‘Liszt?’ Oamer called over.
Scholes replied, ‘Sonata in B minor – don’t know it all.’
And he broke off in embarrassment.
‘I’ve heard Egypt’s on the cards for us,’ said Oliver Butler, mopping his plate with bread, and eyeing every man in turn.
‘Egypt?’ somebody said, flabbergasted.
‘Fighting the darkies.’
‘What darkies?’ Scholes called over, taking a pull from his glass before placing it on the piano top.
‘I don’t bloody know,’ said Butler. ‘Full of darkies, is Egypt. Some of them are Turkish. Overrun with the bloody Turks just at present, is Egypt.’
I was watching Oamer. He’d been smoking his pipe after his meal – his ‘post-prandial’ smoke, as he called it – but he now removed it from his mouth and stood. Dawson called out ‘Bide!’ on his behalf, and silence fell.
‘Your conversation, gentlemen,’ said Oamer, ‘has anticipated an announcement that Captain Quinn has asked me to make this evening.’
Scholes shut the piano lid, and walked over to the trestle table.
‘We are off to Egypt?’ someone gasped.
‘You are off’, said Oamer, speaking in such a way as to prove he didn’t normally use that word in that way, ‘to France – because that’s where the war is. And you are going next Thursday, when, after three days’ home leave – ’
(A small cheer at this.)
‘ – you will entrain from Hull to a sea port I am not at liberty to name, before proceeding to … somewhere I am also not at liberty to name in France.’
Oamer took two papers from his tunic pocket, and glanced down at the first, saying, ‘Captain Quinn has asked me to read the following: “Tell the men that I wish them all a very happy time on leave, short though it is. I know they will honour the battalion and the brigade in France, and I hope they may all come through the whole war safely.” He has also asked me to pass this amongst you.’ So saying, he handed this second paper to Scholes, who looked at it with a face like yesterday. ‘Captain Quinn will be here to address you himself in the morning,’ Oamer continued. Then he looked at his watch: ‘We turn in at ten o’clock, gentlemen.’
Silence in the room as each man figured his own picture of life at the front. Presently, the second paper came my way. It was a list, badly typed, giving further instances of North Eastern railway-men serving with other battalions who’d shown valour in the field. One of them, a fellow called Arnold Hogg, I knew. He was a clerk in the York goods station. He was serving with the West Riding Royal Field Artillery, and he’d been awarded the French Médaille Militaire. It didn’t say exactly what he’d done, but it must have been in aid of the French. At the presentation, a French Infantry Regiment had given him a guard of honour. I thought of Hogg: a big, round-faced bloke puffing and blowing as he rode his bike against the wind along Station Road. I could not imagine that guard of honour. Or at any rate, I could not imagine the blokes in it keeping a straight face.
I’d now had three pints and needed to drain off. I put on my cap, and opened the door of the Hope – with difficulty, for the wind was going all out to keep it shut. There was a great roaring that was either the sea or the wind, or both. The first lash of the rain nearly felled me and I was sodden by the time I reached the dark jakes. I knew there were candle stubs littered about in the place, but the flames had burnt out; the matches in my pocket were now useless, and there was no moon. The wind echoed strangely inside the brick cubicle, and made the sound of the flushing undetectable.
When I regained the Hope, a general chatter had started up again, and the twins were walking over to the hoops board. I watched them while drying at the stove. One of the pair – the brightest, Roy – made two chalk marks at the top of the little blackboard fixed alongside. These marks might have said ‘Roy’ and ‘Andy’, although not in a way generally recognisable. Roy took aim first. He threw three hoops. None landed on a hook, and after each one, Andy called out, ‘Missed, Roy-boy!’
Was this how the beer took the twins? (They’d put away as much as anyone save Dawson.) Or was it just their usual, wild way of going on? The queer thing was that they were both soon playing to a decent standard, and I recalled that they’d shown themselves decent marksmen at Alexandra Dock. (Well, it was known that platelayers, since they worked in the fields all day, spent half their time taking pot-shots at rabbits.)
Come nine-fifteen, Oamer was sitting on the edge of the stage with his pipe and a book, and Dawson, self-appointed custodian of the barrels, was filling glasses. The storm was blasting away outside. At the table, the topic of discussion was how the RE men would keep cases on the ships entering the Humber Estuary.
‘They send a man out, don’t they?’ said Scholes.
‘I wouldn’t fancy that job,’ I said, ‘going up to a dirty great German destroyer in a little rowing boat.’
‘But it might not be a German destroyer, remember,’ said Alfred Tinsley.
‘I suppose, if the blokes on the ship sink the bloke in the rowing boat, then that’s a bit of a giveaway.’
We’d both gone a bit daft with the beer.
‘Know nothing about signals, do you?’ said Oliver Butler. ‘They use a light. They ask for a password, just as we do here – only it’s done by flashes.’
At quarter to ten, every man was dead drunk, especially Dawson, and his face had that peeved look it had worn in the Bootham Hotel, but so far he had kept his behaviour in bounds. He was observing young Tinsley: ‘Thought you’d have turned in long since,’ he said. ‘Quite a stickler, ain’t you, son?’
‘Mmm … not quite the right word,’ said Oamer, who had rejoined the table, and it might be that Dawson gave this remark the go-by (for it was certainly meant in a spirit of amiability), or it might be that he gave a rather narrow look to our over-educated Corporal. At this point, Oliver Butler stood, and fixed his cap on. He looked about the room, and picked up one of the newspapers. He was off to the jakes.
In drink, Tinsley had become even more of a railway nut, and he now started in about how, when he graduated to driving, he’d oil round his engines not only at the start of a run, but at all principal stations on the run. After a few minutes of this, Dawson, who’d made two visits to the beer barrel since Tinsley had started on his speech, looked over and said, ‘Stow it, kid,’ and I thought: right, he’s turned.
I said, ‘Lay off him, won’t you?’
Dawson, who was walking over to the beer barrels yet again, turned and said, ‘Watch it, copper. I’ll stop the bloody clock on you.’
The room fell quiet at that, and there came only the sound of the storm. Scholes was eyeing me, looking apprehensive. I saw that Oliver Butler had returned, and that he was soaking wet but grinning by the door as he looked back and forth between Dawson and me. Dawson necked another pint rapidly as Oamer called, ‘That’s enough, Dawson. Time for some shut-eye.’
Dawson turned a questioning scowl on Oamer.
‘Bed,’ said Oamer.
‘Bide,’ said Dawson, shooting Oamer’s favourite word back at him.
I said, ‘Turn in, Dawson,’ and it was a deliberate provocation, since I had no authority to order him anywhere.
‘I don’t see your fucking stripe,’ he said.
Well, we were right back in the Bootham Hotel, with Oamer in place of the Chief. The difference was that the Chief could lay out any man. I walked towards Dawson; he walked towards me. I heard the ocean creaking, the wind ramming the walls, the strange whirlings of hot air within the stove. Part of me thought: I’ll be in France within the week. I had my passage booked. Giant fucking Saxons will be waiting to put my lights out. For a certainty, one of them’s going to succeed – and the condemned man doesn’t have to take lip from anyone. As we closed, Dawson said, ‘Here comes the constabulary,’ and he was holding his pint glass in such a way that I couldn’t tell whether he meant to drink from it or crown me with it. I ducked back; he ducked back; I came forward again with fists
raised; Dawson came forwards likewise, but then he ducked back again for no good reason, slipped and cracked his head on one of the barrels.
‘You’ll pay for that, copper,’ he said, and I was caught between laughing and looking out for a bit of assistance, because Dawson had smashed his glass in the fall, and he was coming at me with the jagged edge of it.
‘You should never drink,’ I said.
‘It’s the likes of you that drive me to it, copper,’ said Dawson.
I looked down at my hands, and spat on them as we closed again. I didn’t know why, but I’d seen the Chief do it. I put my fists forward, and the broken glass, which Dawson happened to be swinging at that moment whisked against the edge of my right hand. There was a line of blood over the two outermost knuckles. Dawson had seen it; he looked … I would say surprised. I don’t believe any other man in the hall had noticed the blood, but a moment later it was just … people in motion, the room turning round, boots trampling on the broken glass, the roaring of the storm all around. I couldn’t get a belt in at Dawson, and he couldn’t get one in at me. The two of us were muffled by others … and it was Oliver Butler who was between us: Oliver Butler and Oamer, and I believed that even young Tinsley was involved. But it was Butler who’d come in first, and kept Dawson from me.
Dawson sat down on the edge of the stage, dazed, shaking his head. Oamer walked over to him, and a deal was struck between them. Dawson would have one more pint then go off. Meantime, Oliver Butler walked (dead straight, for he could hold his beer) over to his brothers, who were wrestling near the stove – which seemed to have been brought on by the sight of the other scrap. Butler said, ‘Time for the boys to turn in now,’ and a deal was struck there, too:
‘One more go on t’ ’oops, Ol,’ said Andy, or Roy. (They called their brother ‘Ol’, his full name being too much of a mouthful in their rapid patter.)
The two hurried back to the board, and played again in the way they’d started out the last time. Andy pitched his three hoops as Roy yelled, ‘Missed, Andy-lad … Missed Andy-lad … Missed Andy-lad,’ then Roy started his turn. When the first hoop missed, and Andy shouted, ‘Missed, Roy-boy!’ Oamer held up his hands:
‘We’ll take the rest as read, I think.’
They paid him no mind, and completed the ritual. Oliver then asked them, ‘Do the boys need to pay a visit?’
The pair clapped their caps on their heads, then one of them turned and opened the door. When they saw the storm, they both said ‘Oh mother!’ before dashing out into it with great enthusiasm. A few minutes later, they came back laughing (and sodden), and trooped off to the back rooms, with Oliver Butler following.
‘Rum,’ observed Oamer, who was standing near the stove, pipe in hand, and I wondered what it would take to stir him up. Nothing had done so far.
At quarter after ten, he and I put out the lamps, all except one, and when Oamer went off to his kip, I settled down by this remaining light with the Yorkshire Post, since I was too squiffed for The Count of Monte Cristo, which I had in fact yet to start reading.
But I couldn’t concentrate, so I examined my cut knuckle. The cut would be practically gone by morning. My mind was full of thoughts of France. I stood up, rounded up the stray glasses and put them near the barrels on the stage. The stove was still burning, and the door was open. I closed it, in case sparks might blow out. Oamer had left the message from Captain Quinn about our posting, and the list of valorous railway-men folded together on the table top, and I didn’t touch those. I then made for the warren of rooms at the rear. The men slept on their groundsheets with greatcoats over, and folded tunics for pillows. I searched out an unoccupied room with a lit candle in my hand. All the doors were ajar, or not there at all, and it was like a little exhibition of sleeping men. Young Tinsley and Dawson were both well away in the first two booths, while Scholes slept with a sort of smile on his face – music running through his head, perhaps, and not thoughts of France. I’d not seen him smile since the day of his enlistment. One thing Oamer and Butler had in common: their quarters were neat, and they both kept hair brushes by their pillows. The next room was empty, and that was because the twins had shared, and they both occupied the next one along. They lay down next to each other, but were not asleep. They had not made pillows of their tunics, and their discarded uniforms lay in a trail between the door and where they lay. There was a candle stub between them, and as I looked in (neither saw me, I was certain of it), one of the pair blew it out.
‘I see it’s gone dark in here,’ said the other.
‘You can’t see in the dark,’ said the first, and that set them both spluttering with laughter.
My own room smelt of distemper; it held three pasteboard boxes full of old screws. It had a little window, too. I looked through it, and the storm was still there.
I was woken by the sound of a motor; I stood and walked over to the window. There was a guilty look about the weather, as though it was aware of having overdone it the night before. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the tangled wrecks of half a dozen ships on the sand, but there was only the gentlest breeze, a milkiness to the waters, and a War Department van pulling to a halt. It was the breakfast bloke from the farm. I was bursting for a piss, but otherwise feeling not too bad, considering. I pulled on my boots and walked out, past the gallery of sleepers. All the blokes seemed arranged as when I’d turned in, down to the trail of clothes leading between the door of the twins’ room and the twins themselves.
The bloke had the back of his van open and the hot boxes were stacked in there.
‘Want a hand bringing it in?’ I said.
‘Aye,’ he said, in a thoughtful sort of way.
‘Hold on, I’ll just go to the jakes.’
Three minutes later we set about it.
‘How’s Cobble Farm?’ I enquired, as we loaded the stuff onto the trestle table.
‘Well, it’s covered in shit,’ he said. ‘Otherwise I like it.’
Two empty beer glasses stood on the table. I thought I’d cleared the lot away the night before – I was certain I had done. Also, I had left the two papers – Quinn’s message and the list of valorous railwaymen – together, but they were now separate on the table top.
‘Bit blowy last night, eh?’ the bloke was saying.
The stove door was open as well, yet I’d closed it the night before. It was all ashes in there – all except a scrap of paper at the front. I fished it out. There were printed words on it: ‘London, E.C.’, then, underneath, ‘Telephone – 2087 HOLBORN’. The address was familiar, somehow. I looked up at the stage. All the kit bags and rifles were there as before.
‘Oh,’ the food bloke was saying, ‘question from the sentry blokes up top: did the kid get here all right?’
‘What kid?’
‘Kid on a bike.’
‘William Harvey? He’s at the farm.’
‘No, pal. I was at the farm, and I had the barn to myself.’
‘He was meant to go there.’
‘Well he thought different. He came by the sentry post here last night, or this morning anyhow – half past midnight sort of time. Said he was under orders to rejoin his unit after completing a special duty. He was on a push bike. Hold on … Did he not pitch up?’
The blokes were filtering in from the back rooms, putting on their tunics: Oamer, Scholes and Oliver Butler. A little while later came the twins and Alfred Tinsley, all fixing their caps on their heads. Roy Butler had a fag on the go. ‘Anyone seen Young William?’ I called out, and we went through it all again. He wasn’t supposed to be here. When Dawson appeared, he admitted to feeling ‘pretty cheap’; otherwise he was amiability himself. Had he seen William?
‘No, mate, I’ve been asleep.’
Half an hour later, breakfast had been eaten at the trestle table, but Oamer did not feel able to light his pipe. By all accounts, nobody had seen the boy, or heard any disturbance in the night. All the blokes looked grave, except the twins, who were out of hand as usua
l, occasionally laughing. Quinn then appeared, together with his opposite number, Leo Tate. As they entered, Quinn was saying to Tate, ‘And this morning not a cloud in the sky! Couldn’t be more splendid!’
But the moment he saw us, he was in fits, and he told Oamer to fall us in. Quinn held a cap in his hand. It bore the badge of our battalion, and the man who’d lost it would find himself on a charge. Quinn had discovered the cap near the sea wall, or, as he put it, ‘Captain Tate’s revetment’. It was one of the small-sized ones, and it was a disgrace that no name was written inside it, but this was not such a disgrace really: every man was supposed to have written his name on the band of the cap, but the ink would be repeatedly wiped off by sweat. Quinn surveyed us. Every man present undoubtedly had a cap on his head. Quinn enquired, ‘Corporal Prendergast, where’s Private Harvey?’
So Quinn, too, had expected the lad to be with us.
‘If I might have a word with you about that, sir,’ said Oamer.
We were put at ease, and I heard snatches of the conflab. Oamer explained that the boy had come past the sentries in the small hours.
‘Well yes, I know that,’ said Quinn. ‘The sentries told us all about it when Captain Tate, myself and the other officers came back from the village. He’d gone through a little while before.’
I thought: they must have been going some at Kilnsea, to be returning at that hour.
‘He was under a misapprehension as to his orders, sir,’ said Oamer.
‘So it appeared to me,’ said Quinn, ‘so it appeared to me. But he’s not here now, you say? How is that possible? Once on Spurn, he can’t have left it. I mean, the only way off is via the sentries … except by boat, of course.’
He eyed Oamer sadly for a while, before saying, ‘I think we’d better have a scout about.’
As Oamer was giving orders for the search, I saw Quinn looking down at the cap in his hand. He looked up and said to me – since my eyes just happened to meet his at that moment – ‘You know, there’s blood on the inside of this cap.’ I thought of the bit of Latin on the cap badge. Oamer had translated it for me: ‘Whither the fates call.’
The Somme Stations Page 8