The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston 1 - Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man

by Siegfried Sassoon

  Nobody at home was aware of what I’d been up to down in Sussex, and Dixon got the surprise of his life when we clattered into the stable-yard. So far as he was concerned it was the first really independent action of my career. When I arrived he was having his tea in his cottage over the coach-house; I could hear him clumping down the steep wooden stairs, and I sat like a statue until he emerged from the door by the harness room with his mouth full of bread and butter. The afternoon was latening, but there was, I think, a quietly commemorative glow from the west. He stood with the sunset on his face and his final swallowing of the mouthful appeared to epitomize his astonishment. Taken aback he undoubtedly was, but his voice kept its ordinary composure. ‘Why, what’s this?’ he asked. I told him.

  Aunt Evelyn behaved like a brick about Cockbird. (How was it that bricks became identified with generous behaviour?) Of course she admired him immensely and considered it very clever of me to have bought him so cheap. But when it came to writing out the cheque for him I was obliged, for the first time in my life, to ask her to lend me some money. She promised to let me have it in a few days.

  Next morning she went to London, ‘just to do a little Christmas shopping at the Army and Navy Stores’. I was in the drawing-room when she returned. I heard the dog-cart drive up to the front-door, and then Aunt Evelyn’s voice telling Miriam how tired she felt and asking her to make some tea. I didn’t bother to get up when she came into the room, and after replying to my perfunctory inquiry whether she’d had a good day she went to her bureau and fussed about with some papers. Somewhat irritably I wondered what she was in such a stew about as soon as she’d got home. Her quill-pen squeaked for a short time and then she came across to the armchair where I was sitting with Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son on my knee.

  ‘There, dear. There’s the money for your horse, and the Hunt subscription as well.’ She placed a cheque on the arm of the chair. ‘It’s your Christmas present,’ she explained. It was so unexpected that I almost forgot to thank her. But I had the grace to ask whether she could really afford it.

  ‘Well, dear,’ she said, ‘to tell the truth, I couldn’t. But I can now.’ And she confessed that she’d sold one of her rings for seventy-five pounds up in London. ‘And why not?’ she asked. ‘I’m so delighted at your having taken up hunting again; it’s such a healthy hobby for a young man, and Dixon’s almost beside himself – he’s so pleased with the new horse. And after all, dear, I’ve got no other interest in the whole world except you.’

  Miriam then appeared with the tea-tray, and soon afterwards I went upstairs to gloat over my good fortune.

  PART SIX

  THE COLONEL’S CUP

  1

  By the end of February I had made further progress in what I believed to be an important phase of my terrestrial experience. In other words (and aided by an exceptionally mild winter) I had averaged five days a fortnight with the hounds. I had, of course, confided in Dixon my intention of entering Cockbird for the Ringwell Heavy Weight Race. My main object now seemed to be to jump as many fences as possible before that eventful day arrived. Meets of the Dumborough had been disregarded, and a series of short visits to the Rectory had continued the ‘qualifying’ of Cockbird. (‘Qualifying’ consisted in drawing the Master’s attention to the horse during each day’s hunting; and I did this more than conscientiously since Stephen and I were frequently shouted at by him for ‘larking’ over fences when the hounds weren’t running.)

  The problem of Harkaway’s lack of stamina had been solved by Dixon when he suggested that I should box him to the Staghound meets. He told me that they generally had the best of their fun in the first hour, so I could have a good gallop and bring the old horse home early. This took me (by a very early train from Baldock Wood) to a new and remote part of the country, and some of the fun I enjoyed there is worth a few pages of description.

  The Coshford Vale Stag Hunt, which had been in existence as a subscription pack for about half a century, had been kept on its legs by the devoted efforts of a group of prosperous hop-farmers and a family of brewers whose name was a household word in the district. Gimling’s Fine Ales were a passport to popularity, and the genial activities of Mr ‘Gus’ Gimling, who had been Master for more years than he cared to count, had kept the Hunt flourishing and assured it of a friendly reception almost everywhere in the country over which it hunted (described in the scarlet-covered Hunting Directory as ‘principally pasture with very little plough’). This description encouraged me to visualize an Elysium of green fields and jumpable hedges; but the country, although it failed to come up to my preconceived idea of its charms, included a nice bit of vale; and in those days there was very little wire in the fences.

  I need hardly say that, since stags were no longer indigenous to that part of England, the Coshford stag-hunters kept theirs at home (in a deer paddock a few miles from the kennels). The animal which had been selected to provide the day’s sport was carried to the meet in a mysterious-looking van, driven by the deerkeeper, a ruddy faced Irishman in a brown velveteen jacket who had earned a reputation for humorous repartee, owing to the numerous inquiries of inquisitive persons on the roads who asked him what he’d got in that old hearse of his.

  Provincial stag-hunts are commonly reputed to be comic and convivial gatherings which begin with an uproarious hunt-breakfast for the local farmers. Purple faced and bold with cherry brandy, they heave themselves on to their horses and set off across the country, frequently falling off in a ludicrous manner. But the Coshford sportsmen, as I knew them, were businesslike and well-behaved; they were out for a good old-fashioned gallop. In fact, I think of them as a somewhat serious body of men. And since the field was mainly composed of farmers, there was nothing smart or snobbish about the proceedings.

  I need hardly say that there was no levity in my own attitude of mind when I set out for my first sample of this new experiment in sportsmanship. In spite of talking big to Dixon the night before, I felt more frightened than light-hearted. For I went alone and knew no one when I got there. Dixon had talked to me about Harry Buckman who acted as amateur huntsman and was well known as a rider at hunt races all over the country. That was about all I’d got to go on, and I gazed at Buckman with interest and admiration when he tit-tupped stylishly past me at the meet with his velvet cap cocked slightly over one ear. Buckman was a mixture of horse dealer and yeoman farmer. In the summer he rode jumpers in the show ring. His father had hunted a pack of harriers, and it was said that when times were bad he would go without his dinner himself rather than stint his hounds of their oatmeal.

  Roughly speaking, young Buckman’s task as huntsman was twofold. Firstly, he was there to encourage and assist the hounds (a scratch pack – mostly dog-hounds drafted from fox- hound kennels because they were over-sized) in following the trails of their unnaturally contrived quarry; secondly, he had to do everything he could to prevent his hounds from ‘pulling down’ the deer. With this paradoxical but humane object in view he had once jumped a railway gate; by this feat of horsemanship he arrived in the nick of time and saved the deer’s life. Fast hunts were fairly frequent, but there were slow-hunting days when scent was bad and the Coshford subscribers were able to canter along at their ease enjoying a pretty bit of hound-work. Sometimes the uncarted animal got clean away from them, and there was a special interest attached to a meet when they drew for an outlying deer.

  My first day with the Staghounds was on Christmas Eve and I find the following entry in my diary: ‘Coshford; Packman’s Green. Perfect hunting day; came on wet about 2.30. Turned out at Hazelpits Farm and ran well to Wissenden, then on by Chartley Church and Henhurst down the hill and on towards Applestead. Took deer (“Miss Masterful”) about 2. Nine-mile point. Harkaway in good form. Took a toss over a stile toward the end. Very nice country, especially the first bit.’ From this concise account it may seem as if I had already mastered the Coshford topography, but I suspect that my source of information was a paragraph in a local paper.r />
  I cannot remember how I made myself acquainted with the name of the deer which provided the nine-mile point. But in any case, how much is taken for granted and left unrecorded in that shorthand description? And how helpful it would have been now if I had written an accurately observed and detailed narrative of the day. But since the object of these pages is to supply that deficiency I must make my reminiscent deductions as best I can. And those words from my diary do seem worth commenting on – symbolic as they are of the equestrian equilibrium on which my unseasoned character was trying to pattern itself. I wrote myself down that evening as I wanted myself to be – a hard-bitten hunting man, self-possessed in his localized knowingness and stag-hunting jargon. The words might well have been penned by a middle-aged sheep-farmer, or even by Mr ‘Gus’ Gimling himself. ‘Took a toss over a stile’ is the only human touch. But taking tosses was incidental to the glory of being a hard rider. What I ought to have written was – that I couldn’t make up my mind whether to go at it or not, and the man behind me shouted ‘go on if you’re going’, so I felt flustered and let Harkaway rush at it anyhow and then jerked his mouth just as he was taking off, and he didn’t really fall, but only pecked badly and chucked me over his head and then stood quite still waiting for me to scramble up again, and altogether it was rather an inglorious exhibition, and thank goodness Stephen wasn’t there to see it. For though Stephen and I always made a joke out of every toss we took, it wouldn’t have suited my dignity if he’d told me in cold blood that I was still a jolly rotten rider – the tacit assumption being that my falls were entirely due to my thrusting intrepidity.

  It will be noticed that no mention is made of the method by which ‘Miss Masterful’ was ‘taken’, although I had witnessed that performance for the first time in my life. As far as I can recollect, Miss M., having decided that the show had lasted long enough, plunged into a small pond and stood there with only her small head appearing above the muddy water. Raucous ratings and loud whip-crackings restrained the baying hounds from splashing in after her, and then genial Mr Gimling, assisted by one of the whiskered wiseacres of the hunt (in a weather-stained black coat which came nearly down to his knees, white cord breeches, black butcher-boots, and very long spurs), began to get busy with a long rope. After Miss M. had eluded their attempts several times they succeeded in lassooing her head and she was persuaded to emerge from the pond. She was then frog-marched away to a farm building, where she awaited the arrival of her conveyance, which was cruising about the country and usually put in an appearance much earlier than might have been expected.

  It can also be inferred from my diary that the weather ‘came on wet’ as soon as I’d started my ten-mile ride back to the railway station and Harkaway’s horse-box, and that the supporters of the Coshford Hunt departed in different directions wishing one another a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. It may also be inferred that poor Miss Masterful sweated and shivered in the barn with heaving sides and frightened eyes. It did not occur to me to sympathize with her as I stood at the entrance to watch them tie her up. I only wondered how far I was from the station and my poached eggs for tea. Any sympathy I had was reserved for Harkaway, who looked as if he’d had more galloping than was good for him. But when I was jogging back by Chartley Church, with my coat collar turned up and the rain soaking my knees, I chuckled to myself as I thought of an amusing incident which had happened earlier in the day.

  We were galloping full-tilt along a road just outside a cosy village. An angry-faced old parson was leaning over his garden gate, and as we clattered past he shook his fist at us and shouted ‘Brutes! Brutes!’ in a loud unclerical voice. Excited and elated as I was, I turned in the saddle and waved my whip derisively at him. Silly old buffer! And what a contrast to that jolly sporting parson in a low-crowned top-hat who went so well and came up and talked to me so nicely while Miss Masterful was being hauled out of the pond!

  I have analysed the orthodox entry in my diary more fully than I had intended. But how lifelessly I recover the breathing reality of which those words are the only relics. The night before hunting: the anxious wonderings about the weather; lying awake for a while with busy thoughts about tomorrow that grow blurred with the beginning of an untroubled sleep. And then Miriam battering on the door with ‘it’s twenty to seven, sir’, and the first look at the quiet morning greyness, and the undefinable feeling produced by the yellow candle-light and the wintry smelling air from the misty garden. Such was the impermanent fabric as it unfolded: memory enchants even the dilatory little train journey which carried my expectant simplicity into the freshness of a country seen for the first time. All the sanguine guesswork of youth is there, and the silliness; all the novelty of being alive and impressed by the urgency of tremendous trivialities.

  2

  The end of February became the beginning of March, and this unavoidable progression intensified my anticipations of the date in April which meant so much to me. Cockbird had done his eight qualifying days without the slightest mishap or the least sign of unsoundness. He was so delightfully easy to handle that my assurance as a rider had increased rapidly. But in the period of preparation Dixon and I, between us, carried a large invisible load of solicitude and suspense. Our conversational demeanour was jauntily portentous. But when I was alone with myself and indoors, I often felt so nervous that the month-long remoteness of the point-to-points became almost unbearable. My confidence in Cockbird’s ability to carry off the Colonel’s Cup served only to magnify my imaginations of what might go wrong in the race through my own lack of experience.

  I consoled myself with day-dreams in which I won in every way that my limited racing repertory could contrive. There was cantering home an easy winner; and there was winning cleverly by half a length; and there was coming up with a rush to score sensationally in the last stride. Easy winner lacked intensity; I would have preferred something more spectacular and heroic. But this was difficult to manage; I couldn’t win with my arm in a sling unless I started in that condition, which would be an anti-climax. On the whole I was in favour of a fine finish with Stephen, although even this seemed inappropriate because Jerry was believed to be much slower than Cockbird, and could only hope to win if I fell – a thought which reduced my suppositions to reality.

  Meanwhile Cockbird existed unperturbed, munching large feeds of crushed oats (with which Dixon mixed some water, for he had an idea that this was good for his wind) and doing three hours’ steady work on the road every day. Once a week we took him to a ten-acre field on a hillside, which a well-disposed farmer allowed us to use for gallops. Round and round we went with set and serious faces (Dixon riding Harkaway) until we had done three presumptive miles up and down hill. When we pulled up Dixon would jump off, and I would jump off to stand meekly by the horses’ snorting heads while he fussed round Cockbird with as much solemnity and solicitude as if he were a Grand National favourite. And, so far as we were concerned, ‘the National’ (which was to be run ten days before the Ringwell Heavy Weight Race) was quite a secondary affair, though we sometimes talked about it in an offhand way which might have led a stranger to suppose that either of us might slip up to Liverpool to see it, provided that we could spare the time. Neither of us doubted that Cockbird himself could ‘get round Aintree’ if asked to do so. He was, we agreed, a regular National stamp of horse, and though I had never seen an Aintree fence, I was quite sure that no fence was too big for him.

  On some such afternoon (for we always went out in the afternoon, though before breakfast would have been more correct, but it would have made the day so long and empty), on some such afternoon, when Cockbird had done his gallop to our mutual satisfaction and we were jogging quietly home, with the sun making haloes on the fleeces of the sheep who watched us pass – on some such afternoon, I repeat, I was reminded of the old days when I was learning to ride the cob Sheila, and of how I used to ask Dixon to pretend to be Mr MacDoggart winning the Hunt Cup. Such a suggestion now would have struck both of us as unse
emly; this was no time for such childish nonsense as that (though, when one came to think of it, twelve years ago wasn’t such a very long time and ‘the twenty hop-kilns’ were still down there in the valley to remind me of my childish excitement about them). But the thought passed through my mind, and at the same moment the warning whistle of a train going along the Weald would remind me of that interrogative railway journey which the three of us would be making in not much more than two weeks’ time – was it really as near as that now?

  The thought of Mr MacDoggart’s remote victories at Dum-borough Races made me wish that I could ask Dixon for some first-hand information about race-riding. But although he had once worked in a racing-stable, he’d never had an opportunity of riding in a race. And I was shy of asking him questions which would expose my ignorance of things which, for some reason, I supposed that I ought to have known; so I had to make the best of such hints as he dropped me.