“But I don’t understand, adj,” Paxton said. “Five days I took to ferry that Quirk here. Five. And now it’s just a heap of ashes.”
Appleyard sat and looked at him. In the distance, a gentle rumble of thunder quickly ran out of strength. The noise drained into the summer silence and was gone. “You feel pretty strongly about this, don’t you?” he said. “I can tell. They don’t call me Uncle for nothing. Corporal Lacey!” he shouted. “You’re entitled to feel strongly,” he told Paxton. “After all, it’s your neck, and if the machine’s as inflammable as you say…” The door opened. “Ah, corporaclass="underline" be so good as to arrange a meeting with Major Milne for Lieutenant Dexter.”
“Paxton,” said Paxton.
“Really?” Appleyard was taken aback. “Not Dexter?” He waved Lacey away, and the door closed. “Well, that’s different. Damn it, I’m sure I had it here…” He scrabbled among his papers. “Yes, look, here it is: Second-Lieutenant D.E.M. Dexter, Sussex Yeomanry.”
“I’m Paxton.”
Appleyard did some more scrabbling. “Paxton. Yes. Found it. My God, you should have got here last week. You’re a bit late, aren’t you?”
“Not as late as Dexter, I’m afraid. He flew into a church.” Paxton was amazed at his own callousness, but also pleased. He felt ready for a bit of callousness.
“Nobody told me.” Appleyard crossed out Dexter’s name, firmly, several times. “Flew into a church, you say. Extraordinary thing to do… What sort of church? Nothing here about it that I can see…”
Paxton said nothing; he knew the adjutant was talking to himself. For a while there was silence. Paxton stood up. Through a window he could see the camp’s transport park: a dozen lorries, tenders, petrol bowsers. A man was trying to kick-start a motorcycle. It coughed, once, each time he tried. He went on stamping, regularly, uselessly. Paxton lost patience. He turned and went out. “Don’t worry, old boy,” the adjutant called, “I’ll sort it out.” Paxton closed the door.
“Can I help, sir?” asked Corporal Lacey.
“I don’t know. Can you make my BE2c fly again?”
“Rising like a phoenix from the ashes… What an excellent idea. Tidy and economical. War is so messy. Or so I’m told.”
Paxton put his cap on and looked hard. Normally, troops stood rigidly to attention when he spoke to them. They squared their shoulders, held their thumbs to the seams of the trousers, and stared at the knot of his tie. Corporal Lacey was quite relaxed. One leg was slightly bent at the knee, a thumb was hooked in a trouser pocket, and he looked Paxton in the eye. His moustache disguised a slight movement of the lips. He was almost, Paxton thought, smiling. Almost but not quite. What a cheek. “I didn’t seem to be able to get through to the adjutant,” he said.
“Mr. Appleyard is having one of his days, I’m afraid. He served a lot in the tropics, you know.” Still Lacey looked straight into Paxton’s eyes. His voice was silky and assured. “You’ve heard of Delhi Belly? Zambesi Wheeze? The Zulu’s Revenge? Rangoon Rot?”
“I can’t say I have.”
“Mr. Appleyard suffers from them all.”
“How unfortunate.” Paxton did not like the way Lacey held his gaze. He felt it bordered on insolence, or mockery, or something. He cleared his throat, and waited, but neither man had anything to add, and so he went away.
Paxton decided to go back to his billet. There was a book in his trunk, The Riddle of the Sands, a rattling good yarn.
A man was lying on the bed next to Paxton’s, on his side, facing away from the door, tucked-up in the attitude of sleep, and he did not move when Paxton came in. Nobody else was there.
The trunk was half-empty: Fidler had done some unpacking. Paxton searched through his chest-of-drawers, trying to avoid making squeaks, and then looked in the bedside cabinet. It contained only his toilet kit and a writing compendium. He went back to the trunk and searched more thoroughly. No book. Yet he had seen it lying there, when Fidler had got him his dressing gown. This was exasperating. He leaned out of a window, hoping to find Fidler; but all he could see, through a gap between huts, was that same uniformed fool still trying to kick-start his stupid motorcycle. Or perhaps it was another fooclass="underline" nothing seemed to work properly in this camp. A page rustled.
The sound was unmistakable. Paxton followed it. The figure on the bed was not asleep; he was curled up around a book, The Riddle of the Sands.
“That’s mine,” Paxton said.
The man rolled slowly onto his back. “No, I don’t think so,” he said.
His voice was flat, with a twang Paxton had never heard before. Maybe it was Cockney. Paxton had met very few Cockneys, and those usually railway porters. It was inconceivable that the Corps would have Cockney officers. “I tell you, it’s my book,” he said. “Hand it over.” Memories of schoolroom squabbles returned. He tried to dismiss them by holding out a hand and snapping his fingers.
The man stared. He had a long face with no trace of expression. His nose was broken, or at least bent, and he breathed through his mouth. He managed to look wooden without seeming stupid, so the wooden look had to be deliberate. Certainly he watched Paxton very carefully. “It can’t be yours,” he said. “It’s got my name in it.”
“Show me.”
He turned the first page and held it for Paxton to see. “Michael St. John Lenihan Francis O’Neill,” he said.
“You’ve crossed my name out. You stole that book from my trunk.”
O’Neill raised himself a few inches to study the trunk. “That’s Toby Chivers’ trunk,” he said flatly. “It’s Toby’s bed so it’s Toby’s trunk. But you can help yourself. Anything you fancy, take it.” He lay back. All his limbs were slack, but his eyes were alert.
“That’s my trunk. It’s got my initials on it, O.A.D.P. T’ for Paxton, I’m Paxton, that’s my book you’re reading.”
O’Neill’s mouth was gaping more than ever. “Only four initials?” he said. “I’ve got five. Come from a poor family, do you?” He had slipped a hand down the front of his trousers and was scratching his crotch. “Toby Chivers’ family gave him eight. Take a couple of his. Toby won’t—”
“No doubt.” Paxton could feel a tremble of rage inside him. “I don’t know Mr. Chivers and I have no wish to know him. What I wish is—”
“Toby went west. Archie got him. Direct hit. He went in all directions, including west.” O’Neill scratched and winced. “Archie is what we airmen call German anti-aircraft fire,” he explained. “It’s fearfully dangerous.”
“I know about archie. Just give me my book.”
O’Neill withdrew his hand and wiped his fingers on his shirt. He thumbed through the pages until he found his place, then gripped the book with both hands and ripped it down the spine. He tossed one part to Paxton. “I’ve read that bit,” he said. “This is all I need.”
Paxton flung it back at him. “Irish pig,” he said.
“Australian.”
“Australian swine, then.”
O’Neill fitted the two parts together. “What’s the difference between pigs and swine?” he said, his voice as blank and unemotional as ever.
“Swine scratch more often,” Paxton said savagely, and was sure he had scored a point; until he saw O’Neill’s mouth turn up at the corners. It was like watching a suit of armour smile. “One does not expect much in the way of manners from an Australian,” Paxton said acidly, “and one is never disappointed.” At Sherborne he had scored with that remark (suitably adjusted) many times. O’Neill seemed to absorb it like flattery. He began reading again, his mouth still open, his jaw still slack. He soaked a finger and used it to turn a page. He slipped that hand inside his trousers. Paxton felt slightly sick. He couldn’t stand being in the same room with him any longer. “Dinner at seven,” O’Neill called as he went out. “If this is Monday it must be mutton.”