Read A Test to Destruction Online
Authors: Henry Williamson
A Test to Destruction (53 page)
How proud Dickie had been, coming home with a copy of
The
Times
—ah, if only he could have understood Phillip—if only he could have sympathised with him when Phillip was a little boy, if only he could have
understood
that a small boy wanted to be like his father, to
copy
him in all his ways, even to taking his father’s things—if only Dickie had shown understanding of a growing mind, then Phillip might never have resorted with bad companions; and the tragedy might never have happened.
And yet, who could tell? One of Phillip’s faults was that he was too prone to accept other people at their own valuation, instead of using the judgment which Papa said he undoubtedly possessed, but seemed unable to trust.
Beside the Badge, usually kept hidden under the case, was the small ebony and silver crucifix she had given Phillip when first he had gone to war, and which he had worn in France and Flanders, and given back to her—the Cross which had kept him safe, and under whose sign, she believed, he had suffered for another’s sin.
*
Phillip came home on a Saturday afternoon later than he had intended; he had thought to see his mother while she would be alone in the house; but he had lingered with some of the local
bogies and off-duty screws in the pub they called the Rogues’ Gallery—a friendly yet oddly reserved occasion.
Richard arrived while Phillip was sitting in the front room, laughing with his mother.
“What are you doing here, may I ask? Do you not realise that you are forbidden this house? And what is that object doing on the table, Hetty?”
“I left it there, Dickie, after dusting it.”
“Perhaps you do not realise that the recipient is no longer entitled to such a thing, after conviction for a civil offence?”
“I am aware of that, sir. As a matter of fact I applied to be removed from the Roll before I was convicted.”
“In that case you may agree that your mother’s ostentatious display should be done with, and the sooner the better? Perhaps you will take it away with you, and leave my house?”
“All right, I’m just going, Father. I’m sorry about everything, and the trouble I have caused you.”
“It is too late to be sorry. You should have thought of that before you set out to indulge your propensity for liquor. In any case, ‘being sorry’ was your invariable excuse when you were a small boy. Too often I was lenient in the matter of your underhand behaviour.”
Richard turned away, turned round again at the door and said, “Well, I have warned you! Once and for all, I have washed my hands of you, and all your ways!”
“Goodbye, Mother. Don’t worry. One day——” His voice broke; recovered. “Please don’t worry. I quite understand how Father feels about it.”
“You will write sometimes, won’t you, dear? And please call in and see Gran’pa, he has something important to say to you.”
*
Having seen his grandfather, who had offered to help him find work, Phillip set out to walk to Blackheath, and down to the river, to cross by the Woolwich ferry, with the idea of making for Hornchurch and seeing where he had been billeted in 1915; but changing his mind when it began to snow, he returned and wandered up on the Hill, where he tried to break in under the bandstand, and make a secret hide there. Thence to the Backfield, remembering his shelter of railway sleepers—his camp before he was a Boy Scout, in those wonderfully happy days of innocence, as he thought of them now.
There was a moon, and by its cold light he climbed the spiked railings, after many attempts to get up, and then to balance without getting the soles of his shoes caught between the spikes. His shoes in the old days had been much narrower, he realized; and his camp, where was it? Were these the thorn bushes, so small? Had they grown at all, in the yellow clay? Was this core of wood all that was left of one of the sleepers? Hopeless even for a fire. Lying down, head wrapped in arms, he breathed deeply to find harmony and sleep; at least he was out of the N-W wind, and free to go where he liked in the morning. He lay there until dawn, when notes of small birds in the thorns, coming with a scattering of sleet, brought memories of far-off days in Whitefoot Lane and upon the Seven Fields, and of other days in snow almost as remote—December, 1916, 286 Company transport trek from Grantham to Newark, redwings piping thin cries in the Lincolnshire meadows,
seek-seek.
He rose on an elbow to look at them, and they flew away. He stood up, stiff and cold, and set off down the slope to the end of the yellow-brick houses he remembered being built when he was a child; and hurrying through Randiswell, face hidden in the collar of his overcoat made from an army blanket, got on a workman’s tram to Cutler’s Pond.
Large, soft snowflakes were now falling. At the terminus he went into a carter’s pull-up, and had breakfast of two fried eggs and bacon, a large pot of tea, bread, margarine and jam. Feeling optimistic he sat by the fire and wrote in his journal.
In
the
nick.
Meals in hall below balconies leading to flowery dells (cells). Canopy of wire-netting stretched on iron hoops to prevent objects, including bodies, being flung into well below, where we sat at wooden tables pushed close together: the wide boys at breakfast, dinner, and tea. Each had tin plate, mug, and aluminium spoon. Rough music sometimes on plates; complaints usually of poor grub. Forbidden to speak to warder (screw) unless addressed. Language 100% filthy. Some screws ditto. Thicks and tea for breakfast; guff and duff for dinner; water, thicks and cheese, cocoa (milkless) for tea.
Saw familiar face of Devereux-Wilkins. Told by meal mate “The Toff was done for half-inching sparklers” (jewellery) from women he lived with, before moving on. Apparently D.-W. made mistake of taking up with younger sister of former flame, absent-mindedly giving her brooch she had originally given to her elder sister.
“The Toff conned ‘is f—g self, see?” gloated the informant, a little Jew who, when not restoring his
morale
by recounting the pinches of others, oozed self-pity, telling me he had been done by a squealer (informant). He stank, chiefly from chewing tobacco mixed with hemp from mail-bags.
Asked me what I was done for. “Arson”, I said. Apparently reticence led to rumours that I was a grasser for the screws, reason why I was not in for a stretch.
Didn’t speak to D.-W. Didn’t want to; probably mutual. Saw him during morning exercise round courtyard, where talking forbidden, but they do.
Had threatened bad time in Mail Bags Two, five days after arrival, my reticence being taken for superiority? Grassing? But timely return of Poxy Paul, pale-eyed, foul-mouthed, pale-haired warder stopped them bashing me against wall while someone held my legs.
The
flowery
dells.
Trestle bed, palliasse in old stained ticking, 2 blankets, no pillow. Iron-cased door, small grill peep-hole. All my things taken away on arrival, then carbolic bath, and interview with governor (behind him chaplain) curt to harshness. (There had been trouble that morning, I heard later: prisoners confined to cells, screaming, yelling, kicking doors, whole building in uproar, after one had attacked a screw and various fights had broken out.) Gov. asked what I had done; whether served in army, what rank, if any decorations, etc. I said private in London Regt., and no medals. Then dossier put before him. “It says here——” etc. Why had I lied. “For the sake of my parents, sir,” I lied. That seemed to satisfy him, for I was taken away and banged up.
Effect
of
imprisonment.
Occasional upspreading-to-near-panic-screaming feeling as under continual bombardment in trench; feeling of not belonging to yourself any more; realizing the soul indivisible from body, you could not get out of your body, everything pressing on you until fact of being innocent was same as feeling guilty, for guilty or innocent you were trapped in a small space behind grilled peep-hole; cell bare, ugly, soulless, your feet imprisoned in sordid, worn slippers stinking of other men’s toe-jam, as you dragged them on way, bogie behind you, to the lavatories foetid with piccalilly evidence of epsom-salts cum dysentery, no plugs to pull only periodical sluicings of all pans in row together, so that if someone had been before you and no intermediate sluicing you had to try and not let the rim of the pan touch you, while Poxy Paul or others of his ilk yelled “Choosy, ain’t
yer, what you fink this place is, the f—g Ritz, Archibald?” Not allowed to wash afterwards until evening; not exactly good for
morale.
Watching and reckoning the hours and sometimes the minutes of every day and night until the long long unimaginably long month should be up. And at last it was, and then the idea of being outside was almost frightening: one had become
guilty.
“May I have some more hot water, please? This tea tastes simply wonderful!”
He was free! He could look back on the Scrubs as an experience for Horace Donkin, in
Soot,
or,
A
World
of
Half
Sun.
Lighting a Woodbine, he added notes for a new beginning.
Put in comic description of Horace Donkin’s arrival at orderly room of new unit after commission, on motorbike out of control, via bow-fronted window of Bogspavin House, Oldmarket.
“My goodness, who are you?” asks Colonel at desk over gold spectacles.
“Donkin reporting for duty, sir!”
“Mr. Donkin, do you usually report for duty through a hole in the wall of a house?”
“I have so far, sir!”
“What do you mean?”
“Normal way of arriving in trenches in France, sir. Houses there always completely ventilated ruins, sir. Jerry built and Jerry broken, sir, lack of lime under generally acid soil, sir.”
“Mr. Donkin, are you being facetious?”
“No, sir, only factual, sir.”
“In that case, report to the adjutant. You’ll find him in the next room.”
“Find him, sir? Is he lost?”
“Mr. Donkin, will you kindly move on?” looking over specs.
“Certainly, sir, forthwith, sir!”
Donkin pushes bike, leaps on, navigates doors, enters next room ready for action wearing smoke helmet, fires off revolver with flour instead of bullets
a
la
cowboy films, shouting, “Be prepared! The old order changeth, yielding place to new! You are my prisoner!” to adjutant. “Have a drink,” says Adj. putting down
The
Pink
’
Un,
“and don’t be so noisy. A joke’s a joke, but you go too goddam far, Donkin. Obviously you have had no education. Where were you at school, Donkin?”
“I was bricked up in a grey-yellow Board School, later I was bored in a red-brick school. Bricks very old and mellow, genuine
Elizabethan, pitted by soot, birds, wasps, and occasional catapult and pen-knife. School was built on yellow clay, colour of some of the pupils’ (and masters’) faces. I was said by the Head Master to be so tinted, sir, positively yellow. School prospectus spoke of character being moulded, like bricks I suppose, before being baked. We had some decent fellows, of course, known as bricks. Speaking for myself, I am a half-baked brick, Adj.”
“I can see you are a rorty boy, you have no reserve, Donkin.”
“That’s where I beg to differ, Adj. Permit me to show you.” Opens cap on tank, lights match, Adj. peers in, tank explodes, air-raid warning goes, troops march to East Coast, British fleet leaves Scapa Flow, German fleet leaves Kiel, occupies Scapa while British fleet enters Kiel. There is a general exchange of uniforms and opinions, and mass-migration all round. Years pass. Insularity produces in Germans tolerance due to becoming the world’s wholesale shopkeepers talking down and through noses to lesser breeds of retailers; while British become claustrophobic and guttural and create armies where they once built ironclads.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself, laughing away like that,” said the woman behind the counter.
“I’m writing a book.’’
She looked at him narrowly. “Are you from over the way, where the shell-shocked soldiers are? An orderly, or something?”
“I’m just an author.”
“My, fancy that now! It’s going to be a funny book, I can see that.”
“Life can be very funny at times.”
“You’re quite right! Sometimes people forget that, especially round ’ere. There’s a lot of talk about the lunatics we’ve got now, per’aps you’ve heard of them? At the house in the wood over there.” She pointed through the window. “Some’s reely dangerous; one big feller tries to stop the trees comin’ down. They ’ave to lock ’im up. They say he got messed up in the war. Yes, the big dark feller carries on something awful, just because a few old trees are coming down. Good thing, I say, the place wants opening up, although they say they’re goin’ to put people here from the slums of Deptford and Woolwich, on the new ’ousing estate. Some say they’ll bring a lot of rough behaviour with them, but I say it’s time those slums beside the river was pulled down.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way. Yes, it’s part of the post-war ‘homes fit for heroes’, I suppose. By the way, have you seen one of the patients in the Home, who goes about in a wheeled chair?”
“You mean the Honourable? Oh yes, he’s ever such a nice gent! Real gentleman, he is. The Honourable Stert, they say he is the son of Lord Illinton or some name like that. They say he can’t go ’ome, because the Lord don’t like ’aving a cripple for a son. You’d think a father would take extra care of a son what was crippled in the war, wouldn’t you? But that’s only what they say.”
“I expect his Father can’t bear to think of his being crippled, and the thought of it all the time wears him out, like a bad dream that recurs again and again.”
“Yes, I know what you mean. Still, I don’t think the old gent can be much cop, in ’imself like, to turn out that pore young man, because he can’t help being wounded, can he? I mean to say, it isn’t the young man’s fault. It’s not as though he did it to himself, is it? Still, you never know. I ’ave heard of some what blew off a finger, to get out of the trenches. Still, you can’t reely blame them, can you?”