Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  Prisoners who had been all through the war stated that they had never experienced such a bombardment as that which preluded the assault on Neuve Chapelle … One wounded Prussian officer of a particularly offensive and truculent type, which is not uncommon, expressed the greatest contempt for our methods. ‘You do not fight. You murder,’ he said … In spite of the exhaustion of many of them, their aspect on the whole said a great deal for the discipline and order prevailing in the enemy’s ranks … They are almost universally optimistic as regards the situation. The idea prevalent still is that the Germans are going to finish with Russia first – which will not take long – and then with the whole of their forces will undertake the easy task of crushing France and Britain.

  Johnny Merritt reread the whole story, frowning, tapping his front teeth with his pencil. His father would have read this, or something like it, in The New York Times, so there was no point in summarizing it; but was it all true? Yesterday, just before noon, he’d been talking to one of the men putting in the roof windows at the plant. As he stood there on the roof, a wet March wind blowing and drops of rain slashing his face, the man had looked up from his work, and shouted against the wind, ‘Looks like the generals killed off another few thousand of our men, Mr Merritt.’ Johnny had knelt, asking, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My son came home on leave yesterday. He was through a battle out there, a place called Noove Chapel, it was. Horrible mess up, he says it was. No one got anywhere – just a lot of dead.’

  ‘He wasn’t wounded?’ Johnny had asked.

  The man shook his head. ‘He wasn’t … no thanks to the generals, he says. But we’ll read about a great victory in the papers, he says, you wait and see.’

  Johnny frowned at the paper, on which he was making notes for his fortnightly letter to his father. If the British were systematically lying about the situation at the Front, who knew what might really be happening? But perhaps the workman’s son had been over-wrought … a private soldier was in no position to see the whole of a battle, and was lucky to understand even what little happened right in front of and round him.

  How to find out the truth?

  Be there yourself, he answered himself. There’s no other way … But even there, would he know? And what could he do with his knowledge, if letters were censored?

  He made a note: Dad must be told that there was at least some doubt about the full truthfulness of British official communiqués.

  He continued working: the main danger to be foreseen for war production was increasing truculence of the unions, as the war made further inroads into their membership, and as more and more productivity was demanded, at the expense of all unions’ hard-won restrictive practices. In that quarter, much was wrong in Britain, and it would get worse.

  As regards Hedlington, there had been a further influx of Engineering Union organizers, but they were handicapped as far as the JMC went by the company’s policy of training women. Until the unions recognized women and other un skilled labour as suitable candidates for union membership, rather than as ‘dilution’, they couldn’t do much in a plant employing such a high proportion of women as JMC proposed to do.

  Financial position … he leaned back, picked up the telephone and asked the operator for Isaac Toledano’s private number at the bank in Moorgate. Toledano’s had put up forty per cent of the capital for the JMC, and Johnny kept in close touch with one of Isaac’s assistants over the company’s progress; but he talked regularly with old Isaac himself over the general state of the British economy; and Isaac seemed happy to spend the time … perhaps because he was who he was, son of the chairman of the board of Fairfax, Gottlieb.

  At the end of the talk he thanked Mr Toledano, and noted: general financial position, still very sound; increasing sales of property in America certain, bringing pressure on sterling – but not serious yet.

  He glanced at his watch and picked up the telephone again. ‘Will you get me Walstone 1, please?’ He waited, making circles on the paper … perhaps he ought to tell Dad that the British ate kidneys for breakfast … but he knew that already. ‘Hullo, Mr Cate? This is Johnny … Johnny Merritt. Could I speak to Stella, please?’

  The tinny voice at the other end answered, ‘Is it about your coming down tomorrow, Johnny?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I wanted to ask her if I should bring riding clothes.’

  ‘She was just going to call you, Johnny. She says she has to work all weekend on her nursing manual … just to be an assistant, you know, not a real nurse … so you’d better not come down. Next weekend, perhaps, eh?’

  Johnny hung up. She was working too hard. She didn’t have to be a nurse. There were other things a young lady could do to help the war effort that didn’t involve so much studying and concentration … and weren’t so messy. But she was patriotic, and determined to do her bit … and more. He felt warm again, thinking of her.

  He glanced at his watch again. Time to go to the factory for the ceremony. He started for the door, then came back, took his newly acquired trench coat out of the wardrobe, and set off once more, hurrying. It would not do to be late when the presence of Earl Kitchener of Khartoum was hoped for, though not definitely promised.

  It was raining in North Hedlington. It often rained in North Hedlington, Johnny thought, when it was raining nowhere else in Kent, perhaps nowhere else in England. The rain was not hard, but it was cold, and the sky was obscured by drifting grey clouds, hanging so low that the outline of the Downs faded into them to east and west, and the smoke from a steam engine chuffing up to Hedlington hung in a dense white trail along the railway.

  The Hedlington Town Band played Onward Christian Soldiers, mostly in tune, and very loud, to keep themselves warm. It was not a very appropriate choice, Johnny thought, huddling deeper into his trench coat. He and Richard Rowland, and Overfeld and Morgan, the factory foreman, waited on a little dais erected to one side of the entrance to the main assembly shop, with Mr Reeves, the Mayor of Hedlington, and a few other local dignitaries. A coloured ribbon had been tied across the high doors, and a Union Jack flanked them on one side, a Stars and Stripes on the other. The factory whistle had just blown, and the men and women were streaming out of the various shops, bareheaded, to gather opposite the dais. Everyone waited. The rain fell. The band played Tipperary.

  A large black saloon car swept in through the outer gates, a rain-drenched inspector of the Hedlington police on the running board. It stopped near the dais, and Richard Rowland and the mayor hurriedly jumped down. They reached the side of the car as the unmistakable figure of the Secretary of War, Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener, climbed out, uncoiled himself, and stood to his full imposing height. The mayor bowed and said something which Johnny could not hear; Richard did the same. The field-marshal’s piercing eyes roved over the throng of workers, rested a moment on Johnny’s face, moved on. He started forward, not having said a word as far as Johnny could tell.

  At the front of the dais, everyone standing, but Kitchener a pace ahead and a head above, he stared down at the workers. The rain darkened his tunic and the rows of medal ribbons, and glistened on his sweeping black moustache. Johnny felt he should take off his trench coat, as Kitchener was not deigning to wear one.

  Kitchener spoke, in a loud, gruff voice, in brief verbal explosions, like shells – ‘This war will go on for three years … we will win … only if we give all that we have … do all that we can … brain and muscle as well as blood.’ He turned suddenly to Richard. ‘What do you do here? Asquith didn’t tell me … just wanted me to say a few words on my way to Dover … What’s that American flag doing here?’

  ‘Er … make lorries, sir … American capital, mostly, and engines … our first lorry is coming out of the factory today.’

  Kitchener turned back to the workers. ‘Work hard … We need guns, shells, lorries, aeroplanes … no engine of war we don’t need … for victory … for our lives … the army will be seventy divisions strong by next summer … Think of it.’ He turned to Rich
ard again. ‘That’s all. Let’s see it.’

  Richard signalled but Morgan had already vanished and was inside the shop. Slowly the great doors were pushed open from inside. The band, which had been silent while K spoke, broke into Green Grow the Rushes O, the regimental march of the Weald Light Infantry. The coloured ribbon snapped, and the snout of the first JMC 30 cwt lorry appeared. Tommy Japes from the paint shop was at the wheel, and a pretty young woman from upholstery, wearing trousered overalls, sat beside him. The lorry ground on out in low gear. It had been painted a sandy khaki, for it was the first of an order of a hundred from the War Office, for the army defending the Suez Canal. The colour, or the destination, sparked a sudden interest in the field-marshal, once Sirdar of Egypt, and he raised one arm, shouting, ‘Three cheers … Hip Hip …’ Then all the workers and watchers and notables joined in heartily. The factory whistle blew and blew, and everyone shouted himself hoarse.

  Kitchener stepped down from the dais with a nod for Richard and another for the mayor and climbed back into his car, and drove off. The factory whistle blew again, and the men and women returned to work. The mayor and dignitaries left. Johnny stood finally in the rain, alone with Richard Rowland. ‘The field-marshal is not a fluent speaker,’ Richard said.

  Johnny said, ‘No. But I feel that we’ve been in the presence of a great man. And it’s a great day. One lorry isn’t much, but it’s the first of a long line, that’ll help to win the war.’

  ‘And the peace,’ Richard said. ‘Don’t forget that, though it’s sometimes hard to remember what peace is – or was – or will be. Come on, Johnny, let’s have a little something to celebrate, in my office.’

  24 Walstone: Thursday, April 1, 1915

  Probyn Gorse walked steadily along the Hedlington to Walstone road. His cottage was a mile ahead, on the right. The little piece of land it stood on belonged to him, given to his father by Squire Cate’s father … about time, he thought, after they’d been paying rent on it for a thousand years, maybe. Then his leathery face wrinkled slightly as he thought, no Gorse paid rent, that anyone heard of … did some odd jobs at the Manor, gave the squire a rabbit or two, cured a pointer of the colic, other secret services, unacknowledged, such as what the Woman should be finishing on Stella now … yes: but rent, no.

  He walked along the very side of the road, the Duke of Clarence limping close to heel. Walking there saved effort even in the old days, because you didn’t have to move over for traps and carts; but nowadays it might save your life, too, the way these stinking motor cars tore round the corners, twenty, thirty miles an hour, he’d wager. A brown hump in the grass verge a hundred yards ahead caught his eye. The Duke had seen it, too, whined once, and was quiet. Probyn watched the object as he walked, but it did not move. After twenty paces he knew it was a hen pheasant. When he reached it, he picked it up and felt it gently with his strong subtle fingers. It had a broken breast bone and broken neck. It had been trodden, and would have laid eggs in a week. It was still warm and had certainly been killed by a motor car.

  There was no traffic, the sun was low, and he had a rabbit in one side pocket, killed by the catapult in the other. The land to the left of the road belonged to the squire, leased out as part of one of his farms. On the right, behind the hedge was Walstone Park land. From where he stood he could see the big house across the Scarrow, above the grass and scattered oaks of the Deer Park. He put the pheasant in the deep inside pocket of his jacket and went on.

  … Other services: Miss Stella had not said who the man was – not that he or the Woman had asked her, that was none of their business: himself, he reckoned it was the older man who’d been at the barracks, the wounded officer, not the American. There might be another – she worked four days a week at the hospital in Hedlington now – but it was probably the officer. And probably her first man. The Woman would tell him, when he got home … Squire had no woman now, for Mrs Cate wasn’t going to come back from Ireland. It was wrong for a man not to have a woman, a woman for everything – to cook and sew and make the fire and lie beside you in bed: but for a young man, especially the bed. Squire was fifty, but that counted as young, when it was women you were thinking of …

  The two men came out of the lane on the right and turned towards him. They were wearing heather mixture suits and matching caps, and each carried a double-barrelled twelve bore under the right arm, and a canvas and leather bag slung diagonally over the right shoulder: Swanwick’s gamekeepers – Skagg and young Dan. Probyn didn’t change his even pace, but they stopped. As he came up, Skagg said, ‘Hold hard, Probyn.’

  Probyn strode on, but Skagg put a heavy hand on his shoulder and Dan eased the gun out from under his arm into firing position. Probyn knew it would not be loaded; but he stopped. They were two against one, and this time he had done nothing against their laws.

  ‘Let’s have a look in those pockets of yours,’ Skagg said. He slid his hand down Probyn’s coat and pulled out first the rabbit, then the pheasant. ‘Oho!’ he cried. ‘Where did you get these? Buy them at Hedlington Market?’

  ‘Killed the rabbit on the railway embankment with my catapult. Found the pheasant dead in the road, two, three hundred yards back … the public road, Skagg.’

  ‘You’re a liar, Probyn. And now we’ve got you, red-handed. You come along with me.’ He gripped Probyn’s shoulder, and forced him forward.

  ‘Go home, Duke,’ Probyn said quietly to the growling lurcher. The Duke slipped through the hedge and vanished. Probyn said, ‘You got no right to do this, Skagg.’

  ‘You come along and we’ll have a word with Mr Vickers about that. Or likely His Lordship will be pleased to see you in person. His Lordship has always had such a high regard for you, Probyn Gorse. You’ll be able to tell him what you were doing on his land.’ He looked at Dan across Probyn, and said, ‘About a hundred yards in from the road, warn’t he, Dan?’

  Dan looked uncomfortable, but said, ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And we had to show him the guns before he pulled the bird and the rabbit out of his pocket, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Dan said again.

  Probyn said nothing. Not even Skagg would be fool enough to grab him on the King’s highway unless he intended to doctor the truth. It was going to be two against one, and that one, himself, Probyn Gorse, the poacher.

  They turned off the road, walked up a muddy lane and over the Old Bridge, Probyn between the two keepers, Skagg swinging pheasant and rabbit in one hand. No one said a word, until as they were passing the great front entrance of the big house, the door opened and Lord Swanwick hurried down the ornamental stairway, two steps at a time. He was wearing a hacking jacket, cavalry twill breeches, and riding boots. In his right hand he waved a bone-handled crop, the end shaped into a miniature fox’s mask. His head was bare, his cheeks suffused a reddish purple, his greying hair blowing in the wind. He stopped in front of the trio and shook the crop in Probyn’s face, shouting, ‘So we’ve got you again, eh? You scoundrel! You unmitigated scoundrel!’

  Probyn said, ‘I done nothing wrong, my lord.’

  Skagg said importantly, ‘We apprehended him at the edge of Fuller’s Spinney, my lord. At first he refused to show us what was in his coat, but when we repeated our request he produced these – ’ he held up the pheasant and rabbit.

  ‘Give the rabbit to Mrs Rogers for the staff,’ Lord Swanwick said. ‘As for the pheasant, we’ve got you again, eh, Gorse? Assizes this time!’

  Probyn had been quietly furious when the keepers seized him, but as time passed he realized that things might turn out well for him, if he played his cards right.

  He said, ‘How am I supposed to have killed that bird, my lord? Shot it?’

  Swanwick turned to Skagg, ‘You didn’t find a gun?’

  ‘No, my lord,’ Skagg said uncomfortably, ‘but …’

  ‘Or hear a shot?’ Probyn said, ‘and the bird still warm?’

  ‘You hold your tongue!’ Swanwick shouted. ‘Did he have a club?’r />
  ‘We didn’t see one, but he could have picked up a stick in the spinney and thrown it away when he saw us coming.’

  Probyn said, ‘Have a look at that bird’s keel, my lord.’

  His Lordship glared at him, then at the keepers. Dan was looking at his boots. He wasn’t a bad young fellow, Probyn thought; had to lie to save his job. Swanwick pulled some feathers out of the bird’s breast, and felt with his fingers. His lips pursed.

  Probyn said, ‘Could only have been done by a car, eh, my lord? Skagg’s lying. I picked that bird up on the road, the public road. I killed the rabbit with my catapult on the railway embankment.’ He kept his eyes on Lord Swanwick. He was not a lawyer, but he knew the game laws better than most lawyers. He had learned a lot in fifty years of brushes with them. Game belonged to the owner of the land where it lived when it was alive, if it was killed on that land. If it were killed by some accident and fell on a public road, it belonged to whoever found it. The rabbit – well, the South Eastern & Chatham Railway could accuse him of poaching, with reason – if they could prove he had killed it on their land; but Swanwick couldn’t.

  Swanwick was tapping his boot with his crop. His lips were tight and his eyes bolting. He hurled the pheasant to the ground and stamped on it, shouting, ‘You don’t seem to learn anything from gaol, do you? Suppose you found yourself in my woods with a broken nose and two black eyes, Gorse, how would you like that?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like it at all, your lordship … and nor would whoever done it, when I’d gone to law.’