A Solitary War

by Henry Williamson

  “I endorse all you say. And once again, my apologies.”

  Phillip left the Frigate Inn for a slow but controlled walk over icy patches to Colonel Poynder’s cottage. They were waiting for him, to return to Marsh Cottage for dinner. There was a cold turkey and a York ham. Phillip could taste that the pig had been fed on boiled wheat, like his own Long White lop-eared pig killed, salted, and smoked for the house. Wheat at about four shillings a hundredweight had seemed too good to be missed. So he had bought a couple of tons just before the war: to learn that wheat did not put flesh on a pig. It added fat, good for roasting pork, but wrong for bacon. His fat pigs at the market had been prodded along the backbone, the deep fat felt; and so the price at auction had been low. This York ham, too, he thought, had been wheat-fed. The flavour of the meat was somewhat plain and fluffy. The fat was insipid.

  He said to Captain Runnymeade, “I think I know what the pig was fed on. I can taste it. Wheat.”

  “Is that good or bad?” enquired Runnymeade, amiably. “It came from Fortnum and Mason’s with this smoked pheasant.”

  “It is excellent.”

  Across the table Mrs. Carfax said, “You ought to taste Phillip’s barley-fed hams. Barley gives a better flavour than wheat, isn’t that so, ‘Little Ray’? At least, that’s what you told me.”

  “The other way round,” said Phillip, trying to prod her with his shoe under the table. “There is no comparison between this classic York ham and my miserable little experimental over-smoked joints—this is a real ham, the finest I have ever tasted.”

  “All the same, I give the palm to Phillip’s ham,” declared Teddy.

  Really, Teddy ought to be less ingenuous, at his age, thought Phillip, a moment before the check—what about yourself? Teddy was a Saxon type. Saxons were amiable, and kind, but lacking in the higher sensibilities. Witness the remark about Hodge and His Masters, the passage about the labouring man’s tragic end.

  Runnymeade, too, made at times gauche remarks, just as he himself made them. Were all the rich cosmopolitan Edwardians, a little below the old landed gentry, rather caddish, both within and outside their own privileged class? The Victorian gentry had had beautiful manners, like Lucy’s ‘Pa’ and her grandmother. No: it was not a matter of class, it was a genetic quality. Awareness of the feelings of others. How could money have anything to do with good manners, which came from a condition of empathy, an awareness preceding grace. Only roots in a countryside, whether of labourer or squire, both working men, gave a man a sense of his own stability. I myself am bits of all sorts of people, and so for ever outside any particular class of circle.

  *

  When the time came for their departure into the winter night Runnymeade took their thanks without enthusiasm. Phillip had a feeling of wanting never to return there.

  Mrs. Carfax’s motor car was started with some difficulty. The battery was run down and the engine was stiff. Eventually it had to be pushed off by Teddy and Phillip while ‘Yipps’ sat at the wheel. The engine coughed. The next push it spluttered. After a third bout of breathless shoving it fired smokily. Phillip’s trouser leg, behind the exhaust, was spattered with blackish water.

  “Condensation,” said Teddy as they drove home along the empty road.

  “Condensation of a wonderful evening,” muttered Phillip. “And I made the blackest splash of all.”

  When the saloon was standing in the yard before River View, Teddy opened the drain-tap under the radiator and hot water ran out.

  “What about the water-pump, hasn’t that a tap, too?”

  “No, this is the lowest point.”

  They went into the parlour for a cup of tea. Afterwards Phillip thanked Mrs. Carfax for driving them over. As he went out of the door he turned to say, “‘Yipps’, I’m sorry I’m not companionable, but I would like to thank you for the care you have shown towards Billy.” On impulse he kissed her cheek lightly. She turned her face to him and kissed him, murmuring, “What soft lips you have,” and he saw her eyes like blue flowers anguished in ice a moment before he went back to his cottage.

  Chapter 16

  THE CASE IS PROVED

  On New Year’s day Phillip went to Great Wordingham to collect the eight thin turkeys, and to settle with the poulterer. The poulterer said he had to pay for 408½ lb. at 1s. 5d. a lb. Mrs. Carfax’s list of weights at the farm of the birds taken away made a total of 448½ lb. This had been initialled by the carrier. How then had the total weight on the farm been 408½ lb.?

  “The weights were checked by your assistant.”

  “When was your spring balance last tested?” asked the poulterer. “I weighed the birds myself carefully, and the weights came to four hundred and eight and a half pounds. Your balance must be wrong.”

  “It is a spring-balance for salmon, of the best make, but the spring might be weakened, for it is seventy or more years old,” Phillip told him. “I’ll go and fetch it and then you can test it. I am quite willing to abide by the test.”

  Back in the shop an hour later, he gave the poulterer the spring-balance.

  “Weigh this piece of pork,” said the poulterer.

  “I make it ten pounds.”

  The poulterer weighed it on his delicate enamelled weighing machine. It registered 10 lb. 9 ounces. “Anyway,” he said, “I shall pay for four hundred and eight and a half less eighty pounds for the live birds, and that’s final.”

  “Why didn’t you weigh them on the farm with your own balance?” Phillip protested. “They were bought by weight on the farm. That was the agreement. It is well-known that turkeys often shrink appreciably with the shock of being put in crates for a journey. The agreement was for live-weight at the farm, at eighteen pence a pound.”

  “You’ve had my last word. Take it or leave it.”

  “How much do you charge for the keep of the eight birds?”

  “I won’t charge anything. I’ll pay you twenty one pounds eighteen shillings for the thirty I killed, at one and five a pound. Miss, write a cheque, please.”

  There was no more to be said. Teddy had undertaken to feed the turkeys properly and regularly. He would be indignant if told what the butcher had said and probably call him a crook, and so escape the truth that he himself had not fed the birds properly. It had been obvious from the beginning, long before Matt had reported that sometimes ‘Mr. Vinegar’ had failed to turn up to feed them. It was but part of a total condition of Great Britain. Those who deceived others, deceived themselves. It was now 1940, and the household accounts were still unmade, or unrendered. When Phillip got back to the farmhouse he asked that the accounts be presented. Teddy said it wasn’t his affair. He had already asked ‘Yipps’ several times, he said. So Phillip screwed himself up to ask ‘Yipps’ to let him know how much the total came to. He found her crying in her small room, because the engine of her motor was broken.

  *

  On the return from Captain Runnymeade’s, Teddy had declared that he had drained the water from the engine. He had drained the radiator, but not the water-pump. This was set in solid ice. When Mrs. Carfax had succeeded in starting the engine, and driven for a mile or so, a local boil had built up steam pressure, for no water was circulating. The water in the engine block might have been confined in a kettle. When she had removed the radiator cap a spout of blackish water arose. When the radiator was refilled the water was seen to be aswim with oily globules. The oil-sump, as though in compensation, was half water. ‘Pinwheel’ in his valedictory letter had declared that oil and water would not mix, but within Mrs. Carfax’s engine they were certainly doing their best.

  According to her idea of things the fault was entirely Phillip’s. For, she said, if she had not come to the farm—a terrible place with no provisions for a pre-heated garage—the damage would never have occurred.

  “I am very sorry, ‘Yipps’.”

  “Are you, ‘Little Ray’?”

  “I am indeed.”

  “This is what comes of using my motor for the busi
ness of the farm.”

  “I am more than sorry, ‘Yipps’, for it does not occur to me that your car was used as an agricultural vehicle. But I’ll pay for the damage ex gratia.”

  Mrs. Carfax went to seek the advice of the judicial Penelope. According to Teddy, Penelope considered that the damage was a liability on the farm, since the car had been used for the business of housekeeping.

  “I’ve already told ‘Yipps’ I’d pay for the damage, ex gratia, Teddy. After all, ‘Yipps’ has worked very hard, and must be horribly disappointed.”

  “We all are, I suppose.”

  “Will you help me tow her car to the garage at Crabbe?”

  There he arranged for a new block to replace the cracked one. When they returned he said, “I suppose I ought to ask you if you and Teddy want to go on with the trial partnership, ‘Yipps’.”

  When Mrs. Carfax did not reply he went back to his writing-table. Would he get £250 advance royalty for the book?

  An hour or two later Teddy came to where he was wrapped in the usual rug round his middle and feet in straw-stuffed sack. Teddy put some papers on the table.

  “Here are the accounts you asked for.”

  Phillip looked at them. The two cheques for £10 he had given ‘Yipps’ had been credited against a total of five sums for Groceries, Butcher, Coal, Baker and Wages. There were no details. Only one item was credited, for electricity.

  “We’ve allowed ten bob a week for electricity, as Lucy said that was about the average.”

  “Yes, that’s in order.”

  “The whole account works out to be very economical in my opinion, Phillip. It comes to just under three quid a head a week. And you can’t get in anywhere these days under three guineas.”

  “Lucy is managing for three children and herself on three pounds a week, including education and clothes. Here on the farm the house-keeping has apparently cost fifteen pounds a week, for five adults: ‘Yipps’, you, me, ‘Pinwheel’, and Billy. I see you don’t allow anything for rent.”

  “‘Yipps’ says it’s your house.”

  “And there’s nothing allowed for the hams. I bought them from Marsh’s. I paid one and ten a pound for them. There were three hams, and the Combined Household ate them.”

  “‘Yipps’ says they were here already, and she wouldn’t have bought them, therefore she won’t allow for them.”

  “Nothing is allowed for all the jam that’s been used. I bought two dozen seven-pound jars of jam just before you came, and more than half of them have been used for the Combined Household. We all shared in these things. We all agreed to share in the payment—the hams, the rent, wages, game, everything—during the trial period, accounts to be rendered and settled weekly.”

  “W-well, let’s stick to the jam for a moment. ‘Yipps’ says it was here already, and she would not have bought it, and therefore it isn’t her responsibility. I can only tell you what she says. It’s nothing to do with me.”

  “What about the telephone account? There were several personal trunk calls every day, and telegrams, I believe, by both you and ‘Yipps’. Or are they chargeable to the farm? On the argument that you wouldn’t have needed to telephone if you hadn’t come here?”

  “I’ll settle that with you later. I’m fed up with the way ‘Yipps’ goes on at me,” said Teddy. “I can’t help thinking all the time that if I hadn’t come here I’d have had an R.A.F. job by now. I was on a short waiting list, and now I understand there are thousands on it, and since there aren’t any casualties, I’ve lost my chance.”

  “I see there’s nothing allowed for the milk. That wasn’t here before Mrs. Carfax came. The Combined Household has used about two hundred and fifty gallons since you came. About twenty pounds’ worth, at cost price. And nothing allowed for it. Do you know, if all these items were duly and fairly credited, I doubt if the costs would average out under five pounds a week per head?”

  “You must see ‘Yipps’ about the milk. I know nothing about it.”

  Phillip went to Mrs. Carfax, receiving the retort that she hadn’t ordered the milk, but had used it only because it had come up twice a day.

  “I would never have dreamed of using so much, if I’d been doing all the housekeeping, my dear man. Likewise the hams are nothing to do with me, nor that inferior jam, nor the poultry and eggs. They just happened to be here, and so they were used. What did you want me to do, let them go bad? I’ve done my best for you, and small thanks I’ve had for it. I came here to help you, but I’ve found little consideration from you, and that’s putting it mildly.”

  “Well, I’ve paid Teddy for painting my cottage, and now I insist on paying you for the housekeeping job.”

  “I don’t wish to speak about it any more.”

  “I’ve telephoned the garage, and found out the cost of the repair to your engine. The car is ready—they had a spare block in stock. I shall settle the bill with the garage, as a slight return for all your work here.”

  *

  The trunks, the gun-cases, the boot-trees, the suit-cases, the golf-clubs, the tennis racquets, the elephant’s feet, with the weary old retriever bitch on top of the lot, departed in the afternoon. The two maids had already gone.

  He went into the kitchen, and looked for food for Billy and himself. The sugar canister in the Easiwork cupboard was empty. So was the tea canister, not a stalk in it. And the rice canister. Everything had been cleared out, nothing left but a half-empty bottle of Worcester sauce. There was, however, a quantity of crusts and stale quarter-loaves in the white enamel bread bin.

  He turned to the parlour. It was dark and chilly. He went upstairs. The rooms were silent and lifeless. He went down again to wash in the lavatory. There was no water, the fire had been left to go out, the door open, and the pipes were frozen. He went upstairs again. Torn-up letters of the late occupants lay in the baskets. He went downstairs and stood in the parlour. A wizened piece of mistletoe hanging from the beam crossing the ceiling beside the strings of the vanished hams seemed to symbolise the closing of the trial partnership. The tame pipistrelle bat was hanging asleep from the far end of the beam: a creature with skeleton most nearly approximating to the human. He thought to take it into his bedroom, to cherish it; but the bat was hibernating, and he did not want to disturb it.

  *

  At twilight a letter from Penelope arrived by hand. It concluded by saying that she had decided to offer Mrs. Carfax and Captain Pinnegar the hospitality of her home, which in future would not be available for visits from himself.

  As he lay sleepless through the long darkness of the winter night, seeing the stars slowly wheeling from pane to pane across the window, he thought of Richard Jefferies, who had suffered from fistula, tuberculosis, poverty, and un-understanding; and now, through him, the thoughts in The Story of My Heart had, in one human mind if not in others, been ascribed to General Paralysis of the Insane—illusions of grandeur—that tertiary effect of the major venereal disease of syphilis.

  Again and again, while he lay with knees almost to chin for warmth, he relived the scene in Penelope’s boudoir, and ran through his mind the dialogue of that puzzling incident.

  You may not have meant it, Phillip, but I assure you that you did write it. I remember it distinctly; it seemed such an odd thing to write to someone you didn’t know. I thought you must be rather an unusual person. I wish you could believe me when I say that I did not write it, Penelope. Even had it been true, I would not have written the word to you, not knowing you at all. Well, you did.

  A small point: but like a blackthorn spine in flesh it remained in suppuration because it had not been withdrawn. An apparently insignificant detail: but it illustrated the final un-understanding that was war: the problem of irresistible faith striking immovable opinion. In imagination his hands were thrust into the grate to snatch out the fragile paper charred and crenellated by the flames of the coal fire—the charred truth, tenuous as the hopes of the burning saint.

  Jefferies had been doomed b
ecause he knew the truth. Jefferies was seer and prophet of a new way of life which could come about only when it was generally accepted that ‘the whole mode of thought of the nations must be altered before physical progress is possible.’

  One man in Europe was trying to achieve that by force; while the force of negation and denial, equally powerful, was set on destroying him by force. If history was any criterion, that resurgent impulse would fail; even as he himself, in his limited way, would fail.

  The copy of Jefferies’ Story lay on the table beside the bed. He picked it up, and with a torch under the bedclothes stared at the signature on the fly-leaf—William Maddison, Folkestone, 1919. Then putting down the book and torch he wrapped the bedclothes round himself, drew up his knees and tried to sleep. Into his mind came the face of Richard Jefferies: the long thin bearded face, the blue eyes filled with ‘the tears of things’, the sunken cheeks, the ‘scrofulous diathesis’ of Besant’s Eulogy, the long consumptive face—the lonely writer fighting the ‘three Giants of Despair, Disease, and Poverty’—the man of genius ravaged by phthisis, that incurable disease of the Victorians.

  Jefferies had an awful life: phthisis.

  No, it was not that. Then, in the clearest light of the imagination, he saw the caravan table under the sycamore tree, himself sitting there with Brother Laurence, in the breezes of the Home Hills; an afternoon of summer, and himself writing that brief note to Lady Penelope Carnoy.

  What a job it had been, to push the caravan up the steep Home Hills, while the rear-wheels of the Silver Eagle were slurring sideways and spinning: Ernest in the driver’s seat, himself behind, heart thumping—keep on, keep on, keep on—like Sisyphus rolling up the stone, in the ancient myth … Jefferies had an awful life: Sisyphus!

  *

  When he looked across the river towards the Home Hills the light of the stars beyond the glass panes was gone. What had happened? Was he going blind? He opened a casement and leaned out. Something touched him, lightly, silently. He remained still. Yes, his face, his extended hand, was being touched.