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.In a state of the utmost confusion and disquiet we left them at last, arriving in Aldershot just in time, having dropped Robert on the way.‘Not feeling much like going on the square tomorrow, are you?’ said Stevens.‘Still it was the hell of a good weekend’s leave.I had one of the local girls under a hedge.’4When, during those rare, intoxicating moments of solitude, I used to sit in a window seat at Castlemallock, reading Esmond, or watching the sun go down over the immense brick rampart of the walled garden, the Byronic associations of the place made me think of Don Juan:I pass my evenings in long galleries solely,And that’s the reason I’m so melancholy …The long gallery at Castlemallock, uncarpeted, empty of furniture except for a few trestle tables and wooden chairs, had these built-in seats all along one side.Here one could be alone during the intervals between arrival and departure of Anti-Gas students, when Kedward and I would be Duty Officer on alternate days.That meant little more than remaining within the precincts of the castle in the evening, parading ‘details’ – usually a couple of hundred men – at Retreat, sleeping at night by the telephone.We were Gwatkin’s only subalterns now, for this was the period of experiment, later abandoned as unsatisfactory, when one platoon in each company was led by a warrant-officer.If an Anti-Gas course were in progress, we slept alternate nights in the Company Office, in case there was a call from Battalion.I often undertook Kedward’s tour of duty, as he liked to ‘improve his eye’, when training was over for the day, by exploring the neighbouring country with a view to marking down suitable sites for machine-gun nests and anti-tank emplacements.Lying in the window-seat, I would think how it felt to be a father, of the times during the latter part of the Aldershot course when I had been able to see Isobel and the child.She and the baby, a boy, were ‘doing well’, but there had been difficulty in visiting them, Stevens’s car by then no longer available.Stevens, as Brent prophesied, had been ‘Returned to Unit’.‘I shan’t be seeing you lads after tomorrow,’ he said one afternoon.‘Why not?’‘I’ve been RTU-ed.’‘Whatever for?’‘I cut one of those bloody lectures and got caught.’‘Sorry about this.’‘I don’t give a damn,’ he said.‘All I want is to get abroad.This may start me on the move.I’ll bring it off sooner or later.Look here, give me your sister-in-law’s address, so I can keep in touch with her about that brooch.’There was a certain bravado about all this.To get in the army’s black books is something always to be avoided; as a rule, no help to advancement in any direction.I gave Stevens the address of Frederica’s house, so that he could send Priscilla back her brooch.We said goodbye.‘We’ll meet again.’‘We will, indeed.’The course ended without further incident of any note.On its last day, I had a word with Brent, before our ways, too, parted.‘Pleased we ran into each other,’ he said.‘To tell the truth, I was glad to spill all that stuff about the Duports for some reason.Don’t quite know why.You won’t breathe a word, will you?’‘Of course not.Where are you off to now?’‘The ITC – for a posting.’I sailed back across the water.Return, like the war news, was cheerless.The Battalion had been re-deployed further south, in a new area nearer the border, where companies were on detachment.Gwatkin’s, as it turned out, was quartered at the Corps School of Chemical Warfare, the keeps, turrets and castellations of which also enclosed certain Ordnance stores of some importance, which came under Command.For these stores, Gwatkin’s company provided security guards, also furnishing men, if required, for Anti-Gas demonstrations.When the Battalion operated as a unit, we operated with the rest, otherwise lived a life apart, occupied with our own training or the occasional demands of the School.Isobel wrote that her aunt, Molly Jeavons – as a rule far from an authority on such matters – had lent her a book about Castlemallock, its original owner, a Lord Chief Justice (whose earldom had been raised to a marquisate for supporting the Union) having been a distant connexion of the Ardglass family [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]