THE CINDER PATH (26 page)

He stared at Charlie now before adding, "I'm

surprised you didn't put in for one right away. You

went to a good school."

"Yes, sir; but I had to leave before I was

seventeen."

"Oh well, that's really neither here nor there.

Well now, as you know, we're looking for officer

material and I've been through your papers and you

seem, well-was the face stretched into a

smile-"pretty suitable material."

Charlie supposed he should have said, "Thank you,

sir," but he remained silent; he was experiencing a sort of pleasant shock. That was until he was

attacked by a thought. Why were they choosing him all of a sudden? This business of recruiting officers had been

going on for weeks. Was Major Smith putting him

on the spot where he wouldn't be able to do anything about Victoria, at least put him in a position where

he would find it very difficult? His jaws were tight,

his face straight, his words clipped, as he asked,

"May I enquire, sir, when my name was first put

forward?"

"What? ... Oh! ... Oh! let me see."

He again thumbed through the papers, then said, "It isn't here, it's likely in the files."

The lieutenant stood up, then in a leisurely

fashion strolled towards a cabinet in the corner

of the room. He pulled open the top drawer,

flicked through some files, closed it, opened the

second drawer and after some more thumbing picked out a single sheet of paper, glanced at it, then as he

replaced it in the drawer he turned and looked at

Charlie. "Ten days ago; but, of course, we have

to go into things, you understand?"

"Yes, sir." The excited feeling was flooding

him again and at the moment he could think of only one

thing, one person, Slater, and the ecstatic

satisfaction of breaking the news to the red-headed

swine.

"You . . . you haven't any children?" Again the papers were being flicked through.

"No, sir."

"Your wife runs the farm?"

"No, sir, my sister; my wife lives in

Newcastle."

"Oh!" The head was back on the shoulders. "You have a house there?"

"Yes, sir."

"How nice, how nice; and convenient; nice

to slip home at times."

"Yes, sir."

"I myself am from Dorset, it's quite a way."

"Yes, sir, it is quite a way."

"Well now, you know everything doesn't happen

overnight. Well, that is, not quite." He gave a

little laugh here, then said, "You'll have to do a little training, and so although, as you know, a great many of us here are, well, just on the point of making a move,

I'm afraid we'll be going one way and

you another. Pity, but that's the way of things. But we may meet up again, who knows. Let me see. Ah

yes, you can report within the next hour

to Second-Lieutenant Harbridge. I'll get

in touch with him and he'll put you wise to everything.

Now all I can say is-was He rose to his

feet, extended his hand, and ended, "Welcome.

his

"Thank you, sir."

The grip of Lieutenant Swaine's hand was

firm, in contrast to his lazy-sounding voice.

"The best of luck."

"And to you, sir."

The movement of the lieutenant's head was a

signal that the interview was at an end. Charlie

came smartly to attention, saluted, turned about and

marched out of the room.

The corporal standing outside stared at him but said

no word, but with a narrow-eyed, quizzical look he

watched him leave the building and would no doubt have

followed his progress from the window had he not been

beckoned back into the room by the sound of the

lieutenant's voice.

As Charlie went through the gap between the buildings part of him seemed to be afloat. He was going

to be an officer, an ofsticerl

How would he break the news to Slater? Stick it

into him like a bayonet or let it be seemingly

slowly dragged out of himself by taunts?

Bayonets. He wouldn't be required now

to stick a bayonet into somebody's belly, twist it

and pull it out, and all the while screaming at his

victim. No, he'd be able to finish Mm off

cleanly with a pistol shot. But then again he

might never be called upon to use a pistol.

He was going to be an officer.

He was really going to be an officer. He had

lied when he said that he didn't think he was officer

material. He had often wished to be in that position,

if only for twenty-four hours. And now he had

been given the chance, not only for twenty-four hours

but for as long as the war lasted. No, that was wrong, for just as long as he managed to survive in it. But all

he wanted at present was to savour the next

half-hour.

As he crossed the main square he saw Slater

standing in the far corner talking to an officer, and he hurried towards the hut. It wasn't his intention

to break the news to him when he was alone, no, he

wanted the same audience around him that

Slater had felt he was entitled to. *

He found the hut in a bustle of activity.

"It's come! We're moving," someone called

to him.

And another voice cried, "What did they want

you for, Lofty? Did you get it in the neck?"

Before Charlie had time to answer, some joker called

out, "Why, no! man; they're short of generals and

they asked him to step

in.

"Stranger things have been known to happen."

There was a pause in the bustling for a moment as all

eyes were turned in his direction; then when he went

to his bed and, instead of grabbing at his kit, sat

down on the edge of it, some of them gazed steadily

towards him.

"Come on! you'd better put a move on." It

was Johnny speaking to him now. "We're due

outside in ten minutes. . . . Oh this bloody

cap!"

"I shan't be coming with you, Johnny."

"Either me bloody head's swollen or it's

shrunk. . . . What did you say, Charlie?"

"I said I'll not be coming with you."

"What's he done to you now, put you in

clink?"

"No."

"Well, what, man?" He was bending down

to Charlie now, whispering, and Charlie, putting up his hand and gripping his friend's tunic, whispered back,

"Say nothing yet, I want to hit him with it,

I'm getting a commission,"

"Bugger me! No!"

"Yes."

"God Almighty! of all the things I expected

to hear. Eeh!, Charlie lad! Charlie!"

When Johnny's two hands came out, Charlie said

quietly, "Not yet; let him come in first."

"Aye, aye!" Johnny backed from him and

flopped down on to his bed and he shook his head

slowly now as he said, "By! I'm glad for you,

I am that. And yet what am I talkin" about?

That's the finish of us, isn't it? Officers an' men

from now on. Aw, I'm sorry about that, yet at the

same time, eeh! I can hardly believe it."

"What can't you believe?"

One of the men hugging a pack up the aisle stopped

for a moment and glanced at them, and Johnny, looking

towards him, grinned as he said, "Charlie here's

tellin' me his greatgranny's gone on the

streets, an' he's given me her number. Would you

like it?"

"To hell with you!"

"And you an" all, mate."

"Come on! Come on! Jump to it!"

Slater had entered the hut. He was throwing his

orders from left to right as he walked briskly

forward; then he came to a dead halt when he saw

Charlie sitting on the side of his bed. Johnny,

having now got to his feet, was busy gathering his

kit together.

cc

ttl

"Well! well! what have we here? A sick man

no doubt."

Charlie remained seated. A momentary stillness

crept over the room as the men looked towards the

tall figure sitting upright on the bed, all their

eyes expressing the same thought: Silly bugger!

he was asking for it now all right.

"You're goin" to report sick, eh?"

"No, Sergeant."

"No! Yet here you are recl*' on your bed.

Surely you've been told"-he moved his

hand in a slow wide motion to encompass all in the

room-"that we're off for foreign parts!"

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Well then, you've decided that you don't want

to go "cos . . . well you're more than likely

to see a lot of nasty blood an" there'll be

bang-bangs?"

This pleasantry was received without the sound of one

titter, there was something going on here that the men didn't understand, except that some of them thought that Lofty must have gone mad and had decided to do for the sergeant and stand the consequences. And who could blame him?

"On your feet!"

There was the slightest pause before Charlie unfolded

his long length and stood upright, but not too straight, certainly not to attention.

"Now, Mis-ter MacFell, you either getste

in"-Slater stressed the pun-"or I'll assist

you with me boot in your arse."

"Sergeant, I'd advise you to be careful!"

The tone had the effect on the men in the room of

an electric shock. Their eyes stretched to their

fullest as they listened to the long-suffering and

easy-going fellow they knew as Lofty saying, "As

at this moment I am not in a position to put

you on a charge but nevertheless I can report you. For

your information, Sergeant Slater, I would inform you that I have been recommended for a cornmission". Whether the promotion would be starting at this precise hour he didn't know, and neither would Slater or anyone else

in the room, but what he did know, and what he was

experiencing at this moment, was an amazing feeling of

triumph as he watched the effect his words were having

on Slater. For the moment the man seemed dumbfounded

and there was on his face, not the same look of fear that had been on it, as Charlie remembered when a child, but the look of a

defeated man. But it remained only a matter of

seconds, and then Slater had turned from him and was

bawling at his platoon, "Out! Out the lot of you!

Get goin'!"

He was marching up and down the room now hustling and

bustling while Charlie remained standing perfectly still by the side of his bed; that was until Johnny gripped

his hand and said, "Well, so long, lad."

"So long, Johnny."

"Think we'll ever see each other again?"

"Yes; yes, I do, Johnny. I'm sure

we shall, somewhere some time, and if not now, after the war.

I'll never forget how you've helped me

over the stickiest patch of my life. I think I

would have done murder if it hadn't have been for you."

They stared at each other for a moment, until

Slater's voice, almost screaming now, filled the

hut crying, "Come on! Come on!"

"Bye, lad."

"Bye, Johnny."

After bustling the last man out of the hut, Slater

didn't follow him, he banged the door closed

behind the man, then walked slowly back up the room

until he was once again confronting Charlie. But he

seemed to find it difficult to speak now; when he

did he said,

"So you wangled it somehow, did you? "cos you couldn't have got it any other way. Oh"-he looked

about him-"as you said yourself you don't know when exactly you're comin" into your glory so to all intents and purposes you're still muck to me, and there's nobody

here to hear me say it."

"No, for once you haven't got an audience,

Slater. And it may surprise you that I didn't

wangle it, it was offered to me."

Their eyes were locked in mutual hate; then

Slater, his mouth twisting, said, "There's

something fishy here "cos I've blacklisted you all the way through, I haven't said a good word for you."

"Well, all I can say to that, Slater, is that

the officers are not the fools you take them for, and when they have been summing up my capabilities most

likely at the same time they have been summing up the

lack of yours; otherwise, surely, if for nothing

else but your raucous voice you should have been a

sergeant-major by now."

"Be careful!"

"Oh, as you said, there's no one to hear us."

Slater swallowed deeply, took one step

back, went to move away, then turned and

faced Charlie again; and now he said, "This

is a flash in the pan; you're a loser; you were

born a loser; you couldn't even keep a wife.

I

managed that, and I've got two bairns to

show for it." The quick steps died away, the door

banged, he was alone in the hut. Again he sat

bar down on the edge of the bed. Slater's last

words were rankling; you couldn't even keep

a wife . . . you're a loser; you were born a

loser.

For a moment he was overcome by a fear I

of the future when he'd be entering the

company, not of men, but ... of officers.

Would he lose out there an" all? It would be up

to him, wouldn't it? Yes; yes, it would.

He did not spring from the bed, determined " now

to start as he meant to go on, definite, full

of purpose and patriotic enthusiasm. Instead,

to he took time gathering up his belongings before

1 walking with them towards the door. But he did

be not go out on to the square, for it was packed : with men, the men of A, B and C cornpanies, almost the