A Solitary War

by Henry Williamson

  Phillip had never heard Billy talking so rapidly, nor with such vivacity. How like Barley he was: fair hair, light blue eyes, balance, love——

  *

  “How have the turkeys done?” asked Lucy when the little ones were in bed. “They were doing nicely when I left.”

  “Well, Pinnegar promised to look after them, and I promised not to interfere: that’s a compromise, or a cross-promise, or a cross-purpose, or an undertaking. I have my own ideas how it will result, but I may be, I hope I shall be, wrong. I’ve seen the game-dealer in Great Wordingham and he’s going to collect them next Thursday, paying one and six a pound for them, live weight at the farm. Mrs. Carfax is going to supervise the weighing of the birds, and keep a record of the weights, on Pa’s old nickel-plated salmon spring-balance.”

  “How are the hens’ eggs coming? The young pullets should be laying well by now. Their combs were getting nicely red when I left.”

  “I don’t think any record of the eggs has been kept. I’ve tried to find out, but Mrs. Carfax resents my asking. I’ve enquired once or twice about the feeding of the poultry, but she says it is her job. Her actual words are, ‘The hens are my affair, and you don’t need to start pimminin’ about them, ‘Little Ray’.’ One would think the partnership has already become a fact; but the only fact I know is that I don’t know, on my own farm, how my own hens are doing. It’s the same with the house-keeping. I can’t get any statement. She says both my manner and demeanour are unpleasant; they are, of course, as you both know; but she implies that it is a cause, and not an effect.”

  Neither Tim nor Lucy spoke. Tim gave a little cough; then loudly reversed The Daily Telegram, and held it still as he stared at an upside-down page.

  “Oh dear, I am sorry about it,” said Lucy at last. “I did so hope that both Mrs. Carfax and Captain Pinnegar would be what you wanted. And yet neither seems to be very business-like. Of course it’s the worst time of the year.”

  Tim dropped The Daily Telegram on the floor. His eyes were closed, he was half asleep. Phillip, not realizing this, said, “How are you getting on, Tim?” and Tim looked up with a start.

  “I heard what you said, I wasn’t asleep—now then, what was it? Oo-ah. Yes. How am I getting on. Well, let me see—oh, moderately well, I suppose. The trouble is, there’s nothing very much for me to do in my job.”

  “What is that, Tim?”

  “Well, I’m there to apply direct action to any break-down in the machinery of the conveyor belt, beside which the girls work. As a matter of fact I’ve spent some time after hours, with the management’s permission of course, studying a means of rectifying one particular breakdown, by which the Company formerly lost quite a lot of time every week. Not to go into technical details, the alteration I suggested was embodied, and since then the conveyor belt has been running smoothly. So I have to look for other little jobs to occupy my time.”

  “I hope that the old West Country motto, ‘Good work’s the decay of labour’, won’t apply to you.”

  “Oh, I shall get another job in any case, probably. It’s dull there, and I certainly don’t want to spend the rest of my life at it.”

  “You’ve got a nice home now.”

  “My dear Phil!” burst out Tim. “I can’t tell you how good it is to have Lucy here! In the old days, I used to come home to a dark and silent house, and had to get my own grub, clear out the grate if I wanted a fire, and all that sort of thing. I confess I found it a bit tedious, but it’s absolutely lovely now. You’ve no idea what it means to me!”

  Phillip could see that Lucy had lost her strained, heavy look. Her eyes were brighter. She looked ten years younger. The muscles of her cheeks were now in use with the animation of her life. The moulding of cheekbones and chin, and the colour in her cheeks, were as when first he had known her.

  As if in answer to his thoughts Lucy said, with an emphasis rare to her, “You simply cannot imagine what it’s like to be here, after the kind of house I’ve always lived in since I grew up. The shops are all so handy, too, and the ‘bus is only at the bottom of the road. I can slip into the town and back again in less than an hour. And the gas-cooker’s a dream. Such a nice sink and draining board, too, and best of all, a hot-cupboard that is a hot cupboard, and upstairs in the bathroom, so convenient, not downstairs in the kitchen as they’ve always been before. Also, I’ve found such a nice school for after Christmas, where Rosamund can go with the little boys. It was bad for David and Jonathan at the village school, they were becoming so rough and foul-mouthed. They’ve quite lost the habit now. But there, you look tired, so I won’t worry you any more with my talk.”

  “I am wondering if it’s too late to send Billy back to school. As Mrs. Carfax says, he’ll do no good on the farm, but become formless and gauche, and perhaps even forget how to write his name. If I can finish my book, it might be possible.”

  “He looks extremely well,” said Tim. “And he’s very keen on the farm, judging by his talk to me.” He hesitated. “I’ve felt guilty for not coming up to help you. In fact, it’s worried me quite a lot.”

  “You were always most patient and kind, Tim; the very opposite of my everlasting critical, carping manner towards you in the old days of the Works. I expected far too much from you. In fact, I treated you and your brothers as a first rough version of a book, and tried to recast you. In a book, one can tear up and cross out and shift about, cutting out when in doubt. My brain is set that way: a fault-finding, truth-seeking, ruthless attitude of mind. So I tried to alter your minds. I thought it natural that if I, a nonentity, had made something out of myself to be better than I was, so could you, or anyone else. And I was always fearfully tired, and worried about your going bankrupt. I’m still ashamed when I think of my behaviour, Tim, of thirteen years ago.”

  “The main trouble was that you hadn’t confidence in me. I saw that at the start, and it got worse, until in the end I hardly knew what I was doing. You know, you have an unusual power, and it can work both ways. I could almost feel you, at a distance, penetrating into my brain, as though I were mesmerised. You don’t mind my talking like this?”

  “The truth is the only integrator, Tim.”

  “You’re a kind of elemental force, like static electricity. At one time you’re a positive charge, and attract by your ideas and enthusiasm; at others, the charge is negative, an equal and opposite force, which violently repels. I’m more like a simple cell giving a steady voltage.”

  “Talking about electricity, Tim, do you remember a walk we went once, on Exmoor? Do you remember the black storm-clouds over the Chains, the silence, the whisper in the cotton grasses of the first eddies of wind, then all of a sudden the violent flashes that ringed all around the Chains, yet never came within a quarter of a mile of where we stood? Wasn’t it marvellous standing among the peat hags in the midst of that strange lurid light, as though at the end of the world?”

  “Do I not remember it! It was one of the few occasions I felt you were the old Phil, who used to ride the motorbike over to us, with your spaniel sitting on the tank, and your little cat in a sack of shot rabbits tied across your back for our supper. By jove, that rabbit stew with onions in it was welcome, I can tell you.”

  Phillip resisted an impulse to ask Tim to return with Lucy and the children to the farm in the New Year, where they would all try to make a new start. And yet—they were fundamentally dissimilar: the un-understandings of thirteen years were not to be dissolved in a moment of emotion.

  It was wonderful to be in bed after a hot bath. Stretched out to full length, feet working like the hind-flippers of a seal, waves of happiness passing through him. But thinking of Melissa he came to stillness, and at last to sleep.

  *

  And now it was time to return to the Bad Lands, and the fate which seemed to rule them. Leaving behind warmth and happiness, Phillip and Billy drove out of town in a slight fog. The day was cold and raw. Soon the windscreen was obscured by mist and the smear of soot. He had intended to
leave at 11 o’clock, and to stop two hours later for a hot meal at a little place in Heathmarket where there was always a good fire in the iron grate; but the start had been delayed.

  At 11 a.m. Lucy had given them cocoa and cake, and he had sat in the armchair reading the newspaper until almost noon, when it seemed so near lunch-time that it was a pity to leave. So Lucy said she could give them an early lunch of eggs and bacon, and when they had finished eating Phillip thought he would listen to the 1 o’clock news. There was no weather forecast; it had ceased at the outbreak of war.

  Afterwards the children had their dinner, and he went into the kitchen to talk to them. They were half-way through, and the kettle was on for a cup of tea, so he waited to drink a cup with Lucy. It was by then 1.30 p.m. Heavens, they would be caught in the black-out! Even without the trailer the journey on slippery roads would take three-and-a-half hours; and at 5 o’clock it would be getting dark.

  “Quick, Billy, we must hitch on the trailer!”

  And so they started late on the return which both had been dreading.

  The fog thickened after the flats of Cambridgeshire. Visibility was less than fifty yards. Round a curve in the road he was about to pass a slow old farmer’s car, while knowing he was taking a risk and uncertain within himself for so doing, when two points of light suddenly and swiftly bore down upon them. An army truck was approaching. By instantly dropping into second gear, letting in the clutch and decelerating for a controlled skid, Phillip managed to slew motorcar and trailer through the foreshortened space, and to clear both wing of army truck and radiator of farmer’s car simultaneously, to the shouts and curses of both drivers. Accelerating angrily, he drew away into the greyness, telling Billy that it was a damned foolish and criminal thing he had done, that he would report himself to the police for dangerous driving.

  Phillip was usually proud of his driving. He had not taken a risk for years. He never cut-in unless the road were clear ahead for a long way, and was seldom impatient. He drove on soberly, ashamed of himself.

  Fortunately the fog did not thicken. Without a stop, and very cold, they passed the great heath and the pines of the sandy interior of the county and approached the loams of the coast.

  There was no mist over the familiar arable landscape. The after-glow of sunset was fading in the clear northern air as they arrived at Great Wordingham. The shop of the game-dealer and butcher, with whom he had arranged to have the turkeys collected, was still open. He saw lights behind the three-quarter closed door and went in.

  “I’ve wanted to see you,” the butcher said immediately. “I collected forty-six turkeys from yours, and pretty poor some of them were, too. I’ve still got eight on my farm, the thinnest birds I’ve ever collected. I wouldn’t kill them, let alone exhibit them in my shop.”

  “Well, I told you over the telephone they were fat, didn’t I?”

  “You certainly did, sir. They were fat, but about six weeks ago I should say. They’ve been starved since. They were the worst lot of birds I’ve had through my hands in forty years.”

  The jellied blue eye in the beefy face looked accusingly at Phillip as much as to say, And after all I told you about your good books, I thought you knew better than to scamp a job of work like that.

  “Very sorry you were let down.”

  “Well, I ought to have looked at them myself before buying them from you, but I hadn’t the time, so I sent my assistant.” And you might have added, thought Phillip, that you thought you could trust a gentleman’s word.

  “I ought to have looked at them too, but I left it to others. However, it’s my responsibility. I’ll collect the rejected ones after Christmas, and pay you for their keep meanwhile.”

  “I don’t want anything for that.”

  “That’s good of you. I must go now. Well, I wish you a Merry Christmas.”

  “Same to you, sir,” replied the butcher. “I’ll keep the birds for you all right.”

  Phillip thanked him, and left the shop. It was freezing hard. The stars were shining dully over the outlines of dim houses from the roofs of which issued straight lines of smoke. They went on into the thickening cold, round bends and corners of narrow lanes and tracks, and so at last to the village, without meeting another car. He drove at once to the premises, to put trailer and car in their respective bays in the hovel. A quick turn of the draining cock, and he walked with Billy across the bridge and along the footpath to the farmhouse. Outside the door they stopped.

  “You go in first, Billy.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. I can’t face it.”

  “I don’t want to go in.”

  “Nor do I.”

  They retreated from the porch, hiding themselves beyond the bath house as several small girls, one carrying a masked electric torch, appeared round the corner from the entrance up the street. Seeing the two figures in the dusk the girls uttered startled cries and stopped.

  “Go on,” whispered one.

  “No, you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you begin. Go on.

  After more hesitation they advanced to the porch of the farmhouse. A quavery treble began to sing, “While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated—go on, Kathleen, I can’t sing all alone,” a shrill voice, born of the East Anglian polar wind, protested.

  Then the door opened and Teddy’s voice said, “Back again? We’ve paid you twice this evening to go away. What do you think we are, suckers?”

  With giggles changing to outright laughter the band turned and scampered away. The door of the farmhouse was shut.

  “While Teddy fed the Polish Poultry by day, all stalking on the ground,” muttered Billy, “Come on Dad, let’s go inside. I’m cold.”

  Phillip knocked at the door, and went into the heat and light of three hundred-watt electric bulbs shining through fumes of massed oil-stoves and electric heaters. The parlour as he had left it was unrecognisable, crossed as the ceiling was by coloured paper-chains, festooned with many little paper candle-lamps along the beam, while holly with red berries was arranged en masse in the wall-alcoves, along the ceiling corners, and over the fireplace. The tallboy had been bisected: scores of Christmas cards stood on the lower half, rank upon rank of tall and wide cards extending—frozen surrealistic paper-waves—upon the Jacobean gate-leg walnut table, and along the back of the refectory table. Bottles of wine were ranged behind them. The smaller gate-leg oaken table from the boudoir had been brought in to carry its share of the display.

  Various hunting whips, including two old ones of Phillip’s which had apparently been taken from the loft over the workshop were hanging on the walls.

  “Hullo,” said Teddy. “We wondered if you’d be coming, but I’m glad you’re back. I really am.” His face was beaming. “Hullo, Billy. Brought any more calves with you? Nimrod’s been playing merry hell down on the farm. He’s missed you, too, I fancy. You got there all right?” to Phillip.

  “Didn’t you get my letter? I posted it there days ago.”

  “Nothing arrived here,” said Teddy. “Of course, there is the Christmas congestion of mail. But I wouldn’t put it past M.I.5 opening all our post.”

  “Lucy never received the letter I wrote, telling her of our going to see her. It hadn’t even arrived by the time we left.”

  “Oh, it will turn up. Well, how do you like the look of the place now? We didn’t light the fire in the hearth, as there was apparently no wood cut. ‘Yipps’!” he called happily, opening the inner door. “Here’s Phillip and Billy.”

  Mrs. Carfax came down the stairs.

  “Hullo, ‘Little Ray’. Had a good time?”

  “Yes, thanks. How cheerful the room looks.”

  “It’s only half done, my good man. Now you’ll want your report, won’t you? The dealer came for the turkeys and Teddy and I checked the weights. I’m telling you now because you like to know everything, don’t you? So I’ll give you the list of weights now.” She went to the desk. “Here they ar
e. Four hundred and forty-eight and a half pounds in all. I trust everything will meet with your approval.”

  “Thank you, ‘Yipps’. I saw the dealer. He told me he’d collected them.”

  “What did he say?” asked Teddy eagerly. “They were a nice lot of birds, I thought. I quite miss the sight of Billy’s cockerel scrapping with the Polish Cavalry. What did the dealer say?”

  “Oh, he said he hadn’t had any like them through his hands in forty years. Well, I think I’ll wash. Br-r-r! It’s cold outside. Nice and warm in here. What lovely holly.”

  “Yes, ‘Yipps’ and I went into Yarwich and bought it to-day. I took six gallons of tractor petrol from the tank, by the way, as it was on the farm’s business.”

  “Did you find the roads slippery?” enquired Phillip. His frozen fingers and toes were now becoming painful.

  “In other words, you disapprove of us using the farm petrol even to help provide a Christmas for you and Billy,” exclaimed ‘Yipps’, sharply. “If you can spare petrol to go to visit Lucy, can’t we go to Yarwich and back, which is less than a quarter of the distance? Teddy and I have both been working very hard to try and make this dreadful place a little more cheerful, and you might sometimes give a sign, however remote, that you appreciate our efforts.”

  “Don’t take any notice,” said Teddy quietly, when ‘Yipps’ had gone. “She’s been on to me like that most of the day. Nerves, I think. She eats nothing. I wonder she can do what she does do. We’ll go and have a drink, shall we, when you’ve washed? Roger, her son, is here. He and Billy will pal up, good for them both. I was just going down to The Hero.”

  “I’ll join you there, Teddy.”

  “Will you? Righty-ho. I’m just going down to get a quick one before dinner, dear,” he said gently, opening the inner door. “Phillip will come down too. Couldn’t you come too, dear? Just this once?”

  “I’ve promised to go and see Penelope. She’s coming to dinner. Be back by eight, won’t you?”

  “Okay. I’ll bring something back for you, dear.”