No More Parades_ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [106]
'It's the men that have to be considered. They think--and they've every right to think it if they wish to--that a man who's a wrong 'un over women isn't the man they can trust their lives in the hands of...' He added: 'And they're probably right...A man who's a real wrong 'un...I don't mean who sets up a gal in a tea-shop...But one who sells his wife, or...At any rate, in our army...The French may be different!...Well, a man like that usually has a yellow streak when it comes to fighting...Mind, I'm not saying always...Usually...There was a fellow called...'
He went off into an anecdote...
Tietjens recognized the pathos of his trying to get away from the agonizing present moment, back to an India where it was all real soldiering and good leather and parades that had been parades. But he did not feel called upon to follow. He could not follow. He was going up the line...
He occupied himself with his mind. What was it going to do? He cast back along his military history: what had his mind done in similar moments before?...But there had never been a similar moment! There had been the sinister or repulsive business of going up, getting over, standing to--even of the casualty clearing-station!...But he had always been physically keener, he had never been so depressed or overwhelmed.
He said to the general:
'I recognize that I cannot stop in this command. I regret it, for I have enjoyed having this unit...But does it necessarily mean the VIth Battalion?'
He wondered what was his own motive at the moment. Why had he asked the general that?...The thing presented itself as pictures: getting down bulkily from a high French train, at dawn. The light picked out for you the white of large hunks of bread--half-loaves--being handed out to troops themselves invisible...The ovals of light on the hats of English troops: they were mostly West Countrymen. They did not seem to want the bread much...A long ridge of light above a wooded bank: then suddenly, pervasively, a sound!...For all the world as, sheltering from rain in a cottager's wash-house on the moors, you hear the cottager's clothes boiling in a copper...Bubble...bubble...bubbubbub...bubble...Not terribly loud--but terribly demanding attention!...The Great Strafe!...
The general had said:
'If I could think of anything else to do with you, I'd do it...But all the extraordinary rows you've got into...They block me everywhere...Do you realize that I have requested General O'Hara to suspend his functions until now?...'
It was amazing to Tietjens how the general mistrusted his subordinates--as well as how he trusted them!...It was probably that that made him so successful an officer. Be worked for by men that you trust: but distrust them all the time--along certain lines of frailty: liquor, women, money!...Well, he had a long knowledge of men!
He said:
'I admit, sir, that I misjudged General O'Hara. I have said as much to Colonel Levin and explained why.'
The general said with a gloating irony:
'A damn pretty pass to come to...You put a general officer under arrest...Then you say you had misjudged him!...I am not saying you were not performing a duty...' He went on to recount the classical case of a subaltern, cited in King's Regulations, temp. William IV, who was court-martialled and broken for not putting under arrest his colonel who came drunk on to parade...He was exhibiting his sensuous delight in misplaced erudition.
Tietjens heard himself say with great slowness:
'I absolutely deny, sir, that I put General O'Hara under arrest! I have gone into the matter very minutely with Colonel Levin.'
The general burst out:
'By God! I had taken that woman to be a saint...I swear she is a saint...
Tietjens said:
'There is no accusation against Mrs Tietjens, sir!'
The general said:
'By God, there is!'
Tietjens said:
'I am prepared to take all the blame, sir.'
The general said:
'You shan't...I am determined to get to the bottom of all this...You have treated your wife damn badly...You admit to that...'
Tietjens said:
'With great want of consideration, sir...'
The general