by John Masters
Then we reached the cemetery and formed up, and there were more speeches, mostly in French. My Navajo friend Chee kept muttering to me, what are they saying? I understood, when I could hear, but none of it was worth translating to him, until General Pershing spoke a few words by the tomb, then motioned a Quartermaster Corps colonel forward. I don’t know who he was, or why the general wanted him to say something; but what he said was the most eloquent speech any of us had ever heard or are likely to. He said, ‘Lafayette, nous voilà.’ That, I did translate for Chee …
28
Hedlington: Tuesday, July 31, 1917
Bob Stratton surveyed the vast filling shop with morose dissastisfaction. It had once been the main assembly shop of the Rowland Motor Car Company; now it was broken up into smaller rooms, and the overhead lineshafting had been replaced by lagged steam pipes … and everywhere there was the blue of women’s mob caps, their hair piled up invisible inside them. As usual some of the mob caps were green, or grey, or brown. It was against regulations, but what could you do with women? You could see a man’s cloth cap now and then, usually seen moving while the mob caps stayed in one place, for six of the ten men now employed in the factory, not counting himself, were supervisors or foremen.
He moved down the steps, his bowler hat set square and imposing on the top of his head, two pencils sticking up from the breast pocket of his blue suit, the watch chain and fob stretching across his belly, coat pockets bulging with a notebook, tape measure, rubber eraser, spectacle case with spectacles, handkerchief, some greased twine, pocket knife … Needn’t be carrying that lot now that he was manager, instead of plant foreman; but he wasn’t going to change his life’s habits now.
‘Good morning, Miss Alice,’ he said, lifting his bowler hat an inch off his head.
‘Good morning, Mr Stratton,’ Alice Rowland said, without looking up from her work.
Bob strolled slowly on. It was right strange having Mr Harry’s daughter working under him. Give him a funny feeling, like goose pimples, but she was a good worker, one of the best. Ought to be a section foreman, but she wouldn’t accept it. He hadn’t seen much of her face just now, but the last few months she’d been looking real pretty, and happy, even doing that job.
That job, he thought glumly – pour liquid amatol into shell cases, tuck in the exploder bag and nowadays the smoke bag too, and screw in the transit plug. Call that skill? He’d have a riot on his hands if he tried to make men do that sort of work. But women could do it … liked it … no skill, no need to think for yourself, just do the same thing over and over, carefully … be as careful at the end of an eight-hour shift as at the beginning.
‘Mr Stratton … May I have a word with you?’
He turned, sticking his thumbs into his lower waistcoat pockets. It was Miss Dawlish, the gawky forty-year-old spinster who was assistant foreman of the Reception Section. He said nothing. The fact that he had turned had shown that he was listening.
She said, ‘You remember that I spoke to you about some of the women wearing shoes with heels last month, Mr Stratton?’
He nodded. The whirr of trolley and barrow wheels, the tap of wooden hammers on the transit plugs, made her shout in a high squeak, though they were only four feet apart. She screeched, ‘I have warned them, two, three times since, but they ignore me. You will have to dismiss at least one of them, as an example.’
Bob looked at her with distaste. Upper class, sort of … father a bank manager, perhaps; what the working women called a miaow. Educated, of course … He said, ‘It’s your job to see that orders are obeyed.’ He turned again, hearing behind him her plaintive voice screech still higher, ‘But I have no authority to dismiss or fine them, Mr Stratton. I can not …’
The voice died away. Bob walked on. The place smelled foul, of amatol and women, instead of oil and hot steel … Woman there wearing a ring, two rings … that was forbidden. The foreman here should see to it … one there with short thick blonde curls sticking out from under her mob cap – forbidden, too, and it reminded him of what he’d seen as a child: looked like his mother’s bush. Ugly. Terrifying … Dr Deerfield had sent him two letters, said he was not cured, and he knew he was not; must have patience; please come back and resume your treatment. Treatment, bah? Call that treatment, lying on a couch and talking dirty about what you’d seen and smelled and touched and done when you were a kid, a baby, almost? In the second letter the doctor had even threatened to ‘report him’ … Who to? Mrs Harry was dead, God rest her soul, and she was the only one who could have done anything. The only other person who knew why he was going to Dr Deerfield was his own Jane, and she’d never go to the police. Oh, and Mary Gorse, Willum’s wife – she knew. And Violet, of course. But what could they do? If Mary opened her mouth, he’d sack Willum, and where else would he find a job these days? As for Violet … little slut, big breasts now, hair under her arms and down there, big arse, big cunt, big mouth – a woman.
The noon whistle blew, the women streamed down the aisles, took off overalls and caps in the changing rooms, picked up their lunch boxes, stepped over the CLEAN/DIRTY barrier and poured out into the factory’s sunlit little yard. Bob followed. The few men usually gathered in one particular corner of the yard, if it was not raining; mostly he himself ate in his office, but today he would join them and they’d be like a little island of rock, among all this shifting sand and water of the women. Drat them, what a row they made, chattering shrill and high, sitting on the ground, on piles of planks, oil drums, leaning against the wall, eating sandwiches, drinking lemonade, gesticulating. The smell of perfume was overpowering … couldn’t honestly say it really was strong, but that was the way it felt, to him.
Willum waved a large hand, ‘Come to eat with us, Mr Bob?’
Bob sat down next to him among the men and opened his box. ‘Surprised to see you turn up for work this morning, Willum,’ he said. ‘With Woolley playing down at the County ground.’
‘Only against the Chatham Dockyard, Mr Bob,’ Willum said disgustedly, ‘and Colin Blythe’s not playing. ’Sides, I can’t afford to lose a day’s wages – saving up to buy little Henrietta new shoes, I am. She’s a picture, she is, Mr Bob, wish you could see her.’
Bob grunted, as he opened his lunch box. Henrietta was his own daughter, by Violet Gorse, Willum’s twelve-year-old, now thirteen. None of these other men knew, and nor did Willum. Another baby had appeared in the house, and he’d accepted it, never wondering where it had come from.
The women were blossoming in the sun, the sound of female chirp and chatter growing louder.
‘Can’t hardly hear yerself think,’ Charlie Whitworth, on his left, muttered. Charlie was thirty-eight and if a woman could be found to do his job, off he’d go to the trenches. Bob knew he was making sure that none of the women in his section were learning anything in that direction.
After a time Willum Gorse said, ‘Good news from France, eh, Mr Bob?’
Bob grunted, ‘What news?’ He didn’t recall seeing anything special in the morning paper.
‘About the big attack near Ypres,’ Willum said, pronouncing it Eepray, as he’d learned from soldiers back on leave; although others called it Wipers.
Bob grunted again. A big attack didn’t mean a big success, still less good news, just longer lists of dead soldiers in the paper. Any moment one of them might be Fred, and then heaven knew how he’d calm Jane, with her already hurting so much with the arthritis and the rheumatism.
‘They wanted to make my Fletcher a corporal,’ Willum crowed. ‘He told us in a letter, but he said no.’
Bob grunted again. He didn’t know young Fletcher Gorse well, but from what he’d heard he was best at getting the girls on their backs. Still, it must take all sorts to run a war.
Jimmy Blaydon said, ‘You or your missus been to the H.U.S.L. shop, Mr Stratton? My missus says it’s wonderful – everything cheap, and beef and veg and fruit and fish all there too … lots of smart girls to serve you … everything wrapped up i
n a jiffy, in shiny yellow paper with H.U.S.L. on it in red …’
Bob grunted, ‘No.’ Jane had talked about going to the H.U.S.L. – it had been Paradine’s grocery shop before Hoggin bought Paradine out – but they’d never been. Ethel had, and liked it, said it was very convenient, but she thought the goods were poor quality; and that was enough for Jane. But he’d heard it was full all day, every day. When Ruth had married Hoggin he and Jane had thought it was a toss-up which of them – Ruth or Ethel, marrying that dago waiter – had done the worst for herself. Well, they’d been wrong about Hoggin, might as well admit it.
The whistle blew and the women trooped back into the factory. Bob went to his office and worked on indents and accounts with the secretary until four, when he made one more round of the shops, then got onto his bicycle and pedalled home to 85 Jervis Street. As he carried his bicycle up the front steps, the door opened and his daughter, Ethel, appeared. She’d worked in the factory for a time, the time when she was very depressed over Fagioletti divorcing her. But she’d stopped working two, three months ago, and stopped being depressed. Fagioletti might be in the Army in France – but he wasn’t in the clutches of that other woman. She was looking cheerful now, as she said, ‘Did you have a nice day, Father?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Same’s usual.’ Too many women, he almost added; but didn’t. He went into the back parlour. ‘Where’s Mother?’ he started to ask, then turned the question into a grunt. His wife was, as he well knew, in Bristol with her sister, who had been taken seriously ill and was expected to die at any moment. Jane had been away three days already.
Ethel said, ‘What would like for your tea, Father?’
He thought and said, ‘A bite of cold meat and bubble-and-squeak, if there’s any.’
‘Oh yes, we had cabbage and potatoes with our dinner and I know there’s plenty left over. I’ll make it.’
Bob went upstairs, washed, came down and waited till Ethel brought him his high tea with the meat, bubble-and-squeak, and a big pot of tea, finishing up with a slice of bread and butter and strawberry jam. That finished, he looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It read six o’clock. He rose heavily, wiped his mouth with the napkin and said, ‘I’ll go down to the shed and work on Victoria a bit – a couple of hours, likely. She’s nearly ready for another test.’
Ethel sprang to her feet, ‘Oh, just wait till I take these things down for Ivy to wash up, and I’ll come with you.’
Bob grunted and walked down the passage to the back door. He’d been to the shed a couple of times since Jane went to Bristol, and both times Ethel had insisted on coming down with him. She had no interest in machinery – never had had. So why was she so keen now? Had Jane told her to keep an eye on her father? Didn’t trust him, in spite of his promises that he’d never put the sign in the window again? Well, that he hadn’t … yet. But going down to the wasteland, and watching the girls play hopscotch, and giving one sixpence to take down her drawers – it wasn’t the same.
In the shed he set up the motor cycle on its test bed, and began his tests. Ethel arrived before he had started, and sat in the corner on a stool, knitting khaki socks – for whom, he wondered. They did not speak a word to each other. Bob ran the rubber exhaust extension out through its hole in the wall and started the machine, attaching it to the prony brake. His target was a torque of 32 foot-pounds at 3,500 revolutions per minute. This, translated into brake horsepower, came to 21.32 – theoretically enough to thrust the weight of Victoria, fuelled and ready, plus his own weight, in summer racing clothes, through the air and over the ground at 102 miles per hour.
The engine roared louder as he throttled up. It had no tachometer – couldn’t afford the weight – but Bob could estimate the engine revs very accurately. He was now close to 3,000.
He throttled up again. Better hurry, or the friction in the brake at the pulley would be enough to set the blocks on fire. He was hunched in the saddle, crouched forward over the handlebars as though he was in fact racing forward at a hundred miles an hour instead of rocking and roaring on the stand. 3,200 … the counterweights began to rise.
‘Father!’ His daughter’s voice was a shriek.
Bob throttled back. The counterweights sagged to the floor. He looked at Ethel. She was holding up her hand, shouting ‘Stop!’
He throttled all the way down until the engine sound was no more than a deep mutter in the little shed. Ethel said, ‘There’s a telegraph boy outside … Oh dear!’ She suddenly slipped off her stool, holding her hand to her heart – ‘Suppose it’s from the War Office …’
Bob said, ‘Only one way to find out.’ He went to the door and opened it. The telegraph boy handed him a pink envelope and a book – ‘Sign here, please sir.’
Bob said, ‘It’s for you, Ethel.’
‘Open it, Father,’ she whispered. ‘I couldn’t … It might be Niccolo…’
Bob opened the envelope with his thumb nail, found his glasses and put them on. He read aloud: ‘Take room for us Grosvenor Hotel Victoria Arriving late July 31 six days leave Nick Fagioletti Corporal.’
Ethel stood upright, her hands to her cheeks – ‘July 31 … when’s that?’
‘Today.’
‘Oh! Oh! He’s coming back … and he wants me!’
‘Don’t you have no shame, going back to that dago after what he did to you?’
‘He’s my husband,’ she said simply. ‘I always knew he’d come back, after he’d got tired of that woman.’
‘Your mother will be cross with you. She thinks Fagioletti’s treated you bad, and there’s other fish in the sea for you. It isn’t as if you had kids.’
She said, ‘We will now, Father. I know we will. He’s changed … he’s a corporal!’
‘Has been that for months, hasn’t he? In the officer’s mess, likely, because he’s a good waiter.’
She said, ‘I must go, Father … There’s a train at 7.43 I can catch easily. I’ll run up and pack a bag and then I’ll go down to the station on my bicycle. It has a carrier.’
She hurried out and away. Doesn’t worry about what I’m going to eat till Jane comes home, Bob thought, grumbling to himself. Leaves me alone in the house with that Ivy, who can only think of when she’ll be free to go to the cinema and see Mary Pickford.
He turned back to Victoria, but stopped with one hand on the handlebars. Jane in Bristol, Ethel on her way to London. Neither of them would be back for a few days. He’d take’ Victoria up to 3,500 revs tomorrow, or Sunday. Meantime…
He went out of the back gate, and headed for the wasteland where the children of the poorest played among the tin cans and broken bricks and ash and clinker refuse from coal fires.
Next day Bob left the factory at his usual time, bicycled home, ate his high tea, and at a few minutes past six went down to the shed, and set up Victoria; but, before doing that, he opened a drawer in his work bench and took out the picture of the Rowland Ruby, and stuck it in the window facing the lane at the back, the picture visible to the lane, the curtains drawn behind it.
He set up Victoria, connected up the prony brake, led the exhaust hose out through its hole, started the machine, and waited. The engine throbbed slowly and a little unevenly, until she was well warmed up. Then he climbed into the saddle, and began to open up the throttle. He had reached about 2,800 revs when he heard the knock on the door. He waited a moment, feeling a vein in his temple beginning to pound; then pushed the throttle lever closed. The engine’s roar died away, and he slid off, went to the door and opened it.
She was eleven, wearing a torn dress that had once been yellow, black cotton stockings with holes in them, and boy’s black shoes two sizes too big for her. Her face was smudged with ash … she was about five feet or five feet one, her face long and thin, the eyes alert and wide set, greenish, her hair long and brown and dirty, hanging to her shoulders on both sides. She’d been playing in the refuse yesterday and he’d told her he’d give her a shilling if she’d come to him, but make sure the pic
ture was in the window before she knocked. She had looked at him with those green eyes wide – she knew, damn her, they all knew – and nodded. Now she held out her hand – long hand, long fingers – ‘Gimme the bob, mister.’
He took a shilling from his trouser pocket and gave it to her, feeling his penis stiffen inside his trousers as he did so. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, as she took the coin and dropped it into a pocket at the side of the dress.
‘Ireenie,’ she said, and then, ‘My mother’s an ’ore.’
He said, ‘Lift up your dress, Irene.’ She looked him in the eye a moment, a half smile curling her thin lips, then slowly, lasciviously, raised the hem of the tattered skirt, up past her knees … above the top of the stockings … Bob’s breath came faster, one hand caressing his beard, the other fumbling at his fly buttons. The penis sprang out, fully erect, at the instant that the hem of her skirt revealed her plump mount of Venus, the deep dark slit plunging down between her closed thighs.
‘Here,’ he said thickly. He sat down on a stool and held out his hands. She came forward, step by step, the hem of the dress hovering just above the rounded top of her slit.
When she was close he put out one hand and touched it, sliding up and down. Not a hair, smooth, a little damp. He smelled his finger and gasped … just like that girl … near sixty years ago. He pulled her toward him but she held back, the strange smile on her face. ‘What you going to do, mister?’
He said, ‘Put it in … this.’ He held his penis, and thrust the knob toward her.
She said, ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that.’
‘Liar!’ he muttered between clenched teeth. He released his penis, found another shilling and gave it to her – ‘Now … you’ve done this before, haven’t you? Don’t lie to me.’
She laughed softly, her face six inches from his – ‘’Course I ’ave, mister. Wiv the boys, wen they got any money. With my dad, when mum’s got the rags on. Or he says ’e’s my dad, but mum ain’t sure.’
