In The Tent

by David Rees

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Aaron asked.

  ‘I don’t think this is right. And I can’t tell whether we’ve strayed off to the north or south of the track. North, I think. The other side’s all crags, Hanging Knotts, Bowfell.’

  Aaron stared in disbelief. ‘You mean we’re lost?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They walked on. The path disappeared totally and they were stumbling over boulders and clumps of heather. ‘But there’s your tarn,’ Ray said.

  It was too small, not much more than a very big puddle. Despite the rain it looked as if it had once been larger; reeds, a sinister dark green all round the edges, rustled. ‘It’s not,’ Tim said. ‘Angle’s the size of Sprinkling. I don’t know what that is.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  They pored over the map, as if the secret would be there, but none of them had any inspiration.

  Aaron was angry. ‘It’s all your fault!’

  Ray looked so miserable that John said mildly ‘Anyone could lose a compass.’

  They walked a little way in each direction, but there always seemed to be some insuperable difficulty, crags or marsh, or a sheer drop into a void of fog. They tried to retrace their steps to Esk Hause but even the sheep track had vanished. They found themselves again by the tarn. John, Ray and Aaron looked at Tim for help; Tim was the only one, after all, who knew the mountains. But in this hour of glory (Aaron wanting assistance from him was an honour he had never imagined he would achieve) he knew he would fail. He studied the map for clues, concentrating ferociously. ‘This could be High Hause Tarn,’ he said. ‘We’re probably on Glaramara.’

  ‘Glaramara!’ Aaron exclaimed. ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘Well, it’s a nice name,’ John said.

  Tim looked round wildly, as if the answer might be written on the stones, in the mud, or whispered by the reeds. ‘There’s only one possible thing we can do,’ he said, trying to sound full of confidence. ‘Camp here and stay put till the cloud lifts. We can dry out and eat. There’s water from the tarn for cooking. Stay here tonight.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Four o’clock. Yes, stay here, and tomorrow we’ll be able to see where we are; the fog can’t last forever.’

  They obeyed him without question, relieved to be doing something normal, glad to accept authority. These three meekly doing what he, Tim Keegan, told them: the sensation of pleasure was very sweet.

  The inside of the tent was like a damp airing cupboard. Wet clothes wrung out and steaming, dangling so that they muffled faces like a clammy cold bat when a body shifted unexpectedly; bare limbs and torsos, not always possible in the little space to say whose was which: Ray, hairy and thick-set but surprisingly neat in his movements, Aaron sprawled on his front on a sleeping-bag, sleek as a well-groomed cat, red knickers his only adornment, John, white-skinned but with stronger muscles than either of them. Tim struggled heroically near the tent flaps with the primus and a pan full of sausages, battling to ward off the rain and drive out the cooking fumes, hoping his efforts diverted attention from his own thin legs and arms.

  After the meal, it was pop on the transistor, Ray and John moving chess-pieces on a travelling set, Tim with Blake, and Aaron with Confessions. They all inspected Tim’s book of poetry and it passed without comment.

  ‘Don’t let it drive you to playing with yourself,’ John said, nodding at Aaron’s paperback.

  ‘Blake would more likely do that.’ What did he mean, Tim wondered, but he did not ask.

  ‘I’ve been blind for years,’ Ray said, and they all laughed, even Tim.

  You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. Oh, for the chance!

  How can the bird that is born for joy

  Sit in the cage and sing?

  ‘It interests me, that’s all.’ Aaron had asked why he’d brought school work with him.

  ‘I can’t get on with poetry. Not that stuff any way. It’s like untying string.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Tim said, after a moment’s thought.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘What you said. Untying string. Yes, it’s very much like that.’

  ‘I wish I’d brought my guitar.’

  ‘I’ve heard you. You’re good.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At school once; you were playing it all one lunch hour.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were listening. Well... I’m trying to start up a group. Aaron’s Rod, I’m calling it.’

  ‘D. H. Lawrence?’

  ‘Eh? It’s a flower.’

  ‘Yes. Is that what you want to do, when you leave school? Confessions of Aaron, pop star.’

  ‘Me? I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.’ He was silent, then asked ‘What about you?’

  ‘University. I hope.’

  ‘You’re a queer one, Tim.’

  Something in the voice told him it was deliberate, a challenge. Did he dare pick up such a gauntlet? His heart suddenly started to flutter, and his stomach heaved. ‘Am I?’ he croaked. Aaron nodded. Tim picked it up, the very first time since he knew that he was. ‘Does it show?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Relief. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘You.’

  Aaron was puzzled. ‘Why should it bother me? It bothers you, I guess.’

  ‘Maybe it does.’ The understatement of the century. ‘You . . . aren’t.’

  He looked amused. ‘What do you think, big sister?’ He turned over, away from Tim, concentrating on Confessions. Tim was trembling.

  ‘Good morning, world!’ Tim, wrapped only in a patch-work quilt, stood at the slit window that looked down the estuary, and greeted a section of the New Model which could be seen, encamped, in the distance.

  ‘Come away from there.’ Anthony was still in bed. ‘A naked man! They are, after all, Puritans.’

  ‘They’re about a mile away, towards Countess Wear. Having breakfast I should think. Sir Hardress Waller’s merry men! It’s daringly close, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘They know how weak we are.’ Anthony yawned. ‘I ought to be up, but I have no relish for it. Brew me a hot drink, Tim, and cut me off a slice of cold beef.’

  A deafening explosion, close to, made them jump with fright. Tim dropped to the floor, below window level. ‘What is it?’ he whispered. Several more explosions, equally loud, followed.

  ‘Idiot. It’s our ordnance. See what they’re firing at, will you?’

  But Tim moved to the other window, attracted by the sound of horses’ hooves on the cobbles. South Street, from end to end, was filled with armed men on horseback. Anthony threw back the bed-covers and dressed hurriedly. ‘Put your clothes on,’ he ordered. ‘And stay in this room, out of sight. I do not want people to know you’re in here.’ He ran to the door.

  ‘Why? I was assigned to you, wasn’t I?’

  ‘I can do without trouble.’

  ‘But . . . am I not supposed to be here?’

  ‘I’ll explain at another time.’ He rushed downstairs. Tim listened. There was a short, heated argument; the commander of the horse was apparently not pleased at being kept waiting. The gate should have been opened five minutes previously. Anthony apologised, and moments later the throng of cavalry was surging forwards, out of the city. The gate was shut again, but Anthony did not return. He came up the stairs, then continued on to the muniment room. There seemed to be several people with him. Distributing arms to the citizens, Tim thought; this was the start of it, and his guess was proved right when he saw a group of men walking briskly up the street, carrying muskets. More people could be heard tramping up the staircase, and, after a while, Anthony shouted crossly for Tim to hurry up with the breakfast. Tim, dressed by now, scuttled round, preparing food. Should he risk Anthony’s anger by taking it upstairs, after being told not to leave the living-quarters? He hovered, undecided.

  ‘Tim! Where’s that meal? Bring it here!’

  He put the plates on a tray and ru
shed up to the muniment room. Anthony was checking stores. ‘Don’t mind my temper,’ he said. ‘Everything has to work to a precise pattern. Just do as you’re told and ignore me shouting. Does it upset you?’

  ‘No. I think I like being needed.’

  ‘Good.’ He looked at Tim, quite friendly now. ‘Go down and make the room spotless.’

  Was Anthony a secret sympathizer of the Parliament, he wondered, as he made the bed. He remembered the hint of disappointment in his eyes, that first time they had met. And the strange remark just now about doing without trouble. Royalist Exeter was terrified of a Parliament victory. Stories were whispered by one man to another of the atrocities committed by the New Model. The Puritans were monsters, scarcely human, guilty of deeds so shameful and revolting that tongue dared not even name them. Should they gain control of the city the best one could hope for would be the merciful release of a quick death. Such tales, Tim knew, were nonsense, had no foundation on even the slimmest of truths. The men of the Parliament were men no different from the King’s: two eyes, two arms, two legs, with as much diversity of thought and feeling as any group of human beings, the same selfish or unselfish passions. They would not slaughter for a cause. They simply wanted the right to exist in their own particular way, unpersecuted by Royalist authority, in peace and as equals. Anthony, Tim felt, might be one of them, and at the appropriate time he would declare himself.

  While he swept and dusted and tidied, the cannons fired sporadically. It was something less than a major assault on the Roundhead forces, more like a token gesture. Tim, looking out of the window every so often, could see that the balls fell short of Sir Hardress’s lines and did no damage. It was the growl of a dying animal, not an attack to kill.

  Anthony left at dinner-time and did not return till early evening. Tim, alone all afternoon, had nothing to occupy himself with except gaze at the view. He was not bored, for towards three o’clock something like a real skirmish began to develop and he could observe it all from where he stood. Sir Hardress’s cavalry had advanced from their forward positions of the previous night, and as they were crossing a stream a quarter of a mile to the south of the gatehouse, they were set upon by the troops who had ridden out from the city that morning. It was too far away to observe in detail, but the noise of firing was real enough, as was the clash of steel, the terror of the horses, and the cries of men, wounded or dying, falling to the ground. The King’s soldiers attacked with a bravado that was at times plain stupid, or maybe it was born of an intense hatred for the other side; the Puritans behaved with coolness, patience and greater military discipline. Nevertheless they would have been severely defeated in the long run had not an attachment of foot come to their support, and the Royalist horse, driven off at last, were made to flee to the safety of the city as best they might, ragged, bleeding, dejected. Some prisoners, Tim noticed, were taken by Sir Hardress’s troops, but these were not killed or harmed in any way that he could see. The Puritans attended to their own dead and injured, and eventually retreated behind their fortifications at Countess Wear.

  Jake, the sexton, walked along the wall. Tim left his place by the window and went outside to talk to him.

  ‘Destroying their energies, both parties,’Jake said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the approaching cavalry. ‘Why don’t they find something better to do?’

  ‘You never thought of fighting, then?’ Tim asked.

  ‘Me? With a wife and two young girls to feed?’

  ‘You’re married?’ He was surprised; Jake seemed so young, not more than twenty or twenty-two at most. His face was almost an innocent little boy’s face.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘Don’t you find yourself caught too early like I did. One hour’s fun and you’re lumbered for life. Repent at leisure.’

  ‘It won’t happen to me.’

  Jake looked him up and down. ‘No, I don’t imagine it will,’ he said, and turned away to unlock the door of Holy Trinity tower. He knows, Tim thought. Does he mind? Jake went into the church and the door slammed after him, leaving Tim staring.

  Over dinner Anthony said ‘You are a Parliament man, Tim.’

  Deciding that they knew one another sufficiently now to admit, he said ‘Yes,’ but nevertheless with a beating heart.

  ‘A man must be whatever he is,’ Anthony said, philosophically. ‘Regardless of the odds.’

  ‘So are you, I think.’

  ‘Me?’ The astonishment was genuine. ‘Whatever made you say that?’

  ‘I thought ... I had guessed.’

  He looked at Tim coldly, but before either of them could speak there was a knock at the door. It was Saint-Hill. Anthony did not offer him a chair, but, undaunted, he seated himself and began to talk. It looked as though he would stay a long time. Exeter, he said, was in no fit shape to hold out against the enemy; it was even less well provided for than in the siege of 1643. There were no supplies in the shops; hoarding of food was minimal, and the likelihood of men breaking out of the city to obtain fresh meat and vegetables was remote. The populace would not starve at once, but hardship before long would be severe. And despite this, the authorities were growing more arbitrary and dictatorial; only this afternoon there had been a number of families dragged from their homes and taken to gaol for no crime at all other than being suspected of Parliament sympathy, women, children and tiny babies included. They had all come from the parish of St. Olave; it was rumoured that tomorrow similar arrests would occur in St. Mary Arches, and would continue, daily, parish by parish, until non-Conformity was entirely locked up.

  Tim listened with much more sympathy than on the previous occasion. True, the voice was like that of a bishop in a pulpit—it spoke not to Anthony or Tim; it just spoke— but the words made more sense than last time.

  ‘Will you open the gate and let me out?’ Saint-Hill asked.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I propose to walk to the Roundhead lines and seek an interview with my Lord Fairfax. I shall tell him how to enter the city without the necessity of a siege.’

  ‘You’re mad.’

  Saint-Hill nodded. ‘Yes, the world would think so, certainly.’

  ‘And what of your Royalist principles?’

  ‘In no way shaken. The restoration of all the King’s rights and honours is what is worth fighting for; the subordination of the Commons to its proper place in the scheme of things is what God Almighty cries out for. But I will not see this city and its innocent inhabitants destroyed in that conflict.’

  ‘Your logic is somewhat cloudy,’ Anthony said, sarcastically. ‘You serve the King, yet would surrender one of his last remaining strongholds in the West.’

  Tim accompanied them downstairs. Anthony opened the gate a fraction and Saint-Hill left. The night, chilly with a restless little wind moaning and a hint of rain, soon swallowed him up, though his footsteps in the dusty road could be heard for some moments afterwards.

  ‘The enemy will have a surprise before they sleep,’ Anthony said. ‘A man so convinced of his own rightness that he thinks he can, by himself, alter history inevitably goes to a quick destruction.’

  ‘What will Fairfax do?’

  ‘Assuming Saint-Hill is granted an interview, which I imagine is highly unlikely, I think the lord general will laugh.’

  Tim, worried, wanted to check all the equipment; the weather was deteriorating all the time. The rain had increased and a strong wind was blowing. They could be marooned here for days. Fortunately the tent was excellent, brand new and waterproof, except near the flaps, which had been open when he was cooking. Rain had also gusted in when one or other of them had gone out during the evening to pee, but, all things considered, wet was so far not a problem. The enclosed space would be more of a difficulty if they had to stay here all day tomorrow; it was now intimate and friendly, but it would soon cause tempers to flare.

  He could hardly ask the other three for an inventory of their belongings. H
e tried to recall what he had noticed in their rucksacks. All four had proper footwear—good mountain-walking boots—and thick socks, sensible anoraks, and sufficient dry clothing for one complete change. Shorts were a good idea for rain, and he wished he’d thought of it himself, particularly as the weather was not cold. No-one was likely to suffer from hypothermia. The sleeping-bags were adequate, so was the cooking equipment. Food was the main worry.

  John and Ray were discussing Ipswich Town’s performance last week. Aaron, Tim noticed, was watching him; presumably wondering why his eyes darted, checking, from one thing to another. ‘What food do you have left?’ he asked.

  Aaron fished around in his rucksack. ‘Kendal mint-cake. Apples, four. Packet of Sainsbury’s ginger cream biscuits. Why?’

  ‘We’re running out.’

  ‘We buy more in Langdale tomorrow. That’s what we decided.’

  ‘If. . .’ Aaron looked startled as he realized. ‘Don’t say anything. What do they have?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ray’s got a few oranges, and the cheese sandwiches he didn’t eat on the train. John has some raisins. And an unopened packet of Number Six.’

  ‘Hmm. I’ve got two bars of chocolate. And tomorrow’s breakfast; four eggs, bacon, and the rest of the bread.’

  Aaron thought for a moment, said nothing, then returned to his book. Ray was recounting the details of his last trip to Portman Road where Ipswich Town had beaten Derby County four nil. His tale was like the recital of a battle: attack, charge, assault, retreat. John, losing interest, said ‘At least they say Portman Road has the prettiest girls. In the spectators, I mean.’ He sniggered.

  ‘Ramón,’ Aaron called, ‘what would you do if Ipswich were home to Réal Madrid? Ramón Manuel Suñer Azaña? Boyo.’

  ‘Don’t know. Very difficult decision.’

  ‘Go on. Who would you support?’ Ray was silent, knowing he was being provoked. ‘Fran-co! Fran-co! Fran-co!’ ‘If I was a German’—he was trying to be sweet reasonableness—‘would you call me Hitler?’