The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [33]
‘It do wobble a fair trifle, sir.’
‘Stand by while I cross.’
‘That I will, sir.’
I started to make the transit, falling in after about three or four yards. The water might have been colder for the time of year. I swam the rest of the way, reaching the far bank not greatly wetter than the rain had left me. There I wandered about for a time, making notes of matters to be regarded as important in the circumstances. After that, I came back to the canal, and, disillusioned as to the potentialities of the rope bridge, swam across again. The canal banks were fairly steep, but the corporal helped me out of the water. He did not seem in the least surprised to find that I had chosen this method of return in preference to his bridge.
‘Very shaky, those rope bridges,’ was all he said.
By now it was dark, rain still falling. I returned to the cowshed. There a wonderful surprise was waiting. It appeared that Corporal Gwylt, accompanied by Williams, W. H., had visited the neighbouring farm and managed to wheedle from the owners a jug of tea.
‘We saved a mug for you, sir. Wet you are, by Christ, too.’
I could have embraced him. The tea was of the kind Uncle Giles used to call ‘a good sergeant-major’s brew’. It tasted like the best champagne. I felt immediately ten years younger, hardly wet at all.
‘She was a big woman that gave us that jug of tea, she was,’ said Corporal Gwylt.
He addressed Williams, W. H.
‘Ah, she was,’ agreed Williams, W. H.
He looked thoughtful. Good at running and singing, he was otherwise not greatly gifted.
‘She made me afraid, she did,’ said Corporal Gwylt. ‘I would have been afraid of that big woman in a little bed.’
‘Indeed, I would too that,’ said Williams, W. H., looking as if he were sincere in the opinion.
‘Would you not have been afraid of her, Sergeant Pendry, a great big woman twice your size?’
‘Shut your mouth,’ said Sergeant Pendry, with unexpected force. ‘Must you ever be talking of women?’
Corporal Gwylt was not at all put out.
‘I would be even more afeared of her in a big bed,’ he said reflectively.
We finished our tea. A runner came in, brought by a sentry, with a message from Gwatkin. It contained an order to report to him at a map reference in half an hour’s time. The place of meeting turned out to be the crossroads not far from the cowshed.
‘Shall I take the jug back, Corporal?’ asked Williams, W. H.
‘No, lad, I’ll return that jug,’ said Corporal Gwylt. ‘If I have your permission, sir?’
‘Off you go, but don’t stay all night.’
‘I won’t take long, sir.’
Gwylt disappeared with the jug. The weather was clearing up now. There was a moon. The air was fresh. When the time came, I went off to meet Gwatkin. Water dripped from the trees, but a little wetness, more or less, was by then a matter of indifference. I stood just off the road while I waited, expecting Gwatkin would be late. However, the truck appeared on time. The vehicle drew up in the moonlight just beside me. Gwatkin stepped out. He gave the driver instructions about a message he was to take and the time he was to return to this same spot. The truck drove off. Gwatkin began to stride slowly up the road. I walked beside him.
‘Everything all right, Nick?’
I told him what we had been doing, giving the results of the reconnaissance on the far side of the canal
‘Why are you so wet?’
‘Fell off the rope bridge into the canal.’
‘And swam?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was good,’ he said, as if it had been a brilliant idea to swim.
‘How are things going in the battle?’
‘The fog of war has descended.’
That was a favourite phrase of Gwatkin’s. He seemed to derive support from it. There was a pause. Gwatkin began to fumble in his haversack. After a moment he brought out quite a sizeable bar of chocolate.
‘I brought this for you,’ he said.
‘Thanks awfully, Rowland.’
I broke off a fairly large portion and handed the rest back to him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s all for you.’
‘All this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you really spare it?’
‘It’s meant for you. I thought you might not have any chocolate with you.’
‘I hadn’t.’
He returned to the subject of the exercise, explaining, so far as possible, the stage things had reached, what our immediate movements were to be. I gnawed the chocolate. I had forgotten how good chocolate could be, wondering why I had never eaten more of it before the war. It was like a drug, entirely altering one