‘Where the deuce is the draft?’
The sergeant-major looked poetically8 down a ribbon of whitewashed9 stones that descended10 the black down-side. Over the next shoulder of hill was the blur12 of a hidden conflagration13.
‘There’s a Hun plane burning down there. In Twenty-Seven’s parade ground. The draft’s round that, sir,’ he said. Tietjens said:
‘Good God!’ in a voice of caustic14 tolerance15. He added, ‘I did think we had drilled some discipline into these blighters in the seven weeks we have had them . . . You remember the first time when we had them on parade and that acting16 lance-corporal left the ranks to heave a rock at a sea-gull . . . And called you ‘OP’ Hunkey! . . . Conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline? Where’s that Canadian sergeant-major? Where’s the officer in charge of the draft?’
Sergeant-Major Cowley said:
‘Sergeant-Major Ledoux said it was like a cattle-stampede on the . . . some river where they come from. You couldn’t stop them, sir. It was their first German plane . . . And they going up the line to-night, sir.’
‘To-night!’ Tietjens exclaimed. ‘Next Christmas!’ The sergeant-major said:
‘Poor boys!’ and continued to gaze into the distance. ‘I heard another good one, sir,’ he said. ‘The answer to the one about the King saluting17 a private soldier and he not taking any notice is: when he’s dead . . . But if you marched a company into a field through a gateway18 and you wanted to get it out again but you did not know any command in the drill book for change of direction, what would you do, sir? . . . You have to get that company out, but you must not use About Turn, or Right or Left Wheel . . . There’s another one, too, about saluting . . . The officer in charge of draft is Second-Lieutenant19 Hotchkiss . . . But he’s an A.S.C. officer and turned of sixty. A farrier he is, sir in civil life. An A.S.C. major was asking me, sir, very civil, if you could not detail someone else. He says he doubts if Second Lieutenant Hitchcock . . . Hotchkiss could walk as far as the station, let alone march the men, him not knowing anything but cavalry20 words of command, if he knows them. He’s only been in the army a fortnight . . . ’
Tietjens turned from the idyllic21 scene with the words:
‘I suppose the Canadian sergeant-major and Lieutenant Hotchkiss are doing what they can to get their men come back.’
He re-entered the hut.
Captain Mackenzie in the light of a fantastically brilliant hurricane lamp appeared to be bathing dejectedly in a surf of coiling papers spread on the table before him.
‘There’s all this bumph,’ he said, ‘just come from all the headquarters in the bally world.’
Tietjens said cheerfully:
‘What’s it all about?’ There were, the other answered, Garrison22 Headquarter orders, Divisional orders, Lines of Communication orders, half a dozen A.F.W.B. two four two’s . A terrific strafe from First Army forwarded from Garrison H.Q. about the draft’s not having reached Hazebrouck the day before yesterday. Tietjens said:
‘Answer them politely to the effect that we had orders not to send off the draft without its complement23 of four hundred Canadian Railway Service men — the fellows in furred hoods24. They only reached us from Etaples at five this afternoon without blankets or ring papers. Or any other papers for the matter of that.’
Mackenzie was studying with increased gloom a small buff memorandum25 slip:
‘This appears to be meant for you privately,’ he said.
‘I can’t make head or tail of it otherwise. It isn’t marked private.’
He tossed the buff slip across the table.
Tietjens sank down bulkily on to his bully-beef case. He read on the buff at first the initials of the signature, ‘E.C. Genl.’, and then: ‘For God’s sake keep your wife off me. I will not have skirts round my H.Q. You are more trouble to me than all the rest of my command put together.’
Tietjens groaned27 and sank more deeply on to his beef case. It was as if an unseen and unsuspected wild beast had jumped on his neck from an over-hanging branch. The sergeant-major at his side said in his most admirable butler manner:
‘Colour-Sergeant Morgan and Lance-Corporal Trench28 are obliging us by coming from depot29 orderly room to help with the draft’s papers. Why don’t you and the other officer go and get a bit of dinner, sir? The colonel and the padre have only just come in to mess, and I’ve warned the mess orderlies to keep your food ‘ot . . . Both good men with papers, Morgan and Trench. We can send the soldiers’ small books to you at table to sign . . . ’
His feminine solicitude30 enraged31 and overwhelmed Tietjens with blackness. He told the sergeant-major that he was to go to hell, for he himself was not going to leave that hut till the draft was moved off. Captain Mackenzie could do as he pleased. The sergeant-major told Captain Mackenzie that Captain Tietjens took as much trouble with his rag-time detachments as if he had been the Coldstream adjutant at Chelsea sending off a draft of Guards. Captain Mackenzie said that that was why they damn well got their details off four days faster than any other I.B.D. in that camp. He would say that much, he added grudgingly32 and dropped his head over his papers again. The hut was moving slowly up and down before the eyes of Tietjens. He might have just been kicked in the stomach. That was how shocks took him. He said to himself that by God he must take himself in hand. He grabbed with his heavy hands at a piece of buff paper and wrote on it a column of fat, wet letters
a
b
b
a
a
b
b
a and so on.
He said opprobriously33 to Captain Mackenzie:
‘Do you know what a sonnet34 is? Give me the rhymes for a sonnet. That’s the plan of it.’
Mackenzie grumbled35:
‘Of course I know what a sonnet is. What’s your game?’ Tietjens said:
‘Give me the fourteen end-rhymes of a sonnet and I’ll write the lines. In under two minutes and a half.’
Mackenzie said injuriously:
‘If you do I’ll turn, it into Latin hexameters in three. In under three minutes.’
They were like men uttering deadly insults the one to the other. To Tietjens it was as if an immense cat were parading, fascinated and fatal, round that hut. He had imagined himself parted from his wife. He had not heard from his wife since her four-in-the-morning departure from their flat, months and eternities ago, with the dawn just showing up the chimney-pots of the Georgian roof-trees opposite. In the complete stillness of dawn he had heard her voice say very clearly ‘Paddington’ to the chauffeur36, and then all the sparrows in the inn waking up in chorus . . . Suddenly and appallingly37 it came into his head that it might not have been his wife’s voice that had said ‘Paddington’, but her maid’s . . . He was a man who lived very much by rules of conduct. He had a rule: Never think on the subject of a shock at a moment of shock. The mind was then too sensitized. Subjects of shock require to be thought all round. If your mind thinks when it is too sensitized its then conclusions will be too strong. So he exclaimed to Mackenzie:
‘Haven’t you got your rhymes yet? Damn it all!’ Mackenzie grumbled offensively:
‘No, I haven’t. It’s more difficult to get rhymes than to write sonnets39 . . . death, moil, coil, breath . . . ’ He paused.
‘Heath, soil, toil40, staggereth,’ Tietjens said contemptuously. ‘That’s your sort of Oxford41 young woman’s rhyme . . . Go on . . . What is it?’
An extremely age-faded and =military officer was beside the blanketed table. Tietjens regretted having spoken to him with ferocity. He had a grotesquely42 thin white beard. Positively43, white whiskers! He must have gone through as much of the army as he had gone through with those whiskers, because no superior officer — not even a fieldmarshal — would have the heart to tell him to take them off! It was the measure of his pathos44. This ghost-like object was apologizing for not having been able to keep the draft in hand: he was requesting his superior to observe that these Colonial troops were without any instincts of discipline. None at all. Tietjens observed that he had a blue cross on his right arm where the vaccination45 marks are as a rule. He imagined the Canadians talking to this hero . . . The hero began to talk of Major Cornwallis of the R. A. S. C.
Tietjens said apropos46 of nothing:
‘Is there a Major Cornwallis in the A.S.C.? Good God!’
The hero protested faintly:
‘The R.A.S.C.’
Tietjens said kindly47:
‘Yes. Yes. The Royal Army. Service Corps48.’
Obviously his mind until now had regarded his wife’s ’Paddington‘ as the definite farewell between his life and hers . . . He had imagined her, like Eurydice, tall, but faint and pale, sinking back into the shades . . . ’Che faro senz’ Eurydice? . . . ’ he hummed. Absurd! And of course it might have been only the maid that had spoken . . . She too had a remarkably49 clear voice. So that the mystic word ‘Paddington’ might perfectly well be no symbol at all, and Mrs Sylvia Tietjens, far from being faint and pale, might perfectly well be playing the very devil with half the general officers commanding in chief from Whitehall to Alaska.
Mackenzie — he was like a damned clerk — was transferring the rhymes that he had no doubt at last found, on to another sheet of paper. Probably he had a round, copybook hand. Positively, his tongue followed his pen round, inside his lips. These were what His Majesty’s regular officers of to-day were. Good God! A damned intelligent, dark-looking fellow. Of the type that is starved in its youth and takes all the scholarships that the board schools have to offer. Eyes too big and black. Like a Malay’s . . . Any blasted member of any subject race.
The A.S.C. fellow had been talking positively about horses. He had offered his services in order to study the variation of pink-eye that was decimating all the service horses in the lines. He had been a professor — positively a professor — in some farriery college or other. Tietjens said that, in that case, he ought to be in the A.V.C. — the Royal Army Veterinary Corps perhaps it was. The old man said he didn’t know. He imagined that the R.A.S.C. had wanted his service for their own horses . . .
Tietjens said:
‘I’ll tell you what to do, Lieutenant Hitchcock . . . For, damn it, you’re a stout50 fellow . . . ’ The poor old fellow, pushing out at that age from the cloisters51 of some provincial52 university . . . He certainly did not look a horsy sportsman . . .
The old lietutenant said:
‘Hotchkiss . . . ’ And Tietjens exclaimed:
‘Of course it’s Hotchkiss . . . I’ve seen your name signing a testimonial to Pigg’s Horse Embrocation . . . Then if you don’t want to take this draft up the line . . . Though I’d advise you to . . . It’s merely a Cook’s Tour to Hazebrouck . . . No, Bailleul . . . And the sergeant-major will march the men for you . . . And you will have been in the First Army Lines and able to tell all your friends you’ve been on active service at the real front . . . ’
His mind said to himself while his words went on . . .
‘Then, good God, if Sylvia is actively54 paying attention to my career I shall be the laughing-stock of the whole army. I was thinking that ten minutes ago! . . . What’s to be done? What in God’s name is to be done?’ A black crape veil seemed to drop across his vision . . . Liver . . .
Lieutenant Hotchkiss said with dignity:
‘I’m going to the front. I’m going to the real front. I was passed A1 this morning. I am going to study the blood reactions of the service horse under fire.’
‘Well, you’re a damn good chap,’ Tietjens said. There was nothing to be done. The amazing activities of which Sylvia would be capable were just the thing to send laughter raging like fire through a cachinnating army. She could not thank God, get into France: to that place. But she could make scandals in the papers that every Tommie read. There was no game of which she was not capable. That sort of pursuit was called ‘pulling the strings56 of shower-baths’ in her circle of friends. Nothing. Nothing to be done . . . The beastly hurricane lamp was smoking.
‘I’ll tell you what to do,’ he said to Lieutenant Hotchkiss.
Mackenzie had tossed his sheet of rhymes under his nose. Tietjens read: Death, moil, coil, breath . . . Saith— The dirty Cockney!’ Oil, soil, wraith57 . . .
‘I’d be blowed,’ Mackenzie said with a vicious grin, ‘if I was going to give you rhymes you had suggested yourself . . . ’
The officer said:
‘I don’t of course want to be a nuisance if you’re busy.’
‘It’s no nuisance,’ Tietjens said. ‘It’s what we’re for. But I’d suggest that now and then you say “sir” to the officer commanding your unit. It sounds well before the men . . . Now you go to No. XVI I.B.D. Mess ante-room . . . The place where they’ve got the broken bagatelle-table . . . ’
The voice of Sergeant-Major Cowley exclaimed tranquilly58 from outside:
-Fall in now. Men who’ve got their ring papers and identity disks — three of them — on the left. Men who haven’t, on the right. Any man who has not been able to draw his blankets tell Colour-Sergeant Morgan. Don’t forget. You won’t get any where you’re going. Any man who hasn’t made his will in his Soldier’s Small Book or elsewhere and wants to, to consult Captain Tietjens. Any man who wants to draw money, ask Captain Mackenzie. Any R.C. who wants to go to confession59 after he has got his papers signed can find the R.C. padre in the fourth hut from the left in the Main Line from here . . . And damn kind it is of his reverence60 to put himself out for a set of damn blinking mustard-faced red herrings like you who can’t keep from running away to the first baby’s bonfire you sees. You’ll be running the other way before you’re a week older, though what good they as asks for you thinks you’ll be out there God knows. You look like a squad61 of infants’ companions from a Wesleyan Sunday school. That’s what you look like and, thank God, we’ve got a Navy.’
Under cover of his voice Tietjens had been writing:
‘Now we affront62 the grinning chops of Death,’ and saying to Lieutenant Hotchkiss: ‘In the I.B.D. ante-room you’ll find any number of dirty little squits of Glamorgan-shires drinking themselves blind over La Vie Parisienne . . . Ask any one of them you like . . . ’ He wrote:
‘And in between the carcases and the moil
Of marts and cities, toil and moil and coil . . . ’
‘You think this difficult!’ he said to Mackenzie. ‘Why, you’ve written a whole undertaker’s mortuary ode in the rhymes alone,’ and went on to Hotchkiss: ‘Ask anyone you like as long as he’s a P.B. officer . . . Do you know what P.B. means? No, not Poor B——y, Permanent Base. Unfit . . . If he’d like to take a draft to Bailleul.’
The hut was filling with devious63, slow, ungainly men in yellow-brown. Their feet shuffled64 desultorily65; they lumped dull canvas bags along the floor and held in unliterary hands small open books that they dropped from time to time. From outside came a continuing, swelling67 and descending68 chant of voices; at times it would seem to be all one laugh, at times one menace, then the motives69 mingled70 fugally, like the sea on a beach of large stones. It seemed to Tietjens suddenly extraordinary how shut in on oneself one was in this life . . . He sat scribbling71 fast: ‘Old Spectre blows a cold protecting breath . . . Vanity of vanities, the preacher saith . . . No more parades, not any more, no oil . . . ’ He was telling Hotchkiss, who was obviously shy of approaching the Glamorganshires in their ante-room . . . ‘Unambergris’d our limbs in the naked soil . . . ’ that he did not suppose any P.B. officer would object. They would go on a beanfeast up into the giddy line in a first-class carriage and get draft leave and command pay too probably . . . ‘No funeral struments cast before our wraiths72 . . . ’ If any fellow does object, you just send his name to me and I will damn well shove it into extra orders . . .
The advanced wave of the brown tide of men was already at his feet. The extraordinary complications of even the simplest lives . . . A fellow was beside him Private Logan, formerly73, of all queer things for a Canadian private, a trooper of the Inniskillings: owner, of all queer things, of a milk-walk or a dairy farm, outside Sydney, which is in Australia . . . A man of sentimental complications, jauntiness74 as became an Inniskilling, a Cockney accent such as ornaments75 the inhabitants of Sydney, and a complete distrust of lawyers. On the other hand, with the completest trust in Tietjens. Over his shoulder — he was blond, upright, with his numerals shining like gold, looked a lumpish, café-au-lait, eagle-nosed countenance76: a half-caste member of one of the Six Nations, who had been a doctor’s errand boy in Quebec . . . He had his troubles, but was difficult to understand. Behind him, very black-avised with a high colour, truculent77 eyes and an Irish accent, was a graduate of McGill University who had been a teacher of languages in Tokyo and had some sort of claim against the Japanese Government . . . And faces, two and two, in a coil round the hut . . . Like dust: like a cloud of dust that would approach and overwhelm a landscape: every one with preposterous78 troubles and anxieties, even if they did not overwhelm you personally with them . . . Brown dust . . .
He kept the Inniskilling waiting while he scribbled79 the rapid sestet to his sonnet which ought to make a little plainer what it all meant. Of course the general idea was that, when you got into the line or near it, there was no room for swank: typified by expensive funerals. As you might say: No flowers by compulsion . . . No more parades! . . . He had also to explain, while he did it, to the heroic veterinary sexagenarian that he need not feel shy about going into the Glamorganshire Mess on a man-catching80 expedition. The Glamorganshires were bound to lend him, Tietjens, P.B. officers if they had not got other jobs. Lieutenant Hotchkiss could speak to Colonel Johnson, whom he would find in the mess and quite good natured over his dinner. A pleasant and sympathetic old gentleman who would appreciate Hotchkiss’s desire not to go superfluously81 into the line. Hotchkiss could offer to take a look at the colonel’s charger: a Hun horse, captured on the Marne and called Schomburg, that was off its feed . . . He added: ‘But don’t do anything professional to Schomburg. I ride him myself!’
He threw his sonnet across to Mackenzie, who with a background of huddled82 khaki limbs and anxious faces was himself anxiously counting out French currency notes and dubious-looking tokens . . . What the deuce did men want to draw money — sometimes quite large sums of money, the Canadians being paid in dollars converted into local coins — when in an hour or so they would be going up? But they always did and their accounts were always in an incredibly entangled83 state. Mackenzie might well look worried. As like as not he might find himself a fiver or more down at the end of the evening for unauthorized payments. If he had only his pay and an extravagant85 wife to keep, that might well put the wind up him. But that was his funeral. He told Lieutenant Hotchkiss to come and have a chat with him in his hut, the one next the mess. About horses. He knew a little about horse-illness himself. Only empirically, of course.
Mackenzie was looking at his watch.
‘You took two minutes and eleven seconds,’ he said. ‘I’ll take it for granted it’s a sonnet . . . I have not read it because I can’t turn it into Latin here . . . I haven’t got your knack86 of doing eleven things at once . . . ’
A man with a worried face, encumbered87 by a bundle and a small book, was studying figures at Mackenzie’s elbow. He interrupted Mackenzie in a high American voice to say that he had never drawn88 fourteen dollars seventy-five cents in Thrasna Barracks, Aldershot.
Mackenzie said to Tietjens:
‘You understand. I have not read your sonnet. I shall turn it into Latin in the mess: in the time stipulated89. I don’t want you to think I’ve read it and taken time to think about it.’
The man besides him said:
‘When I went to the Canadian Agent, Strand90, London, his office was shut up . . . ’
Mackenzie said with white fury:
‘How much service have you got? Don’t you know better than to interrupt an officer when he is talking? You must settle your own figures with your own confounded Colonial paymaster: I’ve sixteen dollars thirty cents here for you. Will you take them or leave them?’
Tietjens said:
‘I know that man’s case. Turn him over to me. It isn’t complicated. He’s got his paymaster’s cheque, but doesn’t know how to cash it and of course they won’t give him another . . .
The man with slow, broad, brown features looked from one to the other officer’s face and back again with a keen black-eyed scrutiny91 as if he were looking into a wind and dazed by the light. He began a long story of how he owed Fat-Eared Bill fifty dollars lost at House. He was perhaps half Chinese, half Finn. He continued to talk, being in a state of great anxiety about his money. Tietjens addressed himself to the cases of the Sydney Inniskilling ex-trooper and the McGill graduate who had suffered at the hands of the Japanese Educational Ministry92. It made altogether a complicated effect. ‘You would say,’ Tietjens said to himself, ‘that, all together, it ought to be enough to take my mind up.’
The upright trooper had a very complicated sentimental history. It was difficult to advise him before his fellows. He, however, felt no diffidence. He discussed the points of the girl called Rosie whom he had followed from Sydney to British Columbia, of the girl called Gwen with whom he had taken up in Aberystwyth, of the woman called Mrs Hosier with whom he had lived maritally93, on a sleeping-out pass, at Berwick St. James, near Salisbury Plain. Through the continuing voice of the half-caste Chinaman he discussed them with a large tolerance, ex-p aiming that he wanted them all to have a bit, as a souvenir, if he happened to stop one out there. Tietjens handed him the draft of a will he had written out for him, asked him to read it attentively94 and copy it with his own hand into his soldier’s small book. Then Tietjens would witness it for him. He said:
‘Do you think this will make my old woman in Sydney part? I guess it won’t. She’s a sticker, sir. A regular July bur, God bless her.’ The McGill graduate was beginning already to introduce a further complication into his story of complications with the Japanese Government. It appeared that in addition to his scholastic95 performances he had invested a little money in a mineral water spring near Kobe, the water, bottled, being exported to San Francisco. Apparently96 his company had been indulging in irregularities according to Japanese law, but a pure French Canadian, who had experienced some difficulties in obtaining his baptismal certificate from a mission somewhere in the direction of the Klondike, was allowed by Tietjens to interrupt the story of the graduate; and several men without complications, but anxious to get their papers signed so as to write last letters home before the draft moved, overflowed97 across Tietjens’ table . . .
The tobacco smoke from the pipes of the N.C.O.’s at the other end of the room hung, opalescent98, beneath the wire cages of the brilliant hurricane lamps hung over each table; buttons and numerals gleamed in the air that the universal khaki tinge99 of the limbs seemed to turn brown, as if into a gas of dust. Nasal voices, throat voices, drawling voices, melted into a rustle100 so that the occasional high, sing-song profanity of a Welsh N.C.O.: Why the hell haffn’t you got your 124? Why the —— hell haffn’t you got your 124? Don’t you know you haff to haff your bleedin’ 124’s? seemed to wail101 tragically102 through a silence . . . The evening wore on and on. It astounded103 Tietjens, looking at one time at his watch, to discover that it was only 21 hrs. 19. He seemed to have been thinking drowsily104 of his own affairs for ten hours . . . For, in the end, these were his own affairs . . . Money, women, testamentary bothers. Each of these complications from over the Atlantic and round the world were his own troubles: a world in labour: an army being moved off in the night. Shoved off. Anyhow. And over the top. A lateral105 section of the world . . .
He had happened to glance at the medical history of a man beside him and noticed that he had been described as CI . . . It was obviously a slip of the pen on the part of the Medical Board, or one of their orderlies. He had written C instead of A. The man was Pte. 197394 Thomas Johnson, a shining-faced lump of beef, an agricultural odd jobman from British Columbia where he had worked on the immense estates of Sylvia Tietjens’ portentous106 ducal second cousin Rugeley. It was a double annoyance107. Tietjens had not wanted to be reminded of his wife’s second cousin, because he had not wanted to be reminded of his wife. He had determined108 to give his thoughts a field day on that subject when he got warm into his flea-bag in his hut that smelt109 of paraffin whilst the canvas walls crackled with frost and the moon shone . . . He would think of Sylvia beneath the moon. He was determined not to now! But 197394 Pte. Johnson, Thomas, was otherwise a nuisance and Tietjens cursed himself for having glanced at the man’s medical history. If this preposterous yokel110 was C3 he could not go on a draft . . . C1 rather! It was all the same. That would mean finding another man to make up the strength and that would drive Sergeant-Major Cowley out of his mind. He looked up towards the ingenuous111, protruding112, shining, liquid, bottle-blue eyes of Thomas Johnson . . . The fellow had never had an illness. He could not have had an illness — except from a surfeit113 of cold, fat, boiled pork — and for that you would give him a horse’s blue ball and drench114 which, ten to one, would not remove the cause of the belly-ache . . .
His eyes met the non-committal glance of a dark, gentlemanly thin fellow with a strikingly scarlet115 hatband, a lot of gilt116 about his khaki and little strips of steel chain-armour on his shoulders . . . Levin . . . Colonel Levin, G.S.O. II, or something, attached to General Lord Edward Campion . . . How the hell did fellows get into these intimacies117 of commanders of units and their men? Swimming in like fishes into the brown air of a tank and there at your elbow . . . —— spies! . . . The men had all been called to attention and stood like gasping118 codfish. The ever-watchful Sergeant-Major Cowley had drifted to his, Tietjens’, elbow. You protect your orfcers from the gawdy Staff as you protect your infant daughters in lambswool from draughts119. The dark, bright, cheerful staffwallah said with a slight lisp:
‘Busy, I see.’ He might have been standing120 there for a century and have a century of the battalion121 headquarters’ time to waste like that. ‘What draft is this?’
Sergeant-Major Cowley, always ready in case his orfcer should not know the name of his unit or his own name, said:
‘No. 16 I.B.D. Canadian First Division Casual Number Four Draft, sir.’
Colony Levin let air lispingly out between his teeth.
‘No. 16 Draft not off yet . . . Dear, dear! Dear, dear! . . . We shall be strafed to hell by First Army . . . ’ He used the word hell as if he had first wrapped it in eau-de-cologned cotton-wadding.
Tietjens, on his feet, knew this fellow very well: a fellow who had been a very bad Society water-colour painter of good family on the mother’s side: hence the cavalry gadgets122 on his shoulders. Would it then be good . . . say good taste to explode? He let the sergeant-major do it. Sergeant-Major Cowley was of the type of N.C.O. who carried weight because he knew ten times as much about his job as any Staff officer. The sergeant-major explained that it had been impossible to get off the draft earlier. The colonel said:
‘But surely, sergeant-majah . . . ’
The sergeant-major, now a deferential123 shopwalker in a lady’s store, pointed124 out that they had had urgent instructions not to send up the draft without the four hundred Canadian Railway Service men who were to come from Etaples. These men had only arrived that evening at 5.30 . . . at the railway station. Marching them up had taken three-quarters of an hour. The colonel said:
‘But surely, sergeant-majah . . . ’
Old Cowley might as well have said ‘madam’ as ‘sir’ to the red hat-band . . . The four-hundred had come with only what they stood up in. The unit had had to wangle everything: boots, blankets, tooth-brushes, braces125, rifles, iron-rations, identity disks out of the depot store. And it was now only twenty-one twenty . . . Cowley permitted his commanding officer at this point to say:
‘You must understand that we work in circumstances of extreme difficulty, sir . . . ’
The graceful126 colonel was lost in an absent contemplation of his perfectly elegant knees.
‘I know, of course . . . ’ he lisped. ‘Very difficult . . . He brightened up to add: ‘But you must admit you’re unfortunate . . . You must admit that . . . ’ The weight settled, however, again on his mind.
Tietjens said:
‘Not, I suppose, sir, any more unfortunate than any other unit working under a dual127 control for supplies . . . ’
The colonel said:
‘What’s that? Dual . . . Ah, I see you’re there, Mackenzie . . . Feeling well . . . feeling fit, eh?’
The whole hut stood silent. His anger at the waste of time made Tietjens say:
‘If you understand, sir, we are a unit whose principal purpose is drawing things to equip drafts with . . . ’ This fellow was delaying them atrociously. He was brushing his knees with a handkerchief!‘I’ve had,’ Tietjens said, ‘a man killed on my hands this afternoon because we have to draw tin-hats for my orderly room from Dublin on an A.F.B. Canadian from Aldershot . . . Killed here . . . We’ve only just mopped up the blood from where you’re standing . . . ’
The cavalry colonel exclaimed:
‘Oh, good gracious me! . . . ’ jumped a little and examined his beautiful shining knee-high aircraft boots. ‘Killed! . . . Here! . . . But there’ll have to be a court of inquiry128 . . . You certainly are most unfortunate, Captain Tietjens . . . Always these mysterious . . . Why wasn’t your man in a dug-out? . . . Most unfortunate . . . We cannot have casualties among the Colonial troops . . . Troops from the Dominions129, I mean . . . ’
Tietjens said grimly:
The man was from Pontardulias . . . not from any Dominion130 . . . One of my orderly room . . . We are forbidden on pain of court martial131 to let any but Dominion Expeditionary Force men go into the dug-outs . . . My Canadians were all there . . . It’s an A.C.I. local of the eleventh of November . . . ’
The Staff Offcer said:
‘It makes of course, a difference! . . . Only a Glamorgan-shire? You say . . . Oh well . . . But these mysterious . . . ’
He exclaimed, with the force of an explosion, and the relief:
‘Look here . . . can you spare possible ten . . . twenty . . . eh . . . minutes? . . . It’s not exactly a service matter . . . so per . . . ’
Tietjens exclaimed:
‘You see how we’re situated132, colonel . . . ’ and like one sowing grass seed on a lawn, extended both hands over his papers and towards his men . . . He was choking with rage. Colonel Levin had, under the chaperonage of an English dowager, who ran a chocolate store down on the quays133 in Rouen, a little French piece to whom he was quite seriously engaged. In the most na?ve manner. And the young woman, fantastically jealous, managed to make endless insults to herself out of her almost too handsome colonel’s barbaric French. It was an idyll, but it drove the colonel frantic134. At such times Levin would consult Tietjens, who passed for a man of brains and a French scholar as to really nicely turned compliments in a difficult language . . . And as to how you explained that is was necessary for a G.S.O. II, or whatever the colonel was, to be seen quite frequently in the company of very handsome V.A.D.’s and female organizers of all arms . . . It was the sort of silliness as to which no gentleman ought to be consulted . . . And here was Levin with the familiar feminine-agonized135 wrinkle on his bronzed-alabaster brow . . . Like a beastly soldier-man out of a revue. Why didn’t the ass55 burst into gesture and a throaty tenor136 . . .
Sergeant-Major Cowley naturally saved the situation. Just as Tietjens was as near saying Go to hell as you can be to your remarkably senior officer on parade, the sergeant-major, now a very important solicitor’s most confidential137 clerk, began whispering to the colonel . . .
‘The captain might as well take a spell as not . . . We’re through with all the men except the Canadian Railway batch138, and they can’t be issued with blankets not for half an hour . . . not for three-quarters. If then! It depends if our runner can find where Quarter’s lance-corporal is having his supper, to issue them . . .! The sergeant-major had inserted that last speech deftly139. The Staff officer, with a vague reminiscence of his regimental days, exclaimed:
‘Damn it! . . . I wonder you don’t break into the depot blanket store and take what you want . . . ’
The sergeant-major, becoming Simon Pure, exclaimed:
‘Oh, no, sir, we could never do that, sir . . . ’
‘But the confounded men are urgently needed in the line,’ Colonel Levin said. ‘Damn it, it’s touch and go! . . . We’re rushing . . . ’ He appreciated the fact again that he was on the gawdy Staff, and that the sergeant-major and Tietjens, playing like left backs into each other’s hands, had trickily141 let him in.
‘We can only pray, sir,’ the sergeant-major said, ‘that these ’ere bloomin’ ‘Uns has got quartermasters and depots142 and issuing departments, same as ourselves.’ He lowered his voice into a husky whisper. ‘Besides, sir, there’s a rumour143 . . . round the telephone in depot orderly room . . . that there’s a W.O. order at ‘Edquarters . . . countermanding144 this and other drafts . . . ’
Colonel Levin said: ‘Oh, my God!’ and consternation145 rushed upon both him and Tietjens. The frozen ditches, in the night, out there; the agonized waiting for men; the weight upon the mind like a weight upon the brows; the imminent146 sense of approaching unthinkableness on the right or the left, according as you looked up or down the trench; the solid protecting earth of the parapet then turns into pierced mist . . . and no reliefs coming from here . . . The men up there thinking na?vely that they were coming, and they not coming. Why not? Good God, why not? Mackenzie said:
‘Poor —— old Bird . . . His crowd had been in eleven weeks last Wednesday . . . About all they could stick . . . ’
‘They’ll have to stick a damn lot more,’ Colonel Levin said. ‘I’d like to get at some of the brutes147 . . . ’ It was at that date the settled conviction of His Majesty’s Expeditionary Force that the army in the field was the tool of politicians and civilians148. In moments of routine that cloud dissipated itself lightly: when news of ill omen38 arrived it settled down again heavily like a cloud of black gas. You hung your head impotently . . .
‘So that,’ the sergeant-major said cheerfully, ‘the captain could very well spare half an hour to get his dinner. Or for anything else . . . ’ Apart from the domestic desire that Tietjens’ digestion149 should not suffer from irregular meals he had the professional conviction that for his captain to be in intimate private converse150 with a member of the gawdy Staff was good for the unit . . . ‘I suppose, sir,’ he added valedictorily to Tietjens, ‘I’d better arrange to put this draft, and the nine hundred men that came in this afternoon to replace them, twenty in a tent . . . It’s lucky we didn’t strike them . . .
Tietjens and the colonel began to push men out of their way, going towards the door. The Inniskilling-Canadian, a small open brown book extended deprecatingly, stood, modestly obtrusive151, just beside the door-post. Catching avidly152 at Tietjens’ ‘Eh?’ he said:
‘You’d got the names of the girls wrong in your copy, sir. It was Gwen Lewis I had a child by in Aberystwyth that I wanted to have the lease of the cottage and the ten bob a week. Mrs Hosier that I lived with in Berwick St. James, she was only to have five guineas for a soovneer . . . I’ve took the liberty of changing the names back again.’
Tietjens grabbed the book from him, and bending down at the sergeant-major’s table scrawled153 his signature on the bluish page. He thrust the book back at the man and said:
‘There . . . fall out.’ The man’s face shone. He exclaimed:
‘Thank you, sir. Thank you kindly, captain . . . I wanted to get off and go to confession. I did bad . . . ’ The McGill graduate with his arrogant154 black moustache put himself in the way as Tietjens struggled into his British warm.
‘You won’t forget, sir, . . . ’ he began.
Tietjens said:
‘Damn you, I’ve told you I won’t forget. I never forget. You instructed the ignorant Jap in Asaki, but the educational authority is in Tokyo. And your flagitious mineral-water company had their headquarters at the Tan Sen spring near Kobe . . . Is that right? Well, I’ll do my best for you.’
They walked in silence through the groups of men that hung around the orderly room door and gleamed in the moonlight. In the broad country street of the main line of the camp Colonel Levin began to mutter between his teeth:
‘You take enough trouble with your beastly crowd . . . a whole lot of trouble . . . Yet . . . ’
‘Well, what’s the matter with us?’ Tietjens said. ‘We get our drafts ready in thirty-six hours less than any other unit in this command.’
‘I know you do,’ the other conceded. ‘It’s only all these mysterious rows. Now . . . ’
Tietjens said quickly:
‘Do you mind my asking: Are we still on parade? Is this a strafe from General Campion as to the way I command my unit?’
The other conceded quite as quickly and much more worriedly:
‘God forbid.’ He added more quickly still: ‘Old bean!’, and prepared to tuck his wrist under Tietjens’ elbow. Tietjens, however, continued to face the fellow. He was really in a temper.
‘Then tell me,’ he said, ‘how the deuce you can manage to do without an overcoat in this weather?’ If only he could get the chap off the topics of his mysterious rows they might drift to the matter that had brought him up there on that bitter night when he should be sitting over a good wood fire philandering155 with Mlle Nanette de Bailly. He sank his neck deeper into the sheepskin collar of his British warm. The other, slim, was with all his badges, ribands and mail, shining darkly in a cold that set all Tietjens’ teeth chattering156 like porcelain157. Levin became momentarily animated158:
‘You should do as I do . . . Regular hours . . . lots of exercise . . . horse exercise . . . I do P.T. every morning at the open window of my room . . . hardening . . . ’
‘It must be very gratifying for the ladies in the rooms facing yours,’ Tietjens said grimly. ‘Is that what’s the matter with Mlle Nanette, now? . . . I haven’t got time for proper exercise . . .
‘Good gracious, no,’ the colonel, said. He now tucked his hand firmly under Tietjens’ arm and began to work him towards the left hand of the road: in the direction leading out of camp. Tietjens worked their steps as firmly towards the right and they leant one against the other. ‘In fact, old bean,’ the colonel said, ‘Campy is working so hard to get the command of a fighting army — though he’s indispensable here — that we might pack up bag and baggage any day . . . That is what has made Nanette see reason . . . ’
‘Then what am I doing in this show?’ Tietjens asked. But Colonel Levin continued blissfully:
‘In fact I’ve got her almost practically for certain to promise that next week . . . or the week after next at latest . . . she’ll . . . damn it, she’ll name the happy day.’
Tietjens said:
‘Good hunting! . . . How splendidly Victorian!’
‘That’s, damn it,’ the colonel exclaimed manfully, ‘what I say myself . . . Victorian is what it is . . . All these marriage settlements . . . And what is it . . . Droits du Seigneur? . . . And notaires . . . And the Count, having his say . . . And the Marchioness . . . And two old grand aunts . . . But . . . Hoopla! . . . ’ He executed with his gloved right thumb in the moonlight a rapid pirouette . . . ‘Next week . . . or at least the week after . . . ’ His voice suddenly dropped.
‘At least,’ he wavered, ‘that was what it was at lunchtime . . . Since then . . . something happened . . . ’
‘You’ve not been caught in bed with a V.A.D.?’ Tietjens asked.
The colonel mumbled159:
‘No . . . not in bed . . . Not with a V.A.D . . . Oh, damn it, at the railway station . . . With . . . The general sent me down to meet her . . . and Nanny of course was seeing off her grandmother, the Duchesse . . . The giddy cut she handed me out . . .
Tietjens became coldly furious.
‘Then it was over one of your beastly imbecile rows with Miss de Bailly that you got me out here,’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you mind going down with me towards the I.B.D. headquarters? Your final orders may have come in there. The sappers won’t let me have a telephone, so I have to look in there the last thing . . . ’ He felt a yearning161 towards rooms in huts, warmed by coke-stoves and electrically lit, with acting lance-corporals bending over A.F.B.’s on a background of deal pigeon-holes filled with returns on buff and blue paper. You got quiet and engrossment there. It was a queer thing: the only place where he, Christopher Tietjens of Groby, could be absently satisfied was in some orderly room or other. The only place in the world . . . And why? It was a queer thing . . .
But not queer, really. It was a matter of inevitable162 selection if you came to think it out. An acting orderly-room lance-corporal was selected for his penmanship, his power of elementary figuring, his trustworthiness amongst innumerable figures and messages, his dependability. For this he differed a hair’s breadth in rank from the rank and file. A hairbreadth that was to him the difference between life and death. For, if he proved not to be dependable, back he went — returned to duty! As long as he was dependable he slept under a table in a warm room, his toilette arrangements and washing in a bully-beef case near his head, a billy full of tea always stewing163 for him on an always burning stove . . . A paradise! . . . No! Not a paradise: the paradise of the Other Ranks! . . . He might be awakened164 at one in the morning. Miles away the enemy might be beginning a strafe . . . He would roll out from among the blankets under the table amongst the legs of hurrying N.C.O.’s and officers, the telephone going like hell . . . He would have to manifold innumerable short orders on buff slips on a typewriter . . . A bore to be awakened at one in the morning, but not unexciting: the enemy putting up a tremendous barrage165 in front of the village of Dranoutre: the whole nineteenth division to be moved into support along the Bailleul-Nieppe road. In case . . .
Tietjens considered the sleeping army . . . That country village under the white moon, all of sackcloth sides, celluloid windows, forty men to a hut . . . That slumbering Arcadia was one of . . . how many? Thirty-seven thousand five hundred, say for a million and a half of men . . . But there were probably more than a million and a half in that base . . . Well, round the slumbering Arcadias were the fringes of virginly glimmering166 tents . . . Fourteen men to a tent . . . For a million . . . Seventy-one thousand four hundred and twenty-one tents round, say, one hundred and fifty I.B.D.’s, C.B.D.‘s, R.E.B.D.’s . . . Base depots for infantry167, cavalry, sappers, gunners, airmen, anti-airmen, telephone-men, vets168, chiropodists, Royal Army Service Corps men, Pigeon Service men, Sanitary169 Service men, Women’s Auxiliary170 Army Corps women, V.A.D. women — what in the world did V.A.D. stand for? — canteens, rest-tent attendants, barrack damage superintendents171, parsons, priests, rabbis, Mormon bishops172, Brahmins, Lamas, Imams, Fanti men, no doubt, for African troops. And all ready dependent on the acting orderly-room lance-corporals for their temporal and spiritual salvation173 . . . For, if by a slip of the pen a lance-corporal sent a Papist priest to an Ulster regiment140, the Ulster men would lynch him, and all go to hell. Or, if by a slip of the tongue at the telephone, or a slip of the typewriter, he sent a division to Westoutre instead of to Dranoutre at one in the morning, the six or seven thousand poor devils in front of Dranoutre might all be massacred and nothing but His Majesty’s Navy could save us . . .
Yet, in the end, all this tangle84 was satisfactorily unravelled174; the drafts moved off, unknotting themselves like snakes, coiling out of inextricable bunches, sliding vertebrately over the mud to dip into their bowls — the rabbis found Jews dying to whom to administer; the vets, spavined mules175; the V.A.D.’s, men without jaws176 and shoulders in C.C.S.’s; the camp-cookers, frozen beef; the chiropodists, ingrowing toe-nails; the dentists, decayed molars; the naval177 howitzers, camouflaged178 emplacements in picturesquely179 wooded dingles . . . Somehow they got there — even to the pots of strawberry jam by the ten dozen!
For if the acting lance-corporal, whose life hung by a hair, made a slip of the pen over a dozen pots of jam, back he went, Returned to duty . . . back to the frozen rifle, the ground-sheet on the liquid mud, the desperate suction on the ankle as the foot was advanced, the landscapes silhouetted180 with broken church towers, the continual drone of the planes, the mazes181 of duckboards in vast plains of slime, the unending Cockney humour, the great shells labelled Love to Little Willie . . . Back to the Angel with the Flaming Sword. The wrong side of him! . . . So, on the whole, things moved satisfactorily . . .
He was walking Colonel Levin imperiously between the huts towards the mess quarters, their feet crunching182 on the freezing gravel183, the colonel hanging back a little; but a mere53 light-weight and without nails in his elegant bootsoles, so he had no grip on the ground. He was remarkably silent. Whatever he wanted to get out he was reluctant to come to. He brought out, however:
‘I wonder you don’t apply to be returned to duty . . . to your battalion. I jolly well should if I were you . . . ’
Tietjens said:
‘Why? Because I’ve had a man killed on me? . . . There must have been a dozen killed to-night.’
‘Oh, more, very likely,’ the other answered. ‘It was one of our own planes that was brought down . . . But it isn’t that . . . Oh, damn it! . . . Would you mind walking the other way? . . . I’ve the greatest respect . . . oh, almost . . . for you personally . . . You’re a man of intellect . . . ’
Tietjens was reflecting on a nice point of military etiquette184.
This lisping, ineffectual fellow — he was a very careful Staff officer or Campion would not have had him about the place! — was given to moulding himself exactly on his general. Physically185, in costume as far as possible, in voice — for his lisp was not his own so much as an adaptation of the general’s slight stutter — and above all in his uncompleted sentences and point of view . . .
Now, if he said:
‘Look here, colonel . . . ’ or ‘Look here, Colonel Levin . . . ’ or ‘Look here, Stanley, my boy . . . ’ For the one thing an officer may not say to a superior whatever their intimacy186 was: ‘Look here, Levin . . . ’ If he said then:
‘Look here, Stanley, you’re a silly ass. It’s all very well for Campion to say that I am unsound because I’ve some brains. He’s my godfather and has been saying it to me since I was twelve, and had more brain in my left heel than he had in the whole of his beautifully barbered skull187 . . . But when you say it you are just a parrot. You did not think that out for yourself. You do not even think it. You know I’m heavy, short in the wind, and self-assertive . . . but you know perfectly well that I’m as good on detail as yourself. And a damned sight more. You’ve never caught me tripping over a return. Your sergeant in charge of returns may have. But not you . . . ’
If Tietjens should say that to this popinjay, would that be going farther than an officer in charge of detachment should go with a member of the Staff set above him, though not on parade and in a conversation of intimacy? Off parade and in intimate conversation all His Majesty’s poor —— officers are equals . . . gentlemen having his Majesty’s commission: there can be no higher rank and all that Bilge! . . . For how off parade could this descendant of an old-clo’ man from Frankfurt be the equal of him, Tietjens of Groby? He wasn’t his equal in any way — let alone socially. If Tietjens hit him he would drop dead; if he addressed a little sneering188 remark to Levin, the fellow would melt so that you would see the old spluttering Jew swimming up through his carefully arranged Gentile features. He couldn’t shoot as well as Tietjens, or ride, or play a hand at auction189. Why, damn it, he, Tietjens, hadn’t the least doubt that he could paint better water-colour-pictures . . . And, as for returns . . . he would undertake to tear the guts190 out of half a dozen new and contradictory191 A.C.I.’s — Army Council Instructions — and write twelve correct Command Orders founded on them, before Levin had lisped out the date and serial192 number of the first one . . . He had done it several times up in the room, arranged like a French blue-stocking’s salon193, where Levin worked at Garrison headquarters . . . He had written Levin’s blessed command order while Levin fussed and fumed194 about their being delayed for tea with Mlle de Bailly . . . and curled his delicate moustache . . . Mlle de Badly, chaperoned by old Lady Sachse, had tea by a clear wood fire in an eighteenth-century octagonal room, with blue-grey tapestried195 walls and powdering closets, out of priceless porcelain cups without handles. Pale tea that tasted faintly of cinnamon!
Mlle de Bailly was a long, dark high-coloured Proven?ale. Not heavy, but precisely196 long, slow, and cruel; coiled in a deep arm-chair, saying the most wounding, slow things to Levin, she resembled a white Persian cat luxuriating, sticking out a tentative pawful of expanding claws. With eyes slanting197 pronouncedly upwards198 and a very thin hooked nose . . . almost Japanese . . . And with a terrific cortege of relatives, swell66 in a French way. One brother a chauffeur to a Marshal of France . . . An aristocratic way of shirking!
With all that, obviously even off parade, you might well be the social equal of a Staff colonel: but you jolly well had to keep from showing that you were his superior. Especially intellectually. If you let yourself show a Staff officer that he was a silly ass — you could say it as often as you liked as long as you didn’t prove it! — you could be certain that you would be for it before long. And quite properly. It was not English to be intellectually adroit199. Nay200, it was positively un-English. And the duty of field officers is to keep messes as English as possible . . . So a Staff officer would take it out of such a regimental inferior. In a perfectly creditable way. You would never imagine the hash headquarters warrant officers would make of your returns. Until you were worried and badgered and in the end either you were ejected into, or prayed to be transferred to . . . any other command in the whole service . . .
And that was beastly. The process, not the effect. On the whole Tietjens did not care where he was or what he did as long as he kept out of England, the thought of that country, at night, slumbering across the Channel, being sentimentally201 unbearable202 to him . . . Still, he was fond of old Campion, and would rather be in his command than any other. He had attached to his staff a very decent set of fellows, as decent as you could be in contact with . . . if you had to be in contact with your kind . . . So he just said:
‘Look here, Stanley, you are a silly ass,’ and left it at that, without demonstrating the truth of the assertion.
The colonel said:
‘Why, what have I been doing now? . . . I wish you would walk the other way . . .
Tietjens said:
‘No, I can’t afford to go out of camp . . . I’ve got to come to witness your fantastic wedding-contract to-morrow afternoon, haven’t I? . . . I can’t leave camp twice in one week . . .
‘You’ve got to come down to the camp-guard,’ Levin said. ‘I hate to keep a woman waiting in the cold . . . though she is in the general’s car . . .
Tietjens exclaimed:
‘You’ve not been . . . oh, extraordinarily203 enough, to bring Miss de Bailly out here? To talk to me?’
Colonel Levin mumbled, so low Tietjens almost imagined that he was not meant to hear:
‘It isn’t Miss de Bailly!’ Then he exclaimed quite aloud: ‘Damn it all, Tietjens, haven’t you had hints enough? . . .
For a lunatic moment it went through Tietjens’ mind that it must be Miss Wannop in the general’s car, at the gate, down the hill beside the camp guard-room. But he knew folly204 when it presented itself to his mind. He had nevertheless turned and they were going very slowly back along the broad way between the huts. Levin was certainly in no hurry. The broad way would come to an end of the hutments; about two acres of slope would descend11 blackly before them, white stones to mark a sort of coastguard track glimmering out of sight beneath a moon gone dark with the frost. And, down there in the dark forest, at the end of that track, in a terrific Rolls-Royce, was waiting something of which Levin was certainly deucedly afraid . . .
For a minute Tietjens’ backbone205 stiffened206. He didn’t intend to interfere207 between Mlle de Bailly and any married woman Levin had had as a mistress . . . Somehow he was convinced that what was in that car was a married woman . . . He did not dare to think otherwise. If it was not a married woman it might be Miss Wannop. If it was, it couldn’t be . . . An immense waft208 of calm, sentimental happiness had descended upon him. Merely because he had imagined her! He imagined her little, fair, rather pug-nosed face: under a fur cap, he did not know why. Leaning forward she would be, on the seat of the general’s illuminated209 car: glazed210 in: a regular raree show! Peering out, shortsightedly on account of the reflections on the inside of the glass . . .
He was saying to Levin:
‘Look here, Stanley . . . why I said you are a silly ass is because Miss de Bailly has one chief luxury. It’s exhibiting jealousy211. Not feeling it; exhibiting it.’
‘Ought you,’ Levin asked ironically, ‘to discuss my fiancée before me? As an English gentleman. Tietjens of Groby and all.’
‘Why, of course,’ Tietjens said. He continued feeling happy. ‘As a sort of swollen212 best man, it’s my duty to instruct you. Mothers tell their daughters things before marriage. Best men do it for the innocent Benedict . . . woman . . . ’
‘I’m not doing it now,’ Levin grumbled direly213.
‘Then what, in God’s name, are you doing? You’ve got a cast mistress, haven’t you, down there in old Campion’s car? . . . ’ They were beside the alley214 that led down to his orderly room. Knots of men, dim and desultory215, still half filled it, a little way down.
‘I haven’t,’ Levin exclaimed almost tearfully. ‘I never had a mistress . . .
‘And you’re not married?’ Tietjens asked. He used on purpose the schoolboy’s ejaculation Tummy!’ to soften216 the jibe217. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he said, ‘I must just go and take a look at my crowd. To see if your orders have come down.’
He found no orders in a hut as full as ever of the dull mists and odours of khaki, but he found in revenge a fine upstanding, blond, Canadian-born lance-corporal of old Colonial lineage, with a moving story as related by Sergeant-Major Cowley:
‘This man, sir, of the Canadian Railway lot, ‘is mother’s just turned up in the town, come on from Eetarpels. Come all the way from Toronto where she was bedridden.’ Tietjens said:
‘Well, what about it? Get a move on.’
The man wanted leave to go to his mother who was waiting in a decent estaminet at the end of the tramline just outside the camp where the houses of the town began.
Tietjens said: ‘It’s impossible. It’s absolutely impossible. You know that.’
The man stood erect218 and expressionless; his blue eyes looked confoundedly honest to Tietjens who was cursing himself. He said to the man:
‘You can see for yourself that it’s impossible, can’t you?’ The man said slowly:
‘Not knowing the regulations in these circumstances I can’t say, sir. But my mother’s is a very special case . . . She’s lost two sons already.’
Tietjens said:
‘A great many people have . . . Do you understand, if you went absent off my pass I might — I quite possibly might — lose my commission? I’m responsible for you fellows getting up the line.’
The man looked down at his feet. Tietjens said to himself that it was Valentine Wannop doing this to him. He ought to turn the man down at once. He was pervaded219 by a sense of her being. It was imbebile. Yet it was so. He said to the man:
‘You said good-bye to your mother, didn’t you, in Toronto, before you left?’
The man said:
‘No, sir.’ He had not seen his mother in seven years. He had been up in the Chilkoot when war broke out and had not heard of it for ten months. Then he had at once joined up in British Columbia, and had been sent straight through for railway work, on to Aldershot where the Canadians had a camp in building. He had not known that his brothers were killed till he got there and his mother, being bedridden at the news, had not been able to get to Toronto when his batch had passed through. She lived about sixty miles from Toronto. Now she had risen from her bed like a miracle and come all the way. A widow: sixty-two years of age. Very feeble.
It occurred to Tietjens as it occurred to him ten times a day that it was idiotic220 of him to figure Valentine Wannop to himself. He had not the slightest idea where she was: in what circumstances, or even in what house. He did not suppose she and her mother had stayed on in that dog-kennel of a place in Bedford Park. They would be fairly comfortable. His father had left them money. ‘It is preposterous,’ he said to himself, ‘to persist in figuring a person to yourself when you have no idea of where they are.’ He said to the man:
‘Wouldn’t it do if you saw your mother at the camp gate, by the guard-room?’
‘Not much of a leave-taking, sir,’ the man said; ‘she not allowed in the camp and I not allowed out. Talking under a sentry’s nose very likely.’
Tietjens said to himself:
‘What a monstrous221 absurdity222 this is of seeing and talking, for a minute or so! You meet and talk . . . ’ And next day at the same hour. Nothing . . . As well not to meet or talk . . . Yet the mere fantastic idea of seeing Valentine Wannop for a minute . . . She not allowed in the camp and he not going out. Talking under a sentry’s nose, very likely . . . It had made him smell primroses223. Primroses, like Miss Wannop. He said to the sergeant-major:
‘What sort of a fellow is this?’ Cowley, in open-mouthed suspense224, gasped225 like a fish. Tietjens said:
‘I suppose your mother is fairly feeble to stand in the cold?’
‘A very decent man, sir,’ the sergeant-major got out, ‘one of the best. No trouble. A perfectly clean conduct sheet. Very good education. A railway engineer in civil life . . . Volunteered, of course, sir.’
‘That’s the odd thing,’ Tietjens said to the man, ‘that the percentages of absentees is as great amongst the volunteers as the Derby men or the compulsorily226 enlisted227 . . . Do you understand what will happen to you if you miss the draft?’
The man said soberly:
‘Yes, sir. Perfectly well.’
‘You understand that you will be shot? As certainly as that you stand there. And that you haven’t a chance of escape.’
He wondered what Valentine Wannop, hot pacifist, would think of him if she heard him. Yet it was his duty to talk like that: his human, not merely his military duty. As much his duty as that of a doctor to warn a man that if he drank of typhoid-contaminated water he would get typhoid. But people are unreasonable228. Valentine too was unreasonable. She would consider it brutal229 to speak to a man of the possibility of his being shot by a firing party. A groan26 burst from him. At the thought that there was no sense in bothering about what Valentine Wannop would or would not think of him. No sense. No sense. No sense . . .
The man, fortunately, was assuring him that he knew, very soberly, all about the penalty for going absent off a draft. The sergeant-major, catching a sound from Tietjens, said with admirable fussiness230 to the man:
‘There, there! Don’t you hear the officer’s speaking? Never interrupt an officer.’
‘You’ll be shot,’ Tietjens said, ‘at dawn . . . Literally231 at dawn.’ Why did they shoot them at dawn? To rub it in that they were never going to see another sunrise. But they drugged the fellows so that they wouldn’t know the sun if they saw it: all roped in a chair . . . It was really the worse for the firing party. He added to the man:
‘Don’t think I’m insulting you. You appear to be a very decent fellow. But very decent fellows have gone absent.’ He said to the sergeant-major:
‘Give this man a two-hours’ pass to go to the . . . whatever’s the name of the estaminet . . . The draft won’t move off for two hours, will it?’ He added to the man: ‘If you see your draft passing the pub you run out and fall in. Like mad, you understand. You’d never get another chance.’
There was a mumble160 like applause and envy of a mate’s good luck from a packed audience that had hung on the lips of simple melodrama232 . . . an audience that seemed to be all enlarged eyes, the khaki was so colourless . . . They came as near applause as they dared, but there was no sense in worrying about whether Valentine Wannop would have applauded or not . . . And there was no knowing whether the fellow would not go absent, either. As likely as not there was no mother. A girl very likely. And very likely the man would desert . . . The man looked you straight in the eyes. But a strong passion, like that for escape — or a girl — will give you control over the muscles of the eyes. A little thing that, before strong passion! One would look God in the face on the day of judgement and lie, in that case.
Because what the devil did he want of Valentine Wannop? Why could he not stall off the thought of her? He could stall off the thought of his wife . . . or his not-wife. But Valentine Wannop came wriggling233 in. At all hours of the day and night. It was an obsession234. A madness . . . What those fools called ‘a complex’! . . . Due, no doubt, to something your nurse had done, or your parents said to you. At birth . . . A strong passion . . . or no doubt not strong enough. Otherwise he, too, would have gone absent. At any rate, from Sylvia . . . Which he hadn’t done. Or hadn’t he? There was no saying . . .
It was undoubtedly235 colder in the alley between the huts. A man was saying: ‘Hoo . . . Hooo . . . Hoo . . . ’ A sound like that, and flapping his arms and hopping236 . . . ‘Hand and foot, mark time! Somebody ought to fall these poor devils in and give them that to keep their circulations going. But they might not know the command . . . It was a Guards’ trick, really . . . What the devil were these fellows kept hanging about here for? he asked.
One or two voices said that they did not know. The majority said gutturally:
‘Waiting for our mates, sir . . . ’
‘I should have thought you could have waited under cover,’ Tietjens said caustically237. ‘But never mind; it’s your funeral, if you like it . . . ’ This getting together . . . a strong passion. There was a warmed reception-hut for waiting drafts not fifty yards away . . . But they stood, teeth chattering and mumbling238 ‘Hoo . . . Hoo . . . ’ rather than miss thirty seconds of gabble . . . About what the English sergeant-major said and about what the officer said and how many dollars did they give you . . . And of course about what you answered back . . . Or perhaps not that. These Canadian troops were husky, serious fellows, without the swank of the Cockney or the Lincolnshire Moonrakers. They wanted, apparently, to learn the rules of war. They discussed anxiously information that they received in orderly rooms, and looked at you as if you were expounding239 the gospels . . .
But, damn it, he, he himself, would make a pact240 with Destiny, at that moment, willingly, to pass thirty months in the frozen circle of hell, for the chance of thirty seconds in which to tell Valentine Wannop what he had answered back . . . to Destiny! . . . What was the fellow in the Inferno241 who was buried to the neck in ice and begged Dante to clear the icicles out of his eyelids242 so that he could see out of them? And Dante kicked him in the face because he was a Ghibelline . . . Always a bit of a swine, Dante . . . Rather like . . . like whom? . . . Oh, Sylvia Tietjens . . . A good hater! . . . He imagined hatred243 coming to him in waves from the convent in which Sylvia had immured244 herself . . . Gone into retreat . . . He imagined she had gone into retreat. She had said she was going. For the rest of the war . . . For the duration of hostilities245 or life, whichever were the longer . . . He imagined Sylvia, coiled up on a convent bed . . . Hating . . . Her certainly glorious hair all round her . . . Hating . . . Slowly and coldly . . . Like the head of a snake when you examined it . . . Eyes motionless: mouth closed tight . . . Looking away into the distance and hating . . . She was presumably in Birkenhead . . . A long way to send your hatred . . . Across a country and a sea in an icy night . . .! Over all that black land and water . . . with the lights out because of air-raids and U-boats . . . Well, he did not have to think of Sylvia at the moment. She was well out of it . . .
It was certainly getting no warmer as the night drew on . . . Even that ass Levin was pacing swiftly up and down in the dusky moon-shadow of the last hutments that looked over the slope and the vanishing trail of white stones . . . In spite of his boasting about not wearing an overcoat; to catch women’s eyes with his pretty Staff gadgets he was carrying on like a leopard246 at feeding time . . .
Tietjens said:
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, old man . . . Or rather your lady . . . But there were some men to see to . . . And, you know . . . “The comfort and — what is it? — of the men comes before every — is it ‘consideration’? — except the exigencies247 of actual warfare” . . . My memory’s gone phut these days . . . And you want me to slide down this hill and wheeze248 back again . . . To see a woman!
Levin screeched249: ‘Damn you, you ass! It’s your wife who’s waiting for you at the bottom there.’
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收听单词发音
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1
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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5
casements
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| n.窗扉( casement的名词复数 ) | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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8
poetically
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| adv.有诗意地，用韵文 | |
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whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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caustic
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| adj.刻薄的，腐蚀性的 | |
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15
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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17
saluting
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的现在分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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18
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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19
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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21
idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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23
complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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24
hoods
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| n.兜帽( hood的名词复数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩v.兜帽( hood的第三人称单数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩 | |
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25
memorandum
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| n.备忘录，便笺 | |
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26
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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27
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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28
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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29
depot
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| n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站 | |
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30
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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31
enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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32
grudgingly
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33
opprobriously
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| adv.无礼地 | |
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34
sonnet
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| n.十四行诗 | |
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35
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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36
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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37
appallingly
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| 毛骨悚然地 | |
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38
omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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39
sonnets
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| n.十四行诗( sonnet的名词复数 ) | |
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40
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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41
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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42
grotesquely
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| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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43
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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44
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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45
vaccination
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| n.接种疫苗，种痘 | |
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46
apropos
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| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
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47
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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48
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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49
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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51
cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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52
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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53
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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54
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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55
ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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56
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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57
wraith
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| n.幽灵；骨瘦如柴的人 | |
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58
tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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59
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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60
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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61
squad
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| n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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62
affront
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| n./v.侮辱，触怒 | |
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63
devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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64
shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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65
desultorily
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| adv. 杂乱无章地, 散漫地 | |
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66
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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67
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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68
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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69
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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70
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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71
scribbling
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| n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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72
wraiths
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| n.幽灵( wraith的名词复数 )；（传说中人在将死或死后不久的）显形阴魂 | |
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73
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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74
jauntiness
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| n.心满意足；洋洋得意；高兴；活泼 | |
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75
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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76
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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77
truculent
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| adj.野蛮的，粗野的 | |
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78
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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79
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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80
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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81
superfluously
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| 过分地； 过剩地 | |
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82
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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83
entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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84
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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85
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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86
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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87
encumbered
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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89
stipulated
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| vt.& vi.规定；约定adj.[法]合同规定的 | |
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90
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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91
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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92
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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93
maritally
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| adv.婚姻上作为夫妇，作为丈夫，结了婚似地 | |
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94
attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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95
scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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96
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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97
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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98
opalescent
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| adj.乳色的，乳白的 | |
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99
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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100
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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101
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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102
tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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103
astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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104
drowsily
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| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
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105
lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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106
portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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107
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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108
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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109
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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110
yokel
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| n.乡下人；农夫 | |
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111
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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112
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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113
surfeit
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| v.使饮食过度；n.(食物)过量，过度 | |
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114
drench
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| v.使淋透，使湿透 | |
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115
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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116
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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117
intimacies
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| 亲密( intimacy的名词复数 )； 密切； 亲昵的言行； 性行为 | |
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118
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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119
draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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120
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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121
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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122
gadgets
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| n.小机械，小器具（ gadget的名词复数 ） | |
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123
deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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124
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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125
braces
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| n.吊带，背带；托架( brace的名词复数 )；箍子；括弧；（儿童）牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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126
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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127
dual
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| adj.双的；二重的，二元的 | |
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128
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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129
dominions
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| 统治权( dominion的名词复数 )； 领土； 疆土； 版图 | |
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130
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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131
martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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132
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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133
quays
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| 码头( quay的名词复数 ) | |
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134
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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135
agonized
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| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
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136
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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137
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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138
batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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139
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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140
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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141
trickily
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| adv.欺骗着，用奸计 | |
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142
depots
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| 仓库( depot的名词复数 )； 火车站； 车库； 军需库 | |
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143
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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144
countermanding
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| v.取消（命令），撤回( countermand的现在分词 ) | |
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145
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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146
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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147
brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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148
civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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149
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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150
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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151
obtrusive
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| adj.显眼的；冒失的 | |
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152
avidly
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| adv.渴望地，热心地 | |
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153
scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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154
arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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155
philandering
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| v.调戏，玩弄女性( philander的现在分词 ) | |
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156
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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157
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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158
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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159
mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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160
mumble
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| n./v.喃喃而语，咕哝 | |
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161
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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162
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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163
stewing
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| 炖 | |
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164
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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165
barrage
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| n.火力网，弹幕 | |
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166
glimmering
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|
| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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167
infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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168
vets
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| abbr.veterans （复数）老手，退伍军人；veterinaries （复数）兽医n.兽医( vet的名词复数 )；老兵；退伍军人；兽医诊所v.审查（某人过去的记录、资格等）( vet的第三人称单数 )；调查；检查；诊疗 | |
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169
sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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170
auxiliary
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| adj.辅助的，备用的 | |
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171
superintendents
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|
| 警长( superintendent的名词复数 )； （大楼的）管理人； 监管人； （美国）警察局长 | |
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172
bishops
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| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
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173
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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174
unravelled
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| 解开，拆散，散开( unravel的过去式和过去分词 )； 阐明； 澄清； 弄清楚 | |
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175
mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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176
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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177
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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178
camouflaged
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| v.隐蔽( camouflage的过去式和过去分词 )；掩盖；伪装，掩饰 | |
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179
picturesquely
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180
silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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181
mazes
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| 迷宫( maze的名词复数 )； 纷繁复杂的规则； 复杂难懂的细节； 迷宫图 | |
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182
crunching
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|
| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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183
gravel
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|
| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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184
etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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185
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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186
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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187
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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188
sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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189
auction
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| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
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190
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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191
contradictory
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|
| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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192
serial
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| n.连本影片，连本电视节目；adj.连续的 | |
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193
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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194
fumed
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| 愤怒( fume的过去式和过去分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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195
tapestried
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| adj.饰挂绣帷的，织在绣帷上的v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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196
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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197
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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198
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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199
adroit
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| adj.熟练的，灵巧的 | |
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200
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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201
sentimentally
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| adv.富情感地 | |
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202
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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203
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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204
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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205
backbone
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| n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气 | |
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206
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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207
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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208
waft
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| v.飘浮，飘荡；n.一股；一阵微风；飘荡 | |
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209
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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210
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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211
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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212
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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213
direly
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| 可怕的，恐怖的； 悲惨的； 迫切的，极端的 | |
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214
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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215
desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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216
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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217
jibe
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| v.嘲笑，与...一致，使转向；n.嘲笑，嘲弄 | |
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218
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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219
pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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220
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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221
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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222
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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223
primroses
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| n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 )；淡黄色；追求享乐（招至恶果） | |
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224
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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225
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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226
compulsorily
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| 强迫地，强制地 | |
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227
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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228
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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229
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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230
fussiness
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| [医]易激怒 | |
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231
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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232
melodrama
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| n.音乐剧；情节剧 | |
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233
wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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234
obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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235
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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236
hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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237
caustically
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| adv.刻薄地；挖苦地；尖刻地；讥刺地 | |
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238
mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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239
expounding
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的现在分词 ) | |
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240
pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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241
inferno
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| n.火海；地狱般的场所 | |
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242
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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243
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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244
immured
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| v.禁闭，监禁( immure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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245
hostilities
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| n.战争；敌意(hostility的复数)；敌对状态；战事 | |
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246
leopard
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| n.豹 | |
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247
exigencies
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| n.急切需要 | |
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248
wheeze
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| n.喘息声，气喘声；v.喘息着说 | |
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249
screeched
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的过去式和过去分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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