Covenant with Death

by John Harris

  I glanced among the crowd of young men standing in embarrassed-looking groups, eyeing each other furtively, and caught sight of a familiar figure waiting quietly in the background as though he were trying to hide.

  ‘Locky,’ I said. ‘Fancy seeing you!’

  He came towards me, smiling and looking more like Helen than ever. He was in his ordinary office suit, unlike the rest of us who seemed mostly to have plumped for comfort and come in flannels or knickerbockers and tweed jackets. He looked as though he’d been in to the office, in fact, to get the day’s work in order before leaving.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

  ‘Same as you,’ he said.

  ‘Have you joined as well?’

  He gave me a sidelong grin that was faintly embarrassed. ‘It’s remarkable the sort of people who’ve come to the conclusion they were cut out for a military career,’ he said.

  ‘You never said anything.’

  Locky shrugged, that self-deprecatory shrug of his, and I guessed he’d worked it all out alone, asking no one’s advice and no one’s permission. The thought made me feel naïve and enthusiastically schoolboyish but I was glad to see him. Somehow his presence there seemed to set the seal on what I’d done.

  ‘Nobody’s business but mine,’ he went on. ‘I thought about it a lot before I decided. Not much point in staying behind and doing all the work myself. That’s all. I wasn’t keen at first, but when you lot went off like a gang of swashbuckling privateers the Trojan Horse was already within the citadel, and I thought I might swash a buckle or two myself!’

  While we were talking, someone blew a whistle. The blast shrilled among the iron girders that held up the roof, and a tremendous voice echoed round the hall.

  ‘Get yerselves in line,’ it bawled. ‘Come on, you’re soldiers now! Let’s see a bit of life.’

  ‘My God,’ Mason said. ‘It’s Commissionaire Corker!’

  Complete with flat boozy face, stringy waxed moustache and bulbous nose, and dressed in a threadbare tweed suit that looked a little too tight across the stomach, the old man moved about the hall with a couple of elderly corporals in faded uniforms, pushing at groups of young men who clung awkwardly and persistently to their friends as though they felt they’d drown if they drifted apart. King’s and Queen’s South African campaign ribbons shone on his waistcoat and his eyes looked as bright as boot buttons under the peak of the enormous flat cap he wore.

  ‘Morning, Corker,’ Mason said as he stopped in front of us. ‘How’s it going.’

  Corker stared straight through him, almost as though he didn’t recognise him.

  ‘Sergeant Corker to you, Mr Mason,’ he snapped. ‘Yer in the Army now. And don’t you forget it.’

  Then he winked and passed on, still pushing men into line.

  ‘All right, ’old your noise,’ he was bawling. ‘Stop shuffling yer feet. The CO wants to talk to you. Get yer ’eads up and stand still. Get yer feet apart and yer ’ands behind yer backs. That’s better. Now you look a bit like the soldiers you ain’t.’

  On the balcony that ran round the hall, Old FitzJimmy had appeared. He looked tired but curiously bright-eyed and excited. You could have heard a pin drop as he took off his silk hat and moved to the edge of the balcony to stare down at us.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I might as well tell you all about yourselves. It’s something you’ve got to know, because at the moment we’ve got nothing else to offer you. We’ve got nothing in the way of equipment for you and we’re not likely to get any for a damn’ long time.’

  There was a sigh, almost a sob of disappointment, from the crowd of men, and FitzJimmy held up his hand.

  ‘That’s the way it is,’ he said apologetically. ‘Lord Kitchener doesn’t know where the equipment’s coming from, and I’m damned if I do. But that was one of the stipulations he made when he gave his consent to the raising of this battalion. Make no mistake, though. He wants you. All of you. And probably a lot more. But there’s nothing to spare in the way of equipment for you yet.’

  ‘We’ll fight as we are,’ came a shout from the back that sounded like young Murray, and I heard old Corker come down on him like a ton of bricks.

  FitzJimmy grinned. ‘We’ve been told we’re responsible for your organisation, training and administration,’ he said. ‘Until the War Office can manage to take you over. But that won’t be yet. They’ve got plenty on their slates bringing the Regular battalions up to strength. So there you are. There’ll not be much to spare, but we’ll get it somehow, even if we have to pay for it out of the rates. I, for one, will offer here and now a set of drums and fifes. Dammit, you’ll want a band to march to, won’t you?’

  He paused and looked at us again, the whole fifteen hundred of us all bursting with patriotism and idealism and trying hard to look like soldiers.

  ‘I haven’t much more to say,’ he went on. ‘You’re a fine-looking crowd – the finest crowd of recruits I’ve ever seen, most of you officer-material, in fact – but you’re still only a crowd, and it’s our job to make you into a fighting battalion. Give us the chance, though, and we’ll do it.’

  The adjutant appeared then, a thin-faced solicitor who’d been one of the stalwarts of the Territorial organisation for years.

  He read out a list of officers who’d already been gazetted and the names of men who’d been given rank as NCOs. We had to know their names because most of them had no uniforms or badges of rank to identify them.

  When he’d finished, we stood about in groups again, waiting for something to happen, still a little scared by our own boldness and eager for someone to tell us what to do.

  But everyone was too busy making lists – lists of companies, lists of platoons and sections, list of stores, lists of equipment, lists of questions about other lists. There seemed to be no order and not much sense in what was going on. You could sense in the chaos a hint of disenchantment.

  Finally, when we were all beginning to feel the pangs of hunger and the need for a meal, someone announced they were ready to form the companies, and the interminable lists started again.

  I found myself in A Company with Henry Oakley, the cricketer, and a lot of miners. All the others, Locky, Mason, Murray and the rest of them were in D Company, but Mason came across to me, leading by the arm a grinning man with blue scars on his face.

  ‘It’s all right, Fen,’ he said. ‘I’ve arranged a swop. He wants to be in A with his pals and we want you in D. Come on over and see Ashton. He’s with us.’

  Ashton looked bigger somehow, I noticed, healthier and quite different from the harassed-looking Chief who was always being pestered by telephones and awkward enquiries, and I found myself remembering his wife, a thin-nosed little woman who was reputed to nag him, and wondered how much she’d had to do with his sudden decision to enlist. I recognised young Welch standing just behind him, very much the schoolboy he’d been a few months before, and Walter Bickerstaff and Percy Sheridan, the stockbroker; there was Howard Milton, the son of the Rector of Endwood, and a metallurgical expert from the east end of the city whose name I’ve forgotten, and one or two more, all eager to be friendly, but all trying to look like officers at the same time.

  Corker was there too, and I saw with a shock that Eph Lott and his corner boys were in with us. There was Tim Williams, who’d played rugby for Wales and was lecturer in Modern History at the University and often drank with us in the Blueberry Tavern, which had been the Press pub from time immemorial, lean and dark and Celtic against Jack Barraclough’s broad Saxon blondness; MacKinley, the Canadian; Bob Catchpole, who was the son of the Vicar of Cotterside; Arnold Holroyd; Spring, who’d been an actor; and Tom Creak, the miner who’d spoken to me outside the Town Hall, when I’d first arrived, not at all ill at ease among all the younger men about him, all of them better dressed, better paid and better educated.

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather be with A Company?’ I asked him.

  ‘Tom Creak’s all right ’ere,’ he said firmly w
ith that curious dignity of his. ‘You get sick of miners, man. All they talk about is mining.’

  Two men who were with him, stunted men with fair hair and Irish accents, whose name appeared to be Manderson, nodded and grinned agreement.

  ‘Billy Mandy,’ Tom Creak said, introducing them. ‘Tommy Mandy. Manderson’s too long where we come from.’

  Ashton finished the list he was making and turned to us. Corker, standing behind him, was very respectful, very much the soldier all of a sudden.

  ‘For the time being,’ Ashton said, ‘you’ll have to go on living at home. We’ve got no quarters yet. Those of you who don’t live in the city will be found billets. You might even be able to find them yourselves with people you know. See what you can do. It’d be better that way.’

  He paused, giving us the long-suffering-father look he’d always worn when he’d given us a particularly dirty news job to do. ‘Just remember, though,’ he said, ‘this is rather a special battalion. I doubt if there’s ever been a battalion with the quality this one’s got. We’ve got no tradition. We’ve got to make it ourselves. So start by behaving yourselves. We haven’t got many NCOs yet, but there’ll always be room for intelligent men who show signs of ability. For the time being we expect someone with a gift for leadership to take charge, and the rest of you – because you’re young men of honour and intelligence and courage and responsibility – to help by doing what you’re asked.’

  He nodded to dismiss us and a few loose arms flew up because we had an idea that, since he was an officer, we ought to salute him, then he turned away, faintly self-conscious and certain that the Army had a more spectacular method of leave-taking than this sheepish shuffle we put on for the right turn Corker had told us we used to withdraw.

  As we began to disperse, Locky touched my arm. ‘The old man’s car’s outside,’ he said. ‘Helen’ll be there, I think.’

  It was the first hint he’d ever given that he’d noticed my interest in her. He waited for me, smiling gravely, and led the way. Helen was sitting in the back of the big grey Lanchester his father used for his rounds, with its brass bonnet and the square upright windscreen and folded hood. She looked bored, but she cheered up as soon as she saw us.

  As Locky turned away to adjust the throttle and crank the engine, she reached out for me as though I were something familiar in a rapidly changing scene.

  ‘It’s amazing how quickly you pick it up,’ she said at once, with a wide smile, staring at me with head on one side. ‘You look like a recruiting sergeant already.’

  ‘I don’t feel like one,’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Any day now you’ll be swanking, bold as brass, along the Common, with a clay pipe in your mouth and winking at the girls. I expect you’re so pleased with yourself it’ll cost tuppence to talk to you.’

  Not to her it wouldn’t, I said.

  ‘Did you want to join up?’ she demanded in her forthright, frightening manner. ‘Or did someone push you into it? Were you dared or did you get carried along by the mob? Or did you do it of your own free will and accord?’

  ‘Own free will and accord!’ I said.

  She pulled a face. ‘You ought to have known better,’ she pointed out.

  I leaned on the door of the car, trying to get a little closer to her. I was certain Frank Mason would come barging along at any moment – he always seemed to pop up just when I’d got her on my own – and I tried hard to take up a position that would exclude him from the conversation as much as possible if he did.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t say I’m exactly cut out for a soldier. But someone’s got to do it.’

  ‘Personally,’ she retorted. ‘I think you’re all barmy, rushing off like this. There’ll be thousands who won’t.’

  I was faintly disappointed. I’d hoped she’d set the seal finally on what I’d done by giving her unqualified approval. But she didn’t seem to appreciate that at great trouble and expense I was about to defend my country and a lot of principles and people, among them Helen Haddo herself. Her refusal to get dewy-eyed about my patriotism was a bit of a damper.

  ‘At least,’ I said flatly, ‘we’ll all be in it.’

  She sighed. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And then some fool of a general will push you into the front line and, before we know where we are, everybody who’s worth anything in this stupid silly city will be killed and only the dreary odds and ends will be left.’

  She looked surprisingly near to tears and more vulnerable than I ever remembered her.

  I put one hand over hers where it rested on the car door.

  ‘Oh, well,’ I said. ‘A short life and a merry one. It won’t be all that bad. There’ll be leave before then.’

  Her head came up and the helplessness vanished in a flash, and she was at once the old Helen again, self-assured, confident and capable, and ready for a joust.

  ‘And I expect we’ll all be expected to drop everything at once and come running with true feminine humility just because you’re all soldiers and arrogant with martial ardour?’

  She was a firm believer in the suffragettes and women’s franchise and that sort of thing, and always liked to get her little dig in about the equality of the sexes, but I sidestepped and tried to get her smiling again.

  ‘Not me,’ I said hurriedly. ‘I’m not arrogant. I’m much shyer than I look and I haven’t a single opinion on anything at all.’

  She laughed, and her manner immediately became more gentle again. She knew she could twist me round her little finger and she enjoyed it because she was young.

  ‘If they let us off the chain,’ I said, ‘can I call round and see you?’

  She laughed. ‘I don’t suppose so,’ she said.

  ‘Oh!’ I felt my face fall. ‘Why not? Frank Mason?’

  ‘No such luck. He’s chasing Molly Miles at the office. It’s just that I shan’t be here. That’s all. I’m going to be a little busy myself.’

  ‘What doing?’

  ‘I’m going to find a job.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Why not? There’s a war on. There’ll be an unholy row at home when Father gets to know about it, but I expect I’ll get away with it in the end.’

  The engine fired as Locky swung the crank handle and she started to jiggle faintly in her seat with the vibration. She put up her hand to hold on her hat, a wide affair of straw and ribbon.

  ‘Damn this potty headgear,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go into the works as a labourer and wear a flat cap. This is a time of emancipation, and flat caps are a symbol of it. Perhaps I can learn shorthand or typing. There’ll be plenty of jobs flying about. I think I’ll go and make screws or battleships or something.’

  Her manner was vigorous, but she suddenly melted again and became mischievous and tormenting. ‘Just think,’ she said, her eyes alight with laughter. ‘How wonderful it’ll be! When you’re earning a bob a day, and I’m driving a bus, I’ll be able to ask if I can take you out. If anything leads to equality, that ought.’

  She stared at me, smiling all over her face, then suddenly her smile died again and she became more serious. She studied me with her head on one side, her eyes thoughtful. ‘You know, Fen, dear,’ she said. ‘I think you’ll make a jolly good soldier.’

  I could see my reflection in the polished brass of the headlamps. Compared with Locky’s or Frank Mason’s, mine seemed an unprepossessing face, with ordinary-looking hair.

  My clothes, too, had the sort of ordinariness that went with me – an ordinary grey suit and an ordinary stiff collar that seemed stodgy and unimaginative by comparison with Mason’s soft shirt and spats. He had the air of a brisk young business man on holiday. I always managed to look exactly what I was – a reporter on a provincial daily.

  ‘Not me,’ I said. ‘Frank’s more the type.’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t you believe it, Fen,’ she said. ‘It isn’t the Frank Masons of this world who’ll save civilisation. The Masons lead charges of Ligh
t Brigades. But Light Brigades don’t win wars. It’s hanging on that wins wars and I know no one more fitted out by nature for hanging on than Mark Martin Fenner.’ She leaned out of the car and her face seemed kinder than I ever remembered it. ‘Nobody’ll budge you, if you don’t want them to,’ she said. ‘I know they won’t. I’ve tried myself.’

  I felt light-headed and a hell of a fellow for a moment, then she gave me a little push that quite destroyed the moment. ‘Now go and play at being soldiers,’ she said curtly. ‘Looking round at you all, I think I’ll marry a stockbroker.’

  I felt a bit of a fool when I arrived home that afternoon. I’d thought I was already a warrior when I’d said goodbye to Mrs Julius and marched off in the morning, but now here I was back again, wondering how to face her.

  I remembered that I’d thrown away the food she’d given me, and was just debating what to tell her if she asked about it when I saw her sitting in the hall, one elbow on the bamboo stand, her hair among the leaves of the aspidistra she polished so lovingly every morning and put out on the pavement every time it rained. I hadn’t much affection for her. I’d always felt she overcharged and underfed me. But she’d been crying, poking her handkerchief up under her spectacles to wipe her eyes, and her old embittered face was crumpled and miserable.

  ‘Willie’s gone to France,’ she announced as I appeared in the doorway.

  ‘To France? Already?’ They didn’t seem to be wasting much time, I thought.

  She waved a letter at me. ‘It just come,’ she said. ‘He posted it before they left. He’ll be there now. What’ll happen to him?’

  I tried to reassure her, but I wasn’t very successful.

  ‘Nothing, Mrs Julius,’ I said. ‘He’ll be alright. He’s trained. He knows how to march and drill, and I suppose he knows how to shoot. Anyway, it’ll all be over by Christmas. Everybody says so. He’ll never even get to the front.’

  She didn’t seem to hear me. ‘He says he wanted to go,’ she said. Her face was a picture of moist bewilderment. ‘He wanted to go!’

  ‘He’s not the only one,’ I said.