Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/92

 Somewhere in one of Mr. Roland's books he had read that with the subtilizing of consciousness the field of man's eternal struggle had changed. The contest had ceased to be physical and had become mental, psychical, Man no longer contended with external forces and with other men; the struggle was with himself.

He agreed, and he disagreed.

It seemed to him that in his own case the struggle was a double one. He had to fight himself, that more primitive part of himself that wanted to break out into rages, to despair, to grow moody or cynical, or to run for comfort to some woman. On the other hand his battle with the physical and natural forces was only too real. There was luggage, and there was ex-Sergeant-Major Buck.

There was tacit war between them from the beginning.

It was most natural.

Each saw in the other a complete representation of all that was disliked, a collection of characteristics that caused the opposing prejudices to bristle. Sorrell was a brain, Buck a voice. One man's objective lay twenty years ahead; the other's was immediate and physical, the satisfying of the grosser appetites. Their contrasts did not attract; they repelled.

The struggle began at once, though there was no apparent struggle, for Buck, like many men of his type, had a good deal of cunning. He could truckle. He went about with an air of bluff cheeriness.

"Now then—my lad."

He took control on the very first day. There was to be no doubt as to who was head-porter and who was second. His bulk rolled briskly about the place. In the army he had learned how to convey an impression of immense activity, while in reality he did nothing. He used his voice on the others.

He began by being genial to Sorrell, but his geniality was contemptuous, and intended to be contemptuous. There was shrewd malice in the blue eyes.

For to Buck, Sorrell was a type, the type of the overeducated, sly, argumentative, sullen, weedy, mutinous recruit. A clever, circuitous, insolent devil. Uncomfortably quick too, a fellow who needed watching.

If Sorrell found Buck's self-confident bluster offensive,