by Alec Waugh
Gordon went down and saw him off by the five-forty-five.
“My word! I envy you, Mansell,” he said.
“I shouldn’t. I often wish I was back again in the House. All those old days with Claremont and Trundle, the footer; and all that. We had a darned fine time. Make the most of it while you’ve got it.”
As Gordon walked back alone, he had the unpleasant feeling that the best was over, that the days of ragging, of footer, of Claremont, of Trundle had gone beyond recall. The friends of his first term, Hunter, Lovelace, Mansell, they had all gone, scattered to the winds. He alone remained, and with a sudden pain he wondered whether he had not outlived his day, whether, like Tithonus, he was not taking more than he had been meant to take. But then, as he walked through the small gateway, and majestically wandered up the Chief’s drive, he reflected that, even if his splendour was a lonely one, without the laughter and comradeship he could have wished for, yet it was none the less a splendour. He must hold on. As Mansell had said, he must make the best of it while he had it.
A small boy came up nervously.
“Please, Caruthers, may I have leave off games for a week? I have had a bad foot.”
“Did Matron say so?”
“Oh yes.”
“All right, then.”
He walked up the stairs to his study, smiling to himself. What had he been fretting himself about? He had his power. He had the things he had wanted.
“Is it not brave to be a king?
Is it not passing brave to be a king
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?”
Marlowe had been right, Marlowe with the pagan soul that loved material things, glitter and splendour, crowns and roses, red lips and gleaming arms.
“A god is not so glorious as a king. . .
To ask and have command, and be obeyed”
And there was no doubt he was a king. He must make the best of his kingdom while he held it.
Chapter II
Setting Stars
The same atmosphere of monotonous depression that overhung football soon began to affect the military side of school life as well. At first there had been the spur of novelty. The substitution of platoon drill for the old company routine and the frequent field days led to keenness. But even the most energetic get weary of doing exactly the same thing three times a week. There are only three different formations in platoon drill, which anyone can learn in half-an-hour; and the days were long past when Gordon’s extraordinary commands would form his platoon into an impossible rabble that could only be extricated by the ungrammatical but effective command that School House section commanders had used from the first day of militarism: “As you did ought.”
Those days were over. No mistakes. For thirty-five minutes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday the School House platoon would move round the courts in lifeless and perfect formation. And by now the School had begun to suspect that the field days were conducted mainly to satisfy Rogers’s inordinate conceit. His house had always the advantage. The limit of endurance was reached one day early in November, when Rogers took his house out to defend Babylon Hill against the rest of the corps.
The attack was really rather brilliant. Babylon Hill overlooks the country for miles. There was a splendid field of fire. It was a boiling hot day. Rogers’s men lay happily on the hill firing spasmodically at khaki figures crawling up the long valley. Their position seemed impregnable.
Early in the proceedings, however, Ferrers, who was conducting the attack, sent Betteridge with the School House platoon on an enormous detour to bring in a flank attack. If successful the School House platoon would be quite sufficient to wipe out the defence, and Rogers would never notice their loss, as they were sent off at a moment when the attack was crossing some dead ground.
Forlorn hopes occasionally come off, and, by a fluke, at the very moment when the attack surged over the crest of the hill, Betteridge’s exhausted platoon, with shouts and cheers, burst into Rogers’s flank. There was not the slightest doubt that the defence had been cut to pieces.
For a minute or two Rogers looked perplexed at the sea of enemies. Then with customary urbanity he told Ferrers to form up his men and seat them on the ground, while he gave his impression of the day’s work.
“I think the attack was quite satisfactory. Of course, it stood little chance against the well-organised defence for which I myself was in a way responsible. I believe most of the forces would have been destroyed coming up the hill. But I think the day had a good effect on the morale of the troops. Now morale—” He enlarged on the qualities of morale and discipline for about ten minutes, and concluded with the following courteous reference to the School House flanking movement:—
“I could not clearly discern what those persons were doing who came up on my left. They would have been entirely wiped out. I considered it somewhat foolish.”
A contemptuous titter broke from the School House platoon, in which amusement and annoyance were equally mixed.
“What is the good of trying at all?” said Gordon at tea that night. “There were we, sweating over ploughed fields, banging through fences, racing up beastly paths, and then that mouthing prelate says ‘rather silly’! What’s the use of trying?”
“There is none,” said Betteridge. “I am going to conduct this platoon in future on different lines. ‘Evil be thou my good,’ as the lad Milton said. We will be unorthodox, original and rebellious.”
A few days later, Gordon and Rudd saw displayed in a boot-shop window a wondrous collection of coloured silk shoe-laces.
“Does anyone really wear those things?” said Gordon.
“I suppose so, or they wouldn’t show them.”
“They are certainly amazing.”
They stood looking at them as one would at a heathen god. Then suddenly Gordon clutched Rudd’s sleeve.
“A notion! My word, a notion! Let’s buy some pairs and wear them at platoon drill tomorrow.”
Gordon was about to burst in to the shop when Rudd detained him.
“Steady, man, this is a great idea. Let’s buy enough for the whole platoon. It will be a gorgeous sight! Let’s fetch Betteridge.”
Flinging prefectorial dignity to the winds, they rushed down to the studies.
“Betteridge, you’ve got to let us draw upon the House funds for a good cause.”
They poured out the idea. Betteridge was enthusiastic. For six shillings they bought forty pairs of coloured laces.
At twelve-thirty next morning a huge crowd lined up under the lindens to watch the School House parade. Rumour had flown round.
It was a noble spectacle. Each section wore a different coloured shoe-lace. Gordon’s wore pale blue, Rudd’s pink, Foster’s green, and Collin’s orange. Everyone was shaking with laughter. Betteridge formed the platoon up in line facing the School House dormitories; sooner or later Rogers would pass by on his way from the common room. At last he was sighted turning the corner of the Chief’s drive. Half the school had assembled by the gates.
“Private Morgan,” shouted Betteridge, “fall out and do up your shoe-lace.
“Remainder—present ARMS!”
Rogers was far too self-satisfied and certain of his own importance to see that the demonstration was meant for him. But the school saw it, and so did certain members of the staff, who made everything quite clear to Rogers that afternoon. Finally, the Chief learnt of the affair. Betteridge got a lecture on military discipline and on prefectorial dignity But a good many of the younger masters thoroughly enjoyed the rag, and the story of the coloured shoe-laces is still recounted in common room, when Rogers has made himself unusually tedious about his own virtues and his cleverness in scoring off his enemies.
Chapter III
Romance
The Tonford match was a sad travesty of Fernhurst football. The school lost by over forty points. Gordon got his “Seconds,” in company with nearly the entire Fifteen. He was not very elated. These things had lost their value. Still, it was as
well to have them.
The school authorities then came to the conclusion that the expense of travelling was too great during war-time, and the Dulbridge match was scratched.
The Fifteen continued to play uppers. There was nothing to train for. There was no chance of there being any matches, but the same routine went on.
It was in this period of depression that Gordon began to take an interest in Morcombe.
Morcombe was considerably Gordon’s junior; not so much in years—there was, as a matter of fact, only a few months between them—as in position. Morcombe had come late; had made little mark at either footer or cricket; and had drifted into the Army class, where, owing to private tuition and extra hours, he found himself somewhat “out of it” in the House. In hall he used to sit at the top of the day-room table.
Gordon very rarely took hall. He generally managed to find someone to assume the duty for him; but one day everyone seemed engaged on some pursuit or other, so with every anticipation of a dull evening he went down to hall. He began to read Shelley but the surroundings were unpropitious. All about him sat huddled fragments of humanity scratching half-baked ideas with crossed nibs into dog-eared notebooks. There was a general air of unrest. Gordon tried Sinister Street, some of the episodes in Lepard Street were more in harmony with his feelings, but there was in Compton Mackenzie’s prose a Keats-like perfection of phrase which seemed almost as much out of place as Adonais. As a last resort he began to talk to the two boys nearest him, Bray and Morcombe. Bray always amused him; his whole outlook on life was so exactly like his footer. But for once Gordon found him dull. Morcombe was so much more interesting.
In second hall that evening Gordon discovered from a House list that Morcombe was in the Army class. He consulted Foster on the subject.
“Know anything about a lad called Morcombe?”
“Yes; he is in the Army class. Rather a fool. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. I was talking to him in hall tonight. He didn’t seem so bad.”
“Perhaps he isn’t. I haven’t taken much interest in him.”
“I see.”
Gordon returned to his book. Five minutes later he began again.
“Is Morcombe fairly high in form?”
“Not very. Why this sudden interest?”
“Nothing.”
Foster looked at him for a second, then burst out laughing.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” said Gordon.
“Oh, nothing.”
Gordon looked fierce, and returned once more to the history of Michael Fane.
Two nights later Gordon came into his study to find Morcombe sitting with Foster, preparing some con.
“Hope you don’t mind me bringing this lad in,” said Foster, “I am in great difficulties with some con.”
Gordon grunted, and proceeded to bury himself in The Pot of Basil.
“I say, Caruthers,” broke in Foster. “You might help us with this Vergil? It’s got us licked. Here you are: look, ‘Fortunate Senex—”’
Gordon went through the familiar passage with comparative ease.
“There now, you see,” said Foster, “there’s some use in these Sixth Form slackers after all. By the way, what did you think of Claremont’s sermon last night?”
Conversation flowed easily. Morcombe was quick, and, at times, amusing. Gordon unaccountably found himself trying to appear at his best.
“You know,” he was saying, “I do get so sick of these masters who go about with the theory of ‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’ and in war-time, too! With all these men falling, and no advance being made from day to day.”
“Yes,” said Morcombe; “I agree with the ‘much good, but much less good than ill’ philosophy.”
Gordon was surprised out of himself.
“I shouldn’t have thought you had read the Shropshire Lad”
“We are not all Philistines, you know.”
Thus began a friendship entirely different from any Gordon had known before. He did not know what his real sentiments were; he did not even attempt to analyse them. He only knew that when he was with Morcombe he was indescribably happy. There was something in him so natural, so unaffected, so sensitive to beauty. After this Morcombe came up to Gordon’s study nearly every evening, and usually Foster left them alone together, and went off in search of Collins.
Indeed this friendship, coupled with his admiration for Ferrers, was all that kept Gordon from wild excesses during the dark December days and the drear opening weeks of the Easter term. During the long morning hours, when Gordon was supposed to be reading history, more than once there came over him a wish to plunge himself into the feverish waters of pleasure, and forget for a while the doubts and disappointments that overhung everything in his life. At times he would sit in the big window-seat, when the school was changing class-rooms, and as he saw the sea of faces of those, some big, some small, who had drifted with the stream, and had soon forgotten early resolutions and principles in the conveniently broadminded atmosphere of a certain side of Public School life, he realised how easily he could slip into that life and be engulfed. No one would mind; his position would be the same; no one would think worse of him. Unless, of course, he was caught. Then probably everyone would turn round upon him; that was the one unforgivable sin—to be found out. But it was rarely that anyone was caught; and the descent was so easy. In his excitement he might perhaps forget a little.
And then, perhaps, Ferrers would come rushing up to his study, aglow with health and clean, fresh existence. And he would talk of books and poetry, and life and systems, and Gordon would realise the ugliness of his own misgivings when set beside the noble idealism of art. Ferrers was not a preacher; he never lectured anyone. He believed in setting boys high ideals. “We needs must love the highest when we see it.” And during these months his influence on Gordon was tremendous.
Then, when the long evenings came, with Morcombe sitting in the games study, his face flushed with the glow of the leaping fire, talking of Keats and Shelley, himself a poem, Gordon used to wonder how he could ever have wished to dabble in ugly things, out of his cowardice to face the truth. Those evenings were, in fact, the brightest of his Fernhurst days; their happiness was unsubstantial, inexplicable, incomprehensible, but none the less a real happiness.
They vanished, however; and the day would begin again, with the lonely hours of morning school, when Gordon realised once more the emptiness of his position, and how hopelessly he had failed to do any of the things he had set out to do.
* * * * *
The state of affairs was summed up by Archie Fletcher in the last week of the Christmas term.
“This place is simply ghastly, all the best fellows have gone,” he said. “Next term we shall have Rudd head of the House. All the young masters have gone, and we are left with fossils, fretting because they are too old to fight, and making our lives unbearable because we are too young. As soon as I am old enough I mean to go and fight; but I can’t stick the way these masters croak away about the trenches all day long. If you play badly at rugger you are asked what use you will be in a regiment. If your French prose is full of howlers, you are told that slackers aren’t wanted in the trenches. Damn it all, we know that all these O.F.’s who are now fighting in France slacked at work and cribbed; and they weren’t all in the Fifteen. And splendid men they are, too. Fernhurst isn’t what it was. Last term we had a top-hole set of chaps, and I loved Fernhurst, but I am not going to stick here now. I am going back home till I am eighteen. Then I’ll go and fight. This is no place for me.”
It was the requiem of all “the old dreams”; and Gordon knew it for his own as well.
During the Christmas holidays Gordon tried to forget as far as possible Fernhurst, and all that Fernhurst stood for. More and more he found himself turning for consolation to the poets; but now it was to different poets that he turned. The battle-cry of Byron, the rebel flag of Swinburne lost their hold over him. He himself was s
o entangled in strife that he wanted soothing companions. In the poetry of Ernest Dowson he read something of his own failure to realise the things he had hoped for. Endymion, rolling like a stream through valleys and wooden plains, carried him outside the hoarse babble of voices; Comus lulled him into a temporary security with its abundance of perfect imagery. He discovered The Poetry Bookshop in Devonshire Street and went there for the evening readings. There was a perfect serenity in the small room at the top of the wooden stairs, with the dark blue curtains, the intent faces, the dim, shaded lights, the low voice reading. He wished that thus, in some monastic retreat, he might spend his whole life in a world of dreams and illusions. But he realised that the hold of life was too strong on him. At the same time he loved and hated the blare of trumpets, the stretching plain, the spears glimmering in the sun. He had sought for power and position; yet when they were won he despised them. The future was impenetrable. But he returned for the Easter term determined to do his duty by the House, however much he might disappoint himself.
On the very first day of the term “the Bull” called him up.
“You remember,” he began, “there was some talk last year about altering the conditions of the Three Cock. I think it would be much better in every way if we could come to some arrangement by which you should play against two houses instead of three. Conditions are so very changed. When the match was started you had ninety boys and each outhouse had thirty. Now you have under seventy and each outhouse over thirty-five. It is ten years now since you won, and it is a pity it is not more of a game. Your men can’t enjoy it, and I know mine don’t. What do you think?”
“I think we would all rather go on as we are at present, sir.”
“But don’t you see how hard it is for you ever to win?”
“Yes, sir; and it is also rather hard for us to accept charity.”
“Of course, I can’t force anything on you. It is a matter for you to decide. But it does seem a pity to make a match like the Three Cock a permanent farce, merely because you are too proud to see that you can’t take on the whole school. We’ll discuss the matter at the end of the term again.”
