Читать книгу Royal Regiment - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 7

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Colonel (temporary Brigadier) Sir Guy Wethered went on, at gunfire, till a quarter to twelve. The anterooms were quite empty by then; and Rusty Rockingham only kept awake by his sense of discipline.

The Hawk—it seemed to him—might be, was, a great soldier. Talking politics, however, he became the merest child.

“Don’t you understand, sir?” he wanted to say. “It isn’t the government’s fault, and it isn’t the newspapers’ fault, that we’re not properly armed. The people of this country hate the very idea of war. Besides, they don’t think there can be one. Neither do I, if it comes to that. I think you’re panicking.”

Yet it was so unlike this man to panic that he could not help being a little impressed.

“I don’t like our present situation any more than I liked it in ’fourteen”, the Hawk continued. “A damn sight less as a matter of fact. Our commitments weren’t as extensive then. We could rely on India. We hadn’t an independent Ireland to reckon with. We could put seven divisions in the field right away. And we did possess an adequate navy.

“Not that a navy’s as much use as it was”, he concluded. “What we want is an air force that’ll tonk the tails off ’em. Have we got one? Ask that young brother of yours if he’s still in it. You mark my words, Rusty. We’ll be caught napping one of these fine nights—and serve us right, too.

“Damn well right”, he repeated. Then words petered out of him; and something of his true age appeared in his face, in his movements, as he tossed his cigarette into the embers and rose to his full height.

“I seem to have been yapping rather a lot”, he grunted. “Result of the old atmosphere, I imagine. And possibly too much alcohol. At home, my drinks are apt to be rationed—and my military dissertations discouraged. Camilla”, he licked his lips on the word, as though savouring some rare fruit, “has me well disciplined.”

It seemed so strange to think of anyone, let alone a woman, disciplining the Hawk, that Rockingham could not quite prevent a smile.

“Fact!” The fierce eyes softened as they quizzed the smiler. “You must come and observe it for yourself. A weekend might be best. I’ll get her to write to you. I’m letting Lampson have my official quarters. The ancestral mansion’s not much more than an hour’s run from Aldershot. Camilla insisted on my redecorating most of it. Cost me a pretty penny. As an American girl, she’s naturally enterprising about bathrooms. And what she isn’t spending on the garden——”

He lit himself a final cigarette. They left the anteroom; passed to their bedrooms up the antler-hung stairs.

“Don’t forget to apologise to your mother for me”, the Hawk said; and, as they parted, Rusty Rockingham again thought what a queer devil the man was.

But alone, peeling off mess jacket and waistcoat, he fell to thinking:

“Camilla! Unusual name. Reminds me of something. Something I’ve read? Possibly”.

The elusiveness of memory proved irritating; almost succeeded in keeping him awake.