William Gerhardie - Futility

We went downstairs. “Yes,” he sighed, “things are getting a little difficult just now. All I’ve got is ten pounds. And when those are gone I won’t know where to turn to. And there’s that motor-cycle I’ve bought, and they are pressing me for payment. I give dem h-h-hell! But it is all a damrotten game, you know. The only consolation is that it really is a good motor-cycle — a fine big thing. But there seems no one I could borrow from.”

“But you will ride in taxis, General,” I gently reprimanded him.

“Well, what is ten pounds?” he asked. “Whether I ride in taxis or go by ’bus, it’s all one. It won’t last in any case. No: all my hope is in the claim I’ve lodged with the Russian Embassy. I understand it’s now only a question of the Allies recognizing General Wrangel before the claim is paid. But come, I’ll introduce you to that Russian Colonel there. He’s been to Vladivostok and knows your friends, no doubt — Nina. Come.”

We shook hands, and then compared experiences. “And do you remember that good-looking girl, Nina Bursanova?” at length I ventured.

The Colonel thought hard, and then said:

“No, I don’t remember.”

Silence. The subdued hum of London was like the burden note of a distant organ. Two other Russian Colonels and a Captain, all of the Denikin Army, sauntered up, and the General called the waiter and stood liqueurs and cigars all round. The faint sounds of a hidden orchestra reached our ears and set a match to the emotions stored away in my subconscious warehouse.… The tepid air within, surrounded by the cold outside, the shaded lights contrasted by the dark of night without, the easy atmosphere of crowded, dazzling excitement, enshrouded by the loneliness of space, and our intimate seclusion within this gay tumultuousness — these things spoke. And the soft music told me that life is , and that she was all this that it meant.…

No more novels! Life, I thought, was worth all the novels in the world. And life was Nina. And Nina was life. And, by contrast, the people I encountered seemed pretentious and insincere. The women in particular were unreal. They talked of things that did not interest them with an affected geniality. They pretended a silly superiority or else an unconvincing inferiority. They said “Really?” and “Indeed?” and “How fascinating!” and “How perfectly delightful!” Nina was not like that. My three sisters were not like that. They were real. They would laugh when they liked; they would say exactly what they thought; and they would say nothing if there was nothing to be said. Nina was so childish in her ways, and yet so very wise. She bit. She took water in her mouth and blew it out straight at your face, and threw herself on the sofa recklessly and stretched herself across, head downward.… She would never quite grow up. And by contrast, Oxford with its sham clubs and sham societies appeared a doll’s house, a thing stationary and extinct of life, while the world, the Outside World, was going by. And I asked myself: What am I waiting for?

In fine, it was Tristan pining for Isolde — with the important variation that Tristan journeyed to Isolde for the reason that Isolde failed to come to Tristan. One evening, very suddenly, I left England and set out back to the Far East.

II

I TRAVELLED WITH SIR HUGO AND THE RUSSIAN General, and we took the eastern route. I had recognized Sir Hugo’s gait as he came my way one day in crowded Piccadilly, but stopped in front of a shop window. And when I came up I saw Sir Hugo gazing at long rows of D.S.O.’s and O.B.E.’s displayed behind the window. He was going out as professional adviser — to Siam, I think, he said — or some such-like place, and we arranged to leave together. And then the General who was going out to Wrangel’s Army in Constantinople joined us. He was to get off at Port Said.

On board next morning I showed the General an alarming Reuter message from Constantinople. The French Government, it ran, had ordered the disbandment of General Wrangel’s Army, offering to transport the refugees back to Russia or to Brazil, but General Wrangel declined the offer, refused the invitation to go to Paris, and demanded the return of his arms and munitions which the French had already sold to Georgia, where they had fallen into Bolshevik hands. Money, gold and silver valuables and jewels had been stolen from the steamer in which General Wrangel was staying. Important military documents regarding the campaign in the Crimea had also been stolen.

“I know,” he said, “it is a most damrotten game, you know. I give dem h-h-hell, those damrotten Frenchmen. They are all damrotten Bolsheviks, they are.”

“Well,” I said quietly, “Kolchak has tried it. Denikin has tried it. Yudenich has tried it. I should give it a rest now.”

“Ah,” he laughed, “all this has merely been a little rehearsal. We shall begin seriously in a year or two. It’s the only way to stop bloodshed.” He puffed at his heavy cigar and his eyes twitched in the smoke.

“A rehearsal.… Yes, I too intend to begin ‘seriously’ when I get to Vladivostok,” I laughed.

“Is it not rather an adventure in futility?” Sir Hugo asked.

“He has taken my advice at last.” The General kissed his finger-tips. “What eyes—!”

“What calves! What ankles!” I completed automatically.

Silence.

“The boat’s beginning to roll.”

“Where are all the passengers?” asked the General.

“I fear they must be indisposed,” Sir Hugo said, “in consequence of the heavy sea.”

The General paused a little, gazing down at the cause of the passengers’ indisposition. “Of course,” he said, “this rolling and pitching ought never to be.”

“Oh!” said Sir Hugo.

“It is entirely due to bad steering. Now on Russian ships when there is rolling or pitching the captain leaves his breakfast-table without a word, goes up to the man at the steering-wheel, beats him in the face the number of times he considers adequate (v mordoo , do you understand?)—”

Sir Hugo nodded to indicate that he understood.

“—and retires, without a word, to the saloon and continues his breakfast. And believe me, Sir Hugo, there is no more — ha, ha, ha— rolling or — ha, ha, ha— pitching ! No more.”

“Hm,” said Sir Hugo. “Doesn’t the man at the steering-wheel ever … protest?”

“No,” said the General. “He knows what it’s for. The whole beauty of it is that the transaction is carried out swiftly, efficiently, quietly, without a sound … to everybody’s satisfaction.”

“This quietude of method, General, seems to have produced, to put it mildly, quite a stir recently?”

“Not carried out quietly enough,” explained the General, indicating the root of the trouble.

“The times are dead and over, anyhow.”

“They are dead and over,” sighed the General, as if mourning a dear relation.

Silence again. The wind full of that vigour of the sea swept across my face.

“Do you see that ship there, sir?”

“ Which ship where ?” came the answer.

“ That ship there ,” said I, pointing at the only vessel on the only sea.

Sir Hugo looked.

“It’s not a ship,” he said. “It’s a boat.”

“But, oh! sir,” I breathed in courteous remonstrance.

“Only His Majesty’s ships are ships,” came the dry rejoinder. “All other vessels are boats.… But to return to the question at issue, what were you going to say about the boat?”

“Well, I thought it was the Aquitania , but now I see it isn’t,” I said, looking down into the green-blue waves. “Do you remember the U-boat scare three years ago when we crossed to New York? It was a time when you felt that at any moment you might find yourself floating on the water owing to the disappearance of the boat.”