by John Masters
‘Can’t,’ Frank said. ‘I’m in uniform.’
‘What the ’ell does that matter?’
‘They’d see a man of the Weald Light Infantry looking like a tramp.’
‘Garn, you mean they wouldn’t see that lance-corporal’s stripe. ’Ow long ’ave you ’ad that?’
‘The day before I started on leave. I was Mr Charles’s batman but when he was gassed they put me in the Pioneer Section and gave me a stripe. The Pioneers are the best soldiers in the whole push, and that means in the whole British army!’
‘You’ve only been in the army – ’ow long? – ten months, and you’re talking like a bleeding recruiting sergeant. What’s got into you?’
They passed the Horse Pond, the sound of the merry-go-round louder with every step, and hearing now the shouts and cries of the men at the booths, the giggling screams of girls on the swings and at the coconut shies.
‘I’m a soldier,’ Frank said briefly.
‘Plenty of soldiers are bloody fed up. An’ they’re telling them sods in Parliament about it.’
‘Not us,’ Frank said. ‘We do our job.’
‘And get your heads blown off, for nothing. Wait till you cop a packet and see ’ow you feel then.’
‘Don’t talk like that, Bill,’ Ruth said anxiously.
Frank stopped, hands on hips, ‘Here we are … want a ride on the roundabout. Annie?’
‘No, you go, Frank. I’m frightened of them, especially after that accident at the Sheep Fair … Oh look, look! Give me sixpence, Frank.’
Frank followed the direction of her pointing finger and saw a tent with a sign reading: GYPSY ENGLAND, PALMIST & CLAIRVOYANT, SCIENTIFIC PALMIST KNOWN THE WORLD OVER. THE ONLY GYPSY ENGLAND LEFT. THIS LADY LEADS WHERE OTHERS FOLLOW: then in smaller lettering, READS ON HEALTH, HAPPINESS, MARRIAGE? EASES & COMFORTS YOUR MIND. DON’T STOP OUTSIDE STEP INSIDE.
Frank sighed and gave her a silver sixpence. He called after her, ‘We’ll be at the shooting gallery, over there.’
It was dark inside the tent and smelled of smoke – scented smoke: a large dried lizard hung from the ridge pole, together with a stuffed owl. The earth floor was covered with a dark red carpet, and a patterned red cloth covered the rickety table, where a crystal ball absorbed and refracted the light of a candle. Gypsy England was seated on the far side of the table, wearing a black dress, a silvery bandanna binding her hair, her eyes apparently closed, her lined face dark in repose. Anne sat down and Gypsy England held out her hand, palm up. Anne put the sixpence into it and the gypsy put the money away, with her other hand holding Anne’s wrist. She peered at the palm, pressing down. The table wobbled and the crystal ball shook. Gypsy England spoke in a deep voice and a strong accent, rolling her Rs – ‘You are married. You have children.’
‘Oh, yes! Three,’ Anne said.
‘You will have a long life … you will have one more child. You will be rich and your name famous … A tall dark man will come into your life …’
A tall dark man, Anne thought, trembling a little. Mr Protheroe was tall, but not dark. Mr Chambers was sort of tall and sort of dark, but not really either. How could the gypsy woman have known about them, when she hardly dared to admit even to herself that she was seeing them … not that they had come into her life, really, yet.
The gypsy intoned, ‘Have you any questions you want to ask?’
Anne hesitated. She wanted to ask how she could keep away from men like Mr Protheroe and Mr Chambers, when Frank was at the war: how not to feel so miserably alone and lonely: how to keep her faith, Frank’s trust.
She spoke slowly, fearful of what answer she might receive. ‘Will my husband come back safe to me?’
Gypsy England leaned forward, peering into the crystal ball, her face illuminated. After a long, slow-breathing pause she said, ‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘When it’s all over. That’s all, love, if you want me to read the leaves that’ll be another tanner.’
Anne got up and hurried out, her head swimming.
They were settled on a sloping bank above a little stream, its bank of soft yellow earth. A rhododendron bush in early flower made a pink and blue tapestry behind them, the thousand candles of a giant horse chestnut tree glowed bright above them. They were looking across the stream and up the opposite hill towards the coconut shies, the merry-go-round, the rows of tents and stalls, the cockney vendors in full pearly costumes, shouting their wares. From afar the steam organ was playing There’s a long, long trail a-winding, and Frank sang softly in time, for it had become a favourite in the regiment:
There’s a long long trail a-winding, Into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing, And a white moon beams
There’s a long long night of waiting, Until my dreams all come true,
Till the day when I’ll be going down, That long long trail with you.
Three girls in white dresses, with red, white, and blue sashes draped across their bosoms, tripped up, each carrying a bunch of small Union Jacks on pins.
The leader stooped over Bill Hoggin. ‘Take a Union Jack, mister. Join our brave boys in France.
‘Fuck off,’ Hoggin said equably.
‘Mind your language,’ the girl retorted. ‘You ought to be in uniform. ’Ere, take a flag, put it on to your shirt, to show you’re going to join.’
‘Fuck off, I said,’ Hoggin repeated.
Frank said sharply, ‘Don’t swear in front of the young ladies, Bill.’
‘Young ladies, my arse! Look at the lipstick on ’em – tarts more like,’ Hoggin said, as one of the girls gave Niccolo a flag, which he pinned to his shirt.
The leading girl bent down and kissed Frank on the cheek, saying, ‘You don’t mind, dearie?’ to Anne. ‘He deserves it.’ The other two kissed Frank in turn; then they tripped on, calling, ‘Who’ll take a Union Jack for King and Country?’
‘Why did you take one of their plurry flags?’ Hoggin asked Niccolo.
Niccolo shrugged expressively, spreading his hands, ‘It costs nothing. And they went away. What good would it be to talk to them about how foolish it is for men to fight wars, when they can eat, drink, sleep with women, make money? And have babies. That is what life is for, I think.’ He looked meaningly at Ethel, his childless wife.
‘We didn’t start the war,’ Frank said, ‘and I like drinking and all those things just as much as you do, but first we’ve got to beat the Germans. And to do that we need more shells. The last three scraps I was in, our artillery had to stop firing half way through – ran out of ammunition.’
Anne said, ‘They’re going to pass a law about that – closing the pubs in the afternoons, so the workmen can’t get drunk.’
‘I don’t know as I hold with that,’ Frank said, ‘but if it’s necessary to get more shells, then we ought to grin and bear it. And there ought to be conscription, that’s the truth. Out there, schoolmasters and engineers and professors and scientists are being killed off as infantry privates. It’s a waste, and we can’t afford it.’
‘Then why the ’ell are you in the footslogging infantry? You’re an expert mechanic, aren’t you? Why aren’t you in the engineers, at least? Or in a factory, back ’ere, making the guns for the rest to shoot each other with?’
‘That’s what I thought, once,’ Frank said, ‘but you wouldn’t understand. You haven’t been there.’
Somehow he had got through Hoggin’s thick skin and Hoggin retaliated. ‘Surprised you’re here, come to that.’
Frank looked up. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’d ’ave thought you’d be at ’ome, looking after them two little girls, instead of leaving them with your mum and dad. He’s not the man to leave them with, from what I ’ear, even if they are ’is own flesh and blood.’
‘Bill!’ Ruth cried in anguish, ‘you musn’t say things like that!’
‘You keep your mouth shut about our dad,’ Frank said. ‘He’s a better man than you’ll ever be.’ He ou
ght to put his fist in Hoggin’s face, he thought; but that sort of fighting seemed so childish, now, after France. He hoped that Hoggin’s hint was unfounded, for his mother’s sake; but after a few months in the trenches you thought differently about a lot of things. Anything could be true, of anybody – self-sacrifice to make you cry, cowardice to make you ashamed for the human race, vices creeping out into the open like diseased rats, bravery shining like a diamond in a dung pile.
‘Let’s not quarrel,’ Ruth said nervously. ‘It’s Bank Holiday, and we’re all together, for the first time in ages.’
‘Except for Fred,’ Frank said. ‘He’s down by Arras. Here, let’s go up to Jack Straw’s Castle and eat our dinner on the grass, and we’ll bring out beer and lemonade from the bar.’
They lay on the grass, shaded by oaks and beeches. Launcelot had been crying, but a sip of beer, given over Ruth’s protests, had calmed him. Ruth’s breasts ached, for she had omitted the ten o’clock feed. She’d have to feed him at two, but where could she find a private place in this crowd? She was not a working woman, to feed her baby in public, careless who saw her bare bosom.
Hoggin lolled on his side, a full tankard in one hand, a chicken drumstick in the other. ‘It’s getting more bloody dangerous ’ere than in France,’ he said to Frank. ‘The Lusitania, the Princess Irene blowing up at Sheerness the other day … near four ’undred killed there. I went down and saw that, day after. Bodies half a mile away, there was.’
‘And the railway crash at Gretna Green,’ Ethel said, ‘how many killed there?’
‘Two hundred and twenty-seven,’ Frank said. ‘Mostly soldiers, too. The worst railway accident we’ve ever had in this country.’
Niccolo had had enough beer long since, and had bought some cheap red wine from Jack Straw’s Castle saloon bar, and was drinking it from the bottle. He leaned forward from his squatting position and said, ‘Ethel tells me you all know Lord Swanwick, eh?’
‘The Earl of Swanwick, of Walstone Park,’ Ruth said. ‘We have all seen him, Niccolo. He comes to Hedlington often, for political meetings. He’s a great lord.’
Niccolo winked, ‘I know. I know something else, too … He is broke, running out of money.’
Hoggin pricked up his ears. ‘Eh? ’Ow do you know that?’
‘I heard it, at the Savoy, where I am a waiter in the dining-room for four months now, you know? The head waiter told me who he was when he brought him to one of my tables. He was with his son … another Lord.’
‘Lord Cantley,’ Ruth said. ‘That’s a courtesy title. He does not sit in the House of Lords.’
‘Well, this Lord Cantley is a banker, I hear, and his father was telling him that he needs money, a lot of money, and asking how can they get it.’
‘Come into the food business with me,’ Hoggin said, guffawing. ‘If I’d ’ave two lords in with me. Which is not bloody likely!’ He stopped laughing and looked hard at Niccolo. ‘You ’ear a lot as a waiter?’
‘A lot, yes. They all talk, in the Savoy. And they are all rich, important people – Members of Parliament, Cabinet Ministers, lawyers, gentlemen from Fleet Street, and the Stock Exchange. There are signs everywhere, about the Germans listening, but they talk. Not much of it is about the war, though.’
‘I don’t want to know about the bloody war. I want to know about money – who needs it, who’s got it … and about dirty linen, specially about important people’s dirty linen. The more I know, the more I can get. Look ’ere, Niccolo, I’ll pay you something for anything you tell me, that I don’t know already.’
‘How much?’ Niccolo said, drinking copiously from the bottle.
‘It’ll depend … but I’m not going to give you a ruddy tanner for telling me that Lord Pimplefart wipes his arse with a goose’s neck. Tell you what, I’ll pay you five bob a week, just not to tell anyone else, see. A retainer, they call it. An’ then more, for what you can find out. ’Ere, ’ere’s your first five bob – now you’re an employee of Hoggin, Hoggin & Hoggin.’
Niccolo pocketed the coins, and drank again, emptying the bottle. Frank thought, if he isn’t drunk, he has a harder head than I think he has; but he looks drunk, swarthy, flushed, dribbling a little from the corners of his full lips, perspiring, his thick curly hair dark and dank.
He said suddenly to his wife, ‘Why you give me no babies?’
Ruth held Launcelot tighter to her, Anne cast her eyes down. Hoggin drank beer noisily from a bottle.
‘Why you no give me babies? It’s not my fault.’
Ethel began to cry softly, her head bent, the tears dripping on to the grass. The steam organ was playing Tipperary, hoarsely strident on the hot summer air. Bees hummed and buzzed in the flowers along the verge of the Spaniards Road, cars growled past, carriages rolled by, the horses’ hooves clip-clopping on the gravel.
Niccolo said, ‘I do what a man should, often enough.’
‘Too much,’ Ethel said, suddenly looking up. Her face was mottled red, and Frank remembered that she had had both wine and beer in the last hour. She was not used to either, the way they’d been brought up. Ethel turned to her brother. ‘He makes me bleed … and hurts … I’ll never have a baby and I want a baby.’ She collapsed on to Anne’s shoulder, moaning, ‘I want a baby!’
Niccolo shouted, ‘I will divorce you. You are no good to me, my friends laugh at me!’
‘You can’t divorce me,’ Ethel cried, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong! Why don’t you go and see a doctor, like mother said? You might have a disease. You’ve been with other women often enough.’
Niccolo lashed out at her with the flat of his right hand, striking her a resounding smack across the cheek.
‘Here!’ Anne cried. ‘Stop that!’
Frank jumped to his feet, his belly in a tight knot, the way it was when he went over the top near St Julien, three days after Mr Charles had been evacuated. He grabbed Fagioletti by the collar and pulled him to his feet.
‘Put up your hands!’ he shouted.
Niccolo waved his arms in the air, staggered half a pace right, half a pace left, ‘I’m going – divorce her,’ he mumbled.
‘She’s my sister,’ Frank said, ‘and I’m not going to have her hurt by any dirty dago. Here – ’ he lashed out with his right fist, landing smartly on Niccolo’s large nose. Niccolo collapsed on the grass, blood spurting like a geyser.
Ethel was on her feet, shouting, ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Frank Stratton! Can’t you see he’s had too much to drink? Hitting a man who can’t defend himself!’
Hoggin belched long and reverberatingly, and loud. ‘Look, it’s ’ot. I’m going off to snooze be’ind a bush with Ruthie. Why don’t we all push off, and come back ’ere in an hour, eh?’
Frank said curtly to Anne, ‘Come on.’
Anne said anxiously, ‘What about Niccolo’s nose? It’s bleeding terribly.’
‘He won’t bleed to death,’ Frank said briefly. ‘Come on.’
She got up obediently and followed him down the grass slope away from the road. They did not speak for a long time, and Anne kept a little apart from him. This man was not the husband she had known, and the difference was something far deeper than the khaki uniform and the shining bugle horn and prancing horse of Kent on his cap badge. At last she sneaked her hand into his, and said, ‘Do you think he’ll really divorce her?’
‘I don’t think he can,’ Frank said, ‘not just for not having a baby. If she’s been going with other blokes, that’s different.’
‘Ethel? Never!’ Anne said. ‘But … she might say she had, if Niccolo told her to. She’d do anything for him.’
Frank said, ‘More’s the pity.’
They walked on, along narrow footpaths through beech and oak and chestnut, out on to high open grass, London spread out to the south, and then stopped on the hills, hands locked.
‘What did the fortune teller say?’ he asked.
‘Gypsy England? She said I’d meet a tall dark man.’
‘Who�
�s that? Do you know any tall dark men?’
‘No. But I might meet one, I suppose.’
‘You’re a ninny to believe those gypsies. All they do is take your money off you and tell you what you want to hear.’
‘She said we’d have another baby,’ Anne said softly.
He tightened his grip on her hand, squeezing, and for the first time since they had left the others, turned and smiled into her eyes, saying, ‘Not surprising, after what we did last night, eh?’
‘Oh, Frank,’ she whispered.
‘That was the best night we’ve ever had, eh? And we’ve had some good ones.’
She usually blushed and said something about not to talk like that whenever Frank commented on their love-making, but now she said simply, ‘You’re my husband, and I love you. I felt like a … like the most beautiful woman in the world.’
‘You were, last night … And listen, don’t you ever go out alone at night, away from houses.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t,’ Anne cried, ‘not with anyone. I’m your wife.’
Frank said, ‘I’m thinking about that mad Ripper everyone’s talking about. If you have to go out at night, you get someone to go with you, a man.’
‘But …’
‘Specially if it’s a full moon, or near it. See?’
‘Yes,’ she said. Then, after a while, she burst out – ‘Oh, Frank, I can’t bear it without you. I don’t do the right things with the girls … It’ll be worse when Johnny gets bigger … I’m bad tempered, nervy … I snap at them, everyone … sit at home feeling sorry for myself. I’m afraid that …’ she stopped.
He did not take up the unfinished sentence, but said stubbornly, ‘I’ve got a job to do, and I’m going to do it, till it’s finished.’
‘You’re an expert mechanic. Couldn’t you …?’
‘No, love. It doesn’t matter what Hoggin and Fagioletti do. Personally, I wouldn’t want either of them in the Wealds. We’re a good push, we are, because we have our self respect. Goodness, Anne, I’m afraid, all the time. My knees will be knocking when I get on to that train to go back … but I’ve got to be on it. Until then, I’ll try to make every night as good as last night. And every day, too.’