On The Black Hill (Vintage Classics)

by Chatwin, Bruce

  In places, the winter floods had washed away the path: he had to watch his footing. Twigs and dead branches had caught in the bushes along the bank. He climbed a bluff. On the downward slope some lilies-of-the-valley pushed up through a carpet of moss. He sat down and peered past the branches at the river.

  Upstream was a thicket of ash-saplings, leafless as yet, and beneath them a carpet of bluebells, wild garlic, and a wood-spurge with sharp green flowers.

  Suddenly, above the sound of the rushing water he heard a woman’s voice, singing. It was a young voice, and the song was slow and sad. A girl in grey was walking downstream through the bluebells. He froze until she started to climb the bluff. Her head had reached the level of his feet when he called out, ‘Rosie!’

  ‘Oh Lord, how you scared me!’ Breathlessly, she took a seat beside him. He spread out his jacket to cover the damp moss. He was wearing black braces and a striped wool shirt.

  ‘I was walking to work,’ she said, her face contracting with sorrow: already he knew of her two tragic years.

  Her mother had died of tuberculosis in the winter of ’17. Her brother had died, from fever, in Egypt. Then, as the war was ending, Bobbie Fifield had been taken by the Spanish flu. On hearing that she was homeless, Mrs Bickerton gave her a job as a chambermaid. But the big house scared her: there was a lion on the landing. The other servants made her life a misery, and the butler had tried to corner her in the pantry.

  Mrs B. wasn’t too bad, she said. She was a lady. But the Colonel was a real rough one … and that Mrs Nancy! So awfully upset about losing her husband. Never stopped picking. Pick, pick, pick! And her dogs! Something dreadful! Yap, yap, yap!

  She chattered on, her eyes sparkling with all the old malice as the sun went down and the ash-trees hung their shadows over the river.

  And Mr Reginald! She couldn’t think what to do about Mr Reggie. Couldn’t think which way to look! Lost his leg in the war … but that didn’t stop him! Not even at breakfast! She’d bring in his breakfast tray and he’d try and drag her down on to the bed——

  ‘Sshh!’ Lewis put his finger to his lips. A pair of mallard had landed below them. The drake was mounting the duck in an eddy under a rock. He had a lovely sheeny green head.

  ‘Oo-ooh! He’s a beauty!’ She clapped her hands, scaring the birds, which took off and flew upriver.

  She reminded him of the games they had played here as children.

  He grinned: ‘Remember the time you caught us by the pool?’

  She jerked her head back with a throaty laugh: ‘Remember the evening primrose?’

  ‘We could find another one, Rosie!’

  She stared for a second into his taut, puzzled face: ‘We couldn’t.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Not yet, we couldn’t.’

  She stood and flicked a dead leaf from the hem of her skirt. She gave him a rendezvous for Friday. Then she brushed her cheek against his, and left.

  After that, they would meet once a week outside the grotto, and go for long walks in the woods.

  Benjamin watched his brother’s comings and goings, said nothing, and knew all.

  In the middle of July, Lewis and Rosie arranged to meet in Rhulen for the National Peace Celebrations: there was to be a Thanksgiving Service in the parish church, and sports in Lurkenhope Park.

  ‘You don’t have to come,’ Lewis said, as he adjusted his tie in a mirror.

  ‘I’m coming,’ said Benjamin.

  24

  THE MORNING OF the celebrations began in brilliant sunshine. From the early hours, the townspeople had been scrubbing their doorsteps, polishing their doorknockers and festooning their windows with bunting. By nine, Mr Arkwright, the moving spirit behind the festivities, could be seen, bird-necked in a double starched collar, bustling hither and thither to make sure things were going to plan. To every stranger, he touched the brim of his Homburg, and wished him a happy holiday.

  Under his ‘all-seeing eye’, the façade of the Town Hall had been tastefully adorned with trophies and bannerets. Only the week before, he had hit on the idea of planting a patriotic display of salvias, lobelias and little dorrit around the base of the municipal clock; and if the result looked a bit scraggy, his colleague Mr Evenjobb declared it a ‘stroke of genius’.

  At the far end of Broad Street – on the site set aside for the War Memorial – stood a plain wood cross, its base half hidden under a mound of Flanders poppies. A glazed case contained a parchment scroll, illuminated with the names of the ‘gallant thirty-two’ who had made the ‘Supreme Sacrifice’.

  The service had ended before the Jones twins reached the church. A band of ex-servicemen was playing a selection from ‘The Maid of the Mountains’, and the triumphal procession to Lurkenhope was gradually gathering coherence.

  The Bickertons and their entourage had already left by car.

  In an ‘act of spontaneous generosity’ – the words were Mr Arkwright’s – they had ‘thrown open their gates and hearts to the public’, and were providing a sit-down luncheon for the returning heroes, for their wives and sweethearts, and for parishioners over the age of seventy.

  All comers, however, were welcome at the soup-kitchen: the Sports and Carnival Pageant were scheduled to start at three.

  All morning, farmers and their families had been pouring into town. Demobbed soldiers peacocked about with girls on their arms and medals on their chests. Certain ‘females of the flapper species’ – again, the words were Mr Arkwright’s – were ‘garbed in indecorous dress’. The farm wives were in flowery hats, little girls in Kate Greenaway bonnets, and their brothers in sailor-suits and tarns.

  The grown men were drabber; but here and there, a panama or stripy blazer broke the monotony of black jackets and hard hats.

  The twins had put on identical blue serge suits.

  Outside the chemist’s some urchins were blowing their pea-shooters at a Belgian refugee: ‘Mercy Bow Coop, Mon Sewer! Bon Jewer, Mon Sewer!’

  ‘Zey sink zey can laffe.’ The man shook his fist. ‘Bott soon zey vill be khryeeng!’

  Benjamin doubted the wisdom of appearing in public, and tried to slink out of sight – in vain, for Lewis kept elbowing forward, looking high and low for Rosie Fifield. Both brothers tried to hide when P.C. Crimp detached himself from the crowd and bore down on them:

  ‘Ha! Ha! The Jones twins!’ he boomed, mopping the sweat from his brow and clamping his hand on Lewis’s shoulder: ‘Now which one of you two is Benjamin?’

  ‘I am,’ said Lewis.

  ‘Don’t think you can get away from me, young feller-me-lad!’ the policeman chortled on, pressing the boy to his silver buttons. ‘Glad to see you looking so fit and hearty! No hard feelings, eh? Bunch o’ bloomin’ hooligans in Hereford!’

  Nearby, Mr Arkwright was deep in conversation with a W.A.A.C. officer, an imposing woman in khaki who was voicing a complaint about the order of the procession: ‘No, Mr Arkwright! I’m not trying to do down the Red Cross nurses. I’m simply insisting on the unity of the Armed Forces …’

  ‘See those two?’ the solicitor interrupted. ‘Shirkers! Wonder they dare show their faces! Some people certainly have a bit of gall …!’

  ‘No,’ she took no notice. ‘Either my girls march behind the Army boys or in front of them … But they must march together!’

  ‘Quite so!’ he nodded dubiously. ‘But our patron, Mrs Bickerton, as head of Rhulen Red Cross——’

  ‘Mr Arkwright, you’ve missed the point. I——’

  ‘Excuse me!’ He had caught sight of an old soldier propped up on crutches against the churchyard wall. ‘The Survivor of Rorke’s Drift!’ he murmured. ‘Excuse me one moment. One must pay one’s respects …’

  The Survivor, Sergeant-Major Gosling, V.C., was a favourite local character who always took the air on such occasions, in the scarlet dress uniform of the South Wales Borderers.

  Mr Arkwright threaded his way towards the veteran, lowered his moustache to his ear, and mouthed some platitude about ‘
The Field of Flanders’.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I said, “The Field of Flanders”.’

  ‘Aye, and fancy giving them a field to fight in!’

  ‘Silly old fool,’ he muttered under his breath, and slipped away behind the W.A.A.C. officer.

  Meanwhile, Lewis Jones was asking anyone and everyone, ‘Have you seen Rosie Fifield?’ She was nowhere to be found. Once, he thought he saw her on a sailor’s arm, but the girl who turned round was Cissie Pantall the Beeches.

  ‘If you please, Mr Jones,’ she said in a shocked tone, while his eye came to rest on the bulldog jowls of her companion. At twenty past twelve, Mr Arkwright blew three blasts on his whistle, the crowd cheered, and the procession set off along the low road to Lurkenhope.

  At its head marched the choristers, the scouts and guides, and the inmates of the Working Boys’ Home. Next in line were the firemen, the railway workers, Land Girls with hoes over their shoulders, and munitions girls with heads bound up, pirate-fashion, in the Union Jack. A small delegation had been sent by the Society of Oddfellows, while the leader of the Red Cross bore a needlework banner of Nurse Edith Cavell, and her dog. The W.A.A.C.s followed – having assumed, after a vitriolic squabble, their rightful place in the parade. Then came the brass band, and then the Glorious Warriors.

  An open charabanc brought up the rear, its seats crammed with pensioners and war-wounded, a dozen of whom, in sky blue suits and scarlet ties, were waving their crutches at the crowd. Some wore patches over their eyes. Some were missing eyebrows or eyelids; others, arms or legs. The spectators surged behind the vehicle as it puttered down Castle Street.

  They had come abreast of the Bickerton Memorial when someone shouted in Mr Arkwright’s ear, ‘Where’s the Bombardier?’

  ‘Oh my God, whatever next?’ he exploded. ‘They’ve forgotten the Bombardier!’

  The words were hardly off his lips when two schoolboys in tasselled caps were seen racing in the direction of the church. Two minutes later, they were racing back, pushing at breakneck speed a wheeled basket-chair containing a hunched-up figure in uniform.

  ‘Make way for the Bombardier!’ one of them shouted.

  ‘Make way for the Bombardier!’ – and the crowd parted for the Rhulen hero, who had rescued his commanding officer at Passchendaele. The Military Medal was pinned to his tunic.

  ‘Hurrah for the Bombardier!’

  His lips were purple and his ashen face stretched taut as a drumskin. Some children showered him with confetti and his eyes revolved in terror.

  ‘Hrrh! Herh!’ A spongy rattle sounded in his throat, as he tried to slither down the basket-chair.

  ‘Poor ol’ boy!’ Benjamin heard someone say. ‘Still thinks there’s a bloody war on.’

  Shortly after one, the leaders of the procession sighted the stone lion over the North Lodge of the Castle.

  Mrs Bickerton had planned to hold the luncheon in the dining-room. Faced with a revolt from the butler, she had it transferred to the disused indoor dressage-school: as a wartime economy, the Colonel had given up breeding Arabs.

  She had also planned to be present, with her family and house-party, but the guest-of-honour, Brigadier Vernon-Murray, had to drive back to Umberslade that evening; and he, for one, wasn’t wasting his whole day on the hoi polloi.

  All the same, it was a right royal feed.

  Two trestle tables, glistening with white damask, ran the entire length of the structure; and at each place setting there was a bouquet of sweet-peas, as well as a saucer of chocolates and Elvas plums for the sweet of tooth. Dimpled tankards were stuck with celery; there were mayonnaises, jars of pickle, bottles of ketchup and, every yard or so, a pyramid of oranges and apples. A third table, bent under the weight of the buffet – round which a score of willing helpers were waiting to carve, or serve. A pair of hams wore neat paper frills around their shins. There were rolls of spiced beef, a cold roast turkey, polonies, brawns, pork pies and three Wye salmon, each one resting on its bed of lettuce hearts, with a glissando of cucumber slices running down its side.

  A pot of calf’s-foot jelly had been set aside for the Bombardier.

  Along the back wall hung portraits of Arab stallions – Hassan, Mokhtar, Mahmud and Omar – once the pride of the Lurkenhope Stud. Above them hung a banner reading ‘THANK YOU BOYS’ in red.

  ‘Girls with jugs of ale and cider kept the heroes’ glasses topped to the brim; and the sound of laughter carried as far as the lake.

  Lewis and Benjamin helped themselves to a bowl of mulligatawny at the soup-kitchen, and sauntered round the shrubbery, stopping, now and then, to talk to picnickers. The weather was turning chilly. Women shivered under their shawls, and eyed the inky clouds heaped up over the Black Hill.

  Lewis spotted one of the gardeners and asked if he’d seen Rosie Fifield.

  ‘Rosie?’ The man scratched his scalp. ‘She’d be serving lunch, I expect.’

  Lewis led the way back to the dressage-school, and pushed through the crush of people who were thronging the double doors. The speeches were about to begin. The port decanters were emptying fast.

  At his place at the centre of the table, Mr Arkwright had already toasted the Bickerton family in absentia and was about to embark on his oration.

  ‘Now that the sword is returned to the scabbard,’ he began, ‘I wonder how many of us recall those sunny summer days of 1914 when a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand appeared on the political sky of Europe –’

  At the word ‘cloud’ a few faces tilted upward to the skylight, through which the sun had been pouring but a minute before.

  ‘A cloud which grew to rain death and destruction upon well nigh the whole continent of Europe, nay, upon the four corners of the globe …’

  ‘I’m going home,’ Benjamin nudged his brother.

  An N.C.O. – one of his torturers from the Hereford Barracks – sat leering at him loutishly through a cloud of cigar smoke.

  Lewis whispered, ‘Not yet!’ and Mr Arkwright raised his voice to a tremulous baritone:

  ‘An immense military power rose in its might, and forgetting its sworn word to respect the frontiers of weaker nations, tore through the country of Belgium …’

  ‘Where’s old Belgey?’ a voice called out.

  ‘… burned its cities, towns, villages, martyred its gallant inhabitants …’

  ‘Not him they didn’t!’ – and someone shoved forward the Refugee, who stood and gaped blearily from under his beret.

  ‘Good old Belgey!’

  ‘But the Huns never reckoned with the sense of justice and honour which are the attributes of the British people … and the might of British righteousness tipped the scales against them …’

  The N. C. O.’s eyes had narrowed to a pair of dangerous slits.

  ‘I’m going,’ said Benjamin, edging back towards the door.

  The speaker raked his throat and continued: ‘This is no place for a mere civilian to trace the course of events. No need to speak of those glorious few, the Expeditionary Force, who pitted themselves against so vile a foe, for whom the meaning of life was the study of death …’

  Mr Arkwright looked over his spectacles to assure himself that his listeners had caught the full flavour of his bon mot. The rows of blank faces assured him they had not. He looked down again at his notes:

  ‘No need to speak of the clarion call of Lord Kitchener – for men and yet more men …’

  A serving-girl, in grey, was standing close to Lewis with a jug of cider in her hand. He asked if she’d seen Rosie Fifield.

  ‘Not all morning,’ she whispered back. ‘She’s probably off with Mr Reggie.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘No need to record the disappointments, the months that lengthened into years, and still no chink was found in the enemy’s armour …’

  ‘Hear! Hear!’ said the N.C.O.

  ‘Everyone in this room will recall how the demon of warfare swallowed up our most promising manhood, and still the monster flour
ished …’

  The last remark obviously tickled the N.C.O.’s fancy. He shook with laughter, bared his gums, and went on staring at Benjamin. A clap of thunder shook the building. Raindrops pocked on the skylight, and the picnickers pressed forward through the doors, pushing the twins to within feet of the speaker.

  Undeterred by the storm, Mr Arkwright carried on: ‘Men and more men was the cry, and meanwhile submarine piracy threatened with starvation those whose lot it was to remain at home …’

  ‘Not ’im it didn’t,’ muttered a woman nearby, who must have known, at first hand, of the solicitor’s black-market peccadillo.

  ‘Sshh!’ – and the woman fell silent; for he appeared to be moving towards the final coda: ‘So at last, righteousness and justice prevailed and, with God’s help, a treacherous and inhuman foe was laid low.’

  The rain slammed on the roof. He raised his hands to acknowledge the clapping; but he had not finished: ‘In that glorious consummation, all those present have played an honourable part. Or should I say,’ he added, removing his glasses and fixing a steely stare on the twins, ‘almost all of those present?’

  In a flash, Benjamin saw what was afoot and, clawing his brother’s wrist, began to squirm towards the door. Mr Arkwright watched them go and then turned to the tricky topic of contributions to the War Memorial Fund.

  The twins stood under the cedar of Lebanon, alone, in the rain.

  ‘We didn’t ought to have come,’ said Benjamin.

  They sheltered until the rain blew over. Benjamin still wanted to leave, but Lewis lingered on and, in the end, they stayed for the Carnival Pageant.

  For four days, Mr Arkwright and his committee had ‘moved heaven and earth’ to prepare the ground for the afternoon’s events. Hurdles had been erected, white lines drawn on the grass, and, in front of the finishing-post, a canvas awning covered the podium to shield the notabilities from sun or shower. Garden seats had been reserved for the heroes and pensioners: the others had to sit where they could.