How Dear Is Life

by Henry Williamson

  A few evenings later, still thinking of the £4 grant in terms of new suit and Belgian double-barrel for wildfowling down by the Heybridge Basin (which, he had learned from Bertie, was the end of a canal, where it joined the Blackwater estuary by means of big wooden lock-gates) Phillip went to the Headquarters of the London Highlanders. There he declared a Scottish great-great-grandfather (of whom Richard had informed him) and was accepted, sworn in by the Adjutant while holding a Bible and standing to attention; and posted to ‘B’ Company.

  Bertie took him to the School of Arms. Here amidst other activities men in flannel trousers, plimsolls, and singlets were bayonet-fighting, wearing wire masks and a sort of leather armour in front. He watched two at it. Long dummy rifles clashed, they ran in and out; suddenly one hurled his rifle forward with the full length of his arm and his body with it. The heavy iron button on the extended rod which took the place of the bayonet struck the other man on his leather chest-guard. The weight of the thrust drove the iron rod back against its spring. It shot out again with a snap. The umpire declared that Wallace had driven the bayonet through his opponent’s ribs.

  Wallace! When the wire mask was removed, he saw Peter’s bespectacled face. He moved away, not wanting to meet Peter. He was still ashamed of having got Peter to fight for him on the Hill, although it was six years ago now. He still winced whenever he recalled how Peter had come up to call him a coward, after Mr. Pye next door to the Rolls had complained to Father, and Father had told Uncle Hilary and Aunt Viccy at Epsom about it, to his utter shame. O, why had he not joined the Twentieth County of London, at Blackheath? He was forever branded a coward.

  Self-critical, envious, haunted, hopeless (he had had no lunch and no tea), he watched Bertie in a bout with Peter. Others came to watch. Bertie was very agile and quick, he had a different manner of fighting. He ran in under Peter’s guard, and holding his rifle short, made the button spring against his chest. Phillip heard the staff-sergeant say, “Unorthodox, Corporal Cakebread, but I must admit you pinked your opponent.”

  Elsewhere in the large drill hall, lit by electric globes hanging from the roof, men were boxing. The instructor, in dirty white jersey and grey flannel trousers, had a grinning scarred face, few teeth, and conglomerated ears. Beyond was a vaulting horse, parallel and horizontal bars. Phillip realised that everyone there was ever so much better than himself.

  A recruit had to attend three drills a month, he learned. School of Arms was voluntary. Next week, said the storeman, he would have his uniform and equipment ready, stamped 9689 Pte. P. S. T. Maddison.

  On the following Thursday he collected his kilt of hodden grey, purse or sporran, hose or stockings, spats, khaki jacket, and blue glengarry with the white-metal badge of the Scottish lion held by St. Andrew’s Cross. These went into a grey canvas kit-bag. With this equipment he went by omnibus to London Bridge, feeling that he was now really in the grown-up world.

  During the walk over the Hill in the darkness he met the band with whom he sometimes wandered and played, and told them about his enlistment. They accompanied him down the gully, Ching insisting on carrying the kit-bag.

  “Well, I’d like to ask you in,” said Phillip, to the four youths, to impress them further, “but I expect they will be in the middle of dinner.”

  “Oh, it’s quite all right, Phil. Good night!”

  He had told Mother he would be late that evening. There was a tray laid for him; bread, brawn, a slice of mince pie. Would he like tea or cocoa with his supper? Richard looked up from the Trident.

  “How about a plate of oatmeal for our soldier boy? You can’t produce a haggis, I suppose, Hetty?”

  “I’m not really hungry, thank you.”

  “Perhaps you would care for a glass of whusky?”

  “Really, Dickie!” said Hetty, pleased with his amiability.

  “Well, it is an occasion, your best boy joining the Army, surely? And I thought all Scotsmen lived on oatmeal and whiskey. Well, old chap, so you’re a territorial! What make of rifle did they issue you with?”

  Phillip said he didn’t know, it was still in the armoury. He took his kit-bag up to his bedroom. He was not going to be persuaded to try on the kilt, and risk possible remarks about his ‘sparrow knees’, as once Mr. Swinerd, the assistant scoutmaster of the old North-west Kent Troop, had referred to them. Mr. Swinerd with his loose lips, and so-called jokes about orange juice swelling up bread in a boy’s stomach and stopping his heart, the silly rotter!

  Richard would not have made such a remark to his grown son: but in the past, he had sometimes spoken of his ‘weepy’ face, his ‘creepy-crawly’ ways, his ‘throw-back’ behaviour; and the son had not forgotten, even if the parent had.

  *

  At his first School of Arms night, in singlet, white flannel trousers and plimsolls, Phillip felt, at least at first, that he was a man among men. The boxing lesson convinced him that he wasn’t. Two punches, like two fireworks in the streets outside exploding on his face, removed all desire to continue. The comic-paper drawings of a splosh with stars exactly described the feeling; the first crashed like a jumping cracker on his mouth, the second darkened all his head, spreading to his eyes with flashy darkness.

  “Come on, lad, open yer peepers! Where’s that guard? Go on, after him! Up you get! That warn’t nothin’! Up you get! Nah then, watch ’im! Where’s yer guard? Use yer elbows! Never mind that one, ’e ain’t got no hoss-shoe in ’is glove! You ain’t goin’ to let no one do that to you! Cross with yer right! Where’s that straight left? What are yer feet doin’, tryin’ ter grow through the floor? Batter ’is gums! Change that smile on ’is dial! ’It ’im, not the air, lad! ’Ere, ’alf a mo’, I’ll show yer.”

  After leaving the ring to wash his face free of blood, he decided to join the group for the vaulting horse. But he could only do simple exercises; no hand-springs. So he did a bit of rope-climbing on his own. He could do that, anyway.

  On his first drill night he went on parade holding rifle at the half-trail, like a scout’s pole. He saluted the man in charge, the butt meanwhile resting on the floor. Downham was there, laughing.

  “Don’t salute me, lad, I’m not an officer!” growled the staff-sergeant. “And keep that butt from dragging on the floor, it ain’t a broom. Fall in and dress by the right.”

  He learned to form fours, to slope arms, to turn left and right, to stand to attention, to ground arms, to port arms for inspection with breech and cut-off open, to present arms, to fix and unfix bayonet; and most welcome of all, to dismiss—and so to the canteen.

  “Cheerio!”

  “Here’s the skin off your nose.”

  “Thanks.”

  *

  One evening he went to call on Mr. Graham, who was president of the Old Boys’ Club, and tell him his news. Mr. Graham spoke of a reunion at the school on the following Saturday evening, and said he looked forward to meeting him there. In due course, wearing his new made-to-measure dark grey herringbone woollen suit, bought for fifty shillings at Church the tailor’s, Phillip walked over the Hill, down into the murky High Street glowing in a pool of electric light, and up towards the dark levels of the Heath.

  Outside the school he hesitated; then assembling himself against old feelings of magisterial apprehension, went through the iron gates, past the chemistry laboratory and so to the entrance. Opening the door slightly, the first face he saw, in the rings of flickering gas-light under the high beams and rafters, was the Magister’s. There it was, pink and big, smiling among a group of old boys. Awaiting a chance to slip in unobserved, he darted into a cloak-room until the Magister was on the other side of Hall, before strolling out to talk to Tom Cundall and others he knew. He avoided the Magister: too many times had those icy Viking eyes looked into his inner self, and seen nothing there, for all Celtic personality had taken flight in fear.

  An extraordinary thing happened later, when the Magister had left. Mr. Graham suggested his name to Fitcheyson, president of the Old Heathians Foot
ball Club, as captain of the new fourth team being formed!

  He was amazed. He was no good at footer. He had been one of the worst boys in the school—not really bad, of course, like Jack Hart—but still, all the same, not much good: and here was Gildart Fitcheyson asking him if he would captain the Fourth Eleven!

  Fitcheyson said he would arrange the fixtures. What about it? He agreed, with some wonder and more self-doubt; and in due course the matches were made, the cards printed. Captain, P. S. T. Maddison!

  Phillip determined to do his best with the football team. He was a useful outside-left on occasion, with a good lifting kick from the side-line to the goal’s mouth.

  *

  At first it seemed that the Fourth Eleven as a team would never materialise. Only odd members turned up. The greatest number was six, when the match was on the Heath. Usually the game had to be started with four or five, more usually four. Phillip did his best to make his men keen, sometimes calling on them on Friday night, to ensure a full turn-out. Game after game was lost.

  However, he kept on hoping that one afternoon a full team would take the field, and then the Old Heathians Fourth might win a match. He travelled by omnibus and train and cycle to the various local grounds and fields where the matches were to be played; and when yet once again it was obvious that most of the chaps were not coming, he went round asking strangers, of all sorts and sizes, to make up his team.

  One Saturday by the Obelisk he met Cranmer, to their mutual delight, and on impulse took him along, to play against the Old Shootershillians Third. It proved a happy combination, himself on the left wing, and Cranmer at centre-forward. Nothing could stop Cranmer’s dash, or his own racing along the line, to lift the ball over the goal’s mouth for Cranmer to head into the net. It was a dry day, the ball light; and the lifting kick at right angles, with his left boot, the ‘pill’ smote by the side of the foot, was the one kick that Phillip could always bring off. Cranmer’s cropped and bullet head did the rest. It was the first match the Old Heathians Fourth had not lost. A draw, seven all! Up the old Bloodhounds!

  “It’s absolutely topping meeting you again, Horace. Can you play next week?”

  “Sure it’s all right, Phil? I ain’t——”

  “Of course you are! I hereby make you an honorary Old Fourthian!”

  Phillip found an old and discarded torn shirt in one corner of the pavilion, and took it home, for his mother to repair. It would do for Cranmer. Hetty washed, patched, and ironed it, ready for Phillip to take with him the following Saturday. It was a most important match, said Phillip; they were playing the London Highlanders ‘C’ on the home ground, at Colt Park.

  *

  Meanwhile there was a football supper to be held at the Rose of Lee, at the beginning of the second week in December: a date of double importance to Phillip: for that night at the Holborn Stadium, Bombardier Billy Wells was to fight Georges Carpentier for the heavyweight championship of Europe.

  In Wine Vaults Lane, the Bombardier was the favourite of both Phillip and Edgar. Three pictures of the tall, handsome, curly-haired, broad-shouldered, slender-waisted hero were stuck up in Edgar’s corner, with only one of the clean-shaven Frenchman in his white shorts, long hair brushed back, and deadly serious face. There had been a previous fight at Ghent, when the Bombardier had been knocked out, due to under-training, and unguarded stomach-muscles; this would not happen again, declared Edgar, when questioned that afternoon about the forthcoming fight by Mr. Hollis. One wallop of the Bombardier’s left, and Carp’n’teer would be sent flying back again over the Channel, prophesied Edgar from his corner, with a demonstration against the waste-paper basket.

  Phillip left the office that afternoon with a feeling of double anticipation. There was the Big Fight; and the Football Supper. It was the first of its kind he had been to. He walked over the Hill, following the old way down through Mill Lane, past Obelisk and Clock Tower, and so to the Rose of Lee.

  There already about three dozen men had foregathered, including Milton. Phillip had a glass of beer with them. The talk was mainly about the fight that night. It was agreed by all that the Bombardier was properly trained this time, his solar plexus covered by powerful muscles!

  After the roast mutton and red-currant jelly, followed by apple dumplings and cream, and when songs were being sung and from pipes was issuing companionable tobacco smoke, the landlord came in and said to Gildart Fitcheyson, the Football Club Chairman, that the news had just arrived, by someone on a motorcycle who had been to the first house at the New Cross Empire, where it had been given out from the stage, that Bombardier Billy Wells had been knocked out in the first round, in seventy-three seconds!

  It was unbelievable. That sun-burned torso, that great chest and narrow waist, that handsome face and fair curly hair of the Bombardier training on Beachy Head in the open air—had gone down with a solar-plexus punch followed by a crashing right to the point from the pale ex-pit boy from Lille, in seventy-three seconds!

  The rich baritone of Milton singing Drake Goes West afterwards was not so inspiring as it might have been to Phillip, thinking of England’s fallen hero.

  “‘O lachrymae, lachrymae, ubi estis?’” remarked Tom Cundall.

  “What does that mean?” asked Phillip.

  “It was the cry of our young Founder, for his hero Essex, after three slashes had been taken at the poor bloke’s neck on the block. Surely you’ve read your ‘History of the School’?”

  Phillip could never be sure whether Cundall was ragging, or not. “Well, not all of it, yet.”

  “Actually, that bit is frightfully interesting. Our illustrious Founder was pinched for his seditious but laudatory speech in the Common Room at Christ Church, in praise of his hero Essex, and on being sent to bed, wrote out another speech, in favour of ye late Earle’s decapitation, more or less. After that, he went to quod for a bit, and came out a wiser and better man, and founded our school. What more could you ask of any man? That is how every politician has ever kept his place, by keeping his trousers creased and his coat turned on the appropriate occasion.”

  Cundall was a bit of a brainy bird, Phillip could see. He had been one of his friends among the Bagmen, and was in the secret about Cranmer. Cundall had promised to say, if asked, that he remembered Cranmer in 3a, for one term, under Mr. Davenport. Mr. Davenport had left the school after one term, remarked Cundall: so it evened things up nicely. No evidence!

  “I shall say that when Cranmer left to join his parents in China, I remember the firework display in his honour.”

  “I say, don’t rot too much, Tom, will you?”

  “Rot?” said Cundall. “I am merely manufacturing circumstantial evidence. It was Cranmer’s Chinese ayah who let off the fireworks!”

  For the match with the London Highlanders ‘C’ team, Cranmer wore the orange, red, and black striped shirt of the Old Heathians. It was a fine, dry afternoon. The ball was light, not of a soggy foot-breaking weight. Phillip, tall and thin, sped along the left wing, passing and repassing with Cundall at inside-left; up rose the ball, up rose Cranmer’s bullet head; the Highlanders’ full backs charged, the ball was rooted down the field, and a scrimmage went on at the home goal. Then the race back again, the lifting kick, the leap and the bob, the ball headed in. Goal!

  At half-time the score was 3—1 in favour of the home team; then, after sucking lemons, the Highlanders seemed to have found new life. As the red-smoky sunset diminished behind the roof-tops and leafless elms around Colt Park, the touch-lines became crowded with spectators; for the game had started ten minutes late, and by this time the First Eleven had won their game against the Old Haberdashers. Five minutes to go, and the score 3 all! Then Phillip made a mistake; he felt they could not win, but they must not lose. He put Cranmer at centre-half, to stop the Highland forwards. He put Cundall at centre-forward; but Cundall was blown, pale of face. Up the Bagmen! cried Phillip.

  Then as the referee, whistle in mouth, was looking at his watch, Cranmer in a mêl
ée round their goal leapt to head away a ball and the ball, glancing off the back of his skull, went into the Heathians’ net. A roar went up; the whistle blew; the London Highlanders had won 4—3.

  “Cranmer,” said Phillip. “You are a cuckoo. But you deserve to be an honorary Old Heathian all the same.”

  “Sorry, Phil,” moaned Cranmer. “I wor dizzy. I ain’t had no dinner.” He looked unhappy.

  “I think you ought to sling your hook, Horace,” said Phillip, out of the side of his mouth. Mr. Graham, camera slung on shoulder, was coming towards them. Head down, Cranmer broke into a run.

  “See you later,” Phillip called out, not loudly, lest Mr. Graham hear. “At the pease-puddin’ shop. My treat, remember.”

  Mr. Graham congratulated Phillip on a splendid effort; and asked him as they walked towards the pavilion what was the name of the centre-forward.

  Phillip replied, before he could think what to say, that he was Horace Cuck—here he coughed—who had left some years before.

  “How interesting,” said Mr. Graham. “I must have a word with him. Cook, did you say, Phillip? The ordinary spelling, or C-O-K-E? We had a Coke, about forty years ago, I recall——”

  “I think he spells his with a ‘u’, Mr. Graham.”

  Before Mr. Graham could reply, Cundall, with a most innocent expression, offered the information that Cuck had had to hurry away to meet an important relation who had just returned from Hong Kong.

  “I think he is part Chinese, or something, Mr. Graham.”

  “Oh,” said Mr. Graham. Then, “Well, I look forward to meeting him some other time. Cuck—an unusual spelling. Of course all names were originally phonetic—the spelling came later. C-U-C-K—most unusual. I thought I knew every old boy in the register, too, but Horace Cuck escapes me. How is Timmy, your white rat, by the way, Phillip? He can almost be regarded as an honorary Old Boy, don’t you think?”