The Valley of Bones (4 page)

‘What shall we do?’ asked Kedward.

‘Put his bed upside down,’ suggested
Pumphrey.

‘No,’ said Breeze, ‘that’s plain
silly.’

‘Make it apple-pie.’

‘That’s stale.’

The padres wanted to see the fun, but
without too deeply involving themselves. The idea that we should all lie on the
shelves, then, when Bithel was already in bed, appear as a horde of ghosts, was
abandoned as impracticable. Then someone put forward the project of making an
effigy. This was accepted as a suitable solution to the problem. Pumphrey and
Kedward therefore set about creating a figure to rest in Bithel’s camp-bed, the
theory being that such a dummy would make Bithel suppose that he had come into
the wrong room. The shape of a man that was now put together was chiefly
contrived by rolling up the canvas cover of Bithel’s valise, which, under the
blankets, gave the fair semblance of a body. Two of Bithel’s boots were placed
so that they stuck out at the foot of the bed, a head on the pillow represented
by his sponge-bag, surmounted by Bithel’s ‘fore-and-aft’ khaki cap. No doubt
there were other properties too, which I have forgotten. The thing was quite
well done in the time available, a mild enough joke, perfectly good natured, as
the whole affair would not take more than a couple of minutes to dismantle when
Bithel himself wanted to go to bed. The effigy was just completed when the
sound came of Bithel plodding heavily up the stairs.

‘Here he is,’ said Kedward.

We all went out on to the landing.

‘Oh, Mr Bithel,’ shouted Pumphrey. ‘There
is something you should look at here. Something very worrying.’

Bithel came slowly on up the stairs.
He was still puffing at his cigar as he held the rail of the banisters to help
him on his way. He seemed not to hear Pumphrey’s voice. We stood aside for him
to enter the room.

‘Such a fat officer has got into your
bed, Bithel,’ shouted Pumphrey, hardly able to control himself with laughter.

Bithel lurched through the door of the
attic. He stood for several seconds looking hard at the bed, as if he could not
believe his eyes; not believe his luck either, for a broad smile spread over
his face, as if he were delighted beyond words. He took the cigar from his
mouth and placed it with great care in the crevice of a large glass ashtray
marked with a coloured advertisement for some brand of beer, the sole ornament
in the room. This ashtray stood on a small table, which, with a broken chair
and Bithel’s camp-bed, were its only furniture. Then, clasping his hands
together above his head, Bithel began to dance.

‘Oh, my,’ said Breeze. ‘Oh, my.’

Bithel, now gesticulating whimsically
with his hands, tripped slowly round the bed, regularly changing from one foot
to the other, as if following the known steps of a ritual dance.

‘A song of love …’ he intoned gently. ‘A
song of love …’

From time to time he darted his head
forward and down, like one longing to embrace the figure on the bed, always
stopping short at the moment, overcome by coyness at being seen to offer this
mark of affection – perhaps passion – in the presence of onlookers. At first
everyone, including myself, was in fits of laughter. It was, indeed, an
extraordinary spectacle, unlike anything before seen, utterly unexpected,
fascinating in its strangeness. Pumphrey was quite scarlet in the face, as if
about to have an apoplectic fit, Breeze and Kedward equally amused. The
chaplains, too, seemed to be greatly enjoying themselves. However, as Bithel’s
dance continued, its contortions became increasingly grotesque. He circled
round the bed quicker and quicker, writhing his body, undulating his arms in
oriental fashion. I became gradually aware that, so far as I was myself
concerned, I had had sufficient. A certain embarrassment was making itself
felt. The joke had gone on long enough, perhaps too long. Bithel’s comic turn
should be brought to a close. It was time for him, and everyone else, to get
some sleep. That was how I felt. At the same time, I had nothing but admiration
for the manner in which Bithel had shown himself equal to being ragged; indeed,
the way in which he had come out completely on top of those who had tried to
make him look silly. In similar circumstances I should myself have fallen far
short of any such mastery of the situation. Nevertheless, an end should now be
made. We had seen enough. You could have too much of a good thing. It must, in
any case, stop soon. These were idle hopes. Bithel showed no sign whatever of
wanting to terminate his dance. Now he placed the palms of his hands together
as if in the semblance of prayer, now violently rocked his body from side to
side in religious ecstasy, now whirled past kicking out his feet before him in
a country measure. All the time he danced, he chanted endearments to the dummy
on the bed. I think Popkiss was the first, after myself, to begin to tire of
the scene. He took Dooley by the arm.

‘Come along, Ambrose,’ he said, ‘Sunday
tomorrow. Busy day. It’s our bedtime.’

At that moment, Bithel, no doubt by
this time dizzy with beer and dervish-like dancing, collapsed on top of the
dummy. The camp-bed creaked ominously on its trestles, but did not buckle under
him. Throwing his arms round the outline of the valise, he squeezed it with
abandon, at the same time covering the sponge-bag with kisses.

‘Love ‘o mine …’ he mumbled, ‘Love ‘o
mine …’

I was wondering what would happen
next, when I realized that he and I were alone in the room. Quite suddenly the
others must have decided to leave, drifting off to bed, bored, embarrassed, or
merely tired. The last seemed the most probable. Their instincts told them the
rag was at an end; that time had come for sleep. Bithel still lay face
downwards on the bed, fondling and crooning.

‘Will you be all right, Bithel P We
are all going to bed now.’

‘What’s that?’

‘We’re all going to bed.’

‘You lucky people, all going to bed …’

‘I’ll say good night, Bithel.’

‘Night-night,’ he said, ‘Night-night.
Wish I’d decided to be a ’varsity man.’

He rolled over on his side, reaching
across the dummy for the remains of his cigar. It had gone out. He managed to
extract a lighter from his trouser pocket and began to strike wildly at its
mechanism. Hoping he would not set fire to the hotel during the night, I shut
the door and went down the stairs. The others in the room were at various
stages of turning in for the night.

‘He’s a funny one is old Bithel,’ said
Breeze, who was already in bed.

‘A regular caution,’ said Kedward. ‘Never
saw anything like that dance.’

‘Went on a bit long, didn’t it,’ said
Pumphrey, removing a toothbrush from his mouth to speak. ‘Thought he’d be at it
all night till he fell down.’

However, although there was general
agreement that Bithel had unnecessarily prolonged the dance, he did not, so far
as his own personality was concerned, seem to have made a bad impression. On
the contrary, he had established a certain undoubted prestige. I did not have
much time to think over the incident, because I was very tired. In spite of
unfamiliar surroundings, I went to sleep immediately and slept soundly. The
following morning, although there was much talk while we dressed, nothing
further was said of Bithel. He was forgotten in conversation about Church
Parade and the day’s routine. Breeze and Pumphrey had already finished their
dressing and gone downstairs, when Pumphrey’s soldier-servant (later to be
identified as Williams, I.G.) came up to Kedward in the passage as we were on
the way to breakfast. He was grinning.

‘Excuse me, sir.’

‘What is it, Williams?’

‘I was ordered to look after the new
officer till he had a batman for hisself.’

‘Mr Bithel?’

‘The officer don’t seem well.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘Better see, sir.’

Williams, I.G., enjoyed giving this
information.

‘We’ll have a look,’ said Kedward.

We went upstairs again to the attic.
Kedward opened the door. I followed him, entering a stratosphere of stale,
sickly beer-and-cigar fumes. I half expected to find Bithel, still wearing his
clothes, sleeping on the floor; the cap – surmounted sponge-bag still resting
on the pillow. However, in the manner of persons long used to turning in for
the night the worse for drink, he had managed to undress and get to bed, even
to make himself reasonably comfortable there. His clothes were carefully folded
on the floor beside him, one of the habits of the confirmed alcoholic, who knows
himself incapable of arranging garments on a chair. The dummy had been ejected
from the bed, which Bithel himself now occupied. He lay under the grey-brown
blankets in a suit of yellow pyjamas, filthy and faded, knees raised to his
chin. His body in this position looked like a corpse exhumed intact from some
primitive burial ground for display in the showcase of a museum. Except that he
was snoring savagely, cheeks puffing in and out, the colour of his face, too,
suggested death. Watch, cigar-case, sleeping pills, stood on the broken chair
beside the bed. In addition to these objects was another exhibit, something of
peculiar horror. At first I could not imagine what this might be. It seemed
either an ornament or a mechanical contrivance of complicated design. I looked
closer. Was it apparatus or artifact? Then the truth was suddenly made plain.
Before going to sleep, Bithel had placed his false teeth in the ashtray. He had
removed the set from his mouth bodily, the jaws still clenched on the stub of
the cigar. The effect created by this synthesis was extraordinary, macabre,
surrealist. Again one thought of an excavated tomb, the fascination aroused in
archaeologists of a thousand years hence at finding these fossilized vestiges
beside Bithel’s hunched skeleton; the speculations aroused as to the cultural
significance of such related objects. Kedward shook Bithel. This had no effect
whatever. He did not even open his eyes, though for a moment he ceased to
snore. The sleeping pills must have been every bit as effective as Bithel
himself had proclaimed them. Apart from gasping, snorting, animal sounds, which
issued again so soon as his head touched the pillow, he gave no sign of life.
Kedward turned to Williams, I.G.,
who had followed us up the stairs and was now standing in the doorway, still
grinning.

‘Tell the Orderly Corporal Mr Bithel
is reporting sick this morning, Williams,’ he said.

‘Right you are, sir.’

Williams went off down the stairs two
at a time.

‘I’ll come and have a look at old
Bithel later,’ said Kedward. ‘Tell him he’s been reported sick. Nothing much
will be expected of him this morning, Sunday and newly joined.’

This was prudent handling of the
situation. Kedward clearly knew how to act in an emergency. I suspected that
Gwatkin, confronted with the same situation, might have made a fuss about
Bithel’s state. This show of good sense on Kedward’s part impressed me. I
indicated to him the false teeth gripping the cigar, but their horror left him
cold. We moved on to breakfast. It had to be admitted Bithel had not made an
ideal start to his renewed army career.

‘I expect old Bithel had a glass too
much last night,’ said Kedward, as we breakfasted. ‘I once drank more than I
ought. You feel terrible. Ever done that, Nick?’

‘Yes.’

‘Awful, isn’t it?’

‘Awful, Idwal.’

‘We’ll go along early together, and
you can take over your platoon for Church Parade.’

He told me where to meet him. However,
very unexpectedly, Bithel himself appeared downstairs before it was time for
church. He smiled uncomfortably when he saw me.

‘Never feel much like breakfast on
Sundays for some reason,’ he said.

I warned him that he had been reported
sick.

‘I found that out from the boy,
Williams, who is acting as my batman,’ said Bithel. ‘Got it cancelled. While I
was talking to him, I discovered there was another boy called Daniels from my
home town who might take on being my regular servant. Williams got hold of him
for me. I liked the look of him.’

We set off up the street together.
Bithel was wearing the khaki side-cap that had been set on the sponge-bag the
night before. A size too small for him, it was placed correctly according to
Standing Orders – in this respect generally disregarded in wartime – squarely
on the centre of his head. The cap was also cut higher than normal (like Saint-Loup’s,
I thought), which gave Bithel the look of a sprite in pantomime; perhaps rather
– taking into consideration his age, bulk, moustache – some comic puppet
halfway between the Walrus and the Carpenter. His face was pitted and blotched
like the surface of a Gruyere cheese, otherwise he seemed none the worse from
the night before, except for some shortness of breath. He must have seen me
glance at his cap, because he smiled ingratiatingly.

‘Regulations allow these caps,’ he
said. ‘They’re more comfortable than those peaked SD affairs. Cheaper, too. Got
this one for seventeen bob, two shillings off because slightly shop-soiled. You
don’t notice the small stain on top, do you?’

‘Not at all.’

He looked behind us and lowered his
voice.

‘None of the rest of them were at the ’varsity,’
he said.

‘I’ve been making
inquiries. What do you do in Civvy Street – that’s
the
correct army phrase, I believe.’

I indicated that I wrote for the
papers, not mentioning books because, if not specifically in your line, authorship
is an embarrassing subject for all concerned. Besides, it never sounds like a
serious occupation. Up to that moment, no one had pressed inquiries further
than that, satisfied that journalism was a known form of keeping body and soul
together, even if an esoteric one.

‘I thought you might do something of
the sort,’ said Bithel, speaking with respect. ‘I was trained for professional life too – intended
for an auctioneer, like my pa. Never cared for the work
somehow. Didn’t even finish my training, as a matter of
fact. Always been more or less interested in the theatre.
Had walk-on parts once or twice but I’m no actor. I’m quite aware of that. I
like doing odd jobs in any case. Can’t bear
being tied down. Worked for a time in our local
cinema, for instance. Didn’t have to do much except turn up in the evening
wearing a dinner jacket.’