The Phoenix Generation (28 page)

“I’ll come with you, in case you fall in and frighten the spawning fish.”

On the way into the park, hand in hand, she said, “You won’t think the worse of me, will you, for this afternoon?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t think that of me.” When it was time to part she said, “You will write, won’t you?”

The sun was declining from Libra to the star-group of Scorpio, and the book on the blind trout was published. To the author’s surprise the critics greeted it on the day of publication as a small masterpiece. Just before Christmas the publisher wrote to say it had beaten all records for his firm by selling 3,000 copies in one day, in addition to the subscription of 7,000. Two reprints were on order.

In the New Year the vicar of Flumen Monachorum said to Phillip at the Badminton Club in the old stables, “When are you going to give us another book like
The
Blind
Trout
?
You should always write that kind of book, you know, and not attempt any more novels.”

*

Die
Schwarze
Forelle
, as it was called in translation, was published in Berlin in due course. Phillip was able to return the 150 RM (he hoped without offence) to the N.S.D.A.P. official who had given him money in the Adlon Hotel.

The repayment, made as an act of chivalry to a poor nation desperate for currency, altered the course of Phillip’s life during the years that were to follow.

Towards one dark winter night of the New Year at 6 p.m., while listening beside his wireless set, Phillip heard the words, 

and at once ran down to tell Lucy and Ernest. Then he called in Rippingall to listen.

“May I bring my cocoa, sir?”

Rippingall had come back with the frosts, penitent as usual.

“The following bulletin has just been issued.
The
King’s
life
is
moving
peacefully
towards
its
close.
”

*

The voice from the aether ceased. There followed the dull
tick-tock
of a metronome. It went on and on. Lucy and Ernest went quietly to bed. Phillip remained with Rippingall. They lay on the rush mat, playing draughts, as in a billet—a good dry billet, thank God. At 10.45 p.m. the same words as before. They prepared for an all-night watch. Phillip fetched a bottle of whisky. They stood up. Phillip drank silently. Rippingall said, “In duty, sir, I drink my Sovereign’s health,” and threw the whisky between his teeth.

“Draw up that armchair, old soldier, and make yourself at home. After all, this is your billet as much as mine.”

Each man lay back in a padded leather armchair.

“We must keep vigil, Lance-corporal Rippingall.”

“Very good,
mon
capitain
.”

At eleven p.m. the same voice, the same words.

“Have another drink, Corporal Rippingall. Help yourself.”

Rippingall stood up. A tear dripped off his chin. “We’ve all got to come to it, sir. Maybe in the next war.” He was thinking, If it comes to that I’ll dye my hair black and ’list in the footsloggers. He raised his glass. “Cheerio, Major.” Having jerked back the liquid he remarked. “Chesterton once said, ‘Cocoa’s a cad.’ I fancy that was at the time of the Belgian Congo scandal.”

Phillip thought to telephone the features editor of the
Crusader
and ask to be allowed to cover the funeral procession through London. No: it would be bad form to ask this before the King died.

A single candle burned on the shelf below the chimney piece.

The hands of the grandfather clock tick-tocked towards the roman figures XII.

“Why don’t they have great music at a time like this?
Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony. They could fade it out as the voice repeats the news more humanly, more intimately, while omitting the preliminary ‘The following bulletin was issued’, and simply repeating the phrase, which is beautiful, ‘the King’s life is moving peacefully towards its close’. I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed. No more whisky, Sergeant Rippingall.”

“No, Colonel.”

Rippingall stood to attention. His moustachio ends were waxed and spiky and each spike was nearly three inches long. It looked bloody silly. He must have seen that photograph in the
Crusader
of some bogus old sweat with six-inch spikes.

“Sir, with permission, I’ll remain on guard. For soon Death the Antic with his little pin, bores through the castle wall and—farewell King.”

Phillip was hardly in bed when a discreet tap came on his door. He crossed over the polished oak slabs lying unevenly on their joists. Rippingall, making his voice steady, whispered, “Sir, the King died just before midnight, I ’eard it just now. And I could hear the guns at E-priss.” Tears ran down his cheeks.

“You are right, Sergeant-major Rippingall. War is coming, I’m very much afraid. Goodnight, old friend.”

“God bless you, sir,” sobbed Rippingall, going to bed with the bottle.

The features editor of the
Crusader
replied that staff reporters would cover the funeral from various angles, but would Phillip write a personal-impressions article? They would pay fifty guineas for a thousand words.

Phillip took Rippingall with him to London. He wanted a
full-dress
scene for his novel series to be started one day. The time was not ripe for it; the spirit of the people, which Wagner had written unconsciously gave strength to artists of their time, was against withdrawal. One must remain part of turmoil.

At 4.30 a.m., of a morning threatening rain, the two men left an all-night café near Leicester Square and walked down Panton Street, making for the Circus where Eros, the winged archer, delicately paused after drawing his bow. Recalling Thomas
Morland’s
mere reference to Queen Victoria’s funeral procession in one of the novels comprising
The
Crouchend
Saga
, he was determined to make notes of all he saw. He told Rippingall to make a night of it. Walking up Piccadilly, they passed silent rows of people squatting on the pavement edges, feet in the gutter. Some had rugs over heads and shoulders; newspapers were wrapped round some legs, children among the adults. All were trying to doze.

He decided to stand at the corner of St. James’ Street. Rain fell steadily and towards dawn he began to feel peevish. Hadn’t he had enough wet and sleepless nights in the war? He led the way onwards, to find a less unsheltered place.

“There’s a hotel with a portico and pillars giving shelter farther on, Rippingall.”

“The Ritz, sir.”

“Oh, is that where it is?”

“Captain Runnymeade and I, Sir, in the old days——”

Phillip hastened on, looking for a stance. Every square foot was taken. They stopped beside a man wearing a bowler under an umbrella. Water dripped from several spoke-ends upon them.

“With permission, sir,” said Rippingall, to the owner of the gamp, “I would suggest that an umbrella is an unsocial instrument in a crowd when it is raining.”

The stocky man under a bowler ignored Rippingall. Phillip wondered if he were a detective mingling with the crowd. For it had been announced that the heads of many foreign countries would be in the procession, including a German general in uniform and coalscuttle helmet. Strings of a steady downpour continued
to plop on Phillip’s hair, coat shoulders, and sleeves. Rippingall addressed the stocky man again.

“My gentleman is getting extremely wet from your umbrella, sir.”

The stocky man remained still. Sideway pressure and sway increased with the rain. A newspaper seller walked among the moving people in the street crying, “Morning Post. A newspaper, a tent, an umberella—all for one penny.”

Rippingall bought two, and put one over Phillip’s cap and another over his own. They moved towards the Green Park. Kerb-huddled children were beginning to look like dirty bundles in the indifferent light of dawn. The crowds were thickening fast. Phillip said to Rippingall that the place to be was inside the railings of the Park, with freedom to move about. They went through a gateway and walked under plane trees dripping mournfully upon those leaves which had detached themselves with the extra weight of rain. Strolling about, Phillip decided the thing to do was to transport a seat to the railings and stand on it to see over the heads of those packed on the pavement.

“Come on, Rippingall, lend a hand.”

The seat, of wood and cast iron, was heavy. Rippingall accosted a man and two girls hurrying out of the murk, and offered them a part-share in return for part-haulage. They had dragged the seat about a hundred yards when a fat walrus-moustached keeper trotted up.

“You can’t do that here. You put it back at once.”

“We’ll take care of it, officer.”

“I can’t help that, it’s against regulations.”

“Come on,” Phillip said to Rippingall. “We’ll put it back.”

Then the keeper spied someone getting up a tree.

“Hi!” he cried. “You can’t do that here,” and went towards a white-faced and swift swarmer, who reaching the first fork appeared entirely deaf to all threats from below.

When the keeper disappeared the team returned to the seat and having secured new partners, they dragged it to within fifty yards of the railings, then the keeper reappeared.

“Didn’t I tell you …”

Phillip admitted the crime. But now, three other gangs were hauling seats. The keeper hurried after them.

“I don’t think we need take it any further.”

So they left it and went to stand on a slight mound about twelve yards back from the railings. It was now light. The rain was lessening.

Soon many people were up trees. Others were dragging seats. The crowd on the pavement was now immovable.

Phillip and Rippingall found that the mound was not high enough. Then a voice behind them said authoritatively, “Now then girls, all together. I shall say
One, Two, Three, Heave.
And again,
One, Two, Three, Heave—Monica, pay attention—and again, as
before.
Now then, all together. On your marks!
One,
Two,
Three,
Heave
”—and the seat moved towards the railings not as ordered, but heaved easily over the grass by many long black-stocking’d legs, under blue mackintoshes topped by red-banded hats.

“Well done, girls, just a little farther. Here we are, well done, well done.”

The front of the seat pushed the back of Phillip’s knees. He moved forward. The seat followed. It now stood on the little mound.

“Madam, with respect I must inform you that you have put the seat on the rise my gentleman has chosen to stand on,” said Rippingall, raising his bowler hat to the mistress.

“Take your seats, girls,” she replied, turning away.

“What school are you?” Rippingall asked a girl. She said Saint Someone’s in a south-eastern suburb.

“My gentleman is the Editor of the
Morning
Post
,” said
Rippingall
. “He will no doubt give your school free publicity in tomorrow’s paper.”

Looking round Phillip saw that the mistress was listening to what had been said. She looked anxious. He felt sorry for her and was about to tell her not to worry, when all trooped off.

It was 7.30 a.m. Along the route were purple and black banners and poles draped with those colours. Phillip remembered the pomp of pre-war funerals, horses with brush-like head-dresses and purple canopies—bad taste nowadays. These purple and black drapes were proper cockney stuff: perhaps the last time they would be used for an English King.

Every moment the line of spectators inside the park railings was doubling, trebling. The crowd beyond was static. More groups were hurrying over the winter grass, some dragging seats. The crew of Phillip’s original seat felt secure. They munched chocolate, smoked, got up, moved about, individual places guarded by the other occupants of the seat. Once when Phillip came back an argument was going on: the rest of the crew were resisting a boarding party.

“Fair play,” “Be British,” were two of the terms used.

After a while it became apparent that the craft was foundering. The iron leg, with cross-piece supporting one end, was now nearly a foot deep in the dark, soot-acid ground (they ought to lime that land to sweeten it, thought Phillip). The outside ones kept
overbalancing
and hopping up again. Mounted police passed up and down the street; human figures were at all the windows opposite; others were on the roofs, among chimney-pots or sitting nonchalantly on copings, legs dangling sixty feet above the
pavement
crowd. Meanwhile the sloping back of the seat was swaying. It had become a lever of wood-battens screwed to and held by slots in the solitary unbroken pig-iron arm. Stray individuals would stop near it, move in close to it, then, after obvious hesitation, try to get up. Rippingall was firm about these would-be boarding parties. “This is Government property,” he warned them.