Heart of War

by John Masters

  A child who lay between two hairy men-of-war told me about (the mud). He looked like a pretty girl, with the high roses on his thin cheeks and his tumbled hair and his blankets drawn to his chin. He thrust them back to rise on his elbow and show himself a bonny boy of nineteen. ‘I was up to my waist when we started to go across,’ he said. ‘I’d never have got out at all, but two chaps gave me a hand and just hauled me out of the mud … I didn’t get five yards.’ ‘Whereabouts were you hit?’ I asked him. He smiled. Mark that, he smiled! ‘Neck, right arm, back, and both legs,’ he replied, still smiling. He hesitated, ‘I’ve only been out six weeks,’ he added, like one who makes excuses.

  Cate put the paper down, wondering how the writers, whoever they were, of whatever eminence, always managed to sound patronizing. Uncommon courage was obviously commonplace out there; the newspaper correspondents in their efforts to give colour to the bald communiqués, made war read like a village cricket match, complete with the proper village characters – the brawny blacksmith, the young yokel who was brighter than he let on, the simple son of the soil … He looked across the table at his companion. Isabel Kramer was wearing a plain, English woollen dressing gown of royal blue, matching her eyes, over her nightgown, with, on her feet, the sort of tartan wool felt-soled slippers that children wore. The dressing gown was piped with white, and she had done it up to the neck. The room was warm, for the hotel had central heating. The windows were closed, the tall curtains pulled back to reveal a long view down the grey, wind-tossed waters of the Mersey. A merchant ship was being pushed out into the stream by two tugs; and, a mile to seaward, two destroyers were steaming slowly in, their smoke pulled away to the north by the wind. It was raining.

  Cate said slowly, ‘I don’t think I have ever felt so happy.’

  She answered, ‘Nor I … though I loved my husband very much. You make a woman feel she is truly wanted … needed.’

  ‘In this case, it is true,’ he said. He put out his hand to her, and she rested hers on top of it – ‘I hope I was not too … excited, for you.’

  She smiled – ‘Not too much, my dear Christopher. I was proud of you … as well as being much moved, as you could obviously tell for yourself … We must not pretend that this sensuous side of our love is in any way inferior to the rest – the respect, the shared interests, the affection. Without it, I fear I would be in danger of being swept off my feet by some other man who could arouse it in me … for I know well that it is there. You too, surely?’

  Cate nodded, ‘Yes. I could be swept into something I did not really want, simply by the lust of the flesh.’

  ‘Which, the Church thinks, we women were created to release. Though I hope we have some other uses, too!’

  He laughed. ‘Dearest! … What would you like to do today? Whatever we do we must not waste our time. We only have forty-eight hours.’

  She said, ‘I’d like to put on a raincoat and hat and walk in the streets with you … look in shop windows … buy a little something here, something there … find a little French or Italian restaurant – if such a thing exists in Liverpool – and gaze adoringly at you while we have a light lunch … and I’ll try to persuade you to let me help you financially, though I know you won’t, you obstinate man … pigheaded English-man! And then we’ll come back …’ she leaned forward and whispered, ‘to bed! I’ll feel your strong arms round me … your strong body in me … I am yours. I need you as much as you need me.’

  Cate gazed at her, his eyes watering. He said, his voice unsteady, ‘We can’t marry till she’s dead. You saw what she’s suspected of having done, the other day … But they won’t catch her.’

  Isabel’s eyes, too, were damp. She said, ‘The war’s changing so much. Death is waiting for all the young men … a wildness is in the air, a frenzy – eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you die! Everything’s changing in this wonderful, tight, little island of yours, darling. Do you think it will change enough, fast enough, for the people of Walstone to accept me at the Manor, if they know that we simply cannot be legally married?’

  She waited, dabbing her eyes with a little cambric handkerchief. Finally, he answered her: ‘The people might accept, in time. But I couldn’t. Not for you, or for me.’

  She got up, came round the table, silently laid her head on his, and let her tears roll down her cheeks onto his forehead.

  15

  Caesar’s Camp Copse, Beighton Down,

  Kent: Monday, October 30, 1916

  Fletcher Gorse eased himself an inch or two deeper into the badger sett, so that the rain ran directly onto the ground off the leaves he had arranged over the top of it, instead of first onto the brim of his old cap, and then down. Since it started raining a couple of hours ago the aeroplanes from Hedlington airfield had stopped coming over with their thunderous roar, and that was good, too. It must be like being a magician, a god, to fly in one of those machines with their long wings and the two engines growling and the two propellers whirling … perhaps the fellows in them couldn’t hear the sound, in some way, and flew along in silence – but on the ground, looking up, the noise hammered into your head …

  Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

  Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

  Brought death into the world, and all our woe

  With loss of Eden …

  He spoke the lines again, under his breath … ‘mortal taste’? What did that mean? Mortal was being human, certain to die … so the taste was certain to die? ’Course not – it was the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that parson talked about in church every year, so it meant that the taste would bring the certainty of dying … He wondered what the Garden of Eden had really been like … a land flowing with milk and honey. Something like the Weald down there below, but not so cold in winter, perhaps. There’d have to be rain sometimes, otherwise the crops wouldn’t grow, stood to reason. And the cows wouldn’t give milk without good grass, and the bees needed plenty of wildflowers to make honey … He brought out a stub of pencil from one jacket pocket, a piece of paper from another, and wrote, resting the paper on the palm of his hand … worst thing about living in the woods was it was hard to write … ‘wild sweet honey’ … ‘wild honey’ … words, words, visions … scribbles, staring, doze a little, with the visions in his head, the words flashing, fading …

  He felt behind his waist in the narrow confines of the sett, and found a leather satchel and in it a slab of cheese and a few hard biscuits. This sett, into the long earth dyke that some said Horsa had made fifteen hundred years ago, was well hidden, and he had half a dozen other such hidey holes on the Downs and in the Weald; but all of them showed the traces, in the earth and dead leaves, of his coming and going. A good dog, like the Duke back home there with Granddad, would pick up his scent. He had to shit where he could, for one thing. Eating hadn’t been a problem. He killed rabbits with his catapult. Dandelion leaves were good, though they made you piss like a cow … fish taken from the Scarrow, eggs from a barn … there were girls down there in the Weald, farmers’ daughters, maids in the big houses, who’d listen to his tap on their window, and let him in, and next evening come by where he’d told them, and leave a loaf, cheese, hard-boiled eggs … Summer passed, to autumn. At times he felt that he was near some answer, but no certainty came, and he would go back to sleep until dark, and then move silently across the land, seeing with wide eyes in the dark, walking with sure foot through bramble and tussock between the boles of trees, across the short grass of the fields, dew or rain pearling his pale red moustache and beard.

  He stiffened. He’d heard something. Drat the rain! … It was one person, walking through the copse, twigs cracking under his feet. Now he’d stopped. He heard a voice call anxiously, ‘Fletcher? … Fletcher?’

  He recognized the voice at once – Laurence Cate, squire’s son. Come from squire to beg him to go back? Might do it at that, for Mr Cate. And though he’d come here for solitude, and to think, he’d had about enough. It was b
eginning to seem that if there were any answers, they weren’t here, but in France. Everything he saw from where he was hid seemed to be going towards France – men in big lorries, crammed trains, aeroplanes in the sky, heavy rain clouds, geese … all going to France; and at night the earth fretting under him, so that he could not sleep.

  Fletcher wriggled out of the sett, and, kneeling, against the bank, peered over. Laurence was standing in a clearing about fifty feet away, by the twisted beeches that marked the centre of the copse. He’d reached his full height now, nearly as tall as his Dad, about six foot two, maybe … thin, long face, sandy hair like squire, face anxious now, puzzled, helpless.

  He called, ‘Here!’ Laurence heard, turned at once, saw him and walked toward him.

  ‘I have to talk to you,’ Laurence said. ‘Peggy, the maid at Hill House, told me where she’d left some cheese for you. I knew she was sweet on you, so I thought you might have visited her, and … she trusts me.’

  ‘Sweet on you, too,’ Fletcher said smiling.

  Laurence blushed – ‘A little perhaps … I told her I wasn’t going to give you away for anything.’ He fell silent. After a long wait Fletcher said, ‘Well?’

  ‘I want to join you,’ Laurence stammered. Then he spoke fast, stumbling over the words in his anxiety to get them out – ‘I’m supposed to report to the barracks on Thursday. I can’t do it! I know I’ll funk whatever I have to do, and hundreds of men will be killed and blown up because I didn’t do what I was supposed to.’

  ‘Seems like hundreds get killed and blown up when the officers do do what they’re supposed to – so what’s the difference?’

  Laurence shook his head violently – ‘I’m not meant to be an officer … but I can’t say it to my father, or anyone but you. I’m his son, a Cate of Walstone. I have to be an officer … I have lots of money on me, saved up my allowance for two months … took money out of my savings account … We can disguise ourselves … go somewhere wilder … Forest of Dean … Sherwood Forest … Dartmoor…’

  ‘Don’t know any of them places,’ Fletcher said. ‘Wouldn’t be no girls I knew, either.’ He held out a piece of cheese. Laurence shook his head, silent again.

  After a while, both standing close by the bank in the rain, Fletcher said, ‘You’m not dressed proper, Mister Laurence, nor the boots. Come back here Wednesday, about this time, dressed like you’re going shooting … with a mackintosh coat, too. What day would that be?’

  ‘Wednesday, November 1st – All Saints’ Day.’

  ‘Ah, so tomorrow’s Hallowe’en. Granddad says the village used to be full of ghost and goblins that night, and everyone stayed home with the doors locked, till parson came round and swore he’d ex … some long word … anyone who didn’t come out to evening service that night.’ He laughed – ‘See you then, here, about this time.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you, Fletcher. It’ll be … marvellous!’

  Fletcher nodded, waving a hand in farewell. Laurence disappeared among the stooped beeches and tall elms and lusty oaks of the copse, walking along the line of Horsa’s Bank.

  Fletcher picked up an earthenware bowl set out in the open, drank some rain water, and again backed into the sett … Proper mess this was, with Mister Laurence wanting to be with him. Couldn’t be done really, ’cos there was no room for two fellows in the sett – less in his other hiding places – and though Laurence was a good poacher, and knew the country almost as well as Fletcher and his granddad, if he disappeared there would be a big hunt put on. Squire didn’t see his own son as clearly as he saw everyone else … ’twas human nature, that was.

  So, there it was. Mister Laurence was going to be an officer – couldn’t help it. And he was going to be a poet of the war – couldn’t help it. The job now was to let Mr Laurence down easy; and for himself, get back into the Army without bloody silly court martials, colonels yelling at him across the orderly room table, provost corp tying him to a wagon wheel, or any of that codswallop. He settled down to work out a feasible plan.

  His mind made up, he wriggled out of the sett, picked up his satchel, slung it over one shoulder, and walked out of the copse and southward off the down. In the slanting rain of late afternoon he set off across country for Walstone Manor. There he worked round the outside of the big house until he was at the French windows of the music room. He tapped on the glass. After a while the curtains inside were drawn back and Laurence Cate stood in the window, peering out. The light shone on Fletcher, and he waited while Laurence unbolted the window: then he stepped through into the warmth and light. Laurence closed the windows and drew the curtains behind him.

  Fletcher said, ‘Is your Dad here?’

  ‘No. He’s in Liverpool … Are you in trouble, Fletcher? I thought …’

  Fletcher said, ‘Mr Laurence, I been thinking, since you came up to the Down – I’m going back to the Army.’

  Laurence’s face fell. Fletcher looked directly into his eyes and spoke earnestly. ‘There’s no way round it, in the end. Sooner or later we have to go. You have to lead the men, because you’re a Cate, and I have to write poetry about it.’

  Laurence said, ‘You want to go to France now?’

  ‘I reckon I always did. It’s not only the poetry out there, but … you know, the war will end some day, and everyone come home, and talk, and neither I – nor you – would understand them. We’d be like Chinamen or Zulus, less we go.’

  ‘I see,’ Laurence said at last. ‘Well, perhaps we’ll meet out there. But won’t they court-martial you for desertion, when you go back?’

  ‘They’d like to,’ Fletcher said, ‘but they won’t … Will you take me to your room, Mr Laurence?’

  Laurence didn’t say a word but led out of the room, along the hall and up the stairs. In the room Fletcher went to the wash-stand, took up Laurence’s open razor and shaving soap – both newly acquired – and began to shave carefully. Ten minutes later his face was clean shaven except for a luxuriously sweeping but neatly trimmed auburn moustache. Then, taking the scissors, he snipped away till his hair was fashionably short. Now he said, ‘Can I wash myself here, and borrow some of your clothes – something too small for you, ’cos you’re taller than I am …’

  Laurence found some suitable clothes in his wardrobe, laid them on the bed, and said, ‘I’ll wait for you in the music room.’

  ‘Thank you. I won’t be long. …’

  Laurence waited, heavy of heart. As he had feared all along, there was no way round it: he had to go. He wished his father could have understood, and found some honourable way for him to serve England without going into the trenches, without putting on uniform, even. But his father had been preoccupied, since 1914 really, with the problems of the land, of the village, of taxes – it was certain that he’d have to sell one of the farms now – and recently, with Mrs Kramer. Laurence liked what he had seen of the American lady, and wondered whether she was in Liverpool with his father. He thought that she understood him better than his father did. Once or twice she had said things that could be interpreted as guiding his father to see him in a different light. If they’d been married, perhaps she could have found a way out for him – but it was too late now.

  Fletcher came in, and Laurence started; though it was barely half an hour since he’d left him, it was still difficult to accept him as Fletcher Gorse, with that big moustache, and now wearing a pair of tweed trousers a little too long for him and a hacking jacket with shirt, collar, and tie.

  ‘How’s that?’ Fletcher said, smiling.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Laurence said. ‘But … I’ve been thinking. Were you under orders for France when you ran away?’

  Fletcher shook his head and said, ‘No, and I always meant to come back, once I’d sorted things out in my head a bit.’

  Laurence said eagerly, ‘Then it’s not desertion! You have to mean never to go back for it to be desertion.’

  ‘They’re not going to throw me into no cells, nor send me to no Glasshouse. I want to get
to France just as quick as I can, and that would just waste my time, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Then what …?’

  ‘You hardly recognized me just now, even though you’d seen me shaving. An’ they won’t at the barracks. I’m going to enlist – F. Whitman … I’d like to call myself Shakespeare, but I daren’t. They’ll never catch Private Gorse, because he’ll be under their noses, as Private Whitman.’

  Laurence began to laugh. Fletcher said, ‘They’re too busy dealing with squads to look at people, up there. Everything’s changing too fast – recruits arrive, drill sergeants come and go, teach ten different squads a day. They’ll never catch on. Will you tell my granddad, when you can, please? They’ll be watching his cottage, so I can’t go there.’

  ‘We’re in the same boat, sort of,’ Laurence said. ‘Our mail’s being opened here, because of Mummy – my mother. They hope she’ll write to one of us one day and give away where she is.’

  ‘I’ll be going now,’ Fletcher said cheerfully. ‘I don’t want anyone thinking you’ve been harbouring a deserter in the Manor. Goodbye, Mr Laurence. If you see me at the barracks, just remember I’m Private Whitman – though we won’t be able to say much, except I can say “Yes, sir,” “No, sir.”’ He laughed, and, as Laurence opened the French windows, slipped out into the darkness.

  Daily Telegraph, Thursday, November 2, 1916

  WAR ON SHIPPING

  LOSS OF THE MARINA SUNK WITHOUT WARNING

  From Our Own Correspondent, Cork, Tuesday (Midnight) Thirty-nine survivors of the torpedoed liner Marina reached Cork at ten o’clock to-night. They were met by Mr Wesley Frost, United States Consul, and the Americans, who number fifteen, were conducted to the Queen’s Hotel, where their depositions were taken, while the remainder of the survivors were lodged in the Sailors’ Home, Cork, for the night …