The Valley of Bones (8 page)

‘That’s a book by Rudyard Kipling,’ he
said defensively, as if the statement explained something.

‘So I see.’

‘Ever read anything by him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Read this one?’

‘Ages ago.’

‘What did you think of it?’

‘I liked it.’

‘You’ve read a lot of books, haven’t
you, Nick?’

‘I have to in my profession.’

Gwatkin locked the tin box and
replaced it in the cupboard.

‘Turn the light out,’ he said. ‘And I’ll
take the blackout down again.’

I switched out the light. He removed
the window boards. I heard him arranging the greatcoat over himself in the bed.

‘I don’t expect you remember,’ he
said, ‘but there’s a story in that book about a Roman centurion.’

‘Of course.’

‘That was the one I liked.’

‘It’s about the best.’

‘I sometimes read it again.’

He pulled the greatcoat higher over
him.

‘I’ve read it lots of times really,’
he said. ‘I like it. I don’t like any of the others so much.’

‘The Norman knight isn’t bad.’

‘Not so good as the centurion.’

‘Do you like his other books?’

‘Whose?’

‘Kipling’s.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. I know he wrote a
lot of other books. I did try one of them. I couldn’t get on with it somehow.’

‘Which one did you try?’

‘I can’t remember the name. Can’t
remember much about it, to tell the truth. I just didn’t like it. All written
in a special sort of language I didn’t understand. I don’t read much. Got other
things to do. It’s not like you, reading more or less as a business.’

He stopped speaking, was almost
immediately asleep and breathing heavily. This was the first evidence come to
light that anyone in the unit had ever read a book for pleasure, unless Bithel’s
‘digests’ might be thought to have brought him to a public library in search of
some work on sexual psychology. This was an interesting discovery about
Gwatkin. By now snores were sounding from the store. I rolled over towards the
wall and slept too. The following day Gwatkin made no reference to this
nocturnal conversation. Perhaps he had forgotten about it. Leaving barracks
that evening there was a small incident to illustrate the way in which he took
failure to heart. This happened when Gwatkin, Kedward and I were passing the
vehicle park, where the bren-carriers stood.

‘I’d like to try driving one of those
buses,’ Kedward said.

‘They’re easy enough,’ said Gwatkin.

He scrambled into the nearest carrier
and started up the engine. However, when he put the vehicle in gear, it refused
to move, only rocking backwards and forwards on its tracks. Gwatkin’s small
head and black moustache bobbed up and down at the end of the carrier, so that
he seemed part of the chassis, a kind of figurehead, even the front half of an
armoured centaur. There was also something that recalled a knight in the game
of chess, immensely large and suddenly animated by some inner, mysterious
power. For a time Gwatkin heaved up and down there, as if riding one of the
cars on a warlike merry-go-round; then completely defeated by the machinery,
perhaps out of order, he climbed slowly to the ground and rejoined us.

‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ he said,
humiliated.

All the same, this sort of thing did
not at all impair his confidence in himself when it came to dealing with the
men. Gwatkin prided himself on his relationship with the ‘other ranks’ in his
company. He did not talk about it much, but the conviction was implicit in his
behaviour. His attitude towards Sayce provided a good example. That was clear
even before I witnessed their great scene together. Sayce was the Company bad
character. He had turned up with another couple of throw-outs voided as
unsuitable for employment from one of the regular battalions. His previous unit
must have been thankful to get rid of him. Small and lean, with a yellow face
and blackened teeth, his shortcomings were not to be numbered. Apart from such
recurrent items as lateness on parade, deficiency of shaving kit, lack of clean
socks, mislaid paybook, filthy rifle, generally unsatisfactory turnout, Sayce
would produce some new, hitherto unthought-of crime most days. Dirty, disobliging,
quarrelsome, little short of mutinous, he was heartily disliked by all ranks.
Although a near criminal, he possessed none of the charm J. G. Quiggin, as a
reviewer,
used to attribute to criminals who wrote memoirs. On the
contrary, Sayce, immoderately vain, was also stupid and
unprepossessing. From time to time, in order to give him
a
chance to redeem himself from a series of disasters, he would be assigned some
individual task, easy to undertake, but within
range of conferring credit by its simple discharge. Sayce always made a hash of
it; always, too, for the worst of reasons. He seemed preordained for detention.

‘It will be the Glasshouse for that
bugger Sayce,’ Sergeant Pendry, who got along pretty well with almost everyone,
used often to remark.

In dealing with Sayce, therefore, it
might be thought Gwatkin would assume his favoured role of martinet, imposing a
series of punishments that would eventually bring Sayce before the Commanding
Officer; and certainly Sayce took his share of CBs from Gwatkin in the Company
Office. At the same time, their point of contact, at least on Gwatkin’s side,
was not entirely unsympathetic. The fact was, Sayce appealed to Gwatkin’s
imagination. Those stylized pictures of army life on which Gwatkin’s mind loved
to dwell did not exclude a soldier of Sayce’s type. Indeed, a professional bad
character was obviously a type from which no army could remain wholly free.
Accordingly, Gwatkin was prepared to treat Sayce with what many company
commanders would have considered excessive consideration, to tolerate him up to
a point, even to make serious efforts to reform him. Gwatkin had spoken to me
more than once about these projects for Sayce’s reformation, before he finally
announced that he had planned a direct appeal to Sayce’s better feelings.

‘I’m going to have a straight talk
with Sayce,’ he said one day, when Sayce’s affairs had reached some sort of
climax. I’d like you to be present, Nick, as he’s in your platoon.’

Gwatkin sat at the trestle table with
the army blanket over it. I stood behind. Sayce, capless, was marched in by CSM
Cadwallader and a corporal.

‘You and the escort can leave the
room, Sergeant-Major,’ said Gwatkin. ‘I want to have a word with this soldier
in private – that is to say myself and his Platoon Commander, Mr Jenkins.’

The Sergeant-Major and other NCO
withdrew.

‘You can stand easy, Sayce,’ said
Gwatkin.

Sayce stood easy. His yellow face
showed distrust.

‘I want to speak to you seriously,
Sayce,’ said Gwatkin. ‘To speak to you as man to man. Do you understand what I
mean, Sayce?’

Sayce made some inaudible reply.

‘It is not my wish, Sayce, to be
always punishing you,’ said Gwatkin slowly. ‘Is that clear? I do not like doing
that at all.’

Sayce muttered again. It seemed very
doubtful that he found Gwatkin’s statement easy to credit. Gwatkin leant
forward over the table. He was warming up. Within him were deep reserves of
emotion. He spoke now with that strange cooing tone he used on the telephone.

‘You can do better, Sayce. I say you
can do better.’

He fixed Sayce with his eye. Sayce’s
own eyes began to roll.

‘You’re a good fellow at heart, aren’t
you, Sayce?’

All this was now beginning to tell on
Sayce. I had to admit to myself there was nothing I should have liked less than
to be grilled by Gwatkin in this fashion. A week’s CB would be infinitely
preferable. Sayce began swallowing.

‘You are, Sayce, aren’t you?’ Gwatkin
repeated more pressingly, as if time were becoming short for Sayce to reveal
that unexpected better side of himself, and gain salvation.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Sayce, very low.

He spoke without much conviction. That
could scarcely be because there was doubt in his mind of his own high qualifications.
He probably suspected any such information, freely given, might be a dangerous
admission, lead to more work.

‘Well, Sayce,’
said Gwatkin, ‘that is what I am going to believe about you. Believe you are a
good fellow. You know why we are all here?’

Sayce did not
answer.

‘You know why
we are all here, Sayce,’ said Gwatkin again, louder this time, his voice
shaking a little with his own depths of feeling. ‘Come on, Sayce, you know.’

‘Don’t know,
sir.’

‘Yes, you do.’

‘Don’t, sir.’

‘Come on, man.’

Sayce made a
great effort.

‘To give me CB
for being on a charge,’ he offered wretchedly.

It was a
reasonable hypothesis, but Gwatkin was greatly disturbed at being so utterly
misunderstood.

‘No, no,’ he
said, ‘I don’t mean why we are in the Company Office at this moment. I mean why
we are all in the army. You must know that, Sayce. We are here for our country.
We are here to repel Hitler. You know that as well as I do. You don’t want
Hitler to rule over you, Sayce, do you?’

Sayce gulped
again, as if he were not sure.

‘No, sir,’ he
agreed, without much vigour.

‘We must all,
every one of us, do our best,’ said Gwatkin, now thoroughly worked up. ‘I try
to do my best as Company Commander. Mr Jenkins and the other officers of the
Company do their best. The NCOs and privates do their best. Are you going to be
the only one, Sayce, who is not doing his best?’

Sayce was now
in almost as emotional a state as Gwatkin himself. He continued to gulp from
time to time, looking wildly round the room, as if for a path of escape.

‘Will you do
your best in future, Sayce?’

Sayce began
sniffing frantically.

‘I will, sir.’

‘Do you
promise me, Sayce.’

‘All right,
sir.’

‘And we’re
agreed you’re a good chap, aren’t we?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Indeed, Sayce
seemed moved almost to tears by the thought of all his own hitherto unrevealed
goodness.

‘Never had a
chance since I’ve been with the unit,’ he managed to articulate.

Gwatkin rose
to his feet.

‘We’re going
to shake hands, Sayce,’ he said.

He came round
to the front of the table and held out his palm. Sayce took it gingerly, as if
he still suspected a trick, a violent electric shock, perhaps, or just a terrific
blow on the ear administered by Gwatkin’s other hand. However, Gwatkin did no
more than shake Sayce’s own hand heartily. It was like the termination of some
sporting event. Gwatkin continued to shake hands for several seconds. Then he
returned to his seat behind the table.

‘Now,’ he
said, ‘I’m going to call in the escort again, so stand to attention, Sayce. All
right? Get them in, Mr Jenkins.’

I opened the
door and said the word. CSM Cadwallader and the corporal returned to their
places, guarding Sayce.

‘Prisoner
admonished,’ said Gwatkin, in his military voice.

The
Sergeant-Major was unable to conceal a faint tightening of the lips at the news
of Sayce escaping all punishment. No doubt he had supposed it would be a matter
for the Commanding Officer this time.

‘Prisoner and escort – about turn – quick
march – left wheel—’

They disappeared into the passage,
like comedians retiring in good order from their act, only music lacking, CSM Cadwallader,
with an agility perfected for such occasions, closing the
door behind him without either pausing or turning.

Gwatkin sat back in his chair.

‘How was that?’
he asked.

‘All right.
Jolly good.’

‘You thought
so?’

‘Certainly.’

‘I think we
shall see a change in Sayce,’ he said.

‘I hope so.’

This straight
talk to Sayce on the part of Gwatkin had a stimulating effect, as it turned
out, on Gwatkin, rather than Sayce. It cheered up Gwatkin greatly, made him
easier to work with; Sayce, on the other hand, remained much what he had been
before. The fact was Gwatkin needed drama in his life. For a brief moment drama
had been supplied by Sayce. However, this love of the dramatic sent Gwatkin’s
spirits both up and down. Not only did his own defeats upset him, but also,
vicariously, what he considered defeats for the Battalion. He felt, for
example, deeply dishonoured by the case of Deafy Morgan, certainly an
unfortunate incident.

‘Somebody
ought to have been shot for it,’ Gwatkin said at the time.

When we had
arrived on this side of the water, Maelgwyn-Jones had given a talk to all ranks
on the subject of internal security.

‘This Command
is very different from the Division’s home ground,’ he said. ‘The whole
population of this island is not waging war against Germany – only the North. A
few miles away from here, over the Border, is a neutral state where German
agents abound. There and on our side too elements exist hostile to Britain and
her Allies. There have been cases of armed gangs holding up single soldiers
separated from their main body, or trying to steal weapons by ruse. You may
have noticed, even in this neighbourhood, that some of the corner boys look
sullen when we pass and the children sing about hanging up washing on the
Maginot – rather than the Siegfried – Line.’

Accordingly,
rifles were checked and re-checked, and Gwatkin was given additional
opportunity for indulging in those harangues to the Company which he so greatly
enjoyed delivering:

‘Stand the men
easy, Sergeant-Major,’ he would say. ‘No talking. Move up a little closer at
the back so that you can hear me properly. Right. Now I want you all to attend
very clearly to what I have to say. The Commanding Officer has ordered me to
tell you once again you must all take care of your rifles, for a man’s rifle is
his best friend in time of war, and a soldier is no longer a soldier when his
weapon is gone from him. He is like a man who has had that removed which makes
him a man, something sadder, more useless, than a miner who has lost his lamp,
or a farmer his plough. As you know, we are fighting Hitler and his hordes, so
this Company must show the stuff she is made of, and you must all take care of
your rifles or I will put you on a serious charge which will bring you before
the Colonel. There are those not far from here who would steal rifles for their
own beastly purpose. That is no funny matter, losing a rifle, not like long
hair nor a dirty button. There is a place at Aldershot called the Glasshouse,
where men who have not taken proper care of their rifles do not like to visit a
second time. Nevertheless, I would not threaten you. That is not how I wish to
lead you. It is for the honour of the Regiment
that you should guard your rifles, like
you would guard
your wife or your little sister. Moreover, it may be some
of the junior NCOs have not yet a proper sense of their own
responsibilities in the matter of rifles and
others. You Corporals,
you Lance-Corporals, consider these things in your
hearts. All rifles will be checked at Pay
Parade each week,
so that a man will bring his rifle to the table when he receives his due, and
where you must remember to come smartly to attention and look straight in front
of you without moving. That is the way we shall all pull together, and, as we heard
the Rev. Popkiss, our Chaplain, read out at Church Parade last Sunday, so may
it be said of this Company: Arise Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou
son of Abinoam. So let
your rifles be well guarded and be the smartest company of the Battalion both
on parade and in the field.
All right, Sergeant-Major …’