The Stranger's Child

by Alan Hollinghurst

‘Whom are you discussing?’ he said. ‘My brother Sizzle, General,’ Dudley seemed to say. ‘Ah, indeed,’ said the General, declining an offered space on the sofa but fetching a hard chair as he came round and making a square circle of the group, which took on a suddenly strategic air. ‘Yes, a tragic case. And a very promising writer.’ ‘Yes . . .’ – Dudley was more cautious now. ‘Wavell had several of them by heart, you know. It’s “Soldiers Dreaming”, isn’t it, he puts in Other Men’s Flowers, but he had a great deal of time for “The Old Company”.’ ‘Oh, well, yes,’ said Dudley. ‘I’ll be saying something about it tomorrow. He used to quote it’ – the General batted his eyelids – ‘ “It’s the old company, all right, / But without the old companions” – one of the truest things said about the experience of many young officers.’ He looked around – ‘They came back and they came back, do you see, if they came through at all, and the company was completely changed, they’d all been killed. There was always a company tradition, keenly maintained, but the only people who remembered the old soldiers were soon dead themselves – no one remembered the rememberers. No, a great poem in its way.’ He shook his head in candid submission. Paul sensed there were demurrers in the group, but the General’s claim for the poem’s truth made them hesitate.