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By Root 2742 0

for some similar aggression. Sergeant Pendry said he would investigate these activities himself. His rifle was loaded. He approached the sheds, where he disappeared from sight. Nothing was seen in that direction for some minutes; then a dog ran across the road. This dog, it was said afterwards, could have been the cause of the original disturbance. Sergeant Pendry could still not be seen. Then there was the echo of a shot; some said two shots. Pendry did not return. After a while, two men from the pill-box went to look for him. His body was found in a pit or ditch among the shacks. Pendry was dead. His rifle had been fired. It was never cleared up for certain whether an assailant caused his death; whether, in tripping and falling into the pit, his own weapon killed him; whether, alone in that dark gloomy place, oppressed with misery, strung up with lack of sleep, Pendry decided to put an end to himself.

‘He always meant to do it,’ Breeze said.

‘It was murder,’ said Gwatkin, ‘Pendry’s the first. There’ll be others in due course.’

The Court of Inquiry expressed the opinion that Pendry would have acted more correctly in taking a man with him to conduct the investigation. It was doubtful, too, whether he should have loaded his rifle without direct order from an officer. In this respect, standing instructions for roadblock NCOs showed a certain ambiguity. The whole question of ammunition supervision in relation to road-block guards was re-examined, the system later overhauled. Breeze had a trying time while the Court was taking evidence. He was exonerated from all blame, but when opportunity arose, he volunteered for service with one of the anti-tank companies which were being organized on a Divisional basis. Breeze understandably wanted to get away from the Battalion and disagreeable associations. Perhaps he wanted to get away from Gwatkin too. Gwatkin himself, just as he had blamed Bithel for the Deafy Morgan affair, was unwilling to accept the findings of the Court of Inquiry in its complete clearing of Breeze.

‘Yanto was just as responsible for Sergeant Pendry’s death as if he had shot him down from the German trenches,’ Gwatkin said.

‘What could Yanto have done?’

‘Yanto knew, as we all did, that Pendry had talked of such a thing.’

‘I never knew, and Pendry was my own Platoon-Sergeant.’

‘CSM Cadwallader knows more than he will say.’

‘What does the Sergeant-Major think?’

‘He just spoke about Pendry once or twice,’ said Gwatkin moodily. ‘It’s only now I see what he meant. I blame myself too. I should have foreseen it.’

This was another of Gwatkin’s ritual sufferings for the ills of the Battalion. Maelgwyn-Jones took a more robust more objective view, when I went to see him about arrangements for Pendry’s funeral.

‘These things happen from time to Ume,’ he said. ‘It’s just the army. Surprising there aren’t more cases. Here’s the bumph about the firing party to give Rowland.’

‘Almost every man in the Company volunteered for it.’

‘They love this sort of thing,’ said Maelgwyn-Jones. ‘By the way, you’re going to Aldershot on a course next week. Tell Rowland that too.’

‘What sort of a course?’

‘General training.’

I remarked to Gwatkin, when we were turning in that night, how the men had almost fought to be included in the firing party.

‘Nothing brings a company together like death,’ he said sombrely. ‘It looks as though there might be one in my family too. My wife’s father isn’t at all well.’

‘What does he do?’

‘In a bank, like the rest of us,’ said Gwatkin.

He had been thoroughly upset by the Pendry incident. Over the partition, in the store, Lance-Corporal Gittins was still awake. When last seen, he had been sorting huge piles of Army Form ‘ten-ninety-eight’, and was probably still thus engaged. He, too, seemed preoccupied with thoughts of mortality, for, while he sorted, he sang quietly to himself:

‘When I tread the verge of Jordan,

Bid my anxious fears subside,

Death of Death and hell’s destruction,

Land me safe on Canaan’s side:

Songs of praises,

Songs of praises

I will ever give to thee ...’