Sergeant Nelson of the Guards

by Gerald Kersh

  “And ’e always seemed to ’ave a black eye and a cut face ever since. I never see a boy get into more trouble than my Billy. I call ’im my Billy, you know, because I was really more of a mummy to ’im than Etta. She couldn’t stand the sight of ’im. I suppose it was on account of Fred; but she couldn’t stick Billy at all. She never said anything to ’im except to call ’im names. And all she ever give Billy was smackings and ’idings. I saved Billy from many a beating, many a time. She was a cruel girl, that’s what Etta was. I used to say: ‘Why do you keep ‘ammering into the boy for nothing at all?’ ’E used to go about in terrible clothes, you know. She couldn’t bring ’erself to put a stitch in anything for the child. I sewed up ’is jersey many and many a time. I never was a rich woman, but I used to go without my dinner to give Billy a bite, once in a while. ’E was welcome to it, poor thing.

  “She didn’t want ’im, and she told ’im so, and it used to make ’im cry bitter. ’E was afraid of ’er. She used to pinch ’im, and things. A smack round the ’ead does no kiddy any ’arm. But pinching is cruelty, spiteful, and I don’t like to see it. I’ve see bruises on that child’s arm bigger than plums.

  “Then agen, you see, Etta was a terrible one for the men. She used to act like a cat when … you know … like a cat when it’s got to go out and … you know. It was in ’er nature, you see. If she’d ’ad twenty ’usbands, she’d ’ave looked for twenty more. She was that sort of a girl, you see. And she used to go round and about to pubs with men. She used to come ’ere before they rebuilt this place. There was a lot of talk, I can tell you. Powder all over ’er face, and dressed up like a dog’s dinner: and as time went on she got worse and worse. If you ask me, it was a bit unnatural. It was what they call Sex, young man. She drank more and more until she was never without a drop of gin inside ’er. Beer, yes. Wine, yes. But spirits? No, a woman didn’t ought to take the food out of ’er kiddy’s mouth to buy spirits. She used to go out to work, cleaning and things. But she didn’t like to seem servantified, you know, and she give it up as soon as she stopped caring what people thought.

  “They make Billy’s life a misery, callin’ ’im a B. Mothers wouldn’t let their youngsters play with ’im, because ’e was considered to be almost a ’gitimate child. Other boys used to set about ’im. ’E was fighting every single day. But ’e ’ad a lovely nature. ’E wanted to be friendly, if they’d let ’im. The only wrong thing ’e ever done was to steal two shillings of mine. I saw ’im steal it orf my mantelpiece, but I never said anything. I was going to, mind you, but then I thought, Poor thing, ’e don’t get much. And so I never said nothing at all. But one day ’e come to me with two shillings and give ’em to me. ’E’d earned it doing errands for Mr. Maxwell, you see, and ’e give me this two shillings and said: ‘I pinched two bob off of you, Mrs. Fish. ’Ere’s it back. I’m sorry.’ I said: ‘What did you go and pinch two bob off of me for, Billy? That wasn’t a nice thing to go and do, was it now?’ And ’e said: ‘I dunno why I done it, Mrs. Fish. I just wanted to give it to Tommy Millbank.’ I said: ‘Do you mean to tell me you pinched two bob off of me to go and give to Mrs. Millbank’s Tommy?’ ’E said: ‘Yes, Mrs. Fish.’ I said: ‘Are you orf your ’ead, Billy?’ and ’e said: ‘I dunno.’ I said: ‘Billy Nelson, I see you pinch that money,’ I said. ‘I thought you wanted it for yourself,’ I said. ‘And though it’s wrong and wicked to steal, why, I wasn’t going to say nothing about it. But to pinch my ’ard-earned money to go and give to Tommy Millbank is being foolish on top of everything else.’ Then ’e burst out crying and said: ‘I dunno why I done it, Mrs. Fish. I won’t do it any more. I wanted to give Tommy Millbank something nice, and I didn’t ’ave nothing to give ’im, so I pinched your money. But I won’t do it again.’ I said: ‘But what made you want to give Tommy Millbank something nice, Billy?’ And ’e said: ‘Tommy Millbank said ’e liked me.’

  “I thought to myself, God spare you, you poor little creechur, and I give Billy back the two shillings and said: ‘Well, don’t you dare do it agen. Now go and buy yourself somethin’. And when ’e was gone, I cried bitter at the thought of that poor child—’e was only eight—going and giving somebody something just for saying ’e liked ’im.

  “’E took the two shillings ’ome and give them to Etta. ’E said ’e did. There was a wale on ’is face. I think she didn’t give ’im a chance to give ’er anything. She took things away from ’im.

  “It’s a strange thing, because she wasn’t a bad-’earted girl. She just ’ated that kiddy, you see. ’Ated ’im, worse ’n an enemy. And the more she ’ated ’im, and walloped ’im, and picked on ’im and worried ’im—the more she did all she could to ’urt ’im, the more ’e seemed to be affectionate to ’er. It was something pitiful. ’E was trying to make ’er like ’im. But the more ’e tried to make ’er like ’im, the more she walloped ’im.

  “’E went to school near ’ere, two turnings away.

  “It ’ad a gravel playground. I was for everlasting picking gravel out of Billy’s ’ead. ’E got the name for a ruffian. There was a lot of boys from our street and they kepp calling Billy a B. They called Billy’s mother a W. You couldn’t expeck a boy to take it lying down, now could you? ’E used to fight all playtime, and after school too. ’E was always getting caned for fighting. Poor little thing, ’e wasn’t big, but ’e was quick as lightning and wiry, and in the end they didn’t pick on ’im as much as they used to, because ’e could fight any of ’em.

  “’E won prizes, though, sometimes. I remember ’e won a box of paints for painting, and a medal for swimming, and a book—a medical book about some Doctor Johnson or other. ’E was educated there …”

  *

  You know the kind of thing.

  There is a large school building, as red as if it has been skinned, in the middle of a playground. On one of the walls somebody has chalked a representation of a wicket, which stands out, pale and skeletal, against a background of dim bricks dotted with the marks of wet rubber balls.

  Some hundreds of boys rush about, throwing things at one another and uttering appalling cries. In another segregated corral a large number of girls dash from place to place, squealing. Then a whistle blows, or a bell rings, and everybody goes into the big red building.

  “Hands together! Eyes closed!” The children strike attitudes of supplication. Then they say:

  I bleevn Gotherfather or might he,

  Maker revven nearth,

  Than in Jesus Crisis only sonour Lor

  Doo was concede by the Yoly Gose

  Bore nother Verge in Mary

  Sufferdunder punch us Pilate

  Twas crucified edden buried

  DEE

  Descended inter well

  THUR

  Dayeeroser gain fromer dead

  DEE

  Ascended interweven nan sithoner ritander

  Gorrafather or might he….

  and so on, to Zarection-a-body-a-lifer-lasting GAR-MEN. Then, having swung through the Lord’s Prayer:

  Ow

  Farchar Tneven,

  Harold be thy name.

  Thy kinkum

  Thy wilberdun nearth thas tis never

  Gus day daily breadden fug giser trespsss sweef

  givvem a trespss gains Tus,

  Nleed snot into temptation

  Buddy liver us meevil

  Thine skindum pown glory evnever RAH-MEN,

  they have uttered their confession of faith and made their demands on Heaven. So they get to work. They learn Reading, Writing, Arithmetic. They “do” History, which is Kings and Battles. They take in Geography, which is rivers and mountains and imports and exports, and is contained in brown books. They learn passages out of the plays of William Shakespeare; and “have Art” which consists of pencil lines dragged round areas of paper shaped like jugs, cups, or bottles. In the middle of the morning they have a Playtime: they throw more things at one another, and utter more appalling cries, and tell one another the latest snippets of gy
næcological misinformation. A whistle brings them in again. There are more lessons. At twelve they pray that the Lord may be present at their tables, and then rush away, howling, to eat. They return at two, thank God for their food and beg Him to give manna to their souls; and so go back to lessons. At four or four-thirty they pray that God will guard them against the perils and dangers of the coming night …

  Thine skindum pown glory evnever RAH-MEN.

  Thanking God in their hearts that the agonies of the day are over, they emerge, striking tremendous blows at every head within reach and hurling shocking epithets at their friends and enemies. Some go straight home. Others hang about looking for things to break. They have got over the arid wilderness of the afternoon. They have picked their way over the soggy morass of the things they have been given to learn. Somewhere between boredom and fear of punishment, they have picked up a few shreds of fact and nonsense … the technique of addition, subtraction, and multiplication … how to read and write a bit … Mark Anthony’s speech out of Julius Caesar, which is already fading from their minds like a word drawn on a steamy window. Those who wouldn’t do as they were told, or couldn’t repeat what they had heard, were slapped about the head a little or beaten on the backside—which is not the place to hammer home the accumulated wisdom of the centuries.

  They find it all a bore. It is a bore. They want to grow up quickly; get old, smoke in public, drink beer, muck about with girls, shave, spit, back horses, wear long trousers, and in their turn beat little boys with an iron adult hand.

  I know just what kind of education they gave Bill Nelson.

  He was a bright boy, Mrs. Fish said. He won a scholarship which entitled him to a free place in a secondary school. But his mother wouldn’t let him go. He stayed at school until he was nearly fourteen. At that age he seems to have been morose and touchy, horribly sensitive about his wretched clothes, his lanky legs, his long wrists, and his uncut hair.

  His mother had taken to bemoaning her lot. The boy Nelson was overwhelmed by pity for her. It makes a picture in my mind. I can see it clearly … a dark, depressing picture. On the one side, the mother, Henrietta, a tall woman carrying the wreckage of a certain hot-eyed beauty in an aura of recrudescent gin, cigarette smoke, Opopanax perfume and the perspiration of sexual hyperaesthesia … a big-boned, loose-mouthed woman got up in shoddy finery. On the other, the boy who had been born with a black eye, the villain who had nearly killed his mother in his desperate struggle to be born; the much-blamed, much-beaten child who had eaten and drunk at her expense; the offspring of an absentee father; the walking liability, the living reproach, the breathing encumbrance.

  *

  “She took up with a feller called Daly, a feller that worked for a bookie, and this Daly used to be a boxer. Billy got a job with a man that ’ad a paper shop, delivering things and ’elping in the shop. Every farthing ’e earned ’e give Etta, but she was always crying to Billy about all she’d done for ’im. Daly come to live with ’er, and there used to be ructions when they rowed. ’E knocked ’er about a bit. Billy tried to stick up for ’is mother. Once ’e knocked Daly down with a poker, and ’e was only sixteen at the time, too. But Etta went for Billy bald-’eaded when ’e done that, and scratched all ’is face. Daly kep quieter after that, though ’e sometimes went for Billy something wicked when ’e’d ’ad a few drinks.

  “Billy ’ad a lot of different jobs. Nobody ever troubled to ’ave ’im taught a trade. Nobody cared about ’im. It’s a wonder ’e didn’t grow up to be a burglar, or a waster, or something. ’E must ’ave good blood in ’im, a lovely nature. ’E was a bit rough with people sometimes, but never with ’is mother. Whenever ’e talked about ’er it was like ’earing er talk about ’erself, you know. All about the way she’d suffered and what she’d been through. Then it all broke up.

  “Billy was just over seventeen, and strong as a lion. I was in Etta’s kitchen at the time. Daly and ’er was ’aving words, and Daly called ’er a W. Billy said nothing but walked over to ’im and ’it ’im straight in the face. It was a punch that made my blood run cold. It sounded like a mallet. Daly fell over and knocked ’is ’ead against the table leg. I thought ’e was done for then. But it was concussion. Then, when all the screaming and shouting was over, and Daly was bandaged up, Etta turns round to Billy and tells ’im straight out that she wants ’im to clear out and stay out. ‘You only like making trouble for me,’ she says; ‘you’ve done nothing but make trouble for me all your life. I ’ate the sight of you,’ she says. ‘Go ’way, get out of this ’ouse. Get out and keep out. I mean it,’ she says. ‘Go to ’ell. I can’t stand you, and never could.’

  “So Billy goes. ’E was crying. ’E didn’t ’ave anything to pack, you see, so ’e went as ’e was. Crying. It broke my ’eart.

  “’E stayed on at ’is job, which was no good, much. And then ’e got fed up, you see. ’E said to me that ’e was tired of everything, and wanted to run away from it all. Then I didn’t see ’im for a year or more, and then one day ’e comes to see me in a big grey overcoat and a brass kind of cap. ’E’d joined the Army. ’E sent every penny ’e ’ad, almost, to Etta. Then she was took bad and went to the ’ospital. She knew she was going to die, and she was afraid. Billy come to see ’er. She said: ‘Forgive me, Willy’ (she always called ’im Willy: it was a name ’e ’ated). She said: ‘I’ve treated you like a dog.’ And ’e said: ‘You’ve always been a good mother to me.’ Then she died, and she was buried, and Billy went away and I never saw ’im again ever.”

  *

  So that is how it was.

  Nelson went into the Army because at that time he wanted to get away from life. He took to the Army as another man might have taken to drink: he wanted to drown himself. He ran away into the Army as a wounded animal runs away into a solitude: he wanted to be alone with his wounds. The Army was a kind of wilderness, in which he could lose himself. So he lost himself; and found himself; and so he became Hi-de-Hi Bill the Bucko Sergeant, Nelson, the One-Man Wave of Destruction.

  XIV

  Corporal Bittern

  BUT something prompted me to keep my mouth shut, and Bearsbreath went on:

  “What does anybody join the Army for, anyway? Some join because they’re no good for anything else. They’ve got no proper go in them of their own accord, and they’ve got to be forced by law and discipline. Some join the Army because they’re browned off with the job they’ve got, or haven’t got, in Civvy Street; and in the Army, at least, they can eat regular. I’m talking of peacetime. Some join because of women. Some join because they think they’re going to see the world; or because it’s easier for a Guardsman to get into the Police after he’s served a few years; or because they fancy themselves in a Guard Order. Only one or two join because they’re cut out to be soldiers.”

  “Some join because their fathers were in the mob,” says Crowne.

  “Some join because they’re made to join,” says the Butcher. “A kid’s sent to the Duke o’ York’s School. He gets Army training from eight onwards. Then he becomes a drummer or a tradesman. I knew one that never grew up. He never grew beyond about four-foot-four. Tichy Seeds: remember Tichy? Forty years old, he looked like a kid, from the back: in the Sports he just made the weight for the little boys’ tug-o’-war team. But from the front he had a moustache like a hand scrubber. And a voice! What a voice. A voice near as loud as Tibby Britton’s. And he was a Full Sarnt. Drums, of course.”

  “Wasn’t it Tich that got fourteen days for the bull about the Field-Marshal’s Baton?” asks Hands. “He was a drummer at the time. Some officer’s lecturing the drums about some regimental Fanny Adams, and this officer says something about ‘In every soldier’s knapsack there is a Field-Marshal’s Baton.’ And this kid says: ‘Gorblimey, I thought it was me fife!’ The officer heard, and thought he was being insubordinate. The kid thought he was whispering, only he had such a shocking voice he bawled it instead of whispering it.”

  “Trust a drummer,” says Crown
e. “Nobody gets into more trouble than drummers. Every Defaulters’ Drill is lousy with drummers. You can’t punish them kids—they’ve had it all before. The training they get, they can sing and dance a Defaulters’ chasing. They’re ’ard, them kids. I’d as soon ’ave a couple of fifteen-year-old drums with me in a scrap as plenty of ’airyarse Guardsmen I know.”

  “Once when I was in Pompey,” says Butcher the Butcher, “I was going to the station with a drummer walking just behind me. I would of let this kid walk with me, only it doesn’t do to chuck away your dignity too bloody much in a public place. A kid that looked as if there was napkins on under his greatcoat. A whey-faced runt about three-foot-two that ought to ’ve messed in a wet-nursery and carried a titty bottle instead of a water bottle. Well, so three Marines, a bit lit, come barging along and start some funny stuff, and it end up with a fight. This drum joins in. Him and me against three Marines, mind you. Well, we was still holding our own ten minutes later when the Gestapo broke us up. He could go, that kid. Maybe the bloke he picked on—a Marine about seven and a half foot long by about four across—was only playing at fighting ’im and didn’t want to hurt. But you should ’ve seen that kid. He was little, but he was like a ghost with a hammer in his hand, like Jimmy Wilde.”

  “Little men can fight, very often,” says Hands.