Читать книгу The End of the Battle - Evelyn Waugh - Страница 3

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“The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms. Whatever the outcome there was a place for him in that battle.”

This was the belief of Guy Crouchback in 1939 when he heard the news of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty. What follows is the story of his attempt to find his “place in that battle.”

He is thirty-five years old, rising thirty-six, the only surviving son of his father, Gervase. For some years he has lived alone in Italy in the villa built by his grandfather. Of his brothers one was killed in the first war, the other died insane. He has a sister Angela married to an M.P., Arthur Box-Bender. The Crouchbacks are a family of old established, west-country, Catholic gentry allied to most of the other historic recusant families of the country. One of them was martyred under Elizabeth I. Their estates have been sold. The family house, Broome, remains in their possession but is let to a convent. Gervase Crouchback lives in a small, seaside hotel at Matchet. He has a bachelor brother, Peregrine, a notorious bore.

Guy married a wife named Virginia, who quickly deserted him for a soldier, Tommy Blackhouse. At the time the story opens, she is in process of separation from a third husband, an American named Troy. For eight years she has lived in the world of rich, gay, cosmopolitan society. Guy has grown lonely and joyless. His Church does not allow him to seek a second wife. He sees the war as an opportunity to re-establish his interest in his fellow men and to serve them.

After many difficulties he is commissioned in the Royal Corps of Halberdiers, an unfashionable regiment of infantry, proud of its achievements and peculiarities; he proves himself a reasonably efficient officer. In the Halberdiers he serves under Ritchie-Hook, a ferocious hero of the first war. Among his batch of officers in training are Franz de Souza, a cynic, and Trimmer, a former hairdresser, whose probationary commission is speedily terminated.

Virginia has returned to England at the moment when many are leaving it. One evening on leave Guy attempts to make love to her in Claridge’s Hotel but is repulsed with mild ridicule.

He sails on the Dakar expedition, comes under official disapprobation for an escapade arranged by Ritchie-Hook and is indirectly responsible for the death of another officer, by the injudicious gift of a bottle of whisky when he is down with fever. All this time he had ludicrously aroused the suspicions of a secret department of counter-espionage presided over by Grace-Groundling-Marchpole. He returns to England, and becomes attached to the newly formed Commandos, one of which is commanded by Blackhouse. Here he makes friends with Ivor Claire, a dandy. “Jumbo” Trotter, an ancient Halberdier, deeply versed in service lore, is also temporarily attached to the Commando. Claire has a Corporal of Horse named Ludovic, a mysterious reservist recalled to the regiment, who keeps a volume of Pensées. Ludovic rises to be Brigade Corporal-Major. The Commando, as part of “Hookforce,” sails to Egypt. Here a brigade-major named “Fido” Hound is attached to them from the staff pool. Mrs. Stitch, a beauty, is in Alexandria with her husband, who holds a cabinet appointment in the Middle East.

Hookforce—without Blackhouse, who has broken his leg—goes to Crete at the moment when the defence is falling. “Fido” Hound and Ludovic severally desert and meet in a cave on the south coast where an irregular body of Spanish refugees have taken shelter. Nothing more is ever heard of Hound. It is to be supposed that Ludovic perpetrated or contrived at his murder. Blackhouse’s Commando is ordered to provide the rearguard for the disembarkation and surrender on the following morning. That night Claire deserts his troop and insinuates himself into the disembarkation. On the morning of the surrender Guy meets Ludovic on the beach. They join a small party escaping by boat. They suffer acutely from privation and exposure. Ludovic alone remains capable. The delirious sapper officer who was originally in command disappears overboard during the night. It is to be supposed that Ludovic precipitated him. Finally they reach the African coast. Ludovic carries Guy ashore and, while he is half-conscious in hospital, is sent back to England to be decorated and commissioned. Ludovic believes that Guy knows the truth of the disappearance of “Fido” Hound. He does know, and has the proof in the written orders to the rearguard, the full culpability of Claire’s desertion. Mrs. Stitch, in order to save Claire’s reputation, gets Guy sent back to England by slow convoy to rejoin the Halberdier Depot.

Virginia meanwhile is in difficulties. Troy no longer remits her allowance. Trimmer is used by Lord Kilbannock, who is Press Officer in Hazardous Offensive Operations HQ., an organization which from small beginnings becomes one of the busiest departments of war, to carry out a raid for publicity purposes. He becomes a national hero and falls deeply in love with Virginia, whom he knew professionally, and with whom he had a brief affair in Glasgow. At Kilbannock’s instigation, in order to keep Trimmer in heart for his public appearances, Virginia falls into a prolonged and, to her, entirely distasteful liaison with Trimmer.

As Guy, in the late autumn of 1941, rejoins his regiment he believes that the just cause of going to war has been forfeited in the Russian alliance. Personal honour alone remains.

“The hallucination was dissolved, like the whales and turtles on the voyage from Crete, and he was back after less than two years’ pilgrimage in a Holy Land of Illusion in the old ambiguous world, where priests were spies and gallant friends proved traitors and his country was led blundering into dishonour.”