The tail of the last column wound out of B camp, the N.C.O. he took with him on these occasions was reporting all clear, and might he hand over to the advance party of the incoming Division. Dormer gave him exact orders as to what to hand over and obtain a signature for, and where to find him next, for he did not believe in allowing an N.C.O. any scope for imagination, if by any possibility such a faculty might have survived in him.
The weather had broken, and he jogged along in the mud to C camp and found it already vacated, but no advance party ready to take over, and resigned himself to the usual wait. He waited and he waited. Of course, he wasn’t absolutely forced to do so. He might have left his N.C.O. and party to hand over. He might have cleared them off and left the incoming Division to shift for itself. That had been done many a time in his experience. How often, as a platoon commander, had he marched and marched, glancing over his shoulder at tired men only too ready to drop out, marched and marched until at length by map square and horse sense, and general oh-let’s-get-in-here-and-keep-any-one-else-out, he had found such a camp, a few tents subsiding in the mud, a desolate hut or two, abandoned and unswept, places which disgusted him more than any mere trench or dug-out, because they were places that people had lived in and left unclean.
He had never experienced such a thing before he came into the army. His nice middle-class upbringing had never allowed him to suspect that such places existed. And now that he was Captain Dormer, attached H.Q. Nth Division, he endeavoured to see that they did not. So he hung about intending to see the thing done properly. He got no encouragement. He knew that when he got back to the Division Colonel Birchin would simply find him something else to do, and the fact that no complaints followed them, and that the incoming Division had a better time than they would otherwise have had, would be swallowed up in the hasty expedience of the War. Still, he did it, because he liked to feel that the job was being properly done. To this he had been brought up, and he was not going to change in war-time.
As he hung about the empty hut, he had plenty of time for reflection. His feet were cold. When would he get leave? What a nuisance if these d——d people who were relieving him didn’t turn up until it was dark. The February day was waning. Ah, here they were. He roused himself from the despondent quiescence of a moment ago, into a crisp authoritative person from Divisional Head-quarters. Never was a camp handed over more promptly. He let his N.C.O. and men rattle off in the limber they had provided themselves with. He waited for a car. There was bound to be no difficulty in getting a lift into Doullens, and if he did not find one immediately there, he would soon get a railway voucher. As he stood in the gathering dusk his ruminations went on. If it were not for the War, he would be going home to tea, real proper tea, no chlorine in the water, milk out of a cow, not out of a tin, tea-cakes, some small savoury if he fancied it, his sister with whom he lived believing in the doctrine. “Feed the beast!” After that, he would have the choice of the Choral Society or generally some lecture or other. At times there was something on at the local theatre, at others he had Vestry or Trust meetings to attend. Such employments made a fitting termination to a day which he had always felt to be well filled at a good, safe, and continuous job, that would go on until he reached a certain age, when it culminated in a pension, a job that was worth doing, that he could do, and that the public appreciated.
Instead of all this, here he was, standing beside a desolate Picard highway, hoping that he might find his allotted hut in time to wash in a canvas bucket, eat at a trestle table and finally, having taken as much whisky as would wash down the food, and help him to become superior to his immediate circumstances, to play bridge with those other people whom he was polite to, because he had to be, but towards whom he felt no great inclination, and whom he would drop without a sigh the moment he was demobbed.
Ah! Here was the sort of car. He stepped into the road and held up his hand. The car stopped with a crunch and a splutter. They were going as far as Bernaville. That would suit him well. He jammed into the back seat between two other people, mackintoshed and goggled, and the car got under way again. Then he made the usual remarks and answered the usual inquiries, taking care to admit nothing, and to let his Divisional weight be felt. Finally he got down at a place where he could get a lorry lift to H.Q.
His servant had laid out some clean clothes in the Armstrong hut. For that he was thankful.
The Division now proceeded to train for the coming offensive. “Cultivators” had been warned off a large tract of land, which was partly devoted to “Schools,” at which were taught various superlative methods of slaughter, partly to full-dress manœuvres over country which resembled in physical features the portion of the German line to be attacked. The natural result was that if any area larger than a tennis court was left vacant, the “cultivators” rushed back and began to cultivate it. Hence arose disputes between the peasants and the troops, and the General commanding the 556 Brigade had his bridle seized by an infuriated female who wanted to know, in English, why he couldn’t keep off her beans.
The matter was reported to G. office of Divisional Head-quarters, who told the A.P.M., who told the French Liaison Officer, who told an Interpreter, who told the “cultivators” to keep off the ground altogether, whether it were in use or not. In revenge for which conduct the “cultivators” fetched the nearest gendarme, and had the Interpreter arrested as a spy, and tilled the land so that the C.R.A. Corps couldn’t find the dummy trenches he was supposed to have been bombarding, because they had all been filled up and planted. So that he reported the matter to Corps, who sat heavily on Divisional Head-quarters, G. office, for not keeping the ground clear. The A.P.M. and French Mission having been tried and failed, Q. office had the brilliant idea of “lending” Dormer to G., upon the well-tried army principle that a man does a job, not because he is fit, but because he is not required elsewhere.