The voice of Sergeant-Major Cowley said from outside:
‘Bugler, call two sanitary lance-corporals and four men. Two sanitary corporals and four men.’ A prolonged wailing with interruptions transfused the night, mournful, resigned, and prolonged.
Tietjens thought that, thank God, someone would come and relieve him of that job. It was a breathless affair holding up the corpse with the fire burning his face. He said to the other runner:
‘Get out from under him, damn you! Are you hurt?’ Mackenzie could not get at the body from the other side because of the brazier. The runner from under the corpse moved with short sitting shuffles as if he were getting his legs out from under a sofa. He was saying:
‘Poor —— 0 Nine Morgan! Surely to goodness I did not recognice the pore ——. Surely to goodness I did not recognice the pore ——’
Tietjens let the trunk of the body sink slowly to the floor. He was more gentle than if the man had been alive. All hell in the way of noise burst about the world. Tietjens’ thoughts seemed to have to shout to him between earthquake shocks. He was thinking it was absurd of that fellow Mackenzie to imagine that he could know any uncle of his. He saw very vividly also the face of his girl who was a pacifist. It worried him not to know what expression her face would have if she heard of his occupation, now. Disgust? . . . He was standing with his greasy, sticky hands held out from the flaps of his tunic . . . Perhaps disgust! . . . It was impossible to think in this row . . . His very thick soles moved gluily and came up after suction . . . He remembered he had not sent a runner along to I.B.D. Orderly Room to see how many of his crowd would be wanted for garrison fatigue next day, and this annoyed him acutely. He would have no end of a job warning the officers he detailed. They would all be in brothels down in the town by now . . . He could not work out what the girl’s expression would be. He was never to see her again, so what the hell did it matter? . . . Disgust, probably! . . . He remembered that he had not looked to see how Mackenzie was getting on in the noise. He did not want to see Mackenzie. He was a bore . . . How would her face express disgust? He had never seen her express disgust. She had a perfectly undistinguished face. Fair . . . 0 God, how suddenly his bowels turned over! . . . Thinking of the girl . . . The face below him grinned at the roof—the half face! The nose was there, half the mouth with the teeth showing in the firelight . . . It was extraordinary how defined the peaked nose and the serrated teeth were in that mess . . . The eye looked jauntily at the peak of the canvas hut-roof . . . Gone with a grin. Singular the fellow should have spoken! After he was dead. He must have been dead when he spoke. It had been done with the last air automatically going out of the lungs. A reflex action, probably, in the dead . . . If he, Tietjens, had given the fellow the leave he wanted he would be alive now!
Well, he was quite right not to have given the poor devil his leave. He was, anyhow, better where he was. And so was he, Tietjens. He had not had a single letter from home since he had been out this time! Not a single letter. Not even gossip. Not a bill. Some circulars of old furniture dealers. They never neglected him! They had got beyond the sentimental stage at home. Obviously so . . . He wondered if his bowels would turn over again if he thought of the girl. He was gratified that they had. It showed that he had strong feelings . . . He thought about her deliberately. Hard. Nothing happened. He thought of her fair, undistinguished, fresh face that made your heart miss a beat when you thought about it. His heart missed a beat. Obedient heart! Like the first primrose. Not any primrose. The first primrose. Under a bank with the hounds breaking through the underwood . . . It was sentimental to say Du bist wie eine Blume Damn the German language! But that fellow was a Jew . . . One should not say that one’s young woman was like a flower, any flower. Not even to oneself. That was sentimental. But one might say one special flower. A man could say that. A man’s job. She smelt like a primrose when you kissed her. But, damn it, he had never kissed her. So how did he know how she smelt! She was a little tranquil, golden spot. He himself must be a—eunuch. By temperament. That dead fellow down there must be one, physically. It was probably indecent to think of a corpse as impotent. But he was, very likely. That would be why his wife had taken up with the prize-fighter Red Evans Williams of Castell Goch. If he had given the fellow leave the prize-fighter would have smashed him to bits. The police of Pontardulais had asked that he should not be let come home—because of the prize-fighter. So he was better dead. Or perhaps not. Is death better than discovering that your wife is a whore and being done in by her cully? Gwell angau na gwillth, their own regimental badge bore the words. ’Death is better than dishonour‘ . . . No, not death, angau means pain. Anguish! Anguish is better than dishonour. The devil it is! Well, that fellow would have got both. Anguish and dishonour. Dishonour from his wife and anguish when the prize-fighter hit him That was no doubt why his half-face grinned at the roof. The gory side of it had turned brown. Already! Like a mummy of a Pharaoh, that half looked . . . He was born to be a blooming casualty. Either by shell-fire or by the fist of the prize-fighter . . . Pontardulais I Somewhere in Mid-Wales. He had been through it once in a car, on duty. A long, dull village. Why should anyone want to go back to it? . . .
A tender butler’s voice said beside him: ‘This isn’t your job, sir. Sorry you had to do it . . . Lucky it wasn’t you, sir . . . This was what done it, I should say.’
Sergeant-Major Cowley was standing beside him holding a bit of metal that was heavy in his hand and like a candlestick. He was aware that a moment before he had seen the fellow, Mackenzie, bending over the brazier, putting the sheet of iron back. Careful officer, Mackenzie. The Huns must not be allowed to see the light from the brazier. The edge of the sheet had gone down on the dead man’s tunic, nipping a bit by the shoulder. The face had disappeared in shadow. There were several men’s faces in the doorway.
Tietjens said: ‘No: I don’t believe that did it. Something bigger . . . Say a prize-fighter’s fist . . . ’
Sergeant-Major Cowley said:
‘No, no prize-fighter’s fist would have done that, sir . . . And then he added, ‘Oh, I take your meaning, sir . . . 0 Nine Morgan’s wife, sir . . . ’
Tietjens moved, his feet sticking, towards the sergeant-major’s table. The other runner had placed a tin basin with water in it. There was a hooded candle there now, alight; the water shone innocently, a half-moon of translucence wavering over the white bottom of the basin. The runner from Pontardulais said:
‘Wash your hands first, sir!’
He said:
‘Move a little out of it, cahptn.’ He had a rag in his black hands. Tietjens moved out of the blood that had run in a thin stream under the table. The man was on his knees, his hands rubbing Tietjens’ boot welts heavily, with the rags. Tietjens placed his hands in the innocent water and watched light purple-scarlet mist diffuse itself over the pale half-moon. The man below him breathed heavily, sniffing. Tietjens said:
‘Thomas, 0 Nine Morgan was your mate?’
The man’s face, wrinkled, dark and ape-like, looked up. ‘He was a good pal, pore old ——,’ he said. ‘You would not like, surely to goodness, to go to mess with your shoes all bloody.’
‘If I had given him leave,’ Tietjens said, ‘he would not be dead now.’
‘No, surely not,’ One Seven Thomas answered. ‘But it is all one. Evans of Castell Goch would surely to goodness have killed him.’
‘So you knew, too, about his wife!’ Tietjens said.
‘We thocht it wass that,’ One Seven Thomas answered, ‘or you would have given him leave, cahptn. You are a good cahptn.’
A sudden sense of the publicity that that life was came over Tietjens.
‘You knew that,’ he said. ‘I wonder what the hell you fellows don’t know and all!’ he thought. ‘If anything went wrong with one it would be all over the command in two days. Thank God, Sylvia can’t get here!’
The man had risen to his feet. He fetched a towel of the sergeant-major’s, very white with a red border.
‘We know,’