The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [31]
‘It’s all worked out to the nearest minute,’ he said.
Then he strolled away, and began to survey the country through field-glasses.
‘That’s bloody well wrong,’ said Kedward, under his breath. ‘We ought to be a mile further on at least, if we’re going to be any use at the Foremost Defended Localities when the moment comes.’
Holding no strong views on the subject myself, I was inclined to think Kedward right. All was confusion. I had only a very slight idea what was happening by now, and what role the Company should rightly play. I should have liked to lie on the ground and stretch my legs out like the men, instead of having to be on the alert for Gwatkin’s next order and superintend a dozen small matters. Some minutes later a runner came up with a written message for Gwatkin.
‘Good God,’ he said.
Something had evidently gone badly amiss. Gwatkin took off his helmet and shook the rain from it. He looked about him hopelessly.
‘It hasn’t worked out right,’ he said agitatedly.
‘What hasn’t?’
‘Fall in your men at once,’ he said. ‘It’s long past the time when we should have been in position. That’s what the message says.’
Instead of being close up behind the company we were supposed to support, here we were, in fact, hanging about miles away; still occupied, I suppose, with some more preliminary involution of Gwatkin’s labyrinthine tactical performance. Kedward was right. We ought to have been advancing at greater speed. Gwatkin had done poorly. Now, he began to issue orders right and left. However, before anything much could happen, another runner appeared. This one carried an order instructing Gwatkin to halt his company for the time being, while we ‘let through’ another company, by now close on our heels. Like golfers who have lost their ball, we allowed this company to pass between our deployed ranks. They were on their way to do the job assigned to ourselves. Bithel was one of their platoon commanders. He trotted by quite near me, red in the face, panting like a dog. As he came level, he paused for a moment.
‘Haven’t got an aspirin about you?’ he asked.
‘Afraid not.’
‘Forgot to bring mine.’
‘Sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ he said, loosening the helmet from his forehead for a moment, ‘just felt an aspirin might be the answer.’
His teeth clicked metallically. He hurried on again to catch up his men, rejoining the platoon as they were already beginning to disappear from sight. We ‘stood by’ for ages, awaiting an order.
‘Can the men sit down again?’ asked Breeze.
‘No,’ said Gwatkin.
He was deeply humiliated by these circumstances, standing silent, fidgeting with his revolver holster. At last the order came. Gwatkin’s company was to proceed by road to Battalion Headquarters in the field. He was himself to report to the Commanding Officer forthwith.
‘I’ve let the whole Battalion down,’ he muttered, as he went off towards his Company Commander’s truck.
Kedward thought the same.
‘Did you ever see such frigging about,’ he said. ‘Why, even as it was, I was behindhand in bringing my platoon up level with the main body of the Company, and by then I’d cut out at least half the things Rowland had told me to do. If I’d done them all, it would have taken a week. We wouldn’t even have got as far as that field where we had a breather.’
We set off for Battalion HQ. By the time I brought my platoon in, it was late in the afternoon. Rain had begun to fall again. The place was a clearing in some woods where field kitchens had been set up. At last there was prospect of something to eat, a subject much on the men’s minds, scarcely less on my own. I was very ready for a meal, breakfast soon after 5 a.m. by now a long way off. For some reason, probably because it was becoming hard to obtain, I carried no chocolate in my haversack. Gwatkin was waiting for us when we arrived. From his appearance it was clear he had been hauled pretty roughly over the coals by the Commanding Officer for failure to bring up the Company in time earlier that day. His face was white.
‘You are to take your platoon out at once on patrol,’ he said.
‘But they