The Valley of Bones Read Online Free PDF Page B

face
downwards on the bed, fondling and crooning.
    ‘Will you be all right, Bithel P We
are all going to bed now.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘We’re all going to bed.’
    ‘You lucky people, all going to bed …’
    ‘I’ll say good night, Bithel.’
    ‘Night-night,’ he said, ‘Night-night.
Wish I’d decided to be a ’varsity man.’
    He rolled over on his side, reaching
across the dummy for the remains of his cigar. It had gone out. He managed to
extract a lighter from his trouser pocket and began to strike wildly at its
mechanism. Hoping he would not set fire to the hotel during the night, I shut
the door and went down the stairs. The others in the room were at various
stages of turning in for the night.
    ‘He’s a funny one is old Bithel,’ said
Breeze, who was already in bed.
    ‘A regular caution,’ said Kedward. ‘Never
saw anything like that dance.’
    ‘Went on a bit long, didn’t it,’ said
Pumphrey, removing a toothbrush from his mouth to speak. ‘Thought he’d be at it
all night till he fell down.’
    However, although there was general
agreement that Bithel had unnecessarily prolonged the dance, he did not, so far
as his own personality was concerned, seem to have made a bad impression. On
the contrary, he had established a certain undoubted prestige. I did not have
much time to think over the incident, because I was very tired. In spite of
unfamiliar surroundings, I went to sleep immediately and slept soundly. The
following morning, although there was much talk while we dressed, nothing
further was said of Bithel. He was forgotten in conversation about Church
Parade and the day’s routine. Breeze and Pumphrey had already finished their
dressing and gone downstairs, when Pumphrey’s soldier-servant (later to be
identified as Williams, I.G.) came up to Kedward in the passage as we were on
the way to breakfast. He was grinning.
    ‘Excuse me, sir.’
    ‘What is it, Williams?’
    ‘I was ordered to look after the new
officer till he had a batman for hisself.’
    ‘Mr Bithel?’
    ‘The officer don’t seem well.’
    ‘What’s wrong with him?’
    ‘Better see, sir.’
    Williams, I.G., enjoyed giving this
information.
    ‘We’ll have a look,’ said Kedward.
    We went upstairs again to the attic.
Kedward opened the door. I followed him, entering a stratosphere of stale,
sickly beer-and-cigar fumes. I half expected to find Bithel, still wearing his
clothes, sleeping on the floor; the cap – surmounted sponge-bag still resting
on the pillow. However, in the manner of persons long used to turning in for
the night the worse for drink, he had managed to undress and get to bed, even
to make himself reasonably comfortable there. His clothes were carefully folded
on the floor beside him, one of the habits of the confirmed alcoholic, who knows
himself incapable of arranging garments on a chair. The dummy had been ejected
from the bed, which Bithel himself now occupied. He lay under the grey-brown
blankets in a suit of yellow pyjamas, filthy and faded, knees raised to his
chin. His body in this position looked like a corpse exhumed intact from some
primitive burial ground for display in the showcase of a museum. Except that he
was snoring savagely, cheeks puffing in and out, the colour of his face, too,
suggested death. Watch, cigar-case, sleeping pills, stood on the broken chair
beside the bed. In addition to these objects was another exhibit, something of
peculiar horror. At first I could not imagine what this might be. It seemed
either an ornament or a mechanical contrivance of complicated design. I looked
closer. Was it apparatus or artifact? Then the truth was suddenly made plain.
Before going to sleep, Bithel had placed his false teeth in the ashtray. He had
removed the set from his mouth bodily, the jaws still clenched on the stub of
the cigar. The effect created by this synthesis was extraordinary, macabre,
surrealist. Again one thought of an excavated tomb, the fascination aroused