by H. E. Bates
‘Did you get this dress out for me?’
‘Oh! no. It fits me a treat. I tried your green one but it doesn’t go.’
‘Oh! God,’ she said and again, dropping into a chair, covered her face with her hands and drank from the darkness inside them. ‘You poor, blind, idiotic fool.’
‘Would you know I wasn’t a woman?’
‘What?’
Lifting her face from her hands, slowly and stiffly, she had the impression of struggling out of a frozen nightmare.
‘Honest, would you?’
‘Would I what?’
‘With the dress on and all that, would you know I wasn’t a woman?’
‘I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything. Not any more.’
‘The corporal’ll be disappointed. He was on about you.’
‘Was he indeed?’
‘Ah! be a sport. It’ll be good fun.’
So it would be good fun, would it? She must be a good sport. Not even framing the words, she sat staring mutely at her hands.
Presently Barton got up and went to the dress and turned it round, so that the other side could air at the fire. As he did so one of a pair of stockings fell to the floor and she caught a glimpse of a girdle lying on the seat of the chair. Mutely she stared at these too.
For another hour she sat at the table staring speechlessly. Then she became vaguely aware that Barton, the dress, the stockings and the girdle were no longer in the room.
She at last got up and wandered about from kitchen to scullery, scullery to kitchen and then back again. Along the edges of the mantelpiece she had already tacked a few sprigs of holly, bright with berry, a branch or two of yew and here and there a sprig of gilded acorns. Her plan had been to spend the evening finally gilding a branch of beech, decorating it with pine-cones, red candles and a present or two. It was simpler, more original than a Christmas tree. She had lead about it in a magazine somewhere.
When all that was done she planned to finish preparing the pheasants, make mince pies and at last sit down before the fire with a glass of port and carols on the radio.
She did in fact, at long last, sit down before the fire; but she had forgotten about the port and there were no carols on the radio.
She was finally startled by a knock at the door. She got up to answer it, heart pounding, to find the sergeant standing outside, alone.
‘Merry Christmas,’ the sergeant said. ‘Merry Christmas.’
Not speaking, she held open the door a little wider. Grinning, the sergeant came into the kitchen.
‘Compliments of the season again and all that. Am I early? Not ready then? Don’t want to be late.’
It was not her intention, she said, to be either late or early.
‘Oh?’ the sergeant said. ‘Cath ready?’
‘I don’t speak for Cath.’
The voice of the sergeant was constantly breezy. There was also a certain mockery in it and also in the way he now and then rubbed his hands together.
‘Not coming then?’
‘I never said I was coming.’
‘Corpora’ll be disappointed. Got you down as his Number One Pin-up. His favourite popsie.’
‘I’m not corporal’s popsie.’
She fixed the sergeant with an iron stare. Greatly to her surprise he responded with a laugh. To her even greater surprise he then made a rough attempt to squeeze her shoulders.
‘Ah! come on, warm up.’
Her shoulders were rigid. She had nothing to say.
‘Ah! come on. Get ready. It’s Christmas.’
‘I would never have known,’ she said, ‘if you hadn’t told me.’
There was no time for the sergeant to answer this before, Barton came into the room. Seeing him, the sergeant seemed to give a half-suppressed gasp of surprise. She too was struck with sharp astonishment.
In the pink dress, fair hair in thick rolls at the back, shoulders half-covered with a blue shawl wrap, bust rather more prominent than usual, nails carefully manicured and touched a light shell pink, Barton looked so completely a woman that the dread in herself turned into a flash of anger and then to a stiffened sombre jealousy.
‘Ah! Cath’s ready if nobody else is,’ the sergeant said. ‘Good old Cath.’
‘Not so much of the old.’
The sergeant laughed, merrily.
‘Term of endearment. Term of endearment. Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Snifter before we go?’ The sergeant drew a hip flask from a pocket. ‘What say? Yes please? Whisky. Don’t ask where I got it – no names, no pack drill.’
‘I’ll get some glasses,’ Barton said.
He found three glasses and put them on the table. The sergeant poured whisky, generously.
‘Lovely stuff,’ he said. ‘Had a couple in the Sergeants’ Mess already. Lovely stuff. Merry Christmas. Very merry Christmas.’
Her first impulse was to refuse the whisky, then to throw it into the sergeant’s face. Instead she suddenly felt a great need of it and drank it with slow relief.
The sergeant drank quickly, almost forcibly merry.
‘Another? One for the road? Cath will, I know.’
Barton and the sergeant drank again. She herself stood aside, sipping slowly at her one and only drink.
‘Ah! well,’ the sergeant said at last. ‘Better get into the old bang-bang. Borrowed a Jeep for tonight. Don’t ask where. No names, no pack drill. Ready, Cath? Off then! – move to the right in pairs! –’
The whisky was talking fast. There was a glassy glint in the sergeant’s eye.
‘Won’t change your mind, sweetheart? Corporal’ll be very disappointed. Probably cut his throat. That’ll be the day.’
She had only one thing to say and she addressed it coldly to Barton.
‘Have you got a torch? There’s no moon tonight.’
‘I’ve got a torch,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’m the torch-bearer tonight. Lead on – lead, kindly light.’ And then suddenly, pausing at the door: ‘Haven’t you got a dog, Mrs Charlesworth? You ought to have a dog up here.’
‘I had one once,’ she said. ‘But I shot him.’
Long after the sound of the Jeep had retreated and become finally swallowed by the immense silence outside she still stood in the centre of the kitchen as if paralysed, all her dread back again.
An air-raid siren sounding far down the valley at last woke her to her senses. In a moment she turned sharply, beating her head and hands against the mantelpiece. She struck it over and over again until at last the beaten prickles of the holly leaves drew blood from her forehead and the crucified palms of her hands.
She woke early on the morning of the day after Christmas to a great surprise. Snow had fallen again in the night. As if in answer to her wish it lay all along the hillside, smooth and thin but deep enough to show, here and there, the footprints of birds. As the first daylight spread over it, thin too and still without shadow, she experienced a feeling of complete and intense relief, then of calm gladness. The illusion that snow cut her off from the world, protectively, was again complete too. Now, she told herself, with Christmas, the dance and the agonies of Christmas Eve over, all was safe again.
She went out, did the milking by the light of a hurricane lamp, collected half a dozen eggs and came back to the kitchen. The world was deadly still. A reflection of snowlight on the kitchen ceiling gave an even further illusion of seclusion and calm. The only sounds were of a kettle beginning to bubble on the stove and of Barton washing his hands at the sink in the scullery.
‘It’s been snowing again,’ she said.
Barton had nothing to say in answer. He had in fact had scarcely a word to say in answer to anything for the whole of the previous day. The dance had put up a barrier between them.
The problem now, she told herself, was somehow to break the barrier; and snow, it seemed to her, might be the answer.
‘It isn’t very thick,’ she said, ‘but I think there’s more to c
ome.’
There was no sound from the scullery except a splashing of water.
‘The wind’s in the right quarter. If it stays there we’ll get a packet.’
The scullery was silent.
‘What would you like for breakfast?’ she said. ‘I’ll start it now.’
‘Just tea.’
‘In that case I’ll go up and make the bed while the kettle boils.’
She went upstairs and started to strip the bed. In the act of bouncing the pillows about and turning the sheets she suddenly paused, fascinated as she always was by snow, to look out of the window at the long calm white fringe of it extending under the beech-woods and far enough down the valley to obliterate, once again, the dirty snake-riddle of tank tracks.
Some distance below this the railway ran in a dead straight line, east to west. Half way along it was a level crossing. The gates were closed. It was the 7.58, she told herself, going towards the coast. The short, green-coached train duly came, trailing white smoke, passed the gates and went on. The gates, joined as it were by a central danger circle of red, swung back. Two cars, a tractor, a coal-lorry and a Jeep came over the line.
An odd illusion that the Jeep had in some way caught the red danger circle and dragged it across the track had her puzzled for a moment or two. Then she realised that there was not one circle but two. They were of brilliant scarlet and the Jeep was bearing them fast up the hill.
In a new rush of dread she ran downstairs, gasping:
‘There’s a Jeep coming up the road with two red caps in it.’
‘Christ! You’re sure?’
‘Put your gum-boots and your sweater on. Do like I said – go to the old larder and stop there. Stop there till I come.’
He began to drag on his boots and his sweater.
‘And a scarf. This one, my woollen one. Tie it tight. It’ll keep you warm.’
‘Might not be nothing.’
She was actually tying the scarf for him and in the act of doing so she touched his face. It was the first physical contact between them for more than a day and it seemed to move and wake him.
‘Might be, might not. If there’s nothing to it I’ll come for you. If there is I’ll talk them off.’
She finally tied the scarf. With both hands she touched his face with the smallest gesture of affection.
‘What did you do to your hands?’ he suddenly said. ‘I meant to ask you all day yesterday –’
‘Never mind now. You go now. Quick.’
‘They’re all cut –’
‘Never mind that.’ With a gesture of desperation she again touched his face and then quickly kissed him. Her mouth was trembling. ‘There’s no time for talking now.’
‘You won’t let me down, will you?’ he said, more frightened than she was, his mouth trembling too.
‘Go straight along through the wood. And then turn by the clump of blackthorn. There’s a double door. You used to be able to bolt it on the inside. No, I’ll never let you down. I’ll never do that.’
It was some time before she consciously realized that she was alone in the kitchen, that the kettle had boiled and that she had made herself a cup of tea and was sitting at the table, drinking it. She slowly got up at last and went to the window. The yard was empty but the comforting blessed illusion of calm given by snow had vanished altogether.
Something of the calm had begun to return by the time she had drunk a third cup of tea. She was actually in the act of washing her cup at the scullery sink when there was a sharp double rap on the door.
She went to the door and opened it. Outside stood the sergeant, red cap brilliant against the snow, wearing an M.P. armband and a holster complete with revolver.
‘Good-morning, Mrs Charlesworth. I’d like to speak with you. May I come in?’
‘Come in. There’s nothing to stop you.’
The sergeant stepped over the threshold. The breezy, oily, cocky soldier of Christmas Eve existed no longer. The sergeant had become a cypher, adamant, unsmiling, correct.
‘Mrs Charlesworth –’
‘How did the dance go?’
Whether the subject of the dance was embarrassing or merely contemptible she never knew. The sergeant ignored it.
‘Mrs Charlesworth, I’ll come straight to the point. We have good reason to believe that you are sheltering a deserter here.’
‘I live here with my sister. You should know. You took her to the dance.’
‘We are looking for 819673 Barton A. W., Private, the Royal Artillery, absent without leave from May 14 last.’
‘My sister was drunk when she came home. I’ve never seen her drunk like that.’
‘Are you going to cooperate, Mrs Charlesworth? I should advise you to cooperate. The corporal’s in the yard. I’ve got two men and an officer at the far end of the wood and road patrols right, left and centre.’
‘You shouldn’t have done that to my sister. I don’t like to see women drunk.’
‘Will you stop talking about your sister?’ The sergeant was a flushed statue of military outrage. ‘You know damn well there is no sister.’
She actually smiled.
‘And how exactly did you find that out?’
The smile angered the sergeant still further. His voice crackled fast.
‘We won’t go into that. We won’t go into that.’
‘But you did go into it, didn’t you? Or was it just some low-down, dirty, stinking trap?’
‘Don’t provoke me, Mrs Charlesworth. There’s nothing to be gained from provocation.’
‘Did you provoke Cath? or were you expecting a surprise? Provoke – I like that.’
For some seconds the sergeant remained impotently speechless. Then he collected himself with fresh severity and said:
‘Don’t make things more difficult, Mrs Charlesworth. We have reason to believe that you are harbouring Barton here and have been doing so for the past seven months –’
‘Or perhaps you didn’t want a surprise? Perhaps you’re that sort of man? They tell me that kind of thing goes on in the army.’
‘Keep the personal insults, Mrs Charlesworth. I am not here to be personally insulted. I am here to do a certain duty and I am going to do it.’
‘Personal insult, was it? Good. Give me time and I might think up another.’
Time, she kept telling herself, was what she needed most. Contempt had given her a certain outward appearance of calm.
‘Is Barton in the house, Mrs Charlesworth?’
‘He is not.’
‘Is that the truth?’
‘That’s the truth.’
‘It’s much better to tell the truth. Where is he?’
‘Search the place. You’ve got plenty of men.’
The sergeant seemed to sigh.
‘I must tell you, Mrs Charlesworth, that we had your place under observation all day yesterday Christmas Day. Some men missed their Christmas dinner because of it.’
‘Poor things. No Christmas pudding. No mistletoe. No kissing among the soldiers.’
‘Mrs Charlesworth!’ The sergeant almost sprang to attention, as if about to deliver the severest of orders, ‘Do I have to remind you that it is a very serious offence to harbour a deserter?’
Time, she kept telling herself, time.
‘Do I, Mrs Charlesworth?’
Before she could answer the sergeant’s thundered question there was a knock on the door.
‘In!’ the sergeant yelled. The door opened immediately. In came the corporal, red-capped too.
‘Excuse me, sergeant. Barton spotted leaving the wood about seven minutes ago.’
‘Good. Which way?’
‘That way.’ The corporal pointed eastward. Instinctively she followed his sign of direction and the sergeant said:
‘It would have saved us a lot of trouble if you’d have helped us, Mrs Charlesworth. And you too. I don’t have to remind you of the penalties of harbouring a deserter?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ve been to m
y own funeral many times.’
‘Right corporal. I’ll go myself. I want this one for myself.’ His quick eye alighted on the key in the lock of the kitchen door. He snatched it out, gave it to the corporal and said: ‘Lock the door and stay outside. Outside, mind you. And see that Mrs Charlesworth doesn’t leave on any account.’
There might still be time, there might still be time, she told herself; but as if knowing quite well that she had at last run out of time she stood quiet in the centre of the kitchen, expressionless, mute and at last resigned.
Still half in anger, the sergeant swung out of the kitchen. A moment later he was back again.
‘Husband a prisoner with the Japs, too, my God. Oh! come all ye faithful.’
She heard the key turn in the lock. It was exactly like a black shadow turning in her mind. With pitiless calm she stood for a few moments longer in the centre of the kitchen and then seemed abruptly to make up her mind about something and went upstairs.
For some ten minutes or so she stood at the window, staring down at the snow. It had great beauty, the snow, she told herself, a great peacefulness. It was everywhere pure and crisp. Nothing but the footprints of birds had come to disfigure and disturb it.
Then she caught sight of a red cap advancing across the field beyond the farm. The red cap, she saw presently, belonged to the sergeant and with the sergeant, hand-cuffed to him, was Barton.
The recollection of the sergeant’s final words went searing through her again in a great flash of anger and bitterness. She stared for a few moments longer at the two advancing men and her brown eyes had once again the lost transparency of the eyes of dead birds imprisoned in glass cases.
Then she went downstairs and got the shot-gun. She lifted the sash of the window and levelled the gun over the sill. The sun was breaking through a little now and the light on the snow was very brilliant.
She let the sergeant and Barton come to within a hundred yards of the gate between field and yard, then fifty, then to the gate. Then she let them climb the gate. She could see the handcuffs quite clearly now.
When the two men were rather less than twenty yards from the house she took a long, level aim on the sergeant. Then she fired. Within a second or so the two men staggered forward like idiot dolls. Then Barton was lying in the snow and the sergeant was half-crouching over him, shouting.
