How Dear Is Life

by Henry Williamson

  Richard laughed. “He’s developed a pawky sense of humour, since wearing the kilt, hasn’t he?” He picked up his paper once more. “Funny that he should mention the Women’s Rifle Club—one has been formed, you know, by the Amazons. Pity Dora doesn’t join, too. I wonder why he suggests a pull-through for my rifle—I am not likely to lose it, now Master Phillip is no longer here.”

  “I expect Phillip meant it kindly, dear.”

  “Of course I know that! Do you think I am a fool? There is no need for you to defend him to me, anyway.”

  “Of course not, dear, naturally. Well, I think I’ll go and see Papa for awhile, Dickie, he does so look forward to his game of bezique. I’ll be back in time for a game of chess.”

  She took the postcard with her out of the room. He had wanted to read it himself, to look at the post-mark, at his son’s handwriting; but it was addressed to the boy’s mother, and not to him; and she had a perfect right to keep it to herself.

  Hetty came back into the room. “How silly of me,” she said. “I was taking Phillip’s card with me. Perhaps you would like to see it, dear.” She put it beside him on the tablecloth, while he continued to read his paper.

  “Thanks,” he said, as she was going out of the door. “Oh, before I forget it, what about those campaign clumps of his? He seems most anxious about them.”

  “I got them this morning, and posted them off, Dickie, straight away.”

  “What were they like?”

  “The soles seemed to be nearly two inches thick, Dickie.”

  “Good heavens, I thought he was now a Scotsman, not a Dutchman!”

  He waited until she was gone before he took up the postcard, an expectant light in his eyes.

  Chapter 13

  ELASTIC-SIDED HIGHLANDER

  PHILLIP’S faith in heavy-nailed campaign clumps was gone by the time the battalion reached the granite-setts of London Bridge at half-past six on the summer morning. The sun was already hot in the eastern sky above the Tower Bridge. There were few people about to cheer the skirl of pipes and tramp of feet; but enough to make him proud of being a London Highlander, to forget his disappointment in the shoes. But by the time the battalion had marched over similar jarring setts along tramlined Kennington, crossed Clapham Common, and reached through Wandsworth the brigade rendezvous by the windmill on Wimbledon Common, the skin of his feet was broken and raw in a dozen places. Fortunately they piled arms, and could lie on the grass.

  Reveille had been at 5 a.m., with coffee and biscuits. They remained on the Common for three hours, then Captain Forbes led them away to an empty school for the night. It was now 6 p.m., and they had had no food since the early-morning biscuits. After dismissal, a wash, and patching of heels with the black plaster called ‘New Skin’, Phillip and Baldwin went with others to look for a restaurant. Sam Isaacs’ was thronged; but they managed, after waiting an hour, to get two seats, for coffee with fish-and-chips.

  If the first day had been trying, the march next morning absorbed all memory of its fatigue. It began with great spirit in the bright air of morning, as the outer suburbs of London were left behind. The Highlanders were the rear-guard battalion; they swung along to the beat of drums with thin high tuneless fifes, followed by massed bugles, and, proudest of all, the skirl of the pipes playing The Road to the Isles. Songs arose; cheering; laughter, as the sun climbed up.

  Then, as the dust arose with the heat, fife, bugle, drum, and pipe were silent; songs were no more; the landscape passed in jagged monotony with the trudging tramp of shoes sweat-dull in the dust of the white lanes, stirred and restirred by the rhythmic tramp of feet: grit, sweat, aches, blisters, glare, and thirst. As the sun brazed the zenith, the permanently undernourished of the other battalions of the brigade recruited from poorer districts upon the old marshes of the Thames, in twos and threes, in half-dozens, wet-haired, thin and white of face, open-mouthed with exhaustion, began to stagger into gaspless shade beside the road. Phillip, desperately shifting equipment weights—rifle slung, rifle sloped, rifle slung again—hands clutching shoulder webbing to lift weight of pack forward—to take the ache from collar bones, body running with wet, feet burning, throat parched—Phillip yet noticed their thinness, whiteness of faces, and why were so many covered with pimples, and often greenish boils? Were the eruptions on their faces due to sun-stroke? Had the great heat driven the poison from their bodies, with the perspiration which poured from them? Hundreds were lying in the shade on the grass, absolutely done in.

  Phillip, together with every marching man in the brigade, carried fifty-six pounds; rifle, ammunition, water-bottle, haversack, entrenching tool, bayonet, rolled greatcoat strapped on back with mess-tin in khaki cover on top. Every step forward in the torrid heat of the glaring day he felt must be the last. He saw himself flinging himself upon the grass in the shade, there to lie for ever and ever. He thought of snow, of ice—never again would he complain of being cold. He blinked to loosen the grit upon his eyeballs, he clenched his teeth to keep on, tunic yellow-thick with dusted sweat, feet burning, flames of pain—and the next ten minutes’ halt at the end of every hour was a thought beyond a thousand thoughts of broken glass, with which his shoes were filled.

  Under dust and glass and flame were the songs of the morning, when more and more men and a dog had gone to mow a meadow, or in a tavern in the town, where his true love sat him down; now the ribald chant, composed by Collins and Kerry, the beery comics of ‘B’ Company, which periodically had been roared along the length of the battalion before the August sun had climbed to splash down its molten brass, was a horrible scissoring inside the head, words mixed up with an unbearable multiplication of hose and spats scissoring and swooshing short-shadowed in the dust, dust, dust.

  We don’t give a damn

  For Will-i-am

  We know the Crown Prince is barmy!

  We don’t give a (HUSH!) for old von Kluck

  And all his bloody old army!

  Hoch der Kaiser!

  Donner and Blitzen!

  Salmon and Gluckstein!

  BAA-A-AH!

  Aa-aa-ah! Was ever pint of shandy-gaff so welcome? Another; then a third; and from the billiard room of the Red Lion he hobbled out beside Baldwin, each to buy a ha’penny picture postcard and ha’penny stamp; and having dashed off pencil messages to parents, they walked, curiously insubstantial, down the village street. A cobbler’s shop was open; and going inside, Phillip asked the old man if he had any second-hand shoes—“I want a pair well broken-in. No nails. I don’t mind how light they are.”

  The cobbler had only a pair of elastic-sided boots, of his size. These fitted; and when spat straps were fastened, only a small section of black elastic was visible. The dust would soon hide that.

  “They belonged to his rivirince, but he won’t need they again, I reckon.”

  “How is that?”

  “He be dead. I be asking two shillin’ for ’em.”

  Having packed up his campaign clumps, he took them to the post-office, and labelling them O.H.M.S., addressed them to his father. “He’s a special constable. They may come in handy, especially as taxes are going up all round,” he told Baldwin.

  Feeling much relieved in his new boots, which, he hoped, together with ‘New Skin’ would end the pains of marching, he went with his friend and, coming to a river, decided to bathe. No one was about; so getting out of uniform, they slipped into the water from under a decayed wooden platform beside an empty mill, and swam in the mill-pond. Gone were the desperate thoughts on the march; this silent swim starko was worth every step of it.

  Lance-corporal Mortimore had fixed up a supper of ham and tomatoes with the landlord of the Red Lion, which rounded off the day. As for sleep under the billiard table, what more could one want, after the hearthstone in the classroom of the school? For with wood under him, and with the pneumatic rubber-cloth pillow which Aunt Dora had sent him under his head, sleep, beautiful sleep was only ended by the morning sun pouring into the room.
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br />   For the next day’s march the Highlanders were to be the leading battalion in the brigade. Lance-corporal Mortimore, who had shared with two of his especial friends a bottle of champagne at supper the previous night, advised them to rub soap inside their socks, to prevent blisters. Phillip did this in the lavatory, not wanting his boots to be seen. His heels were black with ‘New Skin’, and with the extra soap on his toes, he hoped to last out the march. Looking in the mirror, he thought that he would have to shave soon; it was nearly a week since he had done so, and small black hairs here and there on his chin were distinctly visible. He intended to let his moustache grow, but it was very slow. The sunshine might hasten it.

  At the end of a torrid march, again wringing-wet with sweat, the battalion reached East Horsley, and passed under a tall brick arch and through grassy fields to the long hovel or cart-shed where “B” Company was to sleep the night. Beyond was a grey mansion with towers. For the first time since mobilisation the battalion cook-house was set up, manned by volunteers who were excused marching, and rode on the waggons, to conserve their energy. Phillip and Baldwin were detailed to draw the half-section’s dinner. They bore back two big black iron trays in which several porterhouse steaks had been fried over a roaring fire of beech boughs, which had made the cooks’ faces extremely red.

  “My God!” said Lance-corporal Mortimore, gazing at the contents of the trays. “Burnt offerings, if ever there were any.” He stabbed a steak with his bayonet. It was dry and frizzled, lying in gravy like flaked tar. “I prefer a bloody sacrifice, where a steak is concerned. Well, thank God we’ve got our health and strength! ‘I owe it all to Phospherine’.” Opening his clasp knife, he hacked off dried strips. “Help yourselves, boys. I’ll be in the Duke of Wellington, if anyone asks for me.”

  After chewing and swallowing, Phillip and Baldwin went to look for a shop, to round off the meal with biscuits and chocolate. There was a foot inspection at four o’clock; until then they were free. Having bought some licorice bootlaces, bull’s-eyes, and nut-chocolate, they went exploring, and found under some trees a pond where fellows were bathing, the Wallace brothers among them. The pond was shallow, black mud on the bottom, but it was cool and refreshing.

  “Good heavens,” said Mr. Ogilby, at the foot inspection. “What is that stuff on your heels?”

  “‘New Skin’, sir.”

  “H’m. Do your shoes fit?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let me see them, will you?”

  Phillip uncovered the elastic-sided boots.

  Mr. Ogilby prodded one with his walking stick.

  “My shoes were a bad fit, sir, I bought these yesterday, all I could get, sir.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Ogilby, quietly. “Let this man see the medical orderly, sergeant, and get those heels looked at. Aren’t you the man who had those enormous soles on his shoes on the first day’s march?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you march yesterday, or ride on one of the G.S. waggons?”

  “I marched, sir.”

  Mr. Ogilby nodded, as once more he turned over the late vicar’s elastic-sided boots.

  “Not exactly regulation, are they. Still, until your feet are healed, you had better continue wearing them. But the medical orderly should see your feet.”

  Phillip did not dare to ask where the battalion was going, so that his second-best pair of shoes, which he posted home on receiving the heavy pair, could be returned to him.

  He chose for his bed that night an old faded blue cart, under the hovel or cart-shed. He laid hay in it, and awaited the last of the sunset. On the side of the blue cart was painted in white Lionel, Earl of Lovelace. He was the owner of Horsley Towers, where the officers had been invited to dinner that night, lucky dogs.

  The chaps began to come back from the Wellington, among them Collins and Kerry, the half-section comics, leaning on one another, and singing. Kerry was small and perky, with pince-nez glasses and a furze-bush moustache; Collins was big and heavy, with a rather bloated, clean-shaven face. His lips were thick, and the lower one hung down.

  Phillip forgot himself in romantic musings as the sun disappeared, then he took off his tunic, and put his feet through the sleeves for warmth. Having wrapped himself in his greatcoat, he settled down back to back with Baldwin. The last of the sunset diminished in the west; tawny owls were calling among the trees—and night had come to end the second day’s adventure. Despite his hot and aching feet, where the iodine had bitten, he fell asleep at once.

  *

  Onwards again through another radiant morning; but whither? He had written to Mother to stand by to post his old shoes to an address he would send her. Did Lance-corporal Mortimore know where they were going?

  “They never tell you a damned thing in the Army,” said Morty. “They’ve got us body and soul now.” He laughed, with his usual good humour.

  Again they marched to the massed copper gleam of bugles, the colourless high wind of the fifes, to the skirl of The Road to the Isles. This march took them, after the third ten-minute halt, when collar-bones once more were aching and shirts and tunics dewy with sweat, past a row of cottages before which stood women with smiling faces and little girls wearing ribbons in their hair, holding out baskets of apples and pears. There were feminine cheers and cries, waving of hands. Thereafter endurance in great heat, as the sun passed the top of its harvest arc; the ten-minute halts flat on back, eyes closed, neck on hard pillow of rolled greatcoat.

  They arrived that afternoon, lips rough with fine dust, at Reigate, to be billeted in an empty hall; and after a meal of skilly, they were marched to open-air baths in fatigue dress. Water again glorified all. Tea tasted of skilly grease, and it was not hard to guess that it had been brewed in the remains of the skilly, since washing-up of dixies was on a par with cooking. Afterwards Phillip took Baldwin looking for old bird-nests in the hedges, while telling him of past days in Knollyswood Park and the Squire’s woods along Shooting Common. In return, Baldwin told him of rugger matches at Twickenham, the Rectory Field at Blackheath, and other famous places, with the Harlequins.

  During the next day’s march, as they approached a bend in the road, unexpectedly they were called to attention. A whisper went down the column, The King!

  “‘B’ Company! Eyes right!” Fiery Forbes cried fiercely.

  Phillip saw a group of four blue-uniform’d figures, their tunics buttoned to the neck, red-gold tabs on each side of the stiff collars, red-banded blue hats with thick gold braid on the peaks. They wore riding boots with spurs, and stood on a raised grassy bank above the road. The central front figure, dark-bearded, wearing gold spurs, held an arm at the salute. Phillip held the muscles of neck, eyes, and shoulders rigid before the majestic figure.

  “‘B’ Company! Eyes front!”

  Undulating rifles, glengarries, khaki-covered mess-tins above rolled greatcoats jumped into view again, with swinging kilts and dusty spatted shoes moving in unison in a haze of grit.

  “‘B’ Company! March at ease!”

  They passed three black Daimler cars, one with the Royal Standard on its bonnet, drawn up on the other side of the road.

  “March easy.”

  Once again blisters were burning on heels, where the ‘New Skin’ had rucked up, and all his woollen clothes felt soggy.

  Chapter 14

  WAR CORRESPONDENCE

  RICHARD was amused, and pleased, when he received his parcel, labelled O.H.M.S., containing a present of the campaign clumps, together with a long letter roughly scrawled in pencil, from his son. The contents of the letter surprised him; then he began to doubt; and one passage, about the photograph Hetty had sent to Phillip, made him wonder if he ought to let her see it. It was a little unkind, he thought. After all, she was his mother.

  “The boy still draws the long bow in places, I fancy.”

  “He is still very young, Dickie.”

  “He has a graphic style, but I fancy he has exaggerated at times. It is odd, too,
how he contradicts what he has written almost in the same breath. Almost he seems to be in two minds at times. Well, read it for yourself. Only I ought to warn you, first—he does not apparently take to a certain hat.”

  Hetty hesitated before taking the letter from the envelope, into which he had neatly returned it.

  “Are you sure Phillip would like me to see it, dear?”

  She meant her words to convey that Phillip naturally wanted to confide in his father, and not in his mother.

  “Why, don’t you want to read the latest from your best boy?”

  “Yes, dear, of course, naturally.”

  Camp Hill Camp,

  Ashdown Forest,

  Crowborough,

  Sussex.

  30 August 1914

  Dear Father,

  Will you please send me two one-ounce packets of Hignett’s Cavalier once a week as I can’t get any in this hole. The hardships of this life are awful. It takes a lot to exhaust me, as it does you, but after a 20-mile march without food and full kit and rifle in the brazen sun, one flops down and gasps for water and breath. On the first day out of London we passed literally hundreds of chaps, grown men and youths, lying still on the roadside, overcome with sunstroke and exhaustion. I am afraid that poor old Desmond who at present has not very good enduring powers, would have gone red in the face, then stumbled and collapsed. Many of the boys in the L.H. went sick with blistered feet (blisters often the length of their soles, and often broken blisters) but not one fell out!

  I have posted you the brogues, as they might come in useful for your special constabulary work, as your shoes fit me, therefore mine will fit you.

  Here we sleep like pigs, twelve wedged in one bell tent, and with unwashed hands, face, and body. No water is yet laid on. Thank God the food is now good and plentiful, though coarse and badly cooked generally. At first when we arrived here on the highest part of Sussex, we slept under the stars. Breakfast—undrinkable tea (no milk or sugar) and 3 Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits. For dinner uncooked boiled mutton only. (The cooks have given up trying to roast.) ½ the chap couldn’t eat it, but I wolfed 2 lbs. of it.