Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

When he saw that Archer was near, the major turned his back as far as was possible without actually kneeling on his seat. The emotion he felt for the ex-Speaker of the now officially dissolved parliament was not military disapprobation nor yet personal anger, but sadness at the other’s withholding of loyalty. All this and much more had been gone into at length the morning after Hargreaves had spied strangers. Archer had protested, with every appearance of sincerity, that the strangers could have been suffered to remain if anybody had thought to put forward a simple motion proposing this, and that nothing but general ignorance of procedure had brought about their exit. Raleigh paid no heed. In the course of a sad and objective appraisal of Archer’s disloyalty he had recounted rumours about Archer’s private life which, if repeated before witnesses and if the law of slander had run in the Army, might have been the occasion of awards in damages sufficient to buy and sell the contents of the Officers’ Shop. Then, still avowing sadness, the major had announced that his duty to the Company forbade the retention in its ranks of anybody so provenly disloyal. In other words, it was Burma for Archer as soon as the major’s pal at HQ could fix it. After that, the major had sadly shouted at Archer to get out of his sight.

Archer had, and as far as possible had stayed there. But now he had to get back into it for a moment. To facilitate this he leant against the sideboard (could it have been made of ebony?) and faced the couple in the double armchair.

The RE colonel, whose name was Davison, was not the kind of man to appeal to Raleigh. He was what Raleigh was fond of calling a disorganized sort of chap, meaning someone whose character had not been stripped down like a racing-car until nothing but more or less military components remained. But it was his policy to encourage colonels and such to be around. Colonel Davison, once acquainted with the volume and regularity of the Mess’s liquor supply, had needed no encouragement. At the moment he was saying in his public-school voice (another selling-point for the major): ‘But as I keep telling you, that’s why the Army’s so good. Because nobody could take the bloody nonsense seriously.’

The major came back with something inaudible to Archer, probably that he couldn’t go all the way with the colonel there.

‘Well, nobody with any sense, then,’ Davison said. ‘And that saves an awful lot of worry. Means you can start laughing.’

Again the major could not be heard, but this time he went on much longer. Davison listened, nodding steadily, his eyes on his glass, which he was rotating on the knee of his crossed leg. Archer’s attention wandered. It came to rest on Cleaver, who was half-lying on a purple sofa reading an unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover . Archer had had a go at that too. General opinion in the Mess was that it ranked about halfway in the little library the batmen had been assiduously building up ever since the Company entered urban France: not so good as, say, Frank Harris’s My Life and Loves , but clearly better than the available non-fictional treatments of these themes, vital books by Scotsmen with titles like Married Happiness . Cleaver laughed silently to himself, then looked quickly and furtively round without catching Archer’s eye.

‘It’s all a joke,’ Davison said loudly. ‘The whole thing.’

The major saw Archer. ‘Yes?’

‘Sergeant Doll would like to see you, sir. He’s just outside.’

When Raleigh had gone, Davison patted the space beside him. ‘Come and sit down, laddie.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Sir. Sir sir sir. Sir sir sir sir sir sir sir. Ha.’

From the way Davison swayed about in his seat as he said this, Archer concluded that he was not just drunk, but very drunk. ‘Nice little place we’ve got here, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, delightful. Delightful. Your poor major’s upset. Have you been being nasty to him? Have a drink. Corporal! More whisky needed here. Crash priority.’

‘I’m never nasty to majors,’ Archer said.

‘Aren’t you? I am. All the time. One of the consummations. Compensations. What do you do in Civvy Street, laddie?’ The colonel was perhaps five years older than Archer.

‘I don’t do anything. Not yet. I was a student.’

‘Jolly good luck to you. I’m an electrical engineer. So of course they put me on bridges. But it’s all experience. A very good preparation, the Army.’

‘For what?’

‘Everything.’

As they received their drinks, Archer became aware that an altercation was going on just outside the room, with raised voices and what sounded like part of a human frame bouncing off the door. Was Doll fighting Raleigh?

‘Just about everything. You’ll have learnt a lot in the last few years which will stand you in good stead when you get into the great world.’

Archer’s mouth opened. ‘You mean that this is what life is like.’

‘Roughly.’

Doll called from the doorway. ‘Would you come, Mr Archer, quickly?’

Archer hurried over, followed by Davison, who said: ‘If there’s anything to see I’m going to see it.’

Four men confronted one another in the confined space at the stairhead: Hargreaves, Sergeant Fleming, Doll and Raleigh. Whatever he might have been doing a moment earlier, Hargreaves was doing nothing now except being held from behind by Fleming and denounced by Raleigh. Doll stood to one side, his file under his arm.

‘I didn’t know anything like this was going to happen, sir,’ Fleming shouted to Archer. ‘He just said very quiet he’d like to see the major if he was free, to apologize to him about the parliament, and I said couldn’t it wait till the morning, and he said, still very quiet, his conscience was—’

‘You dare come here and say that to me,’ Raleigh shouted through this. His soft face had a glistening flush. ‘You dirty little homo. Can’t leave a decent lad alone. Rotten to the core. I know what goes on in that billet of yours. I’m going to take you off that draft and have you court-martialled for… for filth. There are plenty of people who’d be only too glad—’

Cleaver stepped forward and caught him by the arm. ‘Shut up, major. Pipe down, you bloody fool. Come back in here, for Christ’s sake.’

The major shook off Cleaver’s hand. The movement brought him face to face with Archer. A theatrical sneer twisted Raleigh’s soft features. ‘And as for you… Tarred with the same brush. An officer. Selected for his qualities of leadership. That’s good. I like that.’

There was a pause. The moment it was over Archer realized that he should have used it either to help Fleming get Hargreaves down the stairs or help Cleaver get Raleigh back into the anteroom. He could even have told the major just a little of what he thought of him. But he spent the time quailing under the major’s stare.

Panting a little, Raleigh took up a fighting stance in front of Hargreaves. At the same time Colonel Davison spoke from the edge of the group. ‘That’ll do, everybody.’ Fleming’s expression made Archer turn quickly. He saw with incredulity that Davison was leaning against the door-jamb and levelling his drawn revolver in Raleigh’s general direction.

‘Often wanted to use this,’ Davison said. He was thin and very tall. ‘Properly,I mean. Not just on pigeons. Well, better late than never.’

‘Put that away, Colonel,’ Cleaver said.

Davison grinned. ‘Sounds as if I’m exposing myself. But I know what you mean. My turn now. Who’s gonna make me?’

‘Let’s be sensible.’

At this, Davison collapsed in laughter. ‘One up to you, by God. Funny, isn’t it? — always turns out like this if you try to do anything. Chaps saying let’s be sensible. Let’s be that whatever we do. Oh, my Christ.’