The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [195]
“Pacifists! It’s all very well for you lily-livered youngsters who were hiding at home behind your mother’s skirts. Think of the men who were risking their lives in France and risking them for you! Major, you were risking your life in France... Perhaps you’d tell these young pacifists whether it was treachery or not!”
The Major sat dumbly at the end of his table. There was a long, an interminable silence. Even Murphy, carrying round the cups of coffee, froze in his tracks and arrested his laboured breathing. At length the Major heaved a sigh and said, softly but audibly: “You’re perfectly right, Edward. I think we all felt we’d been stabbed in the back.”
“There, you see,” cried Edward triumphantly.
“What did I tell you? Treachery!”
But Danby, his eyes twinkling with the pleasure of doing battle with this redoubtable old juggernaut, appeared not in the least abashed. He smiled impishly at his friends and then said: “Really, sir, you can’t classify us all as cowards quite as easily as that. My friend Captain Roberts here, for example, served most heroically in France and I believe he feels, as we all do, that the Easter Week affair was perfectly justified. How about it, Roberts?”
Once again there was a pause and a seemingly interminable silence while everyone held their breath. Captain Roberts blinked and licked his lips. His balding undergraduate head was a great mass of wavy wrinkles as he contemplated the toad which had been put on his plate. For a moment even Danby wondered whether he might not have been over-confident. But then at last Captain Roberts cleared his throat and murmured hoarsely: “Perfectly justified...We all thought so...”
He had opened his mouth wide. He had swallowed the toad. “Good old Roberts!” the undergraduates were thinking and, beside him, Bunny Burdock surreptitiously gave his arm an encouraging, comradely squeeze. But Captain Roberts was careful to avoid the Major’s eye.
A thunderous crash cut short the undergraduates’ jubilation. It came from Edward’s heavy oak chair, which had flown back ten feet and overturned. He was on his feet, his face white and working with fury, glaring at Roberts. But then, without a word he turned and strode out of the room.
The Major, who had glimpsed the expression on his face, hurried after him, napkin in hand—but when he reached the door he thought better of it. He listened to the diminishing echo of Edward’s heavy footsteps on the tiles of the corridor and then, folding his napkin, returned to his place.
It was at this moment that Maitland, who had taken a sip of Murphy’s bitter brew, took the lid off the sugar-bowl in front of him. Instead of lumps of sugar it contained a pile of dully glistening metal lozenges...revolver bullets! Making a droll face he picked one up, dropped it into his coffee and began to stir it with the barrel of the revolver beside his plate.
This was altogether too much for the undergraduates. They had been close to bursting all evening. Now all they could do was throw back their heads and howl with laughter till their ribs ached.
This great gale of youthful laughter filled the dining-room and echoed away down dim, empty corridors, ringing faintly through all the familiar sitting-rooms, dusty, silent and forgotten; penetrating to the floors above with their disused bedrooms and dilapidated bathrooms and to the damp, sleeping cellars, quiet now for eternity, unvisited except by the rats. It was such healthy, good-natured laughter that even the old ladies found themselves smiling or chuckling gently. Only Captain Roberts at one table and the Major at the other showed no sign of amusement. They sat on in silence, chin in hand, perhaps, or rubbing their eyes wearily, waiting in patient dejection for the laughter to come to an end.
The body might well have been left in the potting-shed where it had first been carried, or dragged rather, and laid out on a pile of old potato sacks. But the shed was a damp and draughty place, smelling strongly of earth and