‘Brigade expects us to clean up the house for them. I should have thought some of those half-shaven scrimshankers I see lounging round Headquarters might have saved us the trouble; however…Ryder, you will find a fatigue party of fifty and report to the Quartering Commandant at the house at 1045 hours; he’ll show you what we’re taking over.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Our predecessors do not seem to have been very enterprising. The valley has great potentialities for an assault course and a mortar range. Weapon-training officer, make a recce this morning and get something laid on before Brigade arrives.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘I’m going out myself with the adjutant to recce training areas. Anyone happen to know this district?’

I said nothing.

‘That’s all then, get cracking.’

‘Wonderful old place in its way,’ said the Quartering Commandant; ‘pity to knock it about too much.’

He was an old, retired, re-appointed lieutenant-colonel from some miles away. We met in the space before the main doors, where I had my half-company fallen-in, waiting for orders. ‘Come in. I’ll soon show you over. It’s a great warren of a place, but we’ve only requisitioned the ground floor and half a dozen bedrooms. Everything else upstairs is still private property, mostly cram-full of furniture; you never saw such stuff, priceless some of it.

‘There’s a caretaker and a couple of old servants live at the top – they won’t be any trouble to you – and a blitzed R.C. padre whom Lady Julia gave a home to – jittery old bird, but no trouble. He’s opened the chapel; that’s in bounds for the troops; surprising lot use it, too.

‘The place belongs to Lady Julia Flyte, as she calls herself now. She was married to Mottram, the Minister of whatever-it-is. She’s abroad in some woman’s service, and I try to keep an eye on things for her. Queer thing the old marquis leaving everything to her – rough on the boys.

‘Now this is where the last lot put the clerks; plenty of room, anyway. I’ve had the walls and fireplaces boarded up you see – valuable old work underneath. Hullo, someone seems to have been making a beast of himself here; destructive beggars, soldiers are! Lucky we spotted it, or it would have been charged to you chaps.

‘This is another good-sized room, used to be full of tapestry. I’d advise you to use this for conferences.’

‘I’m only here to clean up, sir. Someone from Brigade will allot the rooms.’

‘Oh, well, you’ve got an easy job. Very decent fellows the last lot. They shouldn’t have done that to the fireplace though. How did they manage it? Looks solid enough. I wonder if it can be mended?

‘I expect the brigadier will take this for his office; the last did. It’s got a lot of painting that can’t be moved, done on the walls. As you see, I’ve covered it up as best I can, but soldiers get through anything – as the brigadier’s done in the corner. There was another painted room, outside under pillars – modern work but, if you ask me, the prettiest in the place; it was the signal office and they made absolute hay of it; rather a shame.