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Oct. 22nd, 2009 05:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
titusnowlHe doesn't sleep around much; he doesn't get the opportunity. He's had a few more-or-less anonymous shags on leave - almost never enlisted men, but without regard to rank amongst the officers; ignore the pips and stripes and don't ask names, just share a few drinks and a bed. He came frightfully close to having a relationship with one of them - they ran into each other several times, and the chap was one of those trench poets, left him with a rather remarkable short piece about the blood of our brothers or something, but he passed out shortly thereafter. He used to sleep with his first lieutenant in the Rag-Tag, but he passed out too, Davies is innumerable and a bit too dull and sheep-like for comfort, and Atleigh's barely nineteen. Carried on with a serjeant named Bradley in the pre-Rag-Tag company when he was a lieutenant himself, but he got promoted and heard that Bradley'd passed out himself within two months. Which is, of course, why it's better to keep things more-or-less anonymous. It's frightfully depressing to keep hearing about the deaths of people you've slept with, you know. Almost enough to make one tug at one's collar and check behind the shoulder for the Reaper, which is an insupportable way to make a living. The Old Grim will come in his own time, no use watching for him.
Miranda's back home with the run of the whole house for the first time in years, of course. He hasn't gotten any actual leave - enough to get back to England rather than just stay a few days in the nearest town, you know - since he joined up, but the absence doesn't wear very badly on either of them. He's asked her jokingly whether she'd like him to fake his own death so she'll be free to do as she likes, but he's fairly certain those bits of his letters have gotten cut out by the censors, as she's never replied. They never succeeded in having any children while they were still getting on, and he supposes it's just as well, although parenthood would likely have suited both of them after a fashion and might have worked to keep things from getting as bad as they did - then again it might have made it worse, especially with the war now and him gone, so there's no point in wondering about what-ifs and might-have-beens. He wears his wedding ring mainly out of habit; he uses it as an excuse against particularly insistent ladies of the evening (it tends to raise him, in their estimation, from un radin to ah, un gentilhomme d'honneur, quel romantique!, which he, knowing the truth of his situation, finds terribly amusing), and he fidgets with it as one of the few outward signs when he's nervous or worried.
If asked what he did before the war, the answer is a cheerful and truthful "nothing of any use at all." It was frighteningly easy to be a member of the Idle Rich then; one didn't even need to be all that rich. He's not quite a gentleman - certainly not aristocracy - just comfortably moneyed, none of which he earned himself and none of which he ever accounts for personally; that's what bankers are for, isn't it? He grew up in a house that kept both butler and maid, although his establishment with Miranda has only the latter; he's never actually worked a day in his life, unless one counts writing a few pieces on Shakespeare and Johnson for a private-subscription literary magazine - pieces which were rather more satirical than the publisher quite realized. For years he's had half an idea to write a satirical history of something-or-other, but never gotten serious enough about it to actually make a final decision of what it would be and start writing - nowadays he's thinking of writing a satirical history of the war, provided he lives to see the end of it, though he doubts it would ever find a printer.
He'd never even contemplated a military career, of course, but he didn't feel he had much of a choice in the matter; and so he joined the ranks of the Old Etonian Officer Class, and although he obviously adjusted well enough to military protocol (and survived long enough, which was a major factor) to gain his promotion to Captain, he tossed as much of that protocol as possible straight out the window as soon as possible. To his face he's "sir," of course; behind his back some of the men call him "'is Lordship," the rest call him Ponce, and he doesn't mind either one so long as it isn't done with disrespect - which it generally isn't. Formality for formality's sake is nothing but an annoyance, and proper respect and understanding of the heirarchy can be carried out perfectly well without sticking to silly little rules about standing up and saluting all the time, so far as he's concerned. It works very well within their company, but the unorthodoxy doesn't quite impress the higher-ups (even in the suppressed form they witness - the whole crew draws together and plays at being in the Army for real when a big-wig visits, after all), which is likely why it has become Martin's Rag-Tag.
Not that he minds it being Martin's Rag-Tag, of course. He coined the name himself and thinks it's terribly fun. Who knows what will be added to 'is Lordship's menagerie next?
---
He doesn't have the French accent. This Terry Martin is a legitimate poncey Englishman; there'd be no way for him to be in the English Army otherwise, after all. (The Terry might be short for Alistair, though, if only because I'm awfully fond of Alistair and I like his real name not actually being the name he goes by.) He does have the grin here; he'll always have that grin. It just doesn't get to shine as often as it does for his 1968 incarnation. The night he gets tipsy and gets Cuddles to dance for the Mademoiselle from Armentieres contest, the grin hardly leaves his face for a minute, because that night, everything is perfect, everything is beautiful, and he is in love with the world.
Miranda's back home with the run of the whole house for the first time in years, of course. He hasn't gotten any actual leave - enough to get back to England rather than just stay a few days in the nearest town, you know - since he joined up, but the absence doesn't wear very badly on either of them. He's asked her jokingly whether she'd like him to fake his own death so she'll be free to do as she likes, but he's fairly certain those bits of his letters have gotten cut out by the censors, as she's never replied. They never succeeded in having any children while they were still getting on, and he supposes it's just as well, although parenthood would likely have suited both of them after a fashion and might have worked to keep things from getting as bad as they did - then again it might have made it worse, especially with the war now and him gone, so there's no point in wondering about what-ifs and might-have-beens. He wears his wedding ring mainly out of habit; he uses it as an excuse against particularly insistent ladies of the evening (it tends to raise him, in their estimation, from un radin to ah, un gentilhomme d'honneur, quel romantique!, which he, knowing the truth of his situation, finds terribly amusing), and he fidgets with it as one of the few outward signs when he's nervous or worried.
If asked what he did before the war, the answer is a cheerful and truthful "nothing of any use at all." It was frighteningly easy to be a member of the Idle Rich then; one didn't even need to be all that rich. He's not quite a gentleman - certainly not aristocracy - just comfortably moneyed, none of which he earned himself and none of which he ever accounts for personally; that's what bankers are for, isn't it? He grew up in a house that kept both butler and maid, although his establishment with Miranda has only the latter; he's never actually worked a day in his life, unless one counts writing a few pieces on Shakespeare and Johnson for a private-subscription literary magazine - pieces which were rather more satirical than the publisher quite realized. For years he's had half an idea to write a satirical history of something-or-other, but never gotten serious enough about it to actually make a final decision of what it would be and start writing - nowadays he's thinking of writing a satirical history of the war, provided he lives to see the end of it, though he doubts it would ever find a printer.
He'd never even contemplated a military career, of course, but he didn't feel he had much of a choice in the matter; and so he joined the ranks of the Old Etonian Officer Class, and although he obviously adjusted well enough to military protocol (and survived long enough, which was a major factor) to gain his promotion to Captain, he tossed as much of that protocol as possible straight out the window as soon as possible. To his face he's "sir," of course; behind his back some of the men call him "'is Lordship," the rest call him Ponce, and he doesn't mind either one so long as it isn't done with disrespect - which it generally isn't. Formality for formality's sake is nothing but an annoyance, and proper respect and understanding of the heirarchy can be carried out perfectly well without sticking to silly little rules about standing up and saluting all the time, so far as he's concerned. It works very well within their company, but the unorthodoxy doesn't quite impress the higher-ups (even in the suppressed form they witness - the whole crew draws together and plays at being in the Army for real when a big-wig visits, after all), which is likely why it has become Martin's Rag-Tag.
Not that he minds it being Martin's Rag-Tag, of course. He coined the name himself and thinks it's terribly fun. Who knows what will be added to 'is Lordship's menagerie next?
---
He doesn't have the French accent. This Terry Martin is a legitimate poncey Englishman; there'd be no way for him to be in the English Army otherwise, after all. (The Terry might be short for Alistair, though, if only because I'm awfully fond of Alistair and I like his real name not actually being the name he goes by.) He does have the grin here; he'll always have that grin. It just doesn't get to shine as often as it does for his 1968 incarnation. The night he gets tipsy and gets Cuddles to dance for the Mademoiselle from Armentieres contest, the grin hardly leaves his face for a minute, because that night, everything is perfect, everything is beautiful, and he is in love with the world.
