A Test to Destruction (51 page)

“But you saved a man’s life, or tried to——”

The other continued, his eyes glittering, “For a year my father barely endured my presence after I returned home. I was a half-man, he said, as I footled about in a wheeled chair. My occasional clumsiness irritated him until he could not bear the sight of me. If, for example, on entering the dining-room, my
dragging feet caught in the carpet edge, or a wheel scraped the door, or my hand caused the soup spoon to rattle, it was the sign for an explosion in my father. Towards the end of his patience he even rated me before his guests, until one night a friend of the family went for him, and there was almost a brawl. The result was that I was sacked, and here I am in the Cads’ Club, the unofficial name for this so-called private nursing home for so-called gentlemen. Have you, and your tippling friend over there, come to join us?”

“No, we’re passing through. I’ve just been hoofed out of home, too.” Phillip was as frank about himself as the other had been in his story.

“Aren’t they a purblind generation, our fathers? Sitting in their damned clubs, talking about having ‘given their sons to the war’? I suppose one should be as charitable as you are, and try to see causes of effects, but there is a limit to one’s physical resistance.” He looked at Ching. “Surely he’s not going to finish that bottle? What is it, rum? He knows how to put it away, doesn’t he? Needless to say, the Cads’ Club is unlicensed. We’ve got some pretty bad cases of shell-shock here. One fellow, of the Black Watch, goes dippy whenever he hears a tree coming down, and wants to scupper what he calls the British Huns. They have to put him in the padded cell, poor chap. He can’t bear the idea of a tree crashing down, after Bourlon Wood. No, not the Cambrai show in ’17, but last September, when the Hindenburg Line was broken. You missed that? That’s where I got hit, and was lucky not to be burned by the phosphorus bombs they lobbed over among our fellows.”

Ching came along, and offered the bottle. The stranger hesitated, then accepted. Phillip drank after him. It became a second party; but Ching’s contribution to the conversation was an obstacle, his remarks being based upon his own very limited experience, which to him was ‘the truth.’

“Here’s our tree-hero approaching,” said the man with the sticks. “He’s normal today, it being Sunday, and no felling.”

A tall man with untidy black hair and large black moustaches passed by unspeaking. He wore a loose-woven tweed suit, bramble plucked and shapeless; and pushing past, hat brim pulled low over his eyes, he continued along beside the river.

“Why are they throwing the timber?”

“They’re going to build a new suburb, apparently.”

“I knew they were going to build on the other side of the road, but not here as well. What a pity.”

“Yes, indeed. Everything is to be swept flat, and the brook, which still holds trout, by the way—farther up by the watercress beds—is to go into the sewer. The only good point about it all is that the Cads’ Club will be pulled down, too.”

“Did you hear that, Tom? There are still trout in the Randisbourne! So there’s hope yet! I thought the poor old stream was dead! Come on you crab wallah, we must do an allez! No, don’t chuck the bottle in the river, you ass. Bury it decently.” To the crippled man, “We’re supposed to be exploring this cold rivulet to its source on Reynard’s Common. Goodbye, and good luck!”

Onwards; a little sad that another friendship was to end as soon as begun. Ching was no consolation. Phillip determined that this really was the last time he would see him. And so it turned out: but not quite in the way Phillip meant it to be.

Soon they were through the wood, with a sight of large oaks and ornamental trees either thrown and stripped or marked with blue paint for felling. The brook ran clear through the watercress beds above the wooden mill known in Bloodhound patrol days as Perry’s, now derelict; but the cedar tree still leaned over the mill pond beside the road.

Beyond were gaps where willows and poplars had been felled in low-lying ground, and the makings of a new road, bright with red and yellow crushed bricks, lay through the loppings and toppings beside the trunks.

Half a mile from the watercress beds they crossed a wide clearing where stood stacks of bricks and heaps of gravel. The drink had made Phillip lethargic, and he sat down near a wooden hut beside the broken brick road, feeling heavy and ugly, his tongue sour, his head thick. How could he shake off Ching? Where could he go? Down to Devon, on the Norton? Willie was in France; there was only Aunt Dora at Lynmouth. But she had written a letter to him at Folkestone, warning him against ‘treading the primrose path.’ What had she heard, and how? She was an old maid, and would not understand. Well, for the moment there was no need to decide. He would find a shelter in the woods for the night.

Then Ching’s voice, more guttural than usual, said beside him: “How about having a fire here? A match to that heap of shavings beside the hut would soon set things off!”

“What do you mean, set fire to the hut?”

“No one would know who did it. We could always say we found it alight, and were trying to put it out, if anyone came. It would dry our clothes all right!”

“We’ll make a fire in the wood over the railway, if you like.”

“All right. I’m just going to look in the hut. There might be some beer inside.”

Phillip lay back again, until Ching’s voice brought him out of his reverie. “I looked through the window and saw an old man inside, reading a paper. There’s a lot of shavings round the other side. One match, and it would soon be alight.”

“I’m going on alone, if you don’t stop talking like a prize bloody fool.”

“But I
am
a
prize bloody fool, didn’t you know that?”

Phillip decided to leave him. He had got through the wire strands of the railway fence when he heard a noise of breaking glass, and looking back, saw Ching running towards him, and smoke rising in the background. As he watched, a man appeared round the side of the hut, yelling to an unseen mate before starting to give chase.

Phillip held down the second wire strand for Ching to get through. “You idiot! We’ll have to move fast! Get on with it.”

“They can’t prove we did it,” replied Ching, loosely.

“
We
did it! I like that! Run, for Christ’s sake! I can see flames! Come on, damn you, get through! Move, blast you! Don’t argue. Follow me.”

He ran through the trees on the other side of the railway, and up a path through the wood. After a couple of hundred yards, while the pursuer was still shouting, he had to wait for Ching. But less than a stone’s throw away Ching sank down on the path, rolling his eyes and gasping, “Oh my side! My side!”

“Don’t do that old stuff on me! Get up! Run, you swine! There’s only one man after us. If we keep on, he’ll give up, My God, look at the smoke.”

Ching lay there, groaning and rolling his eyes; in vain Phillip tried to pull him to his feet, while Ching moaned about his mother, saying she had only just come back from Peckham House, and it would kill her if anything happened to him. “Oh, oh, I can’t breathe! My side! It’s that phosgene gas.”

“You horrible bloody mess, why in God’s name did I ever bring you here? If you won’t help yourself, then go to hell!”

Phillip set off up the path again; only to stop once more and return to where Ching was lying, the man standing by him. “I think we ought to go and put out the fire,” he said.

“Too late for that, my bucko! You come wi’ me!”

“It’s not too late. Come on!”

“Ah no, you don’t play no tricks on me, like that! You be comin’ wi’ me to the constable!”

“I’ll pay for the damage.”

“Ah, that you will!”

“I didn’t do it, you know.”

“You was both the same! I seed you both runnin’ away. You’re comin’ along o’ me, mister!”

“What about him?” Ching was apparently unconscious.

“I don’t trouble about he. One’s enough for me. You was both together. I wor’ watchin’ of you both, you didn’t know that, did you? So wor’ my mate, worn’t you, Jim?” to another man hastening up.

“That I wor’! I seed ’em both a-doin’ of it!”

“You know, there’s still time to put out the fire. Take your hand off me! I’m not going to run away!”

“Not this time, you ain’t! We’ll see to that! Call yerself a gent! Where you from, the sawney house? Don’t you try no tricks, now, or we’ll crown yer!”

“I told you, I won’t run away, and I’ll pay for the damage. But why do you refuse to let me put out the fire? It’s not got a real hold yet, and we’re wasting time, I tell you!”

“Ah, you’ll be wastin’ time all right, mister!”

Between the two men Phillip walked to the main road, and down towards Cutler’s Pond. “I’ll tell you again: if you come home with me, I will give you a cheque for ten pounds, to cover any damage. You will have my address, then. Ten pounds should cover the cost of replacing that hut.”

They got on a tram, he paid the fares. The men neither assented nor disagreed, and he thought the matter would be settled by his cheque. They got off at Randiswell Road, and had passed the Fire Station and come to the Police Station when suddenly his arms were grabbed and he was hauled up the step, and inside, where he was charged with destruction of property by arson. Asked his address, he said, “I haven’t got an address.”

“Then where do you live?” asked the sergeant. On being told nowhere, the sergeant wrote down
No
fixed
abode.

“May I have a pen, and some writing paper, to communicate with a friend?”

“I shall have to report your request to my Inspector.”

While the sergeant was telephoning Phillip remembered that his grandfather had been ill, and thought of writing instead to his mother; but she would be too upset. Mrs. Neville came to mind. He would write and ask her to come down. Looking round the room, where two young constables sat reading sheets from the
News
of
the
World,
he said: “I can’t, of course, even suggest offering a police officer any money to take a letter, but could anyone outside be asked to take it, when it’s written, I mean?”

“You’ll have to ask the sergeant.”

“Any objection to my reading a newspaper? I mean, if you’ve done with that sheet over there.”

“There’s a Bible if you want it.”

“Have you ever thought that parts of the Old Testament are rather like parts of the
News
of
the
World
?”

This attempt at humour fell flat, and he sat unspeaking until the sergeant came back.

“If you wish to make a request to see a lawyer, I shall take notice of it, in accordance with the regulations.”

“Very well, I would like to see a lawyer.”

But who? Then he remembered a brass plate on the gate of one of the houses in Charlotte Road, with
Solicitor
engraved after the name
Bowles.
“I’d like to see Mr. Bowles, if you please.”

After this he was locked up in a cell, and when later he asked if he might go to the lavatory, the constable on duty unlocked the door and took him to a seatless pan in a doorless space, and stood there close to him, apparently guarding against any attempt at suicide. This, added to the fact that all his personal possessions had been taken away—money, pocket knife, fountain pen, tobacco, matches, and note-book—before he had been put in the cell, increased his depression.

At last Mr. Bowles appeared. He was told that he would have to appear at Greenwich Police Court on the Monday, to be charged before the Magistrates. If the charge were proved, the bench might impose a fine, with damages, or a term of imprisonment, or both; or, at the worst, a remand to a higher court.

“It may depend on whether or not we can produce your companion. Perhaps you will give me his name,” said Mr.
Bowles. As Phillip remained silent, he went on, “It will not help your case if, on the other hand, you merely state that it was someone else who set fire to the hut, and then refuse to say who he is.”

“Then it looks pretty bad for me, sir?”

“That I cannot say at this juncture. You say that you offered to help put out the fire, and that the two watchmen not only refused your help to do what you could, but prevented you from getting to the building to prevent further damage? There again, you will have to produce a witness or witnesses. If you cannot do this, it might be a case for the Petty Sessions. But again, if in the opinion of the magistrates it constitutes more than a misdemeanour, that is, a criminal offence, it may mean a remand until the Assizes, with a wait of some weeks for the visit of the Circuit Judge. In the interim that will involve remand in custody, or alternatively, a remand on bail. That, again, will be decided on any evidence of good behaviour, or testimony as to war service, and such things. How much bail do you think you could raise, or secure from relations or friends vouching for you?”

“I’ve got about fifty pounds, and a motorcycle worth at least another fifty.”

“You have no one—a parent perhaps—you could call on for bail?”

“I don’t want to involve anyone else, sir.”

“Well, we’ll leave that for the moment. Meanwhile I’ll call on this lady, Mrs. Neville, as you suggest, and ask her to let your mother know your present whereabouts. I’ll come back later on this evening, when I shall know more about tomorrow’s procedure at Greenwich. Until then, keep as calm as you can.”

When Mr. Bowles was gone, the sergeant came in and said, “Am I right in thinking that you was here once before, brought in by a Detective-sergeant Keechey, during the war?”

“Yes, sergeant. He thought I was a bogus officer. It was in the early summer of 1916, just before I went out to the Somme.”

The sergeant had an almost crafty look on his face. Closing the door, he sat down again and leaning forward said in a low voice, “Keechey never thought that, did Keechey! He knew Lily Cornford was goin’ with you, and that made ’im mad. You knew Lily was dead, no doubt?”

“Yes. She was a wonderful person.”

“She was that. A fine girl. So was her mother.” He looked at Phillip sideways, “You wouldn’t by any chance be any relation to Special Sergeant Maddison, would you?”