by John Masters
‘The train was late,’ Wilfred Bentley said wearily as he hung up his coat and hat in the hall. ‘Because the driver assigned to it went down with flu. We were held up twice by signals, because about a third of the signalmen on the South Eastern are down with flu … The meeting was to be attended by forty county secretaries … twelve showed up – the rest had flu … so it was cancelled … so my whole trip was for nothing … And now …’ – he sank down in a chair – ‘I think I have it.’
Rachel, who had been writing columns of figures in her big account book, only half-listening, dropped her pen and jumped to her feet – ‘Wilfred!’
‘Don’t come near me.’
‘Too late,’ she said. ‘Since we were in bed together last night, and kissed this morning before you went off. Come upstairs.’
Slowly he followed her. His head ached, his eyes hurt, his stomach was unsettled, his flesh shivered and crawled. She pulled back the covers, helped him undress, and put him to bed. She sat beside the bed – ‘I’ll bring some hot tea and aspirin. I’ll try to get a doctor, but …’
He waved a feeble hand – ‘Don’t bother. There are people really ill with it. I’m not.’
‘I have to go out for a bit,’ she said. ‘Will you be all right?’
‘Of course,’ he mumbled, his eyes closing.
She went out and down the stairs. Whatever he said, she must try to get a doctor for him; and there was one who would come if he possibly could – Rob Glennie, the young Scotsman from the Greenock shipbuilding yards, who’d managed to put himself through medical training without losing his Gorbals’ accent, or his Clydeside socialism. He was a fiery young man … agin the war, agin the class system, agin the English – and a good doctor. She put on her coat and hat and went out.
Half an hour later she was back, with Glennie. She waited in the parlour until he came down again, his little black bag in his hand. His small alert face was weary: on the way here, he had told her that he had seen a hundred and two influenza patients in the last three days, of which four had died. She said now, ‘A little whisky, Rob?’
He shook his head – ‘More cases, and they don’t like it if Jones the Bones comes in reeking of booze … This seems to be the same virus as the spring flu epidemic, but we’re getting a lot of pulmonary complications now, and that’s leading to a high death rate. The worst is what’s called haemorrhagic oedema – “wet lungs” or “dripping lungs”. If Wilfred starts to wheeze … has difficulty in breathing … makes wet noises as though he has water in his lungs, send for me at once. I’ll come. Except for the next twelve hours. I’m taking three sleeping pills and knocking myself out, as soon as I get home.’
‘What can you do, if Wilfred does get wet lungs?’
After a long pause he said, ‘Not a bluidy thing … Keep him warm, and quiet. Lots of warm liquids. No alcohol. No solid food until his temperature’s been normal for twenty-four hours. I must go.’
‘The bill …’ she began.
He waved her aside – ‘Make me National Health Officer when he’s Prime Minister.’ He was gone. She closed the door, and sat down, staring straight ahead. The newspaper on the floor at her feet showed the headline INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC SPREADS, GROWS … It was eerie to think that the flu, which was now threatening Wilfred’s life, and at any moment might seize her, too, could also kill the war. The troops in the trenches were being smitten harder than they had been by enemy machine-guns. The only reason they could hold their positions was that their enemy was in an equally bad state. Industry was grinding to a standstill, commerce suffering, sports dying … And she and Wilfred ought to be out in the streets, electioneering; for now it was definite that Harry Rowland would not contest the next election. Lloyd George was the sort of cunning swine who would call an election as soon as the war was won; to make capital of his successful waging of it. It could happen any minute.
Wilfred’s illness could not be helped, and the constituency was in good shape. The labour troubles at Hedlington Aircraft and JMC had helped. The bloody continuation of the war had helped. Now it only needed victory for many pent-up frustrations to burst out, in victory at the polls. The Liberals and Conservatives thought they were secure, at every point. She knew, from working with the people, walking with them, talking to them, that it was not so.
The doorbell rang and she went to answer it. Wilfred had wanted to have at least one maid in the house but she had vetoed it; they were working Socialists and did not believe in personal service of that kind. She opened the door. It was Mary Gorse, Willum’s wife. She was carrying a heavy burden in her arms. Rachel hurried forward, arms out. Mary said, ‘It’s my Jane, Rachel. She has the influenza. I can’t get any doctor to come to us. Little Rupert’s got it, too, but he’s not so bad.’
Rachel laid the girl down on the sofa. She was ten, immature, childish of shape, heavy brown hair hanging across a pale, sweating face, dark eyes staring up at her. The pulse was high – temperature, about 103, breathing heavy, wheezing, bubbles … dripping lungs. There was nothing to be done, but hope, pray … but she was an atheist. Mary was on her knees, praying beside the sofa. Warm drinks … but the girl wouldn’t be able to hold them down. Aspirin – not that, either.
She said fiercely, ‘The doctors would have come if you’d told them Florinda would pay.’
Mary looked up, ‘I couldn’t say that, Rachel.’ She resumed her praying, ‘Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …’
Rachel shouted, ‘What’s the use of praying to a God who doesn’t exist? Don’t pray – remember! Remember your child’s dying because they sent your husband to have his legs blown off … they wouldn’t give you enough money to keep a fire in the grate … and when you needed the doctor, he wouldn’t come because he was busy dealing with little Lord Fauntleroy, who’s eaten too much caviare!’
‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us … For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.’
‘Oh, God! … Amen.’
Daily Telegraph, Saturday, October 12, 1918
FEARS IN GERMANY
FINANCIAL PANIC
From Our Financial Correspondent, Paris, Friday
afternoon.
The financial panic in Germany, which came like a thunderbolt to Berlin on Oct. 3, is spreading in all parts of the Empire, according to the latest Swiss information. There was another severe shock on Oct. 8, a warning of the coming debacle in the financial situation of Germany, notwithstanding the urgent efforts of the Press to quiet panic-stricken holders of German and Austrian securities … Capitalists are striving to liquidate their positions, notwithstanding the intervention of the German banks and the creation of a banking trust to buy up the mass of securities thrown on the market. German discipline and bluff will hold the field to the last. A Geneva message …
‘German discipline and bluff Cate thought; they were holding the field in France, too, at great cost to themselves, and to everyone else. It would only make things worse for them when the end, now inevitable, came. Why not give in, the sensible thing to do? But who had been sensible in this war?
Garrod, pouring coffee for him, said, ‘Bertha’s in bed with the flu, sir. And Mrs Abell’s staying in bed, too, though she’s not sure whether it’s the flu or something else.’
She went out. Stella, sitting opposite her father, said, ‘When’s the war going to be over, Daddy?’
He said, ‘Soon … it must. Then John will come back, and …’
He wanted to say, everything will be all right; but could not say it, for it would not be true. Stella was still addicted to heroin, and still turned in on herself, uninterested in anything outside … except Virginia’s baby, perhaps. She’d been to Hedlington every day to see that, until Virginia took the baby back to Wokingham. What she needed was her own baby, even now kicking in her womb; and her husband. But when …?
Stella stood up sud
denly, holding on to the edge of the table. Her face went pale, then red, again pale. Garrod came in, as though warned by telepathy. Stella said, ‘Daddy … the waters … they’ve broken!’
Cate leaped to his feet, scattering the newspaper all over the table. ‘The trap,’ he cried, ‘but Bertha’s sick … I’ll telephone Richard to drive us …’
Stella said, ‘I shall have it here, Daddy. Send for Probyn’s Woman.’
She turned, Garrod’s arm supporting her as Cate hurried to help. The three of them went slowly upstairs, leaving the coffee bubbling, the fried eggs and bacon warm under the domed silver lid, the toast half-eaten on the plates.
Chapter 13
Walstone, Kent: Sunday, October 13, 1918
Probyn Gorse walked carefully through Woolmer’s Spinney, his gun on his shoulder, unloaded. There was no moon, and the stars were intermittently wiped from the sky by fast-moving clouds. It was one o’clock in the morning, windy, not cold, raw with the promise of rain by dawn. Stopping, he peered up at the branches above him, now almost bare of leaves. The silhouettes of the roosting pheasants were clear enough now, where a month earlier it had been hard to see them in the leaves … too hard to make it worthwhile for the city poachers to come with their little 22 rifles and knock them off, easy as hitting them down with a stick. And they were easier to see by day, too, feeding in the stubble outside the woods; but not many poachers came by day. The weather was the real key; if it was cold and raining, they stayed in bed or went to sleep in a barn and took the first train back to London or Chatham in the morning. If it was a clear evening, with a red sky and an east wind, they’d put on their old warm poaching clothes and come down, especially in the middle of the week, when the money was running low from last payday. Tonight, it could go either way.
Probyn walked on, careful to make no sound on the dead leaves. He knew all these woods like the back of his hand. He’d been poaching them for over fifty years, in all seasons, all weathers. The strange thing was to be wearing this heather mixture tweed suit and deerstalker cap, the uniform of the Walstone Park keepers. He’d protested, but Lord Walstone said he had to wear it when he was on duty: otherwise, he might be mistaken for a poacher by one of the other keepers, and shot by mistake.
A faint flapping noise caught his ear and he stepped easily behind the thick bole of an oak, listening. Might be the wind stirring the high branches ahead … might be one bough touching another with its leaves … might be some boy quietly clapping his hands together … hands in gloves. Who’d be fool enough to do that, this time of night? Jerry Tharp, maybe, young feller that worked in Woodruff’s garage, might be him. He liked to go out at night, get himself a bird or two from wherever he could find it. No harm in him, but not much skill yet, either …
He slipped cartridges into both barrels and stalked forward, the gun now carried in front of him, across his chest. The flapping noise grew louder. He stopped again, thinking, not now in general, of what it might be, but of Woolmer’s Spinney in particular … forty acres, longer north to south than east to west, sloping down about thirty feet to the east, hedges all round, except a post and rail fence on the north, on Jim Harvey’s land; oak, ash, elm in the middle, hazel round the outside … and a pole trap in the very centre. That was it. He was about fifty feet from it now. He stepped out and in a moment reached the trap, a pole ten feet high, with a steel-jawed trap set on top of it. There was a small platform inside the jaws, and on the platform a piece of high meat, securely anchored to a short wire, which actuated the jaws. It was designed to trap birds of prey, and so reduce the numbers of them that could attack the pheasants as they grew. The flapping sound came from the wings of a bird caught in the trap. It was hanging head down, held by its broken legs, beating its wings against the pole. Probyn caught it by the neck and peered in the starlight … big, round flat face, white, with the beak line down the middle, big dark eyes. Tawny Owl. He forced open the jaws of the trap and, holding the owl by its thighs, smashed its head against the pole twice, then threw it away into the dark wood. He hadn’t been here for a couple of nights; the owl could have been there nearly all that time: they died hard … probably from last night, though. Master Laurence had tried to bring up one of them Tawnies he’d found deserted. It flew away when it was nine months old, and he never saw it again, but till then it used to bring him mice it caught …
Big shoot come Saturday. Plenty of birds for the gentlemen, in spite of the other keepers being no more use than a sick headache. He’d tell Lord Walstone to get rid of ’em soon, and look for younger men. With the war almost finished and men coming out of uniform and eager for any job they could get, it wouldn’t be difficult … but how many of ’em would want to be walking round a dark wood, in the middle of the night, after four years in the trenches? They’d rather be in bed, holding their wives’ titties and thanking God they didn’t have to be up …
He reached the north edge of the wood and stopped, looking out over the stubble. It wasn’t a hard job. As he’d felt, and as Lord Walstone had said, it was no different really from what he’d been doing all his life … He’d catch a few poachers, lose a few pheasants … someone would try to bash him on the head … but he knew them all, every one of them, who might come out moonlighting from Walstone and Taversham and Beighton … London? That was different. But they were Englishmen, too, weren’t they? Spoke the same language? It was a good game, this poaching and keeping, like the cowboys and Indians that the kids played in the village.
He set off back through the wood. Have to remember to reset the pole trap. They were against the law, but landowners who preserved birds winked at it. Just don’t get caught, they said, or hinted … Right strange thing that was, about Miss Stella’s baby. No one in the village knew what to say, so they were saying nothing. Thinking, though …
Gesticulating and speaking energetically, Lord Walstone strode up and down in front of the fireplace in the Blue Drawing-Room at the Park. Sitting in a chair nearby was Mr T. D. Eaves, a withered gentleman of about seventy, a retired banker who looked and dressed like an eighteenth-century coachman, complete to breeches, hunting boots, stock, and usually a top hat, frockcoat, and foxhead crop. Walstone said, ‘The upshot of it is that Hi propose to restart the North Weald Hounds, and the first thing I want to know is – will you return as secretary?’
‘Willingly,’ the old man said at once. ‘You will not have any difficulty reassembling a good pack, either. Hunts all over the country are having to retrench or close down altogether, because of lack of food for the hounds. But …’
Walstone raised a hand, ‘I know, Eaves … where will I get huntsmen and whippers-in and kennel men? The answer is, from the army. The war’ll be over any day soon, and then, why, everyone’ll be looking for a job – and they won’t be easy to come by, ’cos they’ll stop making guns and shells and tanks and aeroplanes just like that’ – he snapped two pudgy, powerful fingers together. ‘What I want is to get everything — organised the members, the kennels, the wire fund, all ready to go as soon as I can get the hunt servants.’
‘You’ll be Master, I presume?’
Lord Walstone puffed out his chest, thus somewhat reducing his paunch – ‘Yes, Hi will … In due course we will find a suitable Joint Master, but for the time being it’ll be me. I won’t hunt the hounds, of course.’
Eaves made a non-committal noise in his throat. Walstone had spunk, but he rode like a sack of potatoes, and knew nothing about the technique of foxhunting. He’d been out several days in Lord Swanwick’s time and had been a member of the hunt … wore the pink coat from his second or third day, oblivious of others’ amusement … oblivious, or careless. Why should he care? Eaves was a rich man himself, but Walstone was … rich-rich, as he’d heard some young blood put it.
‘All right, then,’ Walstone said. ‘You get started. Get the notepaper printed … find out who has hounds for sale … find out where the old huntsmen and whippers-in and kennel men have gone, what regiments – they’re mo
stly in the cavalry, probably … We could circulate the Commanding Officers of all the cavalry depots and ask them … they’ll probably have been kept back from France to teach the recruits how to ride, and look after their horses … speak to all the farmers in the district about wire … Lord Swanwick was very hot against wire but he didn’t pay ’em enough … a banquet and ball for farmers p’raps? Every Christmas … that’d help to get their daughters married off … see what you can think of.’ He looked at the ornate clock on the ornate marble mantel behind him – ‘Half past.’ He raised his voice – ‘Chapman, is Probyn Gorse waiting out there?’ A distant voice answered, ‘Yes, milord.’
‘Send him in … That’s all, Eaves.’
Eaves got up carefully, and stalked out with a short but courtly bow to his lordship. Probyn Gorse came in, deerstalker in hand, his purple suit carefully brushed, his hair re-dyed a stronger ginger.
Walstone said, ‘Are you shooting foxes?’
Probyn paused, wondering what the purpose of the question was. Lord Walstone wasn’t a country person, so perhaps he didn’t know that all gamekeepers shot foxes, unless their employers were also Masters of Foxhounds or otherwise closely associated with the hunt.
Walstone continued, ‘Because I’m going to restart the hunt … And I don’t want any more foxes shot. No excuses, eh? They’re to be bleeding well preserved, just like the pheasants, so the hunt can have good sport.’
‘If you don’t get rid of the foxes, you won’t have good shooting,’ Probyn said.
‘Ho yes, I will, and all my guests too. You do whatever’s necessary, Probyn. Trap the foxes and keep them in cages and let ’em out the morning of the meet …’
‘That’s called bagging, milord. Mr Skagg used to do it regular for Lord Swanwick. It’s against the law.’
Lord Walstone’s beady little black eyes glistened – ‘Between you and me, Probyn, fuck the law. Can’t you give the ruddy foxes something else to eat than pheasants? Why don’t you tie out chicken for ’em now and then? Meat. Eggs. Anything they’ll like.’
