Men at Arms Read Online Free PDF Page B

man.’
    ‘How about the others?’
    ‘Look at me. Look at your grandfather – and your great uncle Peregrine he’s appallingly sane.’
    ‘He’s spending his time collecting binoculars and sending them to the War Office. Is that sane?’
    ‘Perfectly.’
    ‘I’m glad you told me.’
    Presently Angela called: ‘Come in, you two. It’s quite dark. What are you talking about?’
    ‘Tony thinks he’s going mad.’
    ‘Mrs Groat is. She left the larder un-blacked-out.’
    They sat in the library with their backs to Guy’s bed. Quite soon Tony rose to say good night.
    ‘Mass is at eight,’ said Angela. ‘We ought to start at twenty to. I’m picking up some evacuees in Uley.’
    ‘Oh I say, isn’t there something later? I was looking forward to a long lie.’
    ‘I thought we might all go to communion tomorrow. Do come, Tony.’
    ‘All right, Mum, of course I will. Only make it twenty-five-to in that case. I shall have to go to scrape after weeks of wickedness.’
    Box-Bender looked self-conscious, as he still did, always, when religious practices were spoken of. He did not get used to it – this ease with the Awful.
    ‘I shall be with you in spirit,’ he said.
    Then he left too, and stumbled across the garden to the cottage. Angela and Guy were left alone.
    ‘He’s a charming boy, Angela.’
    ‘Yes, so military, isn’t he? All in a matter of months. He doesn’t mind a bit going to France.’
    ‘I should think not indeed.’
    ‘Oh, Guy, you’re too young to remember. I grew up with the first war. I’m one of the girls you read about who danced with the men who were being killed. I remember the telegram coming about Gervase. You were just a schoolboy going short of sweets. I remember the first lot who went out. There wasn’t one of them left at the end. What chance has a boy of Tony’s age starting now at the very beginning? I worked in a hospital, you remember. That’s why I couldn’t bear it when Tony talked of a nice neat wound and being cosseted.’
    ‘He oughtn’t to have said that’
    ‘There weren’t any nice little wounds. They were all perfectly beastly and this time there’ll be all kinds of ghastly new chemicals too, I suppose. You heard how he spoke about Chemical Warfare – a hobby for “wet” officers. He doesn’t know what it will be like. There isn’t even the hope of his being taken prisoner this time. Under the Kaiser the Germans were still a civilized people. These brutes will do anything.’
    ‘Angela, there’s nothing I can say except that you know very well you wouldn’t have Tony a bit different. You wouldn’t want him to be one of those wretched boys I hear about who have run away to Ireland or America.’
    ‘That’s quite inconceivable, of course.’
    ‘Well, then?’
    ‘I know. I know. Time for bed. I’m afraid we’ve filled your room with smoke. You can open the window when the light’s out. Thank goodness Arthur has gone ahead. I can use my torch across the garden without being accused of attracting Zeppelins.’
    That night, lying long awake, obliged to choose between air and light, choosing air, not reading, Guy thought: Why Tony? What crazy economy was it that squandered Tony and saved himself? In China when called to the army it was honourable to hire a poor young man and send him in one’s place. Tony was rich in love and promise. He himself destitute, possessed of nothing save a few dry grains of faith. Why could he not go to France in Tony’s place, to the neat little wound or the barbarous prison?
    But next morning as he knelt at the altar-rail beside Angela and Tony he seemed to hear his answer in the words of the canon:
Domine non sum dignus
.
     3
    GUY had planned to stay two nights and go on Monday to visit his father at Matchet. Instead be left before luncheon on Sunday so as to leave Angela uninterrupted in her last hours with Tony. It was a journey he had often made before. Box-Bender used to send him into Bristol by car. His father