Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

‘All right, Wilf,’ the major said. ‘I’ll take care of it. Was there anything else?’

‘About the Shop again, sir. I take it it would be all right to get a few things for one or two of the blokes while I’m there?’

The major frowned. It was his major’s frown, his responsibility invoking frown, his slackness-detecting frown, his extra-duty-donating frown. He kept it on full for a while before he said: ‘I’m not sure that’s a very good idea.’

‘Oh, I don’t see why not. Things are pretty relaxed these days. We’re not at war any more, after all. I can’t see it doing anybody much harm.’

‘I wouldn’t go all the way with you there, old boy. While the blokes have got so much time on their hands it’s particularly important to maintain discipline. It doesn’t help at all, throwing shoes and ties and what-not around indiscriminately. This is an Officers’ Shop we’re talking about, not a natty gents’ tailoring establishment. Why do you think Officers and men are required to dress differently? To emphasize the difference in their status, of course. That’s quite fundamental.’

‘I know, Major’ — Cleaver was being uncharacteristically persistent — ‘but it’s going on all over the place, you see. Only yesterday I saw a couple of the lads on the switchboard wearing those jeep coats, the sort with the—’

‘They’re in Archer’s lot; I’ve already had a word with him about it. There’s a great deal too much of this all-chums-together spirit around these days and I don’t like it. It isn’t… healthy. Anyway, who were you thinking of getting stuff for?’

‘Well, evidently Doll could do with a couple of shirts, and the Quartermaster-Sergeant was talking about a few pairs of shoes — he didn’t say who he wanted them for — and then my batman was asking—’

The major’s frown, which had almost cleared, came back again, but with a difference that indicated that thought of some description was going on behind it. ‘That’s rather different. Doll knows this sort of thing is a privilege and he’s not the kind of fellow to abuse it. The QMS has done a first-class job for everybody at a very difficult time,’ — and, the major might have added, a five-star cordon bleu crossed-knife-and-fork-in-the-Michelin-guide-type job for himself out of the petrol-hunger of a chain of civilians that stretched back as far as Arromanches on the Norman coast — ‘and if he needs a pair of shoes or two I don’t think it’s really up to us to question it. As regards your batman — well, I regard that as a personal matter between the two of you. Batmen have always had these little perks — it’s a tradition. Yes, that’s all right, Wilf.’

‘Thanks, Major.’

‘You did quite right to tell me, though,’ Raleigh said emphatically, leaving the other in no doubt about its being quite wrong not to tell him in the future, and picked up a sheaf of vehicle returns. He knew full well what was on them, for the transport situation, like much else, had remained static for weeks, but the small effort involved in putting common knowledge into due form helped to keep the sections on their toes, or at any rate off their backsides.

Cleaver cranked his telephone and after a moment said: ‘Parachute Section, please… What? When was this? I see. Is anyone working on it? Well, let me know the moment it’s back, will you? — I say, Major.’

Raleigh looked up as if he had been deep in the vehicle returns for a day or so. ‘What is it?’

‘The line to the parachute people’s out. Looks as if I’ll have to go and tell Winch myself.’

‘Winch?’

‘About the pay. We decided—’

‘Yes, yes. Get Doll to send someone over. It’s only a few hundred yards.’

While Cleaver again cranked his phone and spoke, the major turned over his in-tray a second time, then got going on his own phone. ‘Give me the Signalmaster… Signalmaster? Signals Command Group here, Major Raleigh. Who is that?’

‘Archer, sir.’

‘Frank, what’s happened to the morning summary of communications? It’s supposed to be on my desk at nine o’clock.’

Seated at his trestle table in the commodious and airy barn that housed the Signal Office, Archer blushed. ‘I sent it across, sir. Nearly two hours ago.’

This inadvertent reminder of how long after nine o’clock the major had presumptively begun his morning’s work did not go down well. ‘I don’t care how long ago you think you sent it across, Frank, it isn’t here.’

‘There’s only one thing on it, sir — the line to Para-Sec is down; otherwise—’

‘I know that. That’s not the point. You’d better have a look round there and then come over and talk to me about it. I want a word with you anyway.’

Sighing, Archer got to his feet and stretched. Inactivity reigned about him. A single teleprinter clattered away in one corner. A bespectacled corporal read a paperback novel in front of the wood-and-canvas rack in which transmitted messages were filed. The rack had been cleared at midnight and now carried half a dozen exiguous batches of flimsy. The two counter-clerks were playing chess while the orderly, an aged and delinquent Highland infantryman, watched them in wonder. The locations clerk was busy with his eraser, removing what must have been one of the last official traces of yet another defunct unit.

Archer raised his voice. ‘Hargreaves!’

Peering anxiously, laboriously pinching out a cigarette, Hargreaves hurried in from the open air. His battledress blouse, instead of lying open at the top to reveal a collar and tie, was buttoned up and hooked at the throat; he must have been one of the last men in the British Army to avail himself of the recent sartorial concession. No doubt the older style made fewer demands on his time and energy. ‘Yes, Mr Archer?’ he said.

‘You took the summary of communications across to Command Group, didn’t you?’

‘The what, Mr Archer?’

‘That thing I gave you to take over to the major’s Office, you took it, didn’t you?’

‘Oh yes. Captain Cleaver was there and I gave it to him.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Oh absolutely, Mr Archer.’

‘You’d swear to that?’ Archer smiled conspiratorially. ‘They’re trying to make out over there that I never sent it. You’d stand by me if it came to a court-martial, wouldn’t you?’

Hargreaves looked worried. ‘I don’t quite understand, Mr Archer, but if there’s any trouble you can count on me to—’

‘Never mind, Hargreaves, I was only pulling your leg… Good show you put up last night at the parliament, by the way — I was meaning to tell you.’

‘Oh, thank you very much, Mr Archer, how kind of you… You don’t think perhaps it was a bit… extreme? You know, at the end.’

‘Not a bit, you were quite justified. These people need to be talked to straight once in a while. You keep at it. Oh, and I thought that bit about Auden came in very well. I didn’t know you were a fan of his.’

‘I’ve just read a few of his things, sir.’

‘I see.’ Archer became conscious that he had been smiling rather a lot. ‘Right, that’s all, Hargreaves, thank you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

On Archer’s table lay a letter he had been writing to a friend of his in Oxford, one who, like most of his contemporaries, was medically unfit for military service — a doubly fortunate shortcoming in the present case, for one of this friend’s several neuroses forbade him to be ordered about. The letter was full of undetailed assertions of hatred and misery, unsolicited news about what Archer’s two girl-friends in England had been writing to him, and inquiries about issues of jazz records. He put on top of it the Signalmaster’s Diary — its sole entry for the morning read 0840 On duty F. N. Archer Lt — and told Sergeant Parnell, the superintendent, where he was going. Then he donned his ridiculous khaki beret and left.