The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [25]
Gwatkin sat at the trestle table with the army blanket over it. I stood behind. Sayce, capless, was marched in by CSM Cadwallader and a corporal.
‘You and the escort can leave the room, Sergeant-Major,’ said Gwatkin. ‘I want to have a word with this soldier in private – that is to say myself and his Platoon Commander, Mr Jenkins.’
The Sergeant-Major and other NCO withdrew.
‘You can stand easy, Sayce,’ said Gwatkin.
Sayce stood easy. His yellow face showed distrust.
‘I want to speak to you seriously, Sayce,’ said Gwatkin. ‘To speak to you as man to man. Do you understand what I mean, Sayce?’
Sayce made some inaudible reply.
‘It is not my wish, Sayce, to be always punishing you,’ said Gwatkin slowly. ‘Is that clear? I do not like doing that at all.’
Sayce muttered again. It seemed very doubtful that he found Gwatkin’s statement easy to credit. Gwatkin leant forward over the table. He was warming up. Within him were deep reserves of emotion. He spoke now with that strange cooing tone he used on the telephone.
‘You can do better, Sayce. I say you can do better.’
He fixed Sayce with his eye. Sayce’s own eyes began to roll.
‘You’re a good fellow at heart, aren’t you, Sayce?’
All this was now beginning to tell on Sayce. I had to admit to myself there was nothing I should have liked less than to be grilled by Gwatkin in this fashion. A week’s CB would be infinitely preferable. Sayce began swallowing.
‘You are, Sayce, aren’t you?’ Gwatkin repeated more pressingly, as if time were becoming short for Sayce to reveal that unexpected better side of himself, and gain salvation.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Sayce, very low.
He spoke without much conviction. That could scarcely be because there was doubt in his mind of his own high qualifications. He probably suspected any such information, freely given, might be a dangerous admission, lead to more work.
‘Well, Sayce,’ said Gwatkin, ‘that is what I am going to believe about you. Believe you are a good fellow. You know why we are all here?’
Sayce did not answer.
‘You know why we are all here, Sayce,’ said Gwatkin again, louder this time, his voice shaking a little with his own depths of feeling. ‘Come on, Sayce, you know.’
‘Don’t know, sir.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Don’t, sir.’
‘Come on, man.’
Sayce made a great effort.
‘To give me CB for being on a charge,’ he offered wretchedly.
It was a reasonable hypothesis, but Gwatkin was greatly disturbed at being so utterly misunderstood.
‘No, no,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean why we are in the Company Office at this moment. I mean why we are all in the army. You must know that, Sayce. We are here for our country. We are here to repel Hitler. You know that as well as I do. You don’t want Hitler to rule over you, Sayce, do you?’
Sayce gulped again, as if he were not sure.
‘No, sir,’ he agreed, without much vigour.
‘We must all, every one of us, do our best,’ said Gwatkin, now thoroughly worked up. ‘I try to do my best as Company Commander. Mr Jenkins and the other officers of the Company do their best. The NCOs and privates do their best. Are you going to be the only one, Sayce, who is not doing his best?’
Sayce was now in almost as emotional a state as Gwatkin himself. He continued to gulp from time to time, looking wildly round the room, as if for a path of escape.
‘Will you do your best in future, Sayce?’
Sayce began sniffing frantically.
‘I will, sir.’
‘Do you promise me, Sayce.’
‘All right, sir.’
‘And we’re agreed you’re a good chap, aren’t we?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Indeed, Sayce seemed moved almost to tears by the thought of all his own hitherto unrevealed goodness.
‘Never had a chance since I’ve been with the unit,’ he managed to articulate.
Gwatkin rose to his feet.
‘We’re going to shake hands, Sayce,’ he said.
He came round to the front of the table and held out his palm. Sayce took it gingerly, as if he still suspected a trick, a violent electric shock, perhaps, or just a terrific blow on the ear administered by Gwatkin’s other hand. However, Gwatkin did no more than shake Sayce’s own