The Golden Virgin

by Henry Williamson

  “Cheer up,” said Bason, behind his hand, “still thinking of that girl who’s ‘too good for you’?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “All right, old sport, don’t get huffy. Frances told me all about it.”

  The introspective mood passed when other songs followed: the Cobbler’s Song from Chu Chin Chow, and others from Razzle Dazzle; and by the time they were over, he had revisited many more scenes of his secret life, with their array of swiftly-passing faces, longings, and regrets. Then he forgot himself and lived in the present, thinking of dear old faithful Eugene when the star-turn came on towards the end. This was the West End actor, now in the Kite Balloon branch of the R.F.C., who was famous before the war for his song Gilbert the Filbert. He sang it now—glass in eye, walking to and fro, so debonair with silver-topped cane, silk hat, morning coat and striped trousers with white spats—and brought down the house.

  I’m Gilbert the Filbert

  The K-nut with the K!

  The pride of Piccadilly

  The Blasé Roué!

  Oh Hades, the ladies

  Who leave their wooden huts,

  For Gilbert the Filbert,

  The Colonel of the K-nuts!

  After this someone at the back—it was Ray, it would be—started others to join in a parody, beginning

  I’m Charlotte, the Harlot

  The Queen of the Whores

  The curse of Piccadilly

  With——

  at which the man at the piano promptly played God Save the King, for some padres and staff-officers were in the front row. Among them, unknown to Phillip, was Father Aloysius, now a chaplain to one of the Irish battalions in the division.

  8th (Service) Bn. The Prince Regent’s Own Regt.

  B.E.F., France

  4 June, 1916

  Dear Lily,

  How are you getting on? I often think of our jaunt to Reynard’s Common and the Fish Ponds, and the reflections in the water. You are I hope well, and things have not been too bad for you with our mutual friend K. As you can see, I am out here again, and the old life at Freddy’s etc. seems already a far memory. I thought that my feelings for the countryside had gone for ever, but when you were with me, I felt them very much as in the old days. I mean the beauty and the wildness, the enchantment of so much colour and life and warmth of the sun. Most people are restless in the country, they feel a vacancy, and want to get back to the shops and pavements and traffic; what they call life. Sometimes the war seems to have come directly out of that restlessness. This is awkwardly expressed, and probably silly, but you may know what I am trying to say.

  Write to me if you have time. But only if you want to. I mean, if you find or know friends you are happy with, please don’t bother. I send in this letter a poppy and a marigold. They grow quite a lot out here, in this chalk country rather like the North Downs, but smoothed out, made larger, and so much more empty, if one forgets for the moment the vast swarming masses of troops, camps, convoys of lorries and guns and horse-transport for ever passing in a haze of dust.

  The last of the nightingales still sing. Late at night the notes seem to travel from afar, bird answering bird under the pale glow of the midnight sun in the north-west, the glimmer of the stars upon the chalk of our practice trenches, and the ghostly lines of tents wherein, for the moment, hopes are at peace. Sometimes the thought of the hundreds of thousands of our men out here is momentarily overpowering, when I think of so many individual lives, and what they are really thinking, and hoping. Sometimes I feel that I must know everything that everyone is doing and thinking. I have an idea that a stream of English thought runs through all our days—not like the Randiswell which is no longer a living brook—but like a brook which is crystal clear and pure, with fish in it, and lilies, and dragon-flies.

  Do you remember those lakes in the woods we saw together? The time I was there last, before we went together, was on the Saturday before August Bank Holiday. How far away it seems now, that time before the war! Yet it is always near me, sometimes seeming to pass right through the strange life one lives out here, an outward life, in a sense quite unreal. My cousin Willie’s roach pole is still in the rhododendrons where we hid it, by one of the lower lakes—we were coming back for it on the following Saturday. Somehow you seem to be part of the spirit of the Lake Woods: the trees so quiet, the water so cool, the lilies resting among their leaves, whereunder pass the red fins of the roach.

  I would like to go there with you again when and if I come back. Please tell no-one this, if you chance to meet any friends (or otherwise!) of mine. They might not understand. Well, I must get down to it now; I write by candlelight, and the three other subalterns sharing the tent are asleep. Write if you feel like it, but don’t tell anyone if you do, or that I have written to you. The reason for this, as I have said, is that some people might misunderstand. Mèfiez-vous, les oreilles ennemies vous ècoutent, as they write up in French railway carriages: Keep your own counsel, enemy ears are listening.

  Yours sincerely

  PHILLIP MADDISON

  Somewhere in France

  5 June, 1916

  Dear Polly

  How are you? As you can see, I am out again, this time it is do or die. For great things portend. I thought of you last night, at the divisional concert party, where were to be seen some most beautiful actresses, who sang some of the current London hits, Razzle Dazzle etc., How is your Father? Enjoying good health, I hope? And Grannie Thacker? And of course Aunt Liz, whose sausage rolls I shall never forget. How is Percy? I am sorry I have not been to see you lately, duty calls, etc. etc., but when I get some leave I will make amends. Ye olde mo-bike is laid up at ye olde Wetherley’s, he of ye olde long curling moustaches, in ye olde High Street of ye olde Borough. Do write if you have time and give me all your news. How is ye olde wood-pecker in ye olde room with ye olde tester bedde, is he still glinting i’th’ eye when ye candelle shineth on ye patchwork bedspread where of yore these my bones rested, so well cushioned on ye most soft and delightful dove-like sweetness of my dreams?

  Until we meet again, book-boo-roo-roo, as the ring dove croodles to his mate in the tali holly hedges of the village I remember so well in Gaultshire.

  With love to all,

  PHIL.

  British Expeditionary Force

  6 June. 1916

  Dear Mrs. Rolls

  I write this in my tent, where all is grey, from the marching hosts sending up the chalk dust of Picardy. I trust that all is well at Turret House, and that no cockchafers under monstrous cocoons have been droning across your skies of late. We are now well behind the front, and what can be seen here makes one realise how mighty is the strength of Albion when once it is aroused. Thousands of shunting trains heard at night from the Hill, from the district beyond Shooter’s Hill, have it would appear discharged their loads upon the rolling downlands where until recently all was pastoral peace and agricultural activity.

  There is a stream here where we bathe, to the unhappiness of various French fishermen, who now that the mayfly is up would prefer the solitude of human herons. This is understandable, although not to hordes in khaki who consider that Piscator, as Isaak Walton calls him, would be better equipped for present-day activities with a rifle and bayonet than with a green-heart rod. It does seem strange to be fishing amidst all this activity, until one considers that one was oneself about to go to Lynmouth for the very same purpose, until the threat to Verdun called for a counter-stroke, as the military writers say. I don’t think I would like to fish here, all the same; for it is not England, where my thoughts lie, as do those of most of us.

  Tomorrow we are leaving here, and will be marching nearer the sun. We had divisional sports today, including judging horses, vehicles, etc., a wonderful spectacle. Bands played, and the chains of our transport glittered so brightly that the French interpreter asked if they were nickel-plated. It is all quite different now from what it was when I was out before; leather straps and breechin
gs are saddle-soaped and spotless, waggons and limbers painted and oiled, even the horny feet of the horses are polished with ox-blood shoe polish! Ready for the triumphal march into Berlin, in fact. At least, that is the feeling here. For myself, I think it will not be such a cake-walk as the others seem to think; but at any rate the spirit is that of your favourite character in a book, as you once told me, Richard Coeur-de-Lion.

  I expect the green slopes of the Seven Fields will be echoing, during these long summer evenings, to the crack of Mr. Rolls’ rifle. This country is in places not unlike the landscape there, although it is more continuous, like a prolonged swell of the open Atlantic compared with an inland sea. France is less populated than England, Major Kingsman (a friend of mine from Hornchurch days) tells me, in relation to the rural areas. The French farmer has heavy grey Percheron horses to work with, and they go with his wooden sabots and imperturbable mien. I expect they will not be sorry to see the troops off their crops, especially as the corn has come into ear, and the wind-waves rush over the wide fields, carrying the butterflies in the hot sun and the swallows skimming high after gnats and other of the ephemeridae from the water meadows of the stream, which flows, under its green mail of water-weed, on its way to join the Somme, and the sea which washes the chalk cliffs of old England.

  It is past midnight, I must say, “Out brief candle!”, and turn in upon the floor of my tent. This day we march towards the unknown. Please will you give my kind regards and my best wishes to all for a fine summer. Shall you be going to the Isle of Wight this year, or will war-time restrictions prove too much to overcome? Salaam!

  Yours sincerely

  PHILLIP

  He felt suddenly tired after writing this letter, lost confidence, and tore it up.

  Chapter 14

  HAPPY BREED OF MEN

  They left camp and marched away in the afternoon, for the sun was approaching the solstice, and the light was long. The sun rose in the north-east and set upon the north-west; the roll of the earth from darkness into light was brief, so that the hues of sunset were scarcely gone down when the sky was in glow again with the transfiguring pallors of dawn.

  The soldiers sang as they marched in the shadows of the poplars enclosing the cobbled road.

  A German officer crossed the Rhine,

  Skiboo! Skiboo!

  A German officer crossed the Rhine,

  Out for to get him some women and wine,

  Ski-bumpity-bump skiboo!

  Oh landlord where is your daughter fair?

  Skiboo! Skiboo!

  Oh landlord where is your daughter fair,

  With lily-white breasts and golden hair!

  Ski-bumpity-bump skiboo!

  Oh yes, I have a daughter fair,

  Skiboo! Skiboo!

  With lily-white breasts and golden hair,

  Ski-bumpity-bump skiboo!

  But my daughter fair is much too young

  Skiboo! Skiboo!

  But my daughter fair is much too young

  To be pushed about by the son of a Hun

  Ski-bumpity-bump-skiboo!

  O father, O father, I’m not too young,

  Skiboo! Skiboo!

  I’ve been pushed about by the parsoris son,

  Ski-bumpity-bump-skiboo!

  It’s a hell of a song that we’ve just sung,

  Skiboo! Skiboo!

  It’s a hell of a song that we’ve just sung

  And the pusher that wrote it ought to be hung,

  Ski-bumpity-bump-skiboo!

  He thought of Lily, of her white throat and yellow hair, with a rasp of longing for her tenderness. What was she thinking, in the steamy rooms of Nett’s laundry, with its soapy water gushing into the Randisbourne below the arched bridge, bubbles riding away below the backs of houses and the garden of the Conservative Club with its weeping willow. The water was dead now. He remembered his father saying to him, when he was little, that the brook had given up the ghost when the officials of London County Council crossed the Thames and asked for the fair daughter of Kent. He hoped his letter would reach Lily, c/o the laundry. He must also write to Father; and to Mrs. Neville. And to dear old Eugene, and Mr. Howlett at Wine Vaults Lane, to show him he was in France again, in case Downham came in, and belittled him.

  *

  The wind waves of young summer were upon the barleys, the wheat was upright and rustling, the oats shook their green sprays. Old men with scythes were cutting hay to the tramp-tramp-tramp of nailed boots between the ever-widening rows of poplars shaking all their leaves like little heliographs or as though waving goodbye. They marched through villages of lime-washed pisé and thatch, where children stood and stared, but waved no more; for hundreds of thousands of les Anglais had already passed that way, singing, whistling, and shouting the same remarks. Old women scowled, their thoughts shut away like their hens, as they stood beside the drying stagnancy of dirty grey washing water they had poured from their thresholds into the gutters.

  The column swung along past them, singing happily. What a difference in the spirit of these men, thought Phillip, and the old survivors of the battles before Loos.

  Wash me in the water, that you washed your dirty daughter

  And I shall be whiter than the whitewash on the wall

  Whiter than the whitewash!

  Whiter than the whitewash!!

  Whiter than the whitewash on the wall!!!

  Unused to marching on the hard stone-setts, soon he got blisters; but he set himself not to think of them, thus to train himself to subdue his feelings. Do not think of the past, or of the future, when the burning moment breaks—or the burning blister. Think only of your men, never of yourself. Having thus told himself, Phillip tried not to limp; blisters must be squashed down.

  In the heat they rested on the grasses along the verges of the road, under the poplars with their ceaseless flashing leaves. Or was it, he thought, as he lay on his back, with arms under head, that every leaf was saying no to the wind, no no no, leave us upon mother tree, O wind. No, he must not put his feelings into leaves, as though he were of leaves crying to the wind, Strew me not dead upon mother earth, nor these poor men with me, brown withered leaves upon the earth, lost to the sun.

  “The C.O., sir,” said a hoarse voice near him. He sat up, and saw Major Kingsman, coming down the road. He got up and saluted, and was gladdened to hear Major Kingsman say,

  “Welcome back to the battalion, Phillip. By the way, you remember Lulu, Father Aloysius? He’s come to the Liverpool Irish in the Division as padre. We must foregather one evening.”

  “Oh good. I hope Mrs. Kingsman is well, sir?”

  “I heard from her this morning. One of her redpoll heifers made top price at Chelmsford, she’s very bucked.”

  “Oh good.”

  Major Kingsman talked to him for some minutes, then returned up the road to the head of the column. Could he have come down specially to see him?

  Seated upon the grass again, Phillip saw the glitter of light upon the shaking poplar leaves above as part of the joy of green summer upon the earth, and the morning air was blessing the membranes of the leaves.

  *

  Heavy with sweat and dust they marched on, turning into a road where dust lay thickly on the grassy verges with old petrol cans, rusty tins of bully beef, and other signs of an army’s desolation, including bashed trunks of the poplars at wheel height, telling of the passage of lorries and caterpillar-drawn guns. Motor convoys passed them, both ways; the march became wearisome with halts. At last, when the sun was gilding the poplar leaves and casting long shadows, they turned off the main Amiens–Albert road and halted for the night beside an oak wood, where each man and his mate made bivouacs of their two groundsheets laced with string. Then companies were taken in turns to a river across a marsh, where ran clear water on a bed of chalk and flint. They undressed, and soon were splashing, crying out, and joking. Their brown arms and necks and faces contrasted oddly with the grey-white of their bodies and legs. Phillip amon
g them felt reborn in a new world. Forgotten was the war and homelessness; here was cool clear water, here was the joy of life, which took one by the throat.

  Sunshine floated upon the countryside, as though for ever. Twilight filtered clear light upon a blue distance. A solitary white owl flapped and skimmed slowly and silently over the swathes of hay. The last of the old men and women in sabots clattered down the road, unspeaking with their long pronged forks, thinking of calvados before coffee.

  Fires speckled the margin of the wood. Mouth organs played. The moon rose up across the hayfield. Umbered faces broke into song. Umbered—Henry V.

  There’s a long long trail a-winding

  Into the land of my dreams

  Where the nightingale is singing

  And a pale moon beams—

  Melancholy, romantic, a little sad, they sang together words by which they visited and were blessed by images of tenderness and longing, in the land of their birth, in the dream which was England.

  “Care for a cupper char, sir? With the boys, sir?”

  It was the hoarse voice again. He had been wondering about that face, dark and cleft with little scowl-ruts; the man wore the two ribands of the South African war. The face was now offering him a mug of tea. “It’s quite clean, sir, I jus’ washed it aht in the stream.”

  He remembered the prisoner in the guard room at Hornchurch—what was his name? To show that you remembered names bucked a man up—as Major Kingsman’s Phillip to himself. It was the name of a City brewer, famous for stout.

  “Thank you, Pimm. Where have you sprung from?”