Читать книгу Royal Regiment - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 16

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The “three good little boys” were in no mood for bridge. But Mabelle Rockingham insisted; and midnight struck before William and Frances gave Geoffrey a lift home.

“Nine and ninepence, Tom”, said his mother then. “Quite a good win for me. You play better than any of us. But you never seem to hold a card. There’s rather a nice service in the Abbey tomorrow. We’ll go there.”

She lit herself a last cigarette and hauled herself upstairs to bed. Alone, her eldest son put on a pipe with his final whiskey and soda.

“Drinking rather a lot tonight”, he thought; and immediately his mind brought up the Hawk’s, “Possibly too much alcohol. At home my drinks are apt to be rationed—and my military dissertations discouraged. Camilla has me well disciplined.”

Then his thoughts changed their line. Did even Hawk Wethered really want another war?

The mere question angered him. William’s view of the fighting man’s job was correct. Armies, navies, air forces—if they were to be justified at all—could only be justified on the one ground, “Defence”.

“In the present state of civilisation”, he concluded, “men like William and Geoffrey and myself are the only real pacifists.”

The conclusion, however, satisfied neither the Christian in him nor his sense of values. If present-day civilisation were so precarious that it depended on force for its preservation, had humanity made any real progress since the Crucifixion? Apparently not. Would other nations disarm because we rearmed? Not very likely. Give bullies arms—and eventually they itched to use them. Eventually, unless the bullies saw reason, there must be another great war. The only question was: how soon?

His pipe had gone out by then, and not a dreg remained in his glass. Automatically he rose from his chair; put the guard in front of the fire, and switched the lights off before he went up to his own room. But there, too, his mind continued active.

More than once in these past three years, with Gail gone back to America, he had been a little bored with soldiering. But with another great war—as it seemed tonight—inevitable, surely this job of being a soldier was worthwhile.

At least, one had a mission in the world. And the mission alone should suffice.

So perhaps Cowley had been saner than one imagined. Perhaps a soldier should live like a priest.

“Nonsense”, he tried to tell himself. But the sudden onrush of Cowley’s face as he had seen it for the last time—a cold mask grinning toothily by candlelight—stopped consecutive thought dead.

Wondering if he really had drunk too much, he began to undress. Catching a glimpse of his own face in the mirror on the dressing table, he saw himself as a man past his prime.

On that, a vast depression—never before experienced—gripped the pit of his stomach.

“A few more years”, he thought, “and you’ll have to retire. The mission—such as it is—will be finished. What price your priesthood then?”

His cold pipe lay on the dressing table. For comfort, he picked it up, put it in his mouth, biting hard on the vulcanite with his square teeth.

Blast this attack of depression. He wouldn’t give way to it.

But with that he caught another glimpse of himself; and simultaneously imagination began to paint a picture—of this same Thomas Rockingham, grown a little paunchy, grown a little pompous, dropping into his club every morning at the same time, reading the papers there, lunching there, haunting the smoking room or the billiard room or the card room there, like the other “old colonels”, the other “old bachelors”, while William ...

Lucky devil, William. With his two children. With his wife. Damn it all, why had one never been able to find oneself a wife? Mother was quite right. High time one got married! No sense in being so pernickety. Passion and companionship indeed. Mary Hawkins to you, Gail Vanduser to you, Thomas Rockingham. What the hell do you think you’re looking for? The ideal woman? At your age ...

Yet the Hawk—queer how one’s thoughts could never quite get away from the man—had not married till he was over fifty.

“So there’s still hope for me”, he decided with a touch of humour. “Dunno what I’m in such a state about. Must be a touch of liver.”