

"I don't see it matters."

"No. But he's definitely interested in you. Wants to meet. In fact I
tentatively accepted an invitation for you this evening. I shan't, alas,
be able to introduce you. But you're expected. I'll give you the
address. I am expecting another visitor here."

"Curly?"

"They call him 'Susie' at the headquarters. No, not Susie. He's a dear
boy and a stalwart party member, but a little earnest for the long
blackout. I am packing him off to a meeting. No, I expect a very
intelligent young American named Padfield--an officer, _like you_."

Mrs. Embury brought in the tea and the little, over-furnished room was
full of its fragrance.

"I can't offer you anything to eat, I'm afraid."

"I know better than come to London for food," said Ludovic. "We do all
right at my billet." He had learned his officer's voice from Sir Ralph
but seldom used it when they were alone. "Mrs. Embury isn't very matey
these days?"

"It's your high rank. She doesn't know how to take it. And you, what
have you been up to?"

"I went to the Abbey before I came here--to see the sword."

"Yes, I suppose like everyone else you are coming to appreciate the
Soviet achievement. You usen't to have much share in my 'red'
sympathies. We nearly had a tiff once, remember? About Spain."

"There were Spaniards in the Middle East--proper bastards." Ludovic
stopped short, remembering what he resolutely strove to forget. "It
wasn't anything to do with politics. That sword is the subject of this
week's literary competition in _Time & Tide_--a sonnet. I thought if I
went to see it, I might get some ideas."

"Oh dear, don't tell Everard Spruce about that. I'm afraid he would look
down his nose at literary competitions in _Time & Tide_."

"I just like writing," said Ludovic. "In different ways about different
things. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose?"

"No indeed. The literary instinct. But don't tell Everard. _Did_ you get
any ideas?"

"Not what I could use in a sonnet. But it set me thinking--about
swords."

"That wasn't quite their idea; not, as they say now, the object of the
exercise. You were meant to think about tanks and bombers and the
Peoples' Army driving out the Nazis."

"I thought of _my_ sword," said Ludovic stubbornly. "Technically, I
suppose, it was a sabre. _We_ called them 'swords'--'state swords'.
Never saw it again after I left the regiment. They weren't reissued when
we were recalled. Took a lot of looking after, a sword. Every now and
then the armourer had them in and buffed them; ordinary days it was
Bluebell and the chain-burnisher. Mustn't leave a spot on it. You could
always tell a good officer. On a wet day he didn't give the order
'Return swords' but 'With drawn swords, prepare to dismount.' You took
it half way up the blade in your left hand and transferred to the near
side of the withers. That way you didn't get water into the scabbard.
Some officers didn't think of that; the good ones did."

"Yes, yes, most picturesque," said Sir Ralph. "Not much bearing on the
conditions at Stalingrad."

Then Ludovic suddenly assumed his officer's voice and said: "After all,
it was the uniform first attracted you, don't you remember?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

Only a preternaturally astute reader of Ludovic's aphorisms could
discern that their author had once been at heart--or rather in some
vestigial repository of his mind--a romantic. Most of those who
volunteered for Commandos in the spring of 1940 had other motives
besides the desire to serve their country. A few merely sought release
from regimental routine; more wished to cut a gallant figure before
women; others had led lives of particular softness and were moved to
re-establish their honour in the eyes of the heroes of their
youth--legendary, historical, fictitious--that still haunted their
manhood. Nothing in Ludovic's shortly to be published work made clear
how he had seen himself. His early schooling had furnished few models of
chivalry. His enlistment in the Blues, so near the body of the King, so
flamboyantly accoutred, had certainly not been prompted by any
familiarity or affection for the horse. Ludovic was a townsman. The
smell of stables brought no memories of farm or hunt. In his years with
Sir Ralph Brompton he had lived soft; any instinct for expiation of
which he was conscious, was unexpressed. Yet he had volunteered for
special service at the first opportunity. His fellow volunteers now had
ample leisure in their various prison camps to examine their motives and
strip themselves of illusion. As also had Ludovic, at liberty; but his
disillusionment (if he ever suffered from illusion) had preceded the
debacle at Crete. There was a week in the mountains, two days in a cave,
a particular night in an open boat during the exploit that had earned
him his M.M. and his commission, of which he never spoke. When
questioned, as he had been on his return to Africa, he confessed that
his memory of those events was almost blank; a very common condition,
sympathetic doctors assured him, after a feat of extreme endurance.

His last two years had been as uneventful as Guy's.

After his rapid discharge from hospital he had been posted to the United
Kingdom to be trained as an officer. At the board who interviewed him,
he had expressed no preference for any arm of the service. He had no
mechanical bent. They had posted him to the Intelligence Corps, then in
process of formation and expansion. He had attended courses, learned to
interpret air-photographs, to recognise enemy uniform, and compute an
order of battle, to mark maps, to collate and summarise progress-reports
from the field; all the rudimentary skills. At the end his early
peacetime service as a trooper impressed the selection-board that he was
a "quartermaster type" and an appointment was found for him far from the
battle, far from the arcane departments whose existence was barely
hinted at in the lecture room; in a secret place, indeed, but one where
no secrets were disclosed to Ludovic. He was made commandant of a little
establishment where men, and sometimes women, of all ages and nations,
military and civilian, many with obviously assumed names, were trained
at a neighbouring aerodrome to jump in parachutes.

Thus whatever romantic image of himself Ludovic had ever set up was
finally defaced.

In this lonely condition he found more than solace, positive excitement,
in the art of writing. The further he removed from human society and the
less he attended to human speech, the more did words, printed and
written, occupy his mind. The books he read were books about words. As
he lay unshriven, his sleep was never troubled by the monstrous memories
which might have been supposed to lie in wait for him in the dark. He
dreamed of words and woke repeating them as though memorising a foreign
vocabulary. Ludovic had become an addict of that potent intoxicant, the
English language.

Not laboriously, luxuriously rather, Ludovic worked over his note-books,
curtailing, expanding, polishing; often consulting Fowler, not
disdaining Roget; writing and rewriting in his small clerkly hand on the
lined sheets of paper which the army supplied; telling no one what he
was up to, until at length there were fifty foolscap pages, which he
sent to Sir Ralph, not asking his opinion, but instructing him to find a
publisher.

It was in miniature a golden age for the book-trade; anything sold; the
supply of paper alone determined a writer's popularity. But publishers
had obligations to old clients and an eye to the future. Ludovic's
_Penses_ stirred no hopes of a sequel of best-selling novels. The
established firms were on the look-out for promise rather than for
accomplishment. Sir Ralph therefore sent the manuscript to Everard
Spruce, the founder and editor of _Survival_; a man who cherished no
ambitions for the future, believing, despite the title of his monthly
review, that the human race was destined to dissolve in chaos.

The war had raised Spruce, who in the years preceding it had not been
the most esteemed of his coterie of youngish, socialist writers, to
unrivalled eminence. Those of his friends who had not fled to Ireland or
to America had joined the Fire Brigade. Spruce by contrast had stood out
for himself and, in that disorderly period when Guy had sat in Bellamy's
writing so many fruitless appeals for military employment, had announced
the birth of a magazine devoted "to the Survival of Values." The
Ministry of Information gave it protection, exempted its staff from
other duties, granted it a generous allowance of paper, and exported it
in bulk to whatever countries were still open to British shipping.
Copies were even scattered from aeroplanes in regions under German
domination and patiently construed by partisans with the aid of
dictionaries. A member who complained in the House of Commons that, so
far as its contents were intelligible to him, they were pessimistic in
tone, and unconnected in subject with the war effort, was told at some
length by the Minister that free expression in the arts was an essential
of democracy. "I personally have no doubt," he said, "and I am confirmed
in my opinion by many reports, that great encouragement is given to our
allies and sympathisers throughout the world by the survival" (laughter)
"in this country of what is almost unique in present conditions, a
periodical entirely independent of official direction."

Spruce lived in a fine house in Cheyne Walk cared for by secretaries to
the number of four. It was there that Ludovic was directed by Sir Ralph.
He went on foot through the lightless streets, smelling the river before
him in the deepening fog.

He was not entirely unacquainted with men of letters. Several had been
habitus of Ebury Street; he had sat at caf tables with them on the
Mediterranean coast; but always in those days he had been an appendage
of Sir Ralph's, sometimes ignored, sometimes punctiliously brought into
the conversation, often impertinently studied; never regarded as a
possible confrere. This was the first time that Ludovic had gone among
them in his own right. He was not the least nervous but he was proudly
conscious of a change of status far more gratifying than any conferred
by military rank.

Spruce was in his middle thirties. Time was, he cultivated a
proletarian, youthful, aspect; not successfully; now, perhaps without
design, he looked older than his years and presented the negligent
elegance of a fashionable don. One of his friends, on joining the Fire
Brigade, had left a trunk under Spruce's protection and when he was
buried by a falling chimney, Spruce had appropriated his wardrobe; the
secretaries had adjusted the Charvet shirts and pyjamas; the suits were
beyond their skill; Spruce was, thus, often seen abroad in a voluminous
fur-lined overcoat, while at home, whenever the temperature allowed, he
dispensed with a jacket. Tonight he wore a heavy silk, heavily striped
shirt and a bow tie above noncommittal trousers. The secretaries were
dressed rather like him, though in commoner materials; they wore their
hair long and enveloping, in a style which fifteen years later was to be
associated by the newspapers with the King's Road. One went bare-footed
as though to emphasize her servile condition. They were sometimes spoken
of as "Spruce's veiled ladies." They gave him their full devotion; also
their rations of butter, meat and sugar.

One of these opened the door to Ludovic and without asking his name said
through a curtain of hair: "Do come in quick. The blackout's not very
efficient. They're all upstairs."

There was a party in the drawing-room on the first floor.

"Which is Mr. Spruce?"

"Don't you know? Over there, of course, talking to the Smart Woman."

Ludovic looked round the room where, in a company of twenty or so, women
predominated but none appeared notably dressy, but the host identified
himself by coming forward with an expression of sharp enquiry.

"I am Ludovic," said Ludovic. "Ralph Brompton said you were expecting
me."

"Yes, of course. Don't go until we have had the chance to talk. I must
apologise for the crowd. Two anti-fascist neutrals have been wished on
me by the Ministry of Information. They asked me to collect some
interesting people. Not easy these days. Do you speak Turkish or
Portuguese?"

"No."

"That's a pity. They are both professors of English Literature but not
very fluent in conversation. Come and talk to Lady Perdita."

He led Ludovic to the woman with whom he had been standing. She was
wearing the uniform of an air-raid warden and had smudges of soot on her
face. "Smart," Ludovic perceived, denoted rank rather than chic in this
milieu.

"I was at your wedding," said Ludovic.

"Surely not? No one was."

"Your first wedding."

"Oh, yes, of course, everyone was _there_."

"I held my sword over your head when you left the church."

"That was a long time ago," said Lady Perdita. "Think of it; _swords_."

The bare-footed secretary approached with a jug and a glass.

"Will you have a drink?"

"What is it?"

"There's nothing else," she said. "I made it. Half South African sherry
and half something called 'Olde Falstaffe Gin.'"

"I don't think I will, thank you," said Ludovic.

"Snob," said Lady Perdita. "Fill me up, Frankie, there's a dear."

"There's hardly enough to go round."

"I'll have this chap's ration."

The host interrupted: "Perdita, I want you to meet Dr. Iago from
Coimbra. He talks a bit of French."

Ludovic was left with the secretary, who kept custody of her eyes.
Addressing her bare toes she said: "One thing about a party, it does
warm the room. Who are you?" she asked.

"Ludovic. Mr. Spruce has accepted something I wrote for _Survival_."

"Yes, of course," she said. "I know all about you now. I read your
manuscript too. Everard is awfully impressed with it. He said it was as
though Logan Pearsall Smith had written Kafka. Do you know Logan?"

"Only by his writing."

"You must meet him. He's not here tonight. He doesn't go out now. I say,
what a relief to meet a real writer instead of all these smarties
Everard wastes his time on" (this with a dark glance from her feet to
the air-raid warden). "Look; there _is_ some whisky. We've only got one
bottle so we have to be rather careful with it. Come next door and I'll
give you some."

"Next door" was the office, a smaller room austerely, even meanly
furnished. Back-numbers of _Survival_ were piled on the bare
floorboards, manuscripts and photographs on the bare table; a black
sheet was secured by drawing pins to cover the window. Here, when they
were not engaged on domestic tasks--cooking, queuing or darning--the
four secretaries stoked the cultural beacon which blazed from Iceland to
Adelaide; here the girl who could type answered Spruce's numerous "fan
letters" and the girl who could spell corrected proofs. Here it seemed
some of them slept for there were divan beds covered with blankets only
and a large, much undenticulated comb.

Frankie went to the cupboard and revealed a bottle. Many strange
concoctions of the "Olde Falstaffe" kind circulated in those days. This
was not one of them.

"Not opened yet," she said.

Ludovic was not fond of spirits, nor was whisky any rarity at his
well-found station; nevertheless he accepted the offered drink with a
solemnity which verged on reverence. This was no mere clandestine treat.
Frankie was initiating him into the occult company of Logan and Kafka.
He would find time in the days to come to learn who Kafka was. Now he
drained the glass, swallowing almost without repugnance the highly
valued distillation.

"You seemed to want that," said Frankie. "I daren't offer you another
yet, I'm afraid. Perhaps later. It depends who else turns up."

"It was just what I wanted," said Ludovic; "_all_ that I
wanted"--repressing a momentary inclination to retch.




CHAPTER III


The Kilbannocks' house in Eaton Terrace had suffered no direct damage
from bombing; not a pane of glass had been broken, not a chimney-pot
thrown down; but four years of war had left their marks on the once gay
interior. Kerstie did her best but paint, wallpapers, chintzes and
carpets were stained and shabby. Despite these appearances the
Kilbannocks had in fact recovered from the comparative penury of 1939.
Kerstie no longer took lodgers. She had moved from the canteen of the
Transit Camp to a well-paid job as cipher clerk; Ian's pay rose with the
rings on his cuff; an aunt had died leaving him a modest legacy. And
there was nothing in those days to tempt anyone to extravagance. Kerstie
had had Ian's evening clothes cleverly adapted into a serviceable coat
and skirt. The children were still confined to their grandmother in
Scotland and came to London only on occasions.

On this October evening they were expecting Virginia Troy, once an
inmate, now rather a rare visitor.

"You'd better go out to Bellamy's or somewhere," said Kerstie, "I
gathered on the telephone that Virginia wants a heart-to-hearter."

"Trimmer."

"I suppose so."

"I'm thinking of shipping him to America."

"It will be much the best thing."

"We've done pretty well all we can with him in this country. We've
finished the film. The B.B.C. don't want to renew 'The Voice of Trimmer'
Sunday-evening postscripts."

"I should think not."

"It seemed a good idea. Somehow it didn't catch on. Trimmer has to be
seen as well as heard. Besides, there are a lot of rival heroes with
rather better credentials."

"You think the Americans will swallow him?"

"He'll be something new. They're sick of fighter pilots. By the way, do
you realise it was Trimmer who gave the monarch the idea for this Sword
of Stalingrad? Indirectly, of course. In the big scene of Trimmer's
landing I gave him a 'commander dagger' to brandish--I don't suppose
you've even seen the things. They were an idea of Brides-in-the-Bath's
early on. A few hundred were issued. To my certain knowledge none was
ever used in action. A Glasgow policeman got a nasty poke with one. They
were mostly given away to tarts. But they were beautifully made little
things. Well, you know how sharp the royal eye is for any detail of
equipment. He was given a preview of the Trimmer film and spotted the
dagger at once. Had one sent round to him. Then the royal mind brooded a
bit and the final result was that thing in the Abbey. An odd item of
contemporary history?"

"Are you going to Bellamy's?"

"Everard Spruce asked us to a party. I might look in."

The bell of the front door sounded through the little house.

"Virginia, I expect."

Ian let her in. She kissed with cold detestation and came upstairs.

"I thought you were sending him out," she said to Kerstie.

"I am. Run along, Ian, we have things to talk about."

"Do I have to remind you that I am your direct superior officer?"

"Oh, God, how that joke bores me."

"I see you've brought luggage."

"Yes. Can I stay for a bit, Kerstie?"

"Yes, for a bit."

"Until Trimmer's out of the country. He says he's had a warning order to
stand by for a trip--somewhere where he can't take me, thank God."

"I always hoped," said Ian, "you might come to like him."

"I've done two years."

"Yes, you've been jolly good. You deserve a holiday. Well, I'll leave
you two. I expect I'll be pretty late home."

Neither woman showed any regret at this announcement. Ian went
downstairs and out into the darkness.

"There's nothing in the house to drink," said Kerstie. "We could go out
somewhere."

"Coffee?"

"Yes, I can manage that."

"Let's stay in then."

"Nothing much to eat either. I've got some cod."

"No cod, thanks."

"I say, Virginia, you're pretty low."

"Dead flat. What's happened to everyone? London used to be full of
chums. Now I don't seem to know anyone. Do you realise that since my
brother was killed I haven't a single living relation?"

"My dear, I am sorry. I hadn't heard. In fact I didn't know you had a
brother."

"He was called Tim--five years younger than me. We never got on. He was
killed three years ago. You've such hundreds of children and parents and
cousins, Kerstie. You can't imagine what it feels like to be quite
alone. There's my step-mother in Switzerland. She never approved of me
and I can't get at her now anyway. I'm scared, Kerstie."

"Tell."

Virginia was never one whose confidences needed drawing out.

"Money," she said. "I've never known what it was like to have no money.
It's a very odd sensation indeed. Tim made a will leaving all he had to
some girl. Papa never left me anything. He thought I was well provided
for."

"Surely Mr. Troy will have to cough up eventually. Americans are great
ones for alimony."

"That's what I thought. It's what my bank manager and lawyer said. At
first they thought it was just some difficulty of exchange control. They
wrote him a lot of letters, polite at first, then firm, then
threatening. Finally, about six months ago they hired a lawyer in New
York to serve a writ. A fine move that turned out to be. Mr. Troy has
divorced me."

"Surely he can't do that?"

"He's done it. All signed and sealed. Apparently he's had a man watching
me and taking affidavits."

"How absolutely disgusting."

"It's just like Mr. Troy. I ought to have suspected when he lay so low.
We've sent for copies of the evidence in case there is any sort of
appeal possible. But it doesn't sound likely. After all I haven't been
strictly faithful to Mr. Troy all this time."

"He could hardly expect that."

"So not only no alimony, but an overdraft and a huge lawyer's bill. I
did the only thing I could and sold jewels. The beasts gave me half what
they cost; said no one was buying at the moment."

"Just what they said to Brenda."

"Then this morning a very awkward thing happened. One of the things I
sold was a pair of clips Augustus gave me. I'd quite forgotten about
them till they turned up in an old bag. What's more I'd forgotten that
when I lost them years ago I had reported it to the insurance company
and been paid. Apparently I've committed a criminal offence. They've
been fairly decent about that. They aren't going to the police or
anything, but I've got to refund the money--250. It doesn't sound much,
but I haven't got it. So this afternoon I've been hawking furs around.
They say no one's buying them either, though I should have thought it's
just what everyone _will_ want with winter coming on and no coal."

"I always envied your furs," said Kerstie.

"Yours for two hundred and fifty."

"What's the best offer you got?"

"Believe it or not, 75."

"I happen to have a little money in the bank at the moment," said
Kerstie thoughtfully. "I could go a bit higher than that."

"I need three times as much."

"You must have _some_ other things left."

"All I possess in the world is downstairs in your hall."

"Let's go through it, Virginia. You always had so many things. I'm sure
we can find something. There's that cigarette case you're using now."

"It's badly knocked about."

"But it was good once."

"Mr. Troy, Cannes, 1936."

"I'm sure we can find enough to make up 250."

"Oh Kerstie, you are a comfort to a girl."

So the two of them, who had "come out" the same year and led such
different lives, the one so prodigal, the other so circumspect and
sparing, spread out Virginia's possessions over the grubby sofa and
spent all that evening like Gypsy hucksters examining and pricing those
few surviving trophies of a decade of desirable womanhood, and in the
end went off to bed comforted, each in her way, and contented with their
traffic.




CHAPTER IV


Guy felt that he had been given a birthday present; the first for how
many years? The card that had come popping out of the Electronic
Personnel Selector bearing his name, like a "fortune" from a seaside
slot-machine, like a fortune indeed in a more real sense--the luck of
the draw in a lottery or sweepstake--brought an unfamiliar stir of
exhilaration, such as he had felt in his first days in the Halberdiers,
in his first minutes on enemy soil at Dakar; a sense of liberation such
as he had felt when he had handed over Apthorpe's legacy to Chatty
Corner and when he broke his long silence in the hospital in Alexandria.
These had been the memorable occasions of his army life; all had been
during the first two years of war; of late he had ceased to look for a
renewal. Now there was hope. There was still a place for him somewhere
outside the futile routine of H.O.O. HQ.

He came off duty at six and, at the Transit Camp, on an impulse, did
what he had seldom done lately, changed into blue patrols. He then took
the tube railway, where the refugees were already making up their beds,
to Green Park Station and walked under the arcade of the Ritz towards
St. James's Street and Bellamy's. American soldiers leant against the
walls every few paces hugging their drabs and an American soldier of
another kind greeted him in the front hall of the club.

"Good evening, Loot."

"Are you going to Everard Spruce's party?"

"Haven't been asked. Don't know him really. I thought you were expected
at the Glenobans?"

"I shall visit them later. First I am taking dinner with Ralph Brompton.
But I thought I would look in on Everard on the way."

He returned to his task of letter writing at the table opposite Job's
box, which Guy had never before seen used.

In the back hall Guy found Arthur Box-Bender.

"Just slipped away from the House for a breather. Everything is going
merrily on the eastern front."

"Merrily?"

"Wait for the nine o'clock news. You'll hear something then. Uncle Joe's
fairly got them on the run. I shouldn't much care to be one of _his_
prisoners."

By a natural connexion of thought Guy asked: "Have you heard from Tony?"

Gloom descended on Box-Bender. "Yes, as a matter of fact, last week.
He's still got that tomfool idea in his head about being a monk. He'll
snap out of it, I'm sure, as soon as he gets back to normal life, but
it's worrying. Angela doesn't seem to mind awfully. She's worried about
your father."

"So am I."

"She's at Matchet now. As you know, he's stopped working at that school,
which is something gained. He never ought to have taken it on at his
age. He's got this clot you know. It might become serious any moment."

"I know. I saw him last month. He seemed all right then but he wrote to
me afterwards."

"There's nothing one can do about it," said Box-Bender. "Angela thought
she should be handy in case anything happened."

Guy went on to the bar where he found Ian Kilbannock talking to an
elderly Grenadier.

"...You know how sharp the royal eye is for any detail of equipment,"
he was saying. "The monarch sent for one of those daggers. That's what
set the royal mind brooding about cutlery."

"It's been a great success."

"Yes, I claim a little indirect credit for it myself. 'Evening Guy. Who
do you think has just turned me out of my house?--Virginia."

"How was she?"

"On the rocks. I only saw her for a second but she was palpably on the
rocks. I'd heard some loose talk about her affairs before."

"I'll give you a drink," said Guy. "It's my birthday. Two glasses of
wine, Parsons."

Guy did not speak about the Electronic Selector but the thought of it
warmed him as they talked of other things. When their glasses were empty
the Grenadier said: "Did someone say it was his birthday? Three glasses
of wine, Parsons."

When it would have been Ian's turn to order, he said: "They've put up
the prices. Ten bob a glass for this champagne now and it's not good.
Why don't you come to Everard Spruce's and drink free?"

"Will he have champagne?"

"Sure to. He enjoys heavy official backing and tonight he's got two
distinguished foreigners to impress. It's pleasant to get into a
completely civilian circle once in a while. D'you read his paper?"

"No."

"Nor do I. But it's very highly thought of. Winston reads it."

"I don't believe you."

"Well, perhaps not personally. But a copy goes to the Cabinet Offices, I
happen to know."

"I hardly know Spruce. The Loot's going."

"Then anyone can. He'll be able to get a cab. They always stop for
Americans."

Lieutenant Padfield was still at work on his correspondence; he wrote
rather laboriously; the pen did not come readily to him; in youth he had
typed; in earliest manhood dictated. Ian sent him up to Piccadilly and,
sure enough, he returned in a quarter of an hour with a taxi.

"Glad to have you come with me," he said. "I thought you were not
acquainted with Spruce."

"I changed my mind."

"_Survival_ is a very significant organ of opinion."

"Signifying what, Loot?"

"The survival of values."

"You think I need special coaching in that subject?"

"Pardon me."

"You think I should read this paper?"

"You will find it very significant."

It was nearly eight o'clock when they reached Cheyne Walk. Some of the
party, including the neutral guests, had already sickened of Frankie's
cocktail and taken their leave.

"The party's really over," said one of the secretaries, not Frankie; she
wore espadrilles and the hair through which she spoke was black. "I
think Everard wants to go out."

Lieutenant Padfield was engaged in over-paying the taxi; he still, after
his long sojourn, found English currency confusing and the driver sought
to confuse him further. On hearing these mumbled words he said: "My, is
it that late? I ought to be in Ebury Street. If you don't mind I'll take
the taxi on."

Guy and Ian did not mind. The Lieutenant had fulfilled his manifest
destiny in bringing them here.

Strengthened in her resolution by this defection the secretary, Coney by
name, said: "I don't believe there's anything left to drink!"

"I was promised champagne," said Guy.

"Champagne," said Coney, taken aback, not knowing who he was, not
knowing either of these uniformed figures looming out of the lightless
mist, but knowing that Spruce had, in fact, a few bottles of that wine
laid down. "I don't know anything about champagne."

"Well, we'll come up and see," said Ian.

Coney led them upstairs.

Though depleted the company was still numerous enough to provide a solid
screen between the entrance and the far corner in which Ludovic was
seated. For two minutes now he had been in enjoyment of what he had come
for, the attention of his host.

"The arrangement is haphazard or planned?" Spruce was asking.

"Planned."

"The plan is not immediately apparent. There are the more or less
generalised aphorisms, there are the particular observations--which I
thought, if I may say so, extremely acute and funny. I wondered: are
they in any cases libelous? And besides these there seemed to me two
poetic themes which occur again and again. There is the Drowned Sailor
motif--an echo of the _Waste Land_ perhaps? Had you Eliot consciously in
mind?"

"Not Eliot," said Ludovic. "I don't think he was called Eliot."

"Very interesting. And then there was the Cave image. You must have read
a lot of Freudian psychology?"

"Not a lot. There was nothing psychological about the cave."

"Very interesting--a spontaneous liberation of the unconscious."

At this moment Coney infiltrated the throng and stood beside them.

"Everard, there are two men in uniform asking for champagne."

"Good heavens, not the police?"

"One might be. He's wearing a queer sort of blue uniform. The other's an
airman. I've never seen them before. They had an American with them but
he ran away."

"How very odd. You hadn't given them champagne?"

"Oh no, Everard."

"I'd better go and see who they are."

At the door Ian had collided with the Smart Woman and kissed her warmly
on each dusty cheek.

"Drinks have run out here," she said, "and I am due at my Warden's Post.
Why don't you two come there? It's only round the corner and there's
always a bottle."

Spruce greeted them.

"I'm afraid we're a little late. I brought Guy. You remember him?"

"Yes, yes, I suppose so. Somewhere," said Spruce. "Everything is over
here. I was just having a few words with a very interesting New Writer.
We always particularly welcome contributions from service men. It's part
of our policy."

The central knot of guests opened and revealed Ludovic, his appetite for
appreciation wetted but far from satisfied, gazing resentfully towards
Spruce's back.

"Ludovic," said Guy.

"That is the man I was speaking of. You know him?"

"He saved my life," said Guy.

"How very odd."

"I've never had a chance to thank him."

"Well, do so now. But don't take him away. I was in the middle of a
fascinating conversation."

"I think I'll go off with Per."

"Yes, do."

The gap had closed again. Guy pressed through and held out his hand to
Ludovic who raised his oyster eyes with an expression of unmitigated
horror. He took the hand limply and looked away.

"Ludovic, surely you remember me?"

"It is most unexpected."

"Hookforce. Crete."

"Oh yes, I remember."

"I've always been hoping to run into you again. There's so much to say.
They told me you saved my life." Ludovic mutely raised his hand to the
ribbon of the M.M. It was as though he were beating his breast in
penitence. "You don't seem very pleased to see me."

"It's the shock," said Ludovic, resuming his barrack-room speech, "not
looking to find you here, not at Mr. Spruce's. You of all people, here
of all places."

Guy took the chair where Spruce had sat.

"My memory's awfully vague of those last days in Crete and in the boat."

"Best forgotten," said Ludovic. "Things happen that's best forgotten."

"Oh, come. Aren't you rather overdoing the modest hero? Besides I'm
curious. What happened to Major Hound?"

"I understand he was reported missing."

"Not a prisoner?"

"Forgive me, Mr.--Captain Crouchback. I am not in Records."

"And the sapper who got the boat going. I was awfully ill--so was
he--delirious."

"You were delirious too."

"Yes. Did you rescue the sapper too?"

"I understand he was reported lost at sea."

"Look," said Guy, "are you doing anything for dinner?"

It was as though Banquo had turned host.

"No," said Ludovic. "No"--and without an apology or a word of farewell
to Guy or Spruce or Frankie, he made precipitately for the stairs, the
front door and the sheltering blackout.

"What on earth happened to him?" asked Spruce. "He can't have been
drunk. What did you say to him?"

"Nothing. I asked about old times."

"You knew him well?"

"Not exactly. We always thought him odd."

"He has talent," said Spruce. "Perhaps a hint of genius. It's most
annoying his disappearing like that. Well, the party's over. Will you
girls shoo the guests away and then clear up? I have to go."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Guy spent the remaining hours of his fortieth birthday at Bellamy's
playing "slosh." When he returned to his room at the Transit Camp his
thoughts were less on the past than on the future.

Unheard in Bellamy's the sirens sounded an alert at eleven o'clock and
an All Clear before midnight.

Unheard too in Westminster Abbey, where the Sword of Stalingrad stood
unattended. The doors were locked, the lights all extinguished. Next day
the queue would form again in the street and the act of homage would be
renewed.

Ludovic was not successful in the _Time & Tide_ literary competition.
His sonnet was not even commended. He studied the winning entry:

    _...Here lies the sword. Ah, but the work is rare,_
    _Precious the symbol. Who has understood_
    _How close the evil or how dread the good_
    _Who scorns the vestures that the angels wear?_

He could make no sense of it. Was the second "who" a relative pronoun
with "good" as its antecedent? He compared his own lucid sonnet:

    _Stele of my past on which engravd are_
    _The pleadings of that long divorce of steel,_
    _In which was stolen that directive star,_
    _By which I sailed, expunged be. No spar,_
    _No mast, no halyard, bowsprit, boom or keel_
    _Survives my wreck..._

Perhaps, he reflected, the lines were not strictly appropriate to the
occasion. He had failed to reflect the popular mood. It was too personal
for _Time & Tide_. He would send it to _Survival_.




BOOK TWO
_FIN DE LIGNE_


CHAPTER I


Virginia Troy had not been in his house ten days before Ian Kilbannock
began to ask: "When is she going?"

"I don't mind having her," said Kerstie. "She's not costing too much."

"But she isn't contributing anything."

"I couldn't ask Virginia to do that. She was awfully decent to us when
she was rich."

"That's a long time ago. I've had Trimmer shipped to America. I just
don't understand why she has to stay here. The other girls used to pay
their share."

"I might suggest it to her."

"As soon as you can."

But when Virginia returned that evening she brought news which put other
thoughts out of Kerstie's head.

"I've just been to my lawyers," she said. "They've got the copy of all
Mr. Troy's divorce evidence. Who do you think collected it?"

"Who?"

"Three guesses."

"I can't think of anyone."

"That disgusting Loot."

"It's not possible."

"Apparently he's a member of the firm who works for Mr. Troy. He still
does odd jobs for them in his spare time."

"After we've all been so kind to him! Are you going to give him away?"

"I don't know."

"People ought to be warned."

"It's all our own fault for taking him up. He always gave me the
creeps."

"A thing like this," said Kerstie, "destroys one's faith in human
nature."

"Oh, the Loot isn't human."

"No, I suppose not really."

"He made a change from Trimmer."

"Would you say Trimmer was human?"

They fell back on this problem, which in one form or another had been
fully debated between them for three years.

"D'you miss him at all?"

"Pure joy and relief. Every morning for the last four days I've woken up
to the thought 'Trimmer's gone.'"

At length after an hour's discussion Kerstie said: "I suppose you'll be
looking for somewhere else to live now."

"Not unless you want to get rid of me."

"Of course it isn't that, darling, only Ian..."

But Virginia was not listening. Instead she interrupted with: "Have you
got a family doctor?"

"We always go to an old boy in Sloane Street called Puttock. He's very
good with the children."

"I've never had a doctor," said Virginia, "not one I could call _my_
doctor. It comes of moving about so much and being so healthy. I've
sometimes been to a little man in Newport to get him to sign for
sleeping pills and there was a rather beastly Englishman in Venice who
patched me up that time I fell downstairs at the Palazzo Corombona. But
mostly I've relied on chemists. There is a magician in Monte Carlo. You
just go to him and say you have a pain and he gives you a _cachet_ which
stops it at once. I think perhaps I'll go and see your man in Sloane
Street."

"Not ill?"

"No. I just feel I ought to have what Mr. Troy calls a 'check-up.'"

"There's a most luxurious sick-bay in H.O.O. HQ. Every sort of apparatus
and nothing to pay. General Whale goes there for 'sun-rays' every
afternoon. The top man is called Sir Somebody Something--a great swell
in peacetime."

"I think I'd prefer your man. Not expensive?"

"A guinea a visit I think."

"I might afford that."

"Virginia, talking of money: you remember Brenda and Zita used to pay
rent when they lived here?"

"Yes, indeed. It's awfully sweet of you to take me in free."

"I adore having you. It's only Ian; he was saying tonight he wondered if
you wouldn't feel more comfortable if you paid something..."

"I couldn't be more comfortable as I am, darling, and anyway I couldn't
possibly afford to. Talk him round, Kerstie. Explain to him that I'm
broke."

"Oh, he knows that."

"_Really_ broke. That's what no one understands. I'd talk to Ian myself
only I think you'd do it better."

"I'll _try_..."




CHAPTER II


The processes of army postings were not yet adapted to the speed of the
Electronic Personnel Selector. It was a week before Guy received any
notification that his services might be needed by anyone for any
purpose. Then a letter appeared in his In tray addressed to him by name.
It contained a summons to present himself for an interview with an
officer who described himself as "G.I. Liberation Italy." He was not
surprised to learn that this man inhabited the same building as himself,
and when he presented himself he met a nondescript lieutenant-colonel
whom he had seen off and on in the corridors of the building; with whom
indeed he had on occasions exchanged words at the bar of the canteen.

The Liberator gave no sign of recognition. Instead he said: "_Entrate e
s'accomode._"

The noises thus issuing from him were so strange that Guy stood
momentarily disconcerted, not knowing in what tongue he was being
addressed.

"Come in and sit down," said the colonel in English. "I thought you were
supposed to speak Italian."

"I do."

"Looks as though you needed a refresher. Say something in Italian."

Guy said rapidly and with slightly exaggerated accent: "_Sono pi
abituato al dialetto genovese, ma di solito posso capire e farmi capire
dapertutto in Italia fuori Sicilia._"

The colonel caught only the last word and asked desperately and
fatuously: "_Siciliano lei?_"

"_Ah, no, no, no._" Guy gave a lively impersonation of an Italian
gesture of dissent. "_Ho visitato Sicilia, poi ho abitato per un bel
pezzo sulla costa ligure. Ho viaggiato in quasi ogni parte d'Italia._"

The colonel resumed his native tongue. "That sounds all right. You
wouldn't be much use to us if you only talked Sicilian. You'll be
working the north, in Venetia probably."

"_L per me tutto andr liscio_," said Guy.

"Yes," said the colonel, "yes. I see. Well, let's talk English. The work
we have in mind is, of course, secret. As you probably know, the advance
in Italy is bogged down at the moment. We can't expect much movement
there till the spring. The Germans have taken over in force. Some of the
wops seem to be on our side. Call themselves _partisani_, pretty
left-wing by the sound of them. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Ask
Sir Ralph Brompton. We shall be putting in various small parties to keep
G. HQ. informed about what they're up to, and if possible arrange for
drops of equipment in suitable areas. An Intelligence officer and a
signalman are the essentials of each group. You've done Commando
training, I see. Did that include parachuting?"

"No, sir."

"Well, you'd better take a course. No objection I suppose?"

"None whatever."

"You're a bit old, but you'll be surprised at the ages of some of our
chaps. You may not have to jump. We have various methods of getting our
men in. Any experience of small boats?"

Guy thought of the little sailing-craft he had once kept at Santa
Dulcina; of his gay excursion to Dakar and the phantasmagoric crossing
from Crete, and answered truthfully, "Yes, sir."

"Good. That may come in useful. You will be hearing from us in due
course. Meanwhile the whole thing is on the secret list. You belong at
Bellamy's don't you? A lot of loose talk gets reported from there. Keep
quiet."

"Very good, sir."

"_Arrivederci_, eh?"

Guy saluted and left the office.

When he returned to the Transit Camp he found a telegram from his
sister, Angela, announcing that his father had died suddenly and
peacefully at Matchet.




CHAPTER III


All the railway stations of the kingdom displayed the challenge: _Is
your journey really necessary?_

Guy and his brother-in-law caught the early, crowded train from
Paddington on the morning of the funeral.

Guy had a black arm band attached to his tunic. Box-Bender wore a black
tie with a subfusc suit of clothes and a bowler.

"As you see, I'm not wearing a top hat," said Box-Bender. "Seems out of
place these days. I don't suppose there'll be many people there.
Peregrine went down the day before yesterday. He'll have fixed
everything up. Have you brought sandwiches?"

"No."

"I don't know where we'll get lunch. Can't expect the convent to do
anything about us. I hope Peregrine and Angela have arranged something
at the pub."

It was barely light when they steamed out of the shuttered and patched
station. The corridor was full of standing sailors travelling to
Plymouth. The little bulbs over the seats had been disconnected. It was
difficult to read the flimsy newspapers they carried.

"I always had a great respect for your father," said Box-Bender. Then he
fell asleep. Guy remained open-eyed throughout the three-hour journey to
the junction at Taunton.

Uncle Peregrine had arranged for a special tram-like coach to be
attached to the local train. Here were assembled Miss Vavasour, the
priest from Matchet and the headmaster of the school of Our Lady of
Victories. There were many others wearing mourning of various degrees of
depth, whom Guy knew he should recognise, but could not. They greeted
him with murmured words of condolence and, seeing it was necessary,
reminded him of their names--Tresham, Bigod, Englefield, Arundell,
Hornyold, Plessington, Jerningham and Dacre--a master of recusant
names--all nearly or remotely cousins of his. Their journey was really
necessary.

Out of his hearing Miss Vavasour said of Guy, sighing: "_Fin de ligne_."

Noon was the hour appointed for the beginning of the Requiem Mass. The
local train was due at Broome at half past eleven and arrived almost on
time.

                 *        *        *        *        *

There is no scarcity of places of worship in this small village. In
penal times Mass had been said regularly in the house and a succession
of chaplains employed there in the guise of tutors. This little chapel
is preserved as a place of occasional pilgrimage in honour of the
Blessed Gervase Crouchback.

The Catholic parish church is visible from the little station yard; a
Puginesque structure erected by Guy's great-grandfather in the early
1860's at the nearer extremity of the village street. At the further end
stands the mediaeval church of which the nave and chancel are in
Anglican use while the north aisle and adjoining burying ground are the
property of the lord of the manor. It was in this plot that Mr.
Crouchback's grave had been dug and in this aisle that his memorial
would later stand among the clustered effigies and brasses of his
forebears.

After the Act of Emancipation a wall had been built to divide the aisle
from the rest of the church and for a generation it had served the
Catholic parish. But the monuments left little room for worshippers. It
was for this reason that Guy's great-grandfather had built the church
(which in the old style the Crouchbacks spoke of as "the chapel") and
the presbytery and had endowed the parish with what was then an adequate
stipend. Most of the village of Broome is Catholic, an isolated
community of the kind that is found in many parts of Lancashire and the
outer islands of Scotland, but is very rare in the west of England. The
Anglican benefice has long been united with two of its neighbours. It is
served by a clergyman who rides over on his bicycle once a month and
reads the service if he finds a quorum assembled. The former vicarage
has been partitioned and let off as cottages.

Broome Hall stands behind iron gates, its drive a continuation of the
village street. Mr. Crouchback used often, and not quite accurately, to
assert that every "good house," by which he meant one of mediaeval
foundation, stood on a road, a river or a rock. Broome Hall had been on
a main road to Exeter until the eighteenth century, when a neighbour who
sat for the county in the House of Commons obtained authority to divert
it through his own property and establish a profitable toll pike. The
old right of way still runs under the walls of the Hall but it carries
little traffic. It is a lane which almost invisibly branches off the
motor road, swells into the village street, runs for half a mile as a
gravelled carriage-drive, and then narrows once more amid embowering
hedgerows which, despite a rough annual cutting, encroach more and more
on the little-frequented track.

When the convent came to Broome they brought their own chaplain and
converted one of the long, panelled galleries into their chapel. Neither
they nor their girls appeared in the parish church except on special
occasions. Mr. Crouchback's funeral was such a one. They had met the
body when it arrived from Matchet on the previous evening, had dressed
the catafalque and that morning had sung the dirge. Their chaplain would
assist at the Requiem.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Angela Box-Bender was on the platform to meet the train. She had an air
of gravity and sorrow.

"I say, Angie," her husband asked, "how long is this business going to
take?"

"Not more than an hour. Father Geoghegan wanted to preach a panegyric
but Uncle Peregrine stopped him."

"Any chance of anything to eat? I left the flat at six this morning."

"You're expected at the presbytery. I think you'll find something
there."

"They don't expect me to take any part, do they? I mean carry anything?
I don't know the drill."

"No," said Angela. "This is one of the times when no one expects
anything of you."

The little parlour of the presbytery was much crowded. Besides their
host, Uncle Peregrine and the chaplain from the convent, there were four
other priests, one with the crimson of a monsignor.

"His Lordship the Bishop was unable to come. He sent me to represent him
and convey his condolences."

There was also a layman whom Guy recognised as his father's solicitor
from Taunton.

Father Geoghegan was fasting but he dispensed hospitality in the form of
whisky and cake. Uncle Peregrine edged Guy into a corner. His fatuous
old face expressed a kind of bland decorum.

"The hatchment," he said. "There was some difficulty about the
hatchment. One can't get anything done nowadays. No heraldic painters
available anywhere. There are quite a collection of old hatchments in
the sacristy, none in very good condition. There was your grandfather's,
but of course that was impaling Wrothman so it would hardly have done.
Then I had a bit of luck and turned up what must have been made for Ivo.
Rather rough work, local I should think. I was abroad at the time of his
death, poor boy. Anyway it is the simple blazon without quarterings. It
is the best we can do in the circumstances. You don't think I did wrong
to put it up?"

"No, Uncle Peregrine, I am sure you did quite right."

"I think I'd better be going across. People are beginning to arrive.
Someone will have to show them where to sit."

The priest from Matchet said: "I don't think your father has got long
for purgatory."

The solicitor said: "We ought to have a word together afterwards."

"No reading of the will?"

"No, that only happens in Victorian novels. But there are things we
shall have to discuss sometime and it's difficult to meet these days."

Arthur Box-Bender was seeking to make himself agreeable to the domestic
prelate. "...Not a member of your persuasion myself but I'm bound to
say your Cardinal Hinsley did a wonderful job of work on the wireless.
You could see he was an Englishman first and a Christian second; that is
more than you can say of one or two of _our_ bishops."

Angela said: "I've been dealing with letters as best I can. I've had
hundreds."

"So have I."

"Extraordinary the number of people one's never heard of who were close
friends of Papa. I slept at the convent last night and shall go home
tonight. The nuns are being awfully decent. Reverend Mother wants anyone
to come back and have coffee afterwards. There's so many people we'll
have to talk to. I had no idea so many people would get here."

They were arriving on foot, by motor car and in pony traps. From the
presbytery window Guy and Angela watched them. Angela said: "I'm taking
Felix home with me. They're keeping him at the inn at the moment." Then
the clergy withdrew to vest and Uncle Peregrine came to fetch the chief
mourners.

"Prie-dieus," he said, "on the right in front."

They crossed the narrow strip of garden and entered under the
diamond-shaped panel cut by the house carpenter for poor mad Ivo. The
sable and argent cross of Crouchback had not greatly taxed his powers of
draughtsmanship. It was no ornament designed by the heralds to embellish
a carriage door but something rare in English armoury--a device that had
been carried into battle. They walked up the aisle with their eyes on
the catafalque and the tall unbleached candles which burned beside it.
The smell of bees-wax and chrysanthemums, later to be permeated by
incense, was heavy on the brumous air.

The church had been planned on a large scale when the Crouchback family
were at the height of prosperity and the conversion of England seemed
something more than a remote, pious aspiration. Gervase and Hermione had
built it; they who acquired the property at Santa Dulcina. It was as
crowded for Mr. Crouchback's funeral as for midnight Mass at Christmas.
When the estate was bit by bit dispersed in the lean agricultural years,
the farms had been sold on easy terms to the tenants. Some had changed
hands since, but there were three pews full of farmers in black
broadcloth. The village were there in force; many neighbours; the
Lord-Lieutenant of the county was in the front pew on the left next to a
representative of the Knights of Malta. Lieutenant Padfield sat with the
Anglican vicar, the family solicitor and the headmaster of Our Lady of
Victories. The nuns' choir was in the organ loft. The priests, other
than the three who officiated, lined the walls of the chancel. Uncle
Peregrine had seen that everyone was in his proper place.

Box-Bender kept his eyes on Angela and Guy, anxious to avoid any
liturgical solecism. He genuflected with them, sat, then, like them,
knelt, sat again, and stood as the three priests vested in black emerged
from the sacristy, knelt again but missed signing himself with the
cross. He was no bigot. He had been to Mass before. He wanted to do
whatever was required of him. Across the aisle the Lord-Lieutenant was
equally undrilled, equally well disposed.

Silence at first; the Confiteor was inaudible even in the front pew.
Just in time Box-Bender saw his relations cross themselves at the
Absolution. He hadn't been caught that time. Then the nuns sang the
_Kyrie_.

Guy followed the familiar rite with his thoughts full of his father.

"_In memoria aeterna erit justus: ab auditione mala non timebit._" The
first phase was apt. His father had been a "just man"; not particularly
judicious, not at all judicial, but "just" in the full sense of the
psalmist--or at any rate in the sense attributed to him by later
commentators. Not for the first time in his life Guy wondered what was
the _auditio mala_ that was not to be feared. His missal gave the
meaningless rendering "evil hearing." Did it mean simply that the ears
of the dead were closed to the discords of life? Did it mean they were
immune to malicious gossip? Few people, Guy thought, had ever spoken ill
of his father. Perhaps it meant "bad news." His father had suffered as
much as most men--more perhaps--from bad news of one kind and another;
never fearfully.

"Not long for purgatory," his confessor had said of Mr. Crouchback. As
the nuns sang the _Dies Irae_ with all its ancient deprecations of
divine wrath, Guy knew that his father was joining his voice with
theirs:

    _Ingemisco, tamquam reus:_
    _Culpa rubet vultus meus_
    _Supplicanti parce, Deus..._

That would be his prayer, who saw, and had always seen, quite clearly
the difference in kind between the goodness of the most innocent of
humans and the blinding, ineffable goodness of God. "Quantitative
judgments don't apply," his father had written. As a reasoning man, Mr.
Crouchback had known that he was honourable, charitable and faithful; a
man who by all the formularies of his faith should be confident of
salvation; as a man of prayer he saw himself as totally unworthy of
divine notice. To Guy his father was the best man, the only entirely
good man, he had ever known.

Of all the people in the crowded church, Guy wondered, how many had come
as an act of courtesy, how many were there to pray that a perpetual
light should shine upon Mr. Crouchback? Well, he reflected, "the Grace
of God is in courtesy"; in Arthur Box-Bender glancing sidelong to be
sure he did the right thing, just as in the prelate who was holding his
candle in the chancel, representing the bishop; in Lieutenant Padfield,
too, exercising heaven knows what prodigy of ubiquity. "Quantitative
judgments don't apply."

The temptation for Guy, which he resisted as best he could, was to brood
on his own bereavement and deplore the countless occasions of his life
when he had failed his father. That was not what he was here for. There
would be ample time in the years to come for these selfish
considerations. Now, _praesente cadavere_, he was merely one of the
guard who were escorting his father to judgment and to heaven.

The altar was censed. The celebrant sang: "..._Tuis enim fidelibus,
Domine, vita mutatur, non tollitur_..." Changed not ended, reflected
Guy. It was a huge transition for the old man who had walked with Felix
along the cliffs at Matchet--a huge transition, even, for the man who
had knelt so rapt in prayer after his daily Communion--to the
"everlasting mansion prepared for him in heaven."

The celebrant turned the page of his missal from the Preface to the
Canon. In the hush that followed the sacring bell Guy thanked God for
his father and then his thoughts strayed to his own death, that had been
so near in the crossing from Crete, that might now be near in the
mission proposed for him by the nondescript colonel.

"I'm worried about you," his father had written in the letter which,
though it was not his last--for he and Guy had exchanged news since;
_auditiones malae_ of his father's deteriorating health and his own
prolonged frustration--Guy regarded as being in a special sense the
conclusion of their regular, rather reserved correspondence of more than
thirty years. His father had been worried, not by anything connected
with his worldly progress, but by his evident apathy; he was worrying
now perhaps in that mysterious transit camp through which he must pass
on his way to rest and light.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Guy's prayers were directed to, rather than for, his father. For many
years now the direction in the _Garden of the Soul_, "Put yourself in
the presence of God," had for Guy come to mean a mere act of respect,
like the signing of the Visitors' Book at an Embassy or Government
House. He reported for duty, saying to God: "I don't ask anything from
you. I am here if you want me. I don't suppose I can be any use, but if
there is anything I can do, let me know," and left it at that.

"I don't ask anything from you"; that was the deadly core of his apathy;
his father had tried to tell him, was now telling him. That emptiness
had been with him for years now, even in his days of enthusiasm and
activity in the Halberdiers. Enthusiasm and activity were not enough.
God required more than that. He had commanded all men to _ask_.

In the recesses of Guy's conscience there lay the belief that somewhere,
somehow, something would be required of him; that he must be attentive
to the summons when it came. They also served who only stood and waited.
He saw himself as one of the labourers in the parable who sat in the
marketplace waiting to be hired and were not called into the vineyard
until late in the day. They had their reward on an equality with the men
who had toiled since dawn. One day he would get the chance to do some
small service which only he could perform, for which he had been
created. Even he must have his function in the divine plan. He did not
expect a heroic destiny. Quantitative judgments did not apply. All that
mattered was to recognise the chance when it offered. Perhaps his father
was at that moment clearing the way for him. "Show me what to do and
help me to do it," he prayed.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Arthur Box-Bender had been to Mass before. After the last Gospel, when
the priest left the altar, he looked at his watch and picked up his
bowler hat. Then when the priest appeared differently dressed and came
within a few feet of him, he surreptitiously tucked his hat away again.
The Absolution was sung, then priest and deacon walked round the
catafalque, first sprinkling it with holy water, then censing it. The
black cope brushed against Box-Bender's almost black suit. A drop of
water landed on his left cheek. He did not like to wipe it off.

The pall was removed, the coffin borne down the aisle. Angela, Uncle
Peregrine and Guy fell in behind it and led the mourners out. Box-Bender
modestly took a place behind the Lord-Lieutenant. The nuns sang the
antiphon and then filed away from their gallery to their convent. The
procession moved down the village street from the new church to the old,
in silence broken only by the tread of the horse, the creaking of
harness and the turning of the wheels of the farm cart which bore the
coffin; the bailiff walked at the old mare's head, leading her.

It was a still day; the trees were dropping their leaves in ones and
twos; they twisted and faltered in the descent as their crumpled brown
shapes directed, but landed under the boughs on which they had once
budded. Guy thought for a moment of Ludovic's note-book, of the "feather
in the vacuum" to which he had been compared, and, by contrast,
remembered boisterous November days when he and his mother had tried to
catch leaves in the avenue; each one caught insured a happy day--week?
Month? Which?--in his wholly happy childhood. Only his father had
remained to watch the transformation of that merry little boy into the
lonely captain of Halberdiers who followed the coffin.

On the cobbled pavements the villagers whose work had kept them from
church, turned out to see the cart roll past. Many who had come to the
church broke away and went about their business. There was not room for
many to stand in the little burying ground.

The nuns had lined the edges of the grave with moss and evergreen leaves
and chrysanthemums, giving it a faint suggestion of Christmas
decoration. The undertaker's men deftly lowered the coffin; holy water,
incense, the few prayers, the silent Paternoster, the Benedictus; holy
water again; the De Profundis. Guy, Angela and Uncle Peregrine came
forward, took the sprinkler in turn and added their aspersions. Then it
was ended.

The group at the graveside turned away and, as they left, the churchyard
broke into subdued conversation. Angela greeted those she had not met
that morning. Uncle Peregrine made his choice of those who should come
to the house for coffee. Guy encountered Lieutenant Padfield in the
street.

"Nice of you to have come," he said.

"It is a very significant occasion," said the Lieutenant. Signifying
what? Guy wondered. The Lieutenant added: "I'm coming back to the Hall.
Reverend Mother asked me."

When? How? Why? Guy wondered, but he said nothing except: "You know the
way?"

"Surely."

The Lord-Lieutenant had hung back, remaining in the public, Anglican
graveyard, Box-Bender with him. Now he said: "I won't bother your wife
or your nephew. Just give them my sympathy, will you?" and, as
Box-Bender saw him to his car, added: "I had a great respect for your
father-in-law. Didn't see much of him in the last ten years, of course.
No one did. But he was greatly respected in the county."

The funeral party walked back along the village street. Opposite the
Catholic church and presbytery, the last building before the gates, was
the "Lesser House," a stucco faade and porch masking the much older
structure. This was not in the convent's lease. It had fulfilled various
functions in the past, often being used as a dower house. The bailiff
lived there now. The blinds were in the windows, drawn down for the
passing of the coffin. It was a quiet house; the street in front was
virtually a cul-de-sac, and at the back it was open to the park. It was
here his father had suggested that Guy should end his days.

The convent school was prosperous and the grounds well-kept even in that
year when everywhere in the country box and yew were growing untrimmed
and lawns were ploughed and planted with food-stuffs.

A gate tower guards the forecourt at Broome. Behind it lie two
quadrangles, mediaeval in plan, Caroline in decoration, like a
university college; as in most colleges there is a massive Gothic wing.
Gervase and Hermione had added this, employing the same architect as had
designed their church. At the main door stood the Reverend Mother and a
circle of nuns. In the upper windows and in the turret where the Blessed
Gervase Crouchback had been taken prisoner appeared the heads of girls,
some angelic, some grotesque, like the corbels in the old church, all
illicitly peeping down on the mourners.

The Great Hall had been given a plaster ceiling in the eighteenth
century. Gervase and Hermione had removed it, revealing the high
timbers. In Guy's childhood the walls above the oak wainscot had been
hung with weapons collected in many quarters and symmetrically arranged
in great steely radiations of blades and barrels. These had been sold
with the rest of the furniture. In their place hung a few large and
shabby religious pictures of the kind which are bequeathed to convents,
smooth German paintings of the nineteenth century portraying scenes of
gentle piety alternating with lugubrious and extravagant martyrdoms
derived at some distance from the southern baroque. Above the dais,
where the panelling ran the full height of the room, a cinema screen
held the place where family portraits had hung, and in a corner were
piles of tubular metal chairs and the posts of a badminton set. This
hall was the school's place of recreation. Here the girls danced
together in the winter evenings to the music of a gramophone and tender
possessive friendships were contracted and repudiated; here in the
summer was held the annual concert, and a costume play, chosen for its
innocence of subject and for the multiplicity of its cast, was tediously
enacted.

The nuns had spread a trestle table with as lavish a repast as the
stringency of the times allowed. What was lacking in nourishment was
compensated for by ingenuity of arrangement. Cakes compounded of dried
egg and adulterated flour had been ornamented with nuts and preserved
fruit that were part of the monthly bounty of their sister-house in
America; the "unsolicited gift" parcels which enriched so many bare
tables at that time. Slices of Spam had been cut into trefoils. The
school prefects in their blue uniform dresses carried jugs of coffee
already sweetened with saccharine. Box-Bender wondered if he might smoke
and decided not.

With Uncle Peregrine beside him to identify them, Guy made a round of
the guests. Most asked what he was doing and he answered: "pending
posting." Many reminded him of occurrences in his childhood he had long
forgotten. Some expressed surprise that he was no longer in Kenya. One
asked after his wife, then realized she had made a gaffe and entangled
herself further by saying: "How idiotic of me. I was thinking for the
moment you were Angela's husband."

"She's over there. He's over there."

"Yes, of course, how utterly foolish of me. Of course I remember now.
You're Ivo, aren't you?"

"A very natural confusion," said Guy.

Presently he found himself with the solicitor.

"Perhaps we could have a few words in private?"

"Let us go outside."

They stood together in the forecourt. The heads had disappeared from the
windows now; the girls had been rounded up and corralled in their
class-rooms.

"It always takes a little time to prove a will and settle up but I think
your father left his affairs in good order. He chose to live very
quietly but he was by no means badly off, you know. When he inherited,
the estate was very large. He sold up at a bad time but he invested
wisely and he never touched capital. He gave away most of the income.
That is what I wanted to talk to you about. He had made a large number
of covenants, some to institutions, some to individuals. These of course
terminate with his death. The invested money is left half to you and
half to your sister for your lives and afterwards to her children and,
of course, to your children if you have any. Death duties will have to
be paid, but there will be a considerable residue. The total income
which you will share has been in the last few years in the neighbourhood
of seven thousand."

"I had no idea it was so large."

"No, he didn't spend seven hundred on himself. Now there is the question
of the payments by covenant. Will you and your sister wish to continue
them? There might be cases of real hardship if they were stopped. He was
paying allowances to a number of individuals who, I believe, are
entirely dependent on him."

"I don't know about the institutions," said Guy. "I am sure my sister
will agree with me in continuing the payments to individuals."

"Just so. I shall have to see her about it."

"How much is involved?"

"To individuals not more than two thousand; and, of course, many of the
recipients are very old and unlikely to be a charge for many years more.

"There's another small point. He had some furniture at Matchet; nothing,
I think, of any value. I don't know what you'll want to do with that.
Some is at the hotel, some in store at the school. I should suggest
selling it locally. There's quite a shortage of everything like that
now. It was all well-made, you will remember. It might get a fair
price."

The brass bedstead, the triangular wash-hand stand, the prie-dieu, the
leather sofa, the object known to the trade as a "club fender" of heavy
brass upholstered on the top with turkey carpet, the mahogany desk, the
bookcase full of old favourites, a few chairs, the tobacco-jar bearing
the arms of New College, bought by Mr. Crouchback when he was a
freshman, the fine ivory crucifix, the framed photographs--all
well-made, as the lawyer said, and well-kept--these were what Mr.
Crouchback had chosen from his dressing-room and from the smoking-room
at Broome to furnish the narrow quarters of his retreat. Angela had
taken the family portraits and a few small, valuable pieces to
Box-Bender's house in the Cotswolds. And then in the six days' sale
silver and porcelain and tapestries, canopied beds, sets of chairs of
all periods, cabinets, consoles; illuminated manuscripts, suits of
armour, stuffed animals; no illustrious treasures, not the collection of
an astute connoisseur; merely the accumulations and chance survivals of
centuries of prosperous, unadventurous taste; all had come down into the
front court where Guy now stood, and had been borne away and dispersed,
leaving the whole house quite bare, except for the chapel; there the
change of ownership passed unrecorded and the lamp still burned; not, as
it happened, a thing of great antiquity; something Hermione had picked
up in the Via Babuino. The phrase often used of Broome, that its
sanctuary lamp had never been put out, was figurative.

All Guy's early memories of his father were in these spacious halls, as
the central and controlling force of an elaborate rgime which, for him,
was typified by the sound of hooves on the cobbled forecourt and of the
rake in the gravelled quadrangle; but in Guy's mind the house was
primarily his mother's milieu; he remembered the carpet covered with
newspaper and the flower petals drying for potpourri, his mother walking
beside him between the high bamboos, among the suspended dragonflies by
the lake shore, carrying a fringed sunshade; sitting beside him on
winter afternoons helping him with his scrapbook. It was here that she
had died, leaving the busy house desolate to him and to his father. He
had lost the solid image of his father as a man of possessions and
authority (for even in his declining fortunes, up to the day of leaving
Broome, Mr. Crouchback had faithfully borne all his responsibilities,
sitting on the bench and the county council, visiting prisons and
hospitals and lunatic asylums, acting as president to numerous
societies, as a governor of schools and charitable trusts, opening shows
and bazaars and returning home after a full day to a home that usually
abounded with guests) and saw him now only as the recluse of his later
years in the smell of dog and tobacco in the small seaside hotel. It was
to that image he had prayed that morning.

"No," said Guy, "I should like to keep everything at Matchet."

Uncle Peregrine came down the steps.

"You should go and say goodbye to the Reverend Mother. Time to be moving
off. The train leaves in twenty minutes. I wasn't able to reserve a
coach for the return journey."

On the way to the station Miss Vavasour came to Guy's side. "I wonder,"
she said, "will you think it very impertinent to ask, but I should so
much like to have a keepsake of your father; any little thing; do you
think you could spare something?"

"Of course, Miss Vavasour. I ought to have thought of it myself. What
sort of thing? My father had so few personal possessions, you know."

"I was wondering, if no one else wants it, and I don't know who would,
do you think I could have his old tobacco-jar?"

"Of course. But isn't there anything more personal? One of his books? A
walking stick?"

"The tobacco-jar is what I should _like_, if it's not asking too much.
It seems somehow specially personal. You must think me very foolish."

"Certainly. Please take it by all means if that is what you would really
like."

"Oh, thank you. I can't tell you how grateful. I don't suppose I shall
stay on much longer at Matchet. The Cuthberts have not been considerate.
It won't be the same place without your father, and the tobacco-jar will
remind me--the smell, you know."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Box-Bender did not return to London. He had an allowance of
parliamentary petrol. Angela had used it to come to Broome. He and she
and the dog, Felix, drove back to their house in the Cotswolds.

Later that evening he said: "Everyone had a great respect for your
father."

"Yes, that was rather the theme of the day, wasn't it?"

"Did you talk to the solicitor?"

"Yes."

"So did I. Had you any idea your father was so well off? Of course it's
your money, Angie, but it will come in very handy. There was something
said about some pensions. You're not obliged to continue them, you
know."

"So I gathered. But Guy and I will do so."

"Mind you, one can't be sure they're all deserving cases. Worth looking
into. After all, your father was very credulous. Our expenses get
heavier every year. When the girls come back from America, we shall have
to meet all kinds of bills. It's a different matter with Guy. He hasn't
anyone to support except himself. And he had his whack when he went to
Kenya you know. He had no right to expect any more."

"Guy and I will continue the pensions."

"Just as you like, Angie. No business of mine. Just thought I'd mention
it. Anyway they'll all fall in one day."




CHAPTER IV


When Virginia Troy went to visit Dr. Puttock for the second time, he
received her cordially.

"Yes, Mrs. Troy, I am happy to say that the report is positive."

"You mean I _am_ going to have a baby?"

"Without any doubt. These new tests are infallible."

"But this is awful."

"My dear Mrs. Troy, I assure you that there is nothing whatever to worry
about. You are thirty-three. Of course it is generally advisable for a
woman to enter her childbearing period a little younger, but your
general condition is excellent. I see no reason to anticipate any kind
of trouble. Just carry on with your normal activities and come back to
see me in three weeks so that I can see that everything is going along
all right."

"But it's all _wrong_. It's quite impossible for me to have a baby."

"Impossible in what sense? I presume you had marital intercourse at the
appropriate time."

"Marital?" said Virginia. "Isn't that something to do with marriage?"

"Yes, yes, of course."

"Well, I haven't seen my husband for four years."

"Ah, I see; well. That's a legal rather than a medical problem, is it
not? Or should I say social? One finds a certain amount of this kind of
thing nowadays in all classes. Husbands abroad in the army or prisoners
of war; that sort of thing. Conventions are not as strict as they used
to be--there is not the same stigma attached to bastardy. I presume you
know the child's father."

"Oh, I know him all right. He's just gone to America."

"Yes, I see that that is rather inconvenient, but I am sure you will
find things turn out well. In spite of everything the maternity services
run very smoothly. Some people even think that a disproportionate
attention is given to the next generation."

"Dr. Puttock, you _must_ do something about this."

"_I?_ I don't think I understand you," said Dr. Puttock icily. "Now, I
am afraid I must ask you to make way for my other patients. We civilian
doctors are run off our feet, you know. Give my kind regards to Lady
Kilbannock."

Virginia was remarkable for the composure with which she had hitherto
accepted the vicissitudes of domesticity. Whatever the disturbances she
had caused to others, her own place in her small but richly diverse
world had been one of coolness, light and peace. She had found that
place for herself, calmly recoiling from a disorderly childhood and
dismissing it from her thoughts. From the day of her marriage to Guy to
the day of her desertion of Mr. Troy, and for a year after, she had
achieved a _douceur de vivre_ that was alien to her epoch; seeking
nothing, accepting what came and enjoying it without compunction. Then,
ever since her meeting with Trimmer in fog-bound Glasgow, chill shadows
had fallen, deepening daily. "It's all the fault of this damned war,"
she reflected, as she went down the steps into Sloane Street. "What good
do they think they're doing?" she asked herself as she surveyed the
passing uniforms and gas masks. "What's it all _for_?"

She went to her place of business in Ian Kilbannock's office and
telephoned to Kerstie in "Ciphers."

"I've got to see you. How about luncheon?"

"I was going out with a chap."

"You must chuck him, Kerstie. I'm in trouble."

"Oh Virginia, not again."

"The first time. Surely you know what people mean when they say 'in
trouble'?"

"Not _that_, Virginia?"

"Just that."

"Well, that is something, isn't it? All right, I'll chuck. Meet me in
the club at one."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The officers' club at H.O.O. HQ. was gloomier in aspect than the
canteens at Number 6 Transit Camp. It had been designed for other
purposes. The walls were covered with ceramic portraits of Victorian
rationalists, whiskered, hooded and gowned. The wives and daughters of
the staff served there under the wife of General Whale, who arranged the
duties so that the young and pretty were out of sight in the kitchen and
pantry. Mrs. Whale controlled, among much else, the tap of a coffee urn.
Whenever one of these secluded beauties appeared by the bar, Mrs. Whale
was able to raise a cloud of steam which completely concealed her. Mrs.
Whale had resisted the entry of the female staff but had been overborne.
She made things as disagreeable for them as she could, often
reprimanding them: "Now you can't sit here coffee-housing. You're
keeping the men from the tables, and _they_ have work to do."

She said precisely this when Virginia set about expounding her situation
to Kerstie.

"Oh, Mrs. Whale, we've only just arrived."

"You've had plenty of time to eat. Here's your bill."

The nondescript colonel who was liberating Italy was in fact looking for
a place. He took Virginia's warm chair gratefully.

"I should like to boil that bitch in her own stew," said Virginia as
they left.

They found a dark corner outside and there she described her visit to
Dr. Puttock. Eventually Kerstie said: "Don't worry, darling, I'll go and
talk to him myself. He dotes on me."

"Go soon."

"This evening on the way home. I'll tell you what he says."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Virginia was already at Eaton Terrace when Kerstie returned. She was
wearing the clothes she wore all day and was sitting as she had first
sat down, doing nothing, waiting.

"Well," she said, "how did it go?"

"We'd better both have a drink."

"Bad news?"

"It was all rather disturbing. Gin?"

"What did he say, Kerstie? Will he do it?"

"_He_ won't. He was frightfully pompous. I've never known him like it
before. Most welcoming at first until I told him what I'd come about.
Talked about professional ethics; said I was asking him to commit a
grave crime; asked me, would I go to my bank manager and suggest he
embezzle money for me. I said, Yes, if I thought there was any chance of
his doing it. That softened him a little bit. I explained about you and
how you were broke. Then he said: 'She won't find it a cheap operation.'
That rather gave him away. I said: 'Come off it. You know there are
doctors who do this kind of thing,' and he said: 'One has heard of such
cases--in the police courts usually.' And I said: 'I bet you know one or
two who haven't been caught. It goes on all the time. It just happens
Virginia and I have never had to enquire before.' Then I sucked up to
him a lot and reminded him how he had always looked after me when I had
babies. I suppose it wasn't strictly  propos, but it seemed to soften
him; so at last he said he did know the name of someone who might help
and as a family friend, not as a doctor, he might give me the name.
Well, I mean to say, he's always been a doctor to me not a family
friend. He's never been in the house except to charge a guinea a time;
but I didn't bring that up. I said: 'Well, come on. Write it down,' and
then, Virginia, he rather shook me. He said: 'No. _You_ write it down,'
and I put out a hand to take a piece of paper off his desk and he said
'Just a minute' and he took out a pair of scissors and cut the address
off the top. 'Now,' he said, 'you can write this name and address. I
haven't heard of the man for some time. I don't know if he's still
practising. If your friend wants an appointment, she had better take a
hundred pounds with her in notes. That's the best I can do. And remember
I'm not doing it. I have no knowledge of this matter. I have never seen
your friend.' Do you know, he had me so nervous I could hardly write."

"But you got the name?"

Kerstie took the slip of paper from her bag and handed it to her.

"Brook Street?" said Virginia. "I thought it would be someone in
Paddington or Soho. No telephone number. Let's look him up."

They found the name and the respectable address, but when they tried to
ring him up they were told the number was "unobtainable."

"I'm going round there now," said Virginia. "The hundred pounds will
have to wait. I must have a look at him. You wouldn't like to come too?"

"No."

"I wish you would, Kerstie."

"No. The whole thing's given me the creeps."

So Virginia went alone. There was no taxi in Sloane Square. She took the
tube to Bond Street and picked her way through the American soldiers to
the once quiet and fashionable street. When she reached the place where
the house should have stood, she found a bomb crater flanked on either
side with rugged cliffs of brick and plaster. Usually at such places
there was a notice stating the new address of the former occupants.
Virginia searched with her electric torch and learned that a
neighbouring photographer and a hat shop had removed elsewhere. There
was no spoor of the abortionist's passage. Perhaps he lay with his
instruments somewhere under the rubble.

She was near Claridge's Hotel and from old habit sought refuge there in
her despair. Lieutenant Padfield was standing by the fireplace straight
before her. She turned away, seeming not to see him, and wearily walked
down the corridor to Davis Street; then thought: "What the hell? _I_
can't start cutting people," turned again, and smiled.

"Loot, I didn't recognise you. One's like a pit-pony coming in from the
blackout. I happened to be passing and looked in to see if there was
anyone here. Will you buy a girl a drink?"

"Just what I was about to suggest," said the Lieutenant surveying the
thronged hall. "I have to go out in a minute--to Ruby at the
Dorchester."

"Is that where she lives now? I used to go to her parties in Belgrave
Square."

"You should go to see her. People don't go to see her now as much as
they used. She's a very significant and lovely person. Her memory is
fantastic. Yesterday she was telling me all about Lord Curzon and Elinor
Glyn."

"I won't keep you, but I feel I need a drink."

"It seems they were both interested in the occult."

"Yes, Loot, yes. Just give me a drink."

"It's not a thing that has ever greatly interested me, the occult. I'm
interested in live people mostly. I mean, I'm interested in Ruby
remembering, more than in what she remembers.

"Now some days back I was at a Catholic Requiem in Somerset county. It
was the live people there I found significant. There were a lot of them.
It was Mr. Gervase Crouchback's funeral--at Broome."

"I saw he had died," said Virginia. "It's years since we met. I was fond
of him once."

"A lovely person," said the Lieutenant.

"Surely you never knew him, Loot?"

"Not personally, only by repute. He was reputed as very fine indeed. I
was glad to learn that he was so well off."

"Not Mr. Crouchback, Loot; you've got that wrong. He was ruined long
ago."

"There were people like that in the States twelve years ago. Wiped out
in the crash. But they got it all back again."

"Mr. Crouchback wasn't like that, I assure you."

"From what I hear he wasn't ever 'ruined.' It was just that the way
things were over here after the first war, real estate didn't produce
any income. Not only it didn't pay--it was a regular loss. When Mr.
Crouchback sold up, he not only got a price for the land; he saved
himself all he had been paying out every year to keep things going. He
wouldn't let the place run down. Sooner than that he'd clear out
altogether. That was how he reckoned it. There were some valuable
things, too, he sold out of the house.

"So he ended up a very substantial person."

"What a lot you know about everyone, Loot."

"Well, yes. I've been told before now I'm funny that way."

Virginia was not a woman who left things unsaid.

"I know all about you and my divorce."

"Mr. Troy is an old and valued client of my firm," said the Lieutenant.
"There was nothing personal about it. Business before friendship."

"You still look on me as a friend?"

"I certainly do."

"Then go and find a taxi."

That aptitude never failed the Lieutenant. As Virginia drove back to
Eaton Terrace, men and women emerged into the dim headlights signalling
vigorously to the cab, waving bank-notes. She had a brief sense of
triumph that she was sitting secure in the darkness; then the full
weight of her failure bowed her, literally, so that she was crouched
with her head near her knees when they drew up at the house where she
lodged. Kerstie was on the doorstep.

"What luck. Keep the taxi," and then: "Everything all right?"

"No, nothing. I saw the Loot."

"At the doctor's? I should have thought that's one place he wouldn't
be?"

"At Claridge's. He came clean."

"But how about the doctor?"

"Oh, he was no good. Blitzed."

"Oh dear. I tell you what; I'll ask Mrs. Bristow in the morning. She
knows everything." (Mrs. Bristow was the charwoman.) "Must go now. I'm
going to poor old Ruby."

"You'll find the Loot."

"I'll give him socks."

"He says we're friends. I expect I'll be in bed when you get back."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Virginia went alone into the empty house. Ian Kilbannock was away for
some nights conducting a party of journalists round an assault course in
Scotland. The dining-room table was not laid. Virginia went down into
the larder, found half a loaf of greyish bread, some margarine, a
segment of imitation cheese and ate them at the kitchen table.

She was not a woman to repine. She accepted change, though she did not
so express it to herself, as the evidence of life. A mile of darkness
away, in her hotel sitting-room, Ruby repined. Her brow and the skin
round her old eyes were taut with "lifting." She looked at the four
unimportant people who sat round her little dinner-table and thought of
the glittering guests in Belgrave Square; thirty years of them, night
after night, the powerful, the famous, the promising, the beautiful:
thirty years' work to establish and impose herself, ending now
with--what were their names? what did they do?--These people sitting
with electric fires behind their chairs, talking of what? "Ruby, tell us
about Boni de Castellane." "Tell us about the Marchesa Casati." "Tell us
about Pavlova." Virginia had never sought to impose herself. She had
given parties, too; highly successful ones, all over Europe and in
certain select parts of America. She could not remember the names of her
guests; many she had not known at the time. As she ate her greasy bread
in the kitchen she did not contrast her present lot with her past. Now,
as it had been for the past month, she was aghast at the future.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next morning Kerstie came early to Virginia's room.

"Mrs. Bristow's here," she said. "I can hear her banging about. I'll go
down and tackle her. You keep out of it."

Virginia did not take long preparing herself for these days. There was
no longer the wide choice in her wardrobe or the expensive confusion on
her dressing table. She was ready dressed, sitting on her bed waiting,
fiddling with her file at a broken fingernail, when Kerstie at length
came back to her.

"Well, that was all right."

"Mrs. Bristow can save me?"

"I didn't let on it was you. I rather think she suspects Brenda, and
she's always had a soft spot for her. She was most sympathetic. Not at
all like Dr. Puttock. She knows just the man. Several of her circle have
been to him and say he's entirely reliable. What's more, he only charges
twenty-five pounds. I'm afraid he's a foreigner."

"A refugee?"

"Well, rather more foreign than that. In fact he's black."

"Why should I mind?" asked Virginia.

"Some people might. Anyway, here's the name and address. Dr. Akonanga,
14 Blight Street, W.2. That's off the Edgware Road."

"Different from Brook Street."

"Yes and quarter the price. Mrs. Bristow doesn't think he has a
telephone. The thing to do is go to his surgery early. He's very popular
in his district, Mrs. Bristow says."

An hour later Virginia was on the doorstep of Number 14. No bombs had
fallen in Blight Street. It was a place of lodging houses and mean
tobacconists, that should have been alive with children. Now, the Pied
Piper of the state schools had led them all away to billets and "homes"
in the country, and only the elderly and the slatternly remained of its
inhabitants. The word Surgery was lettered on what had once been a shop
window. A trousered woman, with her hair in a turban, was smoking at the
door.

"Do you know if Dr. Akonanga is at home?"

"He's gone."

"Oh dear." Virginia suffered again all the despair of the previous
evening. Her hopes had never been firm or high. It was Fate. For weeks
now, she had been haunted by the belief that in a world devoted to
destruction and slaughter this one odious life was destined to survive.

"Been gone nearly a year. The government took him."

"You mean he's in prison?"

"Not him. Work of national importance. He's a clever one, black as he
may be. What it is, there's things them blacks know what them don't
that's civilized. That's where they put him." She pointed to a card on
the jamb of the door which read: Dr. Akonanga, _nature-therapeutist and
deep psychologist, has temporarily discontinued his practice. Parcels
and messages to_... There followed an address two doors from the
bombed house where she had peered into the darkness the evening before.

"Brook Street? How odd."

"Gone up in the world," said the woman. "What I say, it takes a war for
the clever ones to be appreciated."

Virginia found a cab in the Edgware Road and drove to the new address,
once a large private house, now in military occupation. A sergeant sat
in the hall.

"Can I see your pass, please?"

"I'm looking for Dr. Akonanga."

"Your pass, please."

Virginia showed an identity card issued by H.O.O. HQ.

"That's O.K.," said the sergeant. "You can't miss him. We always know
when the doctor's at work. Hark."

From high overhead at the top of the wide staircase came sounds which
could only be the beat of a tom-tom. Virginia climbed towards it,
thinking of Trimmer, who had endlessly, unendurably crooned "Night and
Day" to her. The beat of the drum seemed to be saying: "You, you, you."
She reached the door behind which issued the jungle rhythm. It seemed
otiose to add the feeble tap of her knuckles. She tried the handle and
found herself locked out. There was a bell with the doctor's name above
it. She pressed. The drumming stopped. A key turned. Virginia was
greeted by a small, smiling, nattily dressed Negro, not in his first
youth; there was grey in his sparse little tangle of beard; he was
wrinkled and simian, and what should have been the whites of his eyes
were the colour of Trimmer's cigarette-stained fingers; from behind him
there came a faint air blended of spices and putrefaction. His smile
revealed many gold-capped teeth.

"Good morning. Come in. How are you? You have the scorpions?"

"No," said Virginia, "no scorpions this morning."

"Pray come in."

She stepped into the room, whose conventional furniture was augmented
with a number of hand-drums, a bright statue of the Sacred Heart, a
cock, decapitated but unplucked, secured with nails to the table-top,
its wing spread open like a butterfly's, a variety of human bones
including a skull, a brass cobra of Benares ware, bowls of ashes, flasks
from a chemical laboratory stoppered and holding murky liquids. A
magnified photograph of Mr. Winston Churchill glowered down upon the
profusion of Dr. Akonanga's war-stores, but Virginia did not observe
them in detail. It was the fowl that caught her attention.

"You are not from H.O.O. HQ.?" asked Dr. Akonanga.

"Yes, as a matter of fact I am. How did you guess?"

"I have been expecting scorpions for three days. Major Albright assured
me they were being flown from Egypt. I explained they are an essential
ingredient for one of my most valuable preparations."

"There's always a delay nowadays in getting what one wants, isn't there?
I don't know Major Albright, I'm afraid. Mrs. Bristow sent me to you."

"Mrs. Bristow? I am not sure I have the honour--"

"I've come as a private patient," said Virginia. "You've treated lots of
her friends. Women like myself," she explained with her high
incorrigible candour, "who want to get rid of babies."

"Yes, yes. Perhaps a long time ago in what you would call the 'piping
days' of peace. All that is changed. I am now in the government service.
General Whale would not like it if I resumed my private practice.
Democracy is at stake."

Virginia shifted her gaze from the headless fowl to the unfamiliar
assembly of equipment. She noticed a copy of _No Orchids for Miss
Blandish_.

"Dr. Akonanga," she asked, "what can you think you are doing that is
more important than me?"

"I am giving Herr von Ribbentrop the most terrible dreams," said Dr.
Akonanga with pride and gravity.

                 *        *        *        *        *

What dreams troubled Ribbentrop that night, Virginia could not know. She
dreamed she was extended on a table, pinioned, headless and covered with
blood-streaked feathers, while a voice within her, from the womb itself,
kept repeating: "You, you, you."




CHAPTER V


Ludovic's command was stationed in a large, requisitioned villa in a
still desolate area of Essex. The owners had been ready enough to move
out when they saw and heard, a few flat fields away, the bulldozers move
in to prepare the new aerodrome; a modest enough construction, a single
cross of runway, a dozen huts, but enough to annihilate the silence they
had sought there. They left behind them most of their furniture, and
Ludovic's quarters, in what had been designed as the nurseries, were
equipped with all he required. He had never shared the taste of Sir
Ralph and his friends for bric--brac. There was a certain likeness
between his office and Mr. Crouchback's sitting-room at Matchet, without
its characteristic smell of pipe and retriever. Ludovic did not smoke,
and he had never owned a dog.

When he was appointed, he was told: "It's no business of yours who your
clients are or where they are going. You simply have to see they're
comfortable during the ten days they spend with you. Incidentally, you
will be able to make yourself pretty comfortable too. I don't imagine
the change will be unwelcome,"--looking at his file--"after your
experiences in the Middle East."

For all his tutelage under Sir Ralph Brompton in the arts of peace,
Ludovic lacked Jumbo Trotter's zest for comfort and his ingenuity in
pursuing it. He shared a batman with his Staff Captain, Fremantle; his
belt and boots always shone. He cherished an old trooper's fetish for
leather. His establishment drew a special scale of rations, for it
catered to "clients" who were taking vigorous physical exercise and
suffering, most of them, from nervous anxiety. Ludovic ate heavily but
without discrimination. His life was the life of the mind and there was
little to occupy it in his official duties. The Staff Captain had charge
of administration; three athletic officers performed the training, and
these brave young men went in fear of Ludovic. They had less information
even than he about the identity of their pupils. They did not know even
the initial letters of the departments they served, and they believed,
rightly, that when they visited the market town, security police in
plain clothes offered them drinks and tried to draw them into
indiscretion on the subject of their employment. They reported at the
end of each course on the prowess of their "clients." Ludovic
transcribed and where necessary paraphrased their verdicts and forwarded
them in a nest of envelopes to the sponsors.

One morning at the end of November he settled to this, which was almost
his only task. Training reports lay on his desk. "PT O.K.," he read,
"but a nervous type. Got worse. Had to be pushed out for last jump.
NBG." _His excellent physique is not matched by psychological stamina_,
he wrote. Then he consulted Roget and under the heading of Prospective
Affections found: "Cowardice, pusillanimity, poltroonery, dastardness,
abject fear, funk, dunghill-cock, coistril, nidget, Bob Acres, Jerry
Sneak." "Nidget" was a new word. He moved to the dictionary and found:
"_Nidget_:--An idiot. A triangular horse-shoe used in Kent and Sussex."
Not applicable. "Dunghill-cock" was good, but perhaps too strong. Major
Hound had been a dunghill-cock. He tried "coistril" and found only:
"_Coistrel_:--A groom, knave, base fellow" and the quotation: "The
swarming rabble of our coistrel curates."

His eyes followed the columns, like a prospector's panning for gold.
Everywhere in the dross of "coition... cojuror... colander" nuggets
gleamed. "_Coke-upon-Littleton_:--Cant name of a mixed drink..."
He seldom frequented the bar in the anteroom. He could hardly
call for Coke-upon-Littleton. Perhaps it could be used in rebuke:
"Fremantle, it seemed to me you had had one too many
Cokes-upon-Littleton last night." "Coke," he noted, was pronounced
"Cook." "_Colaphize_:--To buffet and knock..."; and so browsed
happily until recalled to his duties by the entrance of his Staff
Captain with an envelope marked SECRET. He hastily completed the
report--_Failed to eradicate faults in training. Not recommended for
active operations_--and signed at the foot of the sheet.

"Thank you, Fremantle," he said. "You can take the confidential reports,
seal them and give them to the despatch-rider to take back. What did you
think of our last batch?"

"Not up to much."

"A rabble of coistrel curates?"

"Sir?"

"Never mind."

Each batch of "clients" left early in the morning, to be succeeded by
the next in the late afternoon two days later. The intervening period
was one of ease for the staff when, if they were in funds, they could go
to London. Only the chief instructor, who was a man of few pleasures,
remained on duty that day. He did not like to be long parted from the
gymnastic apparatus in which the station abounded and was resting in the
anteroom from a vigorous hour on the trapeze when the Staff Captain
found him. He refused a drink. The Staff Captain mixed himself a pink
gin at the bar, scrupulously entered it in the ledger, and said after a
pause:

"Don't you think the old man is getting rather rum lately?"

"I don't see much of him."

"Can't understand half he says these days."

"He had a bad time escaping from Crete. Weeks in an open boat. Enough to
make anyone rum."

"He was babbling about curates just now."

"Religious mania, perhaps," said the chief instructor. "He doesn't give
me any trouble."

Upstairs Ludovic opened the envelope, removed the roll of the "clients"
arriving next day and scanned it cursorily. An all military batch, he
noted. He had only one slight cause of uneasiness. So much remained from
his early training that he would not have liked to find an officer of
the Household Cavalry under his command. This had not occurred yet, nor
did it now. But there was a name of more evil omen. The list was
alphabetically arranged and at its head stood: "Crouchback, G. T/Y Capt.
RCH."

Even in the moment of horror his new vocabulary came pat. There was one
fine word which exactly defined his condition: "colaphized." It carried
a subtle echo, unsupported by its etymology, of "collapse."

To be struck twice in a month after two years' respite; to be struck
where he should have been most sheltered, in the ivory tower of
avant-garde letters, in the keep of his own seemingly impregnable
fastness, was a disaster beyond human calculation. He had read enough of
psychology to be familiar with the word "trauma"; to know that to
survive injury without apparent scar gave no certainty of abiding
health. Things had happened to Ludovic in the summer of 1941, things had
been done by him, which, the ancients believed, provoked a doom. Not
only the ancients; most of mankind, independently, cut off from all
communication with one another, had discovered and proclaimed this grim
alliance between the powers of darkness and justice. Who was Ludovic,
Ludovic questioned, to set his narrow, modern scepticism against the
accumulated experience of the species?

He opened his dictionary and read: "_Doom_:--Irrevocable destiny
(usually of adverse fate), final fate, destruction, ruin, death." He
turned to Roget and found "_Nemesis_:--Eumenides; keep the wound green;
_lex talionis_; ruthless; unforgiving; inexorable; implacable,
remorseless." His sacred scriptures offered no comfort that morning.

                 *        *        *        *        *

At the same time as Ludovic was contemplating the arcane operation of
Nemesis in the lowlands of Essex, Kerstie was causing dismay in Eaton
Terrace by revealing the effects of casuality in the natural order.

Ian had returned from his tour of the Highlands. He had dismissed his
party of journalists on the platform at Edinburgh and delayed a night to
visit his mother at the castellated dwelling on the Ayrshire coast which
his grandfather, the first baron, had built as the family seat. The main
building had been requisitioned and, though massive, was being eroded by
soldiers. The Dowager Lady Kilbannock lived in the factor's house and
there gratefully entertained Ian's sons in their school holidays. It was
his first visit since the beginning of the war. He was still savouring
the unaccustomed warmth of his welcome.

He had arrived in London that morning, but had no intention of reporting
back to his office until afternoon. Virginia was there to help his
depleted secretariat deal with the telephone. He had bathed after his
night journey, shaved and breakfasted, lit a cigar from a box given him
by his mother, and was prepared for an easy morning, when Kerstie had
joined him. The cipher clerks worked irregular hours according to the
press of business. She had been on night shift and returned home hoping
for a bath. She was not pleased to find that Ian had used all the hot
water. In her vexation she sprang the news of Virginia's predicament.

Ian's first words were: "Good God. At her age. After all her
experience"; and then: "Well, she can't have it here."

"She's in an odd mood," said Kerstie. "She seems to have lost all her
spirit. The country must still be teeming with helpful doctors, or for
that matter midwives. I believe a lot of them make a bit on the side
that way. She happens to have struck it unlucky twice. Now she's just
given up trying. Talks about Fate."

Ian drew deeply at his cigar, wondered why Scotland was still stocked
with commodities that had long disappeared from the south, then turned
gentler thoughts towards Virginia. He had momentarily seen himself as a
figure of melodrama driving her from his door. Now he said:

"Has she thought of the Loot?"

"As a doctor?"

"No, no. As a husband. She should marry someone. That's what a lot of
girls do, who funk an operation."

"I don't think the Loot likes women."

"He's always about with them. But he wouldn't really do. What she needs
is a chap who's just off to Burma or Italy. Lots of chaps marry on
embarkation leave. She needn't announce the happy event until a suitable
time. When he comes home, if he does come home, he won't be likely to
ask to see its birth certificate. He'll be proud as Punch to find a
child to greet him. It happens all the time." He smoked in silence
before the gas-fire, while Kerstie went up to change and wash in cold
water. When she returned, wearing one of Virginia's 1939 suits, he was
still thinking of Virginia.

"How about Guy Crouchback?" he asked.

"How about him?"

"I mean as the husband. He's off to Italy quite soon, I believe."

"What a disgusting idea. I like Guy."

"Oh, so do I. Old friends. But he's been keen on Virginia. She told me
he made a pass at her when she first came back to London. They were
saying in Bellamy's that he's been left a lot of money lately. Come to
think of it, he was once married to Virginia in the remote ages. You'd
better put the idea into her head. Let it lie there and fructify. She'll
do the rest. But she must look sharp."

"Ian, you absolutely nauseate me."

"Well, perhaps I'd better have a word with her at the office as her
boss. Got to see to the welfare of one's command."

"There are times I really detest you."

"Yes, so does Virginia. Well, who else do you suggest for her? I daresay
one of the Americans would be the best bet. The trouble is that, from
the litter of contraceptives they leave everywhere, it looks as though
they lacked strong philoprogenitive instincts."

"You couldn't get Trimmer recalled?"

"And undo the work of months? Not on your life. Besides, Virginia hates
him more than anyone. She wouldn't marry him if he came to her in his
kilt escorted by bagpipes. He fell in love with her, remember? That was
what sickened her. He used to sing 'Night and Day' about her, to _me_.
'Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom, when the jungle shadows
fall.' It was excruciating."

Kerstie sat close to Ian by the fireplace in the cloud of rich smoke. It
was not affection that drew her but the warmth of the feeble blue
flames.

"Why don't you go to Bellamy's," she asked, "and talk to your beastly
friends there?"

"Don't want to run into anyone from H.O.O. HQ. Officially I'm still in
Scotland."

"Well, I'm going to sleep. I don't want to talk any more."

"Just as you like. Cheer up," he added, "if she can't qualify for a ward
for officers' wives, I believe there are special state maternity homes
now for unmarried factory-girls. Indeed I know there are. Trimmer
visited one during his Industrial Tour and was a great success there."

"Can you imagine Virginia going to one of them?"

"Better than her staying here. Far better."

Kerstie did not sleep long, but when she came downstairs at noon, she
found that the lure of Bellamy's had proved stronger than Ian's caution
and that the house was empty save for Mrs. Bristow, who was crowning her
morning's labour with a cup of tea and a performance on the wireless of
"Music While You Work."

"Just off, ducks," she said using a form of address that had become
prevalent during the blitz. "I've got a friend says she can give me
another doctor as might help your friend."

"Thank you, Mrs. Bristow."

"Only he lives in Canvey Island. Still, you can't find things where you
want them now, can you, ducks? Not with the war."

"No, alas."

"Well, I'll bring the name tomorrow. So long."

Kerstie did not think Canvey Island a promising resort and was confirmed
in this opinion when, a few minutes later, Virginia telephoned from her
office.

"Canvey Island? Where's that?"

"Somewhere near Southend I think."

"That's out."

"It's Mrs. Bristow's last hope."

"_Canvey Island._ Anyway, that's not what I rang up about. Tell me, does
Ian know about me?"

"I think he does."

"You told him?"

"Well, yes."

"Oh, I don't mind but, listen, he's just done something very odd. He's
asked me to lunch with him. Can you explain that?"

"No, indeed not."

"It's not as though he didn't see all too much of me every day at home
and in the office. He says he wants to talk to me privately. Do you
think it's about my trouble?"

"I suppose it might be."

"Well, I'll tell you all about it when I come back."

Kerstie considered the matter. She was a woman with moral standards
which her husband did not share. Finally she tried to telephone to Guy,
but a strange voice answered from the shade of the megalosaurus saying
that Captain Crouchback had been posted to another department and was
inaccessible.

                 *        *        *        *        *

An aeroplane rising half a mile distant, and thunderously skimming the
chimneys of the house, an obsolete bomber such as was adapted for
parachute training, roused Ludovic from the near-stupor into which he
had fallen. He rose from his deep chair and at his desk entered on the
first page of a new note-book a _Pense: The penalty of sloth is
longevity_. Then he went to the window and gazed blankly through the
plate glass.

He had chosen these rooms because they were secluded from the scaffolds
and platforms where the training exercises took place at the front of
the house. He faced, across half an acre of lawn, what the previous
owners had called their "arboretum." Ludovic thought of it merely as
"the trees." Some were deciduous and had now been stripped bare by the
east wind that blew from the sea, leaving the holm oaks, yews and
conifers in carefully contrived patterns, glaucous, golden and of a
green so deep as to be almost black at that sunless noon; they afforded
no pleasure to Ludovic.

Where, he asked himself, could he hide during the next ten days? It did
not occur to him to go on leave. He had had all the leave that was due
to him and his early training had left him with a superstitious regard
for orders. Jumbo Trotter would have devised a dozen perfectly regular
means of absenting himself. He would, if all else failed, have posted
himself to a senior officers' "refresher" course. Ludovic had never
sought to master the byways of military movement. He stared at the
arboretum and remembered the saw: "The place to hide a leaf is in a
tree."

He went downstairs and across the hall to the anteroom. Captain
Fremantle was still there with the chief instructor.

"Sit down. Sit down," he said, for he had never experienced and had not
sought to introduce under his command, the easy manners of the Officers'
House at Windsor or at the Halberdiers' Depot. "Here is the nominal roll
of tomorrow's batch." He handed it over and then he lingered.
"Fremantle," he said, "does my name appear anywhere?"

"Appear, sir?"

"I mean, are the men under instruction aware of my name?"

"Well, sir, you usually meet them and speak to them the first night,
don't you? You begin: 'I am the Commandant. My name is Ludovic. I want
you all to feel free to come to me with any difficulties.'"

This had indeed been the custom which Ludovic had inherited from his
more genial predecessor in office, and very unnerving his baleful stare,
as he spoke these formalities of welcome, had proved to more than one
apprehensive "client." None had ever come to him with any difficulty.

"Do I? Is that what I say?"

"Well, something like that usually, sir."

"Ah, but if I _don't_ meet them, could they find out who I am? Is there
a list of the establishment posted anywhere? Does my name appear on
standing orders? Or daily orders?"

"I think it does, sir. I'll have to check on that."

"I want all orders in future to be signed by you _Staff Captain for
Commandant_. And have any notices that need it retyped with my name
omitted. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"And I shan't be coming into the mess. I shall take all my meals in my
office for the next week or so."

"Very good, sir."

Captain Fremantle regarded him with puzzled concern.

"You may think this rather strange, Fremantle. It's a question of
security. They are tightening it up. As you know this station is on the
secret list. There have been some leaks lately. I received orders this
morning that I was to go, as it were, 'under ground.' You may think it
all rather extravagant. I do myself. But those are our orders. I shall
start the new rgime today. Tell the mess corporal to serve my lunch
upstairs."

"Very good, sir."

He left them and walked out of the French windows towards the trees.

"Well," said the chief instructor, "what d'you make of that?"

"He didn't get any orders this morning. I went through the mail. There
was only one 'secret' envelope--the nominal roll we always get."

"Persecution mania," said the chief instructor. "It can't be anything
else."

Ludovic walked alone among the trees. What had been paths were ankle
deep in dead leaves and cones and pine needles. His glossy boots grew
dull. Presently he turned back and, avoiding the French windows, entered
by a side door and the back stairs. On his table lay a great plate of
roast meat--a week's ration for a civilian--a heap of potatoes and cold
thick gravy, and beside it a pudding of sorts. He gazed at these things,
wondering what to do. The bell did not work nor, had it done so, were
the mess orderlies trained to answer it. He could not bear to sit beside
this distasteful plethora waiting to see what would become of it. He
took to the woods once more. Now and then an aeroplane came in to land
or climbed roaring above him. Dusk began to fall. He was conscious of
damp. When at last he returned to his room, the food was gone. He sat in
his deep chair while the gathering dusk turned to darkness.

There was a knock at the door. He did not answer. Captain Fremantle
looked in and the light from the passage revealed Ludovic sitting there,
empty-handed, staring.

"Oh," said Captain Fremantle, "I'm sorry, sir. I was told you had gone
out. Are you all right, sir?"

"Quite all right, thank you. Why should you fear otherwise? I like
sometimes to sit and think. Perhaps if I smoked a pipe, it would seem
more normal. Do you think I should buy a pipe?"

"Well, that's rather a matter of taste, isn't it, sir?"

"Yes, and to me it would be highly disagreeable. But I will buy a pipe,
if it would make you easier in your mind about me."

Captain Fremantle withdrew. As he shut the door he heard Ludovic switch
on the light. He returned to the anteroom.

"The old man's stark crazy," he reported.

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was part of the very light veil of secrecy which enveloped Ludovic's
villa that its location was not divulged to the "clients." It was known
officially as Number 4 Special Training Centre. Those committed to it
were ordered to report at five in the afternoon to the Movement Control
office in a London terminus, where they were mustered by a wingless Air
Force officer and thence conveyed into Essex by motor bus. They did not
see this airman again until the day of departure. His contribution to
the war effort was to travel with them in the dark and see that none
deserted or fell into conversation with subversive agents.

Foreign refugees, who composed many of the training courses, were
obfuscated by this stratagem and when caught and tortured by the Gestapo
could only give the unsatisfactory answer that they were taken in the
dark to an unknown destination, but Englishmen had little difficulty in
identifying their route.

When Guy arrived at the rendezvous he found a group of officers which
grew to twelve in number. None was higher than captain in rank; all were
older than the lean young athletes of the Parachute Regiment. Guy was
the oldest of them by some five or six years. They came from many
different regiments and like him had been chosen ostensibly for their
knowledge of foreign languages and their appetite, if not for adventure,
at least for diversity in the military routine. The last to report was a
Halberdier, and Guy recognised his one-time subaltern, Frank de Souza.

"Uncle! What on earth are you doing here? Are you on the staff of this
Dotheboys Hall they're taking us to?"

"Certainly not. I'm coming on the course with you."

"Well, that's the most cheering thing I've heard about it yet. It can't
be as arduous as they make out if they take old sweats like you."

They sat together at the back of the bus and throughout the hour's drive
talked of the recent history of the Halberdiers. Colonel Tickeridge was
now Brigadier; Ritchie-Hook Major-General. "He can't bear it and he's
not much use at it either. He's never to be found at his own
headquarters. Always biffing about in front." Erskine now commanded the
2nd Battalion; de Souza had had D Company until a few weeks ago; then he
had put in for a posting, claiming a hitherto unrevealed proficiency in
Serbo-Croat. "I suppose they might call it 'battle weariness,'" he said.
"Anyway I wanted a change. Four years is too long in the same outfit for
a man who's naturally a civilian. Besides it wasn't the same. There
aren't many of the original battalion left. Not many casualties really.
We had a suicide in the company. I never knew what about. A
militiaman--perfectly cheerful all day and shot himself in his tent one
evening. He left a letter to the C.S.M. saying he hoped he would not
cause any trouble. A few men got badly hit and sent home. Only one
officer, Sarum-Smith, killed, but chaps got shunted about, first one,
then another of the temporary officers were sent off on courses and
never came back; half the senior N.C.O.'s were superannuated; the new
young gentlemen were a dreary lot; until one suddenly realised the whole
thing had changed. And then in Italy there were Americans all over the
place clamouring for doughnuts and Coca-Cola and ice cream. So I decided
to put my knowledge of Jugoslavia to use."

"What do you know about it, Frank?"

"I once spent a month in Dalmatia, a most agreeable place, and I mugged
up a bit of the language from a tourists' phrase book--enough to satisfy
the examiners."

Guy related his own drab history culminating in his meeting with the
Electronic Selector in H.O.O. HQ.

"Did you come across old Ralph Brompton there?"

"Do you know him, Frank?"

"Oh, rather. In fact it was he who told me about this Partisan Liaison
Mission."

"When you were in Italy?"

"Yes; he wrote. We're old friends."

"How very odd. I thought all his friends were pansies."

"Not at all. Nothing of the sort, I assure you. In fact," de Souza added
with an air of mystification, "I shouldn't be surprised if half this
busload weren't friends of Ralph Brompton's one way or another."

As he said this an unmilitary-looking man, in a beret and greatcoat,
turned round in the seat in front of them and scowled at de Souza, who
said in a voice of parody: "Hullo, Gilpin. Did you see any good shows in
town?"

Gilpin grunted and turned back, and then de Souza in fact began to talk
about the theatre.

The welcome at their destination was cordial and efficiently organised.
Orderlies were standing by to take their baggage up to their rooms.
"I've put you two Halberdiers together," said Captain Fremantle. "Here's
the anteroom. I shall be saying a few words after dinner. Meanwhile I
expect you can all do with a drink. Dinner will be in half an hour."

Guy went up. De Souza remained below. As Guy returned he paused on the
stairs, hearing his own name mentioned. De Souza and Gilpin were in
conversation in what they took to be privacy; Gilpin was plainly
rebuking de Souza, who with uncharacteristic humility was attempting to
exculpate himself.

"Crouchback's all right."

"That's as may be. You had no call to bring up Brompton's name. You've
got to watch out who you talk to. You can't trust anyone."

"Oh, I've known old Crouchback since 1939. We joined the Halberdiers on
the same day."

"Yes, and Franco plays a nice game of golf I've been told. What's the
name 'Halberdiers' to do with it? I reckon you've been picking up a
little too much free and easy, Eighth Army esprit de bloody corps."

The two moved to the anteroom and Guy, puzzled, followed them after a
minute. Seeing de Souza without his "British warm," Guy noticed that he
wore a ribbon of the M.C.

"I am the Staff Captain. My name is Fremantle. The Commandant wishes you
to feel free to come to me with any difficulties..." He read the
standing orders, explained the arrangements of messing and security.

The chief instructor followed him, giving them the programme of the
course: five days' instruction and physical training; then the
qualifying five jumps from an aeroplane at times to be determined by the
conditions of the weather. He gave some encouraging figures about the
rarity of fatalities. "Every now and then you get a 'Roman candle.' Then
you've had it. We've had a few cases of men fouling their ropes and
making a bad landing. On the whole it's a lot safer than
steeple-chasing."

Guy had never ridden in a steeple-chase and, looking about him, he
reflected that no one in the audience, nor the speaker either, seemed
likely to have done so.

They went to bed early. De Souza said: "All army courses are like prep
schools--all that welcoming of the new boys. But we seem to have struck
one of the better-class establishments. Dinner wasn't at all bad. The
programme sounds reasonable. I think we are going to be happy here."

"Frank, who's Gilpin?"

"Gilpin? Chap in the Education Corps. I think he's a schoolteacher in
civil life. A bit earnest."

"What's he doing here?"

"The same as the rest of us I expect. He wants a change."

"How do you come to know him?"

"I know all sorts, Uncle."

"One of Sir Ralph's set?"

"Oh, I shouldn't suppose so. Would you?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

For two days the squad "limbered up." The P.T. instructor showed a
solicitude for Guy's age which he did not at all resent.

"Take it easy. Don't do too much at first, sir. Anyone can see you've
been at an office desk. Stop the moment you feel you've had enough. We
take them all sizes and shapes here. Why, last month we had a man so
heavy he had to use two parachutes."

On the third day they jumped off a six-foot height and rolled on the
grass when they landed. On the fourth day they jumped from ten feet and
in the afternoon were sent up a scaffolding higher than the house, from
which in parachute harness they jumped at the end of a cable which,
sprung and weighted, set them gently on their feet at the end of the
drop. Here they were sharply scrutinised by the chief instructor for
symptoms of hesitation in taking the plunge.

"You'll be all right, Crouchback," he said. "Rather slow off the mark,
Gilpin."

During these days Guy experienced a mild stiffness and was massaged by a
sergeant specially retained for this service. There was no night-flying
from the adjoining aerodrome. Guy slept excellently and enjoyed a sense
of physical well-being. It did not irk him, as it irked others of the
squad, that they were confined to the grounds.

Early on de Souza showed curiosity about the head of their little
school. "The Commandant, does he exist? Has anyone seen him? It's like
one of those ancient oriental states where the viziers bring messages
from an invisible priest-king."

Later he said: "I've seen food going up the back stairs. He's shut up
somewhere on the top storey."

"Perhaps he's a drunk."

"More than likely. I came home in a ship where the O.C. Troops was a
raging dipsomaniac, locked in his cabin for the entire voyage."

Later he reported: "It can't be drink. I've seen the plates coming down
empty. Chaps with the horrors can't eat. At least our O.C. Troops
didn't."

"I expect it's the warder's dinner."

"That's what it is. He's either drunk or insane and he has to have a man
sitting with him night and day to see he doesn't commit suicide."

Later he said to a group in the anteroom: "There's nothing wrong with
the Commandant. He's being held prisoner. There's been a palace plot and
his staff are selling the rations on the black market. Or do you think
the whole place has been taken over by the Gestapo? Where could
parachutists most safely land? At a parachute training base. They shot
everyone except the Commandant. They have to keep him to sign the bumf.
Meanwhile they get particulars of all our agents. There's that
instructor who's always fooling about with a camera. Says he's making
"action studies" to correct faulty positions in jumping. Of course what
he's really doing is making records of all of us. They'll be
micro-filmed and sent out via Portugal. Then the Gestapo will have a
complete portrait gallery and they can pick us up as soon as we show our
faces. We ought to organise a rescue party." Gilpin snorted with
contempt at this fantasy, and left the room. "An earnest fellow," said
de Souza, with, Guy thought he could detect, an infinitesimal _nuance_
of bravado, "just as I told you. What's more, he's windy about
tomorrow's jump."

"So am I."

"So am I," said others of the group.

"I don't believe you are, Guy," said de Souza.

"Oh yes," said Guy untruthfully, "I'm windy as hell."

Part of the apparatus erected on the front lawn was the fuselage of an
aeroplane. It was fitted with metal seats along the sides; an aperture
had been cut in the floor; it was a replica of the machine from which
they would jump and on the final afternoon of training they were drilled
there by the "despatching officer."

He gave the warning order, "Coming into target area," and removed the
cover from the manhole. "First pair ready."

Two of the squad sat opposite one another with legs dangling. "Number 1.
Jump." His arm came down.

The first man precipitated himself on the grass and Number 3 took his
place. "Number 2. Jump." And so on, again and again throughout the
afternoon until they moved briskly and thoughtlessly. "You don't have to
think of anything. Just watch my hand. The parachute has a slip rope and
opens automatically. Once you're out all you have to think about is
keeping your legs together and rolling lightly when you land."

But there was an air of apprehension in the anteroom that evening. De
Souza worked his joke about the "mystery man" in command for all it was
worth.

"I saw a 'face at the window,'" he reported. "A huge, horrible, pallid
face. It stared straight down at me and then disappeared. Obviously
seized by the guards. It was the face of a man totally abandoned to
despair. I daresay they keep him under drugs."

Gilpin said: "What's this about 'Roman candles'?"

"When the parachute doesn't open and you fall plumb straight."

"How does that happen?"

"Faulty packing, I believe."

"And the packing is left to a lot of girls. You'd only need one fascist
agent on the assembly line and she could kill hundreds of men--thousands
probably. There would be no way of catching her and her 'Roman candles.'
Why are they called 'Roman candles,' anyway, if it isn't a fascist
trick? I'm as ready as the next man to take a reasonable risk. I don't
like the idea of trusting my life to some girl in a packing
station--so-called 'refugees' perhaps--Polish and Ukrainian agents, as
likely as not."

"You _are_ windy, aren't you, Gilpin?"

"I'm just calculating the risk, that's all."

One of the younger "clients" said: "If these buggers think they're going
to get me to jump out of an aeroplane sober, they'd better think again."

De Souza said: "Of course, it's perfectly possible that the Commandant
is the head of the organisation. They won't let him appear because he
can't speak English--only Ukrainian. But he comes out at night and
repacks the parachutes so that they won't open. It takes hours, of
course, so he has to sleep all day."

But the joke was wearing thin.

"For Christ's sake," said Gilpin in admonition, and they all fell
silent. De Souza saw he had lost the sympathy of his audience.

"Uncle," he said that night, "I believe you and I are the only ones who
aren't windy and I'm not so sure about myself."

                 *        *        *        *        *

When all the lights were out, Ludovic emerged from his retreat and
stumbled to the edge of the dark trees, breathed for a few minutes the
scent of sodden leaves, which carried no fond memories for him, and then
returned to his room to write: _Those who take too keen an interest in
the outside world, may one day find themselves locked outside their own
gates_.

It was not an entirely original _Pense_. He had come on it and vaguely
remembered it, in an undergraduate magazine that Sir Ralph had received
and left among his litter. It seemed to him apt.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next morning was almost windless; there was a pale suggestion of
sunshine; jolly jumping weather.

"If it stays like this," said the chief instructor as though offering a
special, unexpected treat, "we may be able to get in a night drop at the
end of the course."

He went early to the dropping-ground, a barren heath some miles distant,
to see that it was suitably marked and to set up the loud-speaker
apparatus through which he admonished his pupils as they fell towards
him. The squad drove to the aerodrome, where their arrival seemed
unexpected.

"It's always like this," said the despatching officer. "They've nothing
else to do except lay on a flight for us, but at the last minute there's
always difficulties."

The dozen soldiers sat in a Nissen hut loud with jazz where a flying
officer regarded them incuriously over the _Daily Mirror_. Presently he
strolled out.

"Isn't there any way of turning off that music?" asked Guy. A knob was
found. There was a brief respite of silence, then a blue-grey arm
appeared from behind a door, manipulated the machine, and the music was
resumed in even greater volume.

After half an hour the despatching officer returned. He was accompanied
by the young man who had studied the _Daily Mirror_.

"I've ironed that out," he said. "All set?"

The flying officer wore some additions to his costume. "The crate's
really in for overhaul," he said, "but I daresay we can make it."

They all trooped across the runway and climbed into the shabby old
aeroplane. They put on their parachute harness and the despatching
officer examined it cursorily. The ripcords were clipped to a steel bar
above the trap. There was very little light in the fuselage. Guy sat
next to Gilpin, who was the man before him, Number 7 to his Number 8 in
the order they had rehearsed. "I wish they'd get on with it," he said,
but further conversation was obviated by the roar of the engines. Gilpin
looked queasy.

It was one of the objects of the exercise to accustom the squad to
flying conditions. They were not taken direct to the dropping-area but
in a long circle, wheeling over the sea and then coming inshore again.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Very little could be seen from the portholes. The harness was more
uncomfortable than it had seemed on the ground. They sat bowed and
cramped, in twilight, noise and the smell of petrol. At length the
despatching officer and his sergeant opened the manhole. "Coming into
the target area," he warned. "First pair ready."

De Souza was Number 1. He slipped out cleanly at the fall of the hand
and Number 3 took his place.

"Wait for it," said the despatching officer. There was an interval of a
minute between each drop as the machine banked and returned to its
target. Soon Gilpin and Guy sat face to face. The landscape below turned
vertiginously. "Don't look down. Watch my hand," said the despatching
officer. Gilpin did not raise his eyes to the signal. The despatching
officer gave the command: "Number 7. Jump."

But Gilpin sat rigid, feet dangling over the abyss, hands gripping the
edge, gazing down. The despatching officer said nothing until the
machine had completed its steep little circle; then to Guy: "You next.
Number 8. Jump."

Guy jumped. For a second, as the rush of air hit him, he lost
consciousness. Then he came to himself, his senses purged of the noise
and smell and throb of the machine. The hazy November sun enveloped him
in golden light. His solitude was absolute.

He experienced rapture, something as near as his earthbound soul could
reach to a foretaste of paradise, _locum refrigerii, lucis et pacis_.
The aeroplane seemed as far distant as will, at the moment of death, the
spinning earth. As though he had cast the constraining bonds of flesh
and muscle and nerve, he found himself floating free; the harness that
had so irked him in the narrow, dusky, resounding carriage now almost
imperceptibly supported him. He was a free spirit in an element as fresh
as on the day of its creation.

All too soon the moment of ecstacy ceased. He was not suspended
motionless; he was falling fast. An amplified voice from below exhorted
him: "You're swinging, Number 7. Steady yourself with the ropes. Keep
your legs together." At one moment he had the whole wide sky as his
province; at the next the ground sprang to meet him as though he were
being thrown by a horse. As his boots touched, he rolled as he had been
taught. He felt a heavy blow on the knee as though he had landed on a
stone. He lay in the sedge, dazed and breathless; then, as he had been
taught, disengaged the harness. He attempted to stand, suffered a sharp
pain in his knee and toppled once more to the ground. One of the
instructors approached: "That was all right, Number 7. Oh, it's you,
Crouchback. Anything wrong?"

"I think I've hurt my knee," said Guy.

It was the same knee he had twisted on guest night at the Halberdier
barracks.

"Well, sit quiet till the jump's over. Then we'll attend to you."

Again and again the aeroplane swooped overhead filling the sky with
parachutes. Finally Gilpin landed quite near him, his qualms subdued.
The sturdy, unmilitary figure joined him, infused with an unfamiliar
jauntiness.

"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he said.

"Highly enjoyable, up to a point," said Guy.

"I missed my cue the first time," said Gilpin. "Don't know how it
happened. It was like that square-bashing. Never got the trick of
'instinctive, unquestioning obedience to orders,' I suppose."

Guy wanted to ask whether he had been "assisted" through the manhole. He
refrained and, since Gilpin was the last of the squad, there was never
anyone to know except the readers of his confidential report.

"I expect we shall do another jump this afternoon," said Gilpin. "I feel
quite ready for one now."

"I'm damned if I do," said Guy.

That evening Captain Fremantle reported to Ludovic: "One casualty, sir.
Crouchback."

"Crouchback?" said Ludovic vaguely as though the name was new to him.
"Crouchback?"

"One of the Halberdiers, sir. We thought he was a bit old for the job."

"Yes," said Ludovic. "One of those accidents with, how do you describe
them--'Roman candles'?"

"Oh, no. Nothing as bad as that. Just a sprain, I think." Ludovic
disassembled his chagrin at this news. "We've sent him over to the
R.A.F. hospital for an X-ray. They'll probably keep him there for a bit.
Will you be going over to see him?"

"No. I can't imagine that, I'm afraid. I have a lot of work on hand.
Telephone and find the result of the X-ray. Perhaps later you or one of
the instructors might visit him and see that he is comfortable."

Captain Fremantle knew exactly how much work Ludovic had on hand. The
former Commandant had always made a point of visiting injured "clients";
even, on rare occasions, attending their funerals.

"Very good, sir," said Captain Fremantle.

"Oh, and, by the way, you might tell the mess corporal I shall be dining
down tonight."

                 *        *        *        *        *

There was a mood of exuberance, almost of exultation, in the anteroom
that evening. The eleven surviving members of the squad had made their
second jump in weather of undisturbed tranquillity. They had overcome
all their terrors of the air and were confident of finishing the course
with honour. Some sprawled at their ease in the armchairs and sofas;
some stood close together laughing loud and long. Even Gilpin was not
entirely aloof from the general conviviality. He said: "I don't mind
admitting now I didn't quite like the look of it the first time," and
accepted a glass of bottled beer from the despatching officer who had
that morning ignominiously bundled him into space and stepped firmly on
his fingers as he clutched the edge of the manhole in vain resistance to
the force of the slipstream.

Into this jolly company Ludovic entered like the angel of death. No one
had believed the literal detail of de Souza's fantasies but their
repetition and enlargement had created an aura of mystery and dread
about the Commandant who lurked overhead, and was seen and heard by
none, which Ludovic's appearance did nothing to dispel.

He overtopped the largest man in the room by some inches. There was at
that time a well-marked contrast in appearance between the happy
soldiers destined for the battlefield and those who endangered their
digestions and sanity at office telephones. Standing before and above
those lean and flushed young men, Ludovic's soft bulk and pallor
suggested not so much the desk as the tomb. Complete silence fell.

"Present me," Ludovic said, "to these gentlemen."

Captain Fremantle led him around. He laid a clammy hand in each
warm, dry palm and repeated each name as Captain Fremantle uttered
it "...de Souza... Gilpin..." as though he were reciting the titles
of a shelf of books he had no intention of reading.

"Can I get you a drink, sir?" de Souza boldly asked.

"No, no," said Ludovic from the depths of his invisible sarcophagus. "I
too have my rules of training to observe." Then he surveyed the hushed
circle. "One of you has been incapacitated, I learn. You are now an
eleven without a spare man, without A.N. Other. What is the news of
Captain A.N. Other, Fremantle?"

"Crouchback, sir? Nothing new since I saw you. The X-ray is tomorrow."

"Keep me informed. I am anxious about Captain A.N. Other. Pray continue
with your festivities, gentlemen. They sounded hilarious from upstairs.
Continue. My presence is entirely informal."

But the young officers emptied their glasses and laid them aside.

Gilpin's eyes were on the level of Ludovic's breast.

"You are wondering," Ludovic said sternly and suddenly, "how I acquired
the Military Medal."

"No, I wasn't," said Gilpin. "I was just wondering what it was."

"It is the award for valour given to 'Other Ranks.' I won it in
flight--not in such a flight as you have enjoyed today. I won it by
running away from the enemy."

Had there been any suggestion of mirth in Ludovic's manner, his hearers
would have been ready enough to laugh. As things were, they stood
abashed. Ludovic took a large steel watch from the pocket below his
ribbons. "It is time for dinner," he said. "Lead on, Fremantle."

Hitherto at this station it had been the habit to drop into the mess at
any time up to half an hour of dinner's being announced and to sit
anywhere. Tonight Ludovic took the head of the table. The chief
instructor took the foot and there was some competition to sit as near
him as possible. At length two unhappy men found themselves obliged to
take their places on either side of Ludovic.

"Do you say Grace in your mess?" Ludovic asked one of them.

"Only on guest nights, sir."

"And this is not a guest night. It is the antonym. We are commemorating
the absence of Captain A.N. Other. Do you know a Grace, Fremantle? Does
no one know a Grace? Well, we will eat graceless."

The dinner that night was particularly good. The oppression of Ludovic's
presence could not keep the hungry young men from their food. A murmur
of conversation spread from the foot of the table, but did not quite
reach the head, where Ludovic ate copiously and with a peculiar
precision and intent care in the handling of knife and fork--"like a
dentist," de Souza described it later--in his own simply constructed
solitude, as remote and impenetrable as Guy's brief excursion in the
skies. When he had finished he rose and without a word softly and
heavily left the room. But his going did not appreciably raise the
general spirits. Everyone discovered he was weary and after the nine
o'clock news went up to bed. De Souza was sorry Guy was not with him to
discuss the evening's gruesome apparition. He had already dubbed the
Commandant "Major Dracula" and his mind was teeming with necrophilic
details which Gilpin, he knew, would condemn as bourgeois. Downstairs
the staff lingered. They had been a cosy little band. The awe in which
they held Ludovic had not seriously threatened their comfort. Now, it
came to each of them, a dislocation impended, perhaps of absurdity,
perhaps of enormity; something, at any rate, profoundly inimical to
their easy routine.

"I'm not altogether sure of the form," said the chief instructor. "What
does one do if one's commanding officer goes mad? I mean who reports it
to whom?"

"He may get better."

"He was a damn sight worse tonight."

"Do you think the clients noticed?"

"I don't see how they could help it. After all, this batch aren't
refugees."

"He's not actually _done_ anything yet."

"But what will he do when he does?"

Next day was fine and the routine was repeated, but that evening there
was little exhilaration. Even the youngest and fittest were complaining
of bruises and strains and all found that familiarity did not entirely
expunge the natural reluctance, inherent in man, to fling himself into
space. Ludovic appeared at luncheon and dinner, without clat now. At
dinner he introduced one topic only, and then to Captain Fremantle,
saying: "I think I shall get a dog."

"Yes, sir. Jolly things to have about."

"I don't want a jolly dog."

"Oh, no, I see, sir, something for protection."

"_Not_ for protection." He paused and surveyed the stricken Staff
Captain, the curious and silent diners. "I require something for
_love_."

No one spoke. A savoury, rather enterprising for the date, was brought
to him. He ate it in a single, ample mouthful. Then he said: "Captain
Claire had a Pekinese." After a pause he added: "You would not know
Captain Claire. He came out of Crete, too--_without a medal_." Another
pause, a matter of seconds by their watches; of hours in the minds of
his hearers. "I require a loving Pekinese."

Then, as though impatient of a discussion on which his mind was already
decided, he rose from the table as suddenly as he had done the night
before, stalked out giving an impression that even then there was
awaiting him on the further side of the oak door the animal of his
choice, which he would gather to himself and bear away into the haunted
shades that were his true habitat.

He shut the door behind him, but through the heavy oak panels his voice
could be heard singing a song, not of his own youth; one which a father
or uncle must have sung reminiscently to the extraordinary little boy
that was to become Ludovic:

    _Father won't buy me a bow-wow-wow-wow_
    _Father won't buy me a bow-wow-wow._
    _I've got a little cat and I'm very fond of that_
    _But what I want's a bow-wow-wow-wow._

"It might be a good thing," the chief instructor later said to Captain
Fremantle, "to sound one of the more responsible of the clients and see
what they make of the old man."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next day the wind was blowing hard from the east. All the morning the
squad sat about waiting on weather reports until at noon the chief
instructor announced that the exercise was cancelled. Captain Fremantle,
who during the past thirty-six hours had become increasingly nervous in
the contemplation of Ludovic's evident decline, welcomed the respite as
an opportunity to carry out the chief instructor's plan.

He chose de Souza.

"Someone ought to go and call at the hospital. Care to come and see your
fellow Halberdier? We might lunch out. There's quite a decent
black-market road-house not far away."

They went into the wind without a soldier-driver. As soon as they were
clear of the villa Captain Fremantle said: "Of course I know it's not
strictly the thing to discuss a senior officer, but you seem to me a
sensible sort of fellow and I wanted to ask you unofficially and in
confidence whether any of you chaps have noticed anything odd about the
Commandant."

"Major Dracula?"

"Major Ludovic. Why do you call him that?"

"It's just the name he's got with our squad. I don't think anyone ever
told us his real name. He is certainly singular. Has he not always been
like this?"

"No. It's been coming on, especially the last few days. He was never
exactly bonhomous; kept himself to himself; but there was nothing you
could actually put your finger on."

"And now there is?"

"Well, you saw him in the last two nights."

"Yes, but you see I didn't know him before. I had a theory, but from
what you tell me it seems I was wrong."

"What did you think?"

"I thought he was dead."

"I don't quite get you."

"In Haiti they call them 'Zombies.' Men who are dug up and put to work
and then buried again. I thought perhaps he had been killed in Crete or
wherever it was. But clearly I was wrong."

Captain Fremantle began to wonder if he had been wise in his choice of
confidant.

"I wouldn't have mentioned the matter if I'd thought you would make a
joke of it," he said crossly.

"It was merely a hypothesis," de Souza conceded airily; "and of course
it was based on the brief period I have had him under observation. I
daresay the real explanation is quite prosaic. He's just going off his
rocker."

"You mean a case for the psychiatrist?"

"Oh, that's not what I mean at all. _They_ never do any good. I should
get him a Pekinese and keep him hidden as much as you can. In my
experience the more responsible posts in the army are largely filled by
certifiable lunatics. They don't cause any more trouble than the sane
ones."

"If you're going to treat it all as a joke..." Captain Fremantle
began.

"It will certainly be a joke to Guy Crouchback," said de Souza. "I
expect he's in need of one. Air Force jokes are deeply depressing."

They reached the hospital, a temporary and unsightly structure. A flag
of the R.A.F. flapped furiously overhead. Crouched against the wind they
mounted the concrete ramp and entered.

A long-haired youth in Air Force uniform sat at a table by the door with
a cup of tea before him and a cigarette adhering to his lower lip.

"We have come to see Captain Crouchback."

"D'you know where to find him?"

"No. Perhaps you can tell us."

"I don't know, I'm sure. Did you say 'Captain'? We don't take army
blokes here."

"He came yesterday for an X-ray."

"You can try Radiology."

"Where's that?"

"It'll tell you on the board," said the airman.

"I suppose it would be no good putting that man on a charge for
insolence?" said Captain Fremantle.

"Not the smallest," said de Souza. "It isn't an offence in the Air
Force."

"Surely you're wrong there?"

"Not wrong; merely facetious."

It was not a busy hospital and this was its least busy hour. The
patients had been fed, and left, it was supposed, to sleep; the staff
were feeding themselves. No one was in the room marked Radiology. The
two soldiers wandered down empty corridors whose floors were coated with
some dark, slightly sticky substance designed to muffle their footsteps.

"There must be someone on duty somewhere."

Seeing a door labelled No Visitors, de Souza opened it and entered. He
found an inflamed and apparently delirious man who broke into complaint
that his bed was overrun with poisonous insects.

"D.T.'s, I suppose," said de Souza. "Perhaps if we ring his bell someone
will think he has taken a turn for the worse and come with sedatives."

He rang and at length an orderly appeared.

"We're looking for an army officer named Crouchback."

"This isn't him. This one's on the danger list. You'd better come out."
And when they were once more in the corridor he added: "Never saw
anything like it before. Some joker in Alex gave him a parcel 'by hand
of officer only' to take to London. It was full of scorpions, and they
escaped."

"What risks you boys in blue do run for us! But how do we find Captain
Crouchback?"

"You might ask at the registrar's."

They found an office and an officer.

"Crouchback? No, never heard of him."

"You keep a list of the inmates?"

"Of course we do. What d'you think?"

"No Crouchback on it? He came yesterday."

"I wasn't on yesterday."

"Could we see the officer who was?"

"He's off today."

"It sounds like a plain case of abduction," said de Souza.

"Look here, I don't know who the devil you two are or how you got in or
what you think you're doing."

"Security check-up. Just routine," said de Souza. "We shall make our
report to the proper quarter."

When they left the building the wind blew so fiercely that speech was
impossible until they reached the shelter of the car. Then Captain
Fremantle said: "I say, you know, you shouldn't have spoken to that chap
like that. It might get us into trouble." "Not _us_. You, perhaps. My
identity, you must remember, is a carefully guarded secret. Now for the
black market."

The road-house offered shelter from the gale but none of the luxuries of
Ruben's. Indeed, it differed from neighbouring hotels only in enjoying a
larger share of the rations sold by Captain Fremantle's own
quartermaster-sergeant. They were able to eat, however, with more zest
than under Ludovic's sinister regard.

"Pity we didn't get to see Crouchback," said Captain Fremantle at
length. "They must have moved him."

"These oubliettes open and close constantly in army life. You don't
think he was kidnapped on the Commandant's orders? He harped rather--did
he not?--on the absence of Captain A.N. Other. You might almost call it
'gloating.'" Stirred by the heavy North African wine, de Souza's
imagination rolled into action as though at a "story conference" of
jaded script-writers. "In assuming insanity we have been accepting
altogether too simple an explanation of your Commandant's behaviour. We
are in deep political waters, Fremantle. I was surprised to meet old
Uncle Crouchback at the bus station; a man clearly far too old for
fooling about with parachutes. I should have been suspicious, but I was
thinking of the simple, zealous officer I knew in 1939. Four years of
total war can change a man. They have changed me. I left an unimportant
but conspicuous part of my left ear in Crete. Uncle Crouchback was sent
here with a purpose. Perhaps to watch Major Ludovic; perhaps to be
watched by him. One or other is a fascist agent; perhaps both. Uncle
Crouchback has been working at H.O.O. HQ.--a notorious nest of
conspiracy. Perhaps sealed orders were sent to your Ludovic, giving no
explanation; curtly remarking 'the above-mentioned officer is
expendable.' Someone was remarking the other evening that it would not
be difficult to arrange for a 'Roman candle.' Crouchback's number in the
squad was already known. No doubt Ludovic and his accomplices had
arranged a trap of the kind."

Captain Fremantle's simple mind, warmed, too, by the purple ferruginous
vintage, was caught by the idea.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "that was the first thing the Commandant
asked when I reported Crouchback's accident. 'A "Roman candle"?' he
asked, as though it was the most natural thing in the world."

"It would have seemed natural. The Commandant was not to know the hour
of the assassination. It might have been on the first afternoon; it
might have been yesterday. But Crouchback's little accident saved
him--for the time being. Now they have caught up with him. I don't think
you or I will ever see my old comrade-in-arms again."

They discussed and elaborated the possibilities of plot, counterplot and
betrayal. Captain Fremantle was a simple man. Before the war he had
served in a lowly capacity in an insurance company. His post for the
last three years had given him an occasional glimpse into arcane
matters. Too many strange persons had briefly passed through his narrow
field of vision for him to be totally unaware of the existence of an
intricate world of deception and peril that lay beyond his experience.
Roughly speaking he was ready to believe anything he was told. De Souza
confused him only by suggesting so much.

Later, as they drove back, de Souza developed a new plot.

"Are we being too contemporary?" he asked. "We are thinking in terms of
the thirties. Both Uncle Crouchback and your Major Dracula came to
manhood in the twenties. Perhaps we should look for a love motive. Your
Commandant is plainly as queer as a coot, and Uncle Crouchback's
sex-life has always been something of a mystery. He never made his mark
as a _coureur_ when I served with him. This may well be a simple
old-fashioned case of blackmail or, better still, of amorous jealousy."

"Why 'better still'?" Captain Fremantle was far out of his depth.

"Altogether less sordid."

"But how do you know the Commandant has any connexion with Crouchback's
disappearance?"

"It is our working hypothesis."

"I simply don't know whether to take you seriously or not."

"No, you don't, do you? But you must admit you have enjoyed our little
outing. It's given you something to think about."

"I suppose it has, in a way."

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was a baffled and bemused Staff Captain who returned in the early
afternoon to his headquarters. He had been deputed to make tactful
enquiries of the most responsible-seeming of the officers under
instruction as to whether he and his fellows had noticed any little
oddities in the behaviour of his Commandant. He had found himself
investigating a mystery, perhaps a murder, whose motives lay in the
heights of international politics or the depths of unnatural vice.
Captain Fremantle was not at his ease in such matters.

The house, when they reached it seemed empty. It was certainly silent
save for the howling of the wind in the chimneys. One R.A.S.C. private
was on duty at the garage. Everyone else, confined to quarters without
employment, had gone to bed, except Major Ludovic, who, Captain
Fremantle was informed, had left by car while they were still in the
aerodrome, taking a driver with him and remarking in the phrase
universally used by commanding officers to explain their absence from
their posts, that he was "called to a conference."

"I think perhaps I'll go and lie down too," said de Souza. "Thank you
for the outing."

The Staff Captain looked at his tidy office where no new papers had
arrived since morning. Then he, too, took his puzzled head to his
pillow. The African wine gently asserted its drowsy powers. He slept
until the batman came in to put up the blackout screen in his window.

"Sorry, sir," said the man as he discovered the tousled figure. "Didn't
know you was here."

Captain Fremantle slowly came to himself.

"Time I showed a leg," he said. Then: "Is the Commandant back?"

"Yessir," said the man, grinning.

"What's the joke, Ardingly?" There was a confidence and cordiality
between these two to which Ludovic, who shared Ardingly's services, was
a stranger.

"The Major, sir. He's going on funny."

"Funny?"

Phantasmagoric memories came into Captain Fremantle's quickening mind.
"Going on funny?"

"Yessir. He's been and got a little dog."

"And he is going on funny with it?"

"Well, not a bit like the Major, sir."

"Perhaps I'd better go and see."

"Perhaps you'd say 'acting soft,'" Ardingly conceded.

Captain Fremantle had lain down to rest with the minimum of preparation.
He had removed his boots, anklets, and tunic. Now he arose and put on
service dress and followed the corridor into Major Ludovic's part of the
house. Pausing outside the door he heard from inside a clucking noise,
as though a countrywoman were feeding poultry. He knocked and entered.

The floor of Ludovic's room was covered with saucers containing milk,
gravy, Spam, biscuit, Woolton sausage and other items of diet, some
rationed, some on points, some free to the full purse. Here and there
the food had been rudely spilt; none of it seemed to have appealed to
the appetite of the Pekinese puppy, which crouched under Ludovic's bed
in a nest of shredded paper. It was a pretty animal with eyes as
prominent as Ludovic's own. Ludovic was on all fours making the noises
which had been audible outside; he was, at first sight, all khaki
trouser-seat, like Jumbo Trotter at the billiard table; a figure from
antiquated farce, "caught bending," inviting the boot. He raised to
Fremantle a face that was radiant with simple glee; there was no trace
of embarrassment or of resentment at the intrusion. He wished to share
with all the overflowing delight of his heart.

"Cor," he said, "just take a dekko at the little perisher. Wouldn't
fancy anything I gave him. Had me worried. Thought he was sick. Thought
I ought to call in the M.O. Then I turned me back for a jiffy and
blessed if he hasn't polished off the last number of _Survival_. How
d'you call that for an appetite?"

Then, falling into a fruity and, to Captain Fremantle, blood-curdling
tone of infatuation, he addressed himself to the puppy: "What'll kind
Staff-Captain-man say if you eat his clever paper?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

Guy meanwhile lay in bed less than a mile from Ludovic and his pet.
There were, as de Souza had remarked, oubliettes which from time to time
opened and engulfed members of His Majesty's forces. Thus it had
happened to Guy. He was clothed in flannel pyjamas not his own; his leg
was encased in plaster, and it seemed to him that he had lost all rights
of property over that limb. He was alone in a hut so full of music that
the wind swept over it unheard. It was the emergency ward of the
aerodrome. Here he had been delivered in an ambulance from the R.A.F.
hospital, where a young medical officer had informed him that he
required no treatment. "Just lie up, old boy. We'll have another look at
you in a few weeks and then take the plaster off. You'll be quite
comfortable."

Guy was not at all comfortable. There were no fellow patients in the
ward. Its sole attendant was a youth who, sitting on Guy's bed,
announced, as soon as the stretcher-party had left: "I'm a C.O."

"Commanding Officer?" Guy asked without surprise.

Anything seemed possible among these inhabitants of an alien element.

"Conscientious Objector."

He explained his objections at length above the turmoil of jazz. They
were neither political nor ethical but occult, being in some way based
on the dimensions of the Great Pyramid.

"I could have lent you a book about it, but it got pinched."

There was no malice in this youth, nor was there the power to please.
Guy asked him for something to read. "There was a welfare bloke came
with some books once. I reckon someone must have flogged them. They
weren't the sort of books anyone could read, anyway. They don't take in
any papers in the R.A.F. Any news they want they hear on the blower."

"Can't you stop this infernal noise?"

"What noise was that?"

"The wireless."

"Oh, no. I couldn't do that. It's laid on special. Piped all through the
camp. It isn't all wireless anyway. Some of it's records. You'll soon
find you get so you don't notice it."

"Where are my clothes?"

The conscientious objector looked vaguely round the hut. "Don't seem to
be here, do they? Perhaps they got left behind. You'll have to see Admin
about that."

"Who's Admin?"

"He's a bloke comes round once a week."

"Listen," said Guy, "I've got to get out of here. Will you telephone to
the parachute school and ask Captain Fremantle to come here."

"Can't hardly do that."

"Why on earth not?"

"Only Admin's allowed to telephone. What's the number of this school?"

"I don't know."

"Well, there you are."

"Can I see Admin?"

"You'll see him when he comes round."

For an excruciating day Guy lay staring at the corrugated iron roof
while the sounds of jazz wailed and throbbed around him. Very frequently
the attendant brought him cups of tea and plates of inedible matter.
During the watches of the second night he formed the resolution to
escape.

The wind had dropped in the night. His fellows, he reflected, would now
be starting for their fifth jump. Once they dispersed the hope of
communication with the known world would go too. With pain and enormous
effort he hobbled across the ward, supporting himself by the ends of the
empty beds. In a corner stood the almost hairless broom with which the
attendant was supposed to dust the floor. Using this as a crutch, Guy
stumbled into the open. He recognised the buildings, the distance across
the asphalt yard to the officers' mess would have been negligible to a
whole man. For the first time since this unhappy landing Guy felt the
full pain of his injury. Sweating in the chill November morning he
accomplished the fifty difficult paces. It was not an excursion which
would have passed without notice at the Halberdier barracks. Here it was
no one's business either to stop him or to help him.

At length he subsided in an armchair.

One or two pilots gaped but they accepted the arrival of this pyjamaed
cripple with the same indifference as they had shown him when he had
arrived in uniform with his batch of parachutists. He shouted to one of
them above the noise of the music: "I want to write a letter."

"Go ahead. It won't disturb me."

"Is there such a thing as a piece of paper and a pen?"

"Don't see any, do you?"

"What do you fellows do when you want to write a letter?"

"My old man taught me: 'Never put anything in writing,' he used to say."

The pilots gaped. One went out; another came in.

Guy sat and waited; not in vain. After an hour the party of parachutists
arrived, led on this occasion by Captain Fremantle.

The Staff Captain had slept (twice) on the problem of Guy's
disappearance. He now gave no emotional assent to any of de Souza's
"hypotheses," but an aura of mystery remained, and he was quite
unprepared for the apparition of Guy in flannel pyjamas waving a broom.
He came cautiously towards him.

"Thank God you've come," said Guy with a warmth to which Captain
Fremantle was little accustomed.

"Yes. I have to see the A.O. about a few things."

"You've got to get me out of here."

Captain Fremantle had more than three years' experience of the army and,
as the facts of Guy's predicament were frantically explained, the staff
solution came pat: "Not my pigeon. The S.M.O. will have to discharge
you."

"There's no medical officer here. Only some kind of orderly."

"He won't do. Must be signed for by the S.M.O."

The eleven "clients" were morose. Their former exhilaration had subsided
with their fears. This last jump was merely a disagreeable duty. De
Souza saw Guy and approached him.

"So you are safe and well, Uncle," he said.

Guy had served as the source of invention to beguile a wet day. That
joke was over. De Souza now wished to finish his course early and get
back to London and a waiting girl.

"I'm being driven insane, Frank."

"Yes," said de Souza, "yes, I suppose you are."

"The Staff Captain says he can't do anything about me."

"No. No. I don't suppose he can. Well, I am glad to have seen you all
right.... It looks as if they wanted us to take off."

"Frank, do you remember Jumbo Trotter in barracks?"

"No. Can't say I do."

"He might be able to help me. Will you telephone to him as soon as you
get back? Just tell him what's happened to me and where I am. I can give
you his number."

"But _shall_ I get back? That is the question uppermost in my mind at
the moment. We put our lives in jeopardy every time we go up in that
aeroplane--or rather every time we leave it. Perhaps you'll find me in
the next bed to you, insensible. Perhaps I shall be dead. I am told you
dig your own grave--those are the very words of the junior
instructor--if the parachute doesn't open, burrow into the earth five
foot deep and all they have to do is shovel the sides down on one. I
keep reminding Gilpin of that possibility. In that rich earth a richer
dust concealed. In my case a corner that shall be for ever
Anglo-Sephardi."

"Frank, will you telephone to Jumbo for me?"

"If I survive, Uncle, I will."

Guy stumbled back to his bed.

"Wasn't it a bit cold out there?" asked the conscientious objector.

"Bitterly."

"I was wondering who'd got my brush."

Guy lay on the bed, exhausted by his efforts. His plastered leg ached
more than it had done at any time since his injury. Presently the
conscientious objector came in with tea.

"Got some books out of the Squadron Leader's office," he said, giving
him two tattered pictorial journals which, from their remote origin in
juvenile humour, were still dubbed "comics"; but for their price, the
appropriate name would have been "penny dreadfuls," for the incidents
portrayed were uniformly horrific.

An aeroplane came in to land.

"Was that the parachute flight?" Guy asked.

"Couldn't say, I'm sure."

"Be a good fellow. Go and find out. Ask if anyone was hurt."

"They wouldn't tell me a thing like that. Don't suppose they'd know,
anyway. They just drop them out and come back. Ground staff collect the
bodies."

Guy studied the Squadron Leader's "comic."

Wherever he went de Souza left his spoor of unreasonable anxiety.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Few things were better calculated to arouse Jumbo's sympathies than the
news that a Halberdier had fallen into the hands of the Air Force. Those
who knew him only slightly would not have recognised him as a man of
swift action. In Guy's cause his normal gentle pace became a stampede.
Not Jumbo alone with his car, driver and batman, but the Transit Camp
Medical Officer in his car with his orderly, and an ambulance and its
crew all sped out of London into Essex. The right credentials were
produced, the right manumissions completed; Guy's clothes were collected
from the hospital, his remaining baggage from the Training Centre, Guy
himself from the emergency ward, and he was back in London in his quiet
room before de Souza, Gilpin and their fellows had been marshalled into
the bus for their return to the "dispersal centre."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next morning Captain Fremantle reported to his Commandant with the
customary sheaf of confidential reports. He found Ludovic at a desk
clear of all papers. The Pekinese puppy was in sole occupation of that
oaken surface on which had been indited so many of Ludovic's _Penses_;
he gave intermittent attention to the efforts being made to divert him
with a ping-pong ball, a piece of string and an India rubber.

"What are you going to call him, sir?" Captain Fremantle asked in the
obsequious tones which usually provoked a rebuff. This afternoon he was
received more kindly.

"I'm giving it a lot of thought. Captain Claire called his dog Freda.
That name is precluded by the difference of sex. I knew a dog called
Trooper once--but he was a much bigger animal of quite different
character."

"Something Chinese, perhaps?"

"I shouldn't like that at all," said Ludovic severely. "It would remind
me of Lady Cripps's Fund." He looked with distaste at the documents
offered him. "Work," he said. "Routine. All right, leave them here." He
tenderly bore the puppy to its basket. "Stay there," he said. "Daddy's
got to earn you your din-din."

Captain Fremantle saluted and withdrew. Ludovic found the necessary
forms and began his work of editing.

"De Souza O.K.," he read, and baldly translated: "_The above-named
officer has satisfactorily completed his course and is highly
recommended for employment in the field._"

Of Gilpin he wrote: _Initial reluctance was overcome but with evident
effort. It is recommended that further consideration should be given to
the stability of this officer's character before he is passed as
suitable._

With deliberation he left Guy to the last. The chief instructor had
written: "N.B.G. Too old. Spirit willing--flesh weak." Ludovic paused,
seeking the appropriate, the inevitable words for the sentence he was
determined to pronounce. As a child he had been well grounded in
Scripture and was familiar with the tale of Uriah the Hittite in its
resonant Jacobean diction, but, though tempted, he eschewed all
archaisms in composing this _Pense. A slight accident_, he wrote, _in
no way attributable to this officer's infirmity or negligence, prevented
his completing the full course. However, he showed such outstanding
aptitude that he is recommended for immediate employment in action
without further training._

He folded the papers, marked them Most Secret, put them in a nest of
envelopes and summoned his Staff Captain.

"There," he said to the puppy, "Daddy's finished his horrid work. Did
you think you'd been forgotten? Was you jealous of the nasty
soldier-men?"

When Captain Fremantle reported, he found Ludivoc with the puppy on his
heart, buttoned into his tunic, only its bright white head appearing.

"I've decided what to call him," Ludovic said. "You may think it rather
a conventional name, but it has poignant associations for me. His name
is Fido."




CHAPTER VI


The Transit Camp, despite all Jumbo's manifest will to give Guy a
position of privilege there--he had come during the last year to regard
him almost as a contemporary; no longer as an adventurous temporary
officer but as a seasoned Halberdier cruelly but justly relegated like
himself to an unheroic role--was not an ideal place for the bedridden.
It had served well as a place to leave in the early morning for H.O.O.
HQ. and as a place to return to late from Bellamy's. It was not the
place to spend day and night--particularly such nights as Guy now
suffered, made almost sleepless by the throb and dead weight of his
plastered knee. For two days the relief from music and from the
attentions of the conscientious objector was solace enough. Then a
restless melancholy began to afflict him. Jumbo noticed it.

"You ought to see more fellows," he said. "It's awkward here in some
ways. Can't have a lot of women coming in and out. Oughtn't really to
have civilians at all. Isn't there anyone who'd take you in? Nothing
easier than to draw lodging allowances."

Guy thought: Arthur Box-Bender? He would not be welcome. Kerstie
Kilbannock? Virginia was living there.

"No," he said. "I don't believe there is."

"Pity. How would it be if I sent a message to your club? Your porter
might send some fellows round. How's the knee today, by the way?"

Guy was not seriously injured--something had been cracked, something
else twisted out of place; he was in slightly worse condition than he
had been after the Halberdier guest night; no more than that--but he was
hampered and in pain. His calf and ankle were swollen by the
constriction of the plaster.

"I believe I shall be a lot more comfortable without this thing on it."

"Who put it on?"

"One of the Air Force doctors."

"Soon get that off," said Jumbo. "I'll send my man up at once."

Obediently the R.A.M.C. Major attached to the camp--one of lighter posts
of that busy service--came to Guy's room with a pair of shears and
laboriously removed the encumbrance.

"I suppose it's all right doing this," he said. "They ought to have sent
me the X-ray pictures, but of course they haven't. Does it seem more
comfortable like that?"

"Much."

"Well, that's the important thing. I daresay a spot of heat might help.
I'll send along a chap with a lamp."

This reincarnation of Florence Nightingale did not appear. The swelling
of calf and ankle slightly subsided; the knee grew huge. Instead of a
continuous ache Guy suffered from frequent agonising spasms when he
moved in the bed. They were on the whole preferable.

The immediate result of Jumbo's appeal to Bellamy's was a visit from
Lieutenant Padfield. He came in the morning, when most men and women in
London were ostensibly busy, bearing the new number of _Survival_ and a
Staffordshire figure of Mr. Gladstone; also a fine bunch of
chrysanthemums, but these were not for Guy.

"I'm on my way to the Dorchester," he explained. "Ruby had rather a
misfortune last night. One of our generals over here is a great admirer
of _Peter Pan_. Ruby asked him to dinner to meet Sir James Barrie. She
kindly asked me too. I was surprised to learn Barrie was still alive.
Well, of course, he isn't. We waited an hour for him and when at last
she rang for dinner they said room-service was off and that there was a
red warning on anyway. 'That's what it is,' she said. 'He's gone down to
a shelter. Ridiculous at his age.' So we got no dinner and the General
was upset and so was Ruby."

"You do lead a complicated life, Loot."

"The same sort of thing is happening all the time in New York, they tell
me. All the social secretaries are in Washington. So I thought, a few
flowers..."

"You might take her Mr. Gladstone, too, Loot. It was a very kind
thought, but, you know, I've nowhere to put him."

"Do you think Ruby would really like it? Most of her things are French."

"Her husband was in Asquith's cabinet."

"Yes, of course he was. I'd forgotten. Yes, that would make a
difference. Well, I must be going." The Lieutenant dallied at the door
uncertainly, regarding the earthenware figure. "The Glenobans sent you
many messages of condolence."

"I don't know them."

"And so did your Uncle Peregrine--such an interesting man... You know
I don't really think this would go well in Ruby's room."

"Give it to the Glenobans."

"Are they Liberals?"

"I daresay. Lots of Scotch are."

"I might change it for a highlander. There was one in the same shop."

"I'm sure the Glenobans would prefer Mr. Gladstone."

"Yes."

At length the Lieutenant departed on his work of mercy, leaving Guy to
_Survival_.

This was the issue on which little Fido had gorged. It had gone to press
long before Everard Spruce received Ludovic's manuscript. Guy turned the
pages without interest. It compared unfavourably in his opinion with the
Squadron Leader's "comic," particularly in the matter of
draughtsmanship. Everard Spruce, in the days when he courted the
Marxists, dissembled a discreditable, personal preference for Fragonard
above Lger by denying all interest in graphic art, affirming stoutly
and correctly that the Workers were solidly behind him in his
indifference. "Look at Russia," he would say. But the Ministry of
Information in the early days of _Survival_, before the Russian
alliance, had pointed out that since Hitler had proclaimed a taste for
"figurative" painting, defence of the cosmopolitan avant-garde had
become a patriotic duty in England. Spruce submitted without demur and
_Survival_ accordingly displayed frequent "art supplements," chosen by
Coney and Frankie. There was one such in the current issue, ten shiny
pages of squiggles. Guy turned from them to an essay by the pacific
expatriate Parsnip, tracing the affinity of Kafka to Klee. Guy had not
heard of either of these famous names.

His next caller was his uncle, Peregrine.

Uncle Peregrine, like the Lieutenant, had ample leisure. He brought no
gift, supposing his attendance was treat enough. He sat holding his
umbrella and soft, shabby hat and looked at his nephew reproachfully.

"You should take more care of yourself," he said, "now that you are the
head of the family."

He was five years younger than Guy's father but he looked rather older;
an imperfect and ill-kept cast from the same mould.

When the Lieutenant spoke of Peregrine Crouchback as "interesting" he
was making a unique judgment. A man of many interests certainly, well
read, widely travelled, minutely informed in many recondite subjects, a
discerning collector of _bibelots_; a man handsomely apparelled and
adorned when he did duty at the papal court; a man nevertheless
assiduously avoided even by those who shared his interests. He
exemplified the indefinable numbness which Guy recognised intermittently
in himself; the saturnine strain which in Ivo had swollen to madness,
terror of which haunted Box-Bender when he studied his son's letters
from prison-camp.

In 1915 Uncle Peregrine contracted a complicated form of dysentery on
his first day in the Dardanelles and was obliged to spend the rest of
the war as A.D.C. to a colonial governor who repeatedly but vainly
cabled for his recall. In the 1920s he had hung about the diplomatic
service as honorary attach. Once Ralph Brompton, as first secretary,
had been posted to the same embassy, and had sought to make him the
chancery butt; unsuccessfully; his apathetic self-esteem was impervious
to ridicule, no spark could be struck from that inert element. For the
last decade, after the decline in value of the pound, Uncle Peregrine
had made his home in London, in an old-fashioned flat near Westminster
Cathedral, at whose great functions he sometimes assisted in various
liveries. Perhaps he was a legitimate object of interest to an enquiring
foreigner like the Lieutenant. He could have occurred nowhere else but
in England and in no period but his own.

Uncle Peregrine quite enjoyed the war. He was naturally frugal and
welcomed the excuse to forgo wine and food, to wear his old clothes and
to change his linen weekly. He was quite without fear for his own safety
when the bombs were falling. He rejoiced to see so many of his gloomier
predictions of foreign policy fulfilled. For a time he busied himself
with the despatch of parcels to distressed civilians in enemy hands.
Lately he had found more congenial work. There was a "salvage drive" in
progress in the course of which public-spirited citizens were exhorted
to empty their shelves so that their books could be pulped to produce
official forms and _Survival_. Many rare and beautiful volumes perished
before it occurred to the ministry that they could more profitably be
sold. A committee was then authorised to survey two centuries of English
Literature laid out, backs uppermost, in what had once been a school
gymnasium; male and female, the old buffers poked among the bindings,
making their choice of what should be saved, priced and put into the
market. They met two or three times a week for their business, in which,
as in all matters, Uncle Peregrine was scrupulously honest; but he
exercised the prerogative of pre-emption enjoyed by the stall-holders of
all charitable bazaars. He invariably asked a colleague to decide the
price of anything he coveted; if it fell within his means, he paid and
bore it off. Not more than twenty items had been added to his little
library in this way, but every one was a bibliophile's treasure. The
prices were those which the old amateurs remembered to have prevailed in
the lean last years of peace.

"A young American protg of mine told me you were here," he continued.
"You may remember meeting him with me. It doesn't seem much of a place,"
he added, critically surveying Guy's room. "I don't think I ever heard
of it before."

He inquired into the condition of Guy's knee and into the treatment he
was receiving. Who was his medical man? "Major Blenkinsop? Don't think
I've ever heard of him. Are you sure he understands the knee? Highly
specialised things, knees." He spoke of an injury he had himself
sustained many years before on a tennis-lawn at Bordighera. "Fellow I
had then didn't understand knees. It's never been quite the same since."

He picked up _Survival_, glanced at the illustrations, remarked without
hostility: "Ah, _modern_," and then passed on to public affairs.
"Shocking news from the eastern front. The Bolshevists are advancing
again. Germans don't seem able to stop them. I'd sooner see the Japanese
in Europe--at least they have a king and some sort of religion. If one
can believe the papers we are actually helping the Bolshevists. It's a
mad world, my masters."

Finally he said: "I came with an invitation. Why don't you move into my
flat until you are fit? There's plenty of room, I've still got Mrs.
Corner; she does what she can with the rations. The lift works--which is
more than a lot of people can claim. There's a Dutch Dominican--not that
I approve of Dominicans in the general way--giving a really interesting
series of Advent conferences at the Cathedral. You can see he doesn't
like the way the war's going. You'd be better off than you are here. I'm
at home most evenings," he added, as though that constituted an
inestimable attraction.

It was the measure of Guy's melancholy that he did not at once reject
the offer; that in fact he accepted it.

Jumbo arranged for an ambulance to take him to his new address. The
lift, as he promised, bore him up to the large, dark, heavily furnished
flat, and Mrs. Corner, the housekeeper, received him as an honourably
wounded soldier.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Not very far away Colonel Grace-Groundling-Marchpole was studying a list
submitted to him for approval.

"Crouchback?" he said. "Haven't we a file on him?"

"Yes. The Box-Bender case."

"I remember. _And_ the Scottish nationalists."

"And the priest in Alexandria. There's been nothing much on him since."

"No. He may have lost contact with his headquarters. It's just as well
we didn't pull him in at the time. If we let him go to Italy he may lead
us into the neo-fascist network."

"It won't be so easy keeping track of him there. The Eighth Army is not
security-conscious."

"No. It's a moot point. On the whole, perhaps, the noes have it."

He wrote _This officer cannot be recommended for secret work in Italy_,
and turned to the name of de Souza.

"Communist party member of good standing," he said. "Quite sound at the
moment."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The room in which Guy was to spend six weeks, and make a momentous
decision, had seldom been occupied during Uncle Peregrine's tenancy. Its
window opened on a brick wall. It was furnished with pieces from the
dispersal of Brooke. Guy lay in a large old bed ornamented with brass
knobs. Here Major Blenkinsop paid him a cursory visit.

"Still pretty puffy, eh? Well, the only thing is to keep it up."

Through Jumbo's good offices Guy was able to lay in some gin and whisky.
The circle of his acquaintance had widened in the last four years.
During his first days at the flat he received several visitors, Ian
Kilbannock among them. After twenty minutes of desultory gossip he said:
"You remember Ivor Claire?"

"Yes, indeed."

"He's joined the Chindits in Burma. Surprising, don't you think?"

Guy thought of his first view of Ivor in the Borghese Gardens. "Not
altogether."

"The whispering campaign took some time to reach the Far East. Or
perhaps he got bored with viceregal circles."

"Ivor doesn't believe in sacrifice. Who does, nowadays? But he had the
will to win."

"I can't think of anything more sacrificial than plodding about in the
jungle with those desperadoes. I don't know what he thinks he's going to
win there."

"There was a time I was very fond of Ivor."

"Oh, I'm _fond_ of him. Everyone is and everyone has forgotten his
little _faux pas_ in Crete. That's what makes it so rum, his charging
off to be a hero _now_."

When Ian left, Guy brooded about the antithesis between the acceptance
of sacrifice and the will to win. It seemed to have personal relevance,
as yet undefined, to his own condition. He reread the letter from his
father which he carried always in his pocketbook. "The Mystical Body
doesn't strike attitudes or stand on its dignity. It accepts suffering
and injustice.... Quantitative judgments don't apply."

There was a congress at Teheran at the time entirely occupied with
quantitative judgments.




CHAPTER VII


At the end of the first week of that December, History records, Mr.
Winston Churchill introduced Mr. Roosevelt to the Sphinx. Fortified by
the assurances of their military advisers that the Germans would
surrender that winter, the two puissant old gentlemen circumambulated
the colossus and silently watched the shadows of evening obliterate its
famous features. Some hours later that same sun set in London not in the
harsh colours of the desert but fading into the rain where no lamps
shone on the wet paving. At that hour, with something of the bland, vain
speculation which had been expressed on the faces of the leaders of the
Free World, Uncle Peregrine stood at his front door and regarded the
woman who had rung his bell.

"I've come to see Guy Crouchback," she said.

There was no light on the landing. The light in the hall was a mere
glimmer. Uncle Peregrine found the blackout congenial and observed the
regulations with exaggerated rigour.

"Does he expect you?"

"No. I've only just heard he was here. You don't remember me, do you?
Virginia."

"Virginia?"

"Virginia Crouchback, when you knew me."

"Oh," he said. "You are, are you?" Uncle Peregrine was never really
disconcerted, but sometimes, when a new and strange fact was brought to
his notice, he took a little time to assimilate it. "It is a terrible
evening. I hope you did not get wet coming here."

"I took a cab."

"Good. You must forgive my failure to recognise you. It's rather dark
and I never knew you very well, did I? Are you sure Guy will want to see
you?"

"Pretty sure."

Uncle Peregrine shut the front door and said: "I was at your wedding.
Did we meet after that?"

"Once or twice."

"You went to Africa. Then someone said you had gone to America. And now
you want to see Guy?"

"Yes, please."

"Come in here. I'll tell him." He led Virginia into the drawing-room.
"You'll find plenty to interest you here," he added as though presaging
a long wait. "That is, if you're interested in things."

He shut the door behind him. He also shut Guy's before he announced in a
low tone: "There's a young woman here who says she's your wife."

"Virginia?"

"So she claims."

"Good. Send her in."

"You _wish_ to see her?"

"Very much."

"If there's any trouble, ring. Mrs. Corner is out, but I shall hear
you."

"What sort of trouble, Uncle Peregrine?"

"_Any_ sort of trouble. You know what women are."

"Do _you_, Uncle Peregrine?"

He considered this for a moment and then conceded: "Well, no. Perhaps I
don't."

Then he went out, led Virginia back and left husband and wife together.

Virginia had taken trouble with her appearance. Kerstie was away,
attending St. Nicholas' Day festivities at her son's prep school, and
Virginia had borrowed some of her clothes she had lately sold her. She
bore no visible sign of her pregnancy, or, in Guy's eyes, of the many
changes which had occurred in her since their last meeting. She came
straight to his bed, kissed him and said: "Darling. What a long time
it's been."

"February 14th, 1940," said Guy.

"As long as that? How can you remember?"

"It was a big day in my life, a bad day, a climacteric... I've heard
news of you. You work in Ian's office and live with him and Kerstie."

"Did you hear something else, rather disgusting?"

"I heard rumours."

"About Trimmer?"

"That was Ian's story."

"It was all quite true," Virginia shuddered. "The things that happen to
one! Anyway that's all over. I've had a dreary war so far. I almost wish
I'd stayed in America. It all seemed such fun at first, but it didn't
last."

"I found that," said Guy. "Not perhaps in quite the same way. The last
two years have been as dull as peace."

"You might have come and seen me."

"I made rather an ass of myself at our last meeting, if you remember."

"Oh, _that_," said Virginia. "If you only knew the asses I've seen
people make of themselves. _That's_ all forgotten."

"Not by me."

"Ass," said Virginia.

She drew a chair up, lit a cigarette and asked fondly about his
injuries. "So brave," she said. "You know you really are brave.
_Parachuting._ I'm scared even sitting in an aeroplane, let alone
jumping out." Then she said: "I was awfully sorry to see your father's
death."

"Yes. I had always expected him to live much longer--until the last few
months."

"I wish I'd seen him again. But I daresay he wouldn't have wanted it."

"He never came to London," said Guy.

Virginia for the first time looked round the sombre room. "Why are you
here?" she asked. "Ian and Kerstie say you're very rich now."

"Not _now_. The lawyers are still busy. But it looks as if I may be a
bit better off eventually."

"I'm dead broke," said Virginia.

"That isn't at all like you."

"Oh, you'll find I've changed in a lot of ways. What can I do to amuse
you? We used to play piquet."

"I haven't for years. I don't suppose there are any cards in the house."

"I'll bring some tomorrow, shall I?"

"If you're coming tomorrow."

"Oh, yes, I'll come. If you'd like me to, that's to say."

Before Guy could answer, the door opened and Uncle Peregrine entered.

"I just came to see you were all right," he said.

What did he suspect? Assassination? Seduction? He stood studying the
pair of them as the statesmen had studied the Sphinx, not really
expecting an utterance, but dimly conscious of the existence of problems
beyond his scope. Also, and more simply, he wanted to have another look
at Virginia. He was unaccustomed to such visitors, and she in particular
had lurid associations for him. Well travelled, well read, well
informed, he was a stranger in the world. He had understood few of the
jokes which in bygone days Ralph Brompton used to devise at his expense.
Virginia was a Scarlet Woman; the fatal woman who had brought about the
fall of the house of Crouchback; and, what was more, to Uncle Peregrine
she fully looked the part. Not for him to read the faint, indelible
signature of failure, degradation and despair that was written plain for
sharper eyes than his. In the minutes which had passed since he had
shown her in to Guy, he had not attempted to resume his reading. He had
stood by his gas-fire considering what he had seen during his brief
passage. He had returned to confirm his impression.

"I'm afraid I haven't any cocktails," he said.

"Good gracious no. I should think not."

"Guy often has some gin, I believe."

"All gone," said Guy, "until Jumbo's next visit."

Uncle Peregrine was fascinated. He could not bring himself to leave. It
was Virginia who made the move.

"I must be off," she said, though in fact she had nowhere at all to go.
"But I'll come back now I know what you need. Cards and gin. You won't
mind having to pay for them, will you?"

Uncle Peregrine led her to the door; he followed her into the lift; he
stood with her on the benighted steps and gazed with her into the rain.
"Will you be all right?" he asked. "You might find a cab at Victoria."

"I'm only going to Eaton Terrace. I'll walk."

"It's a long way. Shall I see you home?"

"Don't be an ass," said Virginia, stepping down into the rain. "See you
tomorrow."

It was, as Uncle Peregrine observed, a long way. Virginia strode out
bravely, flicking her torch at the crossings. Even on that inclement
evening every doorway held an embraced couple. The house, when she
reached it, was quite empty. She hung up her coat to dry. She washed her
underclothes. She went to the cupboard where she knew Ian kept a box of
sleeping pills. Kerstie never needed such things. Virginia took two and
lay unconscious while the sirens gave warning of a distant,
inconsiderable "nuisance raid."

At Carlisle Place Uncle Peregrine returned to Guy's room.

"I suppose it's quite usual nowadays," he said, "divorced people meeting
on friendly terms?"

"It has been so for a long time, I believe, in the United States."

"Yes. And, of course, she has lived there a lot, hasn't she? That would
explain it. What's her name?"

"Troy, I think. It was when I last saw her."

"Mrs. Troy?"

"Yes."

"Funny name. Are you sure you don't mean Troyte? There are people near
us at home called Troyte."

"No. Like Helen of Troy."

"Ah," said Uncle Peregrine. "Yes. Exactly. Like Helen of Troy. A very
striking woman. What did she mean about paying for the gin and the
cards. Is she not well off?"

"Not at all, at the moment."

"What a pity," said Uncle Peregrine. "You would never guess, would you?"

When Virginia came next evening she greeted Uncle Peregrine as
"Peregrine"; he bridled and followed her into Guy's room. He watched her
unpack her basket, laying gin, angostura bitters, and playing-cards on
the table by the bed. He insisted on paying for her purchases, seeming
to derive particular pleasure from the transaction. He went to his
pantry and brought glasses. He did not drink gin himself, nor did he
play piquet, but he hung about the scene fascinated. When at length he
left them alone, Virginia said: "What an old pet. Why did you never let
me meet him before?"

She came daily, staying sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for two
hours, insinuating herself easily into Guy's uneventful routine so that
her visits became something for him to anticipate with pleasure. She was
like any busy wife visiting any bedridden husband. It was seldom that
they saw one another alone. Uncle Peregrine played the part of duenna
with an irksome assumption of archness. On Sunday Virginia came in the
morning and while Uncle Peregrine was at the Cathedral; she asked Guy:
"Have you thought what you're going to do after the war?"

"No. It's hardly the time to make plans."

"People are saying the Germans will collapse before the spring."

"I don't believe it. And even if they do, that's only the beginning of
other troubles."

"Oh Guy, I wish you were more cheerful. There's fun ahead, always. If I
didn't think that, I couldn't keep going. How rich are you going to be?"

"My father left something like two hundred thousand pounds."

"Goodness."

"Half goes to Angela and a third to the government. Then for the next
few years we have to find a number of pensions. I get the rent for
Broome, that's another three hundred."

"What does all that mean in income?"

"I suppose about two thousand eventually."

"Not beyond the dreams of avarice."

"No."

"But better than a slap with a wet fish. And you had a pittance before.
How about Uncle Peregrine? He must have a bit. Is that left to you?"

"I've no idea. I should have thought to Angela's children."

"That could be changed," said Virginia.

That day there was a pheasant for luncheon. Mrs. Corner, who had come to
accept Virginia's presence without comment, laid the dining-room table
for two and Guy ate awkwardly on his tray while Virginia and Uncle
Peregrine made a lengthy meal apart.

On the tenth day Uncle Peregrine did not return until after seven
o'clock. Virginia was then on the point of leaving when he entered the
room, a glint of roguish purpose in his eye.

"I haven't seen you," he said.

"No. I've missed you."

"I wonder whether by any possible, happy chance you are free this
evening. I should like to go out somewhere."

"Free as the air," said Virginia. "How lovely."

"Where would you like to go? I'm not much up in restaurants, I am
afraid. There is a fish place near here, opposite Victoria Station,
where I sometimes go."

"There's always Ruben's," said Virginia.

"I don't think I know it."

"It will cost you a fortune," said Guy from his bed.

"_Really_," said Uncle Peregrine, appalled at this breach of good
manners, "I should hardly have thought _that_ a matter to discuss in
front of my guest."

"Of course it is," said Virginia. "Guy's quite right. I was only trying
to think of somewhere cosy."

"The place I speak of is certainly quiet. It has always struck me as
'discreet.'"

"_Discreet?_ Gracious, I don't think I've ever in my life been anywhere
'discreet.'"

"And since the sordid subject has been raised," added Uncle Peregrine,
looking reproachfully at his nephew, "let me assure you it is _not_
particularly cheap."

"Come on. I can't wait," said Virginia.

Guy watched the departure of this oddly matched couple with amusement in
which there was an element of annoyance. If Virginia was doing nothing
that evening, he felt her proper place was by his side.

They walked to the restaurant through the damp dark. Virginia took Uncle
Peregrine's arm. When, as happened at crossings and turnings, he tried
with old-fashioned etiquette to change sides and put himself in danger
of passing vehicles, she firmly retained her hold. At no great distance
they found the fish shop and climbed the stairs at its side to the
restaurant overhead. New to Virginia, well known to the unostentatious
and discriminating, the long room with its few tables receded in a glow
of Edwardian, rose-shaded lights. Peregrine Crouchback shed his old coat
and hat and handed his umbrella to an ancient porter and then said with
an effort: "I expect you want, that's to say, I mean, wash your hands,
tidy up, ladies' cloakroom, somewhere I believe up those stairs."

"No thanks," said Virginia, and then added, as they were being shown to
a table: "Peregrine, have you ever taken a girl out to dinner before?"

"Yes, of course."

"Who? When?"

"It was some time ago," said Uncle Peregrine vaguely.

They ordered oysters and turbot and looked askance at the wine list.
Virginia said she would like to drink stout.

Then she began: "Why have you never married?"

"I was a younger son. Younger sons didn't marry in my day."

"Oh, rot. I know hundreds who have."

"It was thought rather _outr_ among landed people, unless of course
they found heiresses. There was no establishment for them. They had a
small settlement which they were expected to leave back to the
family--to their nephews, other younger sons. There had to be younger
sons of course in case the head of the family died young. They came in
quite useful in the last war. Perhaps we are rather an old-fashioned
family in some ways."

"Didn't you ever want to marry?"

"Not really."

Uncle Peregrine was not at all put out by these direct personal
questions. He was essentially imperturbable. No one, so far as he could
remember, had ever shown so much interest in him. He found the
experience enjoyable, even when Virginia pressed further.

"Lots of affairs?"

"Good heavens, no."

"I'm sure you aren't a pansy."

"Pansy?"

"You're not homosexual?"

Even this did not disconcert Uncle Peregrine. It was a subject he had
rarely heard mentioned by a man; never by a woman. But there was
something about Virginia's frankness which struck him as childlike and
endearing.

"Good gracious, no. Besides the _o_ is short. It comes from the Greek,
not the Latin."

"I knew you weren't. I can always tell. I was just teasing."

"No one has ever teased me about _that_ before. But I knew a fellow once
in the diplomatic service who had that reputation. There can't have been
anything in it. He ended up as an ambassador. They would hardly have
appointed a fellow like _that_. He was rather a vain, dressy fellow. I
daresay that was what made people talk."

"Peregrine, have you never been to bed with a woman?"

"Yes," said Uncle Peregrine smugly, "twice. It is not a thing I normally
talk about."

"Do tell."

"Once when I was twenty and once when I was forty-five. I didn't
particularly enjoy it."

"Tell me about them."

"It was the same woman."

Virginia's spontaneous laughter had seldom been heard in recent years;
it had once been one of her chief charms. She sat back in her chair and
gave full, free tongue; clear, unrestrained, entirely joyous, without a
shadow of ridicule, her mirth rang through the quiet little restaurant.
Sympathetic and envious faces were turned towards her. She stretched
across the tablecloth and caught his hand, held it convulsively, unable
to speak, laughed until she was breathless and mute, still gripping his
bony fingers. And Uncle Peregrine smirked. He had never before struck
success. He had in his time been at parties where others had laughed in
this way. He had never had any share in it. He did not know quite what
it was that had won this prize, but he was highly gratified.

"Oh, Peregrine," said Virginia at last with radiant sincerity, "I love
you."

He was not afraid to spoil his triumph with expatiation.

"I know most men go in for love affairs," he said. "Some of them can't
help it. They can't get on at all without women, but there are plenty of
others--I daresay you haven't come across them much--who don't really
care about that sort of thing, but they don't know any reason why they
shouldn't, so they spend half their lives going after women they don't
really want. I can tell you something you probably don't know. There are
men who have been great womanizers in their time and when they get to my
age and don't want it any more and in fact can't do it, instead of being
glad of a rest, what do they do but take all kinds of medicines to make
them _want_ to go on? I've heard fellows in my club talking about it."

"Bellamy's?"

"Yes. I don't go there much except to read the papers. Awful rowdy place
it's become. I was put up as a young man and go on paying the
subscription. I don't know why. I don't know many fellows there. Well,
the other day I heard two of them who must have been about my age,
talking of which doctor was best to make them _want_ women. All manner
of expensive treatments. You can't explain that, can you?"

"I knew a man called Augustus who did just that."

"Did you? And he told you about it? Extraordinary."

"Why is it different from going for a walk to get up an appetite for
luncheon?"

"Because it's Wrong," said Uncle Peregrine.

"You mean 'Wrong' according to your religion?"

"Why, how else could anything be Wrong?" asked Uncle Peregrine with
perfect simplicity, and continued his dissertation on the problems of
sex: "There's another thing. You only have to look at the ghastly
fellows who are a success with women to realise that there isn't much
point in it."

But Virginia was not attending. She began to make a little pagoda of the
empty oyster-shells on her plate. Without raising her eyes she said:
"_I'm_ rather thinking of becoming a Catholic."

It has been said of Uncle Peregrine that he was never disconcerted.
Exception must be made of the abrupt access of displeasure which now
struck him. It is one of the established delights of celibacy to
discourse frankly, even grossly, of the vagaries of lust to an
attractive woman; it was one which Uncle Peregrine had never before
experienced and he was enjoying it stupendously. Now she had rudely let
drop the guillotine.

"Oh," he said. "Why?"

"Don't you think it would be a good thing?"

"It depends on your reasons."

"Isn't it always a good thing?"

The waiter reproachfully rearranged the oyster-shells on Virginia's
plate before removing it.

"Well, isn't it?" she pressed. "Come on. Tell. Why are you so shocked
suddenly? I've heard an awful lot one way and another about the Catholic
Church being the Church of sinners."

"Not from me," said Uncle Peregrine.

The waiter brought them their turbot.

"Of course, if you'd sooner not discuss it..."

"I'm not really competent to," said the Privy Chamberlain, the Knight of
Devotion and Grace of the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
"Personally I find it very difficult to regard converts as Catholics."

"Oh, don't be so stuck up and snubbing. What about Lady Plessington? She
is a pillar, surely?"

"I have never felt quite at ease with Eloise Plessington where religion
is concerned. Anyway she was received into the Church when she married."

"Exactly."

"And you, my dear, were not."

"Do you think it might have made a difference--with Guy and me I
mean--if I had been?"

Uncle Peregrine hesitated between his acceptance in theory of the
operation of divine grace and his distant but quite detailed observation
of the men and women he had known, and relapsed to his former "I'm
really not competent to say."

A silence fell on the pair; Uncle Peregrine deploring the turn the
conversation had taken, Virginia considering how she could give it
further impetus in that direction. They ate their turbot and were
brought coffee before their plates were removed. Diners were not
encouraged to linger over their tables in those days. At length Virginia
said: "You see I rather hoped for your support in a plan of mine. I've
got a bit tired of knocking about. I thought of going back to my
husband."

"To Troy?"

"No, no. To Guy. After all, he is my real husband, isn't he? I thought
becoming a Catholic might help. No amount of divorces count in your
Church, do they? I suppose we shall have to go to some registry office
to make it legal, but we're already married in the eyes of God--he's
told me so."

"Lately?"

"Not very lately."

"Do you think he wants you back?"

"I bet I could soon make him."

"Well," said Uncle Peregrine, "that alters everything." He looked at her
with eyes of woe. "It was Guy you've been coming to see all these last
days?"

"Of course. What did you think?... Oh, Peregrine, did you think I had
Designs on _you_?"

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"You thought perhaps I might provide your third--" She used a word, then
unprintable, which despite its timeless obscenity did not make Uncle
Peregrine wince. He even found it attractive on her lips. She was full
of good humour and mischief now, on the verge of another access of
laughter.

"That was rather the idea."

"But surely that would have been Wrong?"

"Very Wrong indeed. I did not seriously entertain it. But it recurred
often, even when I was sorting the books. You could have moved into the
room Guy is in now. I don't think Mrs. Corner would have seen anything
objectionable. After all you are my niece."

Virginia's laughter came again, most endearing of her charms.

"Darling Peregrine. And you wouldn't have needed any of those expensive
treatments your chums in Bellamy's recommend?"

"In your case," said Uncle Peregrine with his cavalier grace, "I am
practically sure not."

"It's perfectly sweet of you. You don't think I'm laughing _at_ you, do
you?"

"No, I don't believe you are."

"Any time you want to try, dear Peregrine, you're quite welcome."

The pleasure died in Peregrine Crouchback's sad old face.

"That wouldn't be quite the same thing. Put like that I find the
suggestion embarrassing."

"Oh dear, have I made a floater?"

"Yes. It was all a fancy really. You make it sound so practical. I found
I looked forward to seeing you about the flat, don't you know? It wasn't
much more than that."

"And I want a husband," said Virginia. "You wouldn't consider that?"

"No, no. Of course that would be quite impossible."

"Your religion again."

"Well, yes."

"Then it will have to be Guy. Don't you see now why I want to become a
Catholic? He can't very well say no, can he?"

"Oh, yes, he can."

"But knowing Guy you don't think he will, do you?"

"I really know Guy very little," said Uncle Peregrine rather peevishly.

"But you'll help me? When the point comes up, you'll tell him it's his
duty?"

"He's not at all likely to consult me."

"But if he does? And when it comes to squaring Angela?"

"No, my dear," said Uncle Peregrine, "I'll be damned if I do."

The evening had not gone as either of them had planned. Uncle Peregrine
saw Virginia to her door. She kissed him, for the first time, on their
parting. He raised his hat in the darkness, paid off the taxi and walked
despondently home, where he found Guy awake, reading.

"Have a good dinner?" he asked.

"It is always good, so far as anything is nowadays, at that restaurant.
It cost more than two pounds," he added, his memory still sore from the
imputation of parsimony.

"I mean, did you enjoy yourself?"

"Yes and no. More no than yes perhaps."

"I thought Virginia seemed in cracking form."

"Yes and no. More yes than no. She laughed a lot."

"That sounds all right."

"Yes and no. Guy, I have to warn you. That girl has _Designs_."

"On you, Uncle Peregrine?"

"On you."

"Are you sure?"

"She told me."

"Do you think you should repeat it?"

"In the circumstances, yes."

"Not yes and no?"

"Just yes."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Sir Ralph Brompton had been schooled in the old diplomatic service to
evade irksome duties and to achieve power by insinuating himself into
places where, strictly, he had no business. In the looser organisation
of total war he was able to trip from office to office and committee to
committee. The chiefs of H.O.O. considered they should be represented
wherever the conduct of affairs was determined. Busy themselves in the
highest circles, they willingly delegated to Sir Ralph the authority to
listen and speak for them and to report to them, in the slightly lower
but not much less mischievous world of their immediate inferiors.

Liberation was Sir Ralph's special care. Wherever those lower than the
Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff adumbrated the dismemberment of
Christendom, there Sir Ralph might be found.

On a morning shortly before Christmas in an office quite independent of
H.O.O., Sir Ralph dropped in for an informal chat on the subject of
liaison with Balkan terrorists. The man whom he was visiting had been
rather suddenly gazetted Brigadier. His functions were as ill-defined as
Sir Ralph's; they were dubbed "co-ordination." There had been times in
Sir Ralph's professional career when he had been aware that certain of
his colleagues, and, later, of his staff, were engaged in secret work.
Strange men not of the service had presented credentials and made use of
the diplomatic bag and the cipher room. Sir Ralph had fastidiously
averted his attention from their activities. Now, recalled from
retirement, he found a naughty relish in what he had formerly shunned.
These two had risen to their positions by very different routes; their
paths had never crossed. Sir Ralph sported light herring-bone tweed,
such as in peacetime he would not have worn at that season in London;
brilliant black brogue shoes shone on his narrow feet. His long legs
were crossed and he smoked a Turkish cigarette. The Brigadier had bought
his uniform readymade. The buttons were dull. He wore a cloth belt. No
ribbons decorated his plump breast. His false teeth held a pipe
insecurely. An impersonal association, but a close one, united them.
Their political sympathies were identical.

"It is a great thing getting control of Balkan Liberation shifted here
from Cairo."

"Yes, almost the whole Middle East set-up was hopelessly compromised
with royalist refugees. We shall be able to use the few reliable men.
The others will be found more suitable employment."

"Iceland?"

"Iceland will be perfectly suitable."

Lists were produced of the proposed liaison missions.

"De Souza got a very good report from the parachute school."

"Yes. You don't think he'll be wasted in the field? He could be very
useful to us here."

"He can be very useful in the field. Gilpin failed. We can use him here
until we open a headquarters in Italy."

"Once our fellows get to Italy they'll be harder to keep under our own
hand. They'll come under command of the army for a good many things.
We've been accepted on the top level but we still have to establish
confidence lower down. What we need is a good backing of conventional
regimental soldiers in the subordinate posts. I see Captain Crouchback's
name here, crossed off. I know him. I should have thought he was just
what we need--middle-aged, Catholic, no political activities, a
Halberdier, good record, excellent report from the parachute school."

"Bad security risk, apparently."

"Why?"

"They never give reasons. He is simply noted as unsuitable for
employment in North Italy."

"Entanglements with women?" suggested the Brigadier.

"I should doubt it."

There was a pause while Sir Ralph considered the fatuity of the security
forces. Then he said: "Only in North Italy?"

"That is what the report says."

"In fact there would be no objection to his going to the Balkans?"

"Not according to this report."

"I think he and de Souza might make a satisfactory team."

                 *        *        *        *        *

For very many years Peregrine Crouchback's Christmases had been dismal
occasions for himself and others. Bachelors, unless dedicated to some
religious function or deluded by vice, are said to be unknown among the
lower races and classes. Peregrine Crouchback was a bachelor by nature
and the Nativity was to him the least congenial feast in the calendar.
As a child, as the mere recipient of gifts and the consumer of rich,
rather tasteless foods, he had conformed and rejoiced. But he had
matured, so far as his peculiar condition could be called maturity,
young. In his early manhood, as his niece and nephews became the centre
of celebration at Broome, he sought refuge abroad. After the First World
War Arthur Box-Bender was added to the bereaved family; Ivo died but
Box-Bender's children filled the nurseries at mid-winter. Finally Broome
was emptied and Christmas ceased to be a family gathering. Uncle
Peregrine did not repine. But between the wars, in a year whose quite
recent date could have been established from the visitors' book but now
seemed of immemorial antiquity, it had become habitual, almost
traditional, for Uncle Peregrine to spend Christmas with some distant
cousins of his mother, older than himself, named Scrope-Weld, who
inhabited an agricultural island among the industrial areas of
Staffordshire. The house was large, the hospitality, when he first went
there, lavish, and one unloved, middle-aged bachelor less or more--"Old
Crouchers" even then to them, his seniors--did not depress the spirits
of the 1920s. A forlorn relation was part of the furniture of Christmas
in most English houses.

Mr. and Mrs. Scrope-Weld died, their son and his wife took their places;
there were fewer servants, fewer guests, but always Uncle Peregrine at
Christmas. In 1939 the greater part of the house was taken for a
children's home; Scrope-Weld went abroad with his regiment; his wife
remained with three children, four rooms and a Nanny. Still Peregrine
Crouchback was invited and still he accepted. "It is just the sort of
thing one must not give up," said Mrs. Scrope-Weld. "One must not make
the war an excuse for unkindness."

So it was in 1940, 1941 and 1942. The children grew sharper.

"Mummy, do we have to have Uncle Perry here to spoil Christmas every
year until he dies?"

"Yes, dear. He was a great friend and a sort of relation of your
grandmother's. He'd be very hurt if he was not asked."

"He seemed awfully hurt all the time he was here."

"Christmas is often a sad time for old people. He's very fond of you
all."

"I bet he isn't fond of me."

"Or me."

"Or me."

"Will he leave us any money?"

"Francis, that's an absolutely disgusting question. Of course he won't."

"Well, I wish he'd hurry up and die anyway."

And as Peregrine Crouchback left on the day after Boxing Day, he
reflected: "Well, that's over for another year. They'd be awfully hurt
if I didn't come."

So it was in 1943. Loath to leave London, he took the crowded train on
Christmas Eve. Once he used to bring a Strasburg pie with him. Now the
shops were empty. His only gift was a large, highly coloured Victorian
album which he had extracted from "salvage."

That night, as always, they attended Mass. On Christmas Day they all
made a formal visit to the library, now the common-room of the paid
"helpers," commended the sprigs of holly that they had disposed along
the book-shelves and picture-frames and drank sherry with them before
retiring to eat a middle-day dinner of turkey, an almost nefarious bird
at that date, long cosseted with rationed food-stuffs. "I feel so guilty
eating it alone," said Mrs. Scrope-Weld, "but it would go nowhere with
the helpers and we couldn't possibly have reared another." The children
gorged. Peregrine and Nanny nibbled. That evening there was a Christmas
tree for the "evacuees" in the staircase hall. On Boxing Day, as always,
he went to Mass, walking alone through the chill morning, under the
dripping avenue to the chapel on the edge of the park. Mrs. Scrope-Weld
had to milk and then do most of the work in cooking breakfast. One of
the "helpers" was there before him. They walked back together, and she
said: "Perhaps this will be the last Christmas here."

"Do you hope for that?"

"Well, of course, everyone hopes for peace. But I don't know where I
shall be or what I shall be doing when it comes. I've got sort of used
to the war."

Later he went for a long, damp walk with his hostess. She said: "You're
really the only link with Christmas as it used to be. It is sweet of you
coming so faithfully. I know it isn't a bit comfortable. Do you think
things will ever be normal again?"

"Oh, no," said Peregrine Crouchback. "Never again."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Meanwhile Guy and Virginia were together in London. Virginia said:
"Thank God H.O.O. doesn't make a thing about Christmas."

"In the Halberdiers we had to go to the sergeants' mess and they tried
to make us drink. In some regiments, I believe, the officers wait on the
men at dinner."

"I've seen photographs of it. Peregrine's away?"

"He always goes to the same people. Did he give you a present?"

"No. I wondered whether he would. I don't think he knew what would be
suitable. He seemed less loving after our fish dinner."

"He told me you had Designs."

"On him?"

"On me."

"Yes," said Virginia, "I have. Peregrine had Designs on me."

"Seriously?"

"Not really. The thing about you Crouchbacks is that you're effete."

"Do you know what that means? It means you've just given birth."

"Well, it's the wrong word then. You're just like Peregrine correcting
my pronunciation of homosexual."

"Why on earth were you talking to him about homosexuals? You don't think
he's one, do you?"

"No, but I think all you Crouchbacks are overbred and undersexed."

"Not at all the same thing. Think of Toulouse-Lautrec."

"Oh, damn, Guy. You're evading my Designs."

It was all as light as the heaviest drawing-room comedy and each had a
dread at heart.

"You're dying out as a family," she continued. "Even Angela's boy, they
tell me, wants to be a monk. Why do you Crouchbacks do so little
----ing?" And again she used without offence that then unprintable word.

"I don't know about the others. With me I think, perhaps, its because I
associate it with love. And I don't love any more."

"Not me?"

"Oh, no, Virginia, not you. You must have realised that."

"It is not easy to realise when lots of people have been so keen, not so
long ago. What about you, Guy, that evening in Claridge's?"

"That wasn't love," said Guy. "Believe it or not, it was the
Halberdiers."

"Yes. I think I know what you mean."

She was sitting beside his bed, facing him. Between them lay the wicker
table-tray on which they had been playing piquet. Now she ran a hand,
light, caressing, exploring, up under the bed-clothes. Guy turned away
and the pain of the sudden, instinctive movement made him grimace.

"No," said Virginia. "Not keen."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not a nice thing for a girl to have a face made at her like that."

"It was only my knee. I've said I'm sorry"--and indeed he was, that he
should so humiliate one whom he had loved.

But Virginia was not easily humiliated. Behind her last, locust years
lay deep reserves of success. Almost all women in England at that time
believed that peace would restore normality. Mrs. Scrope-Weld in
Staffordshire meant by "normality" having her husband at home and the
house to themselves; also certain, to her, rudimentary comforts to which
she had always been used; nothing sumptuous; a full larder and cellar; a
lady's maid (but one who did her bedroom and darned and sewed for the
whole family), a butler, a footman (but one who chopped and carried
firelogs), a reliable, mediocre cook training a kitchen-maid to succeed
her in her simple skills, self-effacing house-maids to dust and tidy;
one man in the stables, two in the garden; things she would never know
again. So to Virginia normality meant power and pleasure; pleasure
chiefly, and not only her own. Her power of attraction, her power of
pleasing was to her still part of the natural order which had been
capriciously interrupted. War, the massing and moving of millions of
men, some of whom were sometimes endangered, most of whom were idle and
lonely, the devastation, hunger and waste, crumbling buildings,
foundering ships, the torture and murder of prisoners; all these were a
malevolent suspension of "normality"; the condition in which Virginia's
power of pleasing enabled her to cash cheques, wear new clothes, lave
her face with its accustomed unguent, travel with speed and privacy and
attention wherever she liked, when she liked, and choose her man and
enjoy him at her leisure. The interruption had been prolonged beyond all
reason. The balance would soon come right; meanwhile--

"What did Peregrine say about my Designs?"

"He didn't specify."

"What do you think he meant? What do _you_ think of _me_?"

"I think you are unhappy and uncomfortable and you've no one you're
specially interested in at the moment, and that for the first time in
your life you are frightened of the future."

"And none of that applies to you?"

"The difference between us is that I only think of the past."

Virginia seized on the, to her, essential point. "But there's no one
_you're_ especially interested in at the moment, is there?"

"No."

"And you've absolutely loved having me round the place the last few
weeks, haven't you? Admit. We get along like Darby and Joan, don't we?"

"Yes, I've enjoyed your visits."

"And I'm still your wife. Nothing can alter that?"

"Nothing."

"I don't exactly say you've a duty to me," Virginia conceded with her
high, fine candour.

"No, Virginia, you hardly could, could you?"

"You thought I had duties to you once--that evening in Claridge's.
Remember?"

"I've explained that. It was being on leave from camp, wearing a new
uniform, starting a new life. It was the war."

"Well, isn't it the war that's brought me here today, bringing you, as I
thought, a lovely Christmas present?"

"You didn't think anything of the kind."

Virginia began to sing a song of their youth about "a little broken
doll." Suddenly both of them laughed. Guy said: "It's no good, Ginny. I
am sorry you are hard up. As you know, I'm a little better off than I
was. I am willing to help you until you find someone more convenient."

"Guy, what a beastly, bitter way to talk. Not like you at all. You would
never have spoken like that in the old days."

"Not bitter--limited. That's all I've got for you."

Then Virginia said: "I need more. There's something I've got to tell
you, and please believe that I was going to tell you even if this
conversation had gone quite differently. You must remember me well
enough to know I was never one for dirty tricks, was I?"

Then she informed him, without any extenuation or plea for compassion,
curtly almost, that she was with child by Trimmer.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Ian and Kerstie Kilbannock returned to London from Scotland on the night
of Childermas. He went straight to his office, she home, where Mrs.
Bristow was smoking a cigarette and listening to the wireless.

"Everything all right?"

"Mrs. Troy's gone."

"Where?"

"She didn't say. Gone for good I wouldn't be surprised. She packed up
everything yesterday morning and gave me a pound. You'd have thought
either it would be something more or just friendly thanks after all this
time. I nearly told her tipping's gone out these days. What I mean we
all help one another as the wireless says. A fiver would have been more
like if she wanted to show appreciation. I helped her down with the bags
too. Well, she's lived a lot abroad, hasn't she? Oh, and she left this
for you."

This was a letter:

    _Darling_:

    _I am sorry not to be here to say goodbye but I am sure you will
    be quite pleased to have me out of the house at last. What an
    angel you have been. I can never thank you or Ian enough. Let's
    meet very soon and I'll tell you all about everything. I've left
    a little token for Ian--a silly sort of present but you know how
    impossible it is to find anything nowadays._

    _All love_

    _Virginia_

"Did she leave anything else, Mrs. Bristow?"

"Just two books. They're upstairs on the drawing-room table." Upstairs
Kerstie found Pine's _Horace_. Kerstie was no bibliophile but she had
haunted the sale rooms and recognised objects of some value. Like Mrs.
Bristow's tip, she considered, it might have been something less or
more. The elegant volumes were in fact Virginia's only disposable
property, an inappropriate and belated Christmas present from Uncle
Peregrine.

Kerstie returned to the kitchen.

"Mrs. Troy left no address?"

"She's not gone far. I didn't catch what she said to the taxi driver but
it wasn't a railway station."

The mystery was soon solved. Ian telephoned. "Good news," he said.
"We've got rid of Virginia."

"I know."

"For good. She's been a sensible woman. I knew she had it in her. She's
done just what I said she would--found a husband."

"Anyone we know?"

"Yes, the obvious man. Guy."

"Oh, no."

"I assure you. She's in the office now. She's just handed in official
notification that she is giving up war work to be a housewife."

"Ian, she can't do this to Guy."

"They're going round to the registrar as soon as he can hobble."

"He must be insane."

"I've always thought he was. It's in the family you know. There was that
brother of his."

There were depths of Scotch propriety in Kerstie, hard granite very near
the surface. Life in London, life with Ian, had not entirely atrophied
her susceptibility to moral outrage. It happened to her rarely, but when
shocked she suffered no superficial shiver but a deep seismic upheaval.
For some minutes after Ian had rung off she sat still and grim and
glaring. Then she made for Carlisle Place.

"Oh, good morning, my lady," said Mrs. Corner, very different in her
address from Mrs. Bristow, "you've come to see Captain Guy, of course.
You've heard his news?"

"Yes."

"No surprise to me, I can assure you, my lady. I saw it coming. All's
well that ends well. It's only natural really, isn't it? Whatever the
rights and wrongs were before, they are man and wife. She's moved in
here in the room down the passage, and she's giving up her work so
she'll be free to take care of him."

Throughout this speech Kerstie moved towards Guy's door. "He will be
pleased to see you," Mrs. Corner said, opening it; "he doesn't often get
visitors in the morning."

"Hallo, Kerstie," said Guy. "Nice of you to come. I expect you've heard
of my change of life."

She did not sit down. She waited until Mrs. Corner had left them.

"Guy," she said, "I've only got a minute. I'm due at my office. I had to
stop and see you. I've known you a long time if never very well. It just
happens you're one of Ian's friends I really like. You may think it's no
business of mine but I've got to tell you..." And then she delivered
her message.

"But, dear Kerstie, do you suppose I didn't know?"

"Virginia told you?"

"Of course."

"And you're marrying her in spite of--?"

"Because of."

"You poor bloody fool," said Kerstie, anger and pity and something near
love in her voice, "you're being _chivalrous_--about _Virginia_. Can't
you understand men aren't chivalrous any more and I don't believe they
ever were. Do you really see Virginia as a damsel in distress?"

"She's in distress."

"She's tough."

"Perhaps when they _are_ hurt, the tough suffer more than the tender."

"Oh, come off it, Guy. You're forty years old. Can't you see how
ridiculous you will look playing the knight-errant? Ian thinks you are
insane, literally. Can you tell me any sane reason for doing this
thing?"

Guy regarded Kerstie from his bed. The question she asked was not new to
him. He had posed it and answered it some days ago. "Knights-errant," he
said, "used to go out looking for noble deeds. I don't think I've ever
in my life done a single positively unselfish action. I certainly
haven't gone out of my way to find opportunities. Here was something
most unwelcome, put into my hands; something which I believe the
Americans describe as 'beyond the call of duty'; not the normal
behaviour of an officer and a gentleman; something they'll laugh about
in Bellamy's.

"Of course Virginia is tough. She would have survived somehow. I shan't
be changing her by what I'm doing. I know all that. But you see there's
another"--he was going to say "soul"; then realized that this word would
mean little to Kerstie for all her granite propriety--"there's another
life to consider. What sort of life do you think her child would have,
born unwanted in 1944?"

"It's no business of yours."

"It was made my business by being offered."

"My dear Guy, the world is full of unwanted children. Half the
population of Europe are homeless--refugees and prisoners. What is one
child more or less in all the misery?"

"I can't do anything about all those others. This is just one case where
I can help. And only I, really. I was Virginia's last resort. So I
couldn't do anything else. Don't you _see_?"

"Of course I don't. Ian was quite right. You're insane."

And Kerstie left more angry than she had come.

It was no good trying to explain, Guy thought. Had someone said: "All
differences are theological differences"? He turned once more to his
father's letter: _Quantitative judgments don't apply. If only one soul
was saved, that is full compensation for any amount of loss of "face."_




BOOK THREE
THE DEATH WISH


CHAPTER I


The Dakota flew out over the sea, then swung inland. The listless
passengers, British and American, all men, of all services and of lowly
rank, stirred and buckled themselves to the metal benches. The journey
by way of Gibraltar and North Africa had been tedious and protracted by
unexplained delays. It was now late afternoon and they had had nothing
to eat since dawn. This was a different machine from the one in which
Guy had embarked in England. None of those who had travelled with him,
that first sleepless night, had continued to Bari. Crouching and peering
through the little porthole, he caught a glimpse of orchards of almond;
it was late February and the trees were already in full flower. Soon he
was on the ground beside his kit-bag and valise, reporting to a
transport officer.

His move-order instructed him to report forthwith to the Headquarters of
the British Mission to the Anti-fascist Forces of National Liberation
(Adriatic).

He was expected. A jeep was waiting to take him to the sombre building
in the new town where this organisation was installed. Nothing reminded
him of the Italy he knew and loved; the land of school holidays; the
land where later he had sought refuge from his failure.

The sentry was less than welcoming.

"That's a Home Forces pass, sir. No use here."

Guy still retained his H.O.O. HQ. pass and exhibited it.

"Don't know anything about that, sir."

"I have orders to report to a Brigadier Cape."

"He's not here today. You'll have to wait and see the security officer.
Ron," he said to a colleague, "tell Captain Gilpin there's an officer
reporting to the Brigadier."

For some minutes Guy stood in the dark hall. This building was a
pre-fascist structure designed in traditional style round a sunless
_cortile_. A broad flight of shallow stone steps led up into darkness,
for the glass roof had been shattered and replaced by tarred paper. "The
light ought to come on any time now," said the sentry. "But you can't
rely on it."

Presently Gilpin appeared in the gloom.

"Yes?" he said. "What can we do for you?"

"Don't you remember me at the parachute school with de Souza?"

"De Souza's in the field. What exactly is it you want?"

Guy showed him his move-order.

"First I've seen of this."

"You don't imagine it's a forgery, do you?"

"A copy ought to have come to me. I don't _imagine_ anything. It is
simply that we have to take precautions." In the twilight of the hall he
turned the order over and studied its back. He read it again. Then he
tried a new attack. "You seem to have taken your time getting here."

"Yes, there were delays. Are you in command here?"

"I'm not the senior officer, if that's what you mean. There's a major
upstairs--a Halberdier like yourself"--he spoke the name of the Corps in
a manner which seemed deliberately to dissociate himself from the
traditions of the army; with a sneer almost--"I don't know what he does.
He's posted as G.S.O. 2 (Co-ordination). I suppose in a way you might
say he is 'in command' when the Brig. is away."

"Perhaps I could see him?"

"Is that your gear?"

"Yes."

"You'll have to leave it down here."

"Do you suppose I wanted to carry it up?"

"Keep an eye on it, Corporal," said Gilpin, not, it seemed, from any
solicitude for its preservation; rather for fear of what it might
contain of a subversive, perhaps explosive, nature. "You did quite right
to hold this officer for examination," he added. "You can send him up to
G.S.O. 2 (Co-ordination)." And without another word to Guy he turned and
left him.

The second sentry led Guy to a door on the mezzanine. Four and a half
years' of the vicissitudes of war had accustomed Guy to a large variety
of receptions. It had also accustomed him to meeting from time to time
the officer, whose name he had never learned, who now greeted him with
unwonted warmth.

"Well," he said, "well, we do run across one another, don't we? I expect
you're more surprised than I am. I saw your name on a bit of bumf. We've
been expecting you for weeks."

"Gilpin wasn't."

"We try and keep as much bumf as we can from Gilpin. It isn't always
easy."

At that moment, as though symbolically, the bulb hanging from the
ceiling glowed, flickered and shone brilliantly.

"Still a major, I see," said Guy.

"Yes, dammit. I was lieutenant-colonel for nearly a year. Then there was
a reorganisation at Brigade. There didn't seem a job for me there any
more. So I drifted into this outfit."

The electric bulb, as though symbolically, flickered, glowed and went
out. "They haven't really got the plant working yet," said the major
superfluously. "It comes and goes." And their conversation was carried
on in intermittent periods of vision and obscurity as though in a storm
of summer lightning.

"D'you know what you're going to do here?"

"No."

"I didn't when I was posted. I don't know. It's a nice enough outfit.
You'll like Cape. He's not long out of hospital--got hit at Salerno. No
more soldiering for him. He'll explain the set-up when you see him
tomorrow. He and Joe Cattermole had to go to a conference at Casserta.
Joe's a queer fellow, some sort of professor in civil life; frightfully
musical. But he works like the devil. Takes everything off _my_
shoulders--and Cape's. Gilpin is a pest, as you saw. Joe's the only man
who can stand him. Joe likes everyone--even the Jugs. Awfully
good-natured fellow, Joe; always ready to stand in and take extra duty."

They spoke of the Halberdiers, of the achievements and frustrations of
Ritchie-Hook, of the losses and reinforcements, recruitment, regrouping,
reorganisation and cross-posting that was changing the face of the
Corps. The light waxed, waned, flickered, expired as the familiar
household names of Guy's innocence resounded between them. Then the
anonymous Major turned his attention to Guy's affairs and booked him a
room at the officers' hotel. When the light next went out, the sun had
set and they were left in total darkness. An orderly came in bearing a
pressure-lamp.

"Time to pack it up," said the Major. "I'll see you settled in. Then we
can go out to dinner."

                 *        *        *        *        *

"I'll just sign you in," said the Major at the entrance of the club. Guy
looked over his shoulder, but the signature was as illegible as ever;
indeed Guy himself, entered in his writing, shared a vicarious
anonymity. "If you're going to be in Bari any time, you'd better join."

"I see it's called the 'Senior Officers' Club.'"

"That doesn't mean anything. It's for fellows who are used to a decent
mess. The hotel is full of Queen Alexandra's nurses in the evenings.
Women are a difficulty here," he continued as they made their way into
the anteroom--this new, rather outlandish building had been made for a
seminary of Uniate Abyssinians, who had been moved to Rome at the fall
of the Italian Ethiopian Empire; the chief rooms were domed in
acknowledgement of their native tukals and fanes. "The locals are
strictly out of bounds. No great temptation, either, from what I've
seen. Thoroughly unsavoury, and anyway they only want Americans. They
pay anything and don't mind what they're getting. There are a few
secretaries and ciphereens but they're all booked. If you're lucky you
get fixed up with a nurse. They get two evenings a week. Cape's got
one--a bit long in the tooth but very friendly. It's easier for fellows
who've been in hospital. Joe was in hospital when he came out of Jugland
but he doesn't seem to have taken advantage. I have to rely on W.A.A.F.s
mostly; they come through sometimes on the way to Foggia. They talk a
lot of rot about Italy."

"The W.A.A.F.S do?"

"No, no. I mean people who've never been here. _Romantic_--my God.
That's where the club comes in. It _is_ like a mess at home, isn't it?
English rations, of course."

"No restaurants open?"

"Strictly out of bounds. There's nothing for the wops to eat in this
town except what they can scrounge off the R.A.S.C. dump."

"No wine?"

"There's a sort of local red _vino_ if you like it."

"Fish, surely?"

"That's kept for the wops. Good thing, too, by the smell of it."

The exhilaration which Guy had experienced at finding himself abroad,
after two years of wartime England, flickered and died like the bulb at
Headquarters.

"Shops?" Guy asked. "I've always heard that there are some fine things
to be found in Apulia."

"Nothing, old boy, nothing."

A civilian waiter brought them their pink gins. Guy asked him in Italian
for olives. He answered in English almost scornfully: "No olives for
senior officers," and brought American peanuts.

Under the blue-washed cupola where the dusky, bearded clerics had lately
pursued their studies, Guy surveyed the heterogeneous uniforms and
badges and saw his own recent past, his probable future. This was
Southsands again; it was the Transit Camp, the Station Hotel in Glasgow;
it was that lowest circle where he had once penetrated, the unemployed
officers' pool.

"I say," said Guy's host. "Cheer up. What's wrong? Homesick?"

"Homesick for Italy," said Guy.

"That's a good one," said the Major, puzzled, but appreciative that a
joke had been made.

They went into what had been the refectory. Had Guy been homesick for
wartime London, he would have found solace here, for Lieutenant Padfield
was dining with a party of three Britons. Since Christmas the Lieutenant
had not been seen about London.

"Good evening, Loot. What are you up to?"

"I'll join you later, may I?"

"You know that Yank?" asked the Major.

"Yes."

"What does he do?"

"That no one knows."

"He's been hanging round Joe Cattermole lately. I don't know who's
brought him here tonight. We try to be matey with the Yanks in office
hours but we don't much encourage them off duty. They've got plenty of
places of their own."

"The Loot's a great mixer."

"What d'you call him?"

"Loot. It's American for Lieutenant, you know."

"Is it? I didn't. How absurd."

Dinner, as Guy had been forewarned, included no succulent, redolent
Italian dishes but he gratefully drank the _vino_, poor as it was; wine
which in any form had been scarcer and more costly than ever in the last
two months in London. The Major drank nothing with his food. He told Guy
in detail of his last W.A.A.F. and of the W.A.A.F. before her. The
differences were negligible. Presently the Lieutenant came across to
them bearing a cigar-case. "I can't wear them myself," he said. "I think
these are all right. Not from the PX. Our minister in Algiers gave me a
box."

"A woman's only a woman but a good cigar is a smoke," said the Major.

"Which reminds me," said the Lieutenant, "that I have never written to
congratulate you and Virginia. I read about you in _The Times_ when I
was staying with the Stitches in Algiers. It's _very_ good news."

"Thank you."

The Halberdier Major having accepted, bitten and lit the cigar he was
offered, felt obliged to say: "Bring up a pew. We haven't met but I've
seen you with Joe Cattermole."

"Yes, he's the most useful fellow here in my job."

"Would it be insecure to ask what that is?"

"Not at all. Opera. We're trying to get the opera going, you know."

"I didn't."

"It's the most certain way to the Italian heart. There's not much
difficulty about orchestras. The singers seem all to have gone off with
the Germans." He spoke of the various opera houses of occupied Italy;
some had been gutted by bombs, others had escaped with a little damage.
Bari was unscathed. "But I must rejoin my hosts," he said, rising.

The Major hesitated on the brink of so private a topic; then plunged:
"Did I gather from what that fellow said that you've just got married?"

"Yes."

"Rotten luck being posted abroad at once. I say, I'm afraid I was
talking out of turn a bit, giving you advice about the local market."

"I don't think my wife would mind."

"Wouldn't she? Mine would--and I've been married eleven years." He
paused, brooding over that long stretch of intermittent rapture, and
added: "At least, I think she would." He paused again. "It's a long time
since I saw her. I daresay," he concluded with the resigned, cosmic
melancholy that Guy had always associated with him, "that she wouldn't
really care a bit."

They returned to the anteroom. The Major's spirits had sunk at the
thought of the possibility of his wife's indifference to his adventures
with the W.A.A.F.s. He called for whisky. Then he said: "I say, do you
believe that fellow's really going round getting up operas? What does he
mean about 'the way to the Italian heart'? We've just beaten the
bastards, haven't we? What have they got to sing about? I don't believe
even the Yanks would be so wet as to lay on entertainments for them. If
you ask me, it's cover for something else. Once you leave regimental
soldiering, you run up against a lot of rum things you didn't know went
on. This town's full of them."

                 *        *        *        *        *

In London at that moment there was being enacted a scene of traditional
domesticity. Virginia was making her _layette_. It was a survival of the
schoolroom, incongruous to much in her adult life, that she sewed neatly
and happily. It was thus she had spent many evenings in Kenya working a
quilt that was never finished. Uncle Peregrine was reading aloud from
Trollope's _Can You Forgive Her?_

Presently she said: "I've finished my lessons, you know."

"Lessons?"

"Instructions. Canon Weld says he's ready to receive me any time now."

"I suppose he knows best," said Uncle Peregrine dubiously.

"It's all so easy," said Virginia. "I can't think what those novelists
make such a fuss over--about people 'losing their faith.' The whole
thing is clear as daylight to me. I wonder why no one ever told me
before. I mean it's all quite obvious really, isn't it, when you come to
think of it?"

"It is to me," said Uncle Peregrine.

"I want you to be my godfather, please. And that doesn't mean a
present--at least not anything expensive." She plied her needle
assiduously, showing her pretty hands. "It's really you who have brought
me into the Church, you know."

"I? Good heavens, how?"

"Just by being such a dear," said Virginia. "You do like having me here,
don't you?"

"Yes, of course, my dear."

"I've been thinking," said Virginia. "I should like to have the baby
here."

"Here? In this flat?"

"Yes. Do you mind?"

"Won't it be rather inconvenient for you?"

"Not for me. I think it will be cosy."

"_Cosy_," said Peregrine aghast. "_Cosy_..."

"You can be godfather to the baby too. Only, if you don't mind, if he's
a boy I shouldn't think I'll call him Peregrine. I think Guy would like
him to be called Gervase, don't you?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

And Ludovic was writing. Since the middle of December he had without
remission written three thousand words a day; more than a hundred
thousand words. His manner of composition was quite changed. Fowler and
Roget lay unopened. He felt no need now to find the right word. All
words were right. They poured from his pen in disordered confusion. He
never paused; he never revised. He barely applied his mind to his task.
He was possessed, the mere amanuensis of some power, not himself, making
for--what? He did not question. He just wrote. His book grew as little
Trimmer grew in Virginia's womb without her conscious collaboration.

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was the aim of every Barinese to obtain employment under the
occupying forces. Whole families in all their ramifications had
insinuated themselves into the service of the officers' hotel. Six
senile patriarchs supported themselves on long mops from dawn to dusk
gently polishing the linoleum floor of the vestibule. They all stopped
work as Guy passed between them next morning and then advanced crablike
to expunge his footprints.

He walked to the office he had visited the evening before. The morning
sunlight transformed the building. There had once been a fountain in the
_cortile_, Guy now observed; perhaps it would one day play again. A
stone Triton stood there gaping, last poor descendant of grand
forebears, amid spiky vegetation. The sentry was engaged in conversation
with a despatch-rider and let Guy pass without question. He met Gilpin
on the stairs.

"How did you get in?"

"I'm attached here, don't you remember?"

"But you haven't got a pass. How long will it take those men to learn
that an officer's uniform means nothing? They had no business to let you
through without a pass."

"Where do I get one?"

"From me."

"Well, perhaps it might save trouble if you gave me one."

"Have you got three photographs of yourself?"

"Of course not."

"Then I can't make out a pass."

At this moment a voice from above said: "What's going on, Gilpin?"

"An officer without a pass, sir."

"Who?"

"Captain Crouchback."

"Well, give him a pass and send him up."

This was Brigadier Cape. The voice became a man on the landing; a lame,
lean man, wearing the badges of a regiment of lancers. When Guy
presented himself, he said: "Keen fellow, Gilpin. Takes his duties very
seriously. Sorry I wasn't here yesterday. I can't see you at the moment.
I've got some Jugs coming in with a complaint. The best thing you can do
is to get Cattermole to put you in the picture. Then we'll find where
you fit in."

Major Cattermole had the next room to Brigadier Cape. He was of the same
age as Guy--tall, stooping, emaciated, totally unsoldierly, a Zurbaran
ascetic with a joyous smile.

"Balliol 1921-1924," he said.

"Yes. Were we up together?"

"You wouldn't remember me. I led a very quiet life. I remember seeing
you about with the bloods."

"I was never a blood."

"You seemed one to me. You were a friend of Sligger's. He was always
very nice to me, but I was never in his set. I wasn't in any set. I
wasted my time as an undergraduate, working. I had to."

"I think you used to speak at the Union?"

"I tried. I wasn't any good. So you're going across to Jugoslavia?"

"Am I?"

"That seems to be why you're here. How I envy you! I came out in the new
year and the doctors won't let me go back. I was there for the Sixth
Offensive but I crocked up. They had to carry me for the last two weeks.
I was only an encumbrance. The partisans never leave their wounded. They
know what the enemy would do to them. We had men of seventy and girls of
fifteen in our column. A few hours halt and then _pokrit_--'forward.' I
don't know what my academic colleagues would have made of it. We ate all
our donkeys in the first week. At the end we were eating roots and bark.
But we got clean through, and an aeroplane picked me up with the rest of
the wounded. Didn't you have a pretty hard crossing from Crete?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"It was all in the dossier they sent us. Well, I don't have to tell you
what real exhaustion means. Did you get hallucinations?"

"Yes."

"So did I. You've made a better recovery than I. They say I'll never be
fit to go into the field again. I'm stuck in an office, briefing other
men. Let's get to work."

He unrolled a wall-map. "The position is fluid," he said, a curious
official insincerity masking his easier, early manner. "This is as
up-to-date as we can make it."

And for twenty minutes he delivered what was plainly a set exposition.
Here were the "liberated areas"; this was the route of one brigade, that
of another; here were the headquarters of a division, there of a corps.
A huge, intricately involved campaign of encirclements and
counter-attacks took shape in Cattermole's precise, donnish phrases.

"I had no idea it was on this scale," said Guy.

"No one has. No one will, as long as there's a royalist government in
exile squatting in London. The partisans are pinning down three times as
many troops as the whole Italian campaign. Besides von Weich's Army
Group there are five or six divisions of _cetnics_ and
_ustachi_--perhaps those names are unfamiliar. They are the Serb and
Croat Quislings. Bulgarians, too. There must be half a million enemy
over there."

"There seem to be plenty of partisans," Guy observed, pointing to the
multitude of high formations scored on the map.

"Yes," said Major Cattermole, "yes. Of course not all the regiments are
quite up to strength. It's no good putting more men in the field than we
can equip. And we're short of almost everything--artillery, transport,
aeroplanes, tanks. We had to arm ourselves with what we could capture.
Until quite lately those men in Cairo were sending arms to Mihajlovic to
be used against our own people. We're doing a little better now. There's
a trickle of supplies but it isn't easy to arrange drops for forces on
the move. And the Russians have at last sent in a mission--headed by a
general. You can have no idea, until you've seen them, what that will
mean to the partisans. It's something I have to explain to all our
liaison officers. The Jugoslavs accept us as allies, but they look on
the Russians as leaders. It is part of their history--well, I expect you
know as well as I do about Pan-Slavism. You'll find it still as strong
as it was in the time of the Czars. Once, during the Sixth Offensive, we
were being dive-bombed at a river crossing and one of my stretcher
bearers--a boy from Zagreb University--said quite simply: "Every bomb
that falls here is one less on Russia." We are foreigners to them. They
accept what we send them. They have no reason to feel particularly
grateful. It is they who are fighting and dying. Some of our less
sophisticated men get confused and think it is a matter of politics. I'm
sure you won't make that mistake, but I deliver this little lecture to
everyone. There are no politics in wartime; just love of country and
love of race--and the partisans know we belong to a different country
and a different race. That's how misunderstandings sometimes arise."

At this moment Brigadier Cape put his head in at the door and said:
"Joe, can you come in for a minute?"

"Study the map," said Major Cattermole to Guy. "Learn it. I'll be back
soon."

Guy was well instructed in military map-reading. He did as he was told,
wondering where in that complicated terrain his own future lay.

Next door Cape sat at his table staring resentfully at a gold hunter
watch, handsomely engraved on the back with a crown and inscription.
"You know all about this, of course, Joe?"

"Yes, I told Major Cernic to report it to you."

"He was in a great state about it."

"Can you blame him?"

"But what am I supposed to do?"

"Report it to London."

"It's a hell of a thing to have happened just when the Jugs were
beginning to trust us."

"They'll never trust us as long as they know there's an _emigr_
government in London. Properly handled this might be the opportunity for
repudiating them."

"There's no doubt it's genuine, I suppose?"

"None whatever."

"Not a political move?"

"Not on our part. It's exactly what it purports to be--a presentation
watch inscribed in London to Mihajlovic as Minister of War. A Serb
brought it out, who was ostensibly coming to the partisans. Fortunately
he got drunk at Algiers and showed it to a young American I know, who
was passing through. He tipped me off, so the partisans arrested the
agent as soon as he arrived."

"He was going to have gone across? You know the odd thing about it is
that it shows there must be a means of communication between Tito's
chaps and Mihajlovic's."

"Only through the enemy."

"Damn," said Cape, "damn. I'd just as soon the fellow got his watch as
have all this rumpus. What happened to the Serb?"

"He was dealt with."

"This isn't soldiering as I was taught it," said Cape.

Major Cattermole returned to Guy. "Sorry to leave you. Just a routine
matter. I'd pretty well finished my tutorial, and the Brigadier is free
to see you. He'll tell you where you are going and when.

"You are in for a unique experience, whatever it is. The partisans are a
revelation--literally."

When Major Cattermole spoke of the enemy he did so with the impersonal,
professional hostility with which a surgeon might regard a malignant,
operable growth; when he spoke of his comrades-in-arms it was with
something keener than loyalty, equally impersonal, a counterfeit almost
of mystical love as portrayed by the sensual artists of the high
baroque.

"Officers and men," he proclaimed exultantly, "share the same rations
and quarters. And the women too. You may be surprised to find girls
serving in the ranks beside their male comrades. Lying together,
sometimes, for warmth, under the same blanket, but in absolute celibacy.
Patriotic passion has entirely extruded sex. The girl partisans are
something you will never have seen before. In fact one of the medical
officers told me that many of them had ceased to menstruate. Some were
barely more than school-children when they ran away to the mountains
leaving their bourgeois families to collaborate with the enemy. I have
seen spectacles of courage of which I should have been sceptical in the
best authenticated classical text. Even when we have anaesthetics the
girls refuse to take them. I have seen them endure excruciating
operations without flinching, sometimes breaking into song as the
surgeon probed, in order to prove their manhood. Well, you will see for
yourself. It is a transforming experience."

Six years previously J. Cattermole of All Souls had published his _An
Examination of Certain Redundances in Empirical Concepts_; a work
popularly known as "Cattermole's Redundances" and often described as
"seminal." Since then he had been transformed.

Brigadier Cape's head appeared again at the door.

"Come on, Crouchback." And Guy followed him next door. "Glad to see you.
You're the third Halberdier to join our outfit. I'd gladly take all I
can get. I think you know Frank de Souza. He's on the other side at the
moment. I know you've spent the evening with our G. 2. You haven't got a
parachute badge up."

"I didn't qualify, sir."

"Oh, I thought you did. Something wrong somewhere. Anyway we've got two
or three places now where we can land. Do you speak good Serbo-Croat?"

"Not a word. When I had my interview I was only asked about my Italian."

"Well, oddly enough that isn't a disadvantage. We've had one or two
chaps who spoke the language. Some seem to have joined up with the
partisans. The others have been sent back with complaints of 'incorrect'
behaviour. The Jugs prefer to provide their interpreters--then they know
just what our chaps are saying and who to. Suspicious lot of bastards. I
suppose they have good reason to be. You've heard Joe Cattermole's piece
about them. He's an enthusiast. Now I'll give you the other sides of the
picture. But remember Joe Cattermole's a first-class chap. He doesn't
tell anyone, but he did absolutely splendidly over there. The Jugs love
him and they don't love many of us. And Joe loves the Jugs, which is
something more unusual still. But you have to take what he says with a
grain of salt. I expect he told you about the partisans pinning down
half a million men. The situation, as I see it, is rather different. The
Germans are interested in only two things. Their communications with
Greece and the defence of their flank against an allied landing in the
Adriatic. Our information is that they will be pulling out of Greece
this summer. Their road home has to be kept clear. There's nothing else
they want in Jugoslavia. When the Italians packed up, the Balkans were a
total loss to them. No question now of cutting round to the Suez Canal.
But they are afraid of a large-scale Anglo-American advance up to
Vienna. The Americans very naturally prefer to land on the Cte d'Azure.
But as long as there's any danger of an Adriatic landing the Germans
have to keep a lot of men in Jugoslavia and the Jugs, when they take
time off from fighting one another, are quite a nuisance to them. The
job of this mission is to keep the nuisance going with the few bits and
pieces we are allowed.

"When the partisans talk about their 'offensives,' you know, they are
German offensives, not Jug. Whenever the Jugs get too much of a
nuisance, the Germans make a sweep and clear them off, but they have
never yet got the whole lot in the bag. And it looks more and more
likely that they never will.

"Now, remember, we are soldiers not politicians. Our job is simply to do
all we can to hurt the enemy. Neither you nor I are going to make his
home in Jugoslavia after the war. How they choose to govern themselves
is entirely their business. Keep clear of politics. That's the first
role of this mission.

"I shall be seeing you again before you move. I can't tell you at the
moment where you'll be going or when. You won't find Bari a bad place to
hang about in. Report to G.S.O. 2 every day. Enjoy yourself."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Few foreigners visited Bari from the time of the Crusades until the fall
of Mussolini. Few tourists, even the most assiduous, explored the
Apulian coast. Bari contains much that should have attracted them--the
old town full of Norman building, the bones of St. Nicholas enshrined in
silver; the new town spacious and commodious. But for centuries it lay
neglected by all save native businessmen. Guy had never before set foot
there.

Lately the place had achieved the unique, unsought distinction of being
the only place in the Second World War to suffer from gas. In the first
days of its occupation a ship full of "mustard" blew up in the harbour,
scattering its venom about the docks. Many of the inhabitants complained
of sore throats, sore eyes and blisters. They were told it was an
unfamiliar, mild, epidemic disease of short duration. The people of
Apulia are inured to such afflictions.

Now, early in 1944, the city had recovered the cosmopolitan, martial
stir it enjoyed in the Middle Ages. Allied soldiers on short leave--some
wearing, ironically enough, the woven badge of the crusader's
sword--teemed in its streets; wounded filled its hospitals; the staffs
of numberless services took over the new, battered office-buildings
which had risen as monuments to the Corporative State. Small naval craft
adorned the shabby harbour. Bari could not rival the importance of
Naples, that prodigious, improvised factory of war. Its agile and
ingenious criminal class consisted chiefly of small boys. Few cars flew
the pennons of high authority. Few officers over the rank of brigadier
inhabited the outlying villas. Foggia drew the _magistras_ of the Air
Force. Nothing very august flourished in Bari, but there were dingy
buildings occupied by Balkan and Zionist emissaries; by a melancholic
English officer who performed a part not then known as "disc jockey,"
providing the troops with the tunes it was thought they wished to hear;
by a euphoric Scotch officer surrounded by books with which he hoped to
inculcate a respect for English culture among those who could read that
language; by the editors of little papers, more directly propagandist
and printed in a variety of languages; by the agents of competing
intelligence systems; by a group of Russians whose task was to relabel
tins of American rations in bold Cyrillic characters, proclaiming them
the produce of the U.S.S.R., before they were dropped from American
aeroplanes over beleaguered gangs of Communists; by Italians, even, who
were being coached in the arts of local democratic government. The
allies had lately much impeded their advance by the destruction of Monte
Cassino, but the price of this sacrilege was being paid by the infantry
of the front line. It did not trouble the peace-loving and unambitious
officers who were glad to settle in Bari.

They constituted a little world of officers--some young and seedy, some
old and spruce--sequestered from the responsibilities and vexations of
command. Such men of other rank as were sometimes seen in the arcaded
streets were drivers, orderlies, policemen, clerks, servants and
sentries.

In this limbo Guy fretted for more than a week while February blossomed
into March. He had left Italy four and a half years ago. He had then
taken leave of the crusader whom the people called "il santo inglese."
He had laid his hand on the sword that had never struck the infidel. He
wore the medal which had hung round the neck of his brother Gervase when
the sniper had picked him off on his way up to the line in Flanders. In
his heart he felt stirring the despair in which his brother Ivo had
starved himself to death. Half an hour's scramble on the beach near
Dakar; an ignominious rout in Crete. That had been his war.

Every day he reported to headquarters. "No news yet," they said.
"Communications have not been satisfactory for the last few days. The
Air Force aren't playing until they know what's going on over there."

"Enjoy yourself," Brigadier Cape had said. That would not have been the
order of Ritchie-Hook. There was no biffing in Bari.

Guy wandered as a tourist about the streets of the old town. He sat in
the club and the hotel. He met old acquaintances and made new ones.
Leisure, bonhomie and futility had him in thrall.

After a brief absence Lieutenant Padfield reappeared in the company of a
large and celebrated English composer whom U.N.R.R.A. had mysteriously
imported. On the Sunday they drove Guy out to the road south to visit
the beehive dwellings where the descendants of Athenian colonists still
lived their independent lives. Nearby was a small, ancient town where an
Italian family had set up an illicit restaurant. They did not deal in
paper currency but accepted petrol, cigarettes and medical supplies in
exchange for dishes of fresh fish cooked with olive oil and white
truffles and garlic.

The Lieutenant left his car in the piazza before the locked church.
There were other service vehicles there and, when they reached the house
on the water front, they found it full of English and Americans; among
them Brigadier Cape and his homely hospital nurse.

"I haven't seen you," said the Brigadier, "and you haven't seen me," but
the nurse knew all about the musician and after luncheon insisted on
being introduced. They all walked together along the quay, Guy and the
Brigadier a pace behind the other three. This place had been left
untouched by the advancing and retreating armies. The inhabitants were
taking their siestas. To seaward the calm Adriatic lapped against the
old stones; in the harbour the boats lay motionless. Guy remarked,
tritely enough, that the war seemed far away.

The Brigadier was in ruminative mood. He had eaten largely; other
pleasures lay ahead. "War," he said. "When I was at Sandhurst no one
talked about war. We learned about it, of course--a school subject like
Latin or geography; something to write exam papers about. No bearing on
life. I went into the army because I liked horses, and I've spent four
years in and out of a stinking, noisy tank. Now I've got a couple of
gongs and a game leg and all I want is quiet. Not _peace_, mind. There's
nothing wrong with war except the fighting. I don't mind betting that
after five years of peace we shall all look back on Bari as the best
days of our life."

Suddenly the musician turned and said: "Crouchback has the death wish."

"Have you?" asked the Brigadier with a show of disapproval.

"Have I?" said Guy.

"I recognised it the moment we met," said the musician. "I should not
mention it now except that Padfield was so liberal with the wine."

"Death wish?" said the Brigadier. "I don't like the sound of that. Time
we were off, Bettie."

He took his nurse's arm and limped back towards the piazza. Guy saluted
as Halberdiers did. The Lieutenant tipped his cap in a gesture that was
part benediction, part a wave of farewell. The musician bowed to the
nurse.

Then he turned towards the open sea and performed a little parody of
himself conducting an orchestra, saying: "The death wish. The death
wish. On a day like this."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Two days later, when Guy reported, the Brigadier asked: "How's the death
wish today? There's an aeroplane to take you into Croatia tonight. Joe
will give you the details."

Guy had no preparations to make for this journey except to prepare
himself. He walked to the old town, where he found a dilapidated
romanesque church where a priest was hearing confessions. Guy waited,
took his turn and at length said: "Father, I wish to die."

"Yes. How many times?"

"Almost all the time."

The obscure figure behind the grill leant nearer. "What was it you
wished to do?"

"To die."

"Yes. You have attempted suicide?"

"No."

"Of what, then, are you accusing yourself? To wish to die is quite usual
today. It may even be a very good disposition. You do not accuse
yourself of despair?"

"No, Father; presumption. I am not fit to die."

"There is no sin there. This is a mere scruple. Make an act of
contrition for all the unrepented sins of your past life."

After the Absolution he said: "You are a foreigner?"

"Yes."

"Can you spare a few cigarettes?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

In Westminster Cathedral at almost the same time Virginia made her first
confession. She told everything; fully, accurately, calmly, without
extenuation or elaboration. The recital of half a lifetime's mischief
took less than five minutes. "Thank God for your good humble
confession," the priest said. She was shriven. The same words were said
to her as were said to Guy. The same grace was offered. Little Trimmer
stirred as she knelt at the side-altar and pronounced the required
penance; then she returned to her needlework.

That evening she said to Uncle Peregrine, as she had said before: "Why
do people make such a _fuss_? It's all so easy. But it is rather
satisfactory to feel I shall never again have anything to confess as
long as I live."

Uncle Peregrine made no comment. He did not credit himself with any
peculiar gift of discernment of spirits. Most things which most people
did or said puzzled him, if he gave them any thought. He preferred to
leave such problems in higher hands.




CHAPTER II


Summer came swiftly and sweetly over the wooded hills and rich valleys
of Northern Croatia. Bridges were down and the rails up on the little
single-track railway-line that had once led from Begoy to Zagreb. The
trunk road to the Balkans ran east. There the German lorries streamed
night and day without interruption and the German garrisons squatted
waiting the order to retire. Here, in an island of "liberated territory"
twenty miles by ten, the peasants worked their fields as they had always
done, subject only to the requisitions of the partisans; the priests
said Mass in their churches subject only to the partisan security police
who lounged at the back and listened for political implications in their
sermons. In one Mohammedan village the mosque had been burned by
_ustachi_ in the first days of Croatian independence. In Begoy the same
gang, Hungarian-trained, had blown up the Orthodox church and desecrated
the cemetery. But there had been little fighting. As the Italians
withdrew the _ustachi_ followed and the partisans crept in from the
hills and imposed their rule. More of their fellows joined them,
slipping in small, ragged bodies through the German lines; there were
shortages of food but no famine. There was a tithe levied but no
looting. Partisans obeyed orders and it was vital to them to keep the
good-will of the peasants.

The bourgeois had all left Begoy with the retreating garrison. The shops
in the little high street were empty or used as billets. The avenues of
lime had been roughly felled for firewood. But there were still visible
the hallmarks of the Habsburg Empire. There were thermal springs and at
the end of the preceding century the town had been laid out modestly as
a spa. Hot water still ran in the bath house. Two old gardeners still
kept some order in the ornamental grounds. The graded paths, each with a
"viewpoint," the ruins of a seat and of a kiosk, where once invalids had
taken their prescribed exercise, still ran through boskage between the
partisan bivouacs. The circle of villas in the outskirts of the town
abandoned precipitately by their owners had been allotted by the
partisans to various official purposes. In the largest of these the
Russian mission lurked invisibly.

Two miles from the town lay the tract of flat grazing land which was
used as an airfield. Four English airmen had charge of it. They occupied
one side of the quadrangle of timbered buildings which comprised a
neighbouring farmhouse; the military mission lived opposite, separated
by a dung-heap. Both bodies were tirelessly cared for by three
Montenegrin war-widows; they were guarded by partisan sentries and
attended by an "interpreter" named Bakic, who had been a political exile
in New York in the thirties and picked up some English there. Both
missions had their own wireless sets with which to communicate with
their several headquarters. A sergeant signaller and an orderly
comprised Guy's staff.

The officer whom Guy succeeded had fallen into a melancholy and was
recalled for medical attention; he had left by the aeroplane that
brought Guy. They had had ten minutes' conversation in the light of the
flare-path while a party of girls unloaded the stores.

"The comrades are a bloody-minded lot of bastards," he had said. "Don't
keep any copies of signals in clear. Bakic reads everything. And don't
say anything in front of him you don't want repeated."

The Squadron Leader remarked that this officer had been "an infernal
nuisance lately. Suffering from persecution mania if you ask me. Wrong
sort of chap to send to a place like this."

Joe Cattermole had fully instructed Guy in his duties. They were not
exacting. At this season aeroplanes were coming in to land at Begoy
almost every week, bringing, besides supplies, cargoes of unidentified
Slavs in uniform, who disappeared on landing and joined their comrades
of the higher command. They took back seriously wounded partisans and
allied airmen who had "baled out" of their damaged bombers returning
from Germany to Italy. There were also "drops" of stores, some in
parachutes--petrol and weapons; the less vulnerable loads--clothing and
rations--falling free as bombs at various points in the territory. All
this traffic was the business of the Squadron Leader. He fixed the times
of the sorties. He guided the machines in. Guy's duty was to transmit
reports on the military situation. For these he was entirely dependent
on the partisan "general staff." This body, together with an old lawyer
from Split who bore the title of "Minister of the Interior," consisted
of the General and the Commissar, veterans of the International Brigade
in Spain, and a second-in-command who was a regular officer of the Royal
Jugoslavian Army. They had their own fluent interpreter, a lecturer in
English, he claimed, from Zagreb University. The bulletins dealt only in
success; a village had been raided; a fascist supply waggon had been
waylaid; mostly they enumerated the partisan bands who had found their
way into the Begoy area and put themselves under the command of the
"Army of Croatia." These were always lacking in all essential equipment
and Guy was asked to supply them. Thus the General and the Commissar
steered a delicate course between the alternating and conflicting claims
that the partisans were destitute and that they maintained in the field
a large, efficient modern army. The reinforcements excused the demands.

The general staff were nocturnal by habit. All the morning they slept.
In the afternoon they ate and smoked and idled; at sunset they came to
life. There was a field telephone between them and the airfield. Once or
twice a week it would ring and Bakic would announce: "General wants us
right away." Then he and Guy would stumble along the rutted lane to a
conference which took place sometimes by oil-lamp, sometimes under an
electric bulb which flickered and expired as often as in the
headquarters at Bari. An exorbitant list of requirements would be
presented; sometimes medical stores, the furniture of a whole hospital
with detailed lists of drugs and instruments which would take days to
encipher and transmit; field artillery; light tanks; typewriters; they
particularly wanted an aeroplane of their own. Guy would not attempt to
dispute them. He would point out that the allied armies in Italy were
themselves engaged in a war. He would promise to transmit their wishes.
He would then edit them and ask for what seemed reasonable. The response
would be unpredictable. Sometimes there would be a drop of ancient
rifles captured in Abyssinia, sometimes boots for half a company,
sometimes there was a jack-pot and the night sky rained machine guns,
ammunition, petrol, dehydrated food, socks and books of popular
education. The partisans made a precise account of everything received,
which Guy transmitted. Nothing was ever pilfered. The discrepancy
between what was asked and what was given deprived Guy of any sense he
might have felt of vicarious benefaction. The cordiality or strict
formality of his reception depended on the size of the last drop. Once,
after a jack-pot, he was offered a glass of Slivovic.

                 *        *        *        *        *

In mid-April a new element appeared.

Guy had finished breakfast, and was attempting to memorise a Serbo-Croat
vocabulary with which he had been provided, when Bakic announced:

"Dere's de Jews outside."

"What Jews?"

"Dey been dere two hour, maybe more. I said to wait."

"What do they want?"

"Dey're Jews. I reckon dey always want sometin. Dey want see de British
Captain. I said to wait."

"Well, ask them to come in."

"Dey can't come in. Why, dere's more'n hundred of dem."

Guy went out and found the farmyard and the lane beyond thronged. There
were some children in the crowd, but most seemed old, too old to be the
parents, for they were unnaturally aged by their condition. Everyone in
Begoy, except the peasant women, was in rags, but the partisans kept
regimental barbers and there was a kind of dignity about their tattered
uniforms. The Jews were grotesque in their remnants of bourgeois
civility. They showed little trace of racial kinship. There were Semites
among them, but the majority were fair, snub-nosed, high cheek-boned,
the descendants of Slav tribes Judaized long after the Dispersal. Few of
them, probably, now worshipped the God of Israel in the manner of their
ancestors.

A low chatter broke out as Guy appeared. Then three leaders came
forward, a youngish woman of better appearance than the rest and two
crumpled old men. The woman asked him if he spoke Italian, and when he
nodded introduced her companions--a grocer from Mostar, a lawyer from
Zagreb--and herself--a woman of Fiume married to a Hungarian engineer.

Here Bakic roughly interrupted in Serbo-Croat and the three fell humbly
and hopelessly silent. He said to Guy: "I tell dese peoples dey better
talk Slav. I will speak for dem."

The woman said: "I only speak German and Italian."

Guy said: "We will speak Italian. I can't ask you all in. You three had
better come and leave the others outside."

Bakic scowled. A chatter broke out in the crowd. Then the three with
timid little bows crossed the threshold, carefully wiping their
dilapidated boots before treading the rough board floor of the interior.

"I shan't want you, Bakic."

The spy went out to bully the crowd, hustling them out of the farmyard
into the lane.

There were only two chairs in Guy's living-room. He took one and invited
the woman to use the other. The men huddled behind and then began to
prompt her. They spoke to one another in a mixture of German and
Serbo-Croat; the lawyer knew a little Italian; enough to make him listen
anxiously to all the woman said, and to interrupt. The grocer gazed
steadily at the floor and seemed to take no interest in the proceedings.
He was there because he commanded respect and trust among the waiting
crowd. He had been in a big way of business with branch stores
throughout all the villages of Bosnia.

With a sudden vehemence the woman, Mme. Kanyi, shook off her advisers
and began her story. The people outside, she explained, were the
survivors of an Italian concentration camp on the island of Rab. Most
were Jugoslav nationals, but some, like herself, were refugees from
Central Europe. She and her husband were on their way to Australia in
1939; their papers were in order; he had a job waiting for him in
Brisbane. Then they had been caught by the war.

When the King fled, the _ustachi_ began massacring Jews. The Italians
rounded them up and took them to the Adriatic. When Italy surrendered,
the partisans for a few weeks held the coast. They brought the Jews to
the mainland, conscribed all who seemed capable of useful work, and
imprisoned the rest. Her husband had been attached to the army
headquarters as electrician. Then the Germans moved in; the partisans
fled, taking the Jews with them. And here they were, a hundred and eight
of them, half starving in Begoy.

Guy said: "Well, I congratulate you."

Mme. Kanyi looked up quickly to see if he were mocking her, found that
he was not, and continued to regard him now with sad, blank wonder.

"After all," he continued, "you're among friends."

"Yes," she said, too doleful for irony, "we heard that the British and
Americans were friends of the partisans. It is true, then?"

"Of course it's true. Why do you suppose I am here?"

"It is not true that the British and Americans are coming to take over
the country?"

"First I've heard of it."

"But it is well known that Churchill is a friend of the Jews."

"I'm sorry, Signora, but I simply do not see what the Jews have got to
do with it."

"But we are Jews. One hundred and eight of us."

"Well, what do you expect me to do with that?"

"We want to go to Italy. We have relations there, some of us. There is
an organisation at Bari. My husband and I had our papers to go to
Brisbane. Only get us to Italy and we shall be no more trouble. We
cannot live as we are here. When winter comes we shall all die. We hear
aeroplanes almost every night. Three aeroplanes could take us all. We
have no luggage left."

"Signora, those aeroplanes are carrying essential war equipment, they
are taking out wounded and officials. I'm very sorry you are having a
hard time, but so are plenty of other people in this country. It won't
last long now. We've got the Germans on the run. I hope by Christmas to
be in Zagreb."

"We must say nothing against the partisans?"

"Not to me. Look here, let me give you a cup of cocoa. Then I have work
to do."

He went to the window and called to the orderly for cocoa and biscuits.
While it was coming the lawyer said in English: "We were better in Rab."
Then suddenly all three broke into a chatter of polyglot complaint,
about their house, about their property which had been stolen, about
their rations. If Churchill knew he would have them sent to Italy. Guy
said: "If it was not for the partisans you would now be in the hands of
the Nazis," but that word had no terror for them now. They shrugged
hopelessly.

One of the widows brought in a tray of cups and a tin of biscuits. "Help
yourselves," said Guy.

"How many, please, may we take?"

"Oh, two or three."

With tense self-control each took three biscuits, watching the others to
see that they did not disgrace the meeting by greed. The grocer
whispered to Mme. Kanyi and she explained: "He says will you excuse him
if he keeps one for a friend?" The man had tears in his eyes as he
snuffed his cocoa; once he had handled sacks of the stuff.

They rose to go. Mme. Kanyi made a last attempt to attract his sympathy.
"Will you please come and see the place where they have put us?"

"I am sorry, Signora--it simply is not my business. I am a military
liaison officer, nothing more."

They thanked him humbly and profusely for the cocoa and left the house.
Guy saw them in the farmyard disputing. The men seemed to think Mme.
Kanyi had mishandled the affair. Then Bakic hustled them out. Guy saw
the crowd close round them and then move off down the lane in a babel of
explanation and reproach.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Full summer came in May. Guy took to walking every afternoon in the
public gardens. These were quite unscathed. The partisans showed some
solicitude for them, perhaps at the instigation of the "Minister of
Interior," and had cut a new bed in the principle lawn in the shape of a
five-pointed star. There were winding paths, specimen trees, statuary, a
bandstand, a pond with carp and exotic ducks, the ornamental cages of
what had once been a miniature zoo. The gardeners kept rabbits in one,
fowls in another, a red squirrel in a third. Guy never saw a partisan
there. The ragged, swaggering girls in battle dress, with their bandages
and medals and girdles of hand grenades, who were everywhere in the
streets, arm-in-arm, singing patriotic songs, kept clear of these
gardens where not long ago rheumatics crept with their parasols and
light, romantic novels. Perhaps they were out of bounds.

The only person Guy ever saw was Mme. Kanyi, whom he saluted and passed
by.

"Keep clear of civilians," was one of the precepts of the mission.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Later that month Guy noticed an apprehensive air at headquarters.
General and Commissar were almost ingratiating. He was told there were
no military developments. No demands were made. On a bonfire in the
garden quantities of papers were being consumed. He was for the second
time offered a glass of Slivovic. Guy had not to seek for an explanation
of this new amiability. He had already received news from Bari that
Tito's forces at Dvrar had been dispersed by German parachutists and
that he and his staff and the British, American and Russian missions had
been rescued by aeroplane and taken to Italy. He wondered whether the
General knew that he knew. A fortnight passed. Tito, he was informed,
had set up his headquarters under allied protection on Vis. The General
and the Commissar resumed their former manner. It was during this period
of renewed coldness that he received a signal: _U.N.R.R.A. research team
requires particulars displaced persons. Report any your district_. This
phrase, which was to be among the keywords of the decade, was as yet
unfamiliar.

"What are 'displaced persons'?" he asked the Squadron Leader.

"Aren't we all?"

He replied _Displaced persons not understood_, and received _Friendly
nationals moved by enemy_. He replied: _One hundred and eight Jews_.

Next day: _Expedite details Jews names nationalities conditions_.

Bakic grudgingly admitted that he knew where they were quartered, in a
school near the ruined Orthodox church. Bakic led him there. They found
the house in half darkness, for the glass had all gone from the windows
and been replaced with bits of wood and tin collected from other ruins.
There was no furniture. The inmates for the most part lay huddled in
little nests of straw and rags. As Guy and Bakic entered, a dozen or
more barely visible figures roused themselves, got to their feet and
retreated towards the walls and darker corners, some raising their fists
in salute, others hugging bundles of small possessions. Bakic called one
of them forward and questioned him roughly in Serbo-Croat.

"He says de others gone for firewood. Dese ones sick. What you want me
tell em?"

"Say that the Americans in Italy want to help them. I have come to make
a report on what they need."

The announcement brought them volubly to life. They crowded round, were
joined by others from other parts of the house until Guy stood
surrounded by thirty or more all asking for things, asking frantically
for whatever came first to mind--a needle, a lamp, butter, soap, a
pillow; for remote dreams--a passage to Tel Aviv, an aeroplane to New
York, news of a sister last seen in Bucharest, a bed in a hospital.

"You see dey all want somepin different, and dis isn't a half of dem."

For twenty minutes or so Guy remained, overpowered, half-suffocated.
Then he said: "Well, I think we've seen enough. I shan't get much
further in this crowd. Before we can do anything we've got to get them
organised. They must make out their own list. I wish we could find that
Hungarian woman who talked Italian. She made some sense."

Bakic inquired and reported: "She don't live here. Her husband works on
the electric light so dey got a house to demselves in de park."

"Well, let's get out of here and try to find her."

They left the house and emerged into the fresh air and sunshine and the
singing companies of young warriors. Guy breathed gratefully. Very high
above them, a huge force of minute, shining bombers hummed across the
sky in perfect formation on its daily route from Foggia to somewhere
east of Vienna.

"There they go again," he said. "I wouldn't care to be underneath when
they unload."

It was one of his duties to impress the partisans with the might of
their allies, with the great destruction and slaughter on distant fields
which would one day, somehow, bring happiness here where they seemed
forgotten. He delivered a little statistical lecture to Bakic about
block-busters and pattern-bombing.

They found the Kanyis' house. It was a former potting-shed, hidden by
shrubs from the public park. A single room, an earth floor, a bed, a
table, a dangling electric globe; compared with the schoolhouse, a place
of delicious comfort and privacy. Guy did not see the interior that
afternoon, for Mme. Kanyi was hanging washing on a line outside, and she
led him away from the hut, saying that her husband was asleep. "He was
up all night and did not come home until nearly midday. There was a
breakdown at the plant."

"Yes," said Guy, "I had to go to bed in the dark at nine."

"It is always breaking. It is quite worn out. He cannot get the proper
fuel. And all the cables are rotten. The General does not understand and
blames him for everything. Often he is out all night."

Guy dismissed Bakic and talked about U.N.R.R.A. Mme. Kanyi did not react
in the same way as the wretches in the schoolhouse; she was younger and
better fed and therefore more hopeless. "What can they do for us?" she
asked. "How can they? Why should they? We are of no importance. You told
us so yourself. You must see the Commissar," she said. "Otherwise he
will think there is some plot going on. We can do nothing, accept
nothing, without the Commissar's permission. You will only make more
trouble for us."

"But at least you can produce the list they want in Bari."

"Yes, if the Commissar says so. Already my husband has been questioned
about why I have talked to you. He was very much upset. The General was
beginning to trust him. Now they think he is connected with the British,
and last night the lights failed when there was an important conference.
It is better that you do nothing except through the Commissar. I know
these people. My husband works with them."

"You have rather a privileged position with them."

"Do you believe that for that reason I do not want to help my people?"

Some such thoughts had passed through Guy's mind. Now he paused, looked
at Mme. Kanyi and was ashamed. "No," he said.

"I suppose it would be natural to think so," said Mme. Kanyi gravely.
"It is not always true that suffering makes people unselfish. But
sometimes it is."

That evening Guy was summoned to general headquarters. A full committee,
including even the Minister of the Interior, sat grimly to meet him.
Their manner was of a court-martial rather than a conference of allies.
Bakic stood in the background and the young interpreter took over.

Guy would not have been surprised had they left him standing, but the
second-in-command rose, brought his chair round the table for Guy, and
himself stood beside the interpreter.

Kanyi's electric plant was again in difficulties. A single pressure-lamp
lit the flat faces and round, cropped heads. All three military men were
younger than Guy but their skin was weathered by exposure. All smoked
captured Macedonian cigarettes and the air was heavy. The
second-in-command offered Guy a cigarette which he refused.

The Minister of the Interior had a short white beard and hooded eyes
that lacked shrewdness. He did not know why he was there. He did not
know why he was in Begoy at all. He had enjoyed a sharp little practice
in Split, had meddled before the war in anti-Serbian politics, had found
himself in an Italian prison, had been let out when the partisans
briefly "liberated" the coast, had been swept up with them in the
retreat. They gave him a room and rations and this odd title "Minister
of the Interior." Why?

The interpreter spoke. "The General wishes to know why you went to visit
the Jews today?"

"I was acting on orders from my headquarters."

"The General does not understand how the Jews are the concern of the
military mission."

Guy attempted an explanation of the aims and organization of U.N.R.R.A.
He did not know a great deal about them and had no great respect for the
members he had met, but he did his best. General and Commissar
conferred. Then: "The Commissar says if those measures will take place
after the war, what are they doing now?"

Guy described the need for planning. U.N.R.R.A. must know what
quantities of seed-corn, bridge-building materials, rolling stock and so
on were needed to put ravaged countries on their feet.

"The Commissar does not understand how this concerns the Jews."

Guy spoke of the millions of displaced persons all over Europe who must
be returned to their homes.

"The Commissar says that is an internal matter."

"So is bridge-building."

"The Commissar says bridge-building is a good thing."

"So is helping displaced persons."

Commissar and General conferred. "The General says any questions of
internal affairs should be addressed to the Minister of the Interior."

"Tell him that I am very sorry if I have acted incorrectly. I merely
wished to save everyone trouble. I was sent a question by my superiors.
I did my best to answer it in the simplest way. May I now request the
Minister of the Interior to furnish me with a list of the Jews?"

"The General is glad that you understand that you have acted
incorrectly."

"Will the Minister of the Interior be so kind as to make the list for
me?"

"The General does not understand why a list is needed."

And so it began again. They talked for an hour. At length Guy lost
patience and said: "Very well. Am I to report that you refuse all
co-operation with U.N.R.R.A.?"

"We will co-operate in all necessary matters."

"But with regard to the Jews?"

"It must be decided by the Central Government whether that is a
necessary matter."

At length they parted. On the way home Bakic said: "Dey mighty sore with
you, Captain. What for you make trouble with dese Jews."

"Orders," said Guy, and before going to bed drafted a signal: _Jews'
condition now gravely distressed may become desperate. Local authorities
unco-operative. Only hope higher level._

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next morning he received in clear: _P/302/B Personal for Crouchback.
Message begins Virginia gave bath son today both well Crouchback message
end. Kindly note personal message of great importance only accepted for
transmission Gilpin for Brigadier._

"Query 'bath,'" Guy told his signaller.

Three days later he received: _Personal for Crouchback. Our P/302/B for
bath read birch. This not regarded adequate importance priority personal
message. See previous signal Gilpin for Brigadier._

"Query 'birch.'"

At length he received: _For birch read birth repeat birth.
Congratulations Cape._

"Send in clear: _Personal Message Crouchback Bourne Mansions Carlisle
Place London. Glad both well Crouchback._ Message ends: _Personal to
Brigadier thank you for congratulations._"

                 *        *        *        *        *

Virginia's son was born on June 4th, the day on which the allied armies
entered Rome.

"An omen," said Uncle Peregrine.

He was talking to his nephew, Arthur Box-Bender, in Bellamy's, where he
had taken refuge while his flat was overrun by doctor, nurse and his
niece Angela.

The club was rather empty these days. Most of the younger members had
moved to the south coast waiting for the day when they would cross the
channel. There was no air of heightened expectancy among the older
members. They were scarcely aware of the impending invasion. Social
convention, stronger than any regulations of "security," forbade its
discussion.

Box-Bender could not regard the birth of a nephew as happy. He had been
disconcerted by Guy's marriage. He had counted the months of pregnancy.
He regarded the whole thing as a middle-aged aberration for which Guy
was paying an unnatural high price to the eventual detriment of his own
children's inheritance. "Omen of what?" he asked rather crossly. "Do you
expect the boy to become Pope?"

"The idea had not occurred to me. Awfully few of us have become priests
in the last generation or two. In any case I should hardly live to see
his election. Now you suggest it, though, it is a pleasant
speculation--an Englishman and a Crouchback in the chair of Peter--just
about at the turn of the century, I suppose.

"Virginia has taken to religion in an extraordinary way during the last
few weeks. Not exactly piety, you know; gossip. The clergy seem to like
her awfully. They keep coming to call as they never did on me. She makes
them laugh. They seem to prefer that to good works--though, of course,
she hasn't been in a state for them anyway. But she's a much jollier
sort of convert than people like Eloise Plessington."

"That I can well imagine."

"Angela has been a great help. Of course you must know all about
child-birth. It has all been rather a surprise to me. I had never given
it much thought but I had supposed that women just went to bed and that
they had a sort of stomach ache and groaned a bit and that then there
was a baby. It isn't at all like that."

"I always moved out when Angela had babies."

"I was awfully interested. I moved out at the end, but the beginning was
quite a surprise--almost unnerving."

"I am sure nothing ever unnerves you, Peregrine."

"No. Perhaps 'unnerving' was not the right word."

                 *        *        *        *        *

In H.O.O. HQ. there was stagnation in the depleted offices. The more
bizarre figures remained--the witch-doctor and the man who ate
grass--but the planners and the combatants had melted away. In the
perspective of "Overlord," that one huge hazardous offensive operation
on which, it seemed, the fate of the world depended, smaller adventures
receded to infinitesimal importance.

"Brides-in-the-Bath" Whale ordered, not a holocaust, but a relegation to
unsounded depths of obscurity, in the most secrete archives, of
mountains of files--each propounding in detail some desperate
enterprise, each bearing a somewhat whimsical title, all once hotly
debated and amended, all now quite without significance.

Ian Kilbannock, without regret, realised that he had passed the zenith
of his powers and must decline. He was already negotiating for
employment as a special correspondent in Normandy. That was near home
and the centre of interest, but competition was keen. Ian had his future
professional career to consider. His brief experience as a racing
correspondent seemed irrelevant to the _Zeitgeist_. The time had come,
Ian believed, to establish himself as something more serious. There
would be infinite scope, he foresaw, during the whole length of his
life, for first-hand war "revelations."

The Adriatic was suggested and considered. Burma had been offered and
evaded. It was plain from the reports he saw that it was no place for
Ian. It might, on the other hand, be just the place for Trimmer.

"All Trimmer reports negative sir," Ian reported to General Whale.

"Yes. Where is he now?"

"San Francisco. He's been right across the country. He's flopped
everywhere. It isn't really his fault. He went too late. The Americans
have heroes of their own now. Besides, you know, they haven't a fully
developed consciousness of class. They can't see Trimmer as the
proletarian portent. They see him as a typical British officer."

"Haven't they seen the fellow's hair? I don't mean the way it's cut. The
way it grows. _That's_ proletarian enough for them, surely?"

"They don't understand that kind of thing. No, sir, he's been a flop in
America and he'd be worse in Canada. As I see it we can only keep him
moving west. I don't think he ought to come back to the U.K. at the
moment. There are reasons. You might call them compassionate grounds."

"There's a bigger problem on our hands--General Ritchie-Hook. He's had a
blood row with Monty and is out of work and keeps bothering the Chief. I
don't quite see why we should be regarded as responsible for him.
Ritchie-Hook and Trimmer--why should we be held responsible for them?"

"Do you think they could go as a pair and impress the loyal Indians?"

"No."

"Nor do I. Not Ritchie-Hook certainly. They'd soon stop being loyal if
he had a go at them."

"There's Australia."

"For Trimmer that would be worse than America."

"Oh, for God's sake settle it yourself. I'm sick of the man."

General Whale, too, knew he had passed the zenith of his powers and from
now on could only decline. There had been a delirious episode when he
had helped drive numerous Canadians to their death at Dieppe. He had
helped plan greater enterprises which had come to nothing. Now he was
where he had started in his country's "finest hour," with negligible
powers of mischief. He occupied the same room, he was served by the same
immediate staff as in the years of expansion. But his legions were lost
to him.

                 *        *        *        *        *

There was stagnation at Ludovic's station, also. The Staff Captain
remained. The instructors had been recalled. No new "clients" appeared
for the parachute course. But Ludovic was content.

He employed a typist in Scotland. He had chosen her because she seemed
the most remote from enemy action of any of those who offered their
services in _The Times Literary Supplement_. Throughout the winter he
had sent her a weekly parcel of manuscript and received in return two
typed copies in separate envelopes. She acknowledged the receipt of each
parcel by postcard, but there was a four-day interval during which
Ludovic suffered deep qualms of anxiety. Much was pilfered from the
railways in those days but not, as things happened, Ludovic's novel. Now
at the beginning of June he had it all complete, two piles of laced and
paper-bound sections. He ordered Fido to basket and settled down to read
the last chapter, not to correct misprints, for he wrote clearly and the
typist was competent, not to polish or revise, for the work seemed to
him perfect (as in a sense it was), but for the sheer enjoyment of his
own performance.

Admirers of his _Penses_ (and they were many) would not have recognized
the authorship of this book. It was a very gorgeous, almost gaudy, tale
of romance and high drama, set, as his experiences with Sir Ralph
Brompton well qualified him to set it, in the diplomatic society of the
previous decade. The characters and their equipment were seen as Ludovic
in his own ambiguous position had seen them, more brilliant than
reality. The plot was Shakespearean in its elaborate improbability. The
dialogue could never have issued from human lips, the scenes of passion
were capable of bringing a blush to readers of either sex and every age.
But it was not an old-fashioned book. Had he known it, half a dozen
other English writers, averting themselves sickly from privations of war
and apprehensions of the social consequences of the peace, were even
then severally and secretly, unknown to one another, to Everard Spruce,
to Coney and to Frankie, composing or preparing to compose books which
would turn from drab alleys of the thirties into the odorous gardens of
a recent past transformed and illuminated by disordered memory and
imagination. Ludovic in the solitude of his post was in the movement.

Nor was it for all its glitter a cheerful book. Melancholy suffused all
its pages and deepened towards the close.

So far as any character could be said to have an origin in the world of
reality, the heroine was the author. Lady Marmaduke Transept (that was
the name which Ludovic had recklessly bestowed on her) was Lord
Marmaduke's second wife. He was an ambassador. She was extravagantly
beautiful, clever, doomed; passionless only toward Lord Marmaduke;
ambitious for everything except his professional success. If the epithet
could properly be used of anyone so splendidly caparisoned, Lady
Marmaduke was a bitch. Ludovic had known from the start that she must
die in the last chapter. He had made no plans. Often in the weeks of
composition he had wondered, almost idly, what would be the end of her.
He waited to see, as he might have sat in a seat at the theatre watching
the antics of players over whom he had no control.

As Ludovic read the last pages he realised that the whole book had been
the preparation for Lady Marmaduke's death--a protracted, ceremonious
killing like that of a bull in the ring. Except that there was no
violence. He had feared sometimes that his heroine might be immured in a
cave or left to drift in an open boat. These were chimeras. Lady
Marmaduke, in the manner of an earlier and happier age, fell into a
decline. Her disease was painless and unspecified. Under Ludovic's heavy
arm she languished, grew thinner, transparent, the rings slipped from
her fingers among the rich coverings of her chaise longue as the light
faded on the distant, delectable mountains. He had hesitated in his
choice of title, toying with many recondite allusions from his recent
reading. Now with decision he wrote in large letters at the head of the
first page: _The Death Wish_.

Fido in his basket discerned his master's emotion, broke orders to share
it, leaped to Ludovic's stout thighs and remained there unrebuked,
gazing up with eyes of adoration that were paler and more prominent than
Ludovic's own.

                 *        *        *        *        *

"What I long to know," said Kerstie, "is what went on between Guy and
Virginia after she settled into Carlisle Place. After all there was a
good month before her figure began to go."

"It's not a thing I should care to ask her," said Ian.

"I don't think I can now. We made it up all right after our tiff--it's
no good _keeping things up_ ever, is it?--but there's been a coldness."

"Why are you so keen to know?"

"Aren't you?"

"There's been a coldness between me and Virginia for years."

"Who was there this evening?"

"Quite a salon. Perdita had brought Everard Spruce. There was someone I
didn't know called Lady Plessington and a priest. It was all quite gay
except for the midwife who kept trying to show us the baby. Virginia
can't bear the sight of it. In a novel or a film the baby ought to make
Virginia a changed character. It hasn't. Have you noticed that she
always calls it 'it,' never 'he'? She calls the midwife 'Jenny.' It was
always 'Sister Jenkins' in the days before the birth. They get on all
right. Old Peregrine speaks of the child as 'Gervase.' They've had it
christened already, as Catholics do for some reason. When he asks how
Gervase is, Virginia doesn't seem to cotton on. 'Oh, you mean the baby.
Ask Jenny.'"

                 *        *        *        *        *

When Virginia's son was ten days old and the news was all of the
Normandy landings, the dingy tranquillity which enveloped London was
disturbed. Flying bombs appeared in the sky, unseemly little caricatures
of aeroplanes, which droned smokily over the chimney tops, suddenly fell
silent, dropped out of sight and exploded dully. Day and night they came
at frequent irregular intervals, striking at haphazard far and near. It
was something quite other than the battle scene of the blitz with its
drama of attack and defence, its earth-shaking concentrations of
destruction and roaring furnaces, its respites when the sirens sounded
the All Clear. No enemy was risking his own life up there. It was as
impersonal as a plague, as though the city were infested with enormous,
venomous insects. Spirits in Bellamy's, as elsewhere, had soared in the
old days when Turtle's had gone up in flames and Air Marshal Beech had
taken cover under the billiard table. Now there were glum faces. The
machine could not be heard in the bar but the tall windows of the
coffee-room (cross-laced with sticking plaster) fronted St. James's
Street. All heads were turned towards them and a silence would fall when
a motor bicycle passed. Job stood fast at his post in the porter's
lodge, but his _sang-froid_ required more frequent stimulation. Members
who had no particular duties in London began to disperse. Elderberry and
Box-Bender decided it was time they attended to local business in their
constituencies.

General Whale made an unprecedented move to the air-raid shelter. It had
been constructed at great expense, wired, air-conditioned and never once
used. It had been a convention of H.O.O. HQ. that no attention was paid
to raid warnings. Now General Whale had a bed made there and spent his
nights as well as his days underground.

"If I may say so, sir," Ian Kilbannock ventured, "you're not looking at
all well."

"To tell you the truth I don't feel it, Ian. I haven't had a day's leave
for two years."

The man's nerve had gone, Ian decided. He could now safely desert him.

"Sir," he said, "with your approval I was thinking of applying for a
posting abroad."

"You, too, Ian? Where? How?"

"Sir Ralph Brompton thinks he could get me sent as war correspondent to
the Adriatic."

"What's it got to do with _him_!" asked General Whale in access of
feeble exasperation. "How are military postings _his_ business?"

"He seems to have some pull there, sir."

General Whale gazed at Ian despondingly, uncomprehendingly. Three years,
two years, even six months ago there would have been a detonation of
rage. Now he sighed deeply. He gazed round the rough concrete walls of
his shelter, at the silent "scrambler" telephone at his table. He felt
(and had he known the passage might so have expressed it) like a
beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings
in vain.

"What am I doing down here?" he asked. "Why am I taking cover when all I
want to do is die?"

"Angela," Virginia said, "you'd better go too. I can get on all right
now by myself. I don't need Sister Jenny any more really. Couldn't you
take the baby down with you? Old Nanny would look after it, surely?"

"She'd probably love to," said Angela Box-Bender, doubtful, but ready to
hear reason. "The trouble is we simply haven't any room for a single
other adult."

"Oh, I don't want to move at all. Peregrine will be quite happy with me
and Mrs. Corner once the nursery is cleared. Mrs. Corner will be over
the moon to see the last of it." (There had been the normal,
ineradicable hostility between nursing sister and domestic servant.)

"It's wonderfully unselfish of you, Virginia. If you really think it's
the best thing for Gervase...?"

"I really think it's the best thing for--for Gervase."

So it was arranged and Virginia comfortably recuperated as the bombs
chugged overhead and she wondered, as each engine cut out: "Is that the
one that's coming here?"




CHAPTER III


In the world of high politics the English abandonment of their Serbian
allies--those who had once been commended by the Prime Minister for
having "found their souls"--was determined and gradually contrived. The
King-in-Exile was persuaded to dismiss his advisers and appoint more
pliable successors. A British ship brought this new minister to Vis to
confer with Tito in his cave. The Russians instructed Tito to make a
show of welcome. Full recognition for the partisans and more substantial
help were the inducements offered by the British and Americans. Meetings
"at the highest level" were suggested for the near future. And as an
undesigned by-product of this intrigue there resulted one infinitesimal
positive good.

Guy had not dismissed the Jews from his mind. The reprimand rankled but
more than this he felt compassion; something less than he had felt for
Virginia and her child but a similar sense that here again, in a world
of hate and waste, he was being offered the chance of doing a single
small act to redeem the times. It was, therefore, with joy that he
received the signal: _Central Government approves in principle
evacuation Jews stop Despatch two repeat two next plane discuss problem
with U.N.R.R.A._

He went with it to the Minister of the Interior, who was lying in bed
drinking weak tea.

Bakic explained, "He's sick and don't know nothing. You better talk to
de Commissar."

The Commissar confirmed that he too had received similar instructions.

"I suggest we send the Kanyis," said Guy.

"He say, why de Kanyis?"

"Because they make most sense."

"Pardon me?"

"Because they seem the most responsible pair."

"De Commissar says, responsible for what?"

"They are the best able to put their case sensibly."

A long discussion followed between the Commissar and Bakic.

"He won't send de Kanyis."

"Why not?"

"Kanyi got plenty work with de dynamo."

So another pair was chosen and sent to Bari, the grocer and the lawyer
who had first called on him. Guy saw them off. They seemed stupefied and
sat huddled among the bundles and blankets on the airfield during the
long wait. Only when the aeroplane was actually there, illumined by the
long line of bonfires lit to guide it, did they both suddenly break into
tears.

But this little kindling of human hope was the least impressive incident
on the airfield that evening and it passed quite unnoticed in the
solemnity with which the arriving passengers were received.

Guy had not been warned to expect anyone of importance. He realised that
something unusual was afoot when in the darkness which preceded the
firing of the flare-path, he was aware of a reception party assembling
among whom loomed the figures of the General and the Commissar. When the
lights went up, Guy recognised with surprise those rarely glimpsed
recluses, the Russian mission. When the machine came to ground and the
doors were open, six figures emerged all in British battle dress who
were at once surrounded by partisans, embraced, and led aside.

The Squadron Leader began supervising the disembarkation of stores.
There was no great quantity of them, and those mostly for the British
Mission--rations, mail and tin after tin of petrol.

"What am I supposed to do with these?" Guy asked the pilot.

"Wait and see. There's a jeep to come out."

"For me?"

"Well, for your Major."

"Have I a Major?"

"Haven't they told you? They signalled that one was coming. They never
tell me anyone's name. He's over there with the gang."

Strong, willing partisans contrived a ramp and carefully lowered the car
to earth. Guy stood beside his two Jews watching. Presently an English
voice called: "Guy Crouchback anywhere about?"

Guy knew the voice. "Frank de Souza."

"Am I unwelcome? I expect you'll get the warning order on tomorrow's
transmission. It was a last-minute decision sending us."

"Who else?"

"I'll explain later. I'm afraid in the whirligig of war I've now become
your commanding officer, Uncle. Be a good chap and see to the stores,
will you? I've got a night's talking ahead with the general staff and
the Praesidium."

"The what?"

"I thought that might surprise you. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.
Begoy, for your information, is about to become a highly popular resort.
We shall make history here, Uncle. I must find a present I've got for
the General in my valise. It may help cement anti-fascist solidarity."

He stooped over the small heap of baggage, loosened some straps and
stood up with a bottle in each hand. "Tell someone to do it up, will
you? And have it put wherever I'm going to sleep."

He rejoined the group who were now tramping off the field.

"Right," said the pilot. "I'm ready to take on passengers."

Two wounded partisans were hoisted in; then an American bomber crew who
had baled out the week before and been led to the Squadron Leader's
headquarters. They were far from being gratified by this speedy return
to duty. There was a regulation that if they remained at large in enemy
territory for some weeks longer, they could be repatriated to the United
States. It was for this that they had made a hazardous parachute jump
and destroyed an expensive, very slightly damaged aeroplane.

Last came the Jews. When Guy held out his hand to them, they kissed it.

As always on these night incursions Guy had his sergeant and orderly
with him. They were plainly exhilarated by the spectacle of the jeep. He
left it and the stores to them and walked back to his quarters. The
night of high summer was brilliant with stars and luminous throughout
its fall firmament. When he reached the farm he told the widows of de
Souza's coming. There was an empty room next to his which they
immediately began to put in order. It was just midnight but they worked
without complaint, eagerly, excited at the prospect of a new arrival.

Soon the jeep drove into the yard. The widows ran to admire it. The
soldiers unloaded, putting the rations and tins of petroleum in the
store room, de Souza's baggage in the room prepared for him. The
Praesidium, whatever that might be, was of no interest to Guy; he was
glad that de Souza had come; very glad that his two Jews had gone.

"The mail, sir," reported the orderly.

"Better leave that for Major de Souza in the morning. You know he's
taking command here now?"

"Yes, we got the buzz from the Air Force. Two personals for you, sir."

Guy took the flimsy air-mail forms that were then the sole means of
communication. One, he noted, was from Virginia, the other from Angela.

Virginia's letter was undated but had clearly been written some six
weeks ago.

    _Clever Peregrine tells me he managed to persuade them to accept
    a telegram for you announcing the Birth. I hope it arrived. You
    can't trust telegrams any more. Anyway it is born and I am
    feeling fine and everyone especially Angela is being heavenly.
    Sister Jennings--Jenny to me--says it is a fine baby. We have
    rather an embarrassing joke about Jenny and gin and my saying
    she is like Mrs. Gamp--at least it embarrasses other people. I
    think it quite funny as jokes with nurses go. It's been baptised
    already. Eloise Plessington who believe it or not is now my
    great new friend was godmother. I've made a lot of new friends
    since you went away in fact I'm having a very social time. An
    intellectual who says he knows you called Everard something
    brought me a smoked salmon from Ruben's. And a_ lemon! _Where
    does Ruben get them? Magic. I hope you are enjoying your foreign
    tour wherever you are and forgetting all the beastliness of
    London. Ian talks of visiting you. How? Where? Longing for you
    to be back._

    _V._

Angela's letter was written a month later:

    _I have dreadful news for you. Perhaps I should have tried to
    telegraph but Arthur said there was no point as there was
    nothing you could do. Well, be prepared. Now. Virginia has been
    killed. Peregrine too and Mrs. Corner. One of the new doodle
    bombs landed on Carlisle Place at ten in the morning yesterday.
    Gervase is safe with me here. They were all killed instantly.
    All Peregrine's "collection" destroyed. It was Virginia's idea
    that I should have Gervase and keep him safe. We think we shall
    be able to get Virginia and Peregrine taken down to Broome and
    buried there but it is not easy. I had Mass said for them here
    this morning. There will be another in London soon for friends.
    I won't attempt to say what I feel about this except that now
    more than ever you are in my prayers. You have had a difficult
    life, Guy, and it seemed things were at last going to come right
    for you. Anyway you have Gervase. I wish Papa had lived to know
    about him. I wish you had seen Virginia these last weeks. She
    was still her old sweet gay self of course but there was a
    difference. I was getting to understand why you loved her and to
    love her myself. In the old days I did not understand._

    _As Arthur says there is really nothing for you to do here. I
    suppose you could get special leave home but I expect you will
    prefer to go on with whatever you are doing._

The news did not affect Guy greatly; less, indeed, than the arrival of
Frank de Souza and the jeep and the "Praesidium"; far less than the
departure of his two Jewish protgs. The answer to the question that
had agitated Kerstie Kilbannock (and others of his acquaintance)--what
had been his relations with Virginia during their brief cohabitation in
Uncle Peregrine's flat--was simple enough. Guy had hobbled into the lift
after their return as man and wife from the registrar's office and had
gone back to bed. There Virginia had joined him and with gentle, almost
tender, agility adapted her endearments to his crippled condition. She
was, as always, lavish with what lay in her gift. Without passion or
sentiment but in a friendly, cosy way they had resumed the pleasures of
marriage and in the weeks while his knee mended the deep old wound in
Guy's heart and pride healed also, as perhaps Virginia had intuitively
known that it might do. January had been a month of content; a time of
completion, not of initiation. When Guy was passed fit for active
service and his move-order was issued, he had felt as though he were
leaving a hospital where he had been skilfully treated, a place of
grateful memory to which he had no particular wish to return. He did not
mention Virginia's death to Frank then or later.

Frank came to the farmhouse at dawn, accompanied by two partisans and
talking to them cheerfully in Serbo-Croat. Guy had waited up for him,
but dozed. Now he greeted him and showed him his quarters. The widows
appeared with offers of food, but Frank said "I've had no sleep for
thirty-six hours. When I wake up I've a lot to tell you, Uncle," raised
a clenched fist to the partisans and shut his door.

The sun was up, the farm was alive. The partisan sentries changed guard.
Presently the men of the British Mission stood in the bright yard
shaving. Bakic breakfasted apart on the step of the kitchen. The bell in
the church tower rang three times, paused and rang three times again.
Guy went there on Sundays, never during the week. Sunday Mass was full
of peasants. There was always a half-hour sermon that was unintelligible
to Guy whose study of Serbo-Croat had made little progress. When the old
priest climbed into the pulpit, Guy wandered outside and the partisan
police pressed forward so as not to miss a word. When the liturgy was
resumed Guy returned; they retired to the back shunning the mystery.

Now the sacring bell recalled Guy to the duty he owed his wife.

"Sergeant," he said, "what rations have we got to spare?"

"Plenty since last night."

"I thought of taking a small present to someone in the village."

"Shouldn't we wait and ask the Major, sir? There's an order not to give
anything to the natives."

"I suppose you're right."

He crossed the yard to the Air Force quarters. Things were freer and
more easy there. Indeed the Squadron Leader did a modest and
ill-concealed barter trade with the peasants and had assembled a little
collection of Croatian arts and crafts to take home to his wife.

"Help yourself, old boy."

Guy put a tin of bully beef and some bars of chocolate into his
haversack and walked to the church.

The old priest was back in his presbytery, alone and brushing the bare
stone floor with a besom. He knew Guy by sight though they had never
attempted to converse. Men in uniform boded no good to the parish.

Guy saluted as he entered, laid his offering on the table. The priest
looked at the present with surprise; then broke into thanks in
Serbo-Croat. Guy said: "Facilius loqui latina. Hoc est pro Missa. Uxor
mea mortua est."

The priest nodded. "Nomen?"

Guy wrote Virginia's name in capitals in his pocketbook and tore out the
page. The priest put on his spectacles and studied the letters. "Non es
_partisan_?"

"Miles Anglicus sum."

"Catholicus?"

"Catholicus."

"Et uxor tua?"

"Catholica."

It did not sound a likely story. The priest looked again at the food, at
the name on the sheet of paper, at Guy's battle dress which he knew only
as the uniform of the partisans. Then: "Cras. Hora septem." He held up
seven fingers.

"Gratias."

"Gratias tibi. Dominus tecum."

When Guy left the presbytery he turned into the adjoining church. It was
a building with the air of antiquity which no one but a specialist could
hope to date. No doubt there had been a church here from early times. No
doubt parts of that structure survived. Meanwhile it had been renovated
and repainted and adorned and despoiled, neglected and cosseted through
the centuries. Once when Begoy was a watering place it had enjoyed
seasons of moderately rich patronage. Now it had reverted to its former
use. There was at that moment a peasant woman in the local antiquated
costume, kneeling upright on the stones before the side-altar, her arms
extended, making no doubt her thanksgiving for Communion. There were a
few benches, no chairs. Guy genuflected and then stood to pray asking
mercy for Virginia and for himself. Although brought up to it from the
nursery, he had never been at ease with the habit of reciting the
prayers of the Church for particular intentions. He committed Virginia's
soul--"repose," indeed, seemed the apt petition--to God in the
colloquial monologue he always employed when praying; like an old woman,
he sometimes ruefully thought, talking to her cat.

He remained standing with his eyes on the altar for five minutes. When
he turned he saw Bakic standing behind him, watching intently. The holy
water stoup was dry. Guy genuflected at the door and went out into the
sunlight. Bakic was standing by.

"What do you want?"

"I thought maybe you want to talk to somebody."

"I don't require an interpreter when I say my prayers," Guy said.

But later he wondered, did he?

The bodies of Virginia, Uncle Peregrine and Mrs. Corner were recovered
from the debris of Bourne Mansions intact and recognisable, but the
official impediments to removing them to Broome (Mrs. Corner, too, came
from that village) proved too many for Arthur Box-Bender. He had them
buried by the river at Mortlake where there was a plot acquired by one
of the family in the last century and never used. It lay in sight of
Burton's stucco tent. The Requiem was sung a week later in the
Cathedral. Everard Spruce did not attend either service but he read the
list of mourners aloud to Frankie and Coney.

He had met Virginia only in the last weeks of her life, but he had long
enjoyed a vicarious acquaintance with her from the newspapers. Like many
men of the left he had been an assiduous student of "society gossip"
columns, a taste he excused by saying that it was his business to know
the enemy's order of battle. Lately in the decline of social order he
had met on friendly terms some of these figures of oppression and
frivolity--old Ruby, for instance, at the Dorchester--and many years
later, when he came to write his memoirs, he gave the impression that he
had frequented their houses in their heyday. Already he was beginning to
believe that Virginia was an old and valued friend.

"Who are all these people?" asked Coney. "What's the point of them? All
I know about Mrs. Crouchback is that you gave her enough smoked salmon
to keep us for a week."

"Before we'd even had a nibble at it," said Frankie.

"And a lemon," said Coney.

The flying bombs had disturbed the good order of the _Survival_ office.
Two of the secretaries had gone to the country. Frankie and Coney
remained but they were less docile than of old. The bombs came from the
south-east and were plain in view in the wide open sky of the river. All
seemed to be directed at the house in Cheyne Row. They distracted the
girls from their duty in serving and revering Spruce. His manner towards
them had become increasingly schoolmasterly, the more so as his own
nerves were not entirely calm. He was like a schoolmaster who fears that
a rag is brewing.

He spoke now with an effort of authority:

"Virginia Troy was the last of twenty years' succession of heroines," he
said. "The ghosts of romance who walked between the two wars."

He took a book from his shelves and read: "'She crossed the dirty
street, placing her feet with a meticulous precision one after the other
in the same straight line as though she were treading a knife edge
between goodness only knew what invisible gulfs. Floating she seemed to
go, with a little spring in every step and the skirt of her summery
dress--white it was, with a florid pattern printed in black all over
it--blowing airily round her swaying march.' I bet neither of you know
who wrote that. You'll say Michael Arlen."

"I won't," said Coney; "I've never heard of him."

"Never heard of Iris Storm, 'that shameless, shameful lady,' dressed
_pour le sport_? 'I am a house of men,' she said. I read it at school
where it was forbidden. It still touches a nerve. What is adolescence
without trash? I daresay you've not heard of Scott Fitzgerald either."

"Omar Khayyam?" suggested Frankie.

"No. Anyway, the passage I read, believe it or not, is Aldous Huxley,
1922. Mrs. Viveash. Hemingway coarsened the image with his Bret, but the
type persisted--in books and in life. Virginia was the last of them--the
exquisite, the doomed and the damning, with expiring voices--a whole
generation younger. We shall never see anyone like her again in
literature or in life and I'm very glad to have known her."

Coney and Frankie looked at one another with mutiny in their eyes.

"Perhaps you are going to say 'The mould has been broken,'" said Coney.

"If I wish to, I shall," said Spruce petulantly. "Only the essentially
commonplace are afraid of clichs."

Coney burst into tears at this rebuke. Frankie held her ground.
"Exquisite, doomed, damning, with an expiring voice," she said. "It
sounds more like the heroine of Major Ludovic's dreadful _Death Wish_."

Then another bomb droned overhead and they fell silent until it passed.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The same bomb passed near Eloise Plessington's little house in
Westminster where she was sitting with Angela Box-Bender. Directly
overhead, it seemed, the engine cut out. The two women sat silent until
they heard the explosion many streets away.

"It is a terrible thing to admit," said Eloise, "but, whenever that
happens, I pray 'Please God don't let it fall on me.'"

"Who doesn't?"

"But, Angela, that means 'Please God let it fall on someone else.'"

"Not necessarily. It might land on Hampstead Heath."

"One ought to pray 'Please God let it fall on me and no one else.'"

"Don't be a goose, Eloise."

These two women of the same age had known one another since girlhood.
Charles Plessington had been one of the young men who seemed suitable
for Angela to marry. He came of the same little band of landed recusant
families as herself. She, however, had confounded the matchmakers of the
Wiseman Club by preferring the Protestant and plebeian Box-Bender.
Eloise married Charles and became not only a Catholic but a very busy
one. Her sons were adult and well married; her only family problem was
her daughter, Domenica, now aged twenty-five, who had tried her vocation
in a convent, failed, and now drove a tractor on the home farm, an
occupation which had changed her appearance and manner. From having been
shy and almost excessively feminine, she was now rather boisterous,
trousered and muddied and full of the rough jargon of the stock-yard.

"What were we talking about?"

"Virginia."

"Of course. I'd got very fond of her this winter and spring but, you
know, I can't regard her death as pure tragedy. There's a special
providence in the fall of a bomb. God forgive me for thinking so, but I
was never quite confident her new disposition would last. She was killed
at the one time in her life when she could be sure of
heaven--eventually."

"One couldn't help liking her," said Angela.

"Will Guy mind awfully?"

"Who can say? The whole thing was very puzzling. She'd begun the baby,
you know, before they were remarried."

"So I supposed."

"I really know Guy very little. He's been abroad so much. I always
imagined he had completely got over her."

"They seemed happy enough together that last bit."

"Virginia knew how to make people happy if she wanted to."

"And what is to become of my godson?"

"What indeed? I suppose I shall have to look after him. Arthur won't
like that at all."

"I've sometimes thought of adopting a baby," said Eloise, "a refugee
orphan or something like that. You know the empty nurseries seem a
reproach when there are so many people homeless. It would be an interest
for Domenica, too--take her mind off swill and slag."

"Are you proposing to adopt Gervase?"

"Well, not _adopt_ of course, not legally, not give him our name or
anything like that, but just look after him until Guy gets back and can
make a home for him. What do you think of the idea?"

"It's wonderfully kind. Arthur would be immensely relieved. I'd have to
ask Guy, of course."

"But there would be no objection to my taking him to visit me while
we're waiting for an answer?"

"None that I can see. He's a perfectly nice baby, you know, but Arthur
does so hate having him at home."

"Here comes another of those beastly bombs."

"Just pray: 'Please God let it be a dud and not explode at all.'"

It was not a dud. It did explode, but far from Westminster in a street
already destroyed by earlier bombs and now quite deserted.

                 *        *        *        *        *

"You've read _The Death Wish_?" Spruce asked.

"Bits. It's pure novelette."

"_Novelette?_ It's twice the length of _Ulysses_. Not many publishers
have enough paper to print it nowadays. I read a lot of it last night. I
can't sleep with those damned bombs. Ludovic's _Death Wish_ has _got_
something, you know."

"Something very bad."

"Oh, yes, bad; egregiously bad. I shouldn't be surprised to see it a
great success."

"Hardly what we expected from the author of the aphorisms."

"It is an interesting thing," said Spruce, "but very few of the great
masters of trash aimed low to start with. Most of them wrote sonnet
sequences in youth. Look at Hall Caine--the protg of Rossetti--and the
young Hugh Walpole emulating Henry James. Dorothy Sayers wrote religious
verse. Practically no one ever sets out to write trash. Those that do
don't get very far."

"Another bomb."

It was the same bomb as had disturbed Angela and Eloise. Spruce and
Frankie did not pray. They moved away from the windows.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Frank de Souza kept partisan hours, sleeping all the morning, talking at
night. On his first day he appeared at lunchtime.

"Better quarters than I'm used to," he said. "Until a few days ago I was
living in a cave in Bosnia. But we shall have to do some quick work
making them more comfortable. We've got a distinguished party coming to
visit us. If I may, I'll leave the arrangements to you. I put the
General and the Commissar in the picture last night. You'll find them
very ready to help."

"Perhaps you'd put me in the picture."

"It's a very pretty picture--an oil painting. Everything is moving our
way at last. First, the Praesidium--that's the new government--ministers
of education, culture, transport--the whole bag of tricks. Officially,
it is temporary, _de facto, ad hoc_ and so forth, pending ratification
by plebiscite. I don't suppose you saw much of them last night--they're
a scratch lot collected from Vis and Montenegro and Bari. Two of them
are duds we had to take on as part of the deal with the London Serbs.
The real power, of course, will remain with the partisan military
leaders. The Praesidium is strictly for foreign consumption. Now I'll
tell you something highly confidential. Only the General and the
Commissar know. It mustn't get to the ears of the Praesidium for a day
or two. Tito's in Italy. He's a guest of honour at allied headquarters
at Caserta, and from what I picked up from Joe Cattermole I gather it's
on the cards he's going to meet Winston. If he does, he'll make rings
round him."

"Who'll make rings round whom?"

"Tito round Winston, of course. The old boy is being briefed to meet a
Garibaldi. He doesn't know Tito's a highly trained politician."

"Well, isn't Winston Churchill?"

"He's an orator and a parliamentarian, Uncle. Something quite different.

"All we have to do now is to square the Yanks. Some of them are still a
bit shy of left-wing parties. Not the President, of course, but the
military. But we've persuaded them that at this stage of the war the
only relevant question is: who is doing the fighting? Mihajlovic's boys
were given a test--told to blow a bridge by a certain date. They did
nothing. Too squeamish about reprisals. That's never worried our side.
The more the Nazis make themselves hated, the better for us. So
Mihajlovic is definitely out. But the Yanks don't like taking our
Intelligence reports on trust. Want to see for themselves. So they're
sending a general here to report back how hard the partisans are
fighting."

"As far as I know, they aren't."

"They will when the Yanks come. Just you wait and see."

Guy said: "The thing that's been worrying me most is the refugee
problem."

"Oh yes, the Jews. I saw a file about them."

"Two went out last night. I hope they get proper attention in Bari."

"You can be sure they will. The Zionists have their own funds and their
own contacts with U.N.R.R.A. and allied headquarters. It isn't really
any business of ours."

"You talk like a partisan."

"I am a partisan, Uncle. We have more important things to think about
than these sectarian troubles. Don't forget, I'm a Jew myself; so are
three of the brighter members of the Praesidium. Jews have been valuable
anti-fascist propaganda in America. Now's the time to forget we're Jews
and simply remember we are anti-fascist. You might just as well start
agitating Auchinleck about Scottish nationalism."

"I can't feel like that about Catholics."

"Can't you, Uncle? Try."

When Guy went to church next morning at seven there were two partisans
on watch. The priest in his black chasuble was inaudible at the altar.
The partisans watched Guy. When he went up to Communion they followed
and stood at the side, their Sten guns slung from their shoulders. When
they were sure that nothing but the host passed between Guy and the
priest, they returned to their places, watched Guy saying his prayers
for Virginia and followed him back to the mission headquarters.

At luncheon that day de Souza's first words were: "Uncle, what's all
this about you and the priest?"

"I went to mass this morning."

"Did you? That won't be any help. You've upset the Commissar seriously,
you know. They made a formal complaint last night saying you had been
guilty of "incorrect" behaviour. They say you were seen yesterday giving
the priest rations."

"That's quite true."

"And passing a note."

"I simply gave him the name of someone who's dead--what we call a 'mass
intention.'"

"Yes, that's what the priest told them. They've had the priest up and
examined him. The old boy's lucky not to be under arrest or worse. How
could you be such an ass? He produced a bit of paper he said was your
message. It had your name on it and nothing else."

"Not mine. Someone in my family."

"Well, you can't expect the Commissar to distinguish, can you? He
naturally thought the priest was trying to put something over on them.
They searched the presbytery but couldn't find anything incriminating,
except some chocolate. They confiscated that, of course. But they're
suspicious still. You must have realised what the situation is here. If
it wasn't for our American guests they might have made real trouble. I
had to point out to them that the visiting general was not only going to
report back about the fighting. He would also be asked what Begoy was
like now it's for the moment the capital of the country. If he found the
church shut and cottoned onto the fact that the priest had just been
removed, he might, I told them, just possibly get it into his noodle
that this wasn't exactly the liberal democracy he's been led to expect.
They saw the point in the end, but they took some persuading. They're
serious fellows, our comrades. Don't for goodness' sake try anything
like that again. As I said yesterday, this is no time for sectarian
loyalties."

"You wouldn't call Communism a sect?"

"No," said de Souza. He began to say more and then stopped. All he did
was to repeat "No" with absolute assurance.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The battle prepared for the visiting general was to be an assault on a
little block-house some twenty miles to the west, the nearest "enemy"
post to Begoy, on a secondary road to the coast. There were no Germans
near. The garrison was a company of Croat nationalists, whose duty it
was to send out patrols along the ill-defined frontiers of the
"liberated" territory and to find sentries for bridges in their area.
They were not the ferocious _ustachi_ but pacific _domobrans_, the local
home-guard. It was in every way a convenient objective for the exercise;
also well placed for spectators, in an open little valley with wooded
slopes on either side.

The General pointed out that frontal assault in daylight was not normal
partisan tactics. "We shall need air support."

De Souza composed a long signal on the subject. It was a measure of the
new prestige of the partisans that the R.A.F. agreed to devote two
fighter-bombers to this insignificant target. Two brigades of the Army
of National Liberation were entrusted with the attack. They numbered a
hundred men each.

"I think," said de Souza, "we had better call them companies. Will the
brigadiers mind being reduced to captains for a day or two?"

"In the Peoples' Forces of Anti-fascism we attach little importance to
such things," said the Commissar.

The General was more doubtful. "They earned their rank in the field," he
said. "It is only because of the great sacrifices we have made that the
brigades have been so reduced in numbers. Also because the supply of
arms from our allies has been so scanty."

"Yes," said de Souza. "_I_ understand all that, of course, but what we
have to consider is how it will affect our distinguished observers. They
are going to send journalists too. It will be the first eye-witness
report of Jugoslavia to appear in the press. It would not read well to
say we employed two brigades against one company."

"That must be considered," said the Commissar.

"I suggest," said de Souza, "the brigadiers should keep their rank and
their units be called 'a striking force.' I think that could be made
impressive. 'The survivors of the Sixth Offensive.'"

De Souza had come with credentials which the General and Commissar
recognized. They trusted him and treated his advice with a respect they
would not have accorded to Guy or even Brigadier Cape; or for that
matter to General Alexander or Mr. Winston Churchill.

Guy was never admitted to these conferences, which were held in
Serbo-Croat without an interpreter. Nor was he informed of the
negotiations with Bari. De Souza had all signals brought to him in
cipher. The later hours of his mornings in bed were spent reading them
and himself enciphering the answers. To Guy were relegated the domestic
duties of preparing for the coming visit. As de Souza had predicted, he
found the partisans unusually amenable. They revealed secret stores of
loot taken from the houses of the fugitive bourgeoisie, furniture of
monstrous modern German design but solid construction. Sturdy girls bore
the loads. The rooms of the farmhouse were transformed in a way which
brought deep depression to Guy but exultation to the widows, who
polished and dusted with the zeal of sacristans. The former Minister of
the Interior had been made master of the revels. He proposed a _Vin
d'Honneur_ and concert.

"He want to know," explained Bakic, "English-American anti-fascist
songs. He want words and music so the girls can learn them."

"I don't know any," said Guy.

"He want to know what songs you teach your soldiers?"

"We don't _teach_ them any. Sometimes they sing about drink, 'Roll out
the barrel' and 'Show me the way to go home.'"

"He says not those songs. We are having such songs also under the
fascists. All stopped now. He says Commissar orders American songs to
honour American general."

"American songs are all about love."

"He says love is not anti-fascist."

Later de Souza emerged from his bedroom with a sheaf of signals.

"I've a surprise for you, Uncle. We are sending a high observing officer
too. Apparently it's the rule at Caserta that our V.I.P.'s always travel
in pairs, the Yank being just one star above his British companion. Just
you wait and see who we're getting. I'll keep it as a treat for you,
Uncle."




CHAPTER IV


Ian Kilbannock's first day in Bari was similar to Guy's. He was briefed
by Joe Cattermole and Brigadier Cape. Nothing was said about the
impending battle; much about the achievements of the partisans, the
failure of Mihajlovic's _cetnics_, the inclusive, national character of
the new government and the personal qualities of Marshal Tito, who was
at that moment in Capri awaiting the British Prime Minister.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Ian was the first journalist to be admitted to Jugoslavia. Sir Ralph
Brompton had vouched for him to Cattermole, not as one fully committed
to the cause, but as a man without prejudice. Cape had an unexpressed,
indeed unrecognised, belief that a peer and a member of Bellamy's was
likely to be trustworthy. Ian listened to all that was told him, asked a
few intelligent questions and made no comment other than: "I see this as
a job that will take time. Impossible to send spot news. If it suits
you, I shall just look about, talk to people and then return here and
write a series of articles."

He intended to establish himself now and for the future as a political
commentator, of the kind who had enjoyed such prestige in the late
thirties.

He was taken to dinner at the club by the Halberdier Major.

More direct than Guy, he said: "I'm afraid I didn't get your name."

"Marchpole. Grace-Groundling-Marchpole, to be precise. I daresay you
know my brother in London. He's a big bug."

"No."

"He's a secret big bug. I'm just a cog in the machine. How was London?"

Ian described the flying bombs.

"My brother won't like that."

While they were at dinner, Brigadier Cape came into the room, politely
propelling a man in the uniform of a major-general--a lean, grey-faced,
stiff old man, whose single eye was lustreless, whose maimed hand
reached out to a chair back to steady him as he limped and shuffled to
his table.

"Good God," said Ian, "a ghost."

He had sailed with this man to the Isle of Mugg in the yacht _Cleopatra_
in December 1941; a man given to ferocious jokes and bloody ambitions,
an exulting, unpredictable man whom Ian had taken pains to avoid.

"Ben Ritchie-Hook," said Major Marchpole, "one of the great characters
of the Corps. He hadn't much use for me though. We parted company."

"But what's happened to him?"

"He's on the shelf," said Major Marchpole. "All they can find for him to
do is play second fiddle as an observer. He'll be in your party going
across tomorrow night."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Ostensibly the party which was assembled at the airfield next evening
was paying a call on the new Praesidium. It had grown since the simple
project of sending an independent observer had first been raised and
accepted.

General Spitz, the American, was still the principal. He had a round
stern face under a capacious helmet. He was much harnessed with plastic
straps and hung about with weapons and instruments and haversacks. He
was attended by an A.D.C. of less militant appearance, who had been
chosen for his ability to speak Serbo-Croat, and by his personal
photographer, a very young, very lively manikin whom he addressed as
"Mr. Sneiffel." Ritchie-Hook wore shorts, a bush-shirt and a red-banded
forage cap. His Halberdier servant guarded his meagre baggage, the same
man, Dawkins, war-worn now like his master, who had served him at
Southsands and Penkirk, in Central Africa and in the desert, wherever
Ritchie-Hook's strides had taken him; strides which had grown shorter
and slower, faltered and almost come to a halt. Lieutenant Padfield was
there with his conductor who, it was thought, might help the partisans
with their concert. The Free French had insinuated a representative.
Other nondescript figures, American, British and Jugoslav, made a full
complement of the aeroplane.

Gilpin was there with a watching brief for Cattermole, and an Air Force
observer to report the promised co-operation of the fighter-bombers. He
and the two generals specifically, and Gilpin vaguely, were alone in the
know about the promised assault.

The Air Commodore in command turned out to see the party on board. The
American general instructed Sneiffel to take snapshots of the pair of
them. He called Ritchie-Hook to join them. "Come along, General, just
for the record." Ritchie-Hook looked in a bewildered way at the little
figure who squatted with his flash-light apparatus at General Spitz's
feet; then with a ghastly grin said: "Not me. My ugly mug would break
the camera."

Lieutenant Padfield saluted General Spitz and said: "Sir, I don't think
you've met Sir Almeric Griffiths, who is coming with us. He is the very
prominent orchestral conductor, as no doubt you know."

"Bring him up. Bring him in," said the American general. "Come,
Griffiths, stand with me."

The bulb flashed.

Gilpin said: "He ought to get security clearance before taking
photographs on our airfield."

Ian resolved to make himself agreeable to this photographer and get
prints of all his films. They might serve to illustrate a book.

As the last glow of sunset faded they boarded the aeroplane in inverse
order of seniority beginning with the Halberdier servant and ending
after some lingering exchanges of politeness with General Spitz. A
machine had been provided that was luxurious for these parts, fitted
with seats as though for paying passengers in peacetime. Little lights
glowed along the roof. The doors were shut. The lights went out. It was
completely dark. What had once been windows were painted out. The roar
of the engines imposed silence on the party. Ian, who had put himself
next to Sneiffel, longed for a forbidden cigarette and tried to compose
himself for sleep. It was far from his normal bedtime. He had worn the
same shirt all day without the chance of changing. In the hot afternoon
it had been damp with sweat. Now in the chill upper air it clung to him
and set him shivering. It had not occurred to him to bring his
greatcoat. It had been an unsatisfactory day. He had wandered about the
streets of the old town with Lieutenant Padfield and Griffiths. They had
lunched at the club and had been ordered to report at the airfield two
hours before they were needed. He had not dined and saw no hope of doing
so. He sat in black boredom and discomfort until, after an hour, sleep
came.

The aeroplane flew high over the Adriatic and the lightless, enemy-held
coast of Dalmatia. All the passengers were sleeping when at last the
little lights went up and the American general who had been travelling
in the cockpit returned to his place in the tail saying: "All right,
fellows. We're there." Everyone began groping for equipment. The
photographer next to Ian tenderly nursed his camera. Ian heard the
change of speed in the engines and felt the rapid descent, the list as
they banked, then straightened for the run-in. Then unexpectedly the
engines burst up in full throat; the machine suddenly rose precipitously
throwing the passengers hard back in their seats; then as suddenly
dived, throwing them violently forward. The last thing Ian heard was a
yelp of alarm from Sneiffel. Then a great door slammed in his mind.

                 *        *        *        *        *

He was standing in the open beside a fire. London, he thought; Turtle's
Club going up in flames. But why was maize growing in St. James's
Street? Other figures were moving around him, unrecognisable against the
fierce light. One seemed familiar. "Loot," he said, "what are _you_
doing here?" And then added: "Job says the gutters are running with
wine."

Always polite, Lieutenant Padfield said: "Is that so?"

A more distinctly American, more authoritative voice was shouting: "Is
everyone out?"

Another familiar figure came close to him. A single eye glittered
terribly in the flames. "You there," said Ritchie-Hook. "Were you
driving that thing?"

As though coming round from gas in the dentist's chair Ian saw that
"that thing" was an aeroplane, shorn of its undercarriage, part buried
in the great furrow it had ploughed for itself, burning furiously in the
bows, with flames trickling back along the fuselage like the wines of
Turtle's. Ian remembered he had left Bari in an aeroplane and that he
had been bound for Jugoslavia.

Then he was aware of the gaunt figure confronting him and of single eye
which caught the blaze. "Are you the pilot?" demanded Ritchie-Hook.
"Pure bad driving. Why can't you look where you're going?" The
concussion which had dazed his companions had momentarily awakened
Ritchie-Hook. "You're under arrest," he roared above the sound of the
fire.

"Who's missing?" demanded the American general.

Ian then saw a man leave the group and trot to the pyre and deliberately
climb back through the escape-hatch.

"What the devil does that idiot think he's doing?" cried Ritchie-Hook.
"Come back. You're under arrest."

Ian's senses were clearer now. He still seemed to be in a dream but in a
very vivid one. "It's like the croquet match in _Alice in Wonderland_,"
he heard himself say to Lieutenant Padfield.

"That's a very, very gallant act," said the Lieutenant.

The figure emerged again in the aperture, jumped, and dragged out behind
him not, as first appeared, an insensible fellow passenger, but, it
transpired, a bulky cylindrical object; he staggered clear with it and
then proceeded to roll on the ground.

"Good God, it's Dawkins," said Ritchie-Hook. "What the devil are you
doing?"

"Trousers on fire, sir," said Dawkins. "Permission to take them off,
sir?" Without waiting for orders he did so, pulling them down, then with
difficulty unfastening his anklets and kicking the smouldering garment
clear of his burden. He stood thus in shirt, tunic and boots gazing
curiously at his bare legs. "Fair roasted," he said.

The American general asked: "Were there any men left inside?"

"Yes, sir. I think there was, sir. They didn't look like moving. Too hot
to stay and talk. Had to get the General's valise out."

"Are you hurt?"

"Yes, sir. I think so, sir. But I don't seem to feel it."

"Shock," said General Spitz. "You will later."

The flames had now taken hold of the tail. "No one is to attempt any
further rescue operations." No one had shown any inclination to do so.
"Who's missing?" he said to his aide. "Count and find out."

"I don't see Almeric," said Lieutenant Padfield.

"How did any of us get out?" Ian asked.

"The general--our General Spitz. He got both the hatches open before
anyone else moved."

"Something to be said for a technological training."

Gilpin was loudly complaining of burned fingers. No one heeded him. The
little group was behaving in an orderly, mechanical manner. They spoke
at random and did not listen. Each seemed alone, isolated by his recent
shock. Someone said: "I wonder where the hell we are." No one answered.
Ritchie-Hook said to Ian: "You were not in any way responsible for that
intolerable exhibition of incompetence?"

"I'm a press-officer, sir."

"Oh, I thought you were the pilot. You need not consider yourself under
arrest. But be careful in future. This is the second time this has
happened to me. They tried it on before in Africa."

The two generals stood side by side. "Neat trick of yours that,"
Ritchie-Hook conceded, "getting the door open. I was slow off the mark.
Didn't really know what was happening for a moment. Might have been in
there still."

The aide came to report to General Spitz: "All the crew are missing."

"Ha," said Ritchie-Hook. "The dog it was that died."

"And six from the rest of the party. I'm afraid Sneiffel is one of
them."

"Too bad, too bad," said General Spitz; "he was a fine boy."

"And the civilian musician."

"Too bad."

"And the French liaison officer."

General Spitz was not listening to the casualty list. An epoch seemed to
have passed since the disaster. General Spitz looked at his watch.
"Eight minutes," he said. "Someone ought to be here soon."

The place where the aeroplane had fallen was pasture. The maize field
lay astern of it, tall, ripe for reaping, glowing golden in the
firelight. These stalks now parted and through them came running the
first of the reception party from the airfield, partisans and the
British Mission. There were greetings and anxious enquiries. Ian lost
all interest in the scene. He found himself uncontrollably yawning and
sat on the ground with his head on his knees while behind him the
chatter of solicitude and translation faded to silence.

Another great space of time, two minutes by a watch, was broken by
someone saying: "Are you hurt?"

"I don't think so."

"Can you walk?"

"I suppose so. I'd sooner stay here."

"Come on, it's not far."

Someone helped him to his feet. He noticed without surprise that it was
Guy. Guy, he remembered, was an inhabitant of this strange land. There
was something he ought to say to Guy. It came to him. "Very sorry about
Virginia," he said.

"Thank you. Have you got any belongings?"

"Burned. Damn fool thing to have happened. I never trusted the Air Force
ever since they accepted _me_. Must be something wrong with people who'd
accept _me_."

"Are you sure nothing hit you on the head in that crash?" said Guy.

"Not sure. I think I'm just sleepy."

A partisan doctor went round the survivors. No one except Halberdier
Dawkins and Gilpin had any visible injuries; the doctor made light of
Gilpin's burnt fingers. Dawkins was suffering from surface burns which
had rapidly swelled into enormous blisters covering his legs and thighs.
He prodded them with detached curiosity. "It's a rum go," he said;
"spill a kettle on your toe and you're fair dancing. Boil you in oil
like a heathen and you don't feel a thing."

The doctor gave him morphia and two partisan girls bore him off on a
stretcher.

The unsteady little procession followed the path the rescuers had
trodden through the maize. The flames cast deep shadows before their
feet. At the edge of the field grew a big chestnut. "Do you see what I
see?" asked Ian. Something like a monkey was perched in the branches
gibbering at them. It was Sneiffel with his camera.

"Lovely pictures," he said. "Sensational if they come out."

                 *        *        *        *        *

When Ian woke next morning it was as though from a debauch; all the
symptoms of alcoholic hangover, such as he had not experienced since
adolescence, overwhelmed him. As in those days, he had no memory of
going to bed. As in those days, he received an early call from the man
who had put him there.

"How are you?" asked Guy.

"Awful."

"There's a doctor going the rounds. Do you want to see him?"

"No."

"Do you want any breakfast?"

"No."

He was left alone. The room was shuttered. The only light came in narrow
strips between the hinges. Outside poultry was cackling. Ian lay still.
The door opened again; someone stamped into the room and opened shutters
and windows revealing herself in the brief moment before Ian shut his
eyes and turned them from the light, as a female in man's uniform,
wearing a red cross brassard and carrying a box of objects which clinked
and rattled. She began stripping Ian of his blanket and pulling at his
arm.

"What the devil are you doing?"

The woman flourished a syringe.

"Get out," cried Ian.

She jabbed at him. He knocked the instrument from her hand. She called:
"Bakic. Bakic," and was joined by a man to whom she talked excitedly in
a foreign tongue.

"She's de nurse," said Bakic. "She got an injection for you."

"What on earth for?"

"She says tetanus. She says she always injects tetanus for everyone."

"Tell her to get out."

"She says are you frightened of a needle? She says partisans are never
frightened."

"Turn her out."

So far as anything so feminine could be ascribed to this visitant, she
exhibited pique. So far as it was possible to flounce in tight battle
dress, she flounced as she left her patient. Guy returned.

"I say, I'm sorry about that. I've been keeping her out all the morning.
She got through while I was with the General."

"Did you put me to bed last night?"

"I helped. You seemed all right. In fact in fine form."

"It's worn off," said Ian.

"You'd just like to be left alone?"

"Yes."

But it was not to be. He had closed his eyes and lapsed into a state
approaching sleep when something not very heavy depressed his feet, as
though a cat or a dog had landed there. He looked and saw Sneiffel.

"Well, well, well, so you're a newspaper man? My, but you've got a
story. I've been down to the wreck. It's still too hot to get near it.
They reckon there's five stiffs in there besides the crew. Lieutenant
Padfield is het up about some British musician he's lost. What the hell?
There isn't going to be any concert now. So what? There'll be an elegant
funeral when they get the bodies out. Everyone seems kinda het up today.
Not me though. Maybe it's being light I don't shock so easy. The
partisans were for putting off the battle but General Spitz works to a
schedule. He's got to have the battle on the day it was planned and then
get out his report and I've got to have the pictures to go with it. So
the battle's tomorrow as per schedule. What say you come round with me
and talk to some of these partisans? I've got the General's interpreter.
He's not feeling too bright this morning but I reckon he can still hear
and speak."

So Ian gingerly set foot to the floor, dressed, and began his work as a
war correspondent.

                 *        *        *        *        *

No one could give a technical explanation of the night's mishap. Guy had
stood at his usual post on the edge of the airfield. He had heard the
Squadron Leader talking his peculiar jargon into his wireless set, had
seen the girls run from tar-barrel to barrel lighting the path for the
incoming aeroplane, had watched it come down as he had watched many
others, had then seen it overrun its objective, rocket suddenly up like
a driven pheasant and fall as though shot half a mile away. He had heard
de Souza say: "That's the end of _them_," had seen the flames kindle and
spread, and then had seen one after another a few dark, unrecognisable,
apparently quite lethargic figures emerge from the hatches and stand
near the wreck. He had joined in the rush to the scene. After that he
had been busy with his duties as host in getting the survivors to their
beds and finding in the store replacements for their lost equipment.

The partisans were inured to disaster. They had a certain relish for it.
They did not neglect to mention that this was an entirely Anglo-American
failure, but they did so with a certain rare cordiality. They had never
been convinced that the allies were taking the war seriously. This
unsolicited burnt-offering seemed in some way to appease them.

De Souza was very busy with his tear-off cipher-pads and it devolved on
Guy to arrange the day of the newcomers. General Spitz's aide had been
struck with a delayed stammer by his fall and complained of pains in his
back. Gilpin now had both hands bandaged and useless. The two generals
were the fittest of their party; General Spitz brisk and business-like,
Ritchie-Hook reanimated. Guy had not seen him in his decline. He was now
as he had always been in Guy's experience.

Halberdier Dawkins said: "It's been a fair treat for the General. He's
his old self. Come in this morning and gave me a rocket for disobeying
orders getting his gear out."

Dawkins was a stretcher case and after arduous years in Ritchie-Hook's
service not sorry to be honourably at ease. He submitted without
complaint to his tetanus injections and basked in the hospitality of the
Mission sergeant who brought him whisky and cigarettes and gossip.

The former Minister of the Interior reluctantly cancelled the _Vin
d'Honneur_ and the concert, but there were sociable meetings between the
general staff and their guests, the observers, at which the plans for
the little battle were discussed. It was after one of these that
Ritchie-Hook took Guy aside and said: "I'd like you to arrange for me to
have a quiet talk with the fellow whose name ends in 'itch.'"

"All their names end like that, sir."

"I mean the decent young fellow. They call him a brigadier. The fellow
who's going to lead the assault."

Guy identified him as a ferocious young Montenegrin who had a certain
affinity to Ritchie-Hook in that he, too, lacked an eye and a large part
of one hand.

Guy arranged a meeting and left the two warriors with the Commissar's
interpreter. Ritchie-Hook returned in high good humour. "Rattling good
fellow that Itch," he said. "No flannel or ormolu about him. D'you
suppose all his stories are true?"

"No, sir."

"Nor do I. I pulled his leg a bit, but I am not sure that interpreter
quite twigged. Anyway we had a perfectly foul drink together--_that_
ended in itch too--extraordinary language--and we parted friends. I've
attached myself to him for tomorrow. Don't tell the others. Itch hasn't
room for more than one tourist in his car. We're driving out tonight to
make a recce and get the men in place for the attack."

"You know, sir," Guy said, "there's a certain amount of humbug about
this attack. It's being laid on for General Spitz."

"Don't try and teach your grandmother to suck eggs," said Ritchie-Hook.
"Of course I twigged all that from the word 'go.' Itch and I understand
one another. It's a demonstration. Sort of thing we did in training. But
we enjoyed that, didn't we?"

Guy thought of those long chilly exercises in "biffing" at Southsands,
Penkirk and Hoy. "Yes, sir," he said, "those were good days."

"And between you and me I reckon it's the last chance I have of hearing
a shot fired in anger. If there's any fun going, Itch will be in it."

                 *        *        *        *        *

At eight next morning General Spitz and his aide, the British mission,
the partisan general staff, Ian and Sneiffel assembled beside the line
of miscellaneous cars which the Jugoslavs had all the summer kept
secreted, with so much else, in the forest. Guy made Ritchie-Hook's
excuses to General Spitz, who merely said: "Well, there's plenty of us
without him."

The convoy set out through a terrain of rustic enchantment, as though
through a water-colour painting of the last century. Strings of
brilliant peppers hung from the eaves of the cottages. The women at work
in the fields sometimes waved a greeting, sometimes hid their faces.
There was no visible difference between "liberated" territory and that
groaning under foreign oppression. Ian was unaware when they passed the
vague frontier.

"It's like driving to a meet," he said, "when the horses have gone on
ahead."

In less than an hour they were in sight of the block-house. A place had
been chosen 500 yards from it, well screened by foliage, where the
observers could await events in comfort and safety. The partisans had
moved out in the darkness and should have been in position surrounding
their objective in the nearest cover.

"I'm going down to look for them," said Sneiffel.

"I shall stay here," said Ian. He was still feeling debauched by shock.

General Spitz studied the scene through very large binoculars.
"Block-house" had been a slightly deceptive term. What he saw was a very
solid little fort built more than a century earlier, part of the
defensive line of Christendom against the Turk. "I appreciate now why
they want air support," said General Spitz. "Can't see anyone moving.
Anyway we've achieved surprise."

"As a matter of fact," said de Souza aside to Guy, "things have not gone
quite right. One of the brigades lost its way in the approach-march.
They may turn up in time. Don't let on to our allies."

"You'd think there would be more sign of life from a German post," said
General Spitz. "Everyone seems asleep."

"These are _domobrans_," said the Commissar's interpreter. "They are
lazy people."

"How's that again?"

"Fascist collaborators."

"Oh. I got the idea in Bari we were going to fight Germans. I suppose
it's all the same thing."

The sun rose high but it was cool in the shade of the observation post.
The air support was timed to begin at ten o'clock. That was to be the
signal for the infantry to come into the open.

At half past nine rifle-fire broke out below them. The partisan general
looked vexed.

"What are they up to?" asked General Spitz.

A partisan runner was sent down to enquire. Before he returned the
firing ceased. When he reported, the interpreter said to General Spitz,
"It is nothing, it was a mistake."

"It's lost us surprise."

De Souza, who had heard and understood the runner's report, said to Guy:
"That was the second brigade turning up. The first thought they were
enemy and started pooping off. No one's been hit, but, as our ally
remarks, we have 'lost surprise.'"

There was no longer peace in the valley. For the next quarter of an hour
occasional shots came, at random it seemed, some from the parapet of the
block-house, some from the surrounding cover; then sharp at ten, just as
on General Spitz's elaborate watch the minute hand touched its zenith,
there came screaming out of the blue sky the two aeroplanes. They
swooped down one behind the other. The first fired simultaneously two
rockets which just missed their target and exploded in the woods beyond,
where part of the attacking force was now grouped. The second shot
straighter. Both his rockets landed square on the masonry, raising a
cloud of flying rubble. Then the machines climbed and circled. Guy,
remembering the dive-bombers in Crete relentlessly tracking and pounding
the troops on the ground, waited for their return. Instead they dwindled
from sight and hearing.

The airman who had been sent to observe them, stood near. "Lovely job,"
he said, "right on time, right on target."

"Is that all?" asked Guy.

"That's all. Now the soldiers can do some work."

Silence had fallen in the valley. Everyone, friend and enemy alike,
expected the return of the aeroplanes. The dust cleared revealing to
those on the hillside equipped with binoculars two distinct patches of
dilapidation in the massive walls of the block-house. Some of the
partisans began discharging their weapons. None came into view. The Air
Force observer began to explain to General Spitz the complexity of the
task which he had seen successfully executed. The Commissar and the
partisan general spoke earnestly and crossly in their own language. A
runner from below came to report to them. "It appears," the interpreter
explained to General Spitz, "that the attack must be postponed. A German
armoured column has been warned and is on its way here."

"What do your men do about that?"

"Before a German armoured column they disperse. That is the secret of
our great and many victories."

"Well, Uncle," said de Souza to Guy, "We had better begin thinking of
luncheon for our visitors. They've seen all the sport we have to offer
here."

But he was wrong. Just as the observers were turning towards their cars,
Ian said: "Look."

Two figures had emerged from the scrub near the block-house walls and
were advancing across the open ground. Guy remembered the precept of his
musketry instructor: "At 200 yards all parts of the body are distinctly
seen. At 300 the outline of the face is blurred. At 400 no face. At 600
the head is a dot and the body tapers." He raised his binoculars and
recognised the incongruous pair; the first was Ritchie-Hook. He was
signalling fiercely, summoning to the advance the men behind him, who
were already slinking away; he went forward at a slow and clumsy trot
towards the place where the rocket-bombs had disturbed the stones. He
did not look back to see if he was being followed. He did not know that
he was followed, by one man, Sneiffel, who, like a terrier, like the pet
dwarf privileged to tumble about the heels of a prince of the
Renaissance, was gambolling round him with his camera, crouching and
skipping, so small and agile as to elude the snipers on the walls. A
first bullet hit Ritchie-Hook when he was some twenty yards from the
walls. He span completely round, then fell forwards on his knees, rose
again and limped slowly on. He was touching the walls, feeling for a
hand hold, when a volley from above caught him and flung him down dead.
Sneiffel paused long enough to record his last posture, then bolted; and
the defenders were so much surprised by the whole incident that they
withheld their fire until he had plunged into the ranks of the
retreating partisans.

The German patrol--not, as the partisan scouts had reported, an armoured
column, but two scout cars summoned by telephone when the first shots
were fired--arrived at the block-house to find the scars of the rockets
and the body of Ritchie-Hook. They did not move from the road. A section
of _domobrans_ investigated the wood where the first aeroplane had
misplaced its missiles. They found some smouldering timber and the
bodies of four partisans. A puzzled German captain composed his report
of the incident, which circulated through appropriate files of the
Intelligence Service attracting incredulous minutes as long as the
Balkan branch continued to function. The single-handed attack on a
fortified position by a British major-general, attended in one account
by a small boy, in another by a midget, had no precedent in Clausewitz.
There must be some deep underlying motive, German Intelligence agreed,
which was obscure to them. Perhaps the body was not really
Ritchie-Hook's--they had his full biography--but that of a sacrificial
victim. Ritchie-Hook was being preserved for some secret enterprise.
Warning orders were issued throughout the whole "Fortress of Europe" to
be viligant for one-eyed men.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Lieutenant Padfield had not spent an agreeable morning in Begoy. His
only company had been Gilpin and he had been troubled by a deputation of
Jews who, hearing that an American was among them, had come to enquire
about the arrangement U.N.R.R.A. was making for their relief. The
Lieutenant was no linguist. Bakic was surly. The conversation had been a
strain on his spirits, already subdued by the aeroplane crash. It was
with great pleasure that, earlier than expected, the observers came
driving into the town.

The death of Ritchie-Hook had changed the events of the day from fiasco
to tragic drama. There was ample material for recriminations, but in the
face of this death even the Commissar was constrained to silence.

Sneiffel was jubilant. He had secured a scoop which would fill half a
dozen pages of an illustrated weekly, the full photographic record of a
unique event.

Ian was soberly confident. "You didn't miss much, Loot," he said, "but
the object of the exercise has been attained. General Spitz is satisfied
that the partisans mean business and are skilled in guerilla tactics. He
was rather sceptical at one moment but Ritchie-Hook changed all that. A
decision of the heart rather than of the head perhaps.

"It's an odd thing. In all this war I've only twice had any part in an
operation. Both have afforded classic stories of heroism. You wouldn't
have thought, would you, that Trimmer and Ritchie-Hook had a great deal
in common?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

Guy took it on himself to inform Halberdier Dawkins of his master's
death.

The much blistered man displayed no extremity of bereavement. "So that's
how it was," he said, and added with awe at the benevolent operation of
Providence: "Hadn't been for going sick, like enough I'd be with him.
He's led me into some sticky places I can tell you, sir, these last
three years. He was fair asking to cop one. As you'll remember, sir, he
always spoke very straight and more than once he's said to me right out:
'Dawkins, I wish those bastards would shoot better. I don't want to go
home.' One thing for him; different for me that's got a wife and kids
and was twenty years younger. Of course I'd go anywhere with the
General. Had to really, and he was a fine man, no getting way from that.
So it's turned out the best for both parties the way things are. I don't
know how I'll do about his gear. Ought to ship it back to the base.
Maybe your orderly would lend a hand when they send to fetch us. It's a
shame we couldn't bury him proper, but you can trust the jerries to do
what's right, he always said. He wasn't a strictly religious man. Just
so as he has his grave marked, he wouldn't want more."

The partisans dug a deep common grave for the bodies in the aeroplane.
They, too, were anxious to do what was right and offered the services of
the village priest, but since little was known about the beliefs of any
of the dead, except Sir Almeric Griffiths who, Lieutenant Padfield said,
was of Wesleyan origin and sceptical temper, a firing-party and a bugler
performed the last office.

Later the Air Force made a daylight sortie with fighter cover to collect
General Spitz and the remnants of his party. When Guy and de Souza
returned from the airfield to their quarters they found the partisan
girls already removing the bourgeois furniture.

"The captains and the kings depart," said de Souza. "What do we do now,
Uncle, to keep ourselves amused?"

There was not work for two liaison officers. There was barely enough for
one. As the result of General Spitz's recommendations supplies came
almost nightly in great profusion. The Squadron Leader arranged for
them, the partisans collected them, Guy and de Souza were spectators.
Throughout the last weeks of August and the first weeks of September the
Commissar and the General were uncomplaining, even comradely. De Souza
drove Guy in the jeep round the "liberated" area visiting partisan
camps.

"It seems to me," said Guy, "that they've got all they can use at the
moment. If they're going to mount a summer offensive they'd better get
on with it."

"There's not going to be a summer offensive here in Croatia," said de
Souza. "You might have noticed that we're moving troops out, as soon as
they're equipped. They're going into Montenegro and Bosnia. They'll keep
on the heels of the Germans and move into Serbia before the _cetnics_
can take over. That's the important thing now. Begoy has served its
purpose. They'll leave just enough men to deal with the local fascists.
I have the feeling I shan't be staying long myself. Can you face the
winter alone, Uncle? Once the snow comes the landing strip will be out
of service, you know."

"I'd like to do something about the Jews."

"Oh, yes. Your Jews. I'll make a signal."

He got in reply: _Plans well advanced evacuation all Jews your area
before snow_.

"I hope that's cheered you up, Uncle."

That was in the middle of the third week in September. In the middle of
the fourth week de Souza came into their common living-room with his
file of signals and said: "I shall be leaving you tonight, Uncle. I've
been recalled to Bari. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you
there."

"Remind them about the Jews."

"You know, Uncle, I'm beginning to doubt if you're fit to be left.
You've an _ide fixe_. I hope you aren't going to become a
psychiatrist's case like your predecessor here."

It was not until dinner that de Souza said: "I daresay you ought to know
what's happening. Tito has left Vis and gone to join the Russians. He
might have done it more politely. He never said a word to anyone. Just
took off while everyone was asleep. Some of our chaps are rather annoyed
about it, I gather. I bet Winston is. I told you he'd make rings round
the old boy. Winston imagined he'd worked the same big magic with Tito
he did with the British Labour leaders in 1940. There were to be British
landings in Dalmatia and a nice coalition government set up in Belgrade.
That's what Winston thought. From now on any help Tito needs is coming
from Russia and Bulgaria."

"Bulgaria? The Jugoslavs hate their guts."

"Not any more, Uncle. You don't follow modern politics any more than
poor Winston does. The Bulgarians have, as our Prime Minister might have
put it, 'found their souls.'

"I don't think you'll have a very busy winter. There won't be so much
Anglo-American interest as there's been in the last few months. In fact
they might close this mission down before Christmas."

"Any suggestion of how we're supposed to get out?"

"I'll leave you the jeep, Uncle. You might get through to Split."

It seemed to Guy then that he had never really liked Frank de Souza.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The officer in Bari who distributed educational matter had sent a huge
bundle of illustrated American magazines, mostly of distant date. In the
long hours of early October Guy read them, slowly, straight through,
like a Protestant Nanny with her Bible.

Days passed without his receiving any summons to general headquarters.
Bakic did not like walking. Guy got some pleasure from tramping the
autumnal countryside with the spy limping behind him. The church was
locked up; the priest had left. Three members of the Praesidium were
installed in the presbytery.

"What's become of him?" Guy asked of Bakic.

"He gone some other place. Little village more quiet than here. He was
old. Too big a house for one old man."

On Guy's forty-first birthday he received a present; a signal reading:
_Receive special flight four Dakotas tomorrow night 29th dispatch all
Jews_.

He went joyfully to the Commissar, who, as before, had received
confirmation from his own source of authority, and coldly gave his
assent to the proposal.

It seemed to Guy, in the fanciful mood that his lonely state engendered,
that he was playing an ancient, historic role as he went with Bakic to
inform the Jews of their approaching exodus. He was Moses leading a
people out of captivity.

He was not well versed in Old Testament history. The bullrushes, the
burning bush, the plagues of Egypt belonged in his mind to very early
memories, barely distinguishable from Grimm and Hans Andersen, but the
image of Moses stood plain before his eyes, preposterously striking
water from rock near the Grand Hotel in Rome, majestically laying down
the law in St. Peter-in-Chains. That day Guy's cuckold's-horns shone
like the patriarch's, when he came down from the awful cloud on Sinai.

But there was no divine intervention to help the Jews of Begoy, no
opening of the sea, no inundation of chariots. Guy was informed that no
further assistance was required from him. A partisan security company
was detailed to muster the refugees and examine their scant baggage. At
dusk they were marched out of their ghetto along the road to the
airfield. Guy saw them pass from the corner of the lane. It was the
season of mists and Guy felt the chill of anticipated failure. Silent
and shadowy the procession trailed past him. One or two had somehow
borrowed peasants' hand carts. The oldest and feeblest rode in them.
Most were on foot bowed under their shabby little bundles.

At ten o'clock when Guy and the Squadron Leader went out the ground-mist
was so thick that they could barely find the familiar way. The Jews were
huddled on the embankment, mostly sleeping.

Guy said to the Squadron Leader: "Is this going to lift?"

"It's been getting thicker for the last two hours."

"Will they be able to land?"

"Not a chance. I'm just sending the cancellation order now."

Guy could not bear to wait. He walked back alone but could not rest;
hours later, he went out and waited in the mist at the junction of lane
and road until the weary people hobbled past into the town.

Twice in the next three weeks the grim scene was repeated. On the second
occasion the fires were lit, the aeroplanes were overhead and could be
heard circling, recircling and at length heading west again. That
evening, Guy prayed: "Please God make it all right. You've done things
like that before. Just send a wind. Please God send a wind." But the
sound of the engines dwindled and died away, and the hopeless Jews
stirred themselves and set off again on the way they had come.

That week there was the first heavy fall of snow. There would be no more
landing until the Spring.

Guy despaired, but powerful forces were at work in Bari. He soon
received a signal: _Expect special drop shortly relief supplies for Jews
stop Explain partisan HQ. these supplies only repeat only for
distribution Jews_.

He called on the General with this communication.

"What supplies?"

"I presume food and clothing and medicine."

"For three months I have been asking for these things for my men. The
Third Corps have no boots. In the hospital they are operating without
anaesthetics. Last week we had to withdraw from two forward positions
because there were no rations."

"I know. I have signalled about it repeatedly."

"Why is there food and clothes for the Jews and not for my men?"

"I cannot explain. All I have come to ask is whether you can guarantee
distribution."

"I will see."

Guy signalled _Respectfully submit most injudicious discriminate in
favour of Jews stop Will endeavour secure proportionate share for them
of general relief supplies_, and received in answer: _Three aircraft
will drop Jewish supplies point C 1130 hours 21st stop These supplies
from private source not military stop Distribute according previous
signal_.

On the afternoon of the 21st the Squadron Leader came to see Guy.

"What's the idea?" he said. "I've just been having the hell of a
schemozzle with the Air Liaison comrade about tonight's drop. He wants
the stuff put in bond or something till he gets orders from higher up.
He's a reasonable sort of chap usually. I've never seen him on such a
high horse. Wanted everything checked in the presence of the Minister of
the Interior and put under joint guard. Never heard such a lot of rot. I
suppose someone at Bari has been playing at politics as usual."

That night the air was full of parachutes and of "free-drops" whistling
down like bombs. The anti-fascist youth retrieved them. They were loaded
on carts, taken to a barn near the General's headquarters and formally
impounded.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Belgrade fell to the Russians, Bulgarians and partisans. A day of
rejoicing was declared in Begoy by the Praesidium. The concert and the
_Vin d'Honneur_, postponed in mourning, was held in triumph. On order
from high authority a _Te Deum_ was sung in the church, re-opened for
that day and served by a new priest whom the partisans had collected
during their expansion into Dalmatia. At nightfall the anti-fascist
choir sang. The anti-fascist theatre group staged a kind of pageant of
liberation. Wine and Slivovic were copiously drunk and Guy through the
interpreter made a formal little acknowledgment of the toast to Winston
Churchill. And next day, perhaps as part of the celebrations--Guy could
never discern by what process the partisans from time to time were moved
to acts of generosity--the Jews received their supplies.

Bakic greeted him with "De Jews again," and, going into the yard, he
found it full of his former visitors, but now transformed into a kind of
farcical army. All of them, men and women, wore military greatcoats,
Balaclava helmets, and knitted woollen gloves. Orders had been received
from Belgrade, and distribution of the stores had suddenly taken place,
and here were the recipients to thank him. The spokesmen were different
on this occasion. The grocer and lawyer had gone ahead into the promised
land. Mme. Kanyi kept away for reasons of her own; an old man made a
longish speech which Bakic rendered "Dis guy say dey's all very happy."

For the next few days a deplorable kind of ostentation seemed to possess
the Jews. A curse seemed to have been lifted. They appeared everywhere,
trailing the skirts of their greatcoats in the snow, stamping their huge
new boots, gesticulating with their gloved hands. Their faces shone with
soap, they were full of Spam and dehydrated fruits. They were a living
psalm. And then, as suddenly, they disappeared.

"What has happened to them?"

"I guess dey been moved some other place," said Bakic.

"Why?"

"People make trouble for them."

"Who?"

"Partisan people dat hadn't got no coats and boots. Dey make trouble wid
de Commissar, so de Commissar move dem on last night."

Guy had business that day with the Commissar. When it was ended Guy
said: "I see the Jews have moved."

Without consulting his chief the intellectual young interpreter
answered: "Their house was required for the Ministry of Rural Economy.
New quarters have been found for them a few miles away."

The Commissar asked what was being said, grunted and rose. Guy saluted
and the interview was at an end. On the steps the interpreter joined
him.

"The question of the Jews, Captain Crouchback. It was necessary for them
to go. Our people could not understand why they should have special
treatment. We have partisan women who work all day and have no boots or
overcoats. How are we to explain that these old people who are doing
nothing for our cause should have such things?"

"Perhaps by saying that they _are_ old and _have_ no cause. Their need
is greater than a young enthusiast's."

"Besides, Captain Crouchback, they were trying to make business. They
were bartering the things they had been given. My parents are Jewish and
I understand these people. They always want to make some trade."

"Well, what's wrong with that?"

"War is not a time for trade."

"Well, anyway, I hope they have decent quarters."

"They have what is suitable."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The gardens in winter seemed smaller than in full leaf. From fence to
fence the snow-obliterated lawns and beds lay open; the paths were only
traceable by boot-prints. Guy daily took a handful of broken biscuits to
the squirrel and fed him through the bars. One day while he was thus
engaged, watching the little creature go through the motions of
concealment, cautiously return, grasp the food, jump away and once more
perform the mime of digging and covering, he saw Mme. Kanyi approach
down the path. She was carrying a load of brushwood, stooping under it,
so that she did not see him until she was quite close.

Guy had just received a signal for recall. The force was being renamed
and reorganised. He was to report as soon as feasible to Bari. Word had
gone to Belgrade, he supposed, that he was no longer _persona grata_.

He greeted Mme. Kanyi with warm pleasure. "Let me carry that."

"No, please. It is better not."

"I insist."

Mme. Kanyi looked about her. No one was in sight. She let him take the
load and carry it towards her hut.

"You have not gone with the others?"

"No, my husband is needed."

"And you don't wear your greatcoat."

"Not out of doors. I wear it at night in the hut. The coats and boots
make everyone hate us, even those who had been kind before."

"But partisan discipline is so firm. Surely there was no danger of
violence?"

"No, that was not the trouble. It was the peasants. The partisans are
frightened of the peasants. They will settle with them later, but at
present they are dependent on them for food. Our people began to
exchange things with the peasants. They would give needles and thread,
razors, things no one can get, for turkeys and apples. No one wants
money. The peasants preferred bartering with our people to taking the
partisans' bank-notes. That was what made the trouble."

"Where have the others gone?"

She spoke a name which meant nothing to Guy. "You have not heard of that
place? It is twenty miles away. It is not a place of good repute. It is
where the Germans and _ustachi_ made a camp. They kept the Jews and
Gypsies and Communists and royalists there, to work on the canal. Before
they left they killed what were left of the prisoners--not many. Now the
partisans have found new inhabitants for it."

They had reached the hut and Guy entered to place his load in a corner
near the little stove. It was the first and last time he crossed the
threshold. He had a brief impression of orderly poverty and then was
outside in the snow. "Listen, Signora," he said. "Don't lose heart. I am
being recalled to Bari. As soon as the road is clear I shall be leaving.
When I get there I promise I'll raise Cain about this. You've plenty of
friends there and I'll explain the whole situation to them. We'll get
you all out, I promise."

As they stood on the little patch before the door which Mme. Kanyi had
cleared of snow they saw through the leafless shrubs the lurking figure
of Bakic.

"You see you have been followed here."

"He can't make any trouble."

"Not for you, perhaps. You are leaving. There was a time when I thought
that all I needed for happiness was to leave. Our people feel that. They
must move away from evil. Some hope to find homes in Palestine. Most
look no farther than Italy--just to cross the water, like crossing the
Red Sea.

"Is there any place that is free from evil? It is too simple to say that
only the Nazis wanted war. These Communists wanted it too. It was the
only way in which they could come to power. Many of my people wanted it,
to be revenged on the Germans, to hasten the creation of the national
state. It seems to me there was a will to war, a death wish, everywhere.
Even good men thought their private honour would be satisfied by war.
They could assert their manhood by killing and being killed. They would
accept hardships in recompense for having been selfish and lazy. Danger
justified privilege. I knew Italians--not very many perhaps--who felt
this. Were there none in England?"

"God forgive me," said Guy. "I was one of them."




CHAPTER V


Guy had come to the end of the crusade to which he had devoted himself
on the tomb of Sir Roger. His life as a Halberdier was over. All the
stamping of the barrack square and the biffing of imaginary strongholds
were finding their consummation in one frustrated act of mercy. He left
Begoy without valediction save for the formal application at general
headquarters for leave to travel. He took his small staff with him. His
last act was to send by the hand of his orderly the pile of illustrated
magazines to Mme. Kanyi. He gave the widows such remains of his stores
as the Squadron Leader did not require. The widows wept. The Squadron
Leader expressed the hope that he, too, would soon get an order of
recall.

The road to the coast was free of enemy and passable by jeep. It led
through the desolate Lika, where every village was ravaged and roofless,
down into the clement coast of the Adriatic. Forty-eight hours after
leaving Begoy Guy and his men were under the walls of Diocletian at
Split, where they found an English cruiser in harbour, whose company
were forbidden to land. Partisans had the shore batteries trained on
her. This, more than anything he had seen in Jugoslavia, impressed the
sergeant. "Who'd have thought the Navy would stand for that, sir? It's
politics, that's what it is."

There was a British liaison officer at Split who gave him an order that
had come, to drive on to Dubrovnik where a small British force, mostly
of field artillery, had been landed and then held impotent. He was
posted there as liaison officer between this force and the partisans.

His task was to hear from the partisan commander allegations of
"incorrect behaviour" by the British troops and convey them to the
puzzled Brigadier in command who had come under the supposition that he
was a welcome ally; also to hear demands for supplies--the contrast
between the fully equipped invaders and the ragged partisans was
remarked by the townspeople--and to receive clandestine visits from
civilians of various nationalities who wished to enroll themselves as
displaced persons. On his first day he made a signal, _Situation of
displaced persons in Begoy area desperate_, and received in answer
_Appropriate authority informed_, but his further lists of exiles
received no acknowledgment.

At length, in mid-February, the British force withdrew, Guy with the
advance-party. He was set ashore at Brindisi and drove up to Bari just a
year after he had first gone there. The almond was again in flower. He
reported to Major Marchpole. He dined at the club.

"Everything is packing up here," said the Major. "I shall stay on as
long as I can. The Brigadier has gone already. Joe Cattermole is in
charge. You'll be returning to U.K. as soon as you want."

It was from Cattermole that he learned that the Jews of Begoy had
escaped. A private charitable organisation in America had provided a
convoy of new Ford trucks, shipped them to Trieste, driven through the
snow of Croatia and, leaving the trucks as a tip for the partisans,
brought the exiles to Italy. It was indeed as though the Red Sea had
miraculously drawn asunder and left a dry passage between walls of
water.

Guy got permission to visit them. They were back behind barbed wire in a
stony valley near Lecce. With them were four or five hundred others
collected from various prisons and hiding places, all old and all
baffled, all in army greatcoats and Balaclava helmets.

"I can't see the point of their being here," said the Commandant. "We
feed them and doctor them and house them. That's all we can do. No one
wants them. The Zionists are only interested in the young. I suppose
they'll just sit here till they die."

"Are they happy?"

"They complain the hell of a lot but then they've the hell of a lot to
complain about. It's a lousy place to be stuck in."

"I'm particularly interested in a pair called Kanyi."

The Commandant looked down his list. "Not here," he said.

"Good. That probably means they got off to Australia all right."

"Not from here, old man. I've been here all along. No one has ever
left."

"Could you make sure? Anyone in the Begoy draft would know about them."

The Commandant sent his interpreter to inquire while he took Guy into
the shed he called his mess, and gave him a drink. Presently the man
returned. "All correct, sir. The Kanyis never left Begoy. They got into
some kind of trouble there and were jugged."

"May I go with the interpreter and ask about it?"

"By all means, old man. But aren't you making rather heavy weather of
it? What do two more or less matter?"

Guy went into the compound with the interpreter. Some of the Jews
recognised him and crowded round him with complaints and petitions. All
he could learn about the Kanyis was that they had been taken off the
truck by the partisan police just as it was about to start.

He took the question to Major Marchpole.

"We don't really want to bother the Jugs any more. They really
co-operated very well about the whole business. Besides the war's over
now in that part. There's no particular point in moving people out.
We're busy at the moment moving people in." This man was in fact at that
moment busy despatching Royalist officers--though he did not know it--to
certain execution.

Guy spent his last days in Bari revisiting the offices where by signal
he had begun his work of liberation. But this time he received little
sympathy. The Jewish office showed little interest in him when they
understood that he had not come to sell them illicit arms. They showed
no interest in the Kanyis when they learned they were bound for
Australia and not Zion. "We must first set up the State," they said.
"Then it will be a refuge for all. First things first."

An old Air Force acquaintance from Alexandrian days had a flat in
Posillipo and asked Guy to stay. For a journey such as his it was a
matter of being fitted into an aeroplane at the last moment when someone
more important failed.

On the day before he was due to leave for Naples, he was accosted by
Gilpin, who said: "Before you leave I shall want your security pass
back."

"I'm afraid I've lost it."

"That will be very awkward."

"Not for me," said Guy. "I have a friend in Air Priorities."

Gilpin scowled. "I hear you've been making enquiries about a couple
named Kanyi."

"Yes, I'm interested in them."

"I thought you might be. It didn't sound like Frank de Souza exactly."

"What didn't?"

"The confidential report. The woman was the mistress of a British
liaison officer."

"Nonsense."

"He was seen leaving her home when her husband was away on duty. They
were a thoroughly shady couple. The husband was guilty of sabotaging the
electric light plant. A whole heap of American counter-revolutionary
propaganda was found in their room. The whole association was most
compromising to the Mission. It's lucky Cape had handed over to Joe
before we got the report. You might have found yourself on a charge. But
Joe's not vindictive. He just moved you where you couldn't do any harm.
Though I may say that some of the names you sent us as displaced persons
at Dubrovnik are on the black list."

"What happened to the Kanyis?"

"What do you suppose? They were tried by a Peoples' Court. You may be
sure that justice has been done."

Once before in his military career Guy had been tempted to strike a
brother officer--Trimmer at Southsands. The temptation was stronger now,
but before he had done more than clench his fist, before he had raised
it, the sense of futility intervened. He turned and left the office.

Next day he settled in Posillipo.

"For a chap who's on his way home you don't seem very cheerful," said
his host and then changed the subject, for he had had many men through
his hands who were returning to problems more acute than any they had
faced on active service.




EPILOGUE
FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN


In 1951, to celebrate the opening of a happier decade, the government
decreed a Festival. Monstrous constructions appeared on the south bank
of the Thames, the foundation stone was solemnly laid for a National
Theatre, but there was little popular exuberance among the straitened
people and dollar-bearing tourists curtailed their visits and sped to
the countries of the Continent, where, however precarious their
condition, they ordered things better.

There were few private parties. Two of these were held in London on the
same June evening.

Tommy Blackhouse had returned to England in May. He was retiring from
the army with many decorations, a new, pretty wife and the rank of
major-general. In the last years he had advanced far beyond his Commando
into posts of greater and greater eminence and responsibility, never
seeming to seek promotion, never leaving rancour behind him among those
he surpassed; but his first command lay closest to his heart. Meeting
Bertie in Bellamy's he had suggested a reunion dinner. Bertie agreed
that it would be agreeable. "It would mean an awful lot of organising
though," said this one-time adjutant. It was left for Tommy, as always,
to do the work.

The officers who had assembled at Mugg were not so scattered as those of
other wartime units. Most of them had been together in prison. Luxmore
had made an escape. Ivor Claire had spent six months in Burma with the
Chindits, had done well, collected a D.S.O. and an honourably
incapacitating wound. He was often in Bellamy's now. His brief period of
disgrace was set aside and almost forgotten.

"You're going to invite everyone?" asked Bertie.

"Everyone I can find. What was the name of that old Halberdier? Jumbo
someone? We'll ask the sea-weed eater. I don't somehow think he'll come.
Guy Crouchback of course."

"Trimmer?"

"Certainly."

But Trimmer had disappeared. All Tommy's adroit enquiries failed to find
any trace of him. Some said he had jumped ship in South Africa. Nothing
was known certainly. Fifteen men eventually assembled, including Guy.

The second, concurrent festivity was given in part by Arthur Box-Bender.
He had lost his seat in parliament in 1945. He rarely came to London in
the succeeding years but that June evening he was induced to pay his
half share in a small dance given in an hotel for his eighteen-year-old
daughter and a friend of hers. For an hour or two he stood with Angela
greeting the ill-conditioned young people who were his guests. Some of
the men wore hired evening-dress; others impudently presented themselves
in dinner-jackets and soft shirts. He and his fellow-host had been at
pains to find the cheapest fizzy wine in the market. Feeling thirsty, he
sauntered down Piccadilly and turned into St. James's. Bellamy's alone
retained some traces of happier days.

Elderberry was alone in the middle hall reading Air Marshal Beech's
reminiscences. He, also, had lost his seat. His successful opponent,
Gilpin, was not popular in the House but he was making his mark and had
lately become an under-secretary. Elderberry had no habitation outside
London. He had no occupation there. Most of his days and evenings were
passed alone in this same armchair in Bellamy's.

He looked disapprovingly at Box-Bender's starched front.

"You still go out?"

"I had to give a party tonight for my daughter."

"Ah, something you had to pay for? That's different. It's being _asked_
I like. I'm never asked anywhere now."

"I don't think you would have liked this party."

"No, no, of course not. But I used to get asked to dinners--embassies
and that kind of thing. Well, so did you. There was a lot of rot talked
but it did get one through the evening. Everything's very quiet here
now."

This judgment was immediately rebutted by the descent of the Commando
dinner party, who stumbled noisily down the staircase and into the
billiard room.

Guy paused to greet his brother-in-law.

"I didn't ask you to our dance," said Box-Bender. "It is very small, for
young people. I didn't suppose you'd want to come. Didn't know you ever
came to London, as a matter of fact."

"I don't, Arthur. I'm just up to see lawyers. We've sold the Castello,
you know."

"I'm glad to hear it. Who on earth can afford to buy property in Italy
now? Americans, I suppose."

"Not at all. One of our countrymen who can't afford to live in England.
Ludovic."

"Ludovic?"

"The author of _The Death Wish_. You must have heard of it."

"I think Angela read it. She said it was tosh."

"It sold nearly a million copies in America and they've just filmed it.
He's a fellow I came across during the war. As a matter of fact the sale
was arranged by a man who used to belong here--an American called
Padfield. He seems to have become Ludovic's general factotum."

"Are they part of your party in there?"

"No. We aren't quite Ludovic's sort of party."

"Well, the Castello should be just the place for a literary man. How's
everything at Broome?"

"Very well, thank you."

"Domenica all right, and the children?"

"Yes."

"Farm paying?"

"At the moment."

"Wish mine was. Well, give them all my regards." A voice called, "Guy,
come and play slosh."

"Coming, Bertie."

When he had gone, Elderberry said: "That's your brother-in-law, isn't
it? He's putting on weight. Didn't I hear something rather sad about him
during the war?"

"His wife was killed by a bomb."

"Yes, that was it. I remember now. But he's married again?"

"Yes. The first sensible thing he's ever done. Domenica Plessington,
Eloise's girl. Eloise looked after the baby while Guy was abroad.
Domenica got very fond of it. A marriage was the obvious thing. I think
Eloise deserves some credit in arranging it. No children of their own,
but that's not always a disadvantage. Domenica manages the home farm at
Broome. They've settled in the agent's house. They aren't at all badly
off. Angela's Uncle Peregrine left his little bit to the child. Wasn't
such a very little bit either."

Elderberry remembered that Box-Bender had had trouble with his own son.
What had it been? Divorce? Debt? No, something odder than that. He'd
gone into a monastery. With unusual delicacy Elderberry did not raise
the question. He merely said: "So Guy's happily settled?"

"Yes," said Box-Bender, not without a small, clear note of resentment,
"things have turned out very conveniently for Guy."






[End of Unconditional Surrender, by Evelyn Waugh]
