Anthony Powell - The Valley of Bones

I felt less certain. However, Pendry’s troubles were forgotten. There were other things to think about. He simply settled down as a different sort of person. That happened long before the incident at the road-blocks, by which time everyone was used to Pendry in his new character.

‘When Cadwallader goes, which he’ll have to, sooner or later,’ Gwatkin said, ‘Pendry will have to be considered for CSM.’

The road-blocks were concrete pill-boxes constructed throughout the Command to impede an enemy, should the Germans decide to invade this island in the first instance. In addition to normal guard routines, road-blocks were manned after dark, the Orderly Officer inspecting them in turn throughout the night. This inspection continued, until dawn, when there was time for him to have a couple of hours sleep before coming on parade. Breeze had been Orderly Officer that day: Sergeant Pendry, NCO in charge of roadblocks. By one of the anomalies of Battalion arrangements, Pendry had been on quarter-guard, followed by a Brigade night exercise, so that ‘road-blocks’ made his third night running with little or no sleep. It was bad luck, but for some reason — probably chronic shortage of sergeants — there was no avoiding this situation. I spoke a word of condolence on the subject.

‘Do not worry, sir,’ Pendry said. ‘I do not seem to want much sleep now, it is.’

That was a surprising answer. In the army, sleep is prized more than anything else; beyond food, beyond even tea. I decided to speak again to Gwatkin about Pendry, find out whether, as Company Commander, he thought all was well. I felt guilty about having allowed Pendry’s situation to slip from my mind. He might be on the verge of a breakdown. Disregard for sleep certainly suggested something of the sort. Trouble could be avoided by looking into matters. However, such precautions, even if they had proved effective, were planned too late in the day. The rest of the story came out at the Court of Inquiry. Its main outlines were fairly clear. Breeze had made his inspection of the pill-box where Pendry was on duty, found all correct, moved on in the Orderly Officer’s truck to the next post. About ten minutes after Breeze’s departure, the sentry on duty in the pill-box noticed suspicious movements by some tumbledown sheds and fences further up the road. That is, the sentry thought he saw suspicious movements. This may have been his imagination. The Deafy Morgan affair had shown the possibility of hostility from other than German sources. What was going on in the shadows might indicate preparations for some similar aggression. Sergeant Pendry said he would investigate these activities himself. His rifle was loaded. He approached the sheds, where he disappeared from sight. Nothing was seen in that direction for some minutes; then a dog ran across the road. This dog, it was said afterwards, could have been the cause of the original disturbance. Sergeant Pendry could still not be seen. Then there was the echo of a shot; some said two shots. Pendry did not return. After a while, two men from the pill-box went to look for him. His body was found in a pit or ditch among the shacks. Pendry was dead. His rifle had been fired. It was never cleared up for certain whether an assailant caused his death; whether, in tripping and falling into the pit, his own weapon killed him; whether, alone in that dark gloomy place, oppressed with misery, strung up with lack of sleep, Pendry decided to put an end to himself.

‘He always meant to do it,’ Breeze said.

‘It was murder,’ said Gwatkin, ‘Pendry’s the first. There’ll be others in due course.’

The Court of Inquiry expressed the opinion that Pendry would have acted more correctly in taking a man with him to conduct the investigation. It was doubtful, too, whether he should have loaded his rifle without direct order from an officer. In this respect, standing instructions for roadblock NCOs showed a certain ambiguity. The whole question of ammunition supervision in relation to road-block guards was re-examined, the system later overhauled. Breeze had a trying time while the Court was taking evidence. He was exonerated from all blame, but when opportunity arose, he volunteered for service with one of the anti-tank companies which were being organized on a Divisional basis. Breeze understandably wanted to get away from the Battalion and disagreeable associations. Perhaps he wanted to get away from Gwatkin too. Gwatkin himself, just as he had blamed Bithel for the Deafy Morgan affair, was unwilling to accept the findings of the Court of Inquiry in its complete clearing of Breeze.

‘Yanto was just as responsible for Sergeant Pendry’s death as if he had shot him down from the German trenches,’ Gwatkin said.

‘What could Yanto have done?’

‘Yanto knew, as we all did, that Pendry had talked of such a thing.’

‘I never knew, and Pendry was my own Platoon-Sergeant.’

‘CSM Cadwallader knows more than he will say.’

‘What does the Sergeant-Major think?’

‘He just spoke about Pendry once or twice,’ said Gwatkin moodily. ‘It’s only now I see what he meant. I blame myself too. I should have foreseen it.’

This was another of Gwatkin’s ritual sufferings for the ills of the Battalion. Maelgwyn-Jones took a more robust more objective view, when I went to see him about arrangements for Pendry’s funeral.

‘These things happen from time to Ume,’ he said. ‘It’s just the army. Surprising there aren’t more cases. Here’s the bumph about the firing party to give Rowland.’

‘Almost every man in the Company volunteered for it.’

‘They love this sort of thing,’ said Maelgwyn-Jones. ‘By the way, you’re going to Aldershot on a course next week. Tell Rowland that too.’

‘What sort of a course?’

‘General training.’

I remarked to Gwatkin, when we were turning in that night, how the men had almost fought to be included in the firing party.

‘Nothing brings a company together like death,’ he said sombrely. ‘It looks as though there might be one in my family too. My wife’s father isn’t at all well.’

‘What does he do?’

‘In a bank, like the rest of us,’ said Gwatkin.

He had been thoroughly upset by the Pendry incident. Over the partition, in the store, Lance-Corporal Gittins was still awake. When last seen, he had been sorting huge piles of Army Form ‘ten-ninety-eight’, and was probably still thus engaged. He, too, seemed preoccupied with thoughts of mortality, for, while he sorted, he sang quietly to himself:

‘When I tread the verge of Jordan,

Bid my anxious fears subside,

Death of Death and hell’s destruction,

Land me safe on Canaan’s side:

Songs of praises,

Songs of praises

I will ever give to thee…’

THE TRAIN, LONG, GRIMY, CLOSELY PACKED, subject to many delays en route, pushed south towards London. Within the carriage cold fug stiflingly prevailed, dimmed bulbs, just luminous, like phosphorescent molluscs in the eddying backwaters of an aquarium, hovering above photographic views of Blackpool and Morecambe Bay: one of those interiors endemic to wartime. At a halt in the Midlands, night without still dark as the pit, the Lancashire Fusilier next to me, who had remarked earlier he was going on leave in this neighbourhood, at once guessed the name of the totally blacked-out station, collected his kit and quitted the compartment hurriedly. His departure was welcome, even the more crowded seat now enjoying improved leg-room. The grey-moustached captain, whose leathery skin and several medal ribbons suggested a quartermaster, eased himself nearer to where I occupied a corner seat, while he grunted irritably under his breath, transferring from one pocket to another thick sheaves of indents classified into packets secured by rubber bands. Additional space offered hope of less fitful sleep, but, when the engine was getting up steam again, the carriage door slid open. A figure wearing uniform looked in.