Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  ‘I was afraid of it,’ she said firmly, ‘I didn’t know what you would do with yourself, what you’d be like, with no Rowland’s to go to every morning.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking the same thing, the last few months,’ he said. He fell silent, thinking now of the shed. If he had more time there, he would put up the poster more often. He saw Violet Gorse suddenly, as she looked with her skirt lifted and her drawers down … and closed his eyes, wincing. It would be the end of him. He must go on working … but making shells? It would be boring and dangerous, both; and there’d be a lot more women workers, and they’d be trouble.

  He said, acting the devil’s advocate. ‘Mr Richard would be my boss.’

  ‘You wouldn’t see him unless you have some trouble you couldn’t deal with,’ she said. ‘And you don’t dislike Mr Richard. You’re just afraid of him, because he’s so modern, and you’re not.’

  ‘You know what I think?’ he said, his mind going off at a partial tangent. ‘They’d have asked me to be foreman of the new factory, but they want Frank, when he’s better.’

  Jane said, ‘They didn’t know about Frank in time … You don’t know the first thing about aeroplanes, and you don’t want to. That’s why they didn’t ask you.’

  Bob saw a tear in her eye and said, ‘He’ll come through, love. God wouldn’t let him die… I’ll stay on! I’ll show ’em I’m a better foreman than Frank will ever be.’

  She took up her sewing again, saying, ‘I think that’s the right thing to do, Bob.’

  Probyn Gorse came down the hedge lines from Scarrow Rise towards Walstone at his usual pace, though the only light was that of the gibbous moon, still high in the sky, and he carried slung on his back the two heavy sacks of pheasants, each brace now labelled. He had spent two hours shaking off any possible pursuers, and now had six houses to visit, the six biggest in Walstone, excepting the Park. There he would not go, not because he was afraid to, but because the labels would not make sense there.

  A week ago, when setting out from his cottage, he had reviewed the plans, and known that they were as good as could be. What remained then, beyond being always in the mercy of chance, was the execution – the doing. His helpers had done their jobs well. Mr Kipling, a famous writer Guy Rowland said, had hired the men in Brighton, just as Guy Rowland had plotted with him to do during the summer. That was before the Kipling boy was killed in France: Guy had told him that he’d written to Mr Kipling to say how sorry he was about the son and that of course the poaching plan was off as far as Mr Kipling was concerned. But Mr Kipling wrote back that he’d given his promise, and he’d do what he’d said, especially as it was the sort of prank that his son would have loved. In fact, the son had written about it from France, just before he went missing, wishing he could be in Walstone on the great day.

  Florinda had done just right. And Bert, sending the telegram – he’d given up a day’s pay to do that, pretending to be sick. And Guy, of course, getting the labels written in gold writing at some posh place in London, and flying the aeroplane. What a noise those contraptions made! If flying them at night got more common, a man could let off guns all over, and the keepers wouldn’t hear … Fletcher had been busy, too … first holding the torch for him; then running across the Park to distract the keepers chasing the Brighton men; then picking up the pheasants and taking them, with the Duke of Clarence, to the abandoned cottage in the fields below Scarrow Rise – where the pheasants had been hung from a burned beam, guarded by the Duke, these six days. The Duke was a hungry dog still, though Fletcher had left some meat for him, and Probyn had taken out a big chunk of beef earlier this night, when collecting the pheasants. The lurcher now trotted silently to heel …

  It was done. He had sworn he would make Swanwick and his keepers pay when they shot his dog, and took him for killing a pheasant that he’d found dead on the King’s Highway. He’d used some tricks, but a man had to have a few up his sleeve, when he was setting himself against a lord and his armed gamekeepers. He’d have to tell squire the whole truth, one day – he’d enjoy it; but let the rest wonder how he’d done it. It wouldn’t do them no harm.

  He reached the outskirts of Walstone and paused, running through in his mind the order of the houses he would visit. Rectory first … then the Manor … then … He became aware that the motionless air was shaking, almost soundlessly – almost but not quite. His breath hung plumed in the frosty night as he stood in the moon-shadow of the old Saxon church, square towered, flint built. Under his feet the earth trembled. Now he heard it plain – a heavy thudding, irregular but continuous, rising to crescendoes, falling, never dying.

  A superstitious fear crept in his spine. What could be causing this unearthly movement of earth and sky? This was Walstone, this had been his land for centuries and more than centuries. He knew the feel of the earth and the touch of the air and the fall of the light – but this had never passed before. His fear mounted to a panic.

  Planting his feet, he gripped the sacks more firmly and swore aloud, once. ‘I’ll not turn back now!’ he whispered, addressing the sky – for where else could the Being responsible for this reside? – and trudged rapidly up the Rectory path.

  Christopher Cate was awakened by a knock on his bedroom door and the voice of Blyth from outside – ‘Sir!’

  He had not been sleeping well and was fully awake in an instant, feeling uneasy. He switched on the bedside light and saw that it was after seven o’clock.

  ‘What is it, Blyth?’ he asked.

  ‘May I come in, sir?’

  ‘Come in.’ The door opened and the butler appeared, wearing an overcoat and scarf over his official trousers. ‘I hope I’ve done right, sir, but I’ve never heard of such a thing…’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve done right. What is it?’

  ‘I had risen, sir, and gone down to the pantry to make myself a cup of tea when I heard the front door bell ring. I went along as quickly as I could, but when I opened it, there was no one there.’

  ‘It’s still dark, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, quite, sir … there was a package tied to the foot-scraper.’

  ‘Is it still there?’

  ‘I thought I’d best leave it, sir, in case … well, I thought it might be a German bomb, you being the squire.’

  Christopher got out of bed, swung his feet into his bedroom slippers, and put on his dressing-gown. He still felt uneasy, but could not think why. ‘No one else about yet?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Christopher led downstairs and to the front door. It was cold out, the moon low, stars fading, and a green glow spreading in the east behind Scarrow Rise, the buildings of High Staining in silhouette a mile away on the shoulder of the slope. Two yellow lights in the outline showed where John Rowland and one of the land girls were preparing for the morning milk round.

  The package by the footscraper was done up in thick brown paper and, as Blyth had said, firmly tied to the footscraper by a stout cord. He said, ‘Get me a knife, please.’

  While the butler was away his uneasiness crystallized. The dawn air was shaking, alive with a motion of its own, communicated now to the Queen Anne outer fabric of the Manor, shaking the medieval timbers of the inner walls, and the Roman stones of the foundations. His hand trembling slightly, but uncontrollably, he took the knife from Blyth’s hand and, bending down, cut the cord and picked up the package. It was soft inside. He cut the string that held it closed and slowly pulled out a brace of pheasants, a cock and a hen. Their legs were tied together, with a white card attached, inscribed in a fine gold copperplate hand:

  To the Squire of Walstone and Mrs Cate, with best Christmas wishes from The Earl and Countess of Swanwick.

  then, in smaller lettering at the bottom: These birds have been hung seven days.

  Cate held the birds in his hands, the gorgeous shot green and black plumage of the cock spreading in a fan from the body. Cate saw none of the beauty, for his inner eye was focused, like his ears, on the foreign presence that
was filling the air with menace. At last, he understood.

  “The guns from France,’ he whispered.

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘Listen … can’t you hear?’

  After a time, standing in silence by the door, his head cocked, the old butler said, ‘I hear it, sir. What did you say it was?’

  ‘The guns, from France.’

  ‘Goodness gracious, sir! That must be …’

  ‘A hundred and forty miles away. But it’s here now, here in England.’

  He turned into the house, carrying the birds. Blyth closed the door behind them. ‘Will you be wanting breakfast now, sir, or will you go back to bed? I do apologize for disturbing you, but I thought …’

  ‘You did quite right … Merry Christmas!’

  ‘Sir? Oh, yes indeed, Merry Christmas to you, sir.’

  ‘What am I to do with these birds?’

  ‘Why, eat them, sir. Mrs Abell will be delighted to prepare them.’

  ‘You know where they came from … and it’s not directly from His Lordship.’

  A small smile crossed Blyth’s cautious old face. ‘I may venture a guess, sir. But I doubt that His Lordship will wish to make any inquiries, or see the birds back.’

  ‘The less said, the better, then? I think you’re right … That old scoundrel hoodwinked everyone. Take them. I’ll get dressed and then work in the library, and have breakfast at the usual time. We’ll all leave for church at a quarter to eleven. Make sure that boy Cyril has a dark tie. The last one I saw him wearing was bright green.’

  ‘I instructed him last Tuesday to purchase a black one, sir, but he said he had a right to wear whatever tie he chose, and he was in any case going to leave your service in the New Year. There’s a war on, he informed me.’

  Christopher nodded: it was true. He said, ‘And you’re leaving, too. This is your last Christmas with us.’

  ‘I have been thinking of that for some time, sir. It makes me very sad. But it can’t be helped. I am getting too old to serve you as you deserve. Garrod will do all that I can, except perhaps in advising you on matters pertaining to the wine cellar. Women and wine were never meant to go together, except in an, ah, different context.’

  Christopher smiled and walked slowly away, along the empty passage, the first light now flowing in more strongly through the windows at the end, beyond the music room.

  In the drawing-room he stood by a window, watching the light give life and colour, disclosing the lichen-covered sundial, the copper beech taking on its winter green, the robin landing on the windowsill beside him and tapping on the glass with its beak, demanding its right – food from the squire, food for a hard winter, food from the Men of Kent, whose companion it had been. Opening the window a little he could hear the guns still, but more faintly, as other presences in the daytime air gradually smothered them. They’d return with darkness, and thud louder and louder in men’s ears, and more and more deeply shake the foundations of earth. Meanwhile it was another day, Christmas Day, a day of celebration, of worship, of prayers for strength, and of dedication for the next day … the next year … and the next…

  The robin hopped in through the open window and cocked its head. Without taking his eye off the little bird, Cate felt for the old biscuit tin on the windowsill beside him, opened it, and filled his hand with crumbs. Then he held it out. The robin hopped into the palm of his hand and began to peck away with great satisfaction, its red breast growing brighter every moment with the light.

  ‘Who killed Cock Robin?’ Cate murmured to it. ‘Not I, not l!’

  AMONG THE WOUNDED

  Hospital Festivities Planned

  This year, of course, peculiar interest attaches to the festivities in the hospitals, for practically every one has its quota of wounded soldiers. The wards, always bright and pleasant, are elaborately decorated. The Christmas fare will be good and plentiful, and the public has contributed in a most praiseworthy manner gifts of food and little luxuries, in addition to useful presents.

  The wounded soldiers in the 1st London General Hospital at St Gabriel’s College, Camberwell, will be provided with every luxury they can desire, thanks to the generosity of the public. Even the most seriously wounded cannot help but catch the Christmas spirit of joy and happiness that prevails everywhere.

  The wounded who have been apportioned to that wonderful building in Stamford Street which was to have been His Majesty’s Stationery Office, and is now King George’s Hospital for Wounded Soldiers are, under the circumstances, fortunate. Under the superintendence of the Marchioness of Ripon, who will be assisted by Coral Countess of Stafford, Mrs James, Mrs Beaumont Nesbitt, Lady Lister-Kaye, Mrs Holman Hunt and others, a splendid programme of festivities has been planned for the enjoyment of the thousand or eleven hundred men who now occupy the spacious wards.

  The German artillery was plastering the British front line and reserve trenches and had been doing so since the dawn of the day before Christmas Eve. They had started firing because their High Command thought they had detected a British build-up and believed they were about to face another major assault. Their heavy batteries were concentrating on breaking up the coming attack – the targets being cross-roads, villages or the remains of them, bridges, likely headquarters areas. Meanwhile, the British thought the violent artillery fire was the precursor of a German assault, and answered with their own counter-preparation fire. The lighter guns of the field artillery on both sides joined in from time to time, when alarms reached the observation posts, or the artillery officers themselves believed that the enemy were beginning the assault.

  As the shells whistled through the frosty air for forty-eight hours, the infantry cowered deeper into their dugouts, or manned the firesteps, heads bent as though the protective crouch would guard them against shrieking shell splinters and the lead hail of shrapnel. Dead bodies were hit time and again, torn to pieces and scattered as manure over the frozen earth. The corpses hanging on the dense rows of rusty barbed wire were frozen in impossible angles. Dead horses lined the roads behind the front, legs extended, bellies blown up; it was cold, but they had been there a long time. In their dugouts officers took aim with pistols at the rats that owned the land, feeding on the flesh that lay everywhere, or had been stuffed into sandbags, or hung black out of the crumbling earth of a trench wall.

  Where the trench lines were close a soldier shouted ‘Merry Christmas! Frohliche Weihnachten!’ and climbed out, waving a white handkerchief above his head.

  Two rifle shots rang across the mutilated earth, and the soldier fell, struck by one bullet from in front and one from behind. He lay in frosty No Man’s Land, moaning and moving, a long time, and died about eleven o’clock, when at home the bells were ringing for church.

  Family Trees

  A Note on the Author

  John Masters was born in Calcutta in 1914. He was educated in England but in 1934 he returned to India and joined the Fourth Prince of Wales’ Own Gurkha Rifles, then served on the North-West Frontier. He saw active service in Waziristan in 1937 and, after the outbreak of war, in Iraq, Syria and Persia. In 1944 he joined General Wingate’s Chindits in Burma. He fought at the Singu Bridgehead, the capture of Mandalay, at Toungoo and on the Mawchi Road. John Masters retired from the Army in 1948 as Lieutenant-Colonel with the DSO andan OBE. Shortly afterwards he settled in the USA where he turned to writing and soon had articles and short stories published in many well-known American magazines. He also wrote several novels and was especially praised for his trilogy of the Great War: Now, God be Thanked, Heart of the War and By the Green of the Spring. He died in 1983 in New Mexico.

  Discover books by John Masters published by Bloomsbury Reader at

  www.bloomsbury.com/JohnMasters

  Now, God be Thanked

  Heart of War

  By the Green of the Spring

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  For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the
original author have been removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.

  This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  First published in Great Britain in 1979 by Michael Joseph Ltd

  Copyright © 1979 John Masters

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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  eISBN: 9781448214778

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