The Penguin Book of First World War Stories Read Free

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    â€˜Shall I bring in the prisoner, sir?’ The Sergeant-Major was standing by the door.
    â€˜Yes, I’ll see him now.’ The officer threw his cigarette into the fire and put on his hat.
    â€˜Take off your ’at. Come along there, my lad – move. You’d go to sleep at your mother’s funeral – you would.’ Seymour smiled at the conversation outside the door; he had soldiered many years with that Sergeant-Major. ‘Now, step up briskly. Quick march. ’Alt. Left turn.’ He closed the door and ranged himself alongside the prisoner facing the table.
    â€˜No. 8469, Private Meyrick – you are charged with being late on the 8 a.m. parade this morning. Sergeant-Major, what do you know about it?’
    â€˜Sir, on the 8 a.m. parade this morning, Private Meyrick came running on ’alf a minute after the bugle sounded. ’Is puttees were not put on tidily. I’d like to say, sir, that it’s not the first time this man has been late falling in. ’E seems to me to be always a-dreaming, somehow – not properly awake like. I warned ’im for office.’
    The officer’s eyes rested on the hatless soldier facing him. ‘Well, Meyrick,’ he said quietly, ‘what have you got to say?’
    â€˜Nothing, sir. I’m sorry as ’ow I was late. I was reading, and I never noticed the time.’
    â€˜What were you reading?’ The question seemed superfluous – almost foolish; but something in the eyes of the man facing him, something in his short, stumpy, uncouth figure interested him.
    â€˜I was a-reading Kipling, 3 sir.’ The Sergeant-Major snorted as nearly as such an august disciplinarian could snort in the presence of his officer.
    â€˜â€™E ought, sir, to ’ave been ’elping the cook’s mate – until ’e was due on parade.’
    â€˜Why do you read Kipling or anyone else when you ought to be doing other things?’ queried the officer. His interest in the case surprised himself; the excuse was futile, and two or three days to barracks is an excellent corrective.
    â€˜I dunno, sir. ’E sort of gets ’old of me, like. Makes me want to do things – and then I can’t. I’ve always been slow and awkward like, and I gets a bit flustered at times. But I do try ’ard.’ Again a doubtful noise from the Sergeant-Major; to him trying ’ard and reading Kipling when you ought to be swabbing up dishes were hardly compatible.
    For a moment or two the officer hesitated, while the Sergeant-Major looked frankly puzzled. ‘What the blazes ’as come over ’im?’ he was thinking; ‘surely he ain’t going to be guyed by that there wash. Why don’t ’e give ’im two days and be done with it – and me with all them returns?’
    â€˜I’m going to talk to you, Meyrick.’ Major Seymour’s voice cut in on these reflections. For the fraction of a moment ‘Two days’ CB’ had been on the tip of his tongue, and then he’d changed his mind. ‘I want to try and make you understand why you were brought up to office to-day. In every community – in every body of men – there must be a code of rules which govern what they do. Unless those rules are carried out by all those men, the whole system falls to the ground. Supposing everyone came on to parade half a minute late because they’d been reading Kipling?’
    â€˜I know, sir. I see as ’ow I was wrong. But – I dreams sometimes as ’ow I’m like them he talks about, when ’e says as ’ow they lifted ’em through the charge as won the day. And then the dream’s over, and I know as ’ow I’m not.’
    The Sergeant-Major’s impatience was barely concealed; those returns were oppressing him horribly.
    â€˜You can get on with your work, Sergeant-Major. I know you’re busy.’ Seymour glanced at