Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

Somebody tapped on the door. The major called ‘Yes?’ and started speaking the moment Archer began crossing the threshold — a valuable foil, this, to his normal keep-’em-waiting procedure. ‘Now, Frank, where’s the summary of communications?’

Archer walked over to Cleaver’s table and instantly picked up a duplicated form in pale-blue ink with manuscript additions. ‘Here it is, sir.’

The major took it and went back to his seat. On the whole, he seemed mollified rather than the contrary. ‘About this parliament business, Frank. I’m not at all happy about it.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir.’

‘I’m seriously thinking of closing it down.’

‘Surely there’s no need for that?’

‘That disgusting display of Hargreaves’s last night. Couldn’t you have prevented it? After all, as Speaker you must have some… And as an Officer, you—’

‘I don’t think that anything but force would have—’

‘Worst thing in the world for discipline. If the blokes get the idea that they can simply—’

‘Oh, I don’t agree at all, sir.’

The major’s eyes narrowed. ‘What?’

‘It’s a chance for them to let off steam, you see. They’re off parade — rank doesn’t count in there. Everyone accepts that. I mentioned last night to Doll just now and he obviously didn’t resent it.’

‘That’s not the point. And if rank doesn’t count, why aren’t officers and WOs allowed to take full part, instead of having to sit out like that? I let you have your way there, since you were organizing the thing, but I never followed your argument.’

‘Well, sir, rank doesn’t count there really, but chaps may think it does. They might feel chary of giving, er, let’s say Wilf Cleaver a proper hammering when they wouldn’t if it was a corporal from another section, or even their own.’

‘Mm. I don’t think the blokes are quite as stupid as you make out.’

Archer shrugged.

‘Tell me, Frank, I’ve often wondered: why do you hang on to Hargreaves when you’ve had so many chances to get rid of him? Does the section no good all round, having a type like that in it. Bad for morale.’

‘I just feel… he’s more or less settled in there. He’s not much liked, but at least he’s tolerated. Anywhere else he’d probably have a much thinner time.’

‘But good God man, a Signals section doesn’t exist to give a home to stray dogs and to wet-nurse people. It’s supposed to be an efficient unit in a war machine.’

‘Hargreaves can’t do the Allied cause much harm now.’

‘Perhaps I’d better remind you, Frank, that we’re all still in uniform and that our country is still at war. We’re not on holiday.’

Standing before the major’s table, Archer shrugged again and put his hands on his hips. His eyes fell on a framed text that said: Ich will mich freuen des Herrn und frölich sein in Gott .

‘Confidentially now, old boy, what’s the matter with Hargreaves? Basically the matter?’

‘That’s very simple, sir. He doesn’t like the Army.’

The major laughed through his nose. ‘I should imagine very few of us would sooner be here than anywhere else. If a man isn’t a cretin he knows it’s a question of getting a job done. A very important job, I take it you agree?’

‘Oh yes, sir. And Hargreaves is clear on that too. But it isn’t being in the Army that gets him down. It’s the Army.’

‘I’m afraid you’re being too subtle for me, Frank.’

‘Well, as far as I can make him out — he’s not an easy man to talk to, but the way he sees it, people have been nasty to him in the Army in a way they wouldn’t be in civilian life. The Army puts power into the hands of chaps who’ve never had it before, not that sort of power, and they use it to inflict injustices on other chaps whom they happen to dislike for personal reasons. That’s the way the Army works. According to Hargreaves.’

‘Don’t stand like that, Frank,’ Raleigh said, and waited until Archer had removed his hands from his hips and put them behind his back. ‘Well, whatever friend Hargreaves feels about being in the Army, you can tell him from me to pull himself together. So far I’ve tried to keep the original Company in one piece as far as possible. When postings come through I’ve been seeing to it that they’ve got passed on to these new arrivals. But there’s always plenty of call for blokes with Hargreaves’s qualifications, or lack of them rather, and I can get him out of the way any time I want to. If there’s one more bit of nonsense from him I’ll see he’s on the first available boat for Burma. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll tell him.’

‘And what’s going on between him and young Hammond?’

‘Going on? Nothing that I know of. They are friends. Hammond’s about the only chap Hargreaves talks to.’

‘Is that all he does to him? Talk?’

‘I don’t know what you’re driving at, sir.’

‘Oh yes you do, Frank, don’t you try and bullshit me. There’s something pretty unsavoury about that friendship, as you call it, if half I hear is true.’

‘I’ll go and fetch Hargreaves and Hammond now, sir, if you like, and you can fetch whoever’s been telling you this and get him to repeat it in front of them. And me too, of course, as their Section Officer.’

‘There’s no need to take that tone, old boy. I’m simply telling you as a friend to be on your guard. You don’t want a scandal in the section, do you? Hammond’s a good lad and I shouldn’t like him to get into any sort of trouble. If things turn out the way they might I’d consider him favourably for lance-corporal. Well, I suppose you’d better be getting back to the Signal Office. Sorry to have kept you, but this Hargreaves business has been on my mind rather.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Oh, before you go, Frank, any news of Journey’s End ?’

‘The librarian chap in Hildesfeld says he’ll do his best, but it’s been out of print for years. The British Drama League in England are on the job now, apparently.’

‘Good. I hope it comes through. It would be fun to have a shot at putting it on. Do you know it at all?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

‘It’s good stuff, you know, Frank. You’d like it. The best thing on the first war by far. Really gets the spirit of the trenches, the feel of what it was like.’

III

Major Raleigh stood on the steps of the farmhouse where the Officers’ Mess was, trying to smell the lilac bushes. He was having a hard time of it. Competing smells included the one from the cookhouse bonfire, a mixture of rum and hot cardboard; the one from the henhouse where the Mess’s looted chickens lived; the one from the piggery; the one from nowhere and everywhere that was apparently endemic to continental farmyards, about midway between that of a brewery and that of burning cheese-rind. As one of his own wireless operators might have tried to tune out interference, the major stooped and laid his soft nose alongside one of the pale clusters. It tickled, but he got something.

The voice of Cleaver spoke behind him. ‘Are you all right, Major?’

‘Of course I’m all right,’ Raleigh said, wheeling round as he came upright.

‘I’m sorry, I thought you were ill.’

‘Well I’m not. Are you ready?’

‘Yes, Major. Nobody else seems to want to come.’

‘Did you ask them?’

‘Yes, Major.’

‘All of them?’

‘Yes, Major.’

‘It’s a pity some of them couldn’t have taken the trouble to come along,’ Raleigh said, voicing a desire for his brother-officers’ company that was to cool sharply within the hour. ‘All right, Wilf, let’s get moving. We’re late already.’