Читать книгу Seven Men Came Back - Warwick Deeping - Страница 7

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The party was breaking up. Sherring, standing with his back to the stove, watched Crabtree and Loviebond dealing with a fuddled and garrulous Steel. Kettle was helping Captain Pitt on with his British “warm.” Bastable, smoking a cigarette in the doorway, looked with contempt at the drunken Steel; and Sherring, observing that look of scorn, was challenged by it.

“Mr. Bastable.”

“Sir.”

“I shall inspect your platoon at nine to-morrow. Good night.”

Bastable was no fool. The implication of the order was obvious to him. He was reproved and dismissed because he had looked with amused contempt at that rowdy young ass—Steel. A little sallow smile seemed to trickle from his mouth.

“Very good, sir. Good night.”

He went out, leaving with Sherring the flavour of faint irony. Steel was in a quarrelsome mood, and struggling with Crabtree and Loviebond.

“Where’s that little blighter, P. B.?”

Sherring spoke to him quietly.

“Archie, don’t spoil a happy evening, there’s a good chap.”

Steel, even when drunk, could never resist Sherring.

“Sorry, Skipper. Quite all right. I’ll—go—t’bed. Come on—Crabbie.”

Captain Pitt, with an amused and tolerant glance, and a wink at Sherring, followed them out.

“Good night, old man.”

“Good night, doc.”

Their voices died away in the deep silence, for grandma, having been given her tot of rum, had groped her way mumbling beatific nothings to bed. Kettle was in the kitchen, and Sherring sat down by the stove, and opening the flap, saw that the fire had gone out.

Kettle came in from the kitchen, and smothering a tremendous yawn, looked lovingly at Sherring.

“Some show, sir.”

Sherring glanced over his shoulder.

“That you, Kettle. I thought you had gone to bed. Yes, you gave us a great show.”

Kettle began to collect glasses.

“Thank you, sir. Were you gents in earnest about my bein’ a member?”

“Of course, Kettle.”

“Well, I’m prard, sir. Me in civies sittin’ down to grub with the likes of you.”

Sherring turned in his chair. His face was both smiling and serious.

“Kettle—what are you in civil life?”

“Me, sir?”

“Yes.”

Kettle looked embarrassed, his hands full of glasses.

“ ‘Ficially—I’m an ‘awker, sir.”

“You go round with a barrow.”

“Yus, sir.”

“So, you’ve got a job to go back to.”

“Lots of jobs, sir.”

“Well, you are better off than I am. I was never much good at keeping a job. Rolling stone, Kettle. Couldn’t stand dull things—routine. I never found anything to suit me till the war came.”

“You put up a pretty good show at that, sir.”

Kettle drew closer, glancing at the doorway. His voice was husky and a little mysterious.

“I’d like to tell you, sir, what I am—reely—at ‘ome. Well, you see—out ‘ere—things ‘ave been different. It didn’t matter a tuppenny damn what y’d been in Blighty.”

“That’s so, Kettle. The only thing that has mattered out here has been—guts.”

“Pardon me, a bit more than that, sir. When a bloke’s lived with a gentleman like you——”

“Don’t make a song about me, Kettle.”

“I can’t ‘elp m’feelin’s, sir. You’ve treated me white.”

“Same to you, Kettle. But what is your real job at home?”

“ ‘Ouse breakin’, sir.”

“A burglar?”

“That’s it. So now, you know. I’ve always wanted to tell you, sir. Not that it’s of any himportance to you, sir.”

“I don’t know about that, Kettle.”

Sherring rose, and going to the window, stood staring at the piece of sacking.

“Machine-gun bullets. It only happened this morning, and yet it seems years and years ago.”

He opened the window and leaned out.

“No Very lights, no machine-guns. Just silence, just nothing. Ever been in the country before dawn, Kettle?”

Kettle was watching him intently.

“Yus, sir, professionally—so to speak.”

Sherring closed the window, and turned and smiled at him.

“Of course. I understand. While people are asleep, and the garden is all grey with dew. I suppose, Kettle, you’ll go back to that.”

“I might, and I might not, sir. Yer see, I got married just afore I joined up. Two kids now. Makes a bloke fink, sir. If I got put away—— Besides, me and the missus ‘ave a little money put by, and I might join what you’d call the respectable classes.”

“Yes, respectability, Kettle!”

“But fur the sake of argiment, sir, supposin’ I went back to the old job and you met me in Oxford Street, would you give me the go-by?”

Sherring smiled at him and returned to his chair by the stove.

“Hardly. You see, Kettle, I have a feeling that all the things that happened before the war and all the things that are going to happen after it—somehow don’t matter. Four bloody years. We’ve been real. We haven’t had to lie to live. And the only thing that mattered was whether a fellow was white or yellow.”

“I see what you mean, sir. So—I’d always be Kettle to you.”

“Exactly.”

Kettle looked at him lovingly.

“And you’ll always be Captain Sherring M.C. to me, sir, a gent as ‘as showed me things.”

The stove was still warm though the fire was dead in it, and Sherring spread his hands to it.

“Well, we will always think of each other, Kettle, as we are to-night—and not as what we may be. What do the gods care? We may find Mr. Bastable a boss in the post-war show.”

Kettle was contemptuous.

“ ‘Im, sir!”

“Yes.”

Sherring yawned and spread his arms.

“I think I’ll turn in, Kettle.”

“I’ve put a ‘ot bottle in your bed, sir.”

“A hot bottle!”

“Yus, grandma ‘ad one of them there stone things, and I pinched it.”

“A hot bottle! That means peace—peace, prosperity and all the virtues. Peace?”

He rose and went slowly towards the bedroom door.

“Good night, Kettle.”

“Good night, sir.”