Love and the Loveless

by Henry Williamson

  “I remember she collapsed on the night of the Zeppelin raid. Is this the second time?”

  “There was another occasion, Phillip. Please do not say anything about it, will you, when you see Mrs. Neville? Mavis is so anxious that nobody outside the family will know.”

  *

  Lying back in his armchair, as of old in Mrs. Neville’s flat before the fire, he felt relief that his friend and confidante was the same as ever. He did not like to enquire about Desmond, but hoped she would speak of him. As for Mrs. Neville, she realised the change in Phillip. In the old days he used to tell her everything about his goings-on and the people he met, usually seeing the funny side of what, she knew, had hurt him at the time. But now he was reserved, and too quiet. What could have happened? She must try and find out, indirectly. Sooner or later it would come out, if she knew her Phillip! She began primly,

  “You are quite the soldier nowadays, I can see that, Phillip! Your mother has told me that you have over sixty horses and mules in your charge! And you had a day with the hounds! My word, you are coming on! Quite the gentleman! Not that I mean that you were not always one by birth, dear. How do you get on with your new captain?”

  “Quite well, I think. As a matter of fact, I came up with him to town yesterday, in his racing bus.”

  “What fun! Does he have a flat in Town?”

  “Well, in a way.” He kept his eyes lowered, and she thought, So that’s where he was last night! Well, as long as he’s careful, that won’t do him any harm. But, oh dear, could it be——?

  “An older man, if he’s the right sort, can help by setting a good tone. What is his name?”

  “Captain H’b’rt, Mrs. Neville. He was in the Yeomanry before the war.”

  “Is he married, dear?”

  “No, Mrs. Neville. He lives with his parents in Regent’s Park.”

  “That’s the best residential part of London, Mrs. Hudson always said. Such beautiful crescents! Didn’t the Nash Brothers design them? My, what a walk you must have had! Whatever made you leave in the middle of the night?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, we didn’t go to his home last night.”

  Oh dear, was this captain one of those, she wondered.

  “Don’t tell me if you’d rather not, Phillip. After all, you are grown up, and able to take care of yourself. Men with queer ways always have existed, of course——”

  “Oh, nothing like that about All Weather Jack, Mrs. Neville.”

  “Then it’s a woman!”

  “Well, in a way, yes.”

  “Ah——!”

  He told her about Sasha, starting seriously, but leaving out about her crippled husband, and ending the account as comedy. Soon they were quaking in their chairs.

  “You know, Mrs. Neville, I’m not being fair, really. You see, she lost her husband, then her son. Now she’s married a war cripple.”

  “Ah, I can understand her feelings! A woman is always a mother, you see, dear!”

  Tears filled the round grey eyes. “‘Come, dear lady, let us laugh, for we are for the dark’. Oh God yes, Shakespeare knew the laughter, and the tears, of the heart!” She sighed with pleasure-pain, happy that they were back on the old footing. Then her other self broke through, “As Mr. Hudson used to say, ‘Every woman is at heart a rake!’”

  He had heard her say that before; he was thinking, If only Mavis could die, she would cease to suffer.

  Responding to his subdued mood, she reassumed her former mien, and continued, “This Sasha sounds a true, brave woman. I’ve heard about Flossie Flowers, of course. She was quite a figure at Monte Carlo in my young days. Not that I was ever there! Oh yes, Flossie in her young days was one of the famous courtesans! I used to hear a lot about her from Mr. Hudson—he was in Fleet Street, you know. As for Flowers’ Hotel, well, I don’t know enough to say, Phillip.” Her voice became prim. “Desmond’s father, I believe, used to go there quite a lot.” Another sudden shriek of laughter. “And my son may be there before long, the way things are going!”

  “How is Desmond, Mrs. Neville?”

  “When I heard from him last, he was on Salisbury Plain, with the field gunners, you know. You haven’t heard from him, I suppose? No, I was afraid you wouldn’t. It will take time, Phillip.” She sighed. Again the shriek. “Or Sasha!” She sighed again. “Don’t mind my little fun, dear! Oh, what it is to be young!” She looked out of the window. “There’s Gran’pa and Aunt Marian trotting off down the road together! Usually your mother goes with them. Every Tuesday they get the midday tram to the Old Vic, you know—what a good thing it is that Mother has something outside her home to interest her! A woman needs to be taken out of her worries, you know, Phillip.” She saw that he was turning his signet ring. “Are you going to see Freddie? No, well, perhaps it’s just as well. That phase in your life is closed.” She paused in hesitation; then plunged. “What do you feel about Lily now, Phillip?”

  She watched him cover his eyes with a hand, and heaving herself out of her chair, went into the kitchen to put on a kettle, feeling that she was an idiot to have asked such a direct question. For, of course, Lily had worn his signet ring, and Dr Dashwood, coming from the hospital mortuary, had given it back to Phillip. Faithful to his memory of Lily! All the same, it would do him a world of good if he could find a really nice, experienced woman, artistic of course, who would help him to feel things a little less unhappily. He was too tense. Like his sister Mavis, poor girl, so sensitive and intelligent, but caught up in that narrow home! What Mavis wanted was a love affair, not a hole-and-corner business, which would mean only one end for the girl, but a nice, kind, older man, who would look after her—goodness, what was she thinking? Men were all roués, when they had the chance.

  All the same—what was it Mr. Hudson used to quote, at the Highgate Sunday afternoon salons? Something from William Blake, how did it go? ‘What is it every man and woman wants to find in the faces of others—the lineaments of gratified desire.’ She wished she could remember the quotation: but Phillip, with his young ideals, would not be able to understand it. Poor young things, all of them, caught up in the same dusty cobweb, where the ruins of an earlier generation were already lying. She wept a little, and then made the tea.

  Part Two

  ‘ALL WEATHER JACK’ HOBART

  Chapter 6

  ANCRE VALLEY

  Under arc lights they entrained at Grantham station, leaving at 9.30 p.m. Phillip shared a comfortable first-class carriage with “Darky” Fenwick. The train rolled south all through the night, and arrived at Southampton at 6 a.m. The company was embarked by 7 a.m., and anchored in the harbour until 3 p.m., when the transport steamed away. No saluting whistles and sirens as in 1914, no searchlights swinging upon the ship from points on the Solent shore. He was surprised and delighted that he felt no qualms when they met the Channel swell; it was a good voyage, ending at 2 a.m. at Le Havre. By 8 a.m. they were disembarked, and marching through cobbled streets amidst trams groaning against worn rails, to a Rest Camp—one of scores spreading into the country east of the town; and next morning, down again to the railway, to entrain for the front. After the usual all-night crawl, with many joltings and horn-tootings, they arrived at Ascheux at 2 p.m. Having assembled troops and transport, they took to the road, and halted at a village of cottages and barns of lime-washed pisé and thatch, rather like a Devon village, except that the roads were of grey mud, not red. There, soon after arrival, Captain Hobart had a letter delivered by an R.E. dispatch rider on a Triumph motorcycle, telling him that the company was attached to a brigade of the East Pennine division of second-line territorials which had recently arrived in the B.E.F.

  After the men had had a rest, tea was prepared; meanwhile Phillip led his animals to water before feeding. They drank at a long canvas trough beside the road, the mules as usual taking their time, during which another transport officer said to Phillip, “Bad luck, isn’t it, being shoved into this East Pennine lot? I hear they chucked away their rifles and
Lewis guns first time coming out of the trenches.”

  After watering, the drivers mounted each a mule, leading the off-side animal on the right of the road, and returned to the covered stables allotted to them. There a small man with prominent front teeth below a waxed moustache, and a blue band round his cap, was waiting. He peered at first one animal, then another. He wore a badgeless driver’s coat. Phillip thought he was some sort of Voluntary Ambulance Driver come to look on.

  “Nice beasts, these Jerusalem cuckoos,” he said, conversationally. “Most people are afraid of them. They won’t kick you.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “I hear we’re joining a rotten division, the second East Pennines.”

  “Is that so? Well, let me tell you that in the ‘rotten division’ your mules will be called mules when you address me in future! Moreover, they will be groomed before watering, so as not to interfere with feeding, which should take place immediately after watering!” retorted the visitor, sharply, in a North Country voice.

  By this time Phillip was wondering who he was. He did not like to take a closer look at the blue-banded hat, or the badge on the front, while the dark eyes above the waxed moustache were fixed so intently upon his own.

  “Furthermore, don’t you know that animals taken to water are not to be ridden, but led by drivers?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t. What do you represent, sir, the Dumb Friends’ League?”

  “Cheeky, eh? What, are you new to the army?”

  “Fairly new. I only joined the B.E.F. in September ’14.”

  “Well, Dumb Friends’ League or no, don’t let me catch you again lettin’ your drivers ride to watering! And watch your step, young man! I’m Major Pickles, A.D.V.S. of this ‘rotten division’.”

  “I’m very sorry, sir. I honestly had no idea who you were. Of course the ‘rotten division’ is rudeness on my part. I apologise, sir.”

  “Well, you’ll know next time, won’t you? And take my tip, young feller, don’t go about passing cheap judgments on matters you know nowt about!” With that he strode away, spurs clinking. When Phillip gave his C.O. an account of this, Hobart remarked, “A horse doctor, what? Yes, I think it’s best to be careful to whom one passes first impressions. We’ve all done it in our time——”

  “Yes, I certainly will, skipper.”

  The mess was in an empty cottage, on the door of which was painted in large white letters, 6 Officers. A table was missing; so were some of the upstairs floorboards, obviously taken for firewood. Pinnegar set two of the drivers, carpenters by trade, to knock up a table from some planks he had come across. It was built with collapsible legs for transporting. Planed and holystoned with a brick, it was a job well done. Jack Hobart produced seven folding canvas chairs—a present to the mess, he said. A fire of floorboards was lit in the grate, and while Jules, who had been a chef in a London hotel before joining up, cooked dinner, the C.O.’s batman laid the table, from the hitherto-unseen mess box. Luxury indeed! He spread a new white tablecloth with silver spoons, forks, and ivory-handled knives, all engraved with the Hobart crest. From another box came a wire-covered siphon with sparklets, a bottle of whiskey, glasses. Phillip sent his batman to get his gramophone, and while this was playing Chalk Farm to Camberwell Green, sung by Gertie Millar, Hobart told them to help themselves to drinks.

  After a meal of tasty rissoles made with bully beef and bacon chopped small and mixed with oatmeal and herbs, white bread, and red wine, followed by apple tart and coffee, Pinnegar spoke about future mess arrangements.

  “As mess president I’ll be able to buy extra grub at the Expeditionary Force Canteens. Also whiskey at three and six, or five francs, a bottle, for whoever wants it. I think it’ll be more satisfactory if we use our own bottles, marked by initials; and I propose a general rate of twenty francs per head per week for the extras. All agreed? Right, I’ll enter it in the Company War Diary.”

  Thus began Phillip’s fourth adventure in France. Having sold his camp-bed before leaving Belton, he slept in his valise on the floor.

  After two days’ rest, during which there were various inspections, including a visit from the white-haired G.O.C. Division, who had been through the Gallipoli campaign, they left for the line by way of a gentle valley to Engelbelmer, a village damaged by gunfire but with most of its church and trees standing; and leaving by a track, followed another slight hollow under two skylines to Martinsart, passing on the way many forsaken gun-pits from which howitzers had fired before and on July the First. Gas-gongs of 18-pounder brass shell-cases were still hanging from apple trees and lintels of sand-bagged shelters. Near one he saw a bell-tent standing, and a perforated fire-bucket. Inside the tent was a stretcher. In a couple of minutes the tent was down, pegs pulled up; pole, canvas, stretcher and bucket slung on a limber. The stretcher, with handles sawn off, would make a comfortable camp-bed.

  In a drizzle of rain, they passed through Martinsart; and following beside a rusty steam-tram-line along a valley, came to the village of Mesnil, amidst many old shell-holes fringed with sere grasses. There, in a barn near the shattered church, the transport put up the picket line.

  Two half-limbers had to go on at once with the company, which was relieving another company in a brigade in the line at Bois d’Hollande, a nasty place, at the apex of a salient east of Beaucourt. This village had been taken, with its garrison, a month previously, Hobart told Phillip, by the initiative of a wounded temporary colonel of the Naval Division, said to have been a dentist in New Zealand before the war, who had taken charge of the remnants of various battalions when the attack had been held up, re-organised the assault, and won the Victoria Cross.

  Phillip went with the limbers, riding Black Prince. The road lay beside the old railway line. After passing through another shattered village, he saw more clearly beyond the embankment the flooded marshes of the Ancre. Across the swamps, palely grey in moonlight filtering through the valley mists, was the dark mass of Thiepval wood and the skyline beyond which lay Ovillers and the ground over which his battalion, nearly half a year previously, had been cut to pieces by machine-gun fire. Guns flashing and sending up their spinning shells lit the charred trunks of branchless trees standing in water. The road was thick with mud. Flashes in the eastern sky before them were from German guns; shells droned down across the river, and burst with ruddy fans and crashes. Although they fell three hundred yards off he winced, and saliva came into his mouth. Troops coming out of the line shuffled past unspeaking. Machine-gun bullets whined and plopped into the marsh, at the end of their trajectories, he knew. There were many halts. The word came back that Station Road, in front, was being crumped.

  In rain the column moved on, halted, moved on again. He was wet and cold. A racket of machine-gun fire broke out in front, among a haze of distant flares. A red rocket soared up; the British guns behind and on either side—he knew they were eighteen-pounders—stabbed whitely, each flash recording a photograph around him. At last they halted at some ruins, where guides were waiting. This was Beaucourt, he learned. Guns, ammunition boxes, water cans, rations in sandbags were unloaded; a few whispered words with Hobart, the mules turned round in knee-deep mud, and quickened their pace on the way back. It was two o’clock when he reached the picket line, to find the tent erected; and looking in there, expecting to find his stretcher-bed set up, with his flea-bag, he saw in the light of his torch Sergeant Rivett lying on a ground-sheet, gently snoring. Closing the tent, he went to the picket where a smell instantly brought back a scene in the Brown Wood Line in 1914. The guard was crouching over the fire-bucket flickering with yellow flames of ration biscuits, a tin of which he had found in a cellar.

  “I haven’t seen biscuits burning like that since First Ypres. I see you’ve been out before,” said Phillip.

  “Yes, sir.” To Phillip’s delight, he learned that the man had been with the second battalion of the Gaultshires, at the first battle of Ypres. “Did you ever know Captain West?”

  �
��I did, sir. He was my company officer at Neuve Chapelle. He was hit just before me, sir.”

  “We must have a talk sometime! What’s your name? Well, Nolan, give the drivers a hand at unharnessing, will you?” He unsaddled Prince, and tied him next to the chestnut mare, the gelding’s usual neighbour on the rope.

  When the mules were tied up and their rugs fastened, and Prince also was rugged-up, he asked Nolan where the two drivers were to sleep.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Didn’t the sergeant tell you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Come with me,” said Phillip to the drivers, who wore their ground-sheets over their shoulders, against the rain. He led them to the tent. There he awakened the sergeant, who sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Where do Smith and Miller sleep, sergeant?”

  “Eh? Oh! It’s Mr. Maddison. I’ll get up right away, sir, and find a place for them.”

  “Isn’t there a place already allocated for them?”

  “No, sir. I understood that drivers usually make their own bivouacs of their ground-sheets.” The sergeant began to pull on his long driver’s boots.

  “Well, these men are tired. They’d better come in the tent.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Do you know where my servant Barrow is?”

  “I’ve no idea, sir.”

  Phillip turned away, and sought the picket. “Have you got your bivvy put up?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll relieve you.”

  “Very good, sir. Lewis comes on at three o’clock, sir.”

  He had felt contempt at Sergeant Rivett’s selfish, or unimaginative attitude; but brooding over the fire-pail, he thought that his unawakened selfishness came from being the only son of a widow’d mother. He had not yet broken out of the soft-shelled maternal egg. He himself had been like that, until he had had the raggings which had cracked his conceit, or self-conception; and later been lucky to meet men like “Spectre” West and Jasper Kingsman. He would speak quietly to the sergeant in the morning; but after sleeping under the tarpaulin covering the baled hay, where he crept at the suggestion of Lewis, the ex-gipsy and cold shoer, and waking fresh into daylight, he thought it best to say nothing further. Besides, he himself should have seen that all the men were properly housed, before he had gone up the line.