The Power of the Dead

by Henry Williamson

  “I’m afraid I may have to see someone about a proposed broadcast,” he said to Bill Kidd as they approached the Rising Sun. “I do hope you will have some good sport during the week-end.”

  “Leave it to me, old boy. Wherever there’s fish, I’ll get them.”

  The landlord seemed to have been fixed in the same place ever since Plugge had last seen him.

  “We are Mr. Maddison’s guests,” explained Plugge. “What will you drink, landlord? And you, Bill?”

  When the glasses were empty, Mrs. Tinker took Bill Kidd to see his room. As soon as they had gone upstairs Plugge said, “Do you know if there are any local trains to Salisbury tonight?” He had remembered a Coal Hole acquaintance who had asked him to try to get him a job at Savoy Hill, and given him his card. Plugge carried a variety of such cards in his note-case.

  There was a train leaving the station in twenty minutes. Asking the landlord to make his apologies to Major Kidd, Plugge picked up his attaché case, and left.

  “Gone, has he?” said Bill Kidd, returning to the bar. “Still, at Eton he was a dry bob, so what can you expect? Have you seen my Mad Son lately? He’s got some of the best fish in the county and never goes near the water.”

  “Your mad son, did you say?” enquired Mr. Tinker, looking subdued.

  “That’s right. We often talk about you as ‘Bosun’. We served in the same regiment. Phillip did well, then goes and blots his copy-book after the peace. Think he’ll make a go at farming? What are you having, ‘Bosun’?”

  “Thank you, sir, I’ll take a drop of rum in me beer.”

  “There you go drinkin’ again, you old toad, you!” cried Mrs. Tinker, appearing from behind a frowsy curtain. “Booze, booze, booze, that’s all you do!”

  “Now now, naughty naughty,” said Bill Kidd. “Let there be peace between ’ee, midears.”

  *

  Sitting in Phillip’s study, Felicity was taking shorthand notes from dictation. It was difficult to keep calm: she kept telling herself that it was Phillip Maddison beside whom she was sitting, his soft voice sometimes hesitating, the mouth so gentle; the eyes, so deeply blue, sometimes giving her a sudden, half-timid, half-merry glance.

  When she was left alone at his desk with the typewriter, she had to control the trembling of her hands with their bitten nails. Had he noticed them? She must stop biting them from that moment. She was beginning to sweat under the arms. If only she dare ask if she might have a cold bath, and then, as though accidentally, drop her blouse into the water. She typed on, after breathing deeply to feel calm again. She must be efficient in every way: she felt that her future—a new future at last—depended on how the work was done.

  *

  Felicity Ancroft barely remembered her father. He had left home when she was three years of age; later, her mother had told her that he had been killed in the war. As a fact Mr. Ancroft was still alive, with a family of natural children. His legal wife, on religious grounds, had refused to divorce him. Mrs. Ancroft herself had an admirer, but retaining her principles, had not accepted his advances lest, she used to say, ‘the bright candle flame become smoky’. This admirer, ‘Fitz’, had diverted his attentions to the daughter, whom he had seduced at the age of fourteen, during one of the mother’s absences from home. At the time Felicity had seen nothing wrong in this; to her mind ‘Fitz’, who from an early age had dandled her on his lap, was like ‘Daddy Longlegs’ in the play. The situation had remained during the past four years; but now the young girl’s illusion, or fantasy of love, was transferred to Phillip.

  *

  Felicity had been typing for an hour when Lucy appeared at the open door.

  “Can you spare a moment to say goodnight to Billy and Peter? They’ve had their baths, and are ready for bed.”

  The children came into the room. She knelt on the carpet, and kissed each boy in turn on the top of the head.

  “Are you staying in our house?” asked Billy.

  “Only for a little while longer, Billy. Then I must go back to Shakesbury.”

  Lucy said, “Oh, but won’t you stay to supper? Phillip is expecting you.”

  “Oh thank you, Mrs. Maddison.”

  “Have you everything you want?”

  “Oh yes, thank you!” She had to control her voice. “I wonder if I might have a bath when I’ve done my letters?”

  “Yes, do. Let me know if I can lend you anything.”

  Felicity’s face shone as she helped Lucy with the supper.

  *

  Phillip was sitting beside the wooden slip half-way along the southern shore of the Longpond, watching fish. A heron was watching him in a willow half way to the spring-head. The bird was well out of gunshot. Its thoughts were on the strings of eggs forming within the lower ribs of fish. It was an old bird, and knew when the eggs would be ripe; it had taken many a slender henfish trying to get up the side of the spillway of the weir in early autumn. Its main enemy was man, particularly the keeper with a gun; its lesser enemies, just before the spawning season, were carrion crows. They, too, liked the egg-strings of hen fish, and the milt sacs of cock fish.

  Phillip imagined himself dictating the first draft of the trout book to Felicity; the image in his mind was the outline of breasts under her white silk blouse, the long neck, and fair hair growing, like Barley’s, in two waves up from the straight forehead.

  His mind wandered, with a sense of irritation, to Plugge and Kidd. How were they getting on at the Rising Sun? He regretted that he had got rid of them rather abruptly; he ought to go over and pay them a visit. He would go there after taking Felicity to her hotel, and returning by way of Colham, buy a bottle of malt whisky. He must get a motorcar, too. Perhaps he could drive the combination to London and sell it there in part exchange.

  After supper he drove her to Shakesbury, and having refused the offer of a drink, said good-night after telling her that she was welcome to come over the next day if she cared to.

  “I enjoy being with your family tremendously. It’s such fun with the children.”

  “Shall I fetch you?”

  “Please don’t put yourself out for me. I love walking; and there’s always the ’bus.”

  “As you wish,” he said quietly, before driving home to the farm, wondering whether the slightly heavy feeling was—no, no, he must never fall in love again. Lucy was sitting on the sofa. He sat in the armchair, but could not rest. After awhile he got up, and telling her that he would walk over the downs to Colham, set out with dog and stick, to tire himself out.

  *

  In the bar of the Rising Sun the locals were enjoying themselves. The stranger was, like many another on holiday from London, ‘holding the cockpit’, with free drinks all round. He waggled his finger at ‘Bosun’ Tinker leaning on the bar, where his elbows had made two shiny patches. “You’re a friend of the dry-fly purist, ‘Bosun’, you old poacher, you get rid of the cannibals that won’t rise to a fly with your night-lines.”

  “Whippin’ water,” ejaculated the landlord, belching loudly. “I’ve no time for they as whips water.” He ejaculated skilfully into the spittoon on the lime-ash floor.

  “Don’t listen to ‘Bosun’”, warned the voice of Mrs. Tinker from the kitchen. “He’s been at his capers all day long. Drink, drink, drink, ’tes all he’m fit for.”

  “Quite right, midear!” Bill Kidd called out. Then to the landlord, “My Uncle, ‘Tiny Tinribs’, has the best beat on the Stour. I’ve told him that if he had any sense he’d have all fish over five pounds out of the water. Still got your night-lines, ‘Bosun’?”

  “Your uncle?”

  “That’s right. General Ironside, usually known as ‘Tiny Tinribs’.”

  This produced another cackle of laughter among the beer drinkers.

  “Fact, ‘Bosun’.”

  “Whippin’ water,” remarked the landlord, taking a pull at his beer and rum.

  “Don’t take any notice of ‘Bosun’,” repeated Mrs. Tinker. “Would a fry do for your supp
er, sir? Mr. Phillip and Mr. Piers usually likes a fry when they comes yurr. I’ve got some green bacon, and a bit of pig’s liver, and eggs.”

  “Splendid, midear. My favourite shackles. You an old soldier, Tinker?”

  “’Im?” jeered Mrs. Tinker. “The nearest ’e got to the Army was sellin’ fish to the sergeants’ cook-’ouse when the Australians was yurr in the war. Yes, you, you old toad!” raising her arm for an imaginary back-hander at her husband continuing to grin good-humouredly at her.

  “I be a Navy man, I knows nothin’ about the Army.”

  “You know it be true! You took one of me best stackings for to put in that slaked lime you stole from they builders, and poisoned all they fish in the Longpond!”

  Mr. Tinker’s reply was to turn round, reach for the rum bottle, and pour another half-quartern into his beer. After taking a swig he said in a voice so low that it appeared as a plaintive murmur, “I’ll tell ’ee what, midear, you be like this yurr noo factory cider, all gas.”

  “Now, now, ‘Bosun’,” said Bill Kidd in a warning voice. “Naughty—naughty. Honneur aux dames, shipshape and Navy fashion. I’ll have another whisky, make it a half quartern. I never drink ‘drops’, which should be called ‘drips’. And fill up all glasses.”

  The face of Mrs. Tinker reappeared beside the curtain. “‘Bosun’ did use poison, you know, major.”

  Mr. Tinker roared, “I nivver used poison, I tell ’ee! ’Twas burnt lime, and that be chalk, ban’t it? And ban’t the river full of chalk a’ready? So what’s the difference?”

  “’Twas chloride, you know it was. You stole it from the camp, you told me you did. You spoiled one of me best stackings, you did. And you knew very well that in the war none was to be bought into market.” The face gave way to the noise of frying.

  “You can forget your lime, your stew-fed rainbows, your pitchforks, gaffs, and carving knives,” said Bill Kidd, waggling a finger at Mr. Tinker. “Leaning over the old bank and then saying you were tickling trout—yes, with a kitchen fork tied to a lump of wood! You can’t tell Bill Kidd anything about poaching. Nor about dry-fly fishin’.”

  Holding up his wrist Bill Kidd made as if to throw a fly, crouching with elongated head sunk between shoulders, his dark eyes moving rapidly in the sallow face as he worked an imaginary split-cane rod.

  “Watch this, midear! See that rise over there? He’s sucking in olive duns just below the alder branch. I’ll put a curl in the end of the cast. Don’t move!” He leaned forward tensely. “Watch the fly riding down.” He made a sucking noise with his lips. “He’s taken it.” With a jerk of the wrist Bill Kidd drove the barb into one bony corner of the trout’s jaws. “Number fourteen hook, sneck-bend, in the yellow bone of the corner of the jaw, penetrating one-sixteenth of an inch. It’s enough to hold him. Gently does it. Let him tire himself out, but ’ware that weed-bed below. Keep his head upstream—after a couple of minutes he’s ours—now watch this, ‘Bosun’—don’t lift your rod point too far—gently, gently, does it. Now slip the old net forward from under the tail and lift him out.”

  “Whippin’ water, that’s all it be, whippin’ water! Kids with bent pins an’ worms do just as well.”

  Having swallowed his whisky, Bill Kidd said, “See this moustache? Shall I tell ’ee for why I wear’n like this, ‘Bosun’? I’m by way of being a pal of the Kaiser, now in Holland chopping logs for his hearth. I was taken prisoner on April the thirteenth, nineteen eighteen. For an entire day our Division had held up the German advance across the old Somme battlefield. As far as I was concerned the Kaiser was still a Field-marshal in the British Army, and when he came specially to see my lads at Kortrai—that was after we’d been pinched through that yellow-bellied order to retire—never mind where it came from—as I was telling you, I was presented to the Kaiser, who shook hands with me, and congratulated us on our stand at Combles, three weeks before. Without a word of a lie, ‘Bosun’, he as good as said they’d lost the war then. Fact, my lad! So don’t let anyone get away with any adverse remarks about Kaiser Bill.”

  “Square ’ead,” replied Mr. Tinker, taking a draught of his special mixture. He added, as his nose emerged from the pewter pot, “I don’t give a flip for no Kayser, see?”

  *

  The sward of the downs rising before Phillip was faintly purple with the setting sun. Out of breath after hastening to the summit, he sat down to rest; but, disturbed by his thoughts, soon got up to hurry onwards. Above the last red waves of sunset hung the evening star, a pearl left by the ebb of day. He must think only of his work.

  Now for a plan. The first book of the trilogy must retain the original title of Soot, or, The Irritable Man. It must, as first conceived in 1919, be unflinchingly realistic. Never mind what the family would think, each one cowering within its little ego of fear. Once completed, the trilogy could be set aside for publication after his death.

  First write the trilogy; then see. It must be entirely free of romantic fancies, or self-denying gentility. He would start after Nuncle’s visit. Perhaps Nuncle would sell the estate to the War Department. Then he would be free. They would move nearer the sea and the Yacht Club. As he walked on, he saw himself lying on the banks of a trout stream, peering and watching; writing only in the mornings; enjoying the blue water of the harbour with Piers who had promised to put him up for the Yacht club.

  *

  The spaniel, who had not had a proper walk for a long time, was racing after a jack hare. It crossed the scent of another, and raced after it, giving tongue. His master stood still, listening. In the light of the moon half risen over the rim of the downs he saw the two hares moving in opposite directions. That had been like his life so far: the hares were two ideas and he was like Rusty, who after panting up to him turned away to hunt the scent of one hare backwards, hunting heel as the term was. In a way he himself was always hunting heel.

  Other star-points were now visible in the deepening pallor of the sky. He was relieved to come to the cattle-track leading down to Colham. This walk was, he reflected, almost the only one he knew, and it was his third year in the district. He had walked round the estate only once. Shades of the old days of walking at least a dozen miles every day. Ah, Malandine, when the world was young. He was now old: by next April he would be thirty-four.

  Descending to the northern outskirts of the town, he came to the Rising Sun just as eleven o’clock was striking from some clock in the neighbourhood. Bill Kidd’s car was standing in the stable yard, near a lighted side-window. Figures were visible behind the lace curtain. Voices. The same old cross-talk.

  “Where’s the skill in blowing the pools in the Stour with acetylene and water inside screw-top cider bottles?”

  “Whippin’ water, I tell ’ee, that’s all it be.”

  “Look here, ‘Bosun’, I’ll bet you five pounds to a bottle of whisky there isn’t a trout in any chalk stream anywhere that I can’t take out with a dry-fly, and damn all your night-lines, stockings of lime, and other novelties! One day I’ll take you on my uncle’s water——”

  “You mean Sir ’Ilary?”

  “I meant ‘Tiny Tinribs’, General Ironside to you.”

  Craftily the publican said, “Thought you said you was a baronet’s son? I knows of only one wan round yurr, and that’s Tofield, and you ban’t no relation, else us’d’v heard of it.”

  Phillip moved away from the window. What he had heard settled every doubt concerning Bill Kidd. He lived his fantasies instead of putting them on paper. What was the difference, fundamentally? None. He turned for home, feeling depressed.

  The moon was up, he lingered with the voices of corncrakes, and a solitary quail, coming through the milky light over the fields of grass and corn. Lucy showed no surprise when he arrived home about two o’clock. She was still up, sewing on the sofa drawn up to the dying fire.

  “Had a nice walk, Pip?”

  She lay on her side to ease the weight of a kicking embryo. “I could just make out the chalk quarry on White
sheet Hill, from the downs,” he said, sitting on the end of the sofa. “I wonder if there were ever any Saxons in Flanders. The troops always pronounced ‘Wytschaete’ as ‘Whitesheet’. And this was a Saxon stronghold, wasn’t it?”

  “Uncle John will be sure to know.”

  “I must go and see him in the morning. How is he?”

  “He looks rather thin, poor dear. Before I forget, I’ve left you some cold bacon sandwiches on the kitchen table.”

  He returned with the sandwiches, and said, “What do you think of Felicity?”

  “Oh, I like her. So do the little boys.”

  *

  Soon after dawn a vehicle got up to look like a motorised farm van with a bundle of hazel spars tied to its bonnet strap and a wad of thatching reed beside the driver and two other wads covering the rear seats moved slowly and almost silently—the cut-out being closed—up the bramble-grown track to the Longpond. Near the spring-head it crossed over the small bridge which carried the original drive to the derelict house.

  Within the hollow of the walls the driver parked his vehicle, and with a pair of field-glasses returned on foot to the bridge where, kneeling down, he leant his elbows on the parapet and examined the landscape.

  The glasses were by Zeiss of Jena. These, with other souvenirs, had been looted from the Kommandant’s office immediately British troops following the Armistice had arrived at the guard house of the Kriegsgefangenenlager where he and others had been imprisoned during the last six months of the war.

  Satisfied that the valley was empty of human figures, Bill Kidd walked back to fit together the joints of an 11-foot split-cane trout rod, after which he threaded a fine plaited silk line through the snake-rings and attached to the end a tapered gut cast to which was tied a single sneck-bend No.10 hook.

  Hundreds, thousands of mayflies were hanging upside down on branch and twig of the overgrown willows. He impaled one near the tail whisks so that it remained alive and fluttering upon the hook. Then pulling loops of the extremely thin magpie silk line, he let the gentle airs of sunrise float the lure over the water.