Читать книгу Royal Regiment - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 8
Оглавление§ 1
Rusty Rockingham’s pale blue eyes twitched open as the depot trumpets sounded reveille, but he was fast asleep again when his servant knocked.
“Regular Passchendaele of a morning, sir”, said Driver Noakes, a privileged person with a little waxed moustache, graying hair, five medal ribbons up and good conduct stripes massed on his khaki sleeve. “Mufti, sir?”
“No. I shan’t be going up to London till tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”
“I rather imagined you might be.”
Battery commander smiled. Servant grinned as he arranged the teatray on the chair by the bed.
“Not much about me old Rusty doesn’t know”, thought Driver Noakes, drawing back the thin curtains, taking tunic and breeches from the cupboard; then untreeing the old-fashioned fieldboots and laying the lifts beside them. “Not much I don’t know about him either. Except what’s in that box.”
“That box”, of scratched leather with a brass lock, stood on the table by the window. Noakes eyed it for a moment before he went to “see if I can pukkero a bath for you, sir”.
Meanwhile, his master’s mind was again chasing the dim recollection of the previous night. There was something familiar about the name of Hawk Wethered’s wife. It conjured up a memory. One associated it with ...
But for the next twenty minutes routine claimed its victim; and not until he was lacing his fieldboots did Rockingham’s mind formulate the surprising word, “Wheat”.
“Association of ideas there?” he mused. “Get it sooner or later. As long as I don’t dwell on the thing. Not that it matters one way or the other.”
And over his customary poached egg and bacon, eaten in his customary silence, his brain concentrated on the more important issue of “my shell”.
§ 2
Nine o’clock found Rusty Rockingham at the telephone. The voice at the other end of the wire said, “Good. Come along whenever you like. I’m on the scale drawings now. You were quite right. The gaine is the difficulty”. Emerging from the telephone cabinet he encountered the Hawk, conspicuous in gray homespun and a yellow hunting waistcoat, and gave him a disciplined, “Good morning, sir”.
Hawk Wethered returned the greeting.
“I’m just off”, he rasped; and, eyeing the other’s khaki, “You’re staying on, I gather. Why? I thought your course finished yesterday.”
Rockingham hesitated a second before he answered:
“I’ve got one or two things to clear up, sir”.
“See you in Aldershot, then.”
The Hawk pounced off, into the largest and most conspicuous of the cars parked before the pillared entrance. Rockingham put on a deliberate pipe; took cap, cane and gloves from their hook in the hall, and followed him. Outside, a fine rain fell; and the white mist, which had reminded Noakes of Passchendaele, clotted so thickly that one could only just perceive the outline of the two memorials across the gravelled asphalt of the parade ground.
The engine of his own car—a modest two-seater—was already running. By it, stood Noakes, who saluted.
“Got that box?”
“Inside, sir.”
“Right. Let’s be off.”
He took the wheel; switched on sidelights and fog lamp; crawled out, by the entrance to the theatre, on to the main road. Now, the Garrison Church loomed shadowy on their right. Two minutes later, still crawling, they emerged into Beresford Square.
“Shall I take the car home, sir?” asked Noakes, some quarter of an hour afterwards.
“Yes. I’ll be lunching here. Be back at five. I don’t expect you’ll have to wait long.”
But it was nearer seven o’clock than five before Major Thomas Rockingham, R.A., emerged, box in hand, from the Arsenal; and all that time he had not given one thought to the association of ideas between the name Camilla and the word “wheat”.
§ 3
Again that night Rockingham dined in the cream and gold room whose three mahogany tables the Regent ordered to be broadened, more than a century ago, because, “Damme, sir, I don’t object to my officers of artillery getting drunk like gentlemen, but I will not have my shins hacked even by a veteran of Waterloo”.
Murchison gave the toast that night; and gave it in the traditional manner, “Gentlemen, the King”.
“The Hawk’s lucky”, grumbled Murchison, “I’ll never get a substantive command. It’ll mean taking on a territorial brigade if I’m to qualify for my colonel’s pension.”
“Two hundred a year less pay and no allowances to speak of”, laughed Dallingford. “Who’d be a soldier in these times? Still, things may improve.”
“Why should they?” gloomed Murchison.
“Dunno. But I’ve a hunch they will. Our new monarch’s been a soldier himself. If anybody can do anything for us, he will. Good lad in my opinion. I remember one day—let me see, on the Somme, I think it was—no, earlier than that, some time in ’fifteen. Anyway, I was doing F.O.O.[1]; and he came toddling along the trenches with his bear leader. My O. P.[2] was being strafed occasionally. So I asked him to keep under cover. ‘I’d rather see you have a shot’, he said. ‘That’s to say if you’ve any ammunition to spare.’ So I loosed off a round of battery fire and knocked off a few sandbags for him. He stood up and watched. Went away as pleased as Punch he did—though old Gerry gave us back twelve for my four and jolly nearly cut him over.”
“Oh, I grant you he’s got the devil’s own pluck”, admitted Murchison; but there he broke off abruptly, and rose.
“How about a game of pills, Rusty?” asked Dallingford.
“Sorry.” Dallingford, had he been as observant as the Hawk, would have noticed the second’s hesitation. “I’ve some reading to do.”
And Major Thomas Rockingham, R.A., went straight upstairs to his room, where midnight found him still working.
“Not right yet”, he decided, locking away the sketches he had brought back from Ordnance. “Quite a problem. Wonder if we’ll have muzzle brakes on these new bundooks. Have to alter the tension of my creep spring if we do. Wish the panjandrums, as the Hawk calls ’em, would make up their minds about that.”
| [1] | Forward Observation Officer. |
| [2] | Observation post. |
§ 4
Major Thomas Rockingham, R.A., dreamed a good deal that night, mainly about the new projectile for the new gun-howitzers, but every now and again of a girl called Mary Hawkins.
For there was one piece of paper which had nothing to do with gaines, or creep springs, or centrifugal bolts, or detonators, in that scratched leather box with the brass lock.
