A Fox Under My Cloak

by Henry Williamson

  “He can’t very well object to your being here now, surely,” went on Mr. Jenkins. “You’re not a boy any longer. Still, I realise that he can’t be exactly popular with you. He was always very strict, wasn’t he? Too rigid. The usual half-quartern, landlord! Too rigid by half—in fact, narrow-minded. And he tries the same game on us, between you, me, and the gatepost. No, the sergeant is certainly not very popular among the Randiswell Specials.”

  “Fancy, Father a sergeant!”

  “Yes, he’s the senior, and has had some experience, when was it, on Bloody Sunday, nearly thirty years ago. He appoints us to our beats, every month, and comes round to see us without notice. Hardly the neighbourly thing, you know, after all, we’re volunteers. Well, to illustrate his attitude, just now I said to him, when he met me over the road, ‘Sergeant, you won’t mind if I slip in over there to have a quick one, as it’s a cold night, will you? It doesn’t look as though any Zeppelins will be over.’ ‘You never can tell,’ he replied, ‘and in any case a sworn constable should know better than to ask his superior such a question when he is on duty.’ You see what I mean, Phillip.”

  “Very regimental, Mr. Jenkins, very regimental!”

  “What does that mean, Phillip?”

  “Well, Mr. Jenkins, if you knew he was like that, why did you ask him?”

  “Well, how shall I put it—out of a sense of decency, Phillip. I could have slipped in, of course, and said nothing about it, and no-one been any the wiser. Your father is too pettyfogging in my opinion, he’s set rigid, Phillip. Never get like that. After all, we are fighting against a rigid system that would enslave us all if it could, aren’t we?” Taking a gulp of his whiskey, Mr. Jenkins said, in a lower voice, “I suppose you noticed that the name of your house is no longer on the gate?”

  Phillip nodded. Mr. Jenkins nodded too.

  “Still, you’ve done your bit for your country, Phillip, I’ll say that for you. And you cannot help having a German for a grandmother, can you? Still, there are lots of them about, you know—full-blooded Germans. I think myself they ought to be rounded up. Well, how d’you feel about the war? When’s it going to end? It’s ruining trade, you know. We can’t get any more silks from Lille and Brussels, as we used to. I used to go over there twice a year, as buyer for our firm. Freightage on Japanese silks is rising every day. Still, we must carry on, and try not to grumble. Food prices are up enormously, you know. This won’t interest you, not being married. Take my advice, Phillip, and think very very hard before you marry. Look at me—can I take my wife to meet my business friends? She wouldn’t have a word to say to them. Yet once I thought she was like Lorna Doone! A mistake for a man to marry beneath him, Phillip. A woman can. Oh yes, a man can learn, he can adapt himself: but a woman—never! Well, we must meet again sometime, and have another little talk. I’ve enjoyed meeting you again, Phillip. Cheerio!”

  “Hur’r,” said Phillip when Mr. Jenkins had gone. “P’r’r!”

  Freddy cried out once more, “Time gentlemen, please!” To Phillip he raised his straw-yard. “It isn’t every day we have a fellow home from the front in this ’ouse. I regard it as an honour, if I may say so.”

  “Thanks,” said Phillip.

  “I’d like to ask both you gentlemen up to share some tripe and onions for supper, but another time perhaps—you understand?” And Freddy tittered.

  “Phillip,” said Desmond, on the pavement. “You haven’t told me what I’ve often thought about—what is it really like out there?”

  “It’s hell, Desmond.”

  *

  Half an hour later they were sitting on a seat in the Recreation Ground beside the Randisbourne. Phillip lay back, fighting swirl and giddiness. He lost the fight, and staggered away to an old willow tree in the reclaimed meadow, now a level football pitch, and vomited. It did nothing to take away the swirl. Stars slid up the sky. He picked himself up and got back to Desmond. They sat together on the seat, Phillip head between hands. Feet crunched on gravel, a policeman’s helmet stopped, a voice asked if everything was all right, the footfalls went steadily on again. Phillip fet very cold. He tottered several times to the willow tree before he felt well enough to walk home.

  The thin black hands on the white face of the clock at the top of the stairs pointed to half past eleven when he got in. Hetty had waited up for him. She saw his pinched wan face; smelled his breath; and thinking of her dead brother, Hugh, said as cheerfully as she could, “Well, here you are at last! Oh, your hand is icy! Go and sit by the fire dear, while I heat some milk.”

  She asked no questions. As he sipped the milk, she said, “Father will be in at ten past twelve, Phillip, and he likes everyone to be in bed and asleep when he comes home. He has had a hard day at the office. I’ve put a hot-water bottle in your bed. Are you sure you are all right?”

  “Yes, this milk has put me right. I had some hot rum with Des, and a game of billiards. Then Ching came in, and Cundall, and others, and we all paid for a round. Desmond wasn’t sick, but I was. I don’t think my stomach is quite right, yet.”

  Hetty was relieved. Billiards, bad companions—for a while she had dreaded lest it be poor Hughie all over again.

  “Well, Phillip, you’ll know next time what not to do, won’t you. Now we must go upstairs, I think. Don’t make a noise, the girls are asleep. Mavis was disappointed not to see you, but never mind now. Of course you wanted to see your friends again, after so long away from home.”

  When she had tucked him, up she bent down to kiss him.

  “Say your prayers, dear, won’t you? I felt all the time that God was looking after you, and would bring you home safe again.”

  Phillip thought of the ten-shilling bribe to the hospital orderly at Etretat, of other parents who had prayed for their sons, including Germans. Für Gott, Vaterland und Freiheit. When mother had gone, he hid his head under the bedclothes. In three weeks’ time, would he be sent back? He would never be able to face it again. He began to sweat. He clenched his hands, wincing from imagined shell-bursts.

  *

  The next morning at breakfast, while Phillip was still in bed, Richard said nothing to Hetty about his son’s whereabouts of the night before. From across the High Street he had seen him come out of the public house. Nor did he make any remark on the following night when Phillip arrived home, at a quarter to eleven, obviously from the same place. Richard had to wait up for him this time.

  To Richard’s thoughts about this were added others that his son did not seem to want to confide in him. He remembered the almost derisive criticisms written by the boy in hospital, on the subject of himself joining the Defence Force. He told himself that he was a back-number, that was it: a back-number.

  Chapter 8

  TENSION

  IT was wonderful to be sitting beside Desmond, in the little brown open car. It was a fine morning. They were on the way to Crowborough, by way of Westerham Hill of famous memory.

  As they passed the new London General Omnibus depôt on the right of the road past Fordesmill, now occupied by the Army Service Corps, a sergeant called his squad to attention, saluted, and gave Phillip an “Eyes Right!” Gravely Phillip, with brown leather glove, returned the salute. He felt cool and firm; that somehow he was entitled to the salute, though it had been given by mistake.

  “The second battalion is at Bleak Hill, in hutments, Cundall said the other night. It’s a fairly long way to Crowborough, about fifteen miles past Westerham; thirty in all. Will she do it, d’you think?”

  “Easily! My uncle took me to Brighton and back last Sunday, about a hundred miles. We did forty on the level.”

  The Singer buzzed up Brumley Hill. Soon they were through the market town, and on to Shooting Common, scene of old nesting expeditions. At the end of the Squire’s estate they turned up the long incline to the Fish Ponds, Phillip eagerly gazing at remembered landmarks—the Two Doves Inn on the left—orchards and distant woods, tarred keeper’s cottage—over the cross-roads and so to the cleft-oak
fence of the Lake Woods, and Knollyswood Park. It was really only a short distance from home, after all.

  They stopped by the gate-stile, leading into the Park, and Phillip walked a little way among the silver birches, hollies, and oaks by himself. Soon he returned, realising that his old feelings for the place had gone.

  It was a strange, almost obliterating, experience to be driven over roads where he and Des had so often biked in the old days. A new excitement replaced the old feelings—the road rushing towards him and hedges streaming past his eyes. Soon they were at Leaves Green, where once they had stopped, and gone into an inn, quite an adventure in those days, to ask for ginger beer; and had been puzzled by a printed notice of Well-known Horse calling at various villages on certain dates, with plenty of bone. They had wondered what the bone was; could it have been——? The landlord had explained: cannon bone, the straight lower part of the front leg. “From fetlock to just below the knee, young gents.” Ever afterwards they had called the pub The Cannon Bone. Once, in his last summer at school, father had accused him of having drunk beer there when he got home; he had seen their bikes outside as he passed. I can smell your breath, it is of no use your denying it. You will go the way of your grandfather, I can see that, my boy. I hope you are not leading that young boy Desmond astray! One glass of stone ginger each!

  Would the little bus get down Westerham Hill safely? What about the brakes? And going down in low gear. Phillip remembered himself, “a bony skeleton out of the chalk”, out of control on his bicycle, years ago. After some horrible metallic jarring Desmond managed to get it into bottom gear before the bend. White dust arose behind them. The engine vibrated. A hot, burnt smell arose from the floor-board.

  “It wants some more grease in the gear-box, I think.” The bus seemed to be bucking a bit, too.

  “I think it may be the cardan shaft, Phil.”

  “The universal joints may be worn.” Phillip had read a lot about motorcars in The Automotor Journal in the Free Library, in the past.

  They got down safely, and stopped in Westerham opposite the red-brick brewery by the roadside pond, where the mythical monster pike, rusty treble-hooks and brass gimps hanging from its jaws, was supposed to live. The excitement of the journey had stirred old feelings.

  “Wonderful to see it all again, Des, simply wonderful!”

  They went into a pub for some beer; and with large ha’penny arrowroot biscuits in their pockets, decided not to visit Squerryes Park, where Phillip’s permit to study wild birds still held good, but to carry on to Bleak Hill. He felt a stir of fear at the thought of what would happen if the Colonel would not recommend him.

  *

  Off and on he felt nervous all the way to Crowborough. Memory was powerful. As they passed the Beacon Hotel, he breathed faster, remembering the luncheon that September day when Mother and Father had come down; the dull, almost whispering visit to the dining-room, the presence of officers at other tables.

  From the driver of a Maltese mess cart in the village he learned that the second battalion was near the old tent lines on Bleak Hill. Shades of Baldwin, Church, Martin—the grey tents, the Leytonstone tent below his own, which he had called, to his shame, the “Leytonstone Louts”.

  The little brown motor car bumped along the track of black sand and pebbles through the frayed heather. Now he was for it: he got out, leaving Desmond on the track; walked up to the Orderly Room. Pausing to let his heart slow down, he forced himself to open the sergeant’s door of the long hut.

  “Good morning, Sergeant. I was wondering——”

  The sergeant, a rather fat youngish man, took particulars, but said he didn’t think there was much chance of the C.O. recommending any more applicants.

  “You ought to fill in the Application Form, and send it to the first battalion. The C.O. has refused many like yours, already. Still, I’ll tell the Adjutant you’re here.”

  “Is he, Sergeant, by any chance from the first battalion?”

  “No, we have no ‘first’ officers here.”

  That was a relief! Phillip waited, breathing deeply and slowly to calm himself, until the sergeant returned.

  “The Adjutant will see you.”

  Phillip gave him a Guardsman salute, and stood stiff as a rifle.

  The Adjutant, smoking a pipe, told him to stand easy. Then he repeated what the sergeant had said.

  “What you had better do is to wait until you report here, after your leave, and then to apply again. But I can hold out little hope of it going through. What is it, Sergeant?”

  The sergeant presented a file of papers, murmured something to the adjutant. Phillip was amazed to hear that he had been promoted to the rank of lance-corporal.

  “So you can put up your stripe immediately, Maddison.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “How did you get your coat torn like that?”

  “Bullet in the Menin Road scrap, sir.”

  “Lucky escape!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll tell you what you might do,” went on the Adjutant, conversationally. “You might try the third battalion in London, and get Colonel Cust to sign your papers. Some of the returned first battalion men have done that.”

  At the end of the interview the adjutant told Phillip that if he wanted any lunch would he tell the orderly room sergeant? Giving him another stamping Guardsman salute, Phillip departed. He considered that Desmond was included in the invitation; and the two sat down to a hot meal of roast beef and vegetables, drenched in brown gravy, followed by prunes, custard, and a cup of tea. Shades of uncooked boiled mutton and skilly of the old tent lines!

  And yet, in a way it seemed somehow wrong to be sitting indoors at a long wooden table among all new faces except one: pale little Kirk, who had been invalidated before him, and now, passed fit again, was on the roster for the next draft to France. So soon! Kirk, with his rimless pince-nez spectacles, looked too frail to be going out to that hell again. He should be on the orderly-room staff. Phillip felt that he ought to be going out in Kirk’s place, he could stand it if he had to, to save little Kirk, who hadn’t a hope of a commission.

  “Goodbye, Kirky, old boy, and the best of luck. I hope we’ll meet again, one day.”

  Prophetic words; though spoken at the time lightly, carelessly. In a little over six months Phillip was to come across Kirk again, in very different circumstances——

  *

  The run back was the more pleasant that Bleak Hill was being left farther and farther behind, and more than two weeks leave lay ahead. Before he had left that morning, mother had suggested a visit to Beau Brickhill. “Where the country air, especially from the pine-woods, is so very health-giving in spring.” It would be nice to see cousin Percy again, though it would mean not seeing dear old Des for a bit; and this time he really would get even with Polly.

  The Singer ground its way up Westerham Hill without stopping, despite the smell of burning oil and a radiator boiling at the top. After a wait to let it cool down, Desmond let Phillip drive. He had never held the wheel of a car before, but soon got into it, though changing gear was a bit of a problem. Desmond kept his hand on the hand brake at first, but after passing the Salt Box by Biggin Hill, Phillip was all right on his own.

  For the sake of old times they stopped at the Cannon Bone of Leaves Green, for beer; the same fly-spotted Horse at Stud notice was on the wall. This led to another stop at the Greyhound, below the windmill on Reynard’s Common. After that Desmond took the wheel. They stopped for more beer at a pub in Brumley Market Place, where Phillip bought an evening newspaper, with headlines of an attack that morning at Neuve Chapelle.

  So the “hard fighting” had begun! That night in Freddy’s was an especially hilarious one.

  *

  He could read between the lines of the communiqué from G.H.Q,., printed in The Daily Trident. Time was everything. By an early train next morning he went to the War Office in Whitehall. Entering by a sidestreet, the pavement of which was vague
with the trodden chalk pictures of a vapid Crown Prince and corpse-like Kaiser, he waited among others in a narrow corridor. All were after commissions; some in civilian suits, others in khaki. A Boy Scout gave him a blue form to fill in, with particulars of name, education, service, etc., what branch of the Service a temporary commission was applied for, and what qualifications. He wrote Army Service Corps, the qualification being Knowledge and experience of internal combustion engines, and thereafter waited in another corridor until his name was called by another Boy Scout, who led him upstairs to a room where at a desk sat a quiet captain, without a Sam Brown belt, and wearing slacks. Phillip’s salute was ignored, he was told to sit down.

  “Army Service Corps is full up,” said the captain, in the quiet voice of one who had been repeating the same remarks hundreds of times every day for weeks, “There are vacancies in the Infantry, for the New Armies. Sappers, Gunners, all require some experience.”

  “I’d like the infantry, sir.”

  The quiet captain looked up, and saw without comment the bullet-rip across the greatcoat.

  “That was a near shave.”

  “All in the game, sir.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Bellewaarde Farm, sir.”

  “I know it. Let me have your form, will you. Any special regiment?”

  Phillip frowned, to think the quicker. Devon? It was rather far away. Where else? He could think only of Polly, and Beau Brickhill. Damn Polly. He must not keep the officer waiting. Beau Brickhill, and Polly’s misty grey eyes in candle-light, the four-poster bed, the glass dome over the stuffed woodpecker on the chest-of-drawers.

  “I have relations in Gaultshire, sir.”

  “‘The Mediators’,” mused the officer. “Very well, bring this back to me with your present Colonel’s recommendation, and I’ll pass it through for you at once. Good morning.”

  In some excitement Phillip strode towards the City. His boots were blacked, his cutaway tunic under the foreshortened greatcoat sponged and ironed, his cap-badge polished. Mother had sewn lance-jack’s stripes on both sleeves, one a little higher than the other; but by holding the shoulder lower, it might not be noticed.