“Couldn’t say now. Grievance of some sort. Didn’t like the army, or the War, or something.”
Dormer sat down and wrote out the information obtained and made his preparations to rejoin the Division. The Major said: “Oh, no hurry, stop another day, now you’re here!” And all that evening, as he thought and wrote, and tried to believe this fatal business a step nearer completion, he heard the two old soldiers, like two good-natured old women, gossiping. Each expected the other to know every camp or barrack in which he had lain, each named this or that chance acquaintance, made any time those thirty years, anywhere in the world, as though the other must know him also. Often this was the case, in which they both exclaimed together, “Ah, nice feller, wasn’t he?” Or, if it were not the case, the other would rejoin, “No, but I knew So-and-so, of the sappers,” and probably the second shot would hit the mark. It could hardly fail to do so in the old close borough of the Regular Army. And then they would exclaim in unison again.
Dormer was as impressed as he ever was by any member of the Professional Army. They knew how to do it. He would never know. The army was their God and King, their family and business. In a neat circle they went, grinding out the necessary days to their pensions. The present state of Europe, while verbally regretted or wondered at, did not scratch the surface of their minds. How could it? It had been a golden opportunity for them. It made the difference to them and to any human wife or family they might have accreted, between retiring on Commissioned pay-scale, or taking a pub or caretaker’s place, as the ex-Sergeant-major they would otherwise have been. But there was charm in their utter simplicity. Nothing brutal, very little that was vain, and some nicely acquired manners.
The offensive of the French Army, in the machinery of which they had their places, moved them not at all. Chirnside casually mentioned that he gathered it had been a big failure. Dormer expected to hear him recite some devastating tale of misdirected barrage, horrible casualties or choked communications. Nothing so graphic reached him. The old man had simply attended to his job, and when he found that the troops were returning to the same billets, drew his own conclusions. That was all. Dormer was horrified, but no one could be horrified long with Chirnside. Of course, he didn’t mind how long the War went on.
Having completed his preparations, Dormer went up to his little room and was soon asleep. He was in fine condition and thoroughly comfortable, and was astonished after what appeared to be a very short interval, to find himself wide awake. There was no mistaking the reason. It was the row in the street. He pulled on his British Warm and went to look. It was quite dark, but he could make out a confused crowd surging from side to side of the little street, could see bayonets gleaming, and could hear a clamour of which he could not make out a word. It was like nothing he had ever heard in the War, it recalled only election time in his native city, the same aimless shuffling feet, the same confusion of tongues, the same effervescence, except that he had instinct enough to know from the tones of the voices that they were raised in lamentation, not triumph. He was extremely puzzled what to do, but clear that no initiative lay with him. For ten minutes he waited, but the situation did not change. He opened his door very quietly. Not a sound from the Major. From Chirnside, opposite, heavy regular breathing. Above, in the attics, the low cockney brevity of soldier servants discussing something with the detachment of their kind. Reassured, he closed the door, and got back into his blankets. The noise was irritating but monotonous. He fell asleep. He next awoke to the knocking of his servant bringing his morning tea, and clean boots.
“What was all that row in the night?”
“Niggers, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“French coloured troops, sir. They got it in the neck seemingly. They don’t half jabber.”
Major Bone was more fully informed. There was no doubt that the French had had a nasty knock. Black troops were coming back just anyhow, out of hand, not actually dangerous, the old soldier allowed it to be inferred, but a nuisance. What struck him most forcibly was the dislocation of the supply services. Defeat he accepted, but not unpunctuality.