Captain Saunders pushed away his plate and wiped his hands on his napkin. 'And I've got good news for you too, Major,' he said. 'Twelve more cases of mumps this morning. Three in B
Company, four in C and five in D. Making a grand total of eighty-one—all ORs, no officers—excluding those in A, the whereabouts of which an informed guess would now place in Colembert, between Boulogne and St Omer, I agree. So I have commandeered a bus and despatched the new cases to the base hospital at Boulogne, in charge of Corporal Potts, who was one of yesterday's cases. Bringing our total fighting strength—if that, is the appropriate term ... which I doubt...
to three hundred and thirty-five. Before long we'll probably have more officers than other ranks.'
Audley regarded the Medical Officer with interest. 'You're sending cases of mumps to the Base Hospital, Doc? But I thought mumps was a ... a childish disease? I mean—a few days in bed, and then up again and at 'em?'
'In young children—yes, Nigel. But in the case of adults . . .
alas! Corporal Potts is—or was—a failed first-year medical student, and he has incontinently passed on his knowledge of Orchitis to the rest of the battalion, I'm afraid. So I've sent the sick to Boulogne to keep up the morale of the healthy.'
'Orchitis?'
dummy4
'The Black Death would have been preferable to Orchitis.'
Captain Saunders swung from Audley to Major Tetley-Robinson. 'Orchitis is an adult complication of mumps which inflames the testicles and can cause sterility. As a result of which the men are scared stiff for fear of having their balls swell up like melons, and then deflate for ever.. . And when Corporal Potts gets back from the Base Hospital I'll have his stripes off him if it's the last thing I do.'
One of the newest subalterns, a boy so new that Bastable couldn't even place his face, never mind think of his name, coughed politely.
'Sir . . . Sir, you said—or you implied, sir—that it's the ORs who are getting it ... the mumps . . . not the officers. Why is that, sir?'
Captain Saunders stared at the child for a moment or two.
'Where were you a year ago, Mr—Mr—'
'Chichester, sir.'
'You were at Chichester?'
'No, sir. I was at King's, Canterbury.'
'Ah-hah! And King's, Canterbury, is a public school, I take it, Mr Chichester?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Just so! Boarding cheek-by-jowl with other little boys —
living in a perfect breeding ground for contagious and infectious diseases. So you have had mumps, Mr Chichester
—'
dummy4
'Yes, sir—'
'And measles, and German measles, and chicken-pox —you may well have braved scarlet fever and diptheria and cholera and heaven only knows what other foul contagions,' As Captain Saunders leaned across the table towards the astonished Mr Chichester, Captain Bastable picked up the strong aroma of brandy. He had not hitherto tagged the MO
as a drinking man, but then (to be fair) the delivery of a French man-child, at least after the event, would not have been an abstemious event, he reasoned.
'You, Mr Chichester—' the MO stabbed a finger at the subaltern,'— are a product of natural selection. And the same almost certainly holds true for the rest of you—you are all inoculated by privilege and good fortune, unlike the other ranks of this exclusive unit.'
It was not the moment for the Adjutant to reappear, but the Adjutant had a knack of appearing when he was not wanted.
The MO swung round towards him as the door banged.
'I bet you've had mumps, Percy,' said the MO.
Captain Harbottle had no answer to that.
'They've got a problem with the Boysh anti-tank rattle, too,'
said the MO. He turned back to Major Audley. 'Just what is your problem, Nigel? You're the only one here who ever talks straight—except Willis there, and he talks too much.
Whereas you don't talk enough.'
Major Audley grinned at the MO. 'I think you could say that dummy4
our anti-tank weapons have contracted Orchitis, Doc,' he said.
The MO frowned at him. 'They've— what?'
'They've got no live ammunition,' said Audley. 'Twenty-four magazines of soft-nosed aluminium practice rounds between us—no armour piercing. If we meet any German tanks we might as well throw snowballs at them.'
Captain Harbottle decided to cut his losses. 'Company Commanders to Headquarters at once,' he said. And then, to be merciful to everyone else, 'We've got two staff officers from GHQ. They say everything's going well.'
A not-so-distant rumble of exploding bombs at Belléme seemed to contradict this statement, but breakfast was plainly over, Bastable decided.
II
'Basically, it's a predictable situation, gentlemen,' said the CO
in his best nasal military voice. 'The French have rushed in, and the Boche has given them their usual bloody nose —1914
and all that.'
So Major Tetley-Robinson was vindicated. Bastable covertly examined the staff officers who had confirmed this predictable Scene One, Act one, of World War Two. The younger of the two was a mere captain, fair-haired and ruddy-faced, but sharp-featured and sharper-eyed with it. He dummy4
reminded Bastable of the up-and-coming area manager for Kayser-Bondor with whom he had had dealings just before the war—a clever grammar-school boy who had been to Oxford, or Cambridge, and was obviously destined for a seat on the board of directors by sheer force of intelligence; not quite a gentleman yet, to be asked home to dinner, but in four or five years' time he would have learnt all the tricks and would pass muster; and in another four or five years after that he might well be running the whole show.
Bastable had no objection to such men so long as they knew their place at each stage in their career. Success in business was a healthy turnover, a fair profit margin for everyone and satisfied customers whose goodwill represented next year's turnover and next year's profits. His own particular innovation to that formula was the creation of a loyal, well-trained and adequately-remunerated staff, which in his opinion in turn created the conditions for successful management. The recruitment of a trainee-manager like this young staff officer must be one of his post-war priorities if Bastable's of Eastbourne was to compete with Bobby's of Eastbourne successfully; and there would IDC plenty of men like this one looking for jobs then, no doubt.
He started guiltily. He hadn't been giving the CO his full attention.
'. . but fortunately the French have plenty of men, and their tanks are generally superior to the Germans'—our information is that many of the German tanks are in fact dummy4
light Czech machines, which proves that their numbers are not as great as rumour would have it.' The CO nodded to the senior staff officer, as though that had been a point he had been specially asked to make.
'Which proves no such thing,' murmured Major Audley. ' It's a non-sequitur.'
'What's that, Nigel?' barked the CO.
'I said "I hope we get some some of them on our sector," sir,'
said Major Audley. 'Czech tanks . . . just the thing for our Boys anti-tank rifles!'
The older of the two staff officers gave Major Audley a very sharp glance. Unlike his junior colleague, he had 'class'
stamped distinctively all over him, from the cut of his uniform to the immense beak of a nose which dominated his face below the bushy iron-grey eyebrows which overhung pale-blue fanatical eyes. It was, indeed, very much a foxhunting, chairman-of-the-magistrates, lord-of-the-manor, High-Sheriff face, and Captain Bastable was damn glad it was now directed towards Major Audley and not himself, but concentrated on making himself as inconspicuous as possible just in case, behind the Adjutant's bulky shoulder.
Major Audley coughed politely. 'What is the present position of the German advance units, sir?' he enquired of the beak-nosed Brigadier.