How Dear Is Life

by Henry Williamson

  “I think I’ll just run up and take a last look at my bedroom.”

  He opened the corner cupboard, with its faded gummed label stuck on the door, Private. How dark it was inside, all the light shut out by the house next door, and the roof. There lay his “treasures”—the most valued custard-box of birds’ eggs on sawdust: half-cured skins of birds, and the stoat, and various claws, wings and skulls from gamekeepers’ gibbets: his model stationary steam-engine, with steam-hammer attachment and circular saw: his model yacht Dipper, which Mother had given him for winning his scholarship: the set of conjuring tricks, and box of chemicals with which he had not experimented for years, since Father had discovered that one of the little red pill-boxes had been labelled potassium ferrocyanide, declaring it to be a deadly poison. The box had cost 1/-, from Murrage’s, an old Christmas present. A score of memories smote him, of his lost childhood. There was his pocket accumulator in its curved transparent celluloid case, which leaked sulphuric acid, and was charged for 2d. at Wetherley’s in the High Street. It bubbled considerably, and had lit several bath-nights, standing on the soap-dish, until Father had forbidden its use, vitriol being dangerous, he said. Its place had been taken by the big flask-like bottle holding dark-yellow potassium chromate, a single-cell battery so heavy and clumsy that it had fallen into the bath, out of which he had hopped so quickly that the Boy’s Own Paper he had been reading had got soaked and dyed yellow. How he had scrubbed the bath, to get rid of the yellow stain: then the B.O.P. had stuck in the lavatory pan, and had to be torn into little shreds with pincers to get rid of it, in panic lest he had stopped up the drains for ever.

  On the wall was fixed his cigar-box telephone, with carbon rods balanced to make a diaphragm: he had laid wires across the ceiling, above the door, along the passage and so to Mother’s bedroom, where a similar cigar-box was fixed behind her bed. The telephone had worked, too. The trouble was you had to yell to be heard in the cigar-box at the other end, to make sufficient vibrations to move the carbon rods which regulated the current: and so you could never be sure if it was your shout that was heard in Mother’s bedroom, or your telephone voice. He had put it up without permission, but Father had never spoken about it, although he had driven screws into the wallpaper and made some false-move holes in the plaster. After the accident with the single-cell potassium chromáte battery, there had been no more telephoning.

  And there, standing guard over his boyhood ‘treasures’, stood the bittern on its small wooden stand, covered all over with pepper to discourage moths. It was time to go down. He felt a thin wire-like feeling of almost desperate pain to be leaving his bedroom now. Voices came up through the floor, as they had when he had lain awake at night, listening to Father’s mumble at Mother: and where he had, long ago, lain in terror waiting for Father to come upstairs to punish him with the cane. He sat on the bed, mourning, until he heard Mother’s footfalls coming up the stairs. He went to meet her.

  “You ask him for the gramophone, Mum. I can’t!”

  “All right, dear. Come on down now. I put the pepper on your bittern, as you asked me.”

  “You can have it for Christmas dinner if you like, with some salt added!”

  “It may well come to that, if prices rise any more!” she said, gaily.

  When they re-entered the sitting-room, which used to be called the parlour, he suddenly remembered, Father said, “Now old chap, would you like me to play the gramophone?”

  “No thanks, Father.”

  Richard looked at Hetty. Then he got up from his chair, and selecting the key on his ring, unlocked the top.

  “There you are, old chap. You play anything you like.”

  Mrs. Neville looked across the table at Phillip. She wore a hat rather like a large pale green pork pie with ribbons round it.

  “I hear your gramophone has a beautiful tone, Mr. Maddison.”

  “What would you like to hear first, Mrs. Neville?”

  “Oh, I am sure your choice would be better than mine, Mr. Maddison!”

  “May we have the one by Wagner, Dickie? I am sure Phillip would like it.”

  As the Liebestod filled the room Mrs. Neville surreptitiously wiped the corner of her eye. “Ah, how it brings back Covent Garden!” she exclaimed in her creamy voice. She had once gone there to hear Traviata.

  Petal smiled at Phillip. Everyone was sitting very still, as always when Father played the records. When the Liebestod was finished, Father looked at his watch. Mother said—why did she have to say the obvious?—“We must not be late at the station, Dickie,” rather anxiously.

  “Oh, there’s plenty of time yet,” he said, airily. “Petal, what would you like next?”

  “May we have Paderewski, Uncle Dick, please?”

  “Yes, the Waterfall one!” exclaimed Phillip. It was one of the Études, tumultuous and sad. As the record was playing, he saw Mrs. Bigge’s hat move along the level of the fence beyond the half-open window. She was listening.

  “May we have the Humoresque, Father?”

  This was a song set to the music of Dvorak. Mrs. Neville watched Hetty’s face as the lamenting words came with the sad plaint of violins.

  When the ice was on the fountain

  And the snow was on the mountain

  Donald came no more to greet me.

  Come back, my laddie, come back and love me,

  Why did you die and leave me …

  Mrs. Neville said boisterously, to cover her emotion, “Phillip, you would choose that, wouldn’t you, you bad boy! Don’t heed him, Mrs. Maddison. I know Phillip of old! Why, when we hear from him next, he will probably be adopting some of the monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar, and putting Timmy Rat’s nose out of joint when he hears of it. I am sure animals understand what we humans are saying, half the time, and how they must laugh at us!”

  Mrs. Neville’s jollity eased the feeling in the room. She went on,

  “Haven’t you got one of Harry Lauder, Mr. Maddison? My idea of a send-off for Phillip is Stop your tickling, Jock. Though,” she added, in her creamy, best-manner voice, “I must say that your selection of records is a very fine one indeed.”

  “I have not got the record you speak of, Mrs. Neville, but here is the next best thing, perhaps,” and Richard put on Over the Sea to Skye.

  As the plaintive tune and words for the defeated Prince Charles Stuart filled the room, Mrs. Neville could not restrain a drip of tears. Fortunately Thomas and Marian Turney appeared at the open french windows before, as Mrs. Neville remarked later to Desmond, Mr. Maddison could put on The Dead March in Saul.

  Richard was glad of the intervention. He greeted his father-in-law and Miss Turney with an affability that was, for the occasion, genuine.

  “Well, Phillip m’boy, how are ye?” said Thomas Turney. After awhile he chuckled and said, “Now then, Phillip, you’re in the thick of things, so tell us the secret about the Russians from Archangel.”

  “Oh, those Russians!” exclaimed Mrs. Neville. “The number of people who have friends who have seen the snow on their boots!”

  Before Phillip could have his say, that it had been officially denied, his grandfather, chuckling, went on, “Two hundred thousand Russians! They certainly were white but not with snow, he-he-he! As ye know, Hetty, I talk sometimes on the Hill with a fellow on the staff of The Morning Post, and he tells me that one of the large wholesalers in Leadenhall Market—he-he-he!—received a telegram ‘Two hundred thousand Russians arrived from Archangel’, and they were—he-he-he!—eggs!”

  Mrs. Neville laughed as heartily as Thomas Turney: Hetty hovered between amusement and concern for Richard, for whom the explanation was a disappointment. He had believed in the arrival of two army corps of Russians. He went to the gramophone, took off the record, put it in its cardboard case, and closed the lid softly. As he did so Phillip got up and left the room. Richard said, with an air of conspiratorial intimacy,

  “I think if you will all excuse me, I will go and see if the boy wants to ask me an
ything before he leaves.”

  He found Phillip sitting by the pot-board in the kitchen, changing his shoes. It was some effort for Richard to say,

  “Well, old chap, look after yourself out there, won’t you. And don’t forget to write to your mother sometimes. If there is anything I can do for you at any time, do not hesitate to ask me.”

  “No, Father. Thank you very much.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on Timmy Rat for you, of course.”

  “Oh, thanks.”

  With light, almost bantering voice, Richard went on, “Do you remember the large black spider, with the pale yellow spots on its back, which used to live in the corner up there, all one summer?”

  “Yes, Father. I found one like it once, in a crack of the garden fence.”

  “I don’t suppose you remember the spider we saved from a watery grave in the bathroom, when we paid our first visit to this house, do you? Let me see, it must have been”—he made a pretence of calculation—“March, eighteen ninety-seven—you were nearly two years of age.”

  “I remember, Father. You put the spider on the window sill.”

  “So I did. Fancy you remembering that!”

  “I thought it was very kind of you.”

  Richard felt the words like a blow. He said, when Phillip stood up, “By jove, are you going to wear the ‘campaign clumpers’ after all? Won’t they be too heavy?”

  “Yes, on second thoughts I think they will be, Father.”

  Almost feverishly he plucked at the laces.

  “No great hurry, my boy. You have ten minutes: then you ought to be toddling along. By the way, it might be as well not to mention the fact that you had a German grandmother. Some of your cousins, I expect, are now fighting on the other side.”

  “I noticed that you had painted over the letter-spaces of the name on the gate.”

  “Well, it is just as well to take no risks in these times, Phillip. I hear, between you and me, that many German shops in the East End have been smashed by the mobs. In one case, an attempt at arson was made. So you see, old chap, the less we say about it, the better for all concerned. Here’s Mother—I expect she will want to have a word in private with you, so I will leave you with her.”

  Mother and son went into the front room. He closed the door, to whisper words which revealed to her the doubt and longing that obsessed her little boy—O, he was still that, she could see.

  “Mum, do you think I ought to go in and say goodbye to the Rolls? Would Mr. Rolls be cross, do you think? Oh no, I daren’t! What would they think if I did? Anyway, they may be going to church. But, Mum, when you write, you will tell me any news about them, won’t you?”

  “Yes, dear. I am sure that both Mr. and Mrs. Rolls regard you as a brave boy.”

  There were footfalls outside. Now it was time to leave.

  Richard decided that, as he would probably not be asked to accompany his son to the station, he would first find an excuse for remaining behind. “Well, I’ll say goodbye now, old chap.”

  “Here y’are, Phillip m’boy,” said Gran’pa. “I’ve had to give up smokin’ ’em. I gave one each to Bertie and Gerry, who came home yesterday. It’s a good cigar—a Corona. Would ye care for one, Dick?”

  “No thanks, Mr. Turney, I’ve chucked smoking.”

  Phillip went into the scullery, where his white rat was awaiting him, whiskers twitching, pink eyes bright. Timmy sneezed: he had a chill. Phillip scratched his ears, the rat closed his eyes, warm in his owner’s hands. Then, “Goodbye, Timmy,” whispered Phillip, and putting him back in his box, closed the door.

  As in a dream, it seemed, he was walking up the gully, Desmond beside him, with Mother and the girls. It seemed only a moment since he had come down there, the day before.

  Under the elms, by the Refreshment Shelter, he said, “Please, Mother, I think I would rather go on, with Desmond only. Please don’t mind. Only if you all come to London Bridge, there will be a lot of chaps, and besides, I—oh, I can’t explain. You go back now, with Petal and Mavis and Doris.”

  “Yes, dear, of course, naturally. Just as you like. We’ll go back to Father, he is all alone. Don’t forget to write, will you?”

  “Of course not.”

  He kissed her, said goodbye to Petal and his sisters, and went on with Desmond, feeling less cumbered.

  “I want to join up in the London Electrical Engineers, Phil, but Mother says I’m too young.”

  “You look much more than sixteen, Des. But surely you’ll have to stay at school?”

  “My guardian may give permission. He’s my uncle.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “My father’s separated from Mother, you see.”

  Phillip wondered why Desmond spoke in so low a voice, as though there were some secret in his life.

  “The London Electrical Engineers operate searchlights, and I am keen on physics. Our science master is now an officer with them. The Zeppelins used to fly over our school at night, you know, spying out the land, before the war. We used to hear the engines up among the stars.”

  “I would much rather work a searchlight than footslogging!”

  Desmond went with him to London Bridge Station. As they waited on the platform, Phillip said, “How is Eugene?”

  “He’s very well. He’s with his father. We did start once, to come and see you at Crowborough, but his bike kept getting punctures, so we turned back. It’s quite a journey, you know, eighty miles both ways. And to be frank, I didn’t want to run the risk of seeing the Churches again.”

  “No, they’re not much cop. I nearly had a fight with the younger one. Well, Des, I can’t tell you how glad I am you are my great friend.”

  “Phil,” said Desmond, looking at him steadily, “I shall miss you very much.” He had gone pale. There were many faces under the dark and dirty glass roof—all soot, sulphur, and grime. The faces were part of it all—and the sorrow of living. The last Phillip saw of his old life was his great friend’s oval face and waving hand among a fluttering of many waving hands and set faces along the gloomy platform.

  He settled into his corner, and lit the cigar as the train rattled over the points on its way to Croydon; but before the train stopped at that junction, the Corona was lying on the permanent way, more or less in line with instalments of his tea. It was the inoculation, he decided, as he wiped his mouth and faced the future with shut eyes.

  Chapter 18

  LINES OF COMMUNICATION

  IT WAS a fine day in the third week of September when the London Highlanders, made up to strength by a draft from the Second Battalion, marched away from Ashdown Forest behind the pipers playing the Marseillaise. This tune, or its approximation limited to the minor scale of the bagpipes with their fixed buzzing bass note, immediately confirmed the rumour that they were off to France.

  As a fact, the Colonel did not know the destination of his battalion, beyond Southampton. Sealed orders were to be given him after the transport had steamed beyond land: but to be on the safe side, the grey-haired, regular soldier, seconded from the Coldstream, had ordered the Pipe-Major to teach his pipers the French national anthem. As time had been short, the pipers were practising the difficult tune on the way to the station.

  As they approached the town, after an interval of silence, the pipes played The Road to the Isles, the regimental march, and at once an air of braced alertness moved down the swinging length of a thousand-odd men.

  From the scouts wheeling bicycles, then the Pipe-Major and his pipers, then the Commanding Officer and his Adjutant on grey chargers, the Regimental Sergeant-Major just behind on foot—first-class warrant officer, also of the Coldstream, dressed like a commissioned officer except that his tunic was buttoned to the neck instead of being open for khaki collar and tie—all the way down the column to the second-in-command at the rear, the Iron Colonel with his gigantic brown moustaches and brooding military impressiveness, the battalion was braced in more senses than one. Indeed, before they moved off from the old bare-trod
den lines of Bleak Hill—the leading fours of ‘B’ Company overheard the Adjutant saying with a laugh to Captain Forbes, “I don’t know how you feel, Fiery my boy, but I feel like a Christmas tree!”

  The Company Commanders, breeched and spurred, rode horses; the subalterns marched at the head of their sections. But astride or on foot, all officers were encumbered for war with various articles of equipment suspended or attached about their leather belts and braces. There was the rucksack humped on the Iron Colonel’s back, his long sword in leather scabbard hanging from the frog attached to his belt on his left side, under the stuffed haversack; water-bottle, revolver in holster and cartridge wallet, on his right. Thus sword in one hand, pistol in other, map-case and field-glasses dangling, he saw himself going into action, to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes for the funk, sheer blue funk, at Modder River! This time it would be a case of do or die! The Iron Colonel had a sovereign sewn under each crown and stars of each cuff, in case he were taken prisoner, as in South Africa.

  As for rank and file, they were even more loaded by webbing belt and straps. They carried at the slope the newly issued Mark I rifle; one hundred rounds of ammunition, in clips of five within the pouches pressing on their ribs. Entrenching tools hung over the base of each spine, upon the left thigh lay haversack, bayonet, and entrenching-tool handle, a water-bottle on the right. The new valise held greatcoat and mess-tin, with spare shoes, socks, and shirt—said to be fifty-six pounds weight in all.

  On the station platform Phillip noticed a new kind of officer, near several staff-officers in red-banded hats and tabs. He had a brassard on his right arm, a white band with the letters R T O in black. Eight men to a third-class carriage, was the order.