Anthony Powell - The Valley of Bones

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 …’

I was impressed by the speech, though there were moments when I thought Gwatkin’s listeners might deride the images he conjured up, such as a man losing what made him a man, or little sisters who had to be protected. On the contrary, the Company listened spellbound, giving a low grunt of emphasis when the Glasshouse was mentioned, like a cinema audience gasping aloud in pleasurable appreciation of some peculiarly agonising sequence of horror film. I remembered Bracey, my father’s soldier-servant, employing that very same phrase about his rifle being the soldier’s best friend. After twenty-five years, that sentiment had stood up well to the test of time and the development of more scientific weapons of war.

‘It does the lads good to be talked to like that,’ said CSM Cadwallader afterwards. ‘Captain does know how to speak. Very excellent would he have been to preach the Word.’

Even Gittins, whose inherent strain of scepticism was as strong as any in the Battalion, had enjoyed Gwatkin’s talk.

He told me so when I came to the Store later, to check supplies of web equipment held there.

‘A fine speech that was, the Skipper’s,’ said Gittins. ‘That should make the boys take care of their rifles proper, it should. And the rest of their stuff, too, I hope, and not come round here scrounging what they’ve lost off me, like a present at Christmas, it was.’

Kedward was less impressed

‘Rowland doesn’t half love jawing,’ he said, ‘I should just say so. But what’s he going to be like when we get into action, I wonder, he is so jumpy. Will he keep his head at that?’

The doubts Kedward felt about Gwatkin were to some extent echoed by Gwatkin himself in regard to Kedward.

‘Idwal is a good reliable officer in many ways,’ he confided his opinion to me, ‘but I’m not sure he has just the quality for leading men.’

‘The men like him.’

‘The men can like an officer without feeling he inspires them. Yanto told me the other day he thought the men liked Bithel. You wouldn’t say Bithel had the quality of leadership, would you?’

Gwatkin’s dislike of Bithel was given new impetus by the Deafy Morgan affair, which followed close on the homily about rifles. Deafy Morgan, as his cognomen — it was far more than a mere nickname — implied, was hard of hearing. In fact, he was as deaf as a post. Only in his middle to late thirties, he gave the impression — as miners of that age often do — of being much older than his years. His infirmity, in any case, set him apart from the hurly-burly of the younger soldiers’ life, giving him a mild, even beatific cast of countenance, an expression that seemed for ever untroubled by moral turmoil or disturbing thought. It was probably true to say that Deafy Morgan did not have many thoughts, disturbing or otherwise, because he was not outstandingly bright, although at the same time possessing all sorts of other good qualities. In short, Deafy Morgan was the precise antithesis of Sayce. Always spick and span, he was also prepared at all times to undertake boring or tedious dudes without the least complaint — in what could only be called the most Christlike spirit. Even among good soldiers, that is a singular quality in the army. No doubt it was one of the reasons why Deafy Morgan had not been relegated to the Second Line before the Division moved. Not at all fit, he would obviously have to be transferred sooner or later to the rear echelons. However, his survival was mainly due not so much to this habit of working without complaint, rare as that might be, as to the fact that everyone liked him. Besides, he had served as a Territorial longer than any other soldier in the ranks, wanted to remain with his friends — he was alleged to possess at home a nagging wife — so that no one in authority had had the heart to put Deafy Morgan’s name on whatever Army Form was required to effect his removal. He was in Bithel’s platoon.

Bithel himself had recently been appointed Musketry Officer. This was not on account of any notable qualifications for that duty, simply because the Battalion was short of officers on the establishment, several being also absent on courses. By this time Bithel’s individual status had become more clear to me. He was a small-town misfit, supporting himself in peacetime by odd jobs, preferably those on the outskirts of the theatrical world, living a life of solitude and toping, always on the verge of trouble, always somehow managing to extricate himself from anything serious. In the Battalion, there had been no repetition of the dance of love round the dummy, not anything comparable with that in exoticism. All the same, I suspected such expressions of Bithel’s personality were dormant rather than totally suppressed. He was always humble, even subservient, in manner, but this demeanour seemed to cloak a good opinion of himself, perhaps even delusions of grandeur.

‘Have you ever been interested in the Boy Scout movement?’ he asked. ‘I was keen about it at one time. Wonderful thing for boys. Gives them a chance. I threw it up in the end. Some of them are little brutes, you know. You’d never guess the things they say. I was surprised they knew about such matters. And their language among themselves. You wouldn’t credit it. I was told I was greatly missed after my resignation. They have a great deal of difficulty in getting suitable fellows to help. There are some nasty types about.’

The army is at once the worst place for egoists, and the best. Thus it was in many ways the worst for Bithel, always being ordered about and reprimanded, the best for Gwatkin, granted — anyway up to a point — the power and rank he desired. Nevertheless, in the army, as elsewhere, nothing is for ever. Maelgwyn-Jones truly said: ‘That day will pass, like other days in the army.’ Gwatkin’s ambition — the satisfaction of his ‘personal myth’, as General Conyers would have called it — might be temporarily realized, but there was always the danger that a re-posting, promotion, minor adjustment of duties, might alter everything. Even the obstacles set in the way of Bithel indulging the pottering he loved, could, for the same reasons, be alleviated, if not removed entirely. For instance, Bithel was tremendously pleased at being appointed Musketry Officer. There were several reasons for this. The job gave him a certain status, which he reasonably felt lacking, although there was probably less to do at the range than during the day by day training of a platoon. In addition, Bithel’s soldier-servant, Daniels, was on permanent duty at the butts.