of Le Grand Meaulnes .
That his personal lost domain should turn out to be his own house was irony piled upon irony.
Now they were using it as an emergency water tank. Civil Defence had dug the rubble of the house out of the basement and flooded it. Of course, he still owned it. The site was his, and once the
war was over he could rebuild. How do you rebuild a dream? This house had survived the imaginative flights and dire conformities of both his wives. Up on the first floor he could still make out the
pattern of the wallpaper in his bedroom. His second wife had chosen it. It was such a pity. The Luftwaffe had managed to demolish his house and still the bitch’s awful taste was left
plastered to the wall for all to see.
‘Reggie?’ said a voice behind him.
It was his next-door neighbour, Clive Powell, a retired cavalry general from the last war. An old fool of the first order, a bow-legged believer in the efficacy of horse against tank who would
not have been out of place at the charge of the Light Brigade. And he was wearing a uniform. What lunatic had taken him off the retired list?
‘They brought me back, y’know. I’m in the Home Guard now.’
That explained part of it. The uniform was his old Great War cavalry khaki. His general’s tabs removed
and three captain’s pips set in the epaulettes. Shoulder flashes, clumsily sewn on, spelt out Home Guard. Privately, Reggie thought the Home Guard the best place for men like Clive. They
could still wear a uniform, they could prance around giving orders to men too old or, in a few cases, too young for the armed services, in the certain knowledge that they could do little harm. They
were the front line in a battle that would never happen. The Battle of France had been a pasting for the British, the Battle of Britain the hard-fought, costly victory of the few. There would be no
battle of London. All the same, he had to admire the old boy’s modesty. Most generals would have held such a vast drop in rank to be an insufferable indignity and sat out the war in their
clubs. Old Clive was doing his bit, at least.
‘I’ve a platoon of railway clerks from Victoria station,’ Clive went on. ‘The odd porter, and a stoker, but mostly clerks. Just finished a morning’s drilling.
Absolutely bloody hopeless, but there you are. If the Hun ever make it to Victoria the worst they could do is sell ’em the wrong ticket. Send them to Penzance when they want to go to
Preston.’
He broke into song.
‘Oh, Mr Porter, what shall I do? Me Panzers are in Birmingham and me Führer’s stuck in Crewe. Time for a cuppa, Reggie?’
Why not? thought Reggie. Humour the old bugger. After all, room by room the general-captain’s house was identical to his own. All he had to do was sit with his cuppa, pretend to listen to
the old boy’s theories of how to win the war, mentally strip away the mounted heads of wildebeeste and gazelle, ignore the tigerskin rugs and the elephant’s-foot umbrella stand, and
paint onto those same rooms the colours of his dream.
An hour or so later, he had peeled off all his wife’s excrescent wallpaper, redecorated in plain pastels and heard Clive’s latest theory.
‘Y’see,’ Clive said, tipping the sugar bowl onto the tablecloth in order to draw an outline map of Europe with the thin end of his teaspoon, breaking up the last ginger biscuit
on the plate and using its pieces to represent the capital cities. Rome, Paris, Berlin and Moscow dotted about on the sugar. There wasn’t enough for London. Clive rummaged around in the
biscuit barrel, prised out a gooey macaroon stuck to the bottom and plonked it down on England.
‘First we take Italy from the Med, come up through the flabby gut of the Continent, knock her right out of the war.’
A silver teaspoon shot up Italy from the toe with all the savagery of a steel bayonet. Reggie ate Rome.
‘We delay any invasion of France until the Russians are on board and winning.’
Reggie
That his personal lost domain should turn out to be his own house was irony piled upon irony.
Now they were using it as an emergency water tank. Civil Defence had dug the rubble of the house out of the basement and flooded it. Of course, he still owned it. The site was his, and once the
war was over he could rebuild. How do you rebuild a dream? This house had survived the imaginative flights and dire conformities of both his wives. Up on the first floor he could still make out the
pattern of the wallpaper in his bedroom. His second wife had chosen it. It was such a pity. The Luftwaffe had managed to demolish his house and still the bitch’s awful taste was left
plastered to the wall for all to see.
‘Reggie?’ said a voice behind him.
It was his next-door neighbour, Clive Powell, a retired cavalry general from the last war. An old fool of the first order, a bow-legged believer in the efficacy of horse against tank who would
not have been out of place at the charge of the Light Brigade. And he was wearing a uniform. What lunatic had taken him off the retired list?
‘They brought me back, y’know. I’m in the Home Guard now.’
That explained part of it. The uniform was his old Great War cavalry khaki. His general’s tabs removed
and three captain’s pips set in the epaulettes. Shoulder flashes, clumsily sewn on, spelt out Home Guard. Privately, Reggie thought the Home Guard the best place for men like Clive. They
could still wear a uniform, they could prance around giving orders to men too old or, in a few cases, too young for the armed services, in the certain knowledge that they could do little harm. They
were the front line in a battle that would never happen. The Battle of France had been a pasting for the British, the Battle of Britain the hard-fought, costly victory of the few. There would be no
battle of London. All the same, he had to admire the old boy’s modesty. Most generals would have held such a vast drop in rank to be an insufferable indignity and sat out the war in their
clubs. Old Clive was doing his bit, at least.
‘I’ve a platoon of railway clerks from Victoria station,’ Clive went on. ‘The odd porter, and a stoker, but mostly clerks. Just finished a morning’s drilling.
Absolutely bloody hopeless, but there you are. If the Hun ever make it to Victoria the worst they could do is sell ’em the wrong ticket. Send them to Penzance when they want to go to
Preston.’
He broke into song.
‘Oh, Mr Porter, what shall I do? Me Panzers are in Birmingham and me Führer’s stuck in Crewe. Time for a cuppa, Reggie?’
Why not? thought Reggie. Humour the old bugger. After all, room by room the general-captain’s house was identical to his own. All he had to do was sit with his cuppa, pretend to listen to
the old boy’s theories of how to win the war, mentally strip away the mounted heads of wildebeeste and gazelle, ignore the tigerskin rugs and the elephant’s-foot umbrella stand, and
paint onto those same rooms the colours of his dream.
An hour or so later, he had peeled off all his wife’s excrescent wallpaper, redecorated in plain pastels and heard Clive’s latest theory.
‘Y’see,’ Clive said, tipping the sugar bowl onto the tablecloth in order to draw an outline map of Europe with the thin end of his teaspoon, breaking up the last ginger biscuit
on the plate and using its pieces to represent the capital cities. Rome, Paris, Berlin and Moscow dotted about on the sugar. There wasn’t enough for London. Clive rummaged around in the
biscuit barrel, prised out a gooey macaroon stuck to the bottom and plonked it down on England.
‘First we take Italy from the Med, come up through the flabby gut of the Continent, knock her right out of the war.’
A silver teaspoon shot up Italy from the toe with all the savagery of a steel bayonet. Reggie ate Rome.
‘We delay any invasion of France until the Russians are on board and winning.’
Reggie
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