How Dear Is Life

by Henry Williamson

  They got off at the end of the penny ticket and went to have tea in an A.B.C. shop. “Boiled egg, portion of cottage loaf, with butter and jam, twice please, pot of tea for two.” This twice business was the correct way to order for two. And when Willie offered to pay, “No, no! It’s my treat! I wonder what your friend Jack Temperley is doing now?”

  “Helping with the corn harvest, Phil. I say, do you think your regiment will want volunteers? I’d like to join, if I can.”

  “We’re not up to strength in ‘B’ Company, anyway.”

  “Do you think they would have Jack?”

  “Well, you’re supposed to have some Scottish blood, you know. They are fairly hot about not calling it Scotch, by the way. Scotch is used only for whiskey, you know. I say, where are all the people going to? Let’s go and see.”

  They found themselves below Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square. The agitation seemed to be around an old man with a white beard and cloth cap who was speaking with a Scottish accent that the world could yet be saved from the cataclysm if only the wor-r-rkers in all countries maintained their solidarity against the capitalists’ greed for expansion! If the wor-r-rkers of all countries held out against the capitalists’ greed to seize the markets of their rivals! If the wor-r-rkers united themselves against the capitalists’ lust for greater profits! Against their urge to get greater power to suppress the living standards of the wor-r-rking classes!

  “He’s got a red tie on!” said Phillip. “He’s like one of the Socialists on the Hill on Sunday afternoons in winter.”

  “That’s Keir Hardie,” a man said, overhearing the remark.

  Good lord! Aunt Dora and Sylvia knew him, then! Phillip looked at the old man with new interest. He was stirred by his way of speaking. He was startled when some men near him began to shout against him, “Little Englander!”

  There was a scuffle. Men were trying to pull the old man off the plinth by the lions. His cloth cap, amid jeers and boos, was thrown into the air.

  “Are they going to hurt him?” Phillip asked a policeman near him. The policeman did not reply.

  “Boo! Boo! Boo! Filthy blackguard!”

  A man with angry snarling face said savagely to Phillip, “That creature, to our country’s everlasting disgrace, is a Member of Parliament! Why, he’s illegitimate!”

  “Move along there! Get a move on!” shouted the policeman. A terrific agitation of jeers and boos was drowning what Keir Hardie was saying.

  “Lock him up! Why don’t you go to Germany? Yah! Boo!” Fists were held up, the crowd pressed, Phillip was shifted off his feet. Willie looked very startled, he thought.

  Another part of the crowd was now singing God Save the King. The singing spread, the ugly look on faces was gone. Phillip did not feel like joining in. Now that war was to start at midnight, he felt only slight chill and fear. Oh God, what would happen? Then he saw that a cordon of police was pushing itself around Keir Hardie and the people with him, who had such anxious, serious faces, with the look of Aunt Dora’s in them. The pressure of the crowd bore them away. Looking back, he saw mounted police, with them an inspector in blue pill-box hat and tight tunic with silver buttons, walking their horses into the crowd. It was awfully exciting, and it was also terrible. Where were the people all going? He followed, with Willie. The crowd went under a heavy-looking grey arch, and along a straight wide road, with trees lining it, tall cream-painted mansions on one side rising above it. And on the other a park, with trees and grass. It was fun to follow the crowd—suddenly, far away in front was a familiar newspaper-view—good lord, it was Buckingham Palace!

  *

  The two boys returned home at twilight, the half-moon hanging in a sky flushed with calm hues of sunset, eager to tell how they had seen the King and Queen come out on the balcony of the Palace, with the Prince of Wales, to the tremendous cheers of hundreds of thousands of people, waving hats and yelling themselves hoarse long after the Royal party had gone in again. But when Doris opened the front door, she put her finger to her lips, and whispered, “Father is playing the gramophone. Please don’t make a sound, or he’ll stop it!”

  They went quietly into the sitting-room, where, in the warm twilight of the french windows wide open to the garden, Father’s and Mother’s faces could just be seen. Most beautiful music, that he had not heard before, filled the room. It made him think of the sun, which was dying, and saying goodbye to the earth, a golden god slain in the darkness. He crept slowly, and very quietly, to be alone on the steps leading into the garden. After the music Father lit a candle by the gramophone in the corner of the room, to see the labels of the records.

  “What was that one, Father? Could we have it again, please?”

  Strangely, Father actually consented to play it again. He said it was the Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde. Once again the dying sun was saying goodbye to the earth it loved, since it had made all things on the earth. The strings rose in crescendo, waves of the dying sun-god sinking into the sea; and when it was ended he tip-toed through the room to the front of the house, and from the open window watched the moon of broken silver lying low in the dusk of the calm evening. Voices came from the dark grass, laughter and far-off yodelling cries of happy boys, a star shone very small. He thought of Uncle Hugh, and what he had told him about the South African War.

  A low double whistle came from the bottom of the road. He knew that whistle. He jumped over the sill and went down to meet Gerry, who was walking up, just visible in the darkening night that was so warm, so alive.

  “Hullo, Gerry! Heard the news?”

  “Have I not! I’m going to join your little lot tomorrow, with Bertie.”

  “Oh, topping!”

  He saw the big hanging cloth-shaded light in Mrs. Neville’s flat. Desmond’s new friend Eugene was staying for a month at the flat. He felt a little unwanted. Were not he and Des all in all to one another? Had Gene, with his queer brownish-yellow face and little brown eyes, taken his place as Desmond’s great friend? How quickly life was changing. Even with Willie come to live with them, it was rather sad, when you thought of the old days. It was rather like the new music Father had played.

  When he returned with Gerry, the gas was lit in the sitting-room and the music over. That was rather sad, too. The solitary candle-light was gone. It would never be the same moment ever again. Did a candle-flame sometimes dream of the sun?

  He dared to ask Father if he would play the record again; but Father said, as the keys on his bunch jingled at the gramophone lock, “No more now, old chap. Doris, it is past your bedtime, please!”

  Doris got up abruptly, said “Good night all,” and left the room.

  “Well, Gerry, how are you? I suppose you will find yourself in the Navy before very long, things being what they are?” He took out his watch. “In two and a half hours, this country will be at war. The ultimatum expires at midnight.”

  Phillip felt the cold chill strike him again, as though the sun was really dying. Darkness! He reassured himself by thinking of guarding the East Coast. Gerry was saying, “We shall be at war in one and a half hours, Uncle Dick, surely? Berlin time is an hour before ours.”

  Father looked serious, Phillip thought.

  “Our ship left Hamburg yesterday morning, got away in time, I guess, too. The Deutchers are an hour earlier over there. They wanted to know if we had had special orders to leave, but we weren’t telling!”

  “And you had better not tell us, Gerry, old chap! Official secrets, you know.” Father waggled his finger in warning.

  When Father had gone out of the room, Phillip said, “Come on, tell us! Did you have special orders, Gerry?”

  “You bet your life we did!”

  “Tell us, come on, be a sport!”

  “No flies on Winston Churchill, my boy. Well, the squareheads mean business, all right. You should have heard them cheering in Hamburg. Bands playing, and everything.”

  “What were the special orders?”

  “To vamoos like h
ell, all lights doused except navigation!”

  That night, when the others were in bed, Richard went quietly to the front gate, and with a screw-driver removed the ten brass letters of Lindenheim from the top bar. Returning into the house, he took out his rifle and inspected it; then his special constable’s arm-band, which he had kept in his desk for a quarter of a century. If the Germans made a sudden raid on London in the night, like the Japanese at Port Arthur eight years before, he would be ready to do his duty, if called upon.

  *

  “General Mobilisation has been proclaimed by mounted heralds in the City,” said Mr. Howlett, returning from luncheon, the next day. “Head Office will lose over eighty men, in all departments. Thank heavens it isn’t anywhere near quarter day! By the way, I’ve got your salary cheque, but I’m afraid the banks are still closed, owing to the moratorium. When they open, there will be no more gold sovereigns, I’m told. Instead, the banks are to issue new one-pound and ten-shilling notes. In the meantime, can I be of any assistance, Maddison?”

  “Thank you sir, it is quite all right.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Howlett, “I suppose you ought to report to your headquarters? By the way, at a special meeting today at Head Office, the Directors agreed to pay full salaries of men away in the Army, with all annual rises due to them, for the duration of hostilities. That is, of course, in so far as individual men are required to serve, of course, by the Government.”

  “Lucky devils!” exclaimed Mr. Hollis, seeing delight in his junior’s face. “You’ll have three months holiday at the Government’s expense—if it lasts so long, that is. You’ll be sitting on your bottoms in some Martello tower, waiting for an invasion that never comes, thanking God for the Royal Navy, while Howlett and I sit here in this dark little hole and do the work you and Downham will be paid for, you blighters! Seriously, Maddison,” he added, with a smile, “I wish I were twenty years younger. I’d be off like a shot, I can tell you! Then you”—turning to Mr. Howlett—“would have to do all the work of the Branch!”

  “Well,” said Mr. Howlett, easily, “it takes all sorts to make a world, and when you get your own Branch, Hollis, you’ll be able to have things your own way.” And putting a pink cheque on Mr. Hollis’ desk, Mr. Howlett went slowly upstairs.

  Outside a newsboy was yelling in Fenchurch Street. Without waiting to be told, Edgar nipped out to get The Pall Mall Gazette.

  Mr. Hollis spread the paper on the counter. Phillip looked over his shoulder.

  FIRE AND SWORD IN BELGIUM

  GREAT GERMAN ADVANCE

  Battle Near Liège

  Town Ablaze

  Populations Cut Up

  Phillip set out, with a curious feeling of being hollow, to Headquarters. In Fenchurch Street a newspaper boy was yelling. He bought a Globe, and returned to show Mr. Hollis.

  IS LORD HALDANE

  DELAYING WAR

  PREPARATION?

  What Is He Doing

  At The War Office?

  The Nation Calls for

  Lord Kitchener.

  “Good God, you back again?” exclaimed Mr. Hollis.

  “I thought you’d like to see this, Mr. Hollis.”

  “That’s very civil of you, Maddison. Let’s see what it says, shall we, what?”

  “H’m, Haldane’s pro-German, of course. I remember when he said that Germany was his spiritual home. Time he was kicked out. Time you got to your regimental Headquarters, too, or you’ll find you’re kicked out.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Hollis, once more.”

  Mr. Hollis gazed at him.

  “Goodbye once more, you natural history specimen!”

  Just then Downham came in, sporran swinging, neat fawn-spats, glengarry ribands dangling. He pointed at Phillip. “Orders to report at Headquarters forthwith. Hullo, Hollis. I came round to collect my cheque, and to say goodbye. The news is that the German Fleet has come out, and there’s been a hell of a scrap in the North Sea! Some of our ships have gone down, and hundreds of transports are steaming for the East Coast and the Thames Estuary!”

  “My God!” cried Hollis. “Port Arthur over again! It’s that idiot Churchill!”

  Upstairs the door opened. “What’s that, what’s that? Hullo Downham! What did I hear you say?”

  Phillip felt as he had felt when, having set the Backfield alight, he realised it was spreading too fast for him to beat it out.

  “You’d better go, I think, Maddison,” said Mr. Howlett very quietly. “I think I’ll get confirmation from Head Office, all the same.”

  They all stared while he was on the line. “Yes sir. Very well, sir. We shall just have to, that is all. Good day to you, sir.”

  He hung up.

  “Well, I spoke just now to Reed, the General Manager. There’s no official confirmation of a naval action, except that a heavy cannonade has been heard all the afternoon off Southend. One of our agents rang up, apparently. Territorials should not wait for mobilisation papers, Reed thinks: the postal arrangements are bound to be a bit late, with the extra work suddenly put upon them. Anyway, as war has been proclaimed, there seems to be no point in delaying. So I suppose this really is goodbye, Maddison!”

  Mr. Howlett shook hands first with Downham, then with Phillip.

  “Goodbye, gentlemen, for the fourth time,” said Phillip, clapping on his straw hat, and quickly leaving the office, not wanting to leave with Downham. He hurried, not to Headquarters, but home.

  *

  He was obsessed with an idea that he must get his pair of brogue walking shoes repaired. Those French soldiers, straggling along an open road, from nowhere, in broken boots! If he had extra thick soles, he would be all right.

  Immediately after Mrs. Feeney had opened the door to him, he got his brogues and took them to Freeman, Hardy and Willis in the High Street, asking for the thickest possible clump to be put on each sole, and a heavy studding with nails.

  This done, he hastened home to try on his uniform. So far he had done no more than take it out of the kit-bag since bringing it home the previous winter. He had been shy of the kilt. He must hurry, to try it on before Father came home. Then he must report at Headquarters.

  “Mum, will you give me a hand?”

  “Yes, dear, of course.” She was curious to know if anything in the way of knickers was worn under a kilt; but forebore to ask, as he took it out of his bottom drawer and laid it on the bed.

  “I think I’ll have my cold tub first.”

  Bath over, towel wrapped round middle, he hopped back into his bedroom. He tried on the kilt. It was pleated, pale pinkish grey, rather like the colour of the bells of the ling on Exmoor as they were fading. Wound round the waist, and fastened by two straps, it hung free, though he had a sort of naked feeling until he found the brooch pin which secured the skirt end. He put on the thick woollen hose, held up by garters with forked ends, that showed below the turned-down tops. Then his second-best pair of black calf shoes, and spats to be strapped under the soles and buttoned to just below the calf.

  To view the effect he ran up to Mother’s bedroom, to look at himself in the long mirror of the wardrobe. Oh, he looked awful! Pigeon chest! Sparrow knees! Owl eyes! He would never dare to go outside like that!

  “Well, dear, why not put on shirt and jacket first?” Hetty laughed; but seeing his face, became helpful. Had he not forgotten his pouch? Or did he call it a sporran? He said he did not know. It was used for a purse, anyway. It lay in the corner of the drawer, underneath his old yellow-faded school cricketing trousers. Seeing these, Hetty went out of the room, not wanting him to see her tears.

  He fastened on the empty purse; then buttoned up his khaki jacket. He tried the glengarry bonnet with the white-metal badge pinned to its side—the lion of Scotland, the Cross of St. Andrew, and the rather frightening motto.

  “May I come in, dear?’

  “Yes, Mum. Do I look awful?”

  “You look very nice, dear. The kilt suits you. Do come downstairs, and let Mrs. Feeney se
e before she goes.”

  Mrs. Feeney, bonnet on head, empty porter bottle and last of the mutton bone wrapped in The Daily Trident within her black American-cloth bag, was about to depart out of the kitchen.

  “My, you look quite handsome, Master Phillip! Fancy you a sojer! Good luck, Master Phillip! Ah, well! Good-day, m’am! See you next Wednesday, all being well,” the old woman cried cheerfully, as she let herself out by the front door.

  He went next door to show his new finery to Gran’pa. He found him reading The Evening News, which contained a report of gun-fire heard off the coast of Kent, but “further reports of a naval action were unconfirmed.” He decided to report the following morning.

  Three times that evening he started to leave for a walk on the Hill with his cousin and each time he changed his mind, nervous of what people might think of him. He hung about in the front room, in a mortifying fix, occasionally irritable with his mother; and ashamed of his behaviour before Willie. Finally, he changed back into ordinary clothes when a carriage pulled up Hillside Road, in which were Mrs. Rolls, her two daughters and small son, and their luggage. Mother said they had been recalled from the danger zone, the Isle of Wight being so near Portsmouth, by Mr. Rolls, who for the past hour or so had been clipping the privet hedge in front of his house. Mr. Pye, also, was clipping his hedge immediately below.

  It was the presence of the two men that had over-awed Phillip; he had to pass them before reaching the Hill.

  *

  He told Willie about Helena; Willie told him about his girl, in Rookhurst, an artist’s daughter named Elsie Norman. Mutual confession drew them closer; made the friendship real; and with renewed confidence Phillip leapt upstairs, three at a time, to put on his uniform once again. They went down to Aunt Dome’s in Charlotte Road, to see if Hubert had any news. There they found not only Bertie, but Mr. Bolton’s son.