The Passing Bells (51 page)

He crossed Trafalgar Square and strode as though in a great hurry up St. Martin's Lane until he reached a four-story nondescript building on Shelton Street. There he paused to straighten his uniform, dust his shoes with a handkerchief, and allow his heartbeat to return to normal. He then entered the building and walked slowly up the stairs to the second floor. There were half a dozen officers ahead of him, standing in the corridor or seated on the two wood benches that flanked the door marked
NO.
7 MEDICAL BOARD.
One or two officers carried canes, but most of them looked fit and not altogether overjoyed at that fact.

“Don't I know you?” a major in the Rifle Brigade asked, puffing on a cigarette.

“I don't believe so,” Charles said.

“Thought I did. Sorry. Name's Merton and I'm fit as a fiddle, worse luck. Bound to be sent back to the salient, and I won't be as bloody lucky next time, I can tell you.”

Charles turned away from the man and slowly paced the corridor. At last his name was called.

A gray-haired lance corporal seated behind a desk checked his name off a typewritten list. “Major Greville? Colonel Beaumont would like to see you in his office . . . third door down that hall, sir.”

Colonel Beaumont had been a prominent Harley Street surgeon before the war. Now, at seventy, he found himself a colonel in the RAMC, assigned to a medical board whose job it was to certify wounded officers fit for duty in the line.

“Ah, Greville,” he said warmly as Charles entered his small cluttered office. “How's the pelvis?”

“Better than new.”

“And the leg?”

“The same. One hundred percent. I walked very quickly all the way from Whitehall and don't feel a twinge.”

“Good . . . good. And all the Asian bugs out of your system?”

“I hope so.” He smiled to warn the old man that he was telling a joke. “Haven't seen one of the blighters in weeks.”

“Quite so.” The colonel looked down at his desk and shifted a few loose papers around. “Your coming here today is rather academic, Greville. I am personally delighted to know that you feel as good as new, but you are no longer the responsibility of this board.”

“I'm not sure I understand you, Colonel.”

“We received a directive from General Haldane yesterday informing us that your name is to be stricken from the list of wounded officers awaiting certification for active duty. It would appear that you are part and parcel of NS Five and something calling itself the Landship Committee. Just what a ‘land' ship could be is quite beyond me, sir, but there it is.” He leaned across his desk and extended his hand. “Good luck, Greville. I'm glad I'm not sending you back to the trenches.”

He took a taxi to his office in Old Pye Street, to the building that had been quarters for a variety of governmental functions since the days of Pepys. The marine sentry opened the front door without asking to see his credentials. He was well known now, he thought with a twinge of bitterness. One of the old hands in NS 5. He took the narrow stairs two at a time and went up to the room on the third floor which he shared with a group of other officers, two of them from the navy, and two civilian engineers. Only Lieutenant Commander Penhope, RANS, was at his desk, leaning back in his chair and reading the afternoon edition of the
Daily Post
. A headline screamed:

VERDUN COUNTERATTACK—
LARGE FRENCH GAINS.

“Fisher's been looking for you, Greville,” the naval officer said without glancing away from his newspaper.

Charles sat on the edge of his desk and lit a cigarette.

“Oh? What did he want?”

“The usual strafe. Big Willie failed to impress some brass again. Low on power. He wants you to go up to Yorkshire, or some other heathen place, and check out the specs on a new engine. You're to take Bigsby with you.”

Charles blew a savage stream of smoke. “Why the hell doesn't he just send Bigsby on his own?”

“You know why,” Penhope drawled.

Algernon Bigsby was a civilian, a consumptive-looking middle-aged man who dropped his
h
's. He also chewed cigars and spat a good deal. Algernon Bigsby knew everything there was to know about engines, but staff officers detested him on sight. It would be Bigsby who would check out the specs on the engine in Yorkshire, and Major Greville who would pass on the information—“sell it,” in the argot of NS 5—to the brass.

“Did he say where in Yorkshire?”

“His girl has all the information and the travel vouchers.”

A messenger boy. No more than that. His contribution to the caterpillar-tread landship, now called “tank” MK
I
, or Big Willie, as opposed to Little Willie, which had been a washout, was limited to his ability to be articulate—and, of course, to the assurance of his immediate acceptance in any mess. Algernon Bigsby might have the know-how, but he did not wear a smartly tailored uniform with the badges of the Royal Windsor Fusiliers on his jacket lapels.

There was a cocktail party in progress when he reached home. He had promised Lydia he would be there, but had completely forgotten about it. Archie found the warm yet elegant atmosphere of Bristol Mews conducive to business, to getting disparate elements together, and his daughter was the perfect hostess. Odd types conversed in the second-floor drawing room—a Manchester mill owner cheek to jowl with a labor MP, General Sir William Robertson nodding his head to whatever David Langham was telling him; scientists, engineers, red-tabbed Whitehall brass, politicians, business leaders, and beautifully dressed women blending harmoniously.

Archie met Charles as he came up the stairs and pressed a drink into his hand. Archie Foxe, the perfect host, treating every house he was in as his own.

“Langham is talking to Wully Robertson,” he whispered. “The general would like to meet you. He's expanding his staff, and Langham's been telling him what a fine job you've been doing with NS Five.”

“It's nice of Mr. Langham to look after my interests,” Charles said tautly, “but I'm not suited for a staff job at such a high level.”

Archie's gaze was dyspeptic. “You're too self-effacing, Charles. Thump your bloody chest once in a while and people will sit up and take notice.”

There was no point in trying to explain to Archie that he didn't want to be noticed. Ambition was the banner under which Archie Foxe had always marched. He had carried it proudly out of a Shadwell workhouse to the marble halls of power, and there was no reason for him to think that all other men did not share his belief in it. Sir William “Wully” Robertson certainly did. He had come up from the ranks in Victoria's army to become chief of the Imperial General Staff, and he had not done so by being modest. Robertson liked ambitious people because they were more inclined to get the job done than the stick-in-the-muds.

A job on the general's staff. Red tabs on his lapels. Perhaps a lieutenant colonelcy, to boot. It was his for the asking—if he impressed the general with his zeal, his eagerness to get ahead:

“Yes, sir, I like NS Five, but I find it constricting. My job there is pretty much routine and I'd like to be involved in broader aspects of the war effort.”

Langham would stand on the sidelines, smiling that faintly mocking smile of his, and General Sir William Robertson (“Wully” to his intimates) would smile knowingly, nod his head, and say, in effect, “Can I trust you? Will you do as you're told? Will you aid me in kicking Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener of Khartoum into a cocked hat?”

The politics of the war were being fought in the drawing rooms of London. The unseating of Sir John French, the rise of Sir Douglas Haig, the battles between the Minister of War, Lord Kitchener, and the chief of the Imperial General Staff, “Wully”—it was all going on in this particular drawing room on this particular afternoon in Bristol Mews. Should Kitchener be dethroned—in a polite way, of course—there would be a vacancy in the cabinet, and David Langham might just be the man to fit the empty chair. He would get along well with Robertson and the high brass, but it wouldn't hurt to have a friend on the general's staff.

Good reasoning, Charles thought as he sipped his drink. The only thing wrong with it was that he didn't like David Langham and he had no intention of approaching General Robertson. He drifted to the opposite side of the room, turning his back to the crowd and gazing through the tall windows at the narrow brickpaved street below.

“You're not being very sociable,” Lydia murmured, coming up beside him. “Don't you feel well?”

“I feel fine. Like new, in fact.” He took another pull on his drink. “The medical board informed me that I'm not fit for duty in France . . . but not for physical reasons. Too bloody important for such crass pursuits as shooting Germans. I'm locked into NS Five.”

“Oh, dear”—she kissed him lightly on the cheek—“I had a feeling that would happen. You proved to be too useful to them.” She kissed him again and ran a hand across his back. “Don't fret, my darling. Did Daddy tell you about General Robertson?”

“He . . . mentioned something.”

“A staff job . . . liaison between the General Staff and Haig's headquarters in France. You'd be in Montreuil as much as you'd be in London. And, knowing Wully, I'm sure he'd have you poking your nose into the divisional headquarters to get the type of information he requires. You'd be right in the thick of things and not spending your time with all those eccentrics in Old Pye Street.”

“They're not such bad chaps.”

“Of course they're not, darling, but you do feel a bit out of place. On staff is much more like being in the army. And being across the channel would be more satisfying to you than trudging about farms or visiting factories.”

Her perfume was exquisite. Her silk gown caressed his hand as she pressed against his side. Her touch lingered on his back. He thought of Algernon Bigsby squirting tobacco juice at the oily base of a turret lathe.

“I suppose you're right.”

Her fingers dug into him. “I know I am. Come on, talk to Wully . . . just for a moment . . . just a hello.”

He went over to the general, but had to fight to keep a straight face. General Sir William Robertson dropped his
h
's just like Algernon Bigsby did.

They had separate bedrooms. Hers was frilly and feminine, in cream and gold; his, richly masculine, in mahogany and brass. He came to her room, as his father had gone to Hanna's.

He slumped beside her, feeling sweaty in his nightshirt. He had found it impossible to make love to her. He felt too keyed up, too pressured. He had done no more than move her satin nightgown up to her hips and touch the warm dampness of her thighs.

“Sorry,” he said. “I should have left you in peace.”

“It doesn't matter.” She bent over him and kissed his brow. “Poor tired soldier.”

“I feel such a fraud, Lydia. Too important to be sent to France, and yet anyone could do my job.”

“Perhaps. But not anyone can be on Robertson's staff. He uses his own judgment on that. Did you know that he told the Duke of Hereford that his son wasn't fit to shoe cavalry mounts? It's true! Percy! You know him . . . captain in the Blues. His father could get him that commission, but not a staff job with Wully.”

She stroked his chest, her palm light on the flannel nightshirt. No more than that. It distressed him if she became too bold. Men initiated acts. Women did not.

“I have to go to Yorkshire tomorrow,” he said after a long silence. “To Huddersfield . . . to look at some engines. I take the seven-ten from Saint Pancras.”

“I'll get up early and drive you to the station.”

“No. A car will be here to pick me up.” He turned away from her and sat on the edge of the bed. “I thought I might drop in and see Fenton. He's at Flockton Moor camp, just a short drive from where I'll be.”

“Give him my best,” she said, staring at the ceiling.

“Of course.” He was standing now, ready to go back to his room. He leaned across the bed and kissed her. “When I get back, we'll take off a few days and go down to Lyme Regis. We can rent a cottage . . . bathe in the sea. Would you enjoy that?”

“Very much.”

“And I'll seriously consider that staff appointment . . . if I get asked, that is.”

“You'll get it. He was impressed with you.”

“After a little nudge from Langham?”

“No,” she said tonelessly. “You get everything on your own.”

She parked her car and walked along the embankment, noting the Thames at low tide, birds pecking in the mud flats. She entered the ministry from the river side. The lone marine on guard there telephoned up to Langham's office before allowing her into the building. She did not get lost in the maze of corridors and stairwells and entered the inner chamber of Langham's suite through a side door. It was a dark, musty room lined with law books and great clothbound volumes on economics and vital statistics, coal output, railway tonnage, steel production, and all the other dry facts of national functions. She sat on a leather couch, and after ten minutes David Langham came into the room from the outer office and closed and locked the door.

“I'm glad you came,” he said, barely glancing at her. He removed his coat and began to roll up his sleeves as he walked into the small lavatory to wash his hands. “The general called me this morning. He was impressed with Charles . . . well, why wouldn't he be? The archetype of young peers. Wully admires nobility, but then don't we all?”

“I doubt if you do.”

“Quite wrong, my dear Mrs. Greville. I'm a firm believer in the preservation of relics and national treasures of all sorts.” He came out of the lavatory wiping his hands on a towel. “So, a joyous morning for you. Young Charles will get red tabs on his collars and will no doubt become a brigadier before the war's over. And after the war? Well, who knows? Governor of some speck of the Empire . . . A firm but just hand on the native throat . . . the governor's lady by his side dressed in imperial white, a parasol shielding her lovely head.”