The Impregnable Women, page 8
‘What you know is neither here nor there, Tom, and you ought to realize that as well as I do. I’m a Cabinet Minister now, and all that matters to me is the welfare of the whole country, and the speedy victory of our boys over there in Germany and Belgium.’
‘Well, do you think I don’t understand that as well as you, Perce? Hogpool’s Barbed Wire was down to 52s. 6d. the day before yesterday, and it’s up to 6is. this morning, and I know it’s you that’s done it. You and the backbone of the English people, that is, which can always be trusted to see common sense in the end. God strike me silly, I’m a patriot as well as you, Perce, and all I was saying was that you’d make a hit with my friend Miss Ivy FitzAubrey. You haven’t lost your sense of humour, have you?’
‘I’ve got a very conscientious sense of humour, Tom, which you should know by this time.’
‘That’s your proper self speaking now, Perce. And you’ll be feeling better still after a glass or two of bubbly, just you see.’
They entered the pink granite doorway of the New Carlton Hotel, and in the cream-and-scarlet lounge Hogpool introduced the Minister to the orchidaceous young woman who was waiting for them. She was the beautiful blonde creature who had been with him in the restaurant when Lysistrata and Eliot dined there before the latter went to Germany; and Mr Small acknowledged her charm by immediately displaying for her benefit all his well-known affability, a pleasant condescension, and some evidence of his familiar acquaintance with the chief dignitaries of the land.
Ivy was visibly gratified, and determined to make the most of her opportunity. ‘It must be an awful strain, being Prime Minister at a time like this,’ she remarked with sympathy in her voice.
‘Oh, Pippin takes things pretty easily, just like he always has done. He leaves the work to us younger men.’
‘Pippin?’ she asked. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Lord Pippin, the Prime Minister,’ he explained. ‘But I call him Pippin, of course, being in the Cabinet myself.’
Ivy looked puzzled. ‘I thought you were Prime Minister,’ she said.
Mr Small, after a moment’s indecision, laughed loudly and said boisterously, ‘Did you hear that, Tom? Your friend Miss FitzAubrey’s having a joke at my expense. Prime Minister indeed! Fancy a little girl like you trying to pull my leg!’
He patted her thigh to show that he took the joke in good part, and Ivy, quickly recovering herself, said with a playful petulance, ‘Well, everybody seems to think you’re the most important man in the country, so naturally I thought you must be Prime Minister.’
‘He will be, if the war lasts long enough,’ said Hogpool, and told the waiter to bring tumblers instead of champagne glasses. ‘You can’t drink champagne and brandy in those shallow things,’ he explained, ‘and somehow I don’t seem to like a neat champagne as much as I used to. I generally take a drop of brandy in it nowadays, to buck it up a bit.’
‘You’re getting quite a connoisseur, Tom,’ said Mr Small.
‘Live and learn: that’s my motto, and always has been.’
‘Fancy you and Mr Hogpool knowing each other when you were boys,’ said Ivy, ‘and still being friends. I do think that’s funny. Well, not exactly funny, of course, but it seems funny, if you see what I mean.’
‘The world,’ said Mr Small sententiously, ‘is not only a little place, but a very strange place. To a young lady like you it must seem a great adventure simply to be alive in such a world as ours.’
‘Yes, I suppose it must,’ said Ivy brightly; and then, lest brightness had not been the proper response, she sighed so deeply that the globes of her superlative bosom pushed into sight above her frock a narrow segment of their loveliness – a double crescent of their twin white moons – and Mr Small, profoundly moved, repeated hoarsely, ‘A very great adventure indeed.’
Tom Hogpool summoned a page-boy and told him to fetch a newspaper. Perce and Ivy, he thought complacently, were getting on together like a house on fire. She’d be grateful to him for introducing her to a Cabinet Minister – she had her ambitions, had Ivy – and if Perce fell for her, well, so much the better. There was nothing like a good-looking young woman for exerting a useful bit of leverage now and then, and Ivy knew her stuff all right. He drank a little champagne and brandy. What a girl she was! A lovely figure, skin like a two-year-old, and clever as well. Good manners, too. He gave a shilling to the page-boy who brought him his newspaper, and flapped it open at the financial page. Hogpool’s Barbed Wire was quoted at 62s. 3d. Well, that was better than a slap on the belly with a wet fish. He’d be able to branch out a bit more in another month or two. Not munitions, though. There was too much competition there, and if they weren’t careful they’d find prices being cut. But something more general. Something connected with the war, of course, but that would still go on when the war was over. You had to think of the future. Real estate, or something in that line. He looked through the paper to see if there was anything there that might give him an idea. But there was little more than war news. Casualty lists, and a story by Our Special Correspondent about how a corporal of the Sherwood Foresters had brought in fifty-six French prisoners, who were all of a twitter because they expected to be shot – just like the French did to their prisoners – but our boys gave them cigarettes, and then they shouted ‘Anglais très bons!’ Well, maybe it was true. You never could tell. Then there was a picture of General Scrymgeour looking at a map, and a mother who had given three sons to England reading a War Office telegram to say that another was wounded, and Some of Our Boys in Khaki lining up for dinner, and a Bishop who had said that the English were always God’s chosen instrument for doing anything big. And more casualty lists on a back page. There was nothing to interest a business man.
He threw down the paper and asked, ‘What would you put your money in, Perce, supposing you’d a few thousand to spare?’
Mr Small, who had been listening with rapt attention to Ivy’s story of her childhood – she had been brought up in a country vicarage, or else a rectory, she could never quite remember which – looked up with a frown and asked what Tom had said.
Hogpool repeated his question, and Mr Small, after an interval for thought, said slowly, ‘Well, it’s secret information, Tom, and I wouldn’t tell it to anyone but you and Miss FitzAubrey here. But as a matter of fact there’s shortly going to be chance for a really nice little bit of speculation, and I hope you’ll remember who gave you the tip. We’re going to shift our quarters. The Government, that is. You see, Blackpool’s all very well in its way, but the surroundings aren’t what you would call dignified. Take the Ministry of Munitions, for example. We’re in the Palace of Fun. Well, it’s invidious, to say the least of it, and I told the Prime Minister so more than a month ago. Then there’s the Exchequer in the Crystal Palais de Danse, the War Office under the Flip-flap, and the Admiralty in the Swimming Pool. It’s not good enough, Tom. If a government’s going to be dignified, it’s got to have dignified surroundings, and I was one of the first to say so. Blackpool for holidays, but not for Cabinet Ministers in a time of crisis. That’s what I said. Then fortunately that French aeroplane, a week ago, got through and dropped a couple of bombs not far from the Flip-flap. That brought the War Office round to my side, and now it’s all settled. We’ll be moving as soon as the necessary arrangements can be completed.’
‘Where to, Perce?’
‘Edinburgh,’ said Mr Small.
‘That’s in Scotland,’ said Ivy cleverly.
‘You’ll be taking over all the big hotels,’ said Hogpool.
‘And we’ll want a good lot of other accommodation too. The rent of furnished houses will go up, Tom.’
‘That’s an idea, Perce.’
‘Well, don’t forget who gave it to you. Have you ever been in Edinburgh, Miss FitzAubrey?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I used to go motoring a lot with a friend of mine – he was my cousin, really, and his mother was there too – but I don’t think we ever got as far as that.’
‘I’ll be making some changes in the Ministry when we go north, and I could give you a nice important little job if you’d think of taking it.’
‘Oh, I’d like to ever so much, Mr Small. I’ve always wanted to do war work of some kind or another, but Mr Hogpool always says that he doesn’t think I’m strong enough.’
‘This job that I’m thinking of wouldn’t need much strength, Miss FitzAubrey. Just charm. The sort of charm that you exercise without ever thinking about it. Oh, yes, you do. You see already I know you better than you know yourself. Well, let me tell you about the job. Now as you know, most of the Ministries have got very big, and some of them have appointed what they call hostesses, to look after visitors, and so on. But hostess is too American a word for my liking, and what I want is a young lady to act as receptionist. Now, how would that suit you? Receptionist to the Ministry of Munitions.’
‘You mean just receiving people – gentlemen and so on – and being nice to them?’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Oh, I could do that!’
‘Well, I’ll engage you. Tom, I’ve given Miss FitzAubrey a job with the Government.’
But Hogpool was lost in a dream of riches. In imagination he had mobilized all the profits of barbed wire and with them bought or rented innumerable houses in Edinburgh, which presently he would let at extravagant prices to secretariats and civil servants and the horde of industrialists who would follow the Government as hotly as Mr Jorrocks after the bag-fox. Here was easy money, and the figures of it moved before his eyes like houris to a hashish-eater.
‘He’s thinking,’ said Ivy reverently; and then exclaimed, ‘Oh, look! There’s Commander Lawless, the V.C.’
A tall lean figure in a shabby Naval uniform, stooping somewhat, went by with a pretty, slim, fair little woman. A lock of yellow hair hung untidily over his forehead, and he had a wild blue eye.
‘They say he’s quite mad,’ whispered Ivy. ‘I wonder who’s that he’s with?’
‘Mrs Curie,’ said Mr Small. ‘Her husband’s the Secretary of State for War.’
‘Her hat’s all wet. It must be raining,’ said Ivy.
VII
Rain was falling on the flooded battlefields. It came on whirling gusts of wind and beat upon shelving trenches and a myriad dark lagoons and the hooded soldiers. When the frost went the earth had collapsed as though its ribs were melting. Soil and sandbags, losing their rocky form and crisp security, had resolved into shapeless puddings and a soft floor of mud. In tiny holes and crannies the water gathered, and overflowed their crumbling edges, and ran in turbid little rills to fill a larger pool or join a deeper rivulet. The grey lids of ice dissolved, that had covered shell-hole and hoof-mark, and opened filthy tarns and innumerable small brown puddles. The soggy earth was pocketed with water-holes that filled from subterranean springs and over-filled with rain. Duck-boards that had been frozen to the hard earth now lost their hold and slewed in the yielding mud, or moved uneasily in rising water, while the straight sides of deep-dug trenches, flattened from the clouds, bulged weakly out and their diminished strength let parapets collapse and scarps fall sullenly.
The dead were yielding to corruption now. They no longer lay gaunt and rigid, but huddled softly in the mud. When the frost melted in their flesh the starkness of their last agony had relaxed and the icy preservation of their youth dissolved. They no longer showed how young they had been, nor any likeness to any of the ages of man, but buried their faces or let the rain fill their mouths like any puddle of the fields. Sometimes when a shell struck a flooded crater a dead arm would rise, like that of a drowning man, or a body heave slowly into sight. But that was all that suggested they had once known strength and movement. They were no more to be recognized as the sons of men, but as parcels of the troubled earth.
In the lowering sky the whistle of the flighting shells was a little muted. They had a wilder but more melancholy note, and the noise of their bursting was muffled by mud and water. They came only at intervals, like a rare skein of geese on a stormy day, and they seemed to be fired for no better reason than petulance, as if now and again the soaking gunners, rebellious at inertia and the quagmire of their pits, let fly at the elements which had brought them such wretchedness. But in the trenches there was no warlike activity at all. A steady watch was kept, but except for that the men did nothing but try to maintain their crumbling walls and keep life enough in their bodies to go out when they should be relieved. Dugouts were flooded, and in many trenches the men sat on the fire-step with water up to their knees, or splashed slowly to and fro as if they were walking in the bed of a stream. They were hooded in dark waterproof sheets, and their rifles were tied round the breech with old rags to keep the mud out. No one could move without being smeared with mud. It dried in the joints of their fingers and the wrinkles of their clothes, and old mud was coated with new. They ate and drank it, though in the front line there was little enough eating. The ration-parties were unable to get up, and all that the men had was a mouthful of beef from a muddy tin, a loaf – fished out of a muddy sack – among six, and distasted tea.
A little while after the fall of darkness, on the night of the Royal Scots’ relief, the rain stopped and the wind died away. The wind died suddenly, leaving a silence behind it. But then into the silence came the sound of a hundred little watercourses, the tinkle and babble of rills and brooklets, the chuckle of deeper streams. The splashing steps of Graham walking along the trench were as loud as the struggles of a seal among salmon nets. The men listened anxiously, nervous as poachers of being discovered. They were like poachers in a maze of running water, and the chuckling of the brooks bewildered them. A star or two came out, and were faintly reflected in dark pools.
The relief arrived, and twenty minutes later the Royal Scots began to file out of the trench. Many of them had taken off their kilts and tied them like capes over their shoulders. Their shirt-tails and bare thighs showed palely in the darkness. They were in a hurry to be off, and more careless of noise now that all were moving, they splashed and stumbled as quickly as they could down the communication trench.
Graham brought up the rear of his company. With difficulty he kept in check a rising elation, for in a Scotch way he was superstitious about the confessing of optimism till the event was concluded. But they had been lucky so far. They had done well and fortune had favoured them. His young soldiers, standing firm as veterans, had beaten off three French attacks with great loss to the enemy and few casualties of their own. They had acquitted themselves like seasoned troops, and when the floods came they had suffered that misery with quiet endurance. They had done well, and deserved their good fortune. He prayed that it might continue, and wished that their patience would last a little longer. ‘Steady in front,’ he implored. ‘Take your time there, and don’t bunch like that.’
They came into the open, into the country of the dead volcanoes whose flooded craters showed darkly on every side, and clustered in confusion to a halt. There was shell-fire to the right, but far off, and a few shells had fallen about half a mile away. They saw before them a dim rank of silhouettes, all close together. They grew angry, and a little frightened. What had gone wrong? ‘The bloody fools!’ said someone. ‘Why the hell don’t they get a move on?’
The guides of the other battalion, that was also going out of the line, had lost their way, and the far-off shell-fire had alarmed them. A muttering rose from the congested ranks, and some wrathful shouting.
‘Get a move on!’
‘Get a bloody move on!’
‘For Christ’s sake get a move on!’
Squelching through the mud, officers came quickly to restore order, and the other battalion, assured they were going in the right direction, continued clumsily on their way. But they had hardly started when, with a shriek and a bursting thud, a shell landed fifty yards to their right. Another followed, and half a dozen more. The waiting soldiers forgot their discipline and began to run. They spread out fan-wise from the narrow duckboard-path and scrambled through the mud. In the trenches, when they were facing the enemy, their patience had been tireless and their bravery beyond suspicion. But now they had come out of the line, and because their objective was a place of safety they had grown more aware of danger. A dozen men had been killed by the falling shells, and twenty or so wounded. And all because the bloody fools in front had lost their way. They were stuck there, huddled together to be killed, though they had done their job in the line and were entitled to a little rest and security. And still the fools were bunched like cattle, and the road was blocked. The road was blocked, and they had to get out. They had to get out quickly, before more shells came to blow them to pulp in the mud. They began to run.
With a shout of despair a man fell face-forward into a flooded shell-hole, and even as he was falling he felt the boots and the knees and the weight of another man on top of him. The water went over their heads. It filled mouth and eyes with its foulness, and they floundered, drowning, in the mud at the bottom of the hole while more boots and the weight of other men trampled them down. In the darkness the quagmire opened its gulfs, and men who had been brave enough till a moment before made bridges of their fallen comrades. The faint starlight flickered on thick black water that was heaving with the death-struggle of dying animals. The babbling mockery of dirty little rills was drowned by the splashing feet of the panic-stricken herd. They had turned their backs to the enemy, and fear was behind them. ...
The distant shells, the first they heard, had fallen near the huts where Eliot Greene’s battalion was billeted. Forty yards in front of them was a so-called safety-trench in which, according to standing orders, everyone had to take shelter in the event of the camp area being fired on. At night, however, the troops, unimpressed by a danger to which they had become habituated, were sometimes averse from leaving the comparative comfort of the huts for a cold and muddy ditch. They had to be driven out by an officer or a sergeant.
