How Dear Is Life

by Henry Williamson

  In the company of Corporal Cakebread and Sergeant Bolton, all three in uniform, Phillip’s pride rose up. Bertie, ever friendly, re-adjusted the glengarry bonnet from over his left eye to his right.

  “You’ll be a credit to the regiment yet, young Phil!”

  Over the road, in the garden of the house by the red pillar-box, Peter Wallace and his brother David were also in uniform. They came out, and talked on the pavement. With them was their youngest brother, the tall, lean, buck-toothed Nimmo. Nimmo said he was going up very early on the morrow to try and join. As his father had been a sergeant in the regiment in the old Volunteer Corps days, he probably stood a good chance. He was sixteen, but would pass for nineteen. He was going up on the early workman’s tram, to be in plenty of time.

  “Yes, the earlier the better,” said Sergeant Bolton, “many recruits have applied to join at Headquarters, and quite a number have been turned away.”

  Willie looked at Phillip.

  “Mobilisation notices should arrive tomorrow morning.”

  Although this had been expected, and accepted, Phillip was stilled by the news. It was so final. General Mobilisation! Tramp-tramp-tramp, of marching men! Somehow——

  He went with Willie to see Desmond and Eugene in the flat. Mrs. Neville was alone. She said, “My word, Phillip, you do look nice, dear!” Then she said that Desmond was out with Gene, on their bicycles.

  “They went fishing, dear, I think to the Lake Woods, anyway, it was to that place you all went to together on Saturday afternoon last. Oh, those roach! How anyone can eat them, I don’t know! Even Mazeppa turns up his nose at them, don’t you Mazeppa? Well, goodbye, boys, if I don’t see you again later on. Desmond and Eugene will be back anytime now.”

  “I see, Mrs. Neville. I must get my shoes now, I think.”

  So Desmond had taken Eugene to his Lake Woods, to his preserves? It was like everything else, the old world he had known, fast falling into pieces.

  PART TWO

  ‘THE GREAT ADVENTURE’

  ‘It was then that the country in her need turned to the despised Territorials.’

  1914, by F-M Viscount French

  of Ypres, K.P., O.M., etc.

  Chapter 11

  MILITARY ARDOUR

  “MOTHER, promise you won’t forget to post on my shoes, will you? It’s terribly important! I’ll send you an address, as soon as I know where we are going.” He hesitated. “May I have a word alone with you?”

  Hetty followed her kilted son into the front room, the place of many a secret conference. She must, whatever happened, keep her attitude of cheerfulness. Perhaps the war would end, as Dickie said, after a great naval battle. Such a pity it all was; poor, poor Belgium. She had prayed that Mère Ambroisine and the others at the Convent would be safe.

  “Mum, please advise me. Ought I—I mean, dare I—you know, say goodbye to the Rolls? But we hardly know them, do we? And you know what they must think of me.”

  Hetty looked at her son’s face, so anxious under its holiday tan. He was still her little boy, a child at heart, despite his pretended grown-up ways! But she must not show her feelings.

  “I think it would be all right, dear. After all, you are going to serve your Country.”

  “I daren’t! You know, don’t you, Mother, how I feel? Oh, I must leave now. I shall be late for my train!” He stood there, divided. “Perhaps I might ask Willie to go and ask them first? No, that would look awful! Look, if anything happens to me, will you tell Helena that—no, it doesn’t matter. Goodbye!”

  He kissed her hurriedly, and turned away, and went out of the house, Willie matching his steps beside him, up to the gully leading to the Hill. She watched them from beside the aspidistra fern on its stand, clasping her hands before her as she tried to restrain her tears. Try as she might, she could not stop thinking of the goodbye of Sidney Cakebread and Hughie, off to the South African War. Now all these boys——

  Hetty was smiling when she went back to the others.

  Soldiers in uniform, Richard had told Phillip at breakfast, were free to travel in trains and buses, according to The Daily Trident. So Phillip, getting into the nearest carriage with Willie (carrying kit-bag)—people smilingly making way for them—rode up to London free in a blue-upholstered first-class carriage, a fact which raised his spirits.

  *

  Headquarters was all faces, movement, equipment, rifles, grey kit-bags. The drill hall was portioned off into eight sections, one for each company. Letters on the wall denoted the company areas, ‘A’ on the left to ‘H’ at the far end. He went to ‘B’ Company and was told to draw rifle and bayonet from the Armoury downstairs.

  Hundreds of men in all sorts of suits, morning coats, tweed coats, blue serge, carters’ jackets, were waiting to join up. Willie stood among them.

  Later in the morning, his bayonet was collected, without its sheath, and taken away with many others in a wheel-barrow. They were, said Lance-Corporal Mortimore, to be sharpened on the grindstone. “Useful for opening sardine tins,” he said, in his clear, rich voice. He was a dark, jolly fellow, very friendly, often laughing.

  After some drill by sections, they paraded outside in the street for a route march. They were in drill order, wearing webbing belts with bayonets only. Rolled greatcoats, water-bottles, entrenching tools, ammunition in side-pouches were left in line on the floor of the company area.

  As they marched off, rifles at the slope, angles varying considerably, some people on the pavement cheered. Phillip felt proud to be taken for a real soldier defending England. Led by Captain Forbes, sturdy and red of hair, brows, and moustache—the Fiery Forbes who had led the famous, record-breaking London-Brighton march—they entered a park behind tall railings, through an arch guarded by a policeman. He felt he was seeing the world already, the fabulous West End. They passed carriages driven by coachmen, footmen beside and behind, with folded arms, equipages of the very rich. Most of the carriages were empty; only one here and there contained an old lady, alone, or with a companion. Lance-corporal Mortimore said that the horses were being exercised, as the families were away. He wondered what this meant. The man next to him, with whom he had exchanged names, Baldwin, told him that they were in Hyde Park. The big houses opposite were most of them occupied by millionaires—this was Park Lane!

  “Good lord! Of course!” He stared at them with wonder and amazement, for here came the heroes of magazine stories, poor but aristocratic, handsome and debonair, raising faultless Lincoln Bennetts and often misunderstood by vulgarian millionaire fathers of heroines.

  At the other end of Hyde Park some of the beautifully polished carriages were stopped by soldiers. “They’re commandeering horses for regimental transport!” said Lance-corporal Mortimore. The word commandeering had a familiar, a martial ring about it, from stories of the Boer War in the book Valour and Victory, a childhood Christmas present from Willie’s father, Uncle John. Phillip thought that Lance-corporal Mortimore must be a very important man in civil life to know so much. He had a crisp clear voice, and urbane bearing.

  *

  When ‘B’ Company got back, they piled arms in the drill hall, and before being dismissed, were told to find their own lunches, and to be back at o’clock. They would be paid s. a day in lieu of rations for the time being; and £ s. for equipment money—shirts, socks, towel, razor and case, table-knife, spoon, fork, comb, clasp knife with tin-opener, tooth brush, shaving brush, and housewife fitted with needles, threads, buttons, etc. Five pounds ten shillings! Plus salary, plus overtime! If the war ended soon, he would buy that wild-fowling gun!

  He looked for Willie, but could not see him, so he went off with Baldwin to a Lyons teashop. After poached eggs on toast and an apple dumpling each, they walked around the streets before returning. They saw more drivers of carriages, carts, and even a milk float, being interrogated by soldiers wearing spurs and bandoliers. Baldwin bought The Pall Mall Gazette and read out something about a man called Jaurès who had been assassinated in Pa
ris. He had been a traitor, in contact with certain elements in Germany, while the Germans were invading his country.

  “They say we have some like that in our country, too,” said Baldwin. “I heard that the police raided the crypt of a church in Sydenham, where many Germans went, and found it full of rifles and machine-guns.”

  “Good lord! That’s quite near where I live!” It was just like some of the magazine stories he had read in the past.

  “The parson has been thrown into the Tower, so I heard.”

  They agreed to be friends. Willie was still waiting in the queue when Lance-corporal Mortimore said he had heard the battalion was up to strength. Soon afterwards Willie came over to their part of the hall, and said this was so. They were talking together when the bayonets, each stamped with the number of the rifle, came back in the wheelbarrow. The new edges did not seem very sharp. At four o’clock ‘B’ Company were told that they might go to their homes for the night, and report again at ten o’clock the next morning.

  Suddenly Phillip said, “I say, Willie, how about the Moon?”

  “Which moon?”

  “Our Moon, of course.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Did you get permission to join up? I mean to say, well, about your salary?”

  “Oh, I asked first. I think I’ll try the London Rifles in Sconhill Row. Some of the chaps in my department are in that lot. See you later, at Aunty Hetty’s.”

  Phillip decided to see London by omnibus, since travelling was free. But soon he felt lonely, and seeing a got on it and rode to the bottom of Randisweli Road. He hoped that Desmond and Eugene would see him from the flat window. Would they call out to him? He walked slowly round the corner of Hillside Road, rifle slung over shoulder, feeling depressed. The old place looked very much the same. Thank God he had not gone to say farewell to the Rolls!

  Then, hesitating half-way up, he turned back to tell Mrs. Neville his news. He stayed to tea, learning that Gene and Desmond had again gone fishing in the Lake Woods. But they were his woods! While he sat there, unspeaking, he saw Mother coming down the road, with Aunt Dome. To surprise them, he gave the family whistle through the open window, and hid. Mrs. Neville said they were looking to find who had whistled.

  “Don’t keep your mother in suspense, dear. Stand up, there’s a good boy. I don’t want her to think——”

  He showed himself at the window. Mother waved. When he went out to see her, her face was pink, her eyes shining. Aunt Dorrie, too, seemed glad to hear the news that Bertie and Gerry would be returning that night.

  “Well goodbye, Mrs. Neville, if I don’t see you again!” he called up to the open window.

  “Any message for Desmond, dear?”

  “Oh no, it doesn’t matter, thank you all the same.”

  He went to Aunt Dorrie’s house, hoping that Petal would be there, to play and sing to him some of her lovely songs by Grieg. Bertie and Gerry had just arrived home. He felt cheered up to see them. The good news was that Gerry had got into the battalion. Young Tommy Turney, the bird’s-egg thief, who was big for his age, on holiday from Brighton College, said he wanted to join up too.

  “You’re too damned young, Tommy, you’re only fifteen.”

  “But Nimmo Wallace is only a year older’n’me!”

  Nimmo, being tall, had declared his age as nineteen, and got into the Highlanders.

  “I don’t think it’s fair,” said Tommy, “the war will be over soon, and why should I miss the fun?”

  The Russians were already advancing into East Prussia, ‘irresistible as a steamroller’, said The Daily Trident.

  *

  Every morning for a week it was a joke in the family to say, “Goodbye boys, see you tonight!” as Phillip and Willie left for their headquarters in London. Willie, having advanced his age by a year and a half, had been duly sworn into the London Rifles.

  All over the London hoardings were large posters of stern Lord Kitchener, menacing eyes and heavy black moustache, pointing at you. He looked like an angry giant. Underneath were accusing words in large black letters.

  YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU

  The talismanic heavy-soled brogue shoes, for security along some remote and lonely road in retreat, were not yet back. They had been sent away to the Leicester factory, said the branch manager of Freeman, Hardy and Willis. He wore his lighter shoes; they had given him blisters on the daily route marches through the parks of Hyde, Regent, and St. James’. If only his campaign clump soles would come! He must break them in, ready for that dim future ordeal.

  One morning they were told that the battalion was to hold itself in readiness to move at an hour’s notice; so no-one could sleep at home any more. According to Lance-corporal Mortimore, the battalion transport had its requisite waggons, limbers, and water-cart. This last was the subject of some jokes; large and square, it was of the familiar type used for spraying pink permanganated water to lay road-dust in summer. It bore on its riveted iron sides, in letters of white paint, the words

  SHOREDITCH BOROUGH COUNCIL

  New and terrible Krupp guns, firing -inch shells, had shattered the forts of Liège. They had been kept a secret until the moment of attack. The shells came down direct out of the sky, and broke the steel cupolas under which the guns of the forts were protected. At Dinant, on the Meuse, German officers had raped women in the public square, said The People, while private soldiers held the women spread-eagled on the cobbles. Elsewhere German drunkards had cut off the hands of little children, for sport. They had burned down Louvain, and all the art treasures there, like the Goths and Huns of old. That was German Kultur! They shot old men and old women, too. ‘Necessity knows no law.’ Had not the German chancellor himself said it? Supposing the Germans landed in England!

  The battalion moved to an empty school in a City square. Companies slept on classroom floors. He chose a spot next to the fireplace, with Baldwin, to be apart as far as possible from the others. Thank God Baldwin did not snore. The hearth-stone under him was hard and cold. He kept waking up.

  During the daytime, another problem. The tops of the lavatory doors were cut off short, the lower ends too, showing feet. When his turn came, he went in, feeling shame, then anguish; he must be alone, unseen; his feet would be seen from outside. A face looked over the top, went away, as he stood there. He waited in painful indecision and heard Church, whose face had looked over, say loudly outside, “Choosy sort of cove, isn’t he? Waiting for the seat to cool!”

  Phillip stood with his toes pointing to the playground for a minute, and then went out. He would wait for the darkness.

  Drill, drill, drill on the hot asphalt; squad, left turn, right turn, slope arms by numbers, order arms, present arms by numbers, porte arms; squad, stand at ease, squad, stand easy! Squad, ’shun! Fix!—Bayonets!—the right hand man, Church, runner-up for the company boxing championships, taking three smart paces forward, looking to his front: seizing rifle from the order and placing it between his knees, crouching—right arm held out, looking to his left, while every eye in the squad watched him as a model—the right arm in a semi-circular sweep seizing the bayonet haft—pause—bayonets flashing in the sun—clicking on the locking device of rifle-muzzles—the right-hand man springing to attention again—three paces smartly backwards into line again. Hours of tedious drill upon heat-radiating soft asphalt.

  In the yellow coolness of the long summer evenings there were concerts in the playground. They sat around, in little groups, listening in stillness to the singing of Corporal Geddes, of ‘D’ Company—everyone knew his name, because of his exceptionally sweet and tender voice: a silver tenor, said Lance-corporal Mortimore.

  I’ll sing thee songs of Araby

  And tales of far Kashmir

  and then, when the quiet clapping and moderated cries of Encore! (rather strange after the wild applause at the Hippo) were over, Corporal Geddes sang again.

  Little white bride, in the midst of the heather!

  Small white windo
w, warm and bright!

  Through the cold and the stormy weather

  Donald is coming to you tonight!

  The first stars were points in the sky above the walled playground. It seemed strange that the sky, right in the middle of London, could be a deep indigo blue. Lights gleamed in the streets beyond the guard at the porter’s lodge. Moved and isolated by the tender floating voice, when it was over he got up and walked to the gate, as he had several times each evening, in the hope of seeing Mother’s face. He had written her a postcard telling her he was confined to barracks until further orders, and hinting of being kept there in case of invasion. Would she ever come up to see him?

  The sentry stopped men going out into the street. Would there be enemy spies, watching what the battalion did? Some spies had already been shot at dawn in the Tower.

  Then there were those hundreds of en tout cas tennis courts, laid at strategic points in private gardens on high ground overlooking London—Barnet, St. Albans, Hampstead, Sydenham, Highgate—by Germans before the war as bases for the -inch German howitzers to bombard the capital.

  Warehouses on Thames-side had been raided, found to be filled with German machine-guns, ready for Der Tag.

  A wireless transmitting set had been discovered in the steeple of a City church, giving movements of troops.

  One of the King’s uncles, in the Royal Navy, was a German; he ought to be kicked out of it.

  Bread shops in the East End had been wrecked, after children had been poisoned with arsenic put in the flour by the German owners of the shops. These and many other rumours had passed over the hot asphalt.