No More Parades_ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [96]
To himself he said:
'I shall fight this monstrous treatment of myself to my last breath.'
The general suddenly called out:
'There you are...There is another of your infernal worries...'
He put a strong check on himself, and, dryly, like the very great speaking to the very unimportant, asked:
'What's your medical category.'
Tietjens said:
'Permanent base, sir. My chest's rotten!'
The general said:
'I should forget that, if I were you...The second in command of a battalion has nothing to do but sit about in arm-chairs waiting for the colonel to be killed.' He added: 'It's the best I can do for you...I've thought it out very carefully. It's the best I can do for you.'
Tietjens said:
'I shall, of course, forget my category, sir...'
Of course he would never fight any treatment of himself!
There it was then: the natural catastrophe! As when, under thunder, a dam breaks. His mind was battling with the waters. What would it pick out as the main terror? The mud: the noise: dread always at the back of the mind? Or the worry! The worry! Your eyebrows always had a slight tension on them...Like eye-strain!
The general had begun, soberly:
'You will recognize that there is nothing else that I can do.'
His answering:
'I recognize, naturally, sir, that there is nothing else that you can do...' seemed rather to irritate the general. He wanted opposition: he wanted Tietjens to argue the matter. He was the Roman father counselling suicide to his son: but he wanted Tietjens to expostulate. So that he, General Campion, might absolutely prove that he, Tietjens, was a disgraceful individual...It could not be done. The general said:
'You will understand that I can't--no commander could!--have such things happening in my command...'
'I must accept that, if you say it, sir.'
The general looked at him under his eyebrows. He said:
'I have already told you that this is promotion. I have been much impressed by the way you have handled this command. You are, of course, no soldier, but you will make an admirable officer for the militia, that is all that our troops now are...' He said: 'I will emphasize what I am saying...No officer could--without being militarily in the wrong--have a private life that is as incomprehensible and embarrassing as yours...'
Tietjens said:
'He's hit it!...'
The general said:
'An officer's private life and his life on parade are as strategy to tactics...I don't want, if I can avoid it, to go into your private affairs. It's extremely embarrassing...But let me put it to you that...I wish to be delicate. But you are a man of the world!...Your wife is an extremely beautiful woman...There has been a scandal...I admit not of your making...But if, on the top of that, I appeared to show favouritism to you...'
Tietjens said:
'You need not go on, sir...I understand...' He tried to remember what the brooding and odious McKechnie had said...only two nights ago...He couldn't remember...It was certainly a suggestion that Sylvia was the general's mistress. It had then, he remembered, seemed fantastic...Well, what else could they think? He said to himself: 'It absolutely blocks out my staying here!' He said aloud: 'Of course, it's my own fault. If a man so handles his womenfolk that they get out of hand, he has only himself to blame.'
The general was going on. He pointed out that one of his predecessors had lost that very command on account of scandals about women. He had turned the place into a damned harem!...
He burst out, looking at Tietjens with a peculiar goggle-eyed intentness:
'If you think I'd care about losing my command over Sylvia or any other damned Society woman...' He said: 'I beg your pardon...' and continued reasoningly:
'It's the men that have to be considered. They think--and they've every right to think it if they wish to--that a man who's a wrong 'un over women isn't the man they can trust their lives in the hands of...' He added: 'And they're probably right...A man who's a real wrong 'un...I don't mean who sets up a gal in a tea-shop...But one who sells his wife, or...At any rate, in our army...The French may be different!...Well, a man like that usually has a yellow streak when it comes to fighting...Mind, I'm not saying always...Usually...There was a fellow called...'