• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2741 0

Gwylt. I was in no mood for pity. If the meal had made Sayce feel queasy, that was better than having no meal at all. Such was my answer. All these things obstructed progress for about ten minutes. I feared Gwatkin might return to find reasonable cause for complaint in this delay, but Gwatkin had disappeared, bent on making life uncomfortable for someone else, or perhaps anxious only to find a quiet place where he could himself mope for a short period, while recovering his own morale. Sergeant Pendry was still showing less than his usual vigour in keeping things on the move. There could be no doubt Breeze had been right about Pendry, I thought, unless he turned out to be merely unwell, sickening for some illness, rather than suffering from a hangover. He dragged his feet when he walked, hardly able to shout out a command. I took him aside as the last man settled into the truck.

‘Are you feeling all right, Sergeant?’

He looked at me as if he did not understand.

‘All right, sir?’

‘You got something to eat with the others just now?’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

‘Enough?’

‘Plenty there, sir. Didn’t feel much like food, it was.’

‘Are you sick?’

‘Not too good, sir.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Don’t know just what, sir.’

‘But you must know if you’re feeling ill.’

‘Had a bit of a shock back home, it was.’

This was no time to go into the home affairs of the platoon’s personnel, now that at last we were ready and I wanted to give the driver the order to move off.

‘Have a word with me when we get back to barracks.’

‘All right, sir.’

I climbed into the truck beside the driver. We travelled several miles as far as some crossroads. There we left the truck, which returned to its base. Platoon HQ was set up in a dilapidated cowshed, part of the buildings of a small farm that lay not far away across the fields. When everything was pretty well established in the cowshed, including the siting of the imaginary 2-inch mortar which travelled round with us, I went off to look for the rope bridge over the canal. This was found without much difficulty. A corporal was in charge. I explained my mission, and enquired about the bridge’s capacity.

‘It do wobble a fair trifle, sir.’

‘Stand by while I cross.’

‘That I will, sir.’

I started to make the transit, falling in after about three or four yards. The water might have been colder for the time of year. I swam the rest of the way, reaching the far bank not greatly wetter than the rain had left me. There I wandered about for a time, making notes of matters to be regarded as important in the circumstances. After that, I came back to the canal, and, disillusioned as to the potentialities of the rope bridge, swam across again. The canal banks were fairly steep, but the corporal helped me out of the water. He did not seem in the least surprised to find that I had chosen this method of return in preference to his bridge.

‘Very shaky, those rope bridges,’ was all he said.

By now it was dark, rain still falling. I returned to the cowshed. There a wonderful surprise was waiting. It appeared that Corporal Gwylt, accompanied by Williams, W. H., had visited the neighbouring farm and managed to wheedle from the owners a jug of tea.

‘We saved a mug for you, sir. Wet you are, by Christ, too.’

I could have embraced him. The tea was of the kind Uncle Giles used to call ‘a good sergeant-major’s brew’. It tasted like the best champagne. I felt immediately ten years younger, hardly wet at all.

‘She was a big woman that gave us that jug of tea, she was,’ said Corporal Gwylt.

He addressed Williams, W. H.

‘Ah, she was,’ agreed Williams, W. H.

He looked thoughtful. Good at running and singing, he was otherwise not greatly gifted.

‘She made me afraid, she did,’ said Corporal Gwylt. ‘I would have been afraid of that big woman in a little bed.’

‘Indeed, I would too that,’ said Williams, W. H., looking as if he were sincere in the opinion.

‘Would you not have been afraid of her, Sergeant Pendry, a great big woman twice your size?’

‘Shut your mouth,’ said Sergeant Pendry, with unexpected force. ‘Must you ever be talking