Anthony Powell - The Valley of Bones

‘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.’