A Man Could Stand Up—, Ford Madox Ford [ebook reader macos .txt] 📗

of a war of motion, sir, I don’t know that I should have much experience.”

The Colonel answered:

“It won’t become a war of motion before I come back. If I ever do come back.”

Tietjens said:

“Isn’t it rather like a war of motion now, sir?” It was perhaps the first time in his life he had ever asked for information from a superior in rank⁠—with an implicit belief that he would get an exact answer. The Colonel said:

“No. This is only falling back on prepared positions. There will be positions prepared for us right back to the sea. If the Staff has done its work properly. If it hasn’t, the war’s over. We’re done, finished, smashed, annihilated, nonexistent.”

Tietjens said:

“But if the great strafe that, according to Division, is due now⁠ ⁠…”

The Colonel said: “What?” Tietjens repeated his words and added:

“We might get pushed beyond the next prepared position.”

The Colonel appeared to withdraw his thoughts from a great distance.

“There isn’t going to be any great strafe,” he said. He was beginning to add: “Division has got.⁠ ⁠…” A considerable thump shook the hill behind their backs. The Colonel sat listening without much attention. His eyes gloomily rested on the papers before him. He said, without looking up:

“Yes: I don’t want my battalion knocked about!” He went on reading again⁠—the communication from Whitehall. He said: “You’ve read this?” and then:

“Falling back on prepared positions isn’t the same as moving in the open. You don’t have to do more than you do in a trench-to-trench attack. I suppose you can get your direction by compass all right. Or get someone to, for you.”

Another considerable Crump of sound shook the earth but from a little further away. The Colonel turned the sheet of paper over. Pinned to the back of it was the private note of the Brigadier. He perused this also with gloomy and unsurprised eyes.

“Pretty stiff, all this,” he said, “you’ve read it? I shall have to go back and see about this.”

He exclaimed:

“It’s rough luck. I should have liked to leave my battalion to someone that knew it. I don’t suppose you do. Perhaps you do, though.”

An immense collection of fire-irons: all the fire-irons in the world fell just above their heads. The sound seemed to prolong itself in echoes, though of course it could not have. It was repeated.

The Colonel looked upwards negligently. Tietjens proposed to go to see. The Colonel said:

“No, don’t. Notting will tell us if anything’s wanted.⁠ ⁠… Though nothing can be wanted!” Notting was the beady-eyed Adjutant in the adjoining cellar. “How could they expect us to keep accounts straight in August 1914? How can they expect me to remember what happened? At the Depot. Then!” He appeared listless, but without resentment. “Rotten luck⁠ ⁠…” he said. “In the battalion and⁠ ⁠… with this!” He rapped the back of his hand on the papers. He looked up at Tietjens.

“I suppose I could get rid of you; with a bad report,” he said. “Or perhaps I couldn’t⁠ ⁠… General Campion put you here. You’re said to be his bastard.”

“He’s my godfather,” Tietjens said, “If you put in a bad report of me I should not protest. That is, if it were on the grounds of lack of experience. I should go to the Brigadier over anything else.”

“It’s the same thing,” the Colonel said. “I mean a godson. If I had thought you were General Campion’s bastard, I should not have said it.⁠ ⁠… No; I don’t want to put in a bad report of you. It’s my own fault if you don’t know the battalion. I’ve kept you out of it. I didn’t want you to see what a rotten state the papers are in. They say you’re the devil of a paper soldier. You used to be in a Government office, didn’t you?”

Heavy blows were being delivered to the earth with some regularity on each side of the cellar. It was as if a boxer of the size of a mountain were delivering rights and lefts in heavy alternation. And it made hearing rather difficult.

“Rotten luck,” the Colonel said. “And Mckechnie’s dotty. Clean dotty.” Tietjens missed some words. He said that he would probably be able to get the paper work of the battalion straight before the Colonel came back.

The noise rolled down hill like a heavy cloud. The Colonel continued talking and Tietjens, not being very accustomed to his voice, lost a good deal of what he said but, as if in a rift, he did hear:

“I’m not going to burn my fingers with a bad report on you that may bring a General on my back⁠—to get back Mckechnie who’s dotty.⁠ ⁠… Not fit to.⁠ ⁠…”

The noise rolled in again. Once the Colonel listened to it, turning his head on one side and looking upwards. But he appeared satisfied with what he heard and recommenced his perusal of the Horse Guards letter. He took the pencil, underlined words and then sat idly stabbing the paper with the point.

With every minute Tietjen’s respect for him increased. This man at least knew his job⁠—as an engine-dresser does, or the captain of a steam tramp. His nerves might have gone to pieces. They probably had; probably he could not go very far without stimulants: he was probably under bromides now.

And, all things considered, his treatment of Tietjens had been admirable and Tietjens had to revise his view of it. He realised that it was Mckechnie who had given him the idea that the Colonel hated him: but he would not have said anything. He was too old a hand in the Army to give Tietjens a handle by saying anything definite.⁠ ⁠… And he had always treated Tietjens with the sort of monumental deference that, in a Mess, the Colonel should bestow on his chief assistant. Going through a door at mealtimes, for instance, if they happened to be side by side, he would motion with his hand for Tietjens to go first, naturally though, taking his proper precedence when Tietjens halted. And here he was, perfectly calm. And