A Solitary War

by Henry Williamson

  “I’m interested to hear you say that. Yes, farming’s on the map, definitely on the map.” He was now pacing the thick carpet, one hand in the pocket of his pin-stripe trousers, jingling a bunch of keys. Abruptly he stopped and said:

  “I understand you have written a book about fanning. When can I see it?” He threw his cigarette in a metal wastepaper basket and took another from the box. Phillip tried to think rapidly. As usual when he tried to think rapidly, he thought of nothing.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Poluski. “I like you. There is something genuine about you. When can I see your book? I’ll tell you quite honestly, I like you, and think you can write the film on farming that the Ministry of Information is prepared to subsidise. Now give me your opinion of——” he took up another book—“this fellow Cobbett.”

  “He’s a very genuine writer. A classic.”

  “Where can I contact him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Mr. Poluski dropped Cobbett into the waste-paper basket. “Now tell me when you will send me your book?”

  Phillip did not want anyone to see the loose, much-inked sheets of his book. It wasn’t finished anyway. And he had heard of ideas being pinched in the film world. He imagined Poluski turning over the pages, looking for ideas, finding none, losing interest, and probably the typescript as well.

  There was a film in his book, but it wasn’t in the pages. It was an Idea. Ideas were not copyright, especially ideas from unpublished stories.

  “When can I see your book?” repeated Mr. Poluski. He was constantly tapping his cigarette ash with a pale finger, then puffing at it quickly, tapping again.

  Phillip found that he couldn’t say anything. He was thinking of the Museum of Decadent Art in Munich, where the pictures, reflecting and refracting horror and disgust, were correlated to the contemporary statistics of unemployment, suicide, prostitution, sexual perversion, and all the effects of national and therefore personal disintegration on a nation’s life centred in its rootless capital town of Berlin.

  “Well, what’s holding up your answer, Mr.——?”

  “To be frank, I can’t help feeling that my book isn’t what you seek, Mr. Poluski. It’s a chronicle of my own adventures in teaching myself to reclaim derelict land.”

  “Reclaiming derelict land! But that’s news!” said the producer, picking up a newspaper, and poking the centre page with a forefinger. “Here it is in print! ‘Farmers with their Backs to the Wall’. A million derelict acres to be ploughed up to grow the Nation’s Food! You let me see your book, and I’ll be able to decide that. I may find something in it, an idea or two, that I may want to use.”

  Our two minds evidently cog-in, thought Phillip.

  “Well, will you mail it to me at once?”

  A low-pitched electric buzz sounded in the adjoining office. Almost immediately a girl with lamp-blacked lashes came in and announced that Miss Someone was waiting. The producer was looking at his wristlet watch.

  “Now, look here,” he said, “I have a date to take someone to Claridge’s. You send me your book on reclaiming derelict land.” He wrote on a card. “Send it to me at this address in Cornwall.”

  Phillip could imagine him arriving at that modern white concrete rectangular cliff-side Cornish luxury hotel in a big streamlined car, in sporting tweeds with baggy plus-fours.

  “I’ll be there till a fortnight from tomorrow. Now I feel we are going to work hand in glove. Meet me here for lunch on Tuesday—about five weeks time.” He gave the date after looking at his notebook. “Meanwhile think out ideas for a story of Briddish farming,” he went on, plucking a hair from his left nostril. “We want to put the importance of farming over to the public, by a great picture. And keep all ideas to yourself, we don’t want any Wardour Street vulture hanging around to steal ideas from us. If anyone else asks you for your ideas of farming, you be a good boy and keep them to yourself. Say nothing. Say just so-so—say anything you like, but say nothing, see?”

  “I see.”

  “And think out ideas for me. We’re going to make a great picture. I knew it when I see you first. Now you’ll post on the typescript of your farming book? Register it. To the hotel? Okay, that’s fine. Write it down now and send it with your address and your book. Okay? Just a minute, darling. I’m almost through with Mr.—Mr.—that’s right, Mr. Maddison.”

  Mr. Poluski’s eyes were shining, but not, Phillip thought, so much of his vision of their films, or even at the lesser idea of his own immediate departure, but at the sight through an inner door of a wave of fair hair falling on the shoulder of an elegant black coat, of luminous blue eyes gazing through the half-open door, of a knee in palest sheer-silk crossed over another knee and legs of perfection tapering to black strap-shoes lightly resting on the carpet. He saw Melissa in her; his heart ached.

  Mr. Poluski hastily opened the office door for Phillip and then was rapidly moving towards the photogenic apparition seen through the inner door.

  *

  Mr. Arrowsmith was awaiting him in his chromium-and-glass furnished room. Pushing a silver cigarette box towards Phillip he said, “I know nothing about Poluski. He just came in and asked me to scout around for him. By the way,” he smiled charmingly, “purely as a matter of form, I wonder if you have thought about the matter of terms of introduction I mentioned in my letter. Will that be all right? You’ll have tea? Good.”

  “The ten per cent for introduction is agreeable, thank you.”

  Arrowsmith gracefully breathed out smoke. “Purely as a matter of form, I’ve had a letter typed out, if you’d care to look it over. It merely confirms the arrangement. By the way, your expenses. Will three guineas cover them, do you think? That’s fine. Would you care for a drink? After tea, perhaps? We keep all kinds here.”

  He opened a piece of furniture that revealed glasses and bottles. “All part of the business,” he smiled.

  They talked for a few minutes, and then, feeling he might be taking up the other’s time, Phillip rose to say good-bye.

  “Must you really go? When you come up on the fifth, do look in. won’t you? It’s been so good to meet you. You’ll be busy soon, on the land, sowing, I expect? Wish I could come and help you. My activities, outside this office, are confined to fire-fighting drill—which means mostly hands of solo-whist. Phoney war, isn’t it? Let’s hope it will peter out before long.”

  Taking him to the lift, “Have you seen a London black-out before? It’s rather lovely—but take care in crossing streets.”

  With a wave of the hand and a slight bow he saw him into the lift, where with a pang, Phillip realised that he was always saying good-bye to people. Then his mind turned to the image of Melissa—young, wise, tender, infinitely consoling. She kept coming to his mind during the rest of the day and the night until he awoke into the deep blue light of a club bedroom: to imagine her a mermaid, swimming to merge with him.

  Chapter 19

  FAITH

  On his return to the farm he went at once to look at the wheat on the Nightcraft. There were many areas where nothing was growing. Elsewhere scanty plants lay among the frost-fretted clods. He dug one up and found it was yellow-rotten where the stalk met the ground. Obviously the crop was a failure. Luke walked over to where he was standing.

  “I told you no good would come o’ Sunday work.”

  “Well, something has certainly been working against us here, Luke.”

  “You marked out this field on a Sunday. I knew no good would come of it.”

  “Yes, the wheat appears to be dead, certainly. What do you suggest?”

  “If ’twas mine, I’d drill oats.”

  “Right, we’ll drill oats.”

  He ordered Star oats by telephone from the merchant at Great Wordingham. Then, taking up the tractor with the heavy pitchpole harrow, he set Billy off across the field. The long iron spikes dug into the fretted soil, leaving dark lines in the cold, part-thawed land. When the seed arrived at the field he insisted on sowing it at once. Luke f
ollowed with horses and drill. They put in 16 pecks to the acre—14 for seed and 2 ‘for the bards’, otherwise pheasants, pigeons, and partridges.

  Billy said at tea that day in Mrs. Hammett’s that Luke had told him that some chaps, finding they had not sown the proper amount of corn, as ordered by the master, poured any they had left over down a rabbit hole.

  “A farmer has to trust those working with him, Billy, otherwise life isn’t worth living.”

  When the Nightcraft was sown Phillip took the tractor down the Home Hills, and on the way to its bay in the hovel removed wads of soil between the spuds of the wheels.

  “If we clean off the heavier wads and scatter them around here, the lighter soil of the hills will benefit, the grazing improve, and our new roads be spared a gradual layer of mud. Here’s a trowel specially for this job. It lives here, over the tool box.”

  Matt was in the hovel trying to start the pump-motor by hand. He had just kicked off another kick-starter. He looked mysteriously at Phillip with his woodcock’s eyes.

  “What did I tell you. Thengs would a-come right, d’n I?”

  “You mean you’ve kicked back the kick-starter into its place? Well done.”

  “No, I meant Lady Penelope’s back.”

  “I think we should be rather gentle with that kick-starter, Matt. I’ll order a new lug.”

  “It dropped off, master.” Matt drew him aside. “I told yew I knowed thengs would come right, d’n’t I tho? When Horatio Bugg took her the bill for the petrol that Mr. Vinegar had off his pump she told Horatio he had no right to let him hev it off her coupons, but Horatio said he couldn’t tell no difference between one coupon an’ another.” Matt beckoned him deeper into the dark hovel. “I’ll tell yew some more. Thet young lady what come to see yew be staying wi’ Lady Panalope.”

  “Miss Melissa?”

  “Thet’s the one. Now mind you what a gander do do with a one-year goose, master.”

  “What do he do, Matt?”

  “Looks arter her, don’t he?”

  *

  Phillip went to post a letter to Poluski confirming that he would meet him on the arranged date, and bring the synopsis of his farming story with him. On the way back he met Melissa coming up the street.

  “I heard you were here.”

  “I’m staying with Penelope.”

  “I hope she’s well.”

  “Oh yes, I must catch the post.”

  “Well, I mustn’t keep you.”

  “I won’t be a minute.”

  He returned with her to the post office, and while she was registering a letter, bought a present of socks for Charley and a pink satin tea-cosy for Mrs. Hammett—the first things he saw.

  “I saw Lucy two days ago. They all seem very happy with Tim at Gaultford. I spent a night with them.”

  It might have been Penelope speaking, he thought.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t stop, I told Penelope I’d be straight back. We’re going on the marshes, to let the dogs run. Walk with me to the bridge.”

  They went down the village street, and were in sight of Horatio Bugg’s yard when she said, “I’m on leave from St. George’s hospital, and came up to see my father. Penelope was there, so I came back with her for a couple of days.”

  “I’m going to Gaultford this afternoon, and then on to London. I’ve got to do a film.”

  “I’m going back to London tomorrow. Perhaps we can meet there?”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  “Very well, I’ll telephone you at your club. I really must flee.”

  *

  “Please,” said Lucy, patching Jonathan’s reach-me-downs, “do not worry about me. I’ve realised for some time now that I’m no longer any good for you, as wife or companion. You’ve got this film, and if anyone deserves it, you do. As for Melissa, I’m sure she hasn’t ‘turned against you’, as you say. She is very sensitive, you know and really does love you. And whenever you are with her, I can see you are your true self. I’m sure Penelope hasn’t told her anything against you. Penelope isn’t like that. Anyway, the trial partnership has shown it wouldn’t have worked, and no harm has been done.”

  “I always feel—or did until our meeting this morning—to be ‘my true self’ with Melissa. I felt free to be anything and everything, in a small way. Do you still like it here with Tim?”

  “It’s wonderful. Such a dear little house. The children have such nice schools, and so cheap.”

  “How you’ve managed on three pounds a week from me I don’t know. I’ll be able to send you much more soon. In fact, I’ve written out a cheque for twenty-five pounds for you, as a first instalment. Here it is.”

  Lucy was touched. His eyes, now gentle, had the deep blue light which had so moved her when first she had seen him on the river-bank, while the otter-hounds were hunting his escaped tame otter, Lutra, sixteen years before. He had been so generous in the past, helping her brothers, giving all of himself to try to save the Works. Later troubles had not obliterated the feelings they had had for Phillip; both Tim and Lucy were still very fond of him, knowing his true nature.

  “I’ll keep the money for summer clothes for the children. I promise it will be well spent.”

  He was reflective, money forgotten. “Perhaps Melissa and I, after what I’ve experienced—I think some of the selfish ideas have gone from me—I don’t want to try to alter people’s minds any more—it’s no good—I must try to be an observer, not a reformer. Now, be frank—will it make any difference to you if I stay here sometimes? We could still be friends, couldn’t we?”

  She kept back her feelings, saying, “You looked just like your mother, then. Don’t worry, I’ll help in any way I can. Would you feel freer if our marriage were dissolved? I think the children understand much more than either of us thinks. And they are all so fond of you.”

  He concealed the shock of her words.

  “I always thought, you know Pip, that Melissa was the one for you. But there now, don’t you worry. Take things easily. Just wait and see how things turn out.”

  “I only wish to God this bloody war would be called off. Hitler only wants to go East—— Well, you’ve heard enough about that. Well, I must be getting on. My love to Tim and the children, and my thanks to both of you.”

  “Give Melissa my love, when you see her in London, won’t you? And good luck to the film story.”

  “I’ll be able to send you ten pounds a week soon. I’ll call back for Billy in two or three weeks’ time, and give you a few days’ notice before I come for him. Luke has the farm wages for a month. He knows what to do.”

  “Well, be happy my dear, and don’t worry about us.”

  Kissing each other on the cheek like brother and sister they said Goodbye.

  *

  The engine started at the first press of the button, and ran crisply, while the driver, with thoughts of the film alternating between apprehension, optimism, fear, delight, and then doubt when he thought of Poluski—such feelings occluding like mist a heavy feeling in the diaphragm when he recalled the farm—set himself to drive as steadily and smoothly as he could to London.

  When he reached his club he found a telegram on the green baize board by the porter’s lodge.

  Re-directed from Crabbe, it had arrived while he was at No. 2, The Glade.

  POLUSKI IS VERY BUSY RESHOOTING SCENES HIS LAST FILM STOP YOUR BOOK IS FIRST-RATE LITERATURE AND HE ASKS ME CONGRATULATE YOU AND PREDICTS SUCCESS FOR IT STOP IT CONFIRMS HIS BELIEF IN YOU THAT YOU AND HE CAN TOGETHER DEVISE STORY STOP WILL WRITE NEXT WEEK MEANWHILE PLEASE MEDITATE STORY SYNOPSIS AS YOU SOW YOUR BROAD ACRES REALLY KEEN ABOUT IT

  ARROWSMITH

  *

  The next morning he was told in the office that Poluski would probably be a further ten days to a fortnight ‘on the floor’. After a drink, he left and went back to his club. No telephone call. Dare he telephone Penelope’s house, and ask for Melissa? He reacted against the idea. Melissa was tired of his wretched negation.

&n
bsp; Despite the feeling upon him he looked up trains in an A.B.C. The 11.30 a.m. from the junction was due to arrive at Liverpool Street Station at 2.5 p.m. He felt she would be on it. What to do until then? He went to the National Gallery. It was shut, all pictures removed. He went into St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and thought of Dick Sheppard, the saintly man who had carried a board of the Peace Pledge Union in the gutter, who had spoken with such simplicity from the pulpit; the first priest on the air of the B.B.C., and the best. Poor man, he had died of exhaustion.

  He went down to Charing Cross and walked along the Embankment, thinking of the poet Francis Thompson as he stood under the arch of Waterloo Bridge. Here one of the most homeless of poets had slept, on newspapers spread upon the paving stones.

  Eve no gentlier lays her cooling cheek

  On the burning brow of the sick earth,

  Sick with death, and sick with birth,

  Aeon to aeon, in secular fever twirled,

  Than thy shadow soothes this weak

  And distempered being of mine.

  But all such illusions of love belonged to the past, to the fervours of youth, before his heart had become like a fruit, or a seed, put in the Satchville brook, to be turned to stone. To be grown up was to have a sense of continuity, to be chained to the rock of Prometheus. If only one could forget the past, care not for the future, live only in the present.

  Pierce where thou wilt the springing thought in me,

  And there thy pictured countenance lies enfurled,

  As in the cut fern lies the imaged tree.

  This poor song that sings of thee,

  This fragile song, is but a curled

  Shell outgathered from thy sea,

  And murmurous still of its nativity.

  The poet’s love, given to the small Meynell girls, was pollen fallen as dust. No seeds from that celestial blowing—‘the pollen come to blow’—to drift where the wind listeth. O, such feeling was reality for me at that time in the cottage at Malandine, in the early ’twenties, before I met Barley, when my books and the thoughts of dead writers were my only companions, after a war that was to end war. Now the barrage balloons hang over London against bombers which have not come. How clean is death on the battlefield, not the corruption of the body lying out to swell and rot, but sudden bright death to release the spirit.