A Man Could Stand Up - Ford Madox Ford [59]
Tietjens had expected a violent outbreak. Threats even. None had come. The Colonel had continued to regard him with intentness, nothing more. He sat motionless, his long arms, bare to the elbow, dependent over each of his knees which were far apart. He said that if he decided to go he didn't want to leave his battalion to a man that would knock it about. He continued staring hard at Tietjens. The phrase was singular in that place and at that hour, but Tietjens understood it to mean that he did not want his battalion discipline to go to pieces.
Tietjens answered that he did not think he would let the discipline go to pieces. The Colonel bad said:
'How do you know? You're no sddier, are you?'
Tietjens said he had commanded in the line a Company at full strength--nearly as large as the battalion and, out of it, a unit of exactly eight times its present strength. He did not think any complaints had been made of him. The Colonel said, frostily:
'Well! I know nothing about you.' He had added:
'You seem to have moved the battalion all right the night before last. I wasn't in a condition to do it myself. I'm not well. I'm obliged to you. The men appear to like you. They're tired of me.'
Tietjens felt himself on tenterhooks. He had, now, a passionate desire to command that battalion. It was the last thing he would have expected of himself. He said:
'If it becomes a question of a war of motion, sir, I don't know that I should have much experience.'
The Colonel answered:
'It won't become a war of motion before I come back. If I ever do come back.'
Tietjens said:
'Isn't it rather like a war of motion now, sir?' It was perhaps the first time in his life he had ever asked for information from a superior in rank--with an implicit belief that he would get an exact answer. The Colonel said:
'No. This is only falling back on prepared positions. There will be positions prepared for us right back to the sea. If the Staff has done its work properly. If it hasn't, the war's over. We're done, finished, smashed, annihilated, non-existent.'
Tietjens said:
'But if the great strafe that, according to Division, is due now...'
The Colonel said: 'What?' Tietjens repeated his words and added:
'We might get pushed beyond the next prepared position.'
The Colonel appeared to withdraw his thoughts from a great distance.
'There isn't going to be any great strafe,' he said. He was beginning to add: 'Division has got...' A considerable thump shook the hill behind their backs. The Colonel sat listening without much attention. His eyes gloomily rested on the papers before him. He said, without looking up:
'Yes: I don't want my battalion knocked about!' He went on reading again--the communication from Whitehall. He said: 'You've read this?' and then:
'Falling back on prepared positions isn't the same as moving in the open. You don't have to do more than you do in a trench-to-trench attack. I suppose you can get your direction by compass all right. Or get someone to, for you.'
Another considerable crump of sound shook the earth but from a little further away. The Colonel turned the sheet of paper over. Pinned to the back of it was the private note of the Brigadier. He perused this also with gloomy and unsurprised eyes.
'Pretty stiff, all this,' he said. 'You've read it? I shall have to go back and see about this.'
He exclaimed:
'It's rough luck. I should have liked to leave my battalion to someone that knew it. I don't suppose you do. Perhaps you do, though.'
An immense collection of fire-irons: all the fire-irons in the world fell just above their heads. The sound seemed to prolong itself in echoes, though of course it could not have. It was repeated.
The Colonel looked upwards negligently. Tietjens proposed to go to see. The Colonel said:
'No, don't. Notting will tell us if anything's wanted...Though nothing can be wanted!' Notting was the beady-eyed Adjutant in the adjoining cellar. 'How could they expect us to keep accounts straight in August 1914? How can they expect me to remember what happened? At the Depot.