A Fox Under My Cloak

by Henry Williamson

  He came to an area white with the unkilted bottoms of the sprawling dead. Among them, composed like a stone crusader on a tomb, lay little Kirk. He had made himself comfortable. His neck rested on his valise, arms folded on chest. Phillip knelt by him, and thought, as he stared at the pale, delicate face in repose that Kirk had arranged his own laying-out; for he was dead. Phillip sat beside him, to rest himself in the silence and immobility of the dead man; then, opening one of his breast pockets, to take letters and photographs, the first thing he felt was the pair of pince-nez spectacles which Kirk had been wearing when he had passed him the previous afternoon. Kirk must have given up hope when he put them there; for he could not see without his spectacles.

  When he had taken letters, a small Y.M.C.A. khaki Bible, and other possessions from the pockets—soon the usual battlefield thieves would begin their night-searches—he lifted Kirk’s cold hand, held it for a moment, whispered goodbye; and rising, walked back to the road marked on the sullen plain by a long line of slow movement, turning wheels and tramp of feet stretching away to the far horizon of mist and smoke and massive pyramids.

  *

  He got a lift back beside an ambulance driver. At Mazingarbe he thought it advisable to see the doctor. “Yes, yes, yes! My dear fellow, of course there are still wounded lying out. And maggots act as scavengers, removing putrid flesh,” said the doctor, cigarette smoke staining his ragged moustaches more yellow. “Don’t you worry about what canna’ be helped, laddie. Watch that heart of yours, and don’t concer-rn yoursel’ with what canna’ be helped! The wor-rld has gone mad, quite mad, young fellow!” He held out a packet of yellow perils. “I’ve been working fifteen hours at a stretch. How about a game of bridge tonight? Well, come an’ join us if ye feel like it. Sixpence a hundred, that’s the limit,” he wheezed, lighting another cigarette from the stub of the one held between brown finger-tips.

  Chapter 26

  “TWINKLE” PROPOSES

  A NEW “Twinkle” greeted him in the billet, with spruced-up moustache cut to a stubble between rolled and horizontal waxed points, and an exaggerated mouthful of new false teeth. The top row was of gold, in contrast to the lower peg-like objects upon which, in the intervals of speaking, he appeared to be champing.

  “Breakin’ of ’m in, sir. I took this little ol’ lot off’v a Frog, in lieu of services rendered.” As he spoke, loose rivets in the gold teeth were jumping about. He gave two rapid champs, which caused a faint rattle. “The ol’ girl’s getting you some soup, sir; I expected you back last night, had a very nice ’ot-pot waiting, sir.”

  “I’m thirsty, give me some water.” He drank nearly a quart.

  “’Ere, have a swig o’ this, sir, I kep’ it for you.” From his kitbag “Twinkle” pulled a bottle of whisky, labelled White Horse. Phillip drank from the bottle; and feeling better, said, “You look very smart tonight!”

  “Yes, sir, I’m a noo man, sir, now I got me noo snappers.”

  “Have you seen anything of the special detachment?”

  “The ’ole lot’s gone back to Helfaut, sir. The major sent for you, sir, then ’e came ’isself, sir, and I told ’im you got the gas bad, and was out for a breath o’ fresh air. Now drink your soup before the scum forms on it, sir.”

  “Don’t you belong to them?”

  “No, sir. I stayed to look after you, sir.”

  “But, my dear chap——”

  “That’s right, sir. I know what you’re thinkin’. ’Ere today and gone tomorrow, that’s ‘Twinkle’. But you’d be wrong, sir. I’d be pleased if you could take me with you wherever you goes, sir. Put me on the strenghth, like. Now, sir, you look proper done-in, sir, if you’ll pardon the remark. I don’t suppose you ’ad no kip last night?”

  “God’s teeth, it’s a muck up, this whole attack, ‘Twinkle!’ No water! No cookers! No rations! Nobody knows where anybody else is! And Christ Almighty, the casualties! Thousands and thousands of our chaps lying everywhere, at least ten killed for every one German. I went over with my old lot this morning, but God knows what happened, I was with them one moment, and then I was going on practically alone, so I lay down among some other lot, all mixed up, until a cease-fire.”

  He put the bottle to his mouth, and drank till he choked; then sat down, and after coughing and spluttering, with loose lips finished his account to the old man, ending with the Irish Guards officer lashing out with his whip; then sighed deeply, feeling sick.

  “Them Micks always was a quarrelsome lot, a-roarin’ and a-bawlin’,” mused the servant. “Why, in the boosers of Aldershot and Caterham they was allus the first to up-end their beer-mugs soon as they see a Bill Brown or a Lilywhite come in for a wet. Then up goes the ’ole balloon, belts off, buckles whizzing, fists bashing, boots stampin’ on faces. My word, sir, they was wild boys, them Micks. Them horse marines in Union Street Plymouth was never near ’em for a real rough ’ouse. The wild geese, they calls ’em, but they’re more like wild wolves in my opinion. The Micks loves scrappin’ for its own sake. I’ll tell you what I seed once in Kingstown Docks, in Dublin, First, let me fill your plate with soup, sir—very ’ealth-giving.”

  Phillip was very sleepy; and regarding him, the old soldier said, “My best respects, sir,” then carefully inserting the bottle of White Horse between his loose gold teeth, drank; and after lip-smackings accompanied by a rattling of miniature rivets, went on with his story about Kingstown Docks.

  “I were on sentry go, and I seed a bloke on a tug-boat pickin’ up with a boat-’ook a familiar object all the world over, sir, what floated by out of the sewer. This one ’ad a baby’s ’and on the end, and when ’e fished it out, it was ’alf filled with water, so for devilment ’e slung it at a bloke rowing acrost the ’arbour ’oo was a little tich. This object, sir, if you’ll pardon the mentioning of it–

  “Go on, go on, I wasn’t born yesterday——”

  “Thank you, sir,” promptly replied the servant, taking the opportunity to take another swig at the bottle. “Yum-yum!” Again the little percussive noises, then—“Well, sir, this object, without a word of a lie, catches the little tich full in the face, and seeing what it was, ’e let out a lot o’ wicked words and made for the tug, rowin’ like billio. I were on dock sentry, so I seed it all. The big bloke run off when the boat come alongside, pretendin’ it were a joke, but the little tich went arter ’im, but couldn’t catch ’im before the big bloke what chucked the letter ’ad shut ’isself in ’is ’ouse. The little tich come back blindin’, and said ’e’d get the big bloke one day. ’Alf a mo’, sir, I’ll get the ’otpot. Nah don’t go to sleep yet, sir, I ain’t finished the story.”

  “Very amusing. I was wondering why the baby’s hand, as a matter o’ fact.”

  “The women likes it, sir, fascinates ’em, sir. ’Tes nature, in a manner o’ speaking, though it’s agin’ nature, if you understand my meaning——”

  “Quite! Quite! What happened—did the two meet again?”

  “Eat your ’otpot, no heel-taps now! You bet your life they did, sir. In Rufferty’s it was, sir, a booser. The tug-boat bloke ’ad been boasting what ’e’d do to the little tich when he see’d ’im; and one night he was leaning on the bar, talking big about ’ow ’e’d turn ’is empty glass down when ’e saw ’im—that’s a free-for-all challenge, sir—when in comes the little bloke. ‘Good evening, all’, he says pleasant like to the customers. ‘Nice night for a wet—even for those ’oo are wet enough by themselves already, the big streaks o’ piss in a gaspipe an’ all.’ At this the big bloke turned down ’is glass, bottom up on the counter. The little tich ignores ’im. ‘Pint a porter, please, miss,’ he sings out, putting down ’is tuppence. ’Ee were just about to pick up the wallop, when the big bloke taps ’im on the shoulder, then reaches out and grabs the wallop and knocks it back. Then, all in silence, ’e puts the empty glass down.

  “The little bloke still takes no notice, but says cheerful as anyfink, ‘Pint o’ porter please, miss,’ and puts down
two more coppers. Then he turns to the big bloke and says, ‘If you drink that one I won’t say what’s coming to you,’ but the big bloke reaches over again and grabs the glass, throws back ’is ’ead an’ drinks the wallop, and is just on the point of turning the glass to the verticle from the ’orizontal, sir, when the little bloke swings an upper-cut what catches the bottom o’ the glass acrost. ’is knuckles.”

  The storyteller paused dramatically; the dental orchestra played a few bars. “It took sixteen stitches to sew up the tugman’s big marf! The little tich,” he concluded, “was the ex-lightweight champion o’ the Royal Navy!”

  “Wonderful yarn, wonderful. I could see it as you told it. Now I think I’ll have a bit of old-man shut-eye. Oh, hell, I suppose I’ll have to go back to the infantry now.”

  “You go sick, sir. You got the gas. Affects the ’eart, sir. They can’t rumble it, sir. And if you chews some cordite, they can’t find it aht, neither. This war’s a bad ’un, sir, mark my words. I sin ’em all.”

  “What about you?”

  “You put me on the strenghth, sir, and you can take me wi’ you into ’orspital, and we’ll get back to Blighty pronto. You can put me on the strenghth, sir, or tell ’em I come out wi’ you, private like, your valet, sir. I’m a time-expired man.”

  “You are? Since when?”

  “Any day I like, sir. You see, I ain’t on no strenghth.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I managed it, sir, like.”

  “But what about your pay?”

  “I managed that, too, sir.”

  “But if you aren’t on the strength of any unit, how did you manage to come out here?”

  “Cookhouse wallah, sir. Nothin’ in it, sir. You’ve got to ’ave the experience, of course.”

  “What experience, my boy?” Phillip felt O’Connor on his face, and his voice took on a slight Irish brogue.

  “Dry firewood, sir. You appears with a noo lot puttin’ up tents, an’ goes to the cookhouse with a harmful o’ good dry firewood, sir, an’ start makin’ a fire. Then you carries on. ‘We’re in, Meredith, we’re in!’ No-one knows ’oo is ’oo in a noo unit, sir.”

  “How did you manage about pay, if you weren’t officially on the strength?”

  “I turns up, sir, on pay-parade, an’ tells the orfficer the truth, that I ain’t bin given no pay-book, so ’e gives me one for interim, until the Pay Corps records come, which they don’t ’cause there ain’t none, an’ the dossier gets bigger an’ bigger, then we gits to France, an’ there the matter rests, as the Marine says to the Admiral’s quarter-deck when ’e were took short on sentry-go.”

  “So you’re not really in the army, then?”

  “Twinkle” drew himself up and glanced down at his ribbons. “What, me, sir, arter fifty year and more wi’out a single crime? Not this army, I grant you, sir, possibly. Anyhow,” he concluded inconsequentially, “an army marches on its belly, as little ol’ Boney said. They can’t touch me, sir, I ain’t signed no papers since ’ninety-nine, when I went back for the South African war. I don’t want to stay ’ere no more, sir. I want to pack up them thicks, an’ the ol’ major an’ mud-’ook, an’ see me old mother again, sir. I’m fed up, sir, that’s the truth, with everything aht ’ere.”

  “So you’ve got a crown and anchor board have you? You must be worth thousands of francs, ‘Twinkle’. Good luck to you, you deserve it!”

  “Look ’ere, sir, I wants to arst you a favour, sir. Will you put me on the strenghth, sir, an’ write a letter, sir, to me old mother, an’ let me put in some frog money? I can trust you, sir, can’t I? I want to ’elp the old woman, she’s on ’er last legs, sir. Ninety-two next birfday, an ’ad seventeen kids, only me left now, sir. She can change frog money in Lunnon, can’t she, sir?”

  “How much do you want to send, ‘Twinkle’?”

  “Tharsand-franc note, sir.”

  “I’ll tell you what. The exchange is about twenty-five francs to the pound, so if you like I’ll send the money to my bank, and ask them to send her the equivalent in forty pound notes.”

  “Blime, she’ll get boozed up when she gets forty jimmy o’ goblins by post, sir.”

  “Why not arrange for half quarterly payments? A bank would send them, if you deposited the money and gave instructions to that effect.”

  “I don’t trust no banks, sir, not since that there penny bank went bust.”

  “Well, I have a bank account, and trust it, any old how.”

  “Ah, you’re a gentleman, sir, and no bank wouldn’t put it acrost you, that’s why I ast your advice, sir.”

  Phillip thought of his father. “If you give me your mother’s name and address, ‘Twinkle’——”

  A look of hardness and cunning flitted over the old man’s face; then with his former manner he said, “Blime, the shock’d kill her! The most she ever ’ad was nine bob one week from the factory when we was all kids. Me dad was killed in the Crimea War when we was all very young, you see, sir.”

  The talk seemed aimless to Phillip, so he said, “Well, I’m going to sleep now.”

  He wondered where he had seen that hard cunning look before, as he went upstairs to his bare room. There, too tired to remove boots and tunic, he got into his sleeping-sack, to be lulled by the familiar double cracks of the sixty-pounders flashing away beyond the village. Soon he was asleep. He awoke once in the night, to see through the dirty little window panes what he thought of as the pale lilies of the dead—the flares rising along the distant Lens–La Bassée road from Hill 70 to Hulluch. Thank God that he could sleep, he said to himself as he pulled the camel-hair cloth closer round his neck.

  He lay in in the morning, aching all over, ruminating, depressed by the feeling that life had come to ruin, that all human hopes were vain. He thought of the men who had slept in the room before him, who had left their records upon the walls. Where were they now? Scrawled on the plaster walls were dates, initials, badges, all in purple pencil digging into the whitewash. There were sketches and inscriptions, including a cartoon of Bernard Shaw and Dr. Lyttleton, both of whom he knew vaguely from casual glances at The Daily Trident to be anti-British, and therefore rotters. They were hanging side-by-side from a gallows, with the text underneath Love your Enemies. Near them was a warning, Abandon hope, all ye who enter here, an idiot’s face grinning with the explanation, After six months in the R.W.F. There were verses.

  Gentlemen the Guards

  When the Brickfields they took

  The Germans slung their hook

  And left the Gentlemen in charge.

  Another hand was more poetical.

  A thousand suns I’ve seen above

  A thousand moons watched quiver

  But by sweet Thames my feet shall roam

  Ah nevermore, ah never!

  To which a critic had replied, Take more water with it, matey! There was a new inscription on one wall, he noticed. Was this an addition by “Twinkle”? The words read,

  The wages of sin and a soldier is death.

  Chapter 27

  CLIMAX

  AFTER a good breakfast of fried bacon and eggs, he decided to take sandwiches and full water-bottle, and watch the new attack from high ground. The Guards were going over sometime that day. Part of the battlefield could be overlooked from Maroc, a mining village just inside the old front line, “Twinkle” told him.

  Immediately in front of Maroc the right flank of the attack rested on two long, grass-grown spoil-heaps, the best part of a mile in length and forty feet high, extending into the German lines like two slugs side by side. This was the Double Crassier.

  “Now don’t be late tonight, and fret an old man’s heart, will you, sir? And pardon the liberty, sir, but you won’t forget to git me taken on the strenghth of your lot, will you, sir?”

  This unexpected tenderness delighted Phillip for a moment; then he felt that “Twinkle” was playing, with his pink and toothless gums (the gold riveted teeth had vanished) the part of a harml
ess old granddad: and as he looked at him again he thought that he detected hard cunning under the grinning.

  *

  Maroc was no good, too near the front line. There was the hole-in-the-wall “Twinkle” had spoken of, at the end of the village, but streams of machine-gun bullets and balls of black smoke dotting the roof-lines showed that it was under observation. So he returned to the Harrow road, now white with chalky mud, and thought to cross below the crest of the spur on which the old front line continued north until it descended slowly into the fold of ground in which lay Le Rutoire farm.

  He went on up the straight road, leaving it when whizz-bangs spirted a hundred yards in front, and threaded a way around shell-holes and over communication trenches, full of German dead, thinking that a solitary figure would not be fired at when there was so much fighting going on in front, on the rising ground beyond Loos and the tall Tower Bridge.

  He peered into a steel telephone-box in the German trench that had a bomb-buckled door, and a sniper lying dead inside it—he must have been a sniper, because his rifle was fitted with a telescopic sight. Phillip thought to take it as a souvenir; but the butt, on which half-a-dozen notches had been cut neatly, was split, so he left it, and went on his way—whither?—striding fast, clasping his thumb-stick, walking from nowhere to nowhere, urgently, his face strained, his blue eyes with their characteristic speculative look intensified: a man beginning to think for himself, maybe on the wrong lines—for what so far in his life, and the war that was an intensification of that life, could he have recognised as the right lines? Phillip was thinking of “Spectre” West: thought took the form of imitation. He could be as Westy!

  Bullets whistling overhead and falling with tired little buzzes in the grass all around were spent bullets, coming from all directions. A passing despatch-rider told him that the Germans were back in the Hohenzollern Redoubt, their old front line a mile or two north of Lone Tree. No wonder, the reserves being so late! The blasted, inefficient staff!