by Hyde, Robin
Thousands and thousands of bosses, all living in huts at Sling Camp. The bosses are new as the verdant grass, some of them, but don’t let that worry you, they’ll stop you just the same and tell you how to clean your rifle; nothing’s too much trouble for the little dears. Great lads, brought up on a strict diet of mothers’ milk. Reveille at six a.m. Have a wash, tumble out of your hut, get ready for breakfast, polish your buttons, parade, march past the saluting base, salute the flag, drill till twelve o’clock. Then you fall out for dinner. After that, drill and lectures from one to four-thirty. Tell me the old, old story, Sergeant. I will, my lad, here it is again. Dismissed, have tea, hop away to the beer canteen, ’cos there’s no other place to go. Canteen closes at eight, and at nine o’clock you’ve got to have your lights out and your head under the bedclothes. Wholesome, that is.
Oh, we love the Colonel,
And the Major just as well.
And we love the Sergeant—hell,
We don’t think!
There’s one quiet place in Sling Camp, and that’s the clink, where there aren’t any N.C.O.s and no roll-call either. And there’s the best place for me. I haven’t got any crimes on the list, but the chaps in the clink aren’t objecting to that, especially as I can figure out a way to get them beer. You can’t bring it in at the front door, see, because the Major mightn’t like it, but the wall at the back is cut out in little squares like rabbit-hutch doors, so that the latrine tins can be passed in and out easy, see? Well, you take away a latrine tin and pass through a petrol tin of beer in its place; and after that, when you go into the clink, there’s a sort of beautifully calm and happy look about everyone, like the well-known smile on the face of the tiger. But they get very hostile in the lines—the N.C.O.s I mean—because I’m instructing some of the greenhorns in Two-up, which they ought to know if they aren’t going to have the pants fleeced off them the moment they get to France.
However, leave isn’t hard to get, because there’s a chap in the office who’ll plank the rubber-stamp down on faked leave-papers with a good one on top. The signature of the Captain who is in charge here is the sort a blind schoolboy could forge with a rusty nail. So I got some London leave, unexpected by all, and went off. I was stopped by the Villains before I got out of Sling Camp—military police are like lice, if you didn’t have them about you you’d never know you were alive—but I showed them my pass, and there I was, off by the railway for London again.
In London I went straight to headquarters to draw some pay. I was standing talking to the paymaster when the General came up.
‘Hullo, Stark. Haven’t you been to camp yet?’
‘Yes, sir. Fourteen days’ special sick leave, sir.’
Seems to me he took a lot of interest looking over that pass of mine. Then his eyes twinkled. ‘You’re a lucky man, Stark. Well, how much of your pay do you want? Twenty pounds? Nonsense. Give him ten pounds and chase him out of here, Sergeant.’
Honest, Florrie, I didn’t mean to insult you. Yes, I know it was rotten, leaving you in church like that; but the boys all started to chip me, and the parson didn’t come, so I didn’t properly know what I was doing. Besides, you’ve got no idea what a let-off it was for you. I’m no good to a pretty girl like you. I’m only the shell of a man, with bits of lead sticking in me, and a wheezy chest. Oh, all right, I’ll clear out if you say so. But if you’ll meet me at the Black Swan tomorrow, I’ll have a little surprise for you, something nice, Florrie. You wait and see. Well, there’s no need to slam the door on my nose. I wasn’t going to make a nuisance of myself.
Good day, soldier. Rotten, this fog, isn’t it? God, if it’s like this all the time in England, it’s no wonder the girls have all got frozen faces and cold hearts. Doing what? Oh, just looking for more company. Come and sit down. The drinks are on me.
Right-o, girlie. Just one more drink and we’ll go home. This beer they serve seems muddy stuff to me as a general rule, but they’ve put something in it tonight. The floors are going up and down like a ship at sea. What’s your name, anyhow, girlie? What did you call her, mate? The Red-Headed Wonder? Well, it sounds all right to me. Come along, kid. Once in New Zealand I had a girl with red hair, but she wasn’t a patch on you. I can tell you she was a nice girl, all the same.
Well, you might have looked all right in the pub, but I don’t like the look of you now, though I can’t say that to a lady, can I? How did we get here last night, anyhow? What’s that you say? You half walked, half carried me? Oh, God, I must have looked pretty silly over that beer or I’d never have let a woman carry me to a place like this. And she’s taken out her teeth and she’s got the paint off her face, and she’s getting on for sixty if a day, I’ll bet on that. Red-Headed Wonder, all right. Wonder why that lousy soldier in the pub called her that? Hold on, what’s this? Six pounds short in me cash! No sense in making a row about it, though; her sort always has two or three chaps with blackjacks waiting down in the hall. Look here, sweetheart, you nip down and make me a cup of tea, see? I’ve got a head on me like a punching-ball. You’ll get your money for it all right, only get a move on.
Now Florrie always keeps her money under the linoleum. We’ll have to have a look into it, and quick. I’d have been sold for keeps if she’d kept it tucked down her stockings, that Red-Headed Wonder, but luckily her sort don’t wear stockings inside the house, and nothing else much except that grubby kimono. Not in that dresser … not in the chest of drawers … three corners of the lino, and I can hear her coming back. Struck it on Poverty Flat. My six quid and five more besides. She got that off some other mug, I’ll bet. That’s why they call her the Red-Headed Wonder. Well, this time she’ll do the wondering herself.
Hullo, sweetheart, thank you for your cup of tea. I’m going to get dressed now; you turn your back like a good girl. Rotten tea, sweetheart. I’m an ungrateful bastard, am I? All right, I’m going now; you won’t have to put up with me any longer.
What about yer bed, eh? I’m not going to be robbed by the likes of you. Thirty shillings, yus, that’s for yer bed and me. All right, sweetheart, that’s cheap at the price. Now good-bye. So it was cheap. I’m still showing a clear profit of three pound ten, but she won’t know that for a little while. However, I won’t go near New Zealand House today. Somewhere in London a hard-faced dame is looking for me, but she hasn’t got a hope. Hullo, Florrie, so you did turn up after all? Shut your eyes, now open them again. I told you you wouldn’t be sorry if you came. Yes, it’s real white fox, that fur is; as soon as I saw it I said to myself. That’s white and soft, and it isn’t going round the neck of any other girl in London but little Florrie Courtney, because she’s the whitest and softest… . So you do forgive me now, don’t you? I want you to do me a favour, Florrie. I’m not feeling too well. Let’s go home and stop up in your room all day. As a matter of fact I’m expecting a call from a chap I don’t want to see. He’s always singing out for loans, and I don’t like to turn the poor blighter down. Let’s turn on the old gramophone and listen to those Pink Lady records. It’s like home now, with the fire lit; and that’s good beer, Florrie. This is the best little place in London; but you ought to see New Zealand.
Thirty-nine days adrift in London, which was getting on for an A.W.O.L. record with the New Zealanders. He roved around to Russell Square, more out of curiosity than anything else, and was promptly set upon by a band of Villains.
‘That pass is a month overdue. You come along.’
‘I was always rotten at dates,’ admitted Starkie, and seizing the pass, stuffed it into his mouth and ate it. Nobody wanted faked passes spotted.
Starkie decided that the day was young and he wasn’t going quietly. He had no weapon but a billiards jigger, and with this he smote a Villain amidships and made good his escape, hotly pursued. On the fortieth day of his absence from the paths of duty he landed in the little White Swan Hotel. The circular bar was peopled by large old ladies with massive beer jugs, gossiping in their age-old and inimitable manner, with an occ
asional scowl for the soldiers. Enter the Villains. Starkie flung himself bodily over the circular bar, amid a thunderous crashing of beer jugs and screeching of female voices. After that he was very glad to escape, not so much from the Villains as from the Harpies. Behind him male voices were raised in lament as the stout bodies and broken beer jugs were hurled upon them. Starkie had awakened the latent feminism of English womanhood. The ladies with the beer jugs were doing their best to ruin the Villains, simply because they were men and matter out of place.
He boarded the first train he could see, and to his own confusion found himself promenading up and down the river-banks at Walton-on-Thames, a girl friend named Alice leaning on his arm. Walton-on-Thames strongly reminded him of Christchurch and its little River Avon: the same misty green of weeping willows in their last leafage, the same level stream sliding between green banks. The girl friend asked him to marry her, but he told her he was a bomber and couldn’t do it. Then she wept a little, which was more than Starkie could bear, so he told her the soldier’s tale, promised to marry her on Tuesday and turn over all his pay to her besides. He could say no fairer. He intended on Sunday to take her to Hampstead Heath, but found himself instead in Trafalgar Square, gazing with interest at a stone lion which had been flippantly crowned with a tin hat brought back from France. With equal interest, all around the Villains gazed on Starkie. He suddenly saw trouble in every direction, and so flung his arms around Sweet Alice, hugged her as never in her comparatively virginal young life she had been hugged before, then fled. Twenty yards down the street he was playing ring-a-rosy with the Villains, who grasped him stoutly by either arm. Starkie tugged till both sleeves suddenly parted from his tunic, was off again, and headed for Russell Square, climbing fleetly up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the closed pay-offices.
Here he got his back to the pay-office door, and for a time was not unhappy. Very soon there were not less than two thousand spectators, and on the road reposed five Villains. Along came a Tommy Captain. He hesitated, looked at Starkie not without sympathy.
‘Come down in the name of the King,’ he ordered.
‘Not for him, Ned Kelly, or Harry Lauder,’ was the reply.
After that the Tommy Captain returned with two London bobbies, large and gentle creatures with motherly hips, who spoke quite kindly, but whose batons were heavier than had been dreamed of in Starkie’s philosophy. His right arm paralysed by a blow from the abominable black truncheon, he got meekly into a car between the elephants. The meekness didn’t last. When the car was opened in Chester Square, some were limping, some hopping, whilst Starkie’s nose was bleeding, his face scratched, and no buttons remained on his tunic or trousers.
‘Scratch-cats,’ he hissed, and was dragged before a large and serious Provost-Marshal.
‘This is Stark.’
‘Um! Know your charge, Stark?’
‘Forty-two days’ A.W.O.L., and God knows what else.’
‘Right. Take him away for the present. Lock him up and keep him handy.’
In the lock-up Starkie met Old Joe. After the War he met Old Joe again, as barman of the most conservative club in Auckland; but at the time of their first meeting this would not have been prophesied. Old Joe had been for six months a floating island in London and a danger to navigation. The lock-up was a peculiarly Arcadian little gaol, the sort that begs to be broken, and five minutes after their meeting Starkie and Old Joe were discussing plans for escape. He was interrupted by policemen who took him before the military authorities, answered their questionnaire, and to his disgust found himself parted from Old Joe for the night, taken to a civilian police station, and in the undignified Black Maria, ‘just for safety’, grinned an enormous policeman, swinging his truncheon.
In the morning he rejoined Old Joe in the lock-up, and received visits of condolence from Provost-Marshals and Villains. Early in the afternoon he was produced from his cell and marched in front of Major Withers, after which things went with more of a swing: Take your hat off in the orderly room! March! Halt! Charged with A.W.O.L. forty-two days and resisting arrest. How do you plead? Guilty! Fourteen days’ second field punishment. Dismissed.
Field punishment in England was a trivial but boring affair of constant drill and fatigues. But before Starkie issued forth from his charnel-house he was taken before a Canterbury doctor, prodded, stripped, made to hop. Finally the Canterbury doctor asked, with a stern eye, ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘Fourteen days’ field punishment,’ replied Starkie practically.
‘What for?’
‘Absent without leave forty-two days.’
‘How long adrift?’
‘Forty-two days, Doctor.’
‘Hell—! All O.K. elsewhere?’
‘O.K., Doctor.’
‘What’s that red on your shoulder for?’
‘Shot through the lung, Doctor.’
‘Very well. Now breathe in.’ The doctor’s stony eye was slightly veiled by the merest hint of a wink. He scribbled hastily. ‘Here’s your chit, Stark: J. D. Stark not fit for any form of field punishment, with or without labour. Now get out.’
Starkie’s face grew long. The clink was the only place at Sling Camp where he felt comfortable. Major Withers’ face grew longer. Irritably he suggested that Starkie should get out and do what he bloody well liked. So Starkie returned quietly to Sling Camp and sought refuge among the prisoners.
Sergeant James used to slip the prisoners whisky from the Sergeants’ Mess. He was a good chap, but he’d been through too much in France. Whenever they talked of going back, his face would go grey and his mouth began to twitch.
Fights, beer canteen, shouting N.C.O.s, drill, salute the flag, revels and riots with the Royal Irish, Shang, Boozey Bill, Jimmy Daws, Bill Turner, Dick Hunter, the tall half-Gurkha, banded together with Starkie against the rest of the world. Crown-and-Anchor schools going on all over Sling Camp, half of them run by Art Butter, who kept the little barber-shop over against the camp, and was Crown-and-Anchor king of this end of England.
Tussle with a long Irishman who ran amok through the lines, shouting, ‘D’you know who I am?’ and then announcing with immense satisfaction that he was the middleweight champion of some God-forsaken little spot in Ireland. All the same, Starkie knocked him out in the third round of a bout, and since he’d drunk too much to come round easily, they carried him home to their own hut and tucked him up in bed. When they saw what the hut looked like next morning they voted the Irishman no gentleman. So they stripped him of everything but his trousers and threw him out on the road, offering up a little prayer that a General in his nice fat car might run over him.
Constant guerilla warfare with Major Withers. Stark, fall out. … Stark, are you blind, deaf, dumb, mad, or just silly? I’m not any of that, Major, I’m just honest. Are you? Then you trot along to the guard-room. We’ve had about enough of your nonsense. It’s time you were sent home.
The travelling medical board came round to Sling Camp while Starkie was still in the guard-room. Something had to be done, and he did it. He begged the guard to let him cross over to his hut and get his razor.
‘Come along, then.’
They crossed the compound. The razor was found; it’s cold edge caressed the guard’s neck.
‘Hey, you savage, what the hell’s all this about? What did I ever do to you?’
‘Nothing. Only you didn’t take me to the Medical Board, and that’s where I want to go, see?’
Straight to headquarters, into the board-room. Before a wooden-faced row of medical officers he begged to be Boarded, got his wish. In the morning they took him out on the road, made him strip to his pants and run up and down for ten minutes. In the office stethoscopes waved over him like tentacles of octopi. Half the Board seemed to think he’d do; the rest said ‘No good for active service.’
He did double mark times for them until his chest was ready to burst. He could see they weren’t impressed.
‘Why do you want to go
back, anyhow?’
Starkie decided to lie. He did it well. He told them about the way his mates called to him at nights, asking him to come back again, asking why he’d run away and left everything for them to do, living and dead. By the time he’d finished his forehead was beaded with sweat. He wasn’t quite sure whether what he had told them was a lie after all. He stood with head hanging and waited for their verdict.
‘Very well, Stark, you can go back. Passed A. There’s a draft going tomorrow. Maybe you’ll be in it. You can go now.’
It wasn’t till eight that he knew for sure he had been picked up in the draft. Major Withers brought him the news. He walked in, stretched out his hand, grinned the first honest-to-goodness grin that Starkie had ever seen on his face, and said, ‘Well, Christ be thanked, Stark, you’re leaving us.’
So now it’s good-bye, England, the queerest, cussedest, most contradictory spot on earth, the one place where you haven’t a dog’s chance of telling what’s going to happen to you next. Froggies are Froggies, and act according. The Gippo girls worked to schedule, too; but what can you make of a place that grows girls like Sunshine and tarts like the Red-Headed Wonder? And you can’t ever make up your mind if England’s terribly old or terribly young. Parts of London, with the stone lions folding up their paws, quiet as the Rock of Ages, and Dirty Dick’s just the same as it was years and years ago; and the old women with their beer jugs just as big and grim and funny as their great-grannies used to be—you feel it’s like the beginning of Time. It’s no place for a New Zealander, then; he has to whistle to make sure he’s alive at all. Then he turns a corner and finds himself in a round sort of little green, not much bigger than a bowler hat, and if he sits down here to reflect on his sins, he’ll wake up and notice that things seem to be happening around him for the first time in history. Bright green wash of buds over thin sticks of black trees; squirrels carrying their dandy tails over one shoulder and making faces at you; kids sailing boats on a bit of pond, their cheeks red as pippins. And everything around them: trees, pond, squirrels, deer, clouds, nurses, Bobbies, toffee-sellers, designed specially as a background to fit the London kids. There’s no way of explaining it. It’s a good place for a soldier to think about, but I don’t suppose he’d get on any too happy living there. If he didn’t turn out to be a million years too old, he’d be a thousand years too young.