Over and over again, every day and all day, as he moved up and down those wintry roads, he looked at the faces of the men who knew now that the great offensive had resulted in infinitesimal gains, enormous losses, and only approached the end of the War by so many weeks. He failed entirely to make out what was going on in their minds. Officers were always officially pleased to see him because he was attached to Divisional Head-quarters, because he came to talk about games, not about work, because he was, as he was perfectly conscious, one of the most difficult fellows in the world to quarrel with. He had never had any great bitterness in life, and was so averse to official “side” that he made an effort to appear as informal as possible. Sometimes N.C.O.’s would be produced, consulted as to whether a team could be got together, what amount of special training could be allowed intending pugilists, without interfering with necessary drills and fatigues, what histrionic, (or to put it frankly), what music-hall talent could be found. The N.C.O.’s were (of course) keen, smart, attentive, full of suggestions and information. They had to be. They kept their jobs by so being, and their jobs gave them just the opportunity to live about as well as lumbermen in the remote parts of North America, instead of existing like beasts in barns, not pet animals, not marketable produce, but just beasts, herded and disposed of, counted and controlled, for such was the fate of the average infantryman, and war being what it is, there came a gradual acquiescence in it. It could be no other.
But all those plain soldiers, of whom only one or two per cent had even a voice in their entertainment, of what they thought, who knows? Dormer wondered. He wondered even more at himself. Why on earth, in the midst of a European War that had changed his whole existence so dramatically, he should want to go bothering his head about what was happening to other people he couldn’t think, but he went on doing it. Otherwise the life suited him rather well, and with every fresh week that separated him from the offensive, a sort of balance so natural to the thoroughly balanced sort of person that he was, went on adjusting itself, and he found himself thinking that perhaps in the new year there might be a new chance, the French, the Russians, the Italians might do something, so might we. Then it would be over, and one could go home.
It was then that the inevitable happened. He knew it as soon as he got into the room at the Mairie that served for Q. office. He was so sure that he stood turning over the correspondence on his desk, the usual pile of returns, orders, claims and indents, without reading them, certain that the Colonel was going to speak to him. At last the Colonel did speak:
“Look here, Dormer, I thought we settled this?”
There it was, the blue questionnaire form, the other memorandums, Divisional, Corps, Army French Mission, Base Authority, all saying “Passed to you please, for necessary action.” With an absurd feeling that it did not matter what he said, or did, and that the whole thing was arranging itself without him, he got out:
“What is that, sir?”
“This—er—civilian claim for compensation. Something about a girl in a hayfield. What did you do, when we were up in Flanders?”
He rebelled so against the unfairness of it.
“Major Stevenage had the matter in hand. I went with him to the spot.”
“What did you find?”