A Man Could Stand Up - Ford Madox Ford [48]
If only for a time he had forgotten them. Then, his right hand might forget its cunning. If only for a time...But even that might be disastrous: might come at a disastrous moment....The Germans had suppressed themselves. Perhaps they had knocked down the laundry chimney. Or hit some G.S. wagons loaded with coal...At any rate, that was not the usual morning strafe. That was to come. Sweet day so cool--began again.
McKechnie hadn't suppressed himself. He was going to get suppressed. He had just been declaring that Tietjens had not displayed any chivalry in not reporting the C.O. if he, Tietjens, considered him to be drunk--or even chronically alcoholic. No chivalry...
This was like a nightmare!...No it wasn't. It was like fever when things appear stiffly unreal...And exaggeratedly real! Stereoscopic, you might say!
McKechnie with an accent of sardonic hate begged to remind Tietjens that if he considered the C.O. to be a drunkard he ought to have him put under arrest. King's Regs exacted that. But Tietjens was too cunning. He meant to have that two-fifty quid. He might be a poor man and need it. Or a millionaire, and mean. They said that was how millionaires became millionaires: by snapping up trifles of money that, God knows, would be godsends to people like himself, McKechnie.
It occurred to Tietjens that two hundred and fifty pounds, after this was over, might be a godsend to himself in a manner of speaking. And then he thought:
'Why the devil shouldn't I earn it?'
What was he going to do? After this was over.
And it was going over. Every minute the Germans were not advancing they were losing. Losing the power to advance...Now, this minute! It was exciting.
'No!' McKechnie said. 'You're too cunning. If you got poor Bill cashiered for drunkenness you'd have no chance of commanding. They'd put in another pukka colonel. As a stop-gap, whilst Bill's on sick leave, you're pretty certain to get it. That's why you're doing the damnable thing you're doing.'
Tietjens had a desire to go and wash himself. He felt physically dirty.
Yet what McKechnie said was true enough! It was true!...The mechanical impulse to divest himself of money was so strong that he began to say:
'In that case ...' He was going to finish: 'I'll get the damned fellow cashiered.' But he didn't.
He was in a beastly hole. But decency demanded that he shouldn't act in panic. He had a mechanical, normal panic that made him divest himself of money. Gentlemen don't earn money. Gentlemen, as a matter of fact, don't do anything. They exist. Perfuming the air like Madonna lilies. Money comes into them as air through petals and foliage. Thus the world is made better and brighter. And, of course, thus political life can be kept clean!...So you can't make money.
But look here: this Unit was the critical spot of the whole affair. The weak spots of Brigade, Division, Army, British Expeditionary Force, Allied Forces...If the Hun went through there...Fuit Ilium et magna gloria...Not much glory!
He was bound to do his best for that unit. That poor b----y unit. And for the poor b----y knockabout comedians to whom he had lately promised tickets for Drury Lane at Christmas...The poor devils had said they preferred the Shoreditch Empire or the old Balham...That was typical of England. The Lane was the locus classicus of the race, but these rag-time...heroes, call them heroes!--preferred Shoreditch and Balham!
An immense sense of those grimy, shuffling, grouching, dirty-nosed pantomime-supers came over him and an intense desire to give them a bit of luck, and he said:
'Captain McKechnie, you can fall out. And you will return to duty. Your own duty. In proper head-dress.'
McKechnie, who had been talking, stopped with his head on one side like a listening magpie. He said:
'What's this? What's this?' stupidly. Then he remarked: 'Oh, well, I suppose if you're in command...'
Tietjens said:
'It's usual to say "sir," when addressing a senior officer on parade. Even if you don't belong to his unit.' McKechnie said:
'Don't belong!...I don't...To