The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [16]
‘Has everyone had their cocoa issue, Sergeant Pendry?’
‘That they have, sir, very good it was.’
‘Some of the boys was too sick to drink their cocoa, sir,’ said Corporal Gwylt, who felt his comment always required.
‘Are a lot of the Platoon sea-sick?’
‘I told them to lie still and it would pass,’ said Sergeant Pendry. ‘They do make a lot of fuss, some of them.’
‘Oh, bloody sick, some of them,’ said Corporal Gwylt, like a Greek chorus. ‘That fair boy, Jones, D., bloody sick he has been.’
The boat ploughed through wind and wave. Was this the night journey on the sea of a thousand dreams loaded with hidden meaning? Certainly our crossing was no less mysterious than those nocturnal voyages of sleep. Towards morning I retired below to shave, feeling revived when I returned to deck. The sky was getting lighter and land was in sight. An easterly breeze was blowing when we went ashore, which sprayed about a gentle drizzle. Beyond the harbour stretched a small town, grey houses, factory chimneys. In the distance, mountains were obscured by cloud. Everything looked mean and down-at-heel. There was nothing to make one glad to have arrived in this country.
‘March your men ashore promptly when the order comes, platoon commanders,’ said Gwatkin. ‘Show initiative. Don’t hang about. Get cracking.’
He looked rather green in the face, as if, like Jones, D., he too had been sick during the crossing, himself far from the condition required for ‘getting cracking’. The companies filed down the gangway, one by one, forming up later by a railway line. There were the usual delays. The rain, borne towards us on a driving wind, was increasing in volume. The Battalion stood easy, waiting for word from the Embarkation Staff. Girls with shawls over their heads were on their way to work. Disregarding the rain, they stopped and watched us from the side of the road, standing huddled together, talking and laughing.
‘Aigh-o, Mary,’ shouted Corporal Gwylt. ‘Have you come to see the foreigners?’
The girls began to giggle purposefully.
‘It’s no brave day ye’ve brought with ye,’ one of them called back.
‘What was that you said, Mary, my love?’
‘Why did ye not bring a braver day with ye, I’m asking. ‘Tis that we’ve been wanting since Sunday, sure.’
‘What kind of a day, Mary, my own?’
‘Why a brave day. ‘Tis prosperous weather we’re needing.’
Corporal Gwylt turned to Sergeant Pendry and made a gesture with his hand to convey absolute incredulity at such misuse of language.
‘Brave day?’ he said. ‘Did you hear what she called it, Sergeant Pendry?’
‘I did that, Corporal Gwylt.’
‘So that’s a funny way to talk.’
‘That it is.’
‘Now you can tell the way people speak we’re far from home.’
‘You’ll be getting many surprises in this country, my lad,’ said Sergeant Pendry. ‘You may be sure of that.’
‘Will some of them be nice surprises, Sergeant?’
‘Ask not that of me.’
‘Oh, don’t you think I’ll be getting some nice surprises, Sergeant Pendry,’ said Corporal Gwylt in a soft wheedling tone, ‘like a plump little girl to keep me warm at night.’
CSM Cadwallader was pottering about nearby, like a conscientious matron at a boys’ school determined to make sure all was well. He had the compact professional feeling of the miner, which he combined with a rather unusual taste for responsibility, so that any company commander was lucky to claim his services.
‘We’ll be keeping you warm, Corporal Gwylt,’ he said. ‘Make no mistake. There’ll be plenty of work for you, I’ll tell you straight. Do not worry about the night-time. Then you will want your rest, not little girls, nor big ones neither.’
‘But a plump little girl, Sergeant-Major? Do not yourself wish to meet a plump little girl?’
‘Put not such ideas into the Sergeant-Major’s head, Corporal Gwylt,’ said Sergeant Pendry. ‘He does not wish your dirty things.’
‘Nor me, the dirty girls,’ said Corporal Gwylt. ‘I never said the dirty ones.’
‘Nor then the clean ones, understand.’
‘Oh, does he not?’ said Corporal Gwylt, in feigned astonishment. ‘Not even the clean ones? Do you think that indeed, Sergeant Pendry?