No More Parades_ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [79]
The boy answered: 'No, sir, I did. They're all right.' He pulled a slip of paper out of his tunic pocket and said shyly:
'If you would not mind signing this, sir...I can get a lift on an A.S.C. trolley that's going to Boulogne to-morrow at six...'
Tietjens said:
'No, you can't have leave. I can't spare you. What's it for?'
The boy said almost inaudibly that he wanted to get married.
Tietjens, still signing, said: 'Don't...Ask your married pals what it's like!'
The boy, scarlet in his khaki, rubbed the sole of one foot on the instep of the other. He said that saving madam's presence it was urgent. It was expected any day now. She was a real good gel. Tietjens signed the boy's slip and handed it to him without looking up. The boy stood with his eyes on the ground. A diversion came from the telephone, which was at the far end of the room. Cowley had not been able to get on to the camp because an urgent message with regard to German espionage was coming through to the sleeping general.
Cowley began to shout: Tor goodness' sake hold the line...For goodness' sake hold the line...I'm not the general...I'm not the general...' Tietjens told the orderly to awaken the sleeping warrior. A violent scene at the mouth of the quiescent instrument took place. The general roared to know who was the officer speaking...Captain Bubbleyjocks...Captain Cuddlestocks...what in hell's name! And who was he speaking for?...Who? Himself?...Urgent was it?...Didn't he know the proper procedure was by writing?...Urgent damnation!...Did he not know where he was?...In the First Army by the Cassell Canal...Well then...But the spy was in L. of C. territory, across the canal...The French civilian authorities were very concerned...They were, damn them!...And damn the officer. And damn the French maire. And damn the horse the supposed spy rode upon...And when the officer was damned let him write to First Army Headquarters about it and attach the horse and the bandoliers as an exhibit...
There was a great deal more of it. Tietjens, reading his papers still, intermittently explained the story as it came in fragments over the telephone in the general's repetitions...Apparently the French civilian authorities of a place called Warendonck had been alarmed by a solitary horseman in English uniform who had been wandering desultorily about their neighbourhood for several days, seeming to want to cross the canal bridges, but finding them guarded...There was an immense artillery dump in the neighbourhood, said to be the largest in the world, and the Germans dropped bombs as thick as peas all over those parts in the hopes of hitting it...Apparently the officer speaking was in charge of the canal bridgehead guards; but, as he was in First Army country, it was obviously an act of the utmost impropriety to awaken a general in charge of the spy-catching apparatus on the other side of the canal...The general, returning past them to an arm-chair farther from the telephone, emphasized this point of view with great vigour.
The orderly had returned; Cowley went once more to the telephone, having consumed another liqueur brandy. Tietjens finished his papers and went through them rapidly again. He said to the boy: 'Got anything saved up?' The boy said: 'A fiver and a few bob.' Tietjens said: 'How many bob?' The boy: 'Seven, sir.' Tietjens, fumbling clumsily in an inner pocket and a little pocket beneath his belt, held out one leg-of-mutton fist and said: 'There! That will double it. Ten pounds fourteen! But it's very improvident of you. See that you save up a deuced lot more against the next one. Accouchements are confoundedly expensive things, as you'll learn, and ring money doesn't stretch for ever!...' He called out to the retreating boy: 'Here, orderly, come back...' He added: 'Don't let it get all over camp...I can't afford to subsidize all the seven-months children in the battalion...I'll recommend you for paid lance-corporal when you return from leave if you go on as well as you have done.' He called the boy back again to ask him why Captain McKechnie had not signed