A Fox Under My Cloak

by Henry Williamson

  The sense of the dramatic began to leave him as he continued along the Old Kent Road, and turned up to Nunhead, to avoid the tramlines. Passing Wakenham Station, with its dreary, dead appearance, he removed the monocle and put it in his pocket, after a small boy had called out, “Swank on Old Iron!” Soon he was home; and trying not to feel overcome by dullness.

  This time he would not go and say goodbye to the Rolls. He would let Helena learn the news of his return to France when he was gone: it would, then, perhaps, startle her into realising that she might lose him.

  “Thank God that Desmond and Eugene will be home this evening, Mother.”

  “You won’t be late dear, will you, as it’s your last night? And Father will want to see you, I am sure.”

  *

  That night in Freddy’s it seemed natural that he should again and again pay for drinks for all three. Were they not all great friends? Eugene was in the Public Schools battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, and, like Desmond, a private soldier. “You coves are my guests—when you get your pips, you can treat me.” Tom Ching came in, and then there were four of them. The more the merrier!

  Tom Ching, still in the Admiralty, told them that all postal and telegraphic communication abroad was suspended, for—Tom rolled his eyes around the bar, before gathering their faces close to his own—there was to be a big landing on the Belgian coast, after a terrific bombardment by battleships and monitors of the Fleet. It seemed to be the Big Push at last; and visualising the German lines broken, with cavalry in pursuit, and hundreds of thousands of prisoners taken—the war over by Christmas—Phillip, monocle screwed into eye, convinced himself, with the aid of Haig’s whiskey, that he was jolly glad to be going out again.

  A few minutes before closing time “Sailor” Jenkins suddenly appeared, yachting cap on head, special-constable arm-band sticking out of greatcoat pocket.

  “Hullo, Phillip! Your father told me you were home, and returning to the front tomorrow. Well, at least you’ll be away from the dull routine of business life today. Which isn’t being made any more cheerful, between ourselves, Phillip, by our sergeant’s behaviour. I can fully understand now why you, as a boy, were a caution! It’s ‘not the thing’ to pop in and have a quick one on a cold night, or to smoke a cigarette on duty, alone at midnight on a clear night, in case Zeppelins spot it! I ask you! Then if we talk about the war while inside the station—inside, mark you—he points to the poster hanging there, ‘The ears of the enemy may be listening’, and says it is our duty to give a good example to others. No, your father is not at all popular, I can tell you, Phillip. What’s the eye-glass for, effect?”

  “King’s Regulations,” replied Phillip, casually. “Have to see the enemy, you know.”

  “Go on with you!” replied Mr. Jenkins, as he upped his hot sugared Irish whiskey, and dabbing lips with silk handkerchief, he pulled the arm-band out of his pocket and slipped almost furtively out of the bar.

  “Damn bad form,” said Phillip, imitating Baldersby, as the door closed. “No idea of good form.”

  The next morning at breakfast he told his father what Tom Ching had said about the coming bombardment of the Belgian coast.

  “Well,” said Richard, as he laced up his boots, “all I can say is that I do not think that Master Ching has any right to disclose official secrets, especially in the place where apparently you met him last night.”

  “But the Germans surely knew as soon as the first shell dropped, Father? The communiqués have mentioned the Belgian coast bombardment for days, now.”

  “That is as it may be, my boy; but I am still of the opinion that official matters should not be disclosed. Well, Phillip,” he said with sudden geniality, rising and holding out his hand, “I wish you all good fortune, and a safe return. Look after yourself, old man, won’t you?”

  Then taking his yellow straw hat—cleaned most carefully with an old toothbrush and salts of lemon every May Day for the past twenty years, the black band having been renewed twice in that period—and with umbrella on arm, Richard left the house. He thought of many things as, half an hour later, he crossed London Bridge for the nine thousand two hundred and eightieth time (he kept count annually in his diary)—this lonely, honourable, and stilted member of Outer London’s middle-classes—believing all he read in his newspaper, impelled by what to him were the Victorian precepts of right living, punctilious in everything concerning the letter of his duty, at home and in the office; meticulous often to the point of pain—guarding ever, within his scope, the idea of his family’s, and his country’s, well-being.

  *

  Phillip was given an extra twenty-four hours’ leave when, reporting at the R.T.O.’s office at Victoria Station, he agreed to take a draft to France the following day. Leaving his valise in the cloak-room, he hurried home. Although Desmond would be on searchlight duty that night and Eugene had gone back to camp, yet there would be friendly faces in Freddy’s.

  He was passing the gate of Turret House when he saw Mrs. Rolls, and had saluted her when, in the friendliest tones, she said, “You used to be a great one for birds, Phillip, I wonder if you could tell me how to pluck a cockerel?” Where did one begin, she asked, explaining that her cook had gone home to her mother the day before, after hearing that her only brother had been killed in Gallipoli.

  “Gerard will be home at six, and I must give him a good dinner, dear boy, after his hard day’s work, now that so many of the younger men have gone. Then there is the question of drawing it—I’ve never had to do such a thing in my life before, Phillip, and how fortunate that you came along when you did.”

  “Mrs. Rolls,” said Phillip, going hot with the thought of his boldness, “I mean—if you like, that is, if it would help in any way—I’d be glad to do it for you.”

  “Would you? How very kind of you!”

  “I’d like to, really.”

  He was invited into the house: it was the first time he had been inside, and everything seemed unreal. What would he be able to say when he came face to face with Helena? The sight of her hat and coat hanging on the coat-rack, with her tennis racquet, string bag of balls, and white plimsolls, made him quiver.

  “Come through, Phillip, to the kitchen—d’you mind?”

  Passing an open door, he saw within a piano and the music of They’d Never Believe Me. With racing heart he imagined Helena singing the song, thinking of him. In a dream he followed Mrs. Rolls into the kitchen.

  “We can put some newspapers on the table. Or would you like to sit in the garden—of course you would! It’s such a lovely day, isn’t it? So you are on leave, are you? What has happened to your motor-cycle—what a noise it makes, to be sure.”

  “I’ve stored it at a place in the Lee High Road, where I bought it, Mrs. Rolls.”

  Mrs. Rolls did not appear to hear. She took a large basket, and put some paper in the bottom. “There now, do you think that will do for the feathers. We ought to collect them, don’t you think? For the hospitals.”

  “For pillows?”

  “Yes. Helena’s Red Cross Party has asked for feathers, among other things. Poor boys, we must do all we can to make them comfortable, mustn’t we? Now then, you would like a rug to sit on, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh, please don’t bother. I can sit on the grass, really.”

  “It is damp, Phillip. I wouldn’t hear of such a thing! You always were a wild boy, weren’t you? It would not do to mark your smart uniform, would it? Here, let me put Helena’s nursing apron on you.”

  He stood still, thrilling with joy as she tied the tapes in a bow behind him. “Now you do look workman-like! Here’s the basket. Have you everything you want? It is so kind of you—what a good Samaritan you are, to be sure!”

  Happiness spread through him as he plucked, feather by feather, to prolong the exquisite feeling of being allowed to serve the beautiful people. The garden seemed to float in a golden stillness of peace and everlastingness, the summer of his boyhood had come again. It was a calm, mellow d
ay, not yet heavy with the colours and dews of autumn. Then, lest she should think he was trying to prolong his presence there, he began to pluck faster. He must finish soon, and make his departure. Where was Helena? Hardly daring to lift his eyes from the task, for he must not appear curious, or betray Mrs. Rolls’ trust in him in any way, he pulled fingerfuls of dark-red feathers; and coming to the back of the neck, wondered if he dare ask for some of the hackles which made the Red Spinner flies, according to the cobbler who tied flies at Lynmouth. Fishing: and he was going to the front tomorrow. How long ago, far back in the past, was his holiday in Devon—in another world.

  When he had finished plucking, and then drawing; when the limp body, strangely thin and naked, was hanging from a branch of the lilac tree, he had to summon his courage before venturing to the open kitchen door, and, after further hesitation, to call out softly, “Mrs. Rolls!”

  There was no reply. He waited in a mild distress of indecision, before calling again. Still no answer. What ought he to do? Where was she? Dare he go inside, and call into the hall? And waiting there, he heard the front gate bang behind its coiled spring, the crunch of gravel, and the plop of letters on the mat, followed by two short rings on the bell. The postman had come. Then footfalls downstairs.

  “Mrs. Rolls, I’ve finished now.”

  “How very kind of you, Phillip! Come in, dear boy.” She had three envelopes in her hand. He could not stop himself giving a glance their way. As though in response to his curiosity, she held one up.

  “I expect you know that writing, don’t you, Phillip?”

  It was an On Active Service envelope, written in indelible pencil, a red rubber Passed Censor stamp, a signature in one corner, addressed to Miss Helena Rolls.

  “From your cousin Bertie Cakebread. Such a fine young man. Gerard and I have always admired him, so upright, and such a good boy to his mother——”

  Phillip did not know what to say. Why was Bertie writing to Helena? He did not know that the Rolls were friendly with Bertie. It was staggering news! Perhaps that was why he had been invited into the house! Bertie had given him a good name! If ever there was a peach, it’s that girl. Bertie was helping his cause!

  “His father was such a splendid man, wasn’t he?” said Mrs. Rolls. “And it is nice to know, too, who was the grandfather of one’s children’s friends, don’t you think?”

  Phillip replied “Yes”, not realising that she was referring to the Cakebread family connexion with the Coldstream. He thought she must mean Gran’pa Turney, until she said, “Three generations in one regiment! Not many people today can boast of a thing like that, Phillip. Well, thank you very much, dear boy,” she was saying, when Helena came into the garden. She was smiling, she was radiant, she clung to her mother’s arm, she looked into his eyes with frank delight; and Phillip’s joy was complete.

  “Isn’t it awfully kind of this dear boy, Helena, to help us out like this? I think we ought to ask him to come in and eat it tonight, don’t you? Or have you already made plans for this evening, Phillip?”

  It was then that he saw that Helena was holding Bertie’s letter to her bosom.

  “Oh, yes,” he heard his voice saying. Eyes on the ground: get away, quick, quick! “I’m afraid I have to see someone tonight, I’m going to France tomorrow morning. Well, I must go now. Goodbye.”

  “Going back so soon, Phillip? Surely you’ve done your bit?”

  “I’m taking a draft of London Highlanders to the front, Mrs. Rolls. That’s why I got an extra twenty-four hours. I was supposed to go this morning.”

  “Ah, I wondered why you had stored your noisy motorcycle! Well, I think you are a brick, the way you tackled that cockerel.”

  “Hear, hear!” said Helena.

  “Well, goodbye,” and hurrying away, almost he ran through the gate, and to the asphalt pavement of Hillside Road.

  *

  It seemed strange that men should be painting the spiked iron railing round the Hill the same bright green as in peace-time; that the milk-cart should be standing outside the flats, seen so clearly in the quiet sunshine. He could hear the footfalls of the milkman, with his white apron and straw hat, as he moved to put the milkcans at the doors, with his yodelling cry of Milk-oo. It was all as he had always known it; but now there was a sheet of plate glass between him and life.

  “What shall I do, Mother, what shall I do? Did you know about Bertie all the time? Then why didn’t you tell me? O, what a fool I have made of myself! Mrs. Rolls once said I was morbid. You all think this really, I know. All the lot of you! Aunt Victoria, Uncle Hilary—no-one seems to understand what it is to feel time passing, while life is also standing still. I’ll tell you now why I never got on with Mavis and Doris! They laughed at me when I couldn’t help them seeing the tears in my eyes years ago, when I spoke of the swallows soon to be flying away over the sea! It was in the kitchen during breakfast, Father had gone to the station. It was early October, and a high wind was rattling the kitchen window. I can see it as though it were yesterday. Doris pointing at my face, and Mavis jeering, ‘Cry baby!’ No-one understood in those days! No-one understands now! Sometimes I don’t want to live any longer—I hope I shall be killed!”

  When he was calmer, Hetty suggested a picnic on Reynard’s Common. They could go by train from Randiswell, and be back in time for Mavis’ tea. Doris could get her own; she would leave the key next door with Aunt Marian. It would be like old times, she said; and strangely quiet and still, his unhappy feelings settled or renounced for the time being, he said he would like to go with her to the Common.

  Hetty was quiet, too; her bright nervous manner was shed. They were companions, as in the days after his scarlet fever, when they had gone together for a little holiday to Brighton. He was her little boy again, on that very same table they had played together with his bricks, or written letters to one another across the table—his handwriting a pencil squiggle; the early days when he had needed and confided in her his little secrets, and how he loved Da-da! Now he trusted her again.

  They had the carriage to themselves; few people were going into the country at that time of day; and at the end of the line was the dear, familiar wooden turn-table for the engine, worked by cranked handle and cogs; then came the tree-shaded lane leading up to the Common, with its yellow-brick cottages and coppices and white dusty lanes through the woods. “O, to live here always, in a dear little cottage!” exclaimed Hetty.

  Beyond the woods was open ground, where the gorse bore the last of its massive yellow nugget-blooms of summer. While they walked they heard little cracks, as the gorse pods split screw-wise and cast black beans upon the peaty earth. He collected some, to sow in the Backfield. Perhaps some other boy——

  They sat down upon the sun-hot earth, in a space of sward where as of old the linnets were a-wing, their breasts faint-branded by the fire of summer suns. The corn-bunting still sang on the telegraph wires, the lizard clung warm upon the faded posts torn by the spiked climbing irons of the repairing men.

  “Mother, I think I will give you my locket, and if I do not come back, will you give it to Bertie? And say I hope he will be very happy.”

  With piercing insight he thought of the human desperation, despair, and misery under the same sky which was so calm above this very Common, where all was peace, where the only movements were of cloud and bird and seed. Curled and bleached, the thin pods of the rose-bay willow-herb were loosing away their parachute seeds; they glistened and trembled in the webs of spiders hanging everywhere between gorse and thorn. Yet all life there had suffered; upon the pebbly spaces charred stumps showed where fires in past summers had burned the common black; but life had returned, for hundreds of sapling silver birches were now rising there. It was the land of linnet and stonechat, of bunting and goldfinch; of adders among the pans of pebbles anciently rolled by floods across the chalk of north-west Kent. Now upon this land the last heats of summer were dispread on fading heather-bell and carline thistle; only the yellow nuggets of the fu
rze defied the sun’s declension, while autumn’s pale tickets showed upon distant elm and beech and oak.

  This was perhaps the last time he would see the Common. How still and quiet everything was; even the twitter of linnets was finished. Time here was standing still; out there, Time was rushing fast, rushing upon life after life. Time rushed backwards for him, bringing winter scenes like transfers upon his mind; bearded faces, knife-shortened greatcoats, woollen balaclavas, fire-pails, flares, mud-tracks through broken trees. Death was an instant away, the other side of the glass fixed between life and the soul.

  His mother saw his face when he returned to where she was sitting, the sandwiches spread on a table napkin upon the ground, and said, “You won’t forget your crucifix, will you, dear? It came from the convent, and was given me by Mère Ambrosine at Thildonck.”

  “I know.”

  “And don’t forget your prayers, Phillip. They will help you in your duty towards others.”

  “Prayer never yet stopped a bullet.”

  “That is not quite what I mean, dear. Do you remember the poor boy you used to give bread and dripping to, because he was so hungry?”

  “Cranmer. Yes, why?”

  “Well, Phillip, when you thought of Cranmer being so hungry, you did not stop to think about any consequences to yourself, did you?”