A Man Could Stand Up - Ford Madox Ford [60]
'I suppose I could get rid of you; with a bad report,' he said. 'Or perhaps I couldn't...General Campion put you here. You're said to be his bastard.'
'He's my godfather,' Tietjens said. 'If you put in a bad report of me I should not protest. That is, if it were on the grounds of lack of experience. I should go to the Brigadier over anything else.'
'It's the same thing,' the Colonel said, 'I mean a godson. If I had thought you were General Campion's bastard, I should not have said it...No; I don't want to put in a bad report of you. It's my own fault if you don't know the battalion. I've kept you out of it. I didn't want you to see what a rotten state the papers are in. They say you're the devil of a paper soldier. You used to be in a Government office, didn't you?'
Heavy blows were being delivered to the earth with some regularity on each side of the cellar. It was as if a boxer of the size of a mountain were delivering rights and lefts in heavy alternation. And it made hearing rather difficult.
'Rotten luck,' the Colonel said. 'And McKechnie's dotty. Clean dotty.' Tietjens missed some words. He said that he would probably be able to get the paper work of the battalion straight before the Colonel came back.
The noise rolled down hill like a heavy cloud. The Colonel continued talking and Tietjens, not being very accustomed to his voice, lost a good deal of what he said but, as if in a rift, he did hear:
'I'm not going to burn my fingers with a bad report on you that may bring a General on my back--to get back McKechnie who's dotty...Not fit to...'
The noise rolled in again. Once the Colonel listened to it, turning his head on one side and looking upwards. But he appeared satisfied with what he heard and recommenced his perusal of the Horse Guards letter. He took the pencil, underlined words and then sat idly stabbing the paper with the point.
With every minute Tietjens' respect for him increased. This man at least knew his job--as an engine-dresser does, or the captain of a steam tramp. His nerves might have gone to pieces. They probably had; probably he could not go very far without stimulants: he was probably under bromides now.
And, all things considered, his treatment of Tietjens had been admirable and Tietjens had to revise his view of it. He realized that it was McKechnie who had given him the idea that the Colonel hated him: but he would not have said anything. He was too old a hand in the Army to give Tietjens a handle by saying anything definite...And he had always treated Tietjens with a sort of monumental deference that, in a Mess, the Colonel should bestow on his chief assistant. Going through a door at meal-times, for instance, if they happened to be side by side, he would motion with his hand for Tietjens to go first, naturally though, taking his proper precedence when Tietjens halted. And here he was, perfectly calm. And quite ready to be instructive.
Tietjens was not calm: he was too much bothered by Valentine Wannop and by the thought that, if the strafe was on, he ought to be seeing about his battalion. And of course by the bombardment. But the Colonel said, when Tietjens with the aid of signs again made proposals to take a look around:
'No. Stop where you are. This isn't the strafe. There is not going to be a strafe. This is only a little extra Morning Hate. You can tell by the noise. That's only four point two's. There's nothing really heavy. The really heavies don't come so fast. They'll be turning on to the Worcesters now and only giving us one every half minute...That's their game. If you don't know that, what are you doing here?' He added: 'You hear?' pointing his forefinger to the roof. The noise shifted. It went away to the right as a slow coal-wagon might. He went on:
'This is your place. Not doing things up above. They'll come and tell you if they want things. And you've got a first-rate Adjutant