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

by the rubbing of two corks one on the other.⁠ ⁠… There came into his mind an image. Years ago: years and years ago: probably after having watched that gunner torment the fat Hun, because it had been below Max Redoubt.⁠ ⁠… The sun was now for certain shining on Bemerton! Well, he could never be a country parson. He was going to live with Valentine Wannop!⁠ ⁠… he had been coming down the reverse side of the range, feeling good. Probably because he had got out of that O.P. which the German guns had been trying to find. He went down with long strides, the tops of thistles brushing his hips. Obviously the thistles contained things that attracted flies. They are apt to after a famous victory. So myriads of swallows pursued him, swirling round and round him, their wings touching; for a matter of twenty yards all round and their wings brushing him and the tops of the thistles. And as the blue sky was reflected in the blue of their backs⁠—for their backs were below his eyes⁠—he had felt like a Greek God striding through the sea.⁠ ⁠…

The larks were less inspiring. Really, they were abusing the German guns. Imbecilely and continuously, they were screaming imprecations and threats. They had been relatively sparse until just now. Now that the shells were coming back from a mile or so off the sky was thick with larks. A myriad⁠—two myriad⁠—corks at once. Not in unison. Sang o’er him, soaring out of sight!⁠ ⁠… You might almost say that it was a sign that the Germans were going to shell you again. Wonderful “hinstinck” set by the Almighty in their little bosoms! It was perhaps also accurate. No doubt the shells as they approached more and more shook the earth and disturbed the little bosoms on their nests. So they got up and shouted; perhaps warning each other; perhaps mere defiance of the artillery.

He was going to write to Valentine Wannop. It was a clumsy swine’s trick not to have written to her before. He had proposed to seduce her; hadn’t done it and had gone off without a word.⁠ ⁠… Considering himself rather a swell, too!

He said:

“Did you get a bit to eat, Corporal?”

The Corporal balanced himself before Tietjens on the slope of the mound. He blushed, rubbing his right sole on his left instep, holding in his right hand a small tin can and a cup, in his left an immaculate towel containing a small cube.

Tietjens debated whether he should first drink of the coffee and army rum to increase his zest for the sandwiches, or whether he should first eat the sandwiches and so acquire more thirst for the coffee.⁠ ⁠… It would be reprehensible to write to Valentine Wannop. The act of the cold-blooded seducer. Reprehensible!⁠ ⁠… It depended on what was in the sandwiches. It would be agreeable to fill the void below and inwards from his breastbone. But whether do it first with a solid or warm moisture?

The Lance-Corporal was deft.⁠ ⁠… He set the coffee tin, cup and towel on a flat stone that stuck out of that heap; the towel unfolded, served as a tablecloth; there appeared three heaps of ethereal sandwiches. He said he had eaten half a tin of warm mutton and haricot beans, whilst he was cutting the sandwiches. The meat in the sandwiches consisted of foie gras, that pile: bully beef reduced to a paste with butter that was margarine, anchovy paste out of a tin and minced onion out of pickles; the third pile was bully beef nature, seasoned with Worcester sauce.⁠ ⁠… All the materials he had at disposal!

Tietjens smiled on the boy at his work. He said this must be a regular chef. The boy said:

“Not a chef, yet, sir!” He had a camp stool hung on his trenching tool behind his hip. He had been chief assistant to one of the chief cooks in the Savoy. He had been going to go to Paris. “What you call a marmiton, sir!” he said. With his trenching tool he was scooping out a level place in front of the flat rock. He set the camp stool on the flattened platform.

Tietjens said:

“You used to wear a white cap and white overalls?”

He liked to think of the blond boy resembling Valentine Wannop dressed all in slim white. The Lance-Corporal said:

“It’s different now, sir!” He stood at Tietjens’ side, always caressing his instep. He regarded cooking as an Art. He would have preferred to be a painter, but Mother hadn’t enough money. The source of supply dried up during the War.⁠ ⁠… If the C.O. would say a word for him after the War.⁠ ⁠… He understood it was going to be difficult to get jobs after the War. All the blighters who had got out of serving, all the R.A.S.C., all the Lines of Communication men would get first chance. As the saying was, the further from the Line the better the pay. And the chance, too!

Tietjens said:

“Certainly I shall recommend you. You’ll get a job all right. I shall never forget your sandwiches.” He would never forget the keen, clean flavour of the sandwiches or the warm generosity of the sweet, be-rummed coffee! In the blue air of that April hillside. All the objects on that white towel were defined: with iridescent edges. The boy’s face, too! Perhaps not physically iridescent. His breath, too, was very easy. Pure air! He was going to write to Valentine Wannop: “Hold yourself at my disposal. Please. Signed.⁠ ⁠…” Reprehensible! Worse than reprehensible! You do not seduce the child of your father’s oldest friend. He said:

“I shall find it difficult enough to get a job after the War!”

Not only to seduce the young woman, but to invite her to live a remarkably precarious life with him. It isn’t done!

The Lance-Corporal said:

“Oh, sir; no, sir!⁠ ⁠… You’re Mr. Tietjens, of Groby!”

He had often been to Groby of a Sunday afternoon. His mother was a Middlesbrough woman. Southbank, rather. He had been to