The Power of the Dead

by Henry Williamson

  “Of course, darling.” Poor Billy, did he miss his real mother, without knowing it? She had heard that a breast-fed baby was usually more contented than one fed only on the bottle.

  And everywhere in these desolate places I see the faces and figures of enslaved men, the marching columns pearl-hued with chalky dust on the sweat of their heavy drab clothes; files of carrying parties laden and staggering in the flickering gunfire; the waves of assaulting troops lying silent and pale in the jumping-off trenches.

  Again I crouch with them while the steel glacier rushing by just overhead scrapes away every syllable, every fragment of a message bawled into my ear; while my mind begins to stare fixedly into the bitter dark of imminent death, and my limbs tremble and stiffen as in an icicle; while the sand-bag parapet above the rim of my helmet spurts and lashes with machine-gun bullets. The sky of that morning of July the First is an uncaring blue which cannot help us; I meet it the instant I climb up the trench ladder, to see in the flame and the rolling smoke men arising on both sides of me and I go forward with them, and the moment is prolonged as an ordinary moment held within a calm glassy delirium wherein some seem to pause and with slowly bowed heads sink carefully to their knees and roll slowly over and lie still all in one extended motion. Others fall with rifles flung forward, or stop abruptly, to hesitate before turning in a sort of spin before dropping down in a heap to lie still. Others roll and roll, and scream and grip my legs in uttermost fear, and I have to struggle to break away, while the dust and earth on my tunic changes from grey to red.

  And when I am hit and lying in a shell-hole others go on with aching feet, up and down across ground like a huge ruined honeycomb, and the wave melts away, and the second wave comes up and also melts away, and then the third wave merges into the ruins of the first and second, and after a while the fourth blunders into the remnants of the others, and they begin to run forward to catch up with the barrage, in bunches, anyhow, every bit of the months of drill and rehearsal forgotten, for who could have imagined that the Big Push was going to be this?

  They come to wire that is uncut, and beyond they see grey coal-scuttle helmets bobbing about, and the vapour of over-heated machine-guns wafting away in the fountainous black smoke of howitzer shells; and the loud cracking of machine-guns changes to a screeching as of steam blown off by a hundred engines; and soon no one is left standing.

  An hour later our guns are ‘back on the first objective’, and Kitchener’s ‘First Hundred Thousand’, with all their hopes and beliefs, have found their graves on those northern slopes of the Somme.

  Phillip went over the next morning to see how he could help the Boys in their troubles. He found them lounging in the office. One waste-paper basket, stuffed with catalogues, lay on its side on the floor, half its contents spilled.

  “I wonder if you will allow me to help you get all this in order.”

  The other basket contained envelopes and letters as though dropped into it without having been read.

  “I don’t care what you do,” replied Fiennes, who had heard Pa, on more than one occasion, say that Phillip ought to mind his own business, and not interfere with affairs that did not concern him.

  There was a mess of cigarette stubs trodden out on the new wooden floor; a scatter of paper files on the shelves. The till was open; dust on the typewriter. Several balls of white string lying about, with sheets of unused brown paper of the finest quality trodden and crumpled on the floor amidst the general disorder of the place. Ernest, the eldest, continued to touch a spider’s web in a corner of the window, gently twirling a piece of string between finger and thumb, while intently watching to see if the spider would dash out to seize it. It was an old web, littered with the shucks of bluebottles and the torn wings of moths.

  “The fact is, we have no more damned money,” said Fiennes.

  “And we don’t know how to tell the men,” said Tim, the youngest.

  Phillip pointed at a folded blue form lying on top of the waste-paper basket.

  “What’s that? The judgment summons?”

  “Oh no,” said Tim. “That’s a new one.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Rather, anything you like,” exclaimed Tim, moving forward to pick it up.

  “And there are more summonses in the basket?”

  “We didn’t know what to do about it, so there seemed no reason to keep them,” said Fiennes.

  “As a matter of fact, we’ve talked the matter over, and on going deeply into the matter, find we are in a bit of a mess,” said Tim.

  “I see.”

  “It’s extremely decent of you to come over,” Tim went on. “Lucy telephoned to say you were coming. Really, we don’t like bothering you with all this.”

  “Well, of course I’ll help you all I can, but it will mean drastic alterations, I’m afraid.”

  “We’re ready for anything, absolutely anything, but we don’t know what to do. Also, we don’t want Pa to be upset. It’s his seventy-fourth birthday soon.”

  “Can he do anything?”

  “I don’t think so.” Ernest spoke slowly and carefully. He had ceased to play with the bit of string. The spider was sulking down its tunnel.

  “Then what does anyone suggest?”

  “I don’t see that we can do a damn thing!” exclaimed Fiennes, lighting another cigarette. “As far as I’m concerned the sooner the beastly thing is over, the better. I’ll go back to sea again.”

  “But isn’t the shipping depression still bad? Can you get a job as wireless operator, do you think?”

  “I can work as a stoker. I don’t care a damn.”

  The telephone bell rang on the shelf behind him. He took off the receiver and slid it away. “No point in answering the damned thing.”

  “Well, you know, it may be from ‘Mister’,” said Tim.

  It was from ‘Mister’. His idea was that the Onion should be decarbonised. The engine had done twelve hundred miles, he said, and he fancied the portes wanted decoking, and the rings clearing. It hadn’t the compression it had had. When Ernest came over to dinner, would he bring the requisite tools?

  “Bother, I don’t want to go,” muttered Ernest.

  “Ernest is a bit busy,” explained Tim. He listened. “Well, we’re all a bit busy just at the moment, ‘Mister’. Yes, I’ll give him your message. Hold on a moment.”

  Phillip said, “Tell him that things here for a few days are going to be fairly busy. The Onion will keep, won’t it?” Tim repeated this, and put down the receiver.

  “Leave the damned thing off,” said Fiennes. “‘Mister’ and his Onion are bores.”

  “I think the first thing to do is to get out a column of what bills, including judgment summonses, are owing.”

  “A good idea,” breathed Tim. “We’ll try to get it done by tomorrow, Phil.” He avoided looking at Fiennes, who was in charge of the office.

  “Why not now?”

  “Well yes, I suppose it could be done now, since you come to mention it.”

  Fiennes made no move. At length Phillip said, with emphasised politeness, “Do you mind if we examine the office records in your waste-paper baskets, Fiennes?”

  “You can do what you like as far as I’m concerned,” replied Fiennes, getting up to leave. Soon afterwards Ernest, humming tunelessly, moved away to the open door.

  “We don’t need these entered into the books, Tim,” said Phillip, picking out apple cores and cigarette packets. “Got a pencil?”

  “Pencil? Pencil. Now where did I see a pencil? Ah, Pa borrowed it for his cross-word puzzle. I won’t be long.” Tim hurried away to do his bit to help his hero Phillip.

  The hero put the telephone receiver on the rest. Shortly after Tim returned the bell rang. The Clerk to the Magistrates’ Court inquired in the matter of the fee for stay-of-execution. He had rung up twice before, he said, but the line was engaged. He said the entry by the bailiffs could be delayed forty-eight hours by the promised payment of a fee of £2 which must be
paid by six o’clock. Phillip said he would go to his office at once.

  “By Jove, I forgot,” exclaimed Tim, seeing him off. “I told the bank I’d take a cheque in. It was for that beastly Dynawurker vacuum cleaner I sold Colonel De’Ath, but Mrs. De’Ath refused to take delivery of it, when I called this morning.”

  “Did you or didn’t you sell it?”

  “I thought we had.”

  “Who is we?”

  “A commercial traveller who called. He offered to take me in his car, to give a demonstration, and asked me if I had any friends who might be interested. So we went to the De’Ath’s. The traveller offered to leave it with them, saying there was absolutely no obligation to buy.”

  “And did you leave it?”

  “No, I was coming to that. Outside he said we’d really made a sale, and advised me to buy a machine from him at trade price, and have it sent direct to the De’Ath’s.”

  “So he really sold the thing to you?”

  Tim laughed dryly. “Well, now I come to think of it, I suppose he did, in a way.”

  “I’d better come and help you, I think, Tim.”

  “How frightfully decent of you, my dear Phil. We’ll do anything you say. It’s a simply terrific load off my mind.”

  “Will you ask Ernest and Fiennes if they agree? If so, I’ll want to know how much you owe; how much you are owed; what contracts you have in hand; how many workmen you employ.”

  “I can tell you the answer to the last query now, Phil. There’s the carpenter, the smith, his son the apprentice, and ourselves.”

  They returned to the office.

  “What are the wages? What do the men do?”

  “Very little nowadays, I’m afraid, there simply isn’t any work for them.”

  “No contracts?”

  “None.”

  “Then they must be given a week’s notice.”

  “I don’t see how we can do that,” objected Fiennes. “We can’t just turn them off like that.”

  “Then you’ll pay them out of your own pocket?”

  When there was no reply he said, “Do you or don’t you want me as your temporary honorary manager?”

  Fiennes shrugged his shoulders. Ernest seemed deep in thought. “We want you to be,” said Tim.

  “All right. Now I must return to my farm. I had a bit of a financial crisis, too, but it’s cleared up, thank God. I’ll settle the fee for the stay of execution. There must not be a knock-down sale of this machinery, which will happen if the bailiffs come in. I may be able to come over later on in the day. Au revoir, and don’t forget the figures, Tim. And telephone the bank when they open, find out the amount of the overdraft, and don’t issue any more cheques. Cheerho—see you soon!”

  On his way through Shakesbury he called at the Clerk’s office to pay a penalty of £2, learning with dismay that it would only cover that day. “There’s another matter just arisen, sir, a writ has been issued against the Copleston Brothers by Bristol Foundries, Ltd., for sixty pounds.”

  “May I use your telephone?”

  He got on to the Works. “I’ll be over in a couple of hours or so, Fiennes.”

  “Right. You might collect the papers at Roper’s bookshop, and enquire if the Encyclopædia Britannica has come.”

  “Who wants it, Fiennes? It’ll cost a bit, won’t it?”

  “I don’t know. Pa wants it.”

  “What about paying for it?”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter, it goes on the bill. Hold on. Tim wants a word with you.”

  “I’m most frightfully sorry, but Miss Calmady was asking about the groceries,” explained Tim diffidently. “She says they weren’t sent out, as usual, last Monday.”

  “Who is Miss Calmady?”

  “A new cook we have engaged. Just a moment, Fiennes has something to say.”

  Fiennes said, “While you’re about it, you might get another case of beer. And a bottle of sherry. Pa likes Australian sherry, ask for ‘Bushranger’ brand.”

  “I see.”

  “Also some cigarettes. Empire will do. Rhodesian. Here’s Tim back.”

  “I’ve an idea, Phil. You can’t possibly bring all those things on your Norton, so I’ll come in with the Trudge. Then I can find out if the transformer of the wireless set has come.”

  “Have you decided anything about giving the men notice?”

  “Well, we haven’t had time to consider the matter deeply, as a matter of fact. Hold on, Fiennes wants to say something.”

  “I’ll come with Tim,” said Fiennes. “I want to get my hair cut.”

  “Do you want any cash for it?”

  “No, I can get it out of the till. We’ll be with you inside half an hour.”

  Phillip telephoned Lucy. “Are the Iron Horses coming back, d’you know? Well, please telephone Johnson, and tell him the cheque is in the post. Try to get him to return his tackle this evening.”

  He waited in the town until the Trojan ground its way up the hill. Fiennes got out and went to the hairdresser’s.

  “Do you write down what you take privately from the till, Tim?”

  “Well, not altogether, Phil.”

  “Then how d’you know whether or not anyone takes money from it?”

  “Well, we don’t think anyone would—except ourselves, of course.”

  “Why isn’t there any record of money put in and taken out?”

  “We’re supposed to write it down, but Fiennes said the books got behind-hand, so there seemed no point in bothering about the till.”

  “Who signs cheques?”

  “Oh, any one of us.”

  “No weekly balance struck?”

  “The fact is, I attempted it, when Fiennes wouldn’t, but having to work all the time on the bench, I got behind with it. I have tried, I assure you, to keep things in order, but somehow they have got beyond me lately. I’ve got all the data you want, here in my bag—what we owe, and what is owing to us.”

  “Good. We must put the accounts in order together, Tim.”

  “You can absolutely count on me for anything whatsoever, Phil! By the way, the others categorically agree that you can be Managing Director.”

  “Here’s sixpence. Go into that coffee shop over there and balance up your accounts. You know, Creditor on one side, Debtor on the other.”

  “Who are we, in this context, Phil? Debtor or Creditor?”

  “It doesn’t matter. On one side add up a list of What we are owed, if anything, and in another column, What we owe. That means wages, bills, everything you have to pay out.”

  “Well, we can’t pay out anything at the moment, Phil, I’m afraid——”

  “Your debts, Tim,” said Phillip, tersely but quietly. “Your liabilities. Such as the writ on the way to you for that eight-cwt. cast-iron louvre for the Gasworks down there, that nobody wants. Sixty pounds, plus twenty pounds costs. Put eighty pounds in the column What we owe.”

  “Good lord, I’d forgotten that cursed louvre.”

  “Eighty pounds, What we owe. Now do this while I see the bank manager. Can you occupy yourself in the coffee house meanwhile? Wait a moment. Perhaps you’d better introduce me to the bank manager, and tell him that I now have the necessary authority. He’ll want it in writing, I expect.”

  The bank manager was a short man with a greying beard. He received them kindly in his office. Tim left after the introduction, when Phillip asked the manager to speak frankly. The manager said he was sorry for the brothers, but the position was that they were overdrawn in the neighbourhood of one hundred pounds, on no security. Their receipts did not balance their expenditure. It wasn’t his affair to offer advice without it being requested, Mr. Maddison would understand; but he must say that he was glad someone was taking the matter in hand. He suggested that no more cheques be signed, as they would, he regretted, have to be marked Estopped, Refer to Drawer.

  “They’ll bounce, in other words?”

  The bank manager went on to say that he would require the pa
rtners to sign a paper relegating their powers of signature to him, giving him power of attorney. The manager, after a moment’s reflection, then asked Phillip if it were his intention to assume personal financial responsibility?

  “Yes.”

  “You will, I am sure, forgive my asking, but are you prepared to lodge securities with us, should you intend to issue further cheques?”

  Phillip said he had no securities. The manager then suggested that a balance sheet be drawn up, to find out if the Firm was solvent. Phillip replied that this was being done; Mr. Timothy Copleston was working on them in the coffee shop.

  “Ah, reminiscent of the eighteenth-century merchant venturers,” smiled the manager, showing him out.

  He joined Tim at a scrubbed wooden table. Figures were pencilled all round the borders of a newspaper, most of them crossed out. Phillip took over and started again. The lists were short.

  “Is this all?”

  “So far as I can see, it is.”

  They returned together to the bank with the figures. The manager suggested that the phrase ‘Cannot pay’ be avoided.

  “If you say to a creditor, ‘I cannot pay,’ that constitutes an Act of Bankruptcy, which would further complicate what at present appears to be a not very involved situation.”

  “I take it that you won’t allow an overdraft?”

  “On these figures, I’m afraid not.”

  They thanked him and went out. While Tim went to the wine-merchant—he had removed the last coins from the till—Phillip called at the bookshop to ask about the Encyclopædia. He found Mr. Roper in a small office at the back of the shop. Phillip had had several talks there in the past, and been shown Mr. Roper’s collection of first editions.

  The bookseller was a man with a twin passion for music and literature. He did his best to recommend good books in a district which was largely composed of farmers, with a sprinkling of retired soldiers, sailors, Indian officials and their wives and daughters; and had long ago found out that the literary-minded among them were very few indeed.

  “I’ve called about the Encyclopædia for Mr. Copleston, Mr. Roper. Has it come?”

  To his surprise the other’s face hardened.

  “It’s a somewhat expensive item, I suppose you know, Mr. Maddison? We booksellers cannot afford to give long credit, and by long I mean anything up to three or four years.”