The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [37]
‘Have your men been dry here?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘There is a leak in the thatch here.’
‘There is a leak in that corner, sir, but the men slept the other end.’
The General, deep in thought, continued his prodding for some seconds without visible effect. Then, as he put renewed energy into the thrusts of his stick, which penetrated far into the roofing, a large piece of under-thatch all at once descended from above, narrowly missing General Liddament himself, completely overwhelming his ADC with debris of dust, twigs and loam. At that, the General abandoned his activities, as if at last satisfied. Neither he nor anyone else made any comment, nor was any amusement expressed. The ADC, a pink-faced young man, blushed hotly and set about cleaning himself up. The General turned to me again.
‘What did your men have for breakfast, Jenkins?’
‘Liver, sir.’
I was impressed by his retention of my name.
‘What else?’
‘Jam, sir.’
‘What else?’
‘Bread, sir – and margarine.’
‘Porridge?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Why not?’
‘No issue, sir.’
The General turned savagely on Gwatkin, who had fallen into a kind of trance, but now started agonisingly to life again.
‘No porridge?’
‘No porridge, sir.’
General Liddament pondered this assertion for some seconds in resentful silence. He seemed to be considering porridge in all its aspects, bad as well as good. At last he came out with an unequivocal moral judgment.
‘There ought to be porridge,’ he said.
He glared round at the platoon, hard at work with their polishing, oiling, pulling-through, whatever they were doing. Suddenly he pointed his stick at Williams, W. H., the platoon runner.
‘Would you have liked porridge?’
Williams, W.H., came to attention. As I have said, Williams, W.H., was good on his feet and sang well. Otherwise, he was not particularly bright.
‘No, sir,’ he said instantly, as if that must be the right answer.
The General was taken aback. It would not be too much to say he was absolutely staggered.
‘Why not?’
General Liddament spoke sharply, but seriously, as if some excuse like religious scruple about eating porridge would certainly be accepted as valid.
‘Don’t like it, sir.’
‘You don’t like porridge?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then you’re a foolish fellow – a very foolish fellow.’
After saying that, the General stood in silence, as if in great distress of mind, holding his long staff at arm’s length from him, while he ground it deep into the earthy surface of the barnhouse floor. He appeared to be trying to contemplate as objectively as possible the concept of being so totally excluded from the human family as to dislike porridge. His physical attitude suggested a holy man doing penance vicariously for the sin of those in his spiritual care. All at once he turned to the man next to Williams, W. H., who happened to be Sayce.
‘Do you like porridge?’ he almost shouted.
Sayce’s face, obstinate, dishonest, covered with pock-marks showed determination to make trouble if possible, at the same time uncertainty as how best to achieve that object. For about half a minute Sayce turned over in his mind the pros and cons of porridge eating, just as he might reflect on the particular excuse most effective in extenuation of a dirty rifle barrel. Then he spoke.
‘Well, sir—’ he began.
General Liddament abandoned Sayce immediately for Jones, D.
‘—and you?’
‘No sir,’ said Jones, D., also speaking with absolute assurance that a negative answer was expected of him.
‘—and you?’
‘No, sir,’ said Rees.
Moving the long stick with feverish speed, as if he were smelling out witches, the General pointed successively at Davies, J., Davies, E., Ellis, Clements, Williams, G.
No one had time to answer. There was a long pause at the end of the line. Corporal Gwylt stood there. He had been supervising the cleaning of the bren. General Liddament, whose features had taken on an expression of resignation, stood now leaning forward, resting his chin on the top of the stick, his head looking like a strange, rather malignant totem at the apex of a pole. He fixed his eyes on Gwylt’s cap badge, as if ruminating on the history of the Regiment symbolized in the emblems of its design.