A War Romance

by F. W. Harvey

  The dead man regarded by cynically. He had done with all such human folly.

  ‘Come, this won’t do! You search the place, I’ll search his pockets. There may be something useful to us – a passport.’

  There was no passport. But the cavernous cupboard revealed some mouldy black bread and a little round cheese. Willie cut the cheese into slices, pocketing what they could not then eat. Water from a spring which bubbled up almost in the hut’s doorway served to wash down the meal which they took out into the wood.

  Before leaving, Willie crammed the corpse into the cupboard. It very nearly fitted, but not quite. The buzzing flies would help hide it anyway. He locked the door with the key which they had found, and dropped it into the spring. It would not do to be caught with it. Perhaps the man had been murdered. Whether or no, someone would almost certainly come to look for him. That is unless he were an escaped prisoner like themselves, and the hut no longer in use.

  Whatsoever he might have been, he was dead, and they were alive. That was a point – alive … and lovers.

  Recumbent in undergrowth they munched, and talked in whispers. A few hundred yards away their dead host occupied his own cupboard.

  CHAPTER II

  The weather had improved beyond recognition. The moisture upon the leaves evaporated. A few diamond drops flashed downwards from pine-needles. The clothes of the escaping prisoners dried upon them as they rested, sleeping a little in turns but alert like dogs even in slumber – one ear cocked for danger.

  It had been well said that some of the most significant encounters in the world occur between two persons, one of whom is asleep or dead. Willie lay watching over Gypsy who lay in slumber more deeply than usual.

  O Sleep and Death, great magicians in a world of care, how can you make attractive the face the least attractive, and bestow dignity upon the least dignified! Chiselled as if in marble the face of the gypsy girl conquered the shade in which she lay. Her form sun-dappled and flecked with shifting shadow fought through its moulding garments of rough cloth as her soul seemed to shine through its covering of mortality, quiet and unabashed in innocent nakedness. It was awesome, almost frightening. Willie toughed her chin lightly. Instantly she sat upright, alert. As a stone shatters the deep heaven reflected in a lake, so broke to bits the lovely vision shattered into particles of care, anxiety and fear. She was awake.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. Somehow I couldn’t watch you asleep any longer. Forgive me!’

  ‘Oh, are you lonely?’

  ‘Well, in a way. You seemed to have gone so far away.’

  ‘But I was dreaming of you. Now you seem to have gone so far away from me.’

  ‘Yes, both of us are awake.’

  ‘What time is it – I mean, is it time to go on?’

  No, too light. We’ll talk till the sun is hidden.’ They did so in whispers. That is – their hearts asked and answered inconsequent questions, while their senses kept watch for danger always with pricked ears.

  Gypsy: When did you see me first?

  Willie: I have never seen you. In the Forest of Dean I first met you.

  Gypsy: No. It was a year before that.

  Willie: Where?

  Gypsy: At Barton Fair. In the shady market at Gloucester.

  Willie: Then I never saw your face.

  Gypsy: You did not, but your eyes were boring holes through my back. I felt them.

  Willie: Were you she then in the shawl? I might have known it. I went home and wrote your description.

  Gypsy: Back view! Was it nice?

  Willie: My essay was. I showed it to Mother.

  Gypsy: What did she say?

  Willie: Oh, she admired it.

  Gypsy: But what did she say of me?

  Willie: Shall I tell you?

  Gypsy: Yes.

  Willie: She said – ‘You have imagined her.’ I said, ‘Men only imagine women, even when they are married to them.’ She smiled. ‘But would you like to marry her’ she asked. ‘I don’t know,’ I muttered. then Mother said, ‘You could not love her indoors, nor she you.’ Are you sorry now that you asked?

  Gypsy: No. She was a wise Lady … But can you remember any of what you wrote about me?

  Willie: Bits here and there. But the rhythm of the prose which was beautiful as your walk under the market trees – that has gone from me … Only sentences here and there come back as I look at you.

  Gypsy: Go on.

  Willie: ‘She shone like a queen through her rags.’

  Gypsy: (indignantly) I was not in rags!

  Willie: It was because you were so fair in yourself that they looked ‘rags’ upon you.

  Gypsy: Seemed I so, then, to you, dear love?

  Willie: Among the fine ladies and gentlemen you walked with your basket. The ladies looked common beside you; like pictures on a chocolate box, and they would have tasted like chocolate creams. ‘But she was like no other girl I ever saw. Elevated like a wave, or the wind on a meadow. All nature closed round her like a frame. Nakedness which would have shamed those others would but have glorified her. Petty lust could not touch her, but only wonder – and worship.’

  Gypsy: And was that how you felt? Oh, poor boy!

  Willie: And so it ended – To desire her would be to desire a big thing, not a pettiness. To that bosom one would leap as one leaps into the salt sea for vigour and cleansing. In her beauty was something of terror as in all things elemental.

  Gypsy: Aye, outdoor likenesses all. You would not say to her, ‘come, dust my room,’ nor ask for your slippers. O Lady Mother was right! My grief!

  Willie: Lady Mother! My grief! But you talk like an Irish woman.

  Gypsy: I picked it up, I suppose, going over there with my Dad to buy nag-horses.

  Willie: You have moved about a lot.

  Gypsy: I never knew a fixed home and never shall.

  Willie: We shall see about that.

  Gypsy: Hush, listen.

  A faint drone drifted upon the air, increased in volume beating tattoo upon their ear-drums. A black speck appeared upon the fading gold of the west. An aeroplane.

  ‘Can it be searching for us?’

  ‘Perhaps, or perhaps for other escaped prisoners. It can’t land here anyway. Keep perfectly still, and at dusk we’ll be off.

  The aeroplane droned slowly over them. Its engine roar diminished. From a white gigantic bird of fury shining in the last high rays of the sun, it dwindled to a black speck floating upon the evening air, and at length vanished.

  The lovers shouldered their impediments and began another march. But first they filled their water bottles from the dead man’s spring.

  CHAPTER III

  Marching by night, led by the noble north star; resting by day, sleeping a little, but alert even in sleep: whispering a little: so, progressing painfully and slowly through innumerable dangers they kept their slow but steadfast way, approaching ever nearer the frontiers of Holland – of Hope. They were lovers. It was in once sense a perilous honeymoon. Yet they talked little of love. By the fourth day their blood was very thin. They were very cold, always in hunger and athirst – especially athirst. They huddled together for comfort as they lay exhausted in a ditch and timorously hidden under bare leafed bushes or amid the brown haired reeds which sighed and swayed, shivering above them as in sorrow of their plight.

  Only their hearts glowed. Only their hearts were strong. For the rest, every nerve and sinew was now utterly exhausted.

  ‘I can go no further.’ Gypsy spoke or rather gasped the admission of her body’s defeat.

  Willie had already taken her bundle, and the double weight, small as it would have been to a young soldier on the march, caused his knees to sag, and made every step a stumbling agony of effort.

  He, as well as his comrade, was spent.

  ‘We will take the road thus. Lean a little on me but don’t sit down. We will rest a bit standing. Lean here!’

  She did as she was told.

  They we
re in marshy country. It was hard on midnight. Since dusk they had trudged slowly, wearily – skirting roads and villages that taunted their homelessness with mocking window-lights that peered and leered from under dark eyebrows and seemed to cry, ‘Why are you footsore and famished? Why do you not come to see us? Here is fire, light and food. Here is rest and shelter for all weary travellers – except of course escaping prisoners of war. Are you of those accursed outcasts?’

  And oh, it had been such a struggle to resist those twinkling lights! But till now they had resisted.

  ‘Yes, we must take the road,’ gasped the girl, ‘the lights are all dauted,’ she added.

  Munched field roots (stolen from swede piles), hard berries, raw seed potatoes: the dirty water scooped up from ditches and bog holes, had afflicted their bowels. Their strength was at snapping point. ‘We will risk it,’ he muttered. Together they staggered across the soggy waste and so up a bank to firm surfaces – the road.

  ‘Go softly. This is dangerous. We must be very near the frontier’ – he whispered her. So, forward they went.

  It was, as the Germans say, ‘as dark as a wolf’s mouth.’ They thanked God that it was. Yet every moment they feared the click of the wolf’s teeth. At last it came – the click of a rifle both drawn and set back! A challenge! The flash of a lantern revealing a sentry box standing in the middle of the road!

  Willie dropped everything and dived headlong down the embankment. As Gypsy followed, a bulled screamed past. Now they were on their feet and running as only terror could make them. But they kept together, more shots were fired. The sentry had summoned the guard. The lanterns they carried revealed only themselves to the pursued who ran gasping from them till suddenly both – falling – lay stunned. The bang made them believe they had been shot. He fumbled about in darkness. Gypsy lay motionless beside him. Killed? She did not reply to his frantic whisper. He crawled a yard upon hands and knees to seek water for her. If he had had a match at that moment he would have lighted it regardless of revealing himself, so frantic was his anxiety for her. His hand struck something cold. At that moment she gave a little moan. ‘Where are we?’ she asked faintly.

  ‘Oh, thank God! thank God!’ was all Willie could answer. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No, but you must leave me. I cannot get up. Leave me!’

  ‘Never!’

  Willie’s hand became conscious of the cold metal which it was grasping. He told his brain that they were lying in the middle of a railway track.

  ‘Where are we?’ moaned the girl.

  ‘Wait, I will tell you. We are on a railway line. We are not wounded. Tell me,’ he went on, talking with the most intense excitement. ‘Tell me, Gypsy, are these sleepers wood or iron?’

  ‘Oh, wood, I think. Yes, wood!’

  ‘Yes, they are wood!; shouted Willie at the top of his voice.

  ‘Hush! are you mad, to shout so! they will find us, and I can go no further.’

  ‘You need not go any further. And I can shout as loud as I like. We have crossed the frontier! We are in Holland!

  In Holland? How do you know that?

  ‘By the wooden sleepers, silly. Don’t you know that the Germans use iron for sleepers, and the Dutch wood!

  ***

  Willie, tattered, filthy, with five days growth of black chin-stubble (one could not dignify that facial fungus with the noble name of beard) sought out the nearest British Consul and reported himself. That pleasant, dignified personage was not at all shocked by his appearance. He was used to such apparitions. Escaped prisoners of war seldom arrived spotlessly clean. What knocked him right off his official manner was Willie’s story of the escape. ‘But do you – do you –,’ he stammered, ‘really wish me to believe that your companion was – was a woman!’

  ‘A girl, sir. We escaped to side-step a medical examination. But I don’t suppose she would object to it here in Holland. I should think she has had enough soldiering by now.’

  ‘Good God! Good God! This is most – most –’

  ‘It seems, if you will pardon me, sir, quite simple. She is examined by a doctor who certifies her of feminine sex. As a female, she cannot rejoin the fighting forces. She gets her discharge. All that remains, sir, is for you to issue her a passport to England.’ (And it was so.)

  ***

  Willie, upon reporting to his Home Depot, was granted a month’s leave. Before that leave was up, the war had ended, and not till then did he again see his escaping comrade and sweetheart. For during that time his mother died.

  CHAPTER THE LAST

  Gypsy and Willie sat together at the edge of the coppice overlooking almost all of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. It was a clump of trees upon the top of May Hill from which they had emerged.

  Upon that purple, tree tufted bubble of earth, so lovely against the saffron sunset, these weeping children argued out their destiny.

  ‘No, my love, I have given you myself – all I had to give.

  ‘But now you are taking yourself away. Oh, you can’t! You could not be so cruel! Marry me!’

  ‘That would not be wise. Your Lady Mother knew it.’ Her straight brown eyes looked into his with dog-like loyalty and affection, but her mouth was set in a woman’s resolution. In the line of those red lips lay carved inflexibly her design.

  ‘You will be a great man,’ she said. ‘Your world will not be the gypsies world, nor will the gypsies world be yours. Oh, I wish to God above it could be, my dear.’

  ‘But,’ he cried out in agony, ‘have you no pity for me, for yourself, for either of us? The brother I loved is dead, and the mother I worshipped; you only, my sweetheart, are left to me in a world of wreckage and horrible loneliness!’

  ‘I, too, shall be lonely.’

  ‘Then why in the name of God of Love! –’

  ‘No, my beloved.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘You don’t understand us. You call us gypsies. I won’t correct you. You have made the name sweet to me. And all the rest of the world outside call us gypsies: and scorn us: yes, as we scorn them.

  ‘Do you scorn me, Gypsy!’

  ‘No, beloved.’

  ‘Neither do I scorn you or yours.’

  ‘Truly. But you will never understand us.’

  ‘Must a man understand what he loves?’

  ‘I suppose he needn’t; nor a girl either. But you have talked me off the track. I will not marry you, my love. It would not be wise. Did not your –’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake stop talking about my mother! She loved me. Yes, she loved me, but you –’ sobs drowned his voice.

  ‘I love you, too – for ever.’

  ‘Yet you would part yourself from me!’

  ‘Yes. Parting isn’t for ever.’

  The phrase came like an echo from another world. When had he heard it uttered before? Had he heard it before. Almost his Mother’s voice seemed to speak it, or was it the voice of his brother, Eric. Why should the departed tones of his mother and his brother utter themselves through the red loving lips of a gypsy girl! And still he heard her speaking. ‘I shall part from my lover. He will not know where to find me. But I shall be in his heart and he in mine. Yes, if you don’t know where I am, my love, I shall always know where to find you.’

  Again was it Gypsy, Eric, his Mother, or all three that were speaking.

  She arose, and without looking back walked down the hillside into Herefordshire. His county lay to the further side of the hill. He tried to follow her, but found himself physically unable to call, but tears choked back his cry. Even so, with no embrace nor kiss, they parted. How utterly inartistic is sorrow!

  Willie just sobbed. At first the sobbing was quite inarticulate. Gradually it became able to utter the formula of all grief in all ages from the cradle to the grave – a cry of anguish and a prayer in one. Oh, oh, oh, oh God! and again and again like the monotonous lines of some mad poet. Oh, oh, oh, oh, God! O God! If his heart was not breaking it was being re-born. As the horrible sobbing faded
into little choking sounds, and finally died, a sentence sang like little far off bells in his brain or was it far off singing over and over again something he seemed to have forgotten and now remembered. Something somebody told him long, long ago and asked him to remember. Who was it? His Mother? Eric? Gypsy? Reverberating like distant bells – softly in his brain – ‘If you don’t now where I am, I shall always know where to find you, always! always! always! And like plangent peals over and over again –

  ‘Parting is not for ever.’

  He only heard them. He only went on hearing them. He did not understand them. He only heard them – these words, ringing, ringing – like bells in his brain. He only went on hearing them.

  COPYRIGHT

  This novel was discovered as a result of a collaborative project between Gloucestershire Archives, University of Exeter and the F.W. Harvey Society and by kind permission of Eileen Griffiths, the daughter of F.W. Harvey.

  First published 2014

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.blackandwhitepublishing.com

  This ebook edition first published in 2014

  All rights reserved

  © F.W. Harvey 2014

  The right of F.W. Harvey to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.