A War Romance

by F. W. Harvey

  ‘Harvey is a good bat, but one good bat can’t save us now’; commented the youthful disgusted critic’s next neighbour. ‘Oh, good shot!’ It was a lovely off-drive, but the out field sprinting along the boundary turned the four into three, and the net ball saw Harvey’s partner edge a ball from the fast bowler into the hands of first slip. Six for forty three.

  Then emerged from the pavilion a white-faced boy with set mouth – Hawkins II, who was being played for the first time in a school match, chiefly on account of a big amaze in form games in which nobody seemed able to bowl him out. He was the last ‘bat’ on the side; the others being a magnificent wicket-keeper, played solely for that reason, and two bowlers whose amaze as such exceeded by almost as much again their amaze as run-makers.

  Eric, who had come down the pitch to meet him, whispered something into his ear, and left him to face the last ball of ‘Cap’s’ over. What that whispered something was, may be guessed by the fact that the next ball – a short bumping delivery on the off, was allowed to pass without any semblance of a stroke being made by Hawkins minor, whose bat remained rooted in the block-hole.

  Off the next over Eric scored sixteen, and then secured ‘Cap’s’ bowling by calling Hawkins for a run off a stroke which pushed the ball no more than six yards from the pitch. With his partner backing up it was an easy single, although it occasioned vociferous warning and advice from the spectators.

  He played five balls of the next over; the first and third being driven for fours; the two between being left severely alone, and the fifth hooked off his eyebrows for three. Hawkins II stopped the last.

  Then the bowling was changed, and Eric was missed in the long field of the second fall amid audible gasps. But the over yielded nine runs, and the score now stood at eighty, of which his own contribution was precisely sixty three.

  the complexion of the game was not completely altered. Enthusiasm was roused in the spectators, who saw if not victory in sight at least the prospect of a good finish made possible by an exhibition of fearless hitting such as had not been seen that season.

  Eric got a four and a three off the fast bowler, and Hawkins got a knock on the jaw, but he played out the over, and more than earned a clap on the back from his partner.

  The opposing captain changed his tactics. Seven men were put on the leg side, and a slow good length bowler put on with the object of getting Eric caught. But with rather more than half an hour to go, and but sixteen runs now wanted, that batsman was taking no risks.

  Four overs yielded as many runs, of which one was a leg-bye for Hawkins, who was using his pads quite as frequently as his bat.

  The duel between bowler and batsman which had developed, though far less spectacular than the previous big hitting had been, was if anything even more exciting. Each stroke was followed keenly by the spectators, and a round of applause rewarded every run made or saved.

  The other bowler, using the left-hander’s natural break away, kept a fine length, bowling rather wide, with his men on the off.

  Thus at five minutes to six the two boys were still together, and eight runs were wanted. And then indeed the eyes of all the school wandered between the wickets and the school clock, whose six silvery strokes were by tradition immemorial the signal for drawing stumps. For it was Hawkins and not Eric who faced the bowler.

  He had been playing like a brick wall; but a brick wall does not make runs, and it was felt that the game depended on the last over of the day, which would in the almost certain absence of scoring be bowled by the leg-break bowler to Eric.

  This proved the truth. But no one present guessed, or could have been expected to guess, the fashion in which that memorable match was to be decided.

  When Eric, jumping out of his crease a couple of yards, took the slow bowler’s first delivery full pitch, and with a mighty hit lifted it high over the bowler’s screen, and banged the face of the school clock, everyone became almost delirious with joyous excitement. A sixer! Golly, what a sixer! That leaves two runs for a win (only one for a draw!), and five balls to get ‘em off! And Harvey …

  But what’s this? The umpire is making signs. The batsmen cross over. By the Lord, the umpire is right too! That straight drive was a short boundary from the place where the pitch was made for the Old Boys’ match, and it was agreed beforehand that ‘three to’, and ‘five over’, should be the scores. Clearly, the particular hit in question would if run out result in about seven runs, but that may nor affect the decision. The old boys are willing to concede the six runs. Neither of the batsmen is quixotic enough to refuse to take them in the circumstances. Mere justice is all in favour of acceptance. But five was agreed on. The umpire has signalled five. Five it is. Go on!

  In an oppressive silence the two boys cross over. One minute remains for play. So soon as strikes six o’clock stumps will be drawn. That is a tradition no more to be disobeyed than an umpire’s. Why? It was a rule before ever cricket was invented. Generations of dead scholars had ceased their play at that hour asking the same question – Why? Even then nobody knew. How typical of England!

  ‘Now go for ‘em’, advises Eric. There is no need to whisper that advice. It is patent. Hawkins II lashes out at the first ball and misses it. He lashes out at the second, and is bowled. Before he has reached the pavilion, his successor (the wicket keeper) is taking a hasty centre. Bang! He is out also. Two players are on their way to the pavilion together, and a third rushing madly to the wickets wearing but a single pad! He faces the bowler. He leaps out; yorks himself with a half volley; and the bowler has done the hat-trick!

  There is yet one ball to go. That ball is smitten at, and missed by the next batsman – if such title can by courtesy be his. But is also misses the wickets. ‘Over’!

  Eric had meanwhile been looking at the clock. ‘You didn’t call ‘last over’ did you?’ he asked the umpire. ‘Course not’, replied that worthy, ‘we plays till the clock strikes, as you knows, Mr Harvey.’ ‘Well then, John’, said Eric, as he commenced to roar with laughter, ‘Well then, look at it, John. Loo-loo-look! It’s stopped!’

  ‘An’ no wonder,’ answered the groundsman, ‘ater that punch you giv’ ’im. And I’ve knowed ’e wer’ stopped, Mr Harvey, for the last five balls, I ’ave, and don’t you forget it zur.’

  Like a bush fire, the joke spread. Players, and onlookers alike wallowed in its deliciousness. And after they had picked themselves up, the lefthanded bowler began another over with the tears still streaming down his cheeks.

  And Eric straightaway hit him to the screen – the other one – and won the match.

  PART III

  VOCATION

  CHAPTER I

  ‘Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space

  Health, peace, salvation universal.’

  A man who has found his vocation is happy. A man who has none, is contented. Sheer misery is reserved for those who have vocations, but have not discovered them.

  For this reason the unhappiest period in the lives of a great majority of people is that which they must live immediately after leaving school. For it is the one damning criticism to be levelled indiscriminately against schools, whether public, private, board, or whatever other kind can be thought of and mentioned, that they do not aim at the discovery of vocation, but rather at pushing of boys through a net the meshes of which are all of one size.

  Why (It is a stage through which we may pass swiftly, hopping the years in pursuit of but one thing – the tale) – still why, you may ask, was Willie made a solicitor, and Eric put into a bank?

  Simply for the reason that you, reader, were made an engineer, a grocer, or an accountant. Willie was good at English. He could express himself. Eric’s reports praised his mathematics. He could manage figures.

  Both boys were asked what they would like to be. No doubt you too, gentle reader, were asked. But did you know? Possibly you developed early, and did know. These two boys did not. Willie indeed agreed that a passionate appeal for lost causes would be ac
ceptable to his temperament. He thought (quite wrongly of course) that a solicitor’s life would be concerned with such, rather than with the prosaic transfer of property at profit from one man to another. Eric, wanting only to be a good man, was willing to be whatever his parents liked.

  But what, save reports, had they to guide them? – poor dears! They had, at some sacrifice, given the boys ‘a good education’; but that meant that for ten years, in which they might have been finding out, they had save for holidays, been separated from their children. What could they do, but follow the school report?

  For two years prior to the events of the last chapter Willie had ridden in to St. John’s Chambers, on Marigold his mare (a daughter of Buttercup) to be initiated as an articled clerk into the law and its practice. During that time he passed the preliminary and intermediate examinations of the Law Society, and kept a diary.

  It is not an account of his struggles to pass these examinations, but an extract from the diary – the extract which in fact concludes it – which seems best worth incorporating into this story.

  September 12th, 1907. – ‘Death is inexorable. Man and beast sullenly await the cold of its coming. But Life is – what? …

  Since I started reading for “The Final” I have not attended Chambers except for mornings. Afternoons are devoted to book-work. In fine weather I have been accustomed to use “the old ruins” (to-day part of a cattle shed) where tradition has it that black Dominicans pursued similar study years past.

  The place is fresh-aired, and a convenient shelter from the wind that likes to turn over pages before one is ready: also a retreat from those who delight in calling one to meals at inopportune moments.

  Yesterday at the usual time I had settled myself to read beneath the great paneless window through which admittance is given at an angle to the afternoon sunshine, when my attention following intermittently the progress of light across the floor was taken by a sudden glimmer of unexpected colour. It lay at the foot of a sun beam – round and greenish.

  My curiosity was roused to make an examination. I discovered an old very worn copper ring lying in a groove. Recent rains had washed away the covering of soil. It gleamed back curiously from the grey stone. I took hold of it and gave it a strong pull. The slab remained steady. Again I tugged, so that the metal stretched and twisted in my hand. The ring wouldn’t stand the stone’s weight. Then suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps it was never intended to, and I pulled sideways. Instantly the block stirred; and at my second more determined tug, slid back into the wall revealing a flight of steps.

  Striking a match, I descended, and found myself in a tunnel about four and a half feet high.

  It was a tiny evil-smelling place with damp walls and slime-coated floor. The direction was apparently downward.

  I crawled slowly along, as the roof became gradually lower. Presently the passage ended abruptly; possibly the walls had fallen in.

  I lighted my last match and turned with some relief to find the way out. It was a cold, unromantic sort of place. I felt sorry I had come. Approaching my starting point, I suddenly noticed that no light was entering. At the foot of the steps when I arrived there was foul darkness. By some mysterious agency the stone had regained its place.

  My hands slipped from the clammy surface as I tried with feverish haste to force aside the firm unyielding barrier of stone. Then, like a stab, the horrible truth came upon me:– I was buried – buried alive.

  At that thought a sharp cry escaped me, and there seemed, for a moment, nothing to breathe. Then I regained control of myself. I shouted for a time at the darkness of the closed slab, but ceased to do so on reflecting how seldom the ruins were visited now that the outer wall had been pushed down by cattle, and was no more a keep for them.

  I sat down on one of the steps, and thought:– “I must get out. I must get out.” After that I set off exploring again on my hands and knees.

  ‘There must be some way out’, I kept repeating. It seemed so impossible that I should have to die. But ten minutes ago I had dozed in the sun and read a book named Snell’s Equity, amused at the quaint and ancient phrase which described ‘donatio mortis causa’ as the gift of one “apprehending his dissolution near”. Apprehending his dissolution near!

  I crawled hurriedly along the floor of my filthy prison. Again the oozing walls closed in; the roof bent down: again I reached the end. It was the end also of my unreasonable hope. I knew now that I must die. No use whining, but oh, bitter so to perish, shut away from friends and the face of day! Though he may not know it, life is very sweet to a young man. I found that out.

  “Well”, thought I, “let me die as near sunshine as I can!” I started to crawl back to the steps. Blindly: feeling that narrow walls, I went. And then suddenly my right hand was stretching into emptiness …

  How I had missed this turning I don’t know. Trembling I turned along the tiny passage. Till then, since the first shock of discovery, I had been calm. Now my breath started to come in strange sobs. Deliverance was in the pin-point of yellow light before me. I scrambled frenziedly forward; and reached the same steps down which I had descended. The slab had of course not stirred; but losing myself in a branch of the tunnel I had discovered that second, shut slab at the top of similar steps and mistaken it for the first – not unreasonably.

  Such explanations came upon me as I pushed through into daylight. I thought them funny and I laughed aloud. Then I burst out crying. Why, I don’t know. I had been self-possessed enough when faced with the prospect of death. But this was life. It was life that affected me so.

  Ten minutes (that was all it was) had shewn me what it was to live.

  I had never known before.

  I staggered up into a new world.

  What did it all mean?

  – The wind?

  – The sniff of the firs?

  – The bare architectural beauty of elms?

  It seemed that I was never less hysterical in my life. I was merely awake – for the first time.

  It seemed a perfectly natural thing for me to roll dog-like among the leaves, and shatter with sobs the peaceful country silence.

  I had left the ruins and was wandering through thin woods. I heard the ash saplings fighting together like men with quarter-staves. I heard, like sea-surf, the breeze in high beeches. Oh, the curious shadows!

  A gong sounded faintly from the farm below me. It rumoured white bread, and yellow country butter, and honey as sweet and golden as the lamp-lit evening and evenings to follow.

  My sobbing continued. I was not ashamed of it. It was a young fool’s solemn thanksgiving for life – a young fool, but not a dead fool!

  Still, I felt that I could not go home in such a state. It would frighten them. Besides I had forgotten my book …

  September 13th. This is Mother’s birthday. I gave her Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It is a queer book especially in parts, but she understands life and me well enough to like it.

  He speaks (It is as though he knew Minsterworth) of, “The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain, Forms, objects, growths, to spiritual images ripening.”

  And he goes on:–

  “In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld, withhold not from us Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space, Health, peace, salvation universal.”

  I have always believed (quite how, and why, I do not know) that there is a spirit in things and in beasts as well as in men:– that matter really exists only to reveal the spiritual.

  Revelation supports this belief with its account of cities, and gems, and trees which bear fruit under the natural law: and the disciples recognised Christ after he had risen. Minsterworth and those Malvern Hills and old Buttercup there, will in all that endears them to me be hereafter what they are now, because our souls are eternal, and whatever fits our souls is eternal also.

  Since yesterday, which I count in some real way as my own birthday, (though that is truly in March) the following Whitman lines have greatly appe
aled to me:–

  “Beginning my studies, the first step pleased me so:–

  The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,

  I have hardly gone, and hardly wished to go further.”

  Trigg and I took lights and explored the mysterious passages beneath “The Old Ruin”. He had “heard tell on ’em before”, but never seen them.

  Now they are to be filled in, as dangerous. Well, they have done their work …’

  CHAPTER II

  ‘Follow the gleam!’

  Such was the beginning of Willie’s consciousness of vocation, real, though undefined in expression.

  He knew, in short, what he was to do, without knowing how he was to do it.

  To the same stage, and to the same state of questioning and unhappiness came Eric, though by other roads.

  What we have so far followed may be dealt with very shortly in retrospect. Here are two brothers of typically English breeding growing up and forming characters in an atmosphere of home and the public school. Temperamentally very different, they have grown to be firm friends, united by a single stream of inherited energy, turned into individual channels.

  The course of those channels is the concern of this tale in its immediate future, but it may now be openly said without fear of such anticipation of the story as will result in anti-climax, how the energy referred to is in each manifesting itself. In Willie it is growing into a determination to produce art which will embody his now clear perception of the divine in common existence, lived as it should be – that is naturally. In Eric it is becoming in obsession of religious conviction. To the one, from henceforth, God’s world must be everything: to the other, Christ’s empire. This, if either is to achieve the fruit of his being.

  The mode of Eric’s discovery was less sudden and less dramatic than Willie’s. And it is here that a grave artistic difficulty arises; for while no one doubts that a continuous dropping will wear away the stone, yet such does not constitute narrative from the reader’s standpoint. For which reason I have divulged the end before the means; telling you of Eric’s great ambition and forbearing to trace its growth, and the steps by which it achieved entire consciousness in his mind.