Well, well,' said Jimmy—it was in the canteen and he was propped against the counter behind them—'you couldn't fairly expect him to posh himself up for the "afternoon tea" business on his precious leave. He was out to see all he could in the time. And I bet he didn't leave anything out,' he added feelingly.
Barclay, who had been half saddened and a little foreboding somehow at Kif's rapture with the world, expressed more in his obvious happiness than in his account, smiled and said:
'Oh, as long as he didn't see more than there was…'
Jimmy's eyebrows went up. 'I suppose that's awful clever,' he said. 'I never read anything but the football results myself.'
Only brigadier-generals impressed Jimmy, and they not seriously. But Kif had wondered, going to sleep, what exactly Barclay had meant.
He looked down at him now in the dark and wondered what he was thinking. He had a family to be sorry about; a mother and things. It must be rotten to have other folks to consider. Thus Kif, all unaware that he should be feeling the want of someone to be sorry for him. His roving eye caught a familiar profile outlined against the sky and the direction of his thoughts changed. He considered the profile admiringly: the stubborn set of the head, thrust slightly forward so that the jaw was lifted, the grim upper lip which made a very slightly convex curve, and the short straight line of the lower one to the suddenly jutting chin. That Murray Heaton, ex-horse-breeder and occasional cross-country jockey had earned the unqualified approval of as mixed a company as ever was brought together, was due not to any fortunate sally at a critical moment, but to their shrewd recognition of his worth as a leader. His men not only obeyed him unquestioningly, admired him, quoted him, and imitated him, but they looked on him as their own property; than which is no better testimonial. Barclay admired the man's efficiency and envied him his complete self-confidence. Kif approved his lack of fuss, and the way his eyes smiled when his mouth did not. And Jimmy adored him in secret, and spoke possessively of him in public.
It is popularly supposed that proximity to horseflesh leaves some peculiar and indelible stamp on a man; a metaphorical straw in the mouth. I have never been able to see it. Apart from the draught-board-breeches-and-yellow-waistcoat brigade—which is limited, and in any case insignificant—your horseman, professional or otherwise, in mufti looks just like an admiral, a detective, an actor, a boy-in-buttons, or a stockbroker, as the case may be. Heaten looked rather like a lawyer until you noticed his hands. He had an uncanny capacity for seeing things which appeared to have happened behind his back, a fact which was partly responsible for the veneration in which he was held.
Kif, considering him, wondered for the first time what the possession of power would be like; what it would be like to order people about and to have them say 'sir' and look respectful. He considered it gravely. To decide instead of being decided for. And you'd have to see that the thing you decided on was done, of course. The whole thing would be a hell of a nuisance, now he came to think of it Having other people dependent on you. You'd have money, of course. Money would be good. But you couldn't have a really good time, somehow. In which case the money would be of no use. No; being the boss was as far as he could see a dam' poor business.
So by devious routes did Barclay and Kif arrive at the same conclusion.
And with such unheroic thoughts did Kif journey to France.
CHAPTER FIVE
This is not a war diary; it is merely the history of Kif. And Kif's experiences on the western front differed not one whit from those of any other private who went to France in 1915; they need not, therefore, be given in detail, since the details are known either by experience or hearsay to every soul who may read this book. Principally he learned in all their moods the verbs to scrounge, to wangle, and to take cover, and became proficient in all of them. He also learned to talk the lingua franca which obtained behind the lines, and which stood to the troops for French, and to the French people for English. He was at Loos in the autumn, and came scatheless through that welter of incredible bravery and monumental mismanagement, and was duly ribald in billets afterwards over the thanks of the Higher Command.
Ribaldry was a weapon which he needed rather less than the others, to whom it was often their only hold on that sense of proportion which is sanity. He used it rather as he had cursed night manoeuvres; because it was the fashion. It was not that he was insensible to the loss of his chums—though Jimmy and Barclay were still safe—nor to the horror of things, but some of the horror was mitigated by the fact that he still kept, in spite of the possibility of death and mutilation, that thirst for the unexpected that characterised him. He hated his tour in the line as everyone hated it; but he invariably volunteered for a raiding party, and would drag himself over the mud of no man's land, terrified but ecstatic. Before an attack or during a bombardment he waited in as palpitating suspense as the rest, until the danger was over; but after a short period of safety and boredom he had a vague desire to experience the moment again. Which is the quality which distinguished him from his fellows. Even the continuous mining in the Hulluch area which sapped in every sense one's morale left him less exhausted than it did the others. The possibility that the piece of trench which he occupied might at any moment be blown skyward—a possibility that most men found infinitely more unbearable than being shelled—was to him but a mitigant of the monotony of the eight-hour shifts of mine-carrying. It added a spice of chance to the prosaic labour of carrying bags of spoil—knobbly lumps of chalk that hurt his back—through inadequate passages and up indifferent stairs.
His two friends had to battle with the unspeakable conditions unhelped by any natural aptitude. To them ribaldry was a necessity, not an indulgence. Barclay's natural philosophy stood him in good stead where discomfort and danger were concerned, but broke down over dirt. There were times, stumbling down Hulluch alley through the wearing uncertainty of knee-deep mud and worn by a battering time in the line, that he could have wept aloud because he was filthy. But there was invariably a saving distraction at the crucial moment: Fatty Roberts' panting observations on the inadequacy of communication trenches where a man of his generous proportions was concerned, or the total disappearance of the man in front of him into the mud and water. And the mining villages behind the lines were usually well equipped with baths, where a shower restored his good humour.
Jimmy, a bundle of nerves and devotion, was a model of efficiency, the model being as near the original Heaton one as Jimmy could make it. When things grew too thick he became short-tempered, and his tongue had a more caustic quality than usual; but no one had ever seen him 'rattled'.
At Béthune, where the rest billets were, and where life was fairly normal still, Kif had a mild flirtation with a buxom waitress at a café. That it was merely a mild flirtation was again not due to any excess of virtue on Kif's part, nor to backwardness on hers, but to the fact that his rival was a sergeant of his own battalion. Simone rightly felt that to achieve a double affaire in a place the size of Béthune with two men who were invariably out of the line together was possible but not politic. And if it was a question of a choice between a rather inarticulate private and any sergeant whatsoever she had no hesitation. The French have never been a sentimental nation, and their logic is beyond reproach. So Kif helped her to wash up, learning the names of dishes and pans in the process, and receiving a kiss now and then for his pains, and the sergeant took her walking.
In the spring of 1916 both Kif and Barclay got leave for Britain, and Barclay insisted that Kif, who obviously intended spending the whole of his in London, should stay at Golder's Green. Kif for the first time in his life was torn in two, and for the first time since he came to France he lost sleep. He had slumbered happily with the cold of a stone floor striking through a single blanket, with rain trickling down on him from between crazy tiles, with the enemy putting down a barrage half a mile away, with men moving backward and forward over his prostrate body and stumbling into it occasionally, with rats exploring his clothing
and lice enlivening it. But now he stayed awake and thought about going to Barclay's people.
Barclay was sincere in his wish to have Kif spending his leave with him. Kif knew that. He even had a spasm of pride at the thought. If Barclay had been an independent individual and had asked him to spend his leave at his rooms Kif would have consented immediately. But there was this business of meeting and living with Barclay's people: his mother, his sister, his father. And though Barclay for some incredible reason wanted him it was extremely likely that to these people he would be merely a nuisance, something to be put up with for Barclay's sake. They probably wouldn't show it of course. They might be very obviously nice to him. That would be worse, much worse. And if it was like that and he had accepted their invitation he would have no excuse for leaving them before his leave ended. And yet—they might not mind so much. Some of those ladies at the depôt canteens had been quite easy to talk to. He would not always be around and in the way. And if they were all as nice as Barclay…
So Kif turned it over and over, staring into the dark, wanting to plunge but fearing the depth of the water. For the first time his nerve failed him. He was still hesitating on the brink when Mrs Barclay's letter came. Kif had no correspondence except an occasional note from Mary or Mrs Vass with socks or sweets, in return for which he sent postcards, chosen with the help of Simone, on which the Union Jack and the Tricolor flourished amid roses of an indescribable pink. Barclay was with a working party when the mail arrived. Kif regarded incredulously the vivacious writing, so different from Mrs Vass's careful angularities and Mary's painful scrawl. He fingered the envelope doubtfully. There couldn't be a mistake. There was his name in full and his designation in every particular. He tore open the flap.
'Dear Kif' (wrote Barclay's mother), 'I feel I must call you that because Tim never refers to you by any other name. Tim says that you are expecting to have leave very soon, and that you have no friends in London. Whether your leave coincides with Tim's or not we should be so glad to have you with us. That is, if you have made no other plans. You and my son have been such friends that I feel that we half know you already, and we are all keen to know you better. If you come we will do our best to give you a nice time in spite of little war-busy London. If you know in time tell us when to expect you—a procession goes through our spare room just now—but if not, don't let that keep you away. Walk in and we'll find a bed for you and be delighted to see you.
Yours most sincerely,
Margaret Barclay.'
'Kif's had a love-letter,' said Fatty, regarding Kif's crimson face with malicious enjoyment.
'More like a bill, I'd say,' said another, puzzled to analyse the boy's expression.
''Is missus' 'ad triplits,' suggested a dapper little cockney known as Wigs, not from any artificiality about his sleek fair hair, but because his name was Clarkson.
This was received with éclat.
'Triplets yer granny!' insisted Fatty. ''Oo ever blushed so coy-like over kids? It's a skirt.'
Kif consigned them all cheerfully to perdition and walked out of the barn in a hail of ribald suggestions. At a safe distance he sat down on a heap of bricks and read the letter slowly, twice. Then he replaced it in its envelope, smoothed it thoughtfully, and put it carefully away in his pocket-book.
The working party had returned by the time Kif came back to the barn. Barclay was reading a letter and two more were lying on his knee. The top one of the two had an envelope like the one Kif had received. Kif crossed to him and subsided cross-legged on the floor a few feet away. He picked up a straw and absently broke it inch by inch its entire length. As Barclay shoved his first letter into its envelope Kif, twisting the straw painfully, said:
'I had a letter from your mother.
He threw away the tortured straw, and as Barclay turned to him he bent to pick up another one so that his face was not visible.
'Oh?' Barclay regarded the top of Kif's service cap with a smiling glance. 'Nice woman my mother.'
'If you really mean it about wanting me at your home, I'll come.'
'Good man!' said Barclay. 'That's settled.' And he tore open his second letter. Then, remembering, he picked up an unopened weekly paper and handed it to Kif.
'Here you are,' he said. 'I've two to read yet. Don't pass it on till I've had a squint at it. Wigs cut out the prettiest ones in the last before I'd as much as had a glance at it.'
Kif split the wrapper and rolled the curling paper backwards with absent-minded care. He turned the pages conscientiously, but he saw nothing of the contents. There was something he must ask, and he did not know how to do it. He considered waiting until it was dark; when they were going to sleep, perhaps. But he must see Barclay's face. If he were going to know for certain—and he must know—he would have to ask now. He shut the paper and rolled it tightly between his hands. Barclay was finishing the reading of his mother's letter and the amusement on his face nerved Kif to the point.
'I say,' he said slowly, 'did you ask your mother to write that letter?'
'What letter?' asked Barclay, looking up with the delight of far-away things still about him and only half comprehending Kif's presence.
Kif swallowed audibly. 'The letter to me,' he said.
Not I!' said Barclay, thoroughly roused now and thankful to be able to be truthful. 'That was entirely off her own bat.'
He was suddenly conscious of the need to be facetious. 'If she's dragging you into the family circle against your will, don't blame me. She's a leech when she gets an idea into her head.'
Kif smiled and rose, but said nothing. He put the paper down gently by Barclay's side—some of the deliberation of the countryman still hung about his movements—and went out. In another minute he would make a fool of himself. He regarded two bare and scoliotic poplars opposite in hot disgust. What the hell was the matter with him? Getting soft like this for no ruddy reason. What the…A stream of oaths chased themselves through his brain as he whipped himself to composure.
He was merely an old campaigner who needed his leave very badly. He was just sixteen, and he had never had a letter like that from anyone before.
CHAPTER SIX
It was thick fog and one in the morning as they walked out of Victoria Station. They stood on the kerb and considered. Kif drew what was meant to be an ecstatic breath and choked. Barclay stamped his feet automatically. It was certainly a chill reception.
'After all,' said the Londoner suddenly, 'it can't be much more than four miles. Queer how far away you think the suburbs when there are buses and tubes, and you've never done a route march. And after all it's only a mile or two. I'm blowed if I'm going to spend the night here when there's a perfectly good bed only four miles away. Let's hoof it.'
'But we'll be rousing them in the middle of the night?'
'They'll be thrilled to the marrow,' predicted the son of the house, and stepped off into the fog.
They tramped steadily without remark for some time, both fully conscious of the wonder that the shadowy world about them was the London of their dreams. To Barclay this world of vague tall shapes had a silent watchful awareness. Aloof but aware. He had a sudden recollection of Torridon mountains as he had seen them during a Highland holiday, a slight scarf of mist rising slowly but with uncanny deliberation from their still, awful faces. Withdrawn but aware, he thought. To Kif the town was a sleeping place, and he the only aware thing in the world that dreamed. The thought intoxicated him. The town was his and the freedom of it. A royal thought. All round him a dim oblivious world, uncaring, negligible, and he alive, potent, eager.
Not that Kif analysed it that way. He analysed very little and himself not at all. If he had been asked what he thought of London on that foggy early morning all he would have said would have been that it 'gave him squirms'.
At the top of Baker Street it lightened suddenly and a minute later a stray taxi appeared. Their simultaneous whoop attracted the attention of the somnolent driver even more than their dash to him. If he had not
been crawling circumspectly in the darkness there might have been two casualties that had not furthered the national cause in the least, a fact which he pointed out to them with a sleepy querulousness. It required all their powers of persuasion, monetary and otherwise, to make him abandon the thought of the bed that had seemed so near and turn back to the chilly northern heights. When he harped a third time on the little time he had had in bed for the last week Kif lost his temper.
'Blast you,' he said, 'when d'you think we were in a bed last? You turn your bus round and take us where my pal says, and be thankful you're doing it for dollars and not for fear, see?'
'Oh, well,' said the man, as Barclay, in answer to Kif's indicative elbow, climbed heavily with his kit into the taxi, 'if it wasn't that you were serving I wouldn't do it. As it is, I've no doubt I'll live to see you hanged, my lad.'
'You won't,' said Kif, 'you'll be the cause.' And he slammed the door behind him.
As they chugged slowly through the dark Barclay said: 'If the sound of this Methuselah doesn't waken them I'll knock up old Alison. She sleeps above the door, and she can get us some food without routing them all out. You'll like her. We've had her for ten years. If she left I think mother would go straight into a nursing home. She runs everything.'
He lapsed into silence. The taxi snuffed and snorted its distressed way northward and the two sat withdrawn, each busy with his thoughts. Presently Barclay stepped out on to the running-board and directed the driver through the gloom. After much fumbling they drew up definitely and Kif climbed out on to the pavement. He could see nothing but the black mass of a house that was evidently one of a row. The taximan mentioned without emotion the price of his services, a sum which had been the subject of his sleepy cogitations for the last fifteen minutes, and which was placed artistically within a shilling of what the weary warriors might be supposed to be willing to pay. Kif was quite ready to argue, but Barclay, to whom parley at that moment would have been like haggling at the gate of Heaven, shoved two notes at the man and led Kif away. They stumbled through a small garden and Kif stood breathing in the smell of wet earth and green things, and not realising why he felt welcomed, while Barclay felt about for appropriate missiles. As the gravel sprayed on the window for the second time the sash was gently raised and a melodious Glasgow voice inquired softly:
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