Bastable frowned at his plate again. Beyond the fact that Willis didn't want to drill his men he wasn't at all sure what it was which was so aggravating the ex-schoolmaster. The majority of the recent replacements were little better than civilians in uniform, notwithstanding their yellow-and-grey lanyards, and drill was something they could do straight away which at least might make them feel more like soldiers.
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He clenched his fists under the table and nerved himself to speak.
'What is it that you want to do, Willis?' He couldn't bring himself to give the man the inexplicable nickname which had attached itself to him. Everybody in the mess had either a Christian name or a nickname to distinguish him socially from the formal military world of 'sirs' and 'misters' outside—
everybody, that was, except himself, who had somehow become frozen into 'Bastable' in the mess (and usually the more insulting variant rhyming with barstard); which was a source of constant, nagging, irritating, bewildering and unfair pain to him. 'What's mad about drill, man?'
Captain Willis looked at him in surprise, as though he hadn't expected the faculty of speech in Captain Bar stable , but before he could reveal his heart's desire the burly figure of the battalion medical officer filled the doorway beside him.
'I don't know what you want to do, Wimpy—and frankly I couldn't care less,' said Captain Saunders. 'But I want my breakfast—Steward! Ham and eggs—three eggs—and don't toast the bread ... And send across to the café over the road for a large pot of coffee on the double—and say It's for
"M'sieur le médicin", don't forget that—a large pot!'
Captain Willis chuckled dryly. 'Trust the medical profession!
I take it you have been feathering your nest with the locals, Doc? Touching up les jeunes demoiselles as part of the Anglo-French entente cordiale? '
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Captain Saunders reached across the table and tore a six-inch hunk from one of the long French loaves. 'I have delivered a French baby—male. "Class of 1940" I suppose they'd call the poor little devil, when they finally call him up ... in 1958 which they probably will.' He ate a piece of bread from the hunk, without benefit of butter. 'And the Germans are across the Somme, at Peronne.'
For a moment no one at the table spoke, or even moved. The medical officer's words seemed to hang in the air, like an unthinkable wisp of smoke over a dry cornfield on a still day.
'What?' said Major Tetley-Robinson.
'Where?' said Captain Willis.
'Who said?' said Major Audley simultaneously.
'Nonsense!' said Major Tetley-Robinson.
Captain Saunders munched his mouthful of bread. 'That's what the French say—the people I've just been talking to.'
'Refugees,' said Major Tetley-Robinson contemptuously.
'We've heard enough rumours from them to keep us going for a year. If we start believing what they say, they'll have the bloody Boche in Calais next week, queuing for the cross-channel ferries.'
Captain Saunders continued munching. 'A week is right—' he nodded '—they say the Germans'll be on the Channel coast in a week. Hundreds of tanks, driving like hell—that's what they say . . . Actually, they said "thousands", but that seemed to be stretching it a bit, I thought.' He nodded, but then turned the dummy4
nod into a negative shake. 'These weren't refugees though, Charlie. It was the station-master's wife's baby I delivered.
He had it from an engine-driver—the information, I mean, not the baby. And all the lines are down now, he says—to Peronne.'
'Fifth Columnists!' snapped Tetley-Robinson. 'A lot of those refugees that came through on the main road, to the south, yesterday... they looked suspiciously able-bodied to me.'
'Peronne . . .' murmured Major Audley. He turned towards Lieutenant Davidson. 'You're alleged to be our IO, Dickie—so where the devil were the Germans supposed to be as of last night?'
Lieutenant Davidson squirmed uncomfortably. 'Well, sir . . .
things have been a bit knotted-up at Brigade—or they were yesterday.'
'What d'you mean "knotted-up" boy?'
'Well . . . actually . . . things seem to be a bit confused, don't you know . . . rather.' Lieutenant Davidson manoeuvred the crumbs on his plate into a neat pile.
'No, Dickie,' said Major Audley.
'No, sir—Nigel?' Lieutenant Davidson blinked.
'No, Dickie. No—I don't know. And no, I'm not confused. To be confused one must know something. But as I know nothing I am not confused, I am merely unenlightened. So enlighten me, Dickie—enlighten us all.'
'Or at least—confuse us,' murmured Willis. 'What does dummy4
Brigade say?'
'Well, actually . . .' Lieutenant Davidson began to rearrange the crumbs, ' . . . actually, Brigade says we don't belong to them at all. So they haven't really said anything, actually.'
'What d'you mean, "don't belong to them"?' asked Major Audley.
'They say we should be at Colembert, sir—Nigel.'
'But we are at Colembert, dear boy.'
'No, sir ... That is to say, yes—but actually no, you see.'
Lieutenant Davidson tried to attract Major Tetley-Robinson's attention.
'Ah! Now we're getting somewhere,' Major Audley nodded encouragingly. 'Now I am beginning to become confused at least. We are at Colembert—but we're not. Please confuse me further, Dickie.'
Lieutenant Davidson abandoned the crumbs. 'This is Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts, sir. But apparently there's another Colembert, with no ponts, up towards St Omer. It seems the MCO at Boulogne attached us to the wrong convoy, or something—that's what Brigade says—'
'Good God!' exclaimed Major Audley. 'But St Omer's miles from here—it's near Boulogne.'
'Yes . . .' nodded Willis. 'And that would account for Jackie Johnson and the whole of "A" Company being absent without leave, of course. Only poor old Jackie didn't lose us after all—
he just went off to the right Colembert. . . and we lost him, dummy4
eh?'
But Major Audley had his eye fixed on Major Tetley-Robinson now. 'So what the hell are we doing about it, Charlie?'
Major Tetley-Robinson almost looked uncomfortable. 'The matter is in hand, Nigel. That's all I can tell you.'
Willis smiled. '"Theirs not to reason why—theirs but to do and die", Nigel. Same thing happened to the jolly old Light Brigade.'
'Same thing happens in hospital,' observed Captain Saunders wisely, nodding to the whole table.
'What same thing, Doc?' enquired Willis.
'Wrong patient gets sent to surgery to have his leg cut off.
Always causes a devil of a row afterwards. Somebody gets the push, somebody else gets promoted. Hard luck on the patient. And hard luck on us if the Huns are in Peronne, I suppose.'
Major Audley considered Captain Saunders for a moment, and then turned back to Lieutenant Davidson. 'Are the Germans in Peronne, Dickie? What does Brigade say?'
Lieutenant Davidson looked directly at Major Tetley-Robinson. 'Sir . . . ?' he appealed.
'Harrumph!' Major Tetley-Robinson brushed his moustache with the back of his hand. 'That would be telling!'
'It would indeed, Charlie,' said Major Audley cuttingly.
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'They must be in touch with the French,' said Captain Willis.
'The French are supposed to be north-west of us here, and Peronne is . . .' he frowned,' ... is bloody south-west, if my memory serves me correctly—bloody south-west!'
Willis's memory did serve him correctly, thought Bastable uneasily. In fact, Peronne was so far south as to be impossible; there just had to be two Peronnes, in the same way as there had been two Colemberts.