Read Online Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh - Free Book Online

India-rubber ball, though the heavens were falling.
    ‘At Aldershot today the advance courses are all done to music.’
    There would have been no place for this man, Guy reflected, in the Earl of Essex’s Honourable Company of Free Halberdiers. He was no Copper Heel, no true Applejack.
    After Physical Training another change of clothes and a lecture on Military Law from Captain Bosanquet. Lecturer and audience were equally comatose. Captain Bosanquet demanded no more than silence.
    ‘...The great thing to remember is to stick in all the amendments of King’s Regulations as soon as they’re issued. Keep your King’s Regulations up to date and you can’t go far wrong.’
    At six-thirty they were roused, dismissed and the day’s work was at last over. This evening Captain Bosanquet called Guy and Apthorpe back.
    ‘I say,’ he said, ‘I looked in at your P.T. this evening. Do you think it does you any particular good?’
    ‘I can’t say I do, sir,’ said Guy.
    ‘No, it’s rather rot for people like yourselves. If you like, you can cut it out. Keep clear of the ante-room. Just stay in your quarters and, if anyone asks, say you are mugging up Military Law.’
    ‘Thanks awfully, sir.’
    ‘You’ll probably find yourself commanding companies one day. Military Law will be more use to you then than P.T.’
    ‘I think I’ll stay on in the gym, if I may,’ said Apthorpe. ‘I find that after the square I need limbering up a bit.’
    ‘Just as you like.’
    ‘I’ve always been used to plenty of exercise,’ said Apthorpe to Guy, as they returned to their quarters. ‘There’s a lot of sense in what Sergeant Pringle said about jarring the spinal column. I think I may have jarred mine a bit. I’ve been feeling a bit off colour lately. It may be that. I don’t want anyone to think I’m not as fit as the rest of the crowd. The truth is I’ve lived hard, old man, and it tells.’
    ‘Talking about being different from the rest of the crowd, did you by any chance pass Sarum-Smith on to me?’
    ‘That’s right. I don’t believe in borrowing or lending. Seen too much of it.’
    There were two baths on every staircase. Coal fires had now been lighted in the bedrooms. Toiling old Halberdiers, recalled to the colours and put on barrack duties, kept them stoked. This was the best hour of the day. Guy heard the feet of the young officers scampering down and out to local cinemas, hotels and dance-halls. He soaked in hot water and later lay dozing in the wicker Oxford chair before his fire. No Mediterranean siesta had ever given such ease.
    Presently Apthorpe came to summon him to the Officers’ House. Patrol dress was optional for probationary officers. Only he and Guy had bought it and this tended to set them apart and make them more acceptable to the regulars, not because they could afford twelve guineas which the others could not, but because they had chosen to make a private investment in the traditions of the Corps.
    When the two ‘Uncles’ in their blues arrived in the anteroom, Major Tickeridge and Captain Bosanquet were alone before the fire.
    ‘Come and join us,’ said Major Tickeridge. He clapped his hands. ‘Music and dancing-girls. Four pink gins.’
    Guy loved Major Tickeridge and Captain Bosanquet. He loved Apthorpe. He loved the oil painting over the fireplace of the unbroken square of Halberdiers in the desert. He loved the whole Corps deeply and tenderly.
    Dinner was formal that night. The mess president struck the table with an ivory hammer and the chaplain said Grace The young officers, accustomed to swifter and sparser meals, found all this rather oppressive. ‘I call it a bit thick,’ Sarum Smith had remarked, ‘the way they even make a drill-movement out of eating.’
    The table was lit with huge many branched candlesticks which commemorated the military history of the last century in silver palm trees and bowed silver savages. There were about twenty officers in mess that night. Many of