Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (4 page)

Nora, still on the subject of INQUILINE explains that the definition given in the dictionary says, ‘Living in the abode of another like a pea crab in an oyster shell,' and what
is
a pea crab when it is at home. Evade the issue by pointing out to Nora that the pea crab is obviously not inquiline when it is at home, but only when it is living in an oyster shell and register my conviction that the compilers of the dictionary were not conversant with the habits of military folk, or they would have drawn their example from an officer's wife rather than a pea crab.

Nora goes away at last, but I feel that she divines my complete ignorance as to the nature of the pea crab and despises my subterfuge.

Fourteenth January

Go down early to the barracks to arrange about the Christmas tree and spend the morning trying to reconcile Mrs. Harris and Mrs. McInnes – both of whom had been asked by Mrs. Benson to decorate the tree. As Mrs. McInnes is the wife of the R.S.M., and Mrs. Harris the wife of the quartermaster sergeant it appears that Mrs. Benson has shown even less tact than usual in her choice. Find that the only possible way of getting tree decorated is to take a firm stand myself and overrule all suggestions of both my assistants.

After everything has been arranged Major Morley appears with his moving-picture projector followed by his batman bearing a large white screen. Mrs. Benson has asked him to give a movie entertainment but has quite forgotten to tell anybody else that she has done so.

There is nothing for it but to move tree into a corner, during which process most of the decorations fall off. The screen is nailed up on the wall, and we all go home to lunch.

The entertainment starts with tea at three thirty. Infants are fed unsuitably with cake dipped in stewed tea, while larger children cram themselves to bursting point with sugar cakes and meringues. Mrs. Norrie has brought her five children but they all look after each other, the eldest girl (who is Betty's age) has the baby on her knee so that Mrs. Norrie is freed of all material cares and can enjoy herself and gossip amiably with her neighbours. Feel that this is an excellent plan, and might be introduced into other circles with advantage.

Go round making inane remarks to everyone and asking after babies and absentees, but am conscious all the time that I am being a bit of a bore and that the party would go much more cheerily if I were not there.

One of the Clarke children is violently sick, but nobody seems to mind, Mrs C. saying in a deprecating manner that ‘Clarer 'as always suffered something crule from 'er stummick.' Am full of admiration for her sang-froid, as I should have been covered with confusion if Betty had chosen such a public occasion for being unwell.

The tables and chairs are now pushed aside and Sergeant Banks appears dressed as Father Christmas to present the gifts off the tree. He keeps up a running fire of quips and jokes which causes much merriment, but is not calculated to conceal his identity, and it is evident that the youngest child present is not deceived by his red gown and long white beard.

‘Here's a popgun for you, Willie Norrie,' he says jovially, ‘and don't you be shooting at baby sister with it, that's all I say. Keep it to shoot the Germans next time they comes to Biddington. Well, Maisie MacDonald, there's a doll for you somewhere, if I didn't drop it coming down the chimney No, here it is and not a speck of soot on it, I declare Wonderful how clean the chimneys are in this barracks. Paintbox for Sammy Smith You better ask Dad for one of his forms to paint on, Sammy.' (This suggestion brings down the house, as Sammy's father is the orderly-room clerk.)

‘What you got for me, Dad?' shouts the youngest Banks. Father Christmas raises his head and gazes sternly round the hall. ‘I'll trouble you to speak respectfully to me, young Jimmy Banks,' he says gravely. ‘It's Father Christmas is my name or maybe Santa to my closest pals, but I never remember being called Dad before. Never except once and d'you know what happened to that young boy who called me Dad, before?'

‘Got a lickin',' suggests someone facetiously.

‘Lickin'!' echoes Father Christmas scornfully ‘Well you
couldn't
guess, so I'll just tell you. – A bear come out of the wood and eat him up.'

Have a vague feeling that Sergeant Banks has mixed up Father Christmas's mantle with that of Elisha, but have no time to think it out at present. What does it matter anyway, the children are pleasantly thrilled and everyone is pleased.

Major Morley arrives to give his cinema show long before Banks has finished, and we stand in a corner together and watch the fun. ‘Banks is enjoying himself,' Major Morley says.

‘Everybody is,' I reply vaguely, but with truth; and, indeed, there is not a dull or sulky person to be seen. Every face is shining, not only with the outward shininess of heat, and a good tea, but also with the inward glow of unselfconscious enjoyment.

‘Simple people,' Major Morley says thoughtfully. ‘I used to get a laugh out of this show – tongue in my cheek, you know – but I've grown wiser now. Awfully clean chaps soldiers, in spite of smells and bad language –awfully clean. Kind too. Look at old McInnes with that lame child of the Norries' – and then think of him on the barrack square. He's quite unselfconscious, that's what it is.
We're too civilized
– too afraid of what the next-door feller is going to say about us.'

Banks is finished now and is helped down off the platform by willing hands. He is still talking, having got completely wound up – something about his reindeer, I think it is – but Banks's hour is over and nobody is listening to him now.

We clear away the wreck of the tree and everyone helps to put the chairs in rows for the movie performance. Major Morley sets up his apparatus and the lights are lowered. There are gasps of joy when Mickey Mouse appears on the screen, he is an old favourite. Then comes Charlie Chaplin in one of his old knockabout comedies, then a film for the little ones of comic monkeys riding on a train. After the monkeys Major Morley turns to me with a wicked grin which looks positively saturnine as he leans over the light of the projector in the dark hall and says, ‘Remember that day at Littlehampton?'

I do remember it and say, ‘No! No! Don't please!' But the dreadful man has already started his infernal machine and I see myself coming towards me on the screen, clad in a bathing suit. There are wild cries of ‘Mrs. Christie, Mrs. Christie,' as I wave my hand, and do a few steps of a dance in a perfectly idiotic manner. Betty and Bryan now appear running headlong down the sands, we chase each other madly, and then run into the sea where there is a lot of splashing. I emerge from the waves gasping like a codfish Tim now comes on the scene and we all take hands and dance a ‘jingo-ring' in the water.

Such torrents of applause greet this film and such shouts of delight and excitement that Major Morley shows it again, and once more I see myself as others see me a strange and not altogether gratifying experience.

Major Morley looks at me and says gravely, ‘I wonder if Mary Pickford has ever had such an ovation.'

Am still pondering this remark and trying to make up my mind whether he is laughing at me or not, when Sergeant Norrie stands up and calls for silence.

‘I don't wonder we are all clapping our 'ands off at this film,' he says beaming round at the assembled company, ‘it's because we all knows Mrs. Christie, isn't it? Look at all she does for us and the interest she takes in the kiddies. Now we been told as how Mrs. Christie is going away, and we knows we'll all miss her very badly because why? Because she always has a smile for everyone. Well, all I can say is we'll look forward to seeing her and the captain back to the regiment some day, and we wishes them luck, and we shan't forget them, and we hopes they won't forget us. So now we'll give three cheers for Mrs. Christie – Hip, hip, hurrah – '

Am absolutely overcome at this unexpected turn in events and stand there shaking like a jelly while the hall echoes and re-echoes with cheers. Major Morley jogs my arm and tells me to ‘say something'.

I reply that I can't.

He says that I must.

I am hoisted willy-nilly and by main force on to the platform, where I stand for a few moments absolutely struck dumb. Then I hear my own voice saying feebly that I thank them all for the splendid cheers and that I shall miss them all frightfully, but that, however far away we are, we all belong to the same regiment and they may be sure I shall never forget my friends.

More cheers.

I am hauled down off the platform in a state bordering on collapse and am taken home in a taxi by Major Morley.

Fifteenth January

Take Bryan over to Nearhampton in the car. Feel as if Tim and I were a couple of jailers taking Bryan to prison. Talk feverishly all the time about seeing Bryan at half term and of the fun we shall have in Easter holidays.

Tim and Bryan monosyllabic. Bryan very pale. Ask anxiously several times if he feels quite well (Bryan having been known to be sick in the car without adequate warning).

Several other prisoners have already been deposited by parents and these hail Bryan lugubriously as we drive up to the door.

Tim and I are invited to stay to tea with Mr. and Mrs. Parker and are conducted upstairs to a large room full of photographs of boys in cricket flannels, boys in football jerseys, boys in Etons either singly or in groups. We sit and make conversation for about half an hour drinking scented China tea and eating very small sandwiches filled with mashed banana. The Parkers talk about their boys past and present, and point out photographs of those who have achieved fame in the field of sport or learning.

We depart as soon as tea is over to the obvious relief of the Parkers. Suggest we should find Bryan to say ‘Good-bye,' but Tim says, ‘Better not,' so we drive off without having done so. Tim spends the next two hours explaining to me why it is So Good for Boys to Go to School, which confirms me in my suspicion that he feels like a jailer too.

I agree with all he says, but secretly I wonder whether it is really so necessary, and why.

Sixteenth January

Am bidden by a mysterious telephone message to ‘call at the barracks at 5.30 and fetch Captain Christie home.' Cassandra and I haste to the assignation through torrents of rain. Darkness has fallen when we reach the Mess buildings. I shut off the engine and for some minutes we remain in solitude and silence – silence save for the rain which beats heavily on Cassandra's not altogether waterproof hood and courses down the windshield in huge drops like the abnormal tears of a movie actress.

Suddenly a voice announces ‘My Gosh if it isn't Cassandra – AND Mrs. Tim – you'd better come in, Tim will be ages. He's been stung with Uncle Frankie's lecture on rear-guard actions.'

It is the Child – so called from his immense size and domineering manner. I remonstrate feebly but am assured that it is absolutely O.K. as all the Senior Swabs are well occupied, or out, and he is alone in the Mess except for Jack McDougall and Tubby. ‘You'll drown or freeze if you sit here much longer – what you need is a cocktail,' he asserts. I suddenly discover that the Child is right, my feet are wet and my nose is blue with cold.

The Mess is warm and comfortable, I am parked on the fender stool with a cocktail and a cigarette, and feel extraordinarily daring.

‘What about a spot of bridge?' says Tubby Baxter, ‘it's been a ghastly afternoon. Three-handed bridge with the Child is like a game out of
Alice in Wonderland
. He goes five spades with nothing above the Knave in his hand and picks up Ace, King, Queen in dummy!'

I make tentative enquiries as to how long Tim is likely to be. ‘Hours,' says Jack comfortably, ‘Uncle Frankie handed over all his notes – which he culls from the campaigns of Hannibal – and poor old Tim is too conscientious not to work through the lot. The N.C.O.s hate these Saturday afternoon lectures like sin.'

‘One of our dear C.O.'s most popular ideas,' adds the Child, ‘Never knew a man to have so many popular ideas.'

‘Uncle Frankie's gone to have a binge with Aunt Loo in the great metropolis,' says Tubby confidentially, ‘Westminster Abbey tomorrow morning, and the Zoo in the afternoon. Hope they won't mistake him for a sea lion.'

‘Now, now!' remonstrates the Child wagging a huge finger with mock severity. ‘Don't you let me hear you speaking disrespectfully of our colonel and his lady, Algernon Reginald Baxter, or I shall be obliged to clear the Mess.'

During this nonsensical conversation I have been looking round the Mess – that holy of holies into which no woman is ever supposed to penetrate. Huge deep chairs of shabby leather stand round the fire. The carpet is thick and grey with dust. Dust lodges in the deep old-fashioned carving of a tall cupboard and nestles comfortably in the thick red curtains which cover the windows. Dust hangs in the air mingling with the blue smoke of Virginia tobacco and settles on the stags' antlers and battle pictures which decorate the walls. On shelves, mantelpiece and side tables, silver trophies gleam and twinkle in the light. I feel it is too like the popular idea of an officers' Mess to be really real.

‘Well,' says the Child with mischief in his brown eye, ‘what's the verdict, Mrs. Tim?'

‘The verdict is a vacuum cleaner,' I reply instantly.