Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

CAPTAIN: ( Shouting ) Squadron will move to the right in column. Squadron will retire, 3 Troop leading. Walk march. Smartly there! ( To himself ) Oh God.

Fade out cavalry moving at walk.

Sequence 4 — London

Official building in Whitehall or somewhere. CECIL is walking along a corridor on the way to his Office. DANVERS comes up.

DANVERS: Good morning, my lord.

CECIL: Morning, Danvers. Has the mail from the Crimea arrived?

They walk along the corridor together.

DANVERS: On your desk, sir.

CECIL: The only thing in this whole mess and misery that seems to work is the mail service.

DANVERS: They say bad news travels fast, sir.

They enter CECIL’ s Office.

CECIL: They’re right there. ( Opens packet ) But for the electric telegraph we might still be living in a fool’s paradise.

DANVERS: I hear, my lord, that in a few months we shall be able to get our news direct from Balaclava.

CECIL: If we still have anybody there to send it. ( Reading ) Oh dear.

DANVERS: I’ll leave you, sir.

CECIL: Don’t go far.

DANVERS goes .

CECIL: Oh, Lew, you are a positive wonder. More than just a clever fellow with a bribe. How do you do it? It’s supernatural.

NOLAN: ( Voice fades up ) Greetings to my pious friend. Our bishop here is in very bad odour. Two days ago our loyal clergy were all keyed up to spread enlightenment among the heathen. It was a perfect opportunity. But alas, my lord bishop hummed and ha’d and did nothing. Our clergy were furiously disappointed. I myself remonstrated with my lord, who retorted with dignity that he had specific orders from my lord the archbishop to refrain from any attempt to spread the holy word without specific orders. What can a true believer hope to do?

Our clergy are in a very bad state, the kind of sullen discontent that precedes real trouble. Unless they get the chance soon to do something effectively evangelical their spirit will be lost. This is very urgent. Please advise me. Your reverend friend and brother. PS The bishop from Wales is as usual. He awaits the coming of his yacht from England with his French cook on board.

CECIL: The bishop from Wales? Oh — Cardigan, of course!

Knock at door.

CECIL: Come.

DANVERS enters .

DANVERS: From Lord Clarendon’s office, my lord, by special messenger.

CECIL: Thank you, Danvers.

DANVERS goes .

CECIL: ( Opens envelope. Reads ) ‘I thought you might like to see the enclosed. Please understand that it is a matter of the strictest confidence between us. G.V.’ Thank you, George. Now—

PEMBERTON: ( Voice fades up ) Our man reports that Count Rogachev seems most interested and well informed as to the state of training and morale of our troops in the Crimea, with particular reference to our cavalry. This is no academic interest of his but an essential feature of his scheme to bring about a Russian invasion of India. A plan for this has been laid before the Imperial High Command, but our man is still unable to learn the proposed date of the move. What seems certain is that Rogachev sees as vital to his plan the supposed, or real, disinclination, or inability, of our troops to resist a determined and forceful adversary, especially…

CECIL: Especially where cavalry is concerned. Indeed. What else?

We are in a beau-monde London house during a party. Men and women are talking and moving about, e.g. up and down staircase.

HERBERT: Well, my dear Cecil, this is most pleasant, happening to run into you like this.

CECIL: It’s good of you to say so, Herbert. For me, it’s more than pleasant. You’re the very man I was hoping to see.

HERBERT: You don’t say. How delightful. Well, what can I do for you in the next couple of minutes?

CECIL: Very quickly — you remember this fellow Rogachev I was asking you about?

HERBERT: Rogachev? Oh yes, that Russian count fellow. What about him?

CECIL: That scheme of his for the invasion of you-know-where. What do the Cabinet make of it?

HERBERT: Make of it? They make nothing of it, Cecil. If they’ve heard of it at all, they’ve forgotten it.

CECIL: They think it of no account?

HERBERT: None whatever. Heaven knows what they do think of account. Keeping income tax down to sixpence in the pound, most likely. Well, must be off.

His voice is lost for a moment in the noise of the party. Then we hear it again.

HERBERT: ( Calling ) Oh Cecil!

CECIL: ( Approaching ) Yes, Herbert?

HERBERT: Just remembered — I was talking to a fellow in the Horse Guards the other day, and your friend Rogachev came up in conversation. Apparently he tried to get into our Light Dragoons some years ago, and they turned him down. No leg for a boot or some such jargon. That’s all.

CECIL: My dear Herbert, that is most interesting.

HERBERT: ( Fading ) Just thought I’d mention it.

CECIL is in his Office with DANVERS.

CECIL: ( Dictating ) The Muscovite priest we spoke of… was once refused entry to one of our seminaries. Full stop. Hence perhaps his contempt for our clergy. Stop. Your remarks on their low spirits are noted. Stop. Recommend you do your utmost to encourage some demonstration of their superiority to the ungodly, comma, whatever your bishop or archbishop may say. Full stop. No, comma: or not say. Full stop. Would you read the last phrase back, Danvers?

DANVERS: Whatever your bishop or archbishop may say, or not say.

CECIL: Or not say. Whatever Lord Lucan or Lord Raglan may order you to do, or fail to order you to do. That is a little strong perhaps.

DANVERS: Shall I strike it out, my lord?

Pause.

CECIL: No. No, keep it. Address to Captain Lewis Nolan — HQ HM Forces — Crimean Expeditionary Force. Priority. And that means priority with you too, Danvers, so down to the telegraph Office you go like a bullet.

DANVERS: Immediately, my lord.

He leaves.

CECIL: No leg for a boot!

He collapses in laughter.

Sequence 5 — The Crimea

The British forces outside Sebastopol. Before dawn on the 25th October. A bitterly cold night, wind howling, sentries stamping their feet, etc. NOLAN ’s tent . MORRIS approaches it.

NOLAN: That you, Ivor?

MORRIS: It’s me right enough.

He enters the tent.

MORRIS: What a night!

NOLAN: At least we’re out of the wind in here.

MORRIS: Did you hear we lost an officer last night? Major Willet. Dead of cold or exposure or whatever you call it.

NOLAN: I can believe it. Do you know, I wish I was in Balaclava town this minute. They’ve got fires down there. Girls too for all I know. And liquor.

MORRIS: I wish I was in Sebastopol, in the bloody fortress with the Russkis. Snug as a bug in a rug I’d be. With the occasional trifling inconvenience of a British shell possibly disturbing my slumbers.

NOLAN: Without the faintest chance of a British soldier coming to stir me out of ’em. When will they learn? It doesn’t matter how long you bombard a place, you might as well be whistling at it unless you send a storming party in, horrible men with swords and bayonets and pop-guns to kill whoever’s stirring. I wonder if the point ever strikes that perfumed idiot Lord Cardigan.

The British siege-guns are bombarding the Russian fortress of Sebastopol . LORD CARDIGAN and a couple of officers ride up.

CARDIGAN: Ah, I see. Those fellows down there are our men, and they are firing at the Russians. Is that correct?