Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  Ginger Keble Palmer waved, calling, ‘You must come and see what we’re doing at Handley Page, Guy … and what we’re going to do.’

  ‘I will, in the hols.’

  They turned off along the gravel path towards the squash courts as Guy and Grant-Meikle headed for the freestanding wall which was the ‘dressing room’ at Big Side. Guy’s mind was still on Ginger Keble Palmer. It was Ginger who had really been responsible for turning his energies and dreams to the air. Two years older than he, Ginger was designing aircraft, on paper, when still at Wellington; and had taught Guy the theory of aerodynamics. He had prophesied that one day, before they were old, aircraft would carry passengers across the oceans of the world … or bombs, Guy thought. Ginger would never fly the aeroplanes he designed – his glasses were as thick as pebbles, as thick as Uncle Richard’s; but it had always been planned between them that Guy would be the test pilot, and pass what he learned by actual flying to Ginger at his drawing board … and to David Toledano at his desk as the financier of their dream firm.

  Then they were at the wall, hung with hooks for their sweaters. They sat on the ground, separated now, Wellington to the right, the visitors to the left, and put on their rugger boots. The Big Side turf was never a bright emerald green for it was based on springy heath soil, not clay; and because of that it drained well, and a good game could be played on it after heavy rain when Wokingham’s field, for instance, would have quickly turned into a quagmire. Six hundred Wellington boys, all compelled to watch, were lining up by dormitories on the duckboards along the near touch line. Many green-capped Wokingham boys had walked over too, and had been allotted a length of duckboard. Two girls’ schools from Bracknell and Crowthorne were there, eighty girls in dark blue coats and hats with yellow or blue ribbons and dark blue stockings. Guy grinned, remembering the last home match here when a Wellington wing three-quarter had had his shorts torn off by a hand tackle, right in front of the girls’ schools. The team had formed their usual protective zareba round the victim while another pair was obtained and thrown in – but not before the girls’ schools had been given a fifteen-second view of Burton major’s hairy thighs, loins, and private parts, at twenty-feet range, while Burton stood bewildered, not realizing among the gasps and giggles that his middle parts were as bare as a gorilla’s.

  The Wokingham team were punting about at the squash courts end, Wellington at the other, the three-quarters passing in a swift diagonal movement from an imaginary scrum. Guy heard a voice call – ‘Guy!’ and he ran off towards his grandfather. They were standing a little past the end of the wall, in a group – his grandfather, Stella Cate, and a man he knew but for a moment couldn’t place: then he recalled the occasion – it was the young American they had met at Henley. He hugged his grandfather, kissed Stella on the cheek, and shook Johnny Merritt’s hand. ‘Come to learn how to play football?’ he asked.

  Johnny grinned … ‘This is not my game, but I daresay I could give you guys a few pointers.’

  ‘Good luck, Guy,’ his grandfather said. ‘I know you’ll be busy after the match, so let’s say we’ll meet you at Great Gate half an hour after No Side. All right?’

  ‘Make it an hour, please, Grandpa,’ Guy said: then he remembered that he had not had a chance to see Dick Yeoman again, and must do so; word was out through the school by now that Dick and two others had been sacked, and another, a squealer, given twelve by the Master. ‘An hour and a half. I’ve got to change, and then we have tea with Wokingham before seeing them off, then I have a job to do. I have an exeat till ten o’clock.’

  His family drifted away, waving, to be replaced by a tall dark-skinned youth wearing heavy glasses, in uniform, a 2nd Lieutenant’s stars this time on his shoulders, accompanied by a smaller older man with a walrus moustache, fiercely jutting eyebrows and also wearing heavy glasses.

  Guy said, ‘Hullo, sir. Come to see us beat Wokingham?’

  ‘If you can,’ the man replied. ‘What do you think of John in his uniform?’ He looked at the youth with an expression of immense pride.

  ‘Second Lieutenant, Irish Guards, I think,’ Guy said.

  ‘Ensign,’ John Kipling said, smiling. ‘We don’t have 2nd Lieutenants in the Foot Guards. I’m under instruction with the reserve battalion of the Coldstream at Windsor – with a lot of others from the Brigade.’

  ‘Well, you look every inch a guardee,’ Guy said, laughing. ‘Flatfoot Heavies, my father calls them.’

  ‘He’s Weald Light Infantry, isn’t he?’ the older man cut in. ‘I knew them in Lahore, consule Planco. Good regiment! They wear the scarlet, or did then.’

  ‘They still do, Mr Kipling – but they look down on Heavy Infantry, even Guards.’

  Rudyard Kipling laughed loudly, his teeth shining out under the moustache, the glasses gleaming under the awning of the eyebrows. ‘Well, each to his own. John was going into the navy. Jackie Fisher himself promised him an appointment, but his eyes … I persuaded Lord Roberts to accept him into his regiment – he’s Colonel of the Irish, you know.’

  ‘Bobs Bahadur,’ Guy said.

  ‘Ah, you don’t have to prove to me you read my books, you young scoundrel,’ Kipling said. ‘Run along now, and beat Wokingham. John’s as keen on Wellington as if he were still here – and playing … good luck. Hope we’ll see you again at Bateman’s soon. Mrs K. has a very soft spot for you.’ They waved, and Guy ran out on to the sacred short turf of Big Side. A rugger ball came arching through the air towards him, tumbling end over end as it fell. He caught it on the run, pivoted, and then remembered – Wokingham was watching. That was a trick to keep for the match, not give away before it … a trick to use for the kill.

  1st Half: Wokingham attacked continuously, since their forwards outweighed the Wellington scrum by half a stone a man, and shoved together. Wellington’s only attacking movement came to naught when, there being no one left over, the Wokingham full back tackled the last man. A lack of imagination was shown here, particularly by the centres, who twice would have broken through if they had run straight instead of across the field. The pack performed excellently against their heavier opponents. The hooker often managed to get the ball against the odd head, even after McKenzie was injured and had to leave the field. Wellington were lucky the half-time score was only 5-0 against them.

  2nd Half: The Wellington three-quarters initiated an attacking move from the kick-off which went all the way to the right wing, then back to his centre, who scored under the posts. It was easily converted. Five minutes later a similar movement by Wokingham resulted in a similar score. Wokingham 10, Wellington 5. For the next twenty minutes play was mostly dribbling, which was to the advantage of Wellington, who thereby were able to overcome the handicaps of weight, and of playing one man short. With five minutes left, d’Arcy on Wellington’s right wing received the ball five yards out on an extra long pass from his centre, slid easily past his opponent, sold the full back a perfect dummy to Rowland, who was backing up, and scored in the corner. From a difficult angle Rowland was not able to convert. The score was now 10-8 against us.

  The final minutes of play were fast and furious, and it says much for the training of both teams that there were no offside calls. With a minute and a half left in a well-fought game, and the Wellington pack dribbling well, the ball bounced up into Jameson’s hands. The extra Wokingham forward was there to tackle him, but Jameson swung full round and passed back to Rowland. Rowland ran forward and made to pass inside. The man covering him – Grant-Meikle – took his eye off him for a moment, and at that precise moment, Rowland, pivoting on his left foot, while still apparently going at full speed, put a drop kick through the goal posts from forty yards out. That remained the score at No Side – Wellington 12, Wokingham 10. The forwards are to be congratulated on making the result possible. A.J.F.

  ‘It’s a funny game,’ Johnny Merritt said. ‘All those fellows getting down and shoving each other like bulls, or something. I could never see what they were doing – or trying
to do.’

  ‘You wait till Sheddy Fenn writes it up for the paper,’ Guy said, laughing. ‘The forwards will get all the kudos. Quite right, too. We’d never get the ball without them.’

  ‘But you won it, with that drop kick. They weren’t expecting that.’

  ‘No,’ Guy said, ‘they weren’t.’ He smiled inwardly.

  Johnny said, ‘Each half was forty minutes … with no timeouts, and no substitutions … that’s hard work. And no protective padding. I don’t know why you don’t break every bone in your body.’

  ‘I feel a bit bashed about,’ Guy said. A thin line of dried blood marked a long gash on his forehead, got from a flying boot: and a dull bruise glowed under his left eye … ‘McKenzie has a broken collar bone. He played ten minutes with it before it began to hurt too much and he had to leave.’

  They were sitting in the lounge of the Wellington Hotel, by the railway bridge in Crowthorne, hard by the station, whose signboards read Wellington College – alight here for Crowthorne. It was from there that Guy went home at the end of every term, taking one train to Guildford and another to Hedlington, with a change at Tonbridge. Stella and Johnny were sitting to his right and left, facing each other; and his grandfather opposite himself. A glass of lemonade was in his hand, and a piece of plaster across the back of his right hand. In the changing room after the game Grant-Meikle had told him he was a blighter, laughing … he was supposed to be the dangerous drop-kicker.

  After seeing the Wokingham team into their char-a-banc Guy had gone to see Dick Yeoman. Dick was in the dumps again, and determined now to join up. Guy did not try to dissuade him. There was a war on – John Kipling was already in the Guards, seventeen years old, and there was no reason Dick should not go. But it was a pity that Dick, believing himself to be a pansy, was going to rush into an all-male institution. It would be like school, only more so. Here, after all, there were Ma Hags, tutors’ wives, and even daughters. It was such a waste, too … not that Dick might lose his life in the war … that was something all of them would face; but that he would go on believing that this incident was a sort of final disaster, that his life was ruined – and he not yet eighteen. He decided, while talking in a low voice to Dick in his room in the Lynedoch, that he must do something about it. He half made up his mind what that something must be, but he said nothing of this to Dick, only tried to cheer him up, and stress that the end of the world had not come. Then he ran down to Great Gate just as his grandfather drove up in the big Rowland Ruby … a word with Burgess, the Head Porter and ex-sergeant-major of Grenadiers, to remind him of his exeat … then out and away.

  He listened to the general talk. His Aunt Margaret had left home and gone to Ireland, but no one knew where. His grandfather looked uncomfortable while Stella was telling him that – perhaps because Johnny Merritt was present – but such a thing couldn’t be kept secret. Stella herself had been cubbing, on foot … took Johnny out last week. How had he liked it? It seemed cruel, though very colourful; why weren’t the foxes shot? That was a good question. Guy liked fox-hunting himself, but knew it would never be a passion with him. One day, perhaps, he would match his brain and his muscles against a snow leopard 18,000 feet above sea level in the Karakorams, one against one, as his father had done on leave, when serving in India. Perhaps hunting Germans in the air would be his passion.

  Stella said, ‘I work in the new Auxiliary Red Cross Hospital in Hedlington now, Guy. It’s in that huge house on Daneway. Lady Blackwell’s lent it to the government.’

  ‘You’re a nurse?’

  ‘Oh dear no. I’m a VAD – Voluntary Aid Detachment – Immobile. That means I only work in a hospital near home. I go up to Hedlington four days a week.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘Bathe the men, change dressings, serve meals … anything the sisters let us. Some of us are learning a little real nursing, too, by accident, so to speak. The sisters don’t have time to teach us.’

  ‘Do you get paid, Stella?’ Johnny Merritt asked.

  ‘Oh no! We serve for nothing.’

  So she was ‘Stella’ to Johnny Merritt now, Guy noted. He was looking at her as though she were a beautiful objet d’art, but very fragile. Well, that was a fair enough description of Stella, in a way.

  His grandfather said, ‘Have you heard anything from your father, Guy?’

  ‘I had a letter a couple of days ago, Grandpa. He was all right then, but said that his battalion was having very heavy casualties. He couldn’t say where he was, but I believe it’s near Ypres.’

  ‘The casualties are terrible,’ his grandfather said, ‘but we must not lose heart. We are facing a clever and fiendish enemy. Our leaders know what they are doing, and we must back them up, to the hilt.’

  No one said anything for a time; then Guy said, ‘John Kipling was watching the match, Grandpa. With Mr Kipling. Did you see them?’

  ‘Rudyard Kipling?’ Johnny Merritt said with a start.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was there this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes. His son was at Pearson’s – that’s a house, not a dormitory – from ’11 till this February when he left to go to a crammer’s.’

  ‘You know Rudyard Kipling, then?’

  ‘Very well. He used to come up for the weekend, to take John out, sometimes with Mrs Kipling. They’d stay at the Queen’s Hotel in Farnborough. Two or three times I’ve spent a week at Bateman’s in the holidays, when John invited me. Mr Kipling loved to hear us telling stories about the school. It’s very different from Westward Ho! in my day, and Stalky’s, he said.’

  ‘Well, well,’ Johnny said. ‘Smart, football and cricket hero – and well-connected … what are you going to do, yourself? Join up?’

  Guy said shortly, ‘No. I’m staying here till the end of next year. Then I’m joining the Royal Flying Corps.’

  A gong sounded for the start of dinner service, and Harry Rowland said, ‘Hungry, Guy?’

  ‘Yes, Grandpa, but I have a trunk call to make. It’s rather important. Do you mind if I have the charge put on your bill here?’

  ‘Not a bit … It’s not to – er – Paris, is it?’

  ‘No. Lyme Regis.’

  ‘Run along then. We’ll have another glass of sherry while he’s telephoning, eh, Johnny?’

  Guy walked to the hotel office and requested his call to Dick’s father. It took a quarter of an hour to get through. He had already planned what he should say to Mr Yeoman, and so, while he waited, he thought of the evening with his grandfather.

  Much had been said, and more would be: much had been left unsaid. Guy knew that his uncle Richard was planning to oppose his grandfather for a seat in Parliament – and Johnny was working for Uncle Richard; but that was not mentioned: only the factory to make lorries, with money from Johnny Merritt’s father’s bank. The hanging of poor Freda had been discussed a lot – but his grandfather, though admitting it was cruel and senseless, had become so rabid against the Germans that even he obviously felt, deep inside, that there was some justification for hanging dachshunds. The older that men were, Guy had noticed, the more fierce they were against all Germans, as Huns, and bestial barbarians … Stella had told them of Probyn Gorse’s sworn determination to get his own back on Lord Swanwick, not so much for having him sent to gaol, as because his keepers had killed his old dog, Prince. Now he had a new one, a lurcher he’d named Duke of Clarence, Stella said: and everyone in the village was busy guessing what Probyn would do to avenge the old dog. Guy thought, I must go and talk to Probyn and see if I can help. It will put some excitement into the hols … just over a month to Christmas. It would be fun to talk to the twins in the little cottage, and kiss Florinda, pretending they were still kids kissing among the hazel bushes, and then having peeing competitions into the Scarrow – competitions which he always won.

  His telephone call came through, and he put the receiver to his ear.

  Guy walked out of the Path of Duty gate an hour before Sunday morning chapel, and crosse
d the gravel to the front door of the Master’s Lodge. It was a foggy, damp morning, the tops of the trees like ghostly fingers barely seen through the thick air, moisture congealed on every blade of grass, the South Front disappearing into it, the chapel unseen.

  A maid came to the door at his ring and he said, ‘I’m Rowland, miss. Beresford. Please tell the Master I would like to see him.’

  ‘Very good, sir. Come in.’ She led him down the passage and into the Master’s large book-lined study. She went out and Guy waited expectantly, standing. The Master had his little whims, which most of the school knew about. Sure enough, a section of bookcase swung suddenly back and there he was, materialized like a large and rather untidy genie – Mr William Vaughan, MVO, MA, Master of Wellington. Boys wore their dormitory caps indoors at Wellington, and Guy now took his off in salute. ‘Good morning, Master,’ he said.

  The Master sat down behind his desk. He was as big as Sheddy Fenn, with mild eyes, a vaguely harried expression, and a large moustache. He was wearing a dark grey suit of heavy serge. He said, ‘I was just going to send for you, Rowland … but you must have come on some other matter, heh?’

  ‘It’s about Yeoman, sir,’ Guy said. He had felt a little nervous while crossing the South Quad and walking down the Path of Duty, but now action was joined, and he felt fine. ‘He told me that he has been expelled. Is that true, sir?’

  Vaughan looked unhappy, then tried to be stern and said, ‘It is. He and others, who were caught in disgraceful conduct.’

  Guy said, ‘It’s a natural thing, sir. Everyone does it, though not together. Expulsion is so serious that it will affect his whole life … it’s not what he did, but the expulsion, that carries the disgrace, sir. I know him well. I think all he needs is to grow up, and meet girls, and … he’ll be a normal man, like many others who have done what he and the others did, while they were here, but change as soon as they leave and go out into the world … Couldn’t they all be beaten, sir? And perhaps put into different dormitories?’