Happy Ending

On a splintered tree stump in the biggest battlefield in the history of the world, Adam sat down and read a letter from Nina. It had arrived early the day before, but in the intensive fighting which followed he had not had a spare minute in which to open it.

Doubting Hall,
Aylesbury.

“Dearest Adam⁠—I wonder how you are. It is difficult to know what is happening quite because the papers say such odd things. Van has got a divine job making up all the war news, and he invented a lovely story about you the other day, how you’d saved hundreds of people’s lives, and there’s what they call a popular agitation saying why haven’t you got the V.C., so probably you will have by now, isn’t it amusing?

“Ginger and I are very well. Ginger has a job in an office in Whitehall and wears a very grand sort of uniform, and, my dear, I’m going to have a baby, isn’t it too awful? But Ginger has quite made up his mind it’s his, and is as pleased as anything, so that’s all right. He’s quite forgiven you about last Christmas, and says anyway you’re doing your bit now, and in war time one lets bygones be bygones.

“Doubting is a hospital, did you know? Papa shows his film to the wounded and they adore it. I saw Mr. Benfleet, and he said how awful it was when one had given all one’s life in the cause of culture to see everything one’s stood for swept away, but he’s doing very well with his ‘Sword Unsheathed’ series of war poets.

“There’s a new Government order that we have to sleep in gas masks because of the bombs, but no one does. They’ve put Archie in prison as an undesirable alien, Ginger saw to that, he’s terrific about spies. I’m sick such a lot because of this baby, but everyone says it’s patriotic to have babies in war time. Why?

“Lots of love, my angel, take care of your dear self.

He put it back in its envelope and buttoned it into his breast-pocket. Then he took out a pipe, filled it and began to smoke. The scene all round him was one of unrelieved desolation; a great expanse of mud in which every visible object was burnt or broken. Sounds of firing thundered from beyond the horizon, and somewhere above the grey clouds there were aeroplanes. He had had no sleep for thirty-six hours. It was growing dark.

Presently he became aware of a figure approaching, painfully picking his way among the strands of barbed wire which strayed across the ground like drifting cobweb; a soldier clearly. As he came nearer Adam saw that he was levelling towards him a liquid fire-projector. Adam tightened his fingers about his Huxdane-Halley bomb (for the dissemination of leprosy germs), and in this posture of mutual suspicion they met. Through the dusk Adam recognized the uniform of an English staff officer. He put the bomb back in his pocket and saluted.

The newcomer lowered his liquid-fire projector and raised his gas mask. “You’re English, are you?” he said. “Can’t see a thing. Broken my damned monocle.”

“Why,” said Adam. “You’re the drunk Major.”

“I’m not drunk, damn you, sir,” said the drunk Major, “and, what’s more, I’m a General. What the deuce are you doing here?”

“Well,” said Adam. “I’ve lost my platoon.”

“Lost your platoon.⁠ ⁠… I’ve lost my whole bloody division!”

“Is the battle over, sir?”

“I don’t know, can’t see a thing. It was going on all right last time I heard of it. My car’s broken down somewhere over there. My driver went out to try and find someone to help and got lost, and I went out to look for him, and now I’ve lost the car too. Damn difficult country to find one’s way about in. No landmarks.⁠ ⁠… Funny meeting you. I owe you some money.”

“Thirty-five thousand pounds.”

“Thirty-five thousand and five. Looked for you everywhere before this scrap started. I can give you the money now if you like.”

“The pound’s not worth much nowadays, is it?”

“About nothing. Still, I may as well give you a cheque. It’ll buy you a couple of drinks and a newspaper. Talking of drinks, I’ve got a case of bubbly in the car if we could only find it. Salvaged it out of an R.A.F. mess that got bombed back at H.Q. Wish I could find that car.”

Eventually they did find it. A Daimler limousine sunk to the axles in mud.

“Get in and sit down,” said the General hospitably. “I’ll turn the light on in a second.”

Adam climbed in and found that it was not empty. In the corner, crumpled up in a French military greatcoat, was a young woman fast asleep.

“Hullo, I’d forgotten all about you,” said the General. “I picked up this little lady on the road. I can’t introduce you, because I don’t know her name. Wake up, mademoiselle.”

The girl gave a little cry and opened two startled eyes.

“That’s all right, little lady, nothing to be scared about⁠—all friends here. Parlez anglais?”

“Sure,” said the girl.

“Well, what about a spot?” said the General, peeling the tinfoil from the top of a bottle. “You’ll find some glasses in the locker.”

The woebegone fragment of womanhood in the corner looked a little less terrified when she saw the wine. She recognized it as the symbol of international good will.

“Now perhaps our fair visitor will tell us her name,” said the General.

“I dunno,” she said.

“Oh, come, little one, you mustn’t be shy.”

“I dunno. I been called a lot of things. I was called Chastity once. Then there was a lady at a party, and she sent me to Buenos Aires, and then when the war came she brought me back again, and I was with the soldiers training at Salisbury Plain. That was swell. They called me bunny⁠—I don’t know why. Then they sent me over here and I was with the Canadians, what they called me wasn’t nice, and then they left me behind when they retreated and I took up with some foreigners. They were nice too, though they were fighting against the English. Then they ran away, and the lorry I was in got stuck in the ditch, so I got in with some other foreigners who were on the same side as the English, and they were beasts, but I met an American doctor who had white hair, and he called me Emily because he said I reminded him of his daughter back home, so he took me to Paris and we had a lovely week till he took up with another girl in a night club, so he left me behind in Paris when he went back to the front, and I hadn’t no money and they made a fuss about my passport, so they called me numero mille soixante dix huit, and they sent me and a lot of other girls off to the East to be with the soldiers there. At least they would have done only the ship got blown up, so I was rescued and the French sent me up here in a train with some different girls who were very unrefined. Then I was in a tin hut with the girls, and then yesterday they had friends and I was alone, so I went for a walk, and when I came back the hut was gone and the girls were gone, and there didn’t seem anyone anywhere until you came in your car, and now I don’t rightly know where I am. My, isn’t war awful?”

The General opened another bottle of champagne.

“Well, you’re as right as rain now, little lady,” he said, “so let’s see you smile and look happy. You mustn’t sit there scowling, you know⁠—far too pretty a little mouth for that. Let me take off that heavy coat. Look, I’ll wrap it round your knees. There, now, isn’t that better?⁠ ⁠… Fine, strong little legs, eh?⁠ ⁠…”

Adam did not embarrass them. The wine and the deep cushions and the accumulated fatigue of two days’ fighting drew him away from them and, oblivious to all the happy emotion pulsing near him, he sank into sleep.

The windows of the stranded motor car shone over the wasted expanse of the battlefield. Then the General pulled down the blinds, shutting out that sad scene.

“Cosier now, eh?” he said.

And Chastity in the prettiest way possible fingered the decorations on his uniform and asked him all about them.

And presently, like a circling typhoon, the sounds of battle began to return.