A Test to Destruction

by Henry Williamson

  From another bolt were shaken waves which settled soft as sand minutely ribbed aslant the electric light, which cast shadows almost imperceptible between the twills. Then the bolt was turned round, so that the light relieved the shadows, causing Mr. Kerr to exclaim: “A beautiful cloth, sir, don’t you think? Like a field of loam, ploughed north and south, with the midday sun behind one. Do you know a well-ploughed loam, sir? It crumbles in the hand.”

  “I’ll have this cloth, Mr. Kerr.”

  “I knew as soon as I saw you, sir, that it would be your choice. Infinitely superior to a more commonplace cord, which is suitable enough for the administrative services, no doubt, but Bedford cord lacks dash, sir.”

  “I know what you mean. I think I’d like to farm after the war.”

  “A number of officers now serving feel that way, sir. Now I’ll take your measurements, if you’ll undo the two lower buttons of your tunic.”

  Afterwards he invited Phillip into his office, a glass box among bolts of cloth and brown paper patterns hanging on the wall with partly hand-stitched tunics; and opening a large leather cigar case, offered a Corona. Phillip selected one. Mr. Kerr offered to cut and pierce one end, and when Phillip put it in his mouth, struck a large match, holding it until the wax had burned away before offering the flame.

  “I have some rather special old whiskey, thirty years matured in the wood, and soft as milk. ‘Dew of Benevenagh’, sir. May I pour you a peg? Perhaps you will add your own soda. That glass is a real tumbler, by the way, you will notice that the base is oval.”

  Phillip began to enjoy his first visit to a gentleman’s tailor. The whiskey was as soft as milk, with the power of the sun in it. The cigar, too, was gentle, burning evenly and leaving straight ash. The bluish smoke coming away in skeins that were pleasant to watch.

  “The secret is in the storage in cedar wood cabinets at the correct temperature. Odd, isn’t it, that only the soil and climate of Havana can produce the perfect leaf. So you lost all your kit in the March affair, and again in the Flanders push? My word, you’ve seen some sights, I’ll be bound. London was greatly shaken, you know. You read about the Maurice debate, no doubt? If it had gone against him, Lloyd George would have had to resign, no doubt about that. He turned the tables on his critics very cunningly, I thought.”

  “I haven’t seen any newspaper since I came back. In fact, I thought I was going to lose my sight!” laughed Phillip, accepting his second tumbler of ‘Dew of Benevenagh’ and soda-water.

  “Mustard gas can be pretty horrible, I understand. You are fortunate, sir.”

  “Well, here’s to your health, Mr. Kerr!”

  “And to yours, sir!”

  “You were saying something about Lloyd George nearly having to resign, Mr. Kerr?”

  “Oh yes, the Maurice debate. General Maurice is, or was, head of the War Office, as you know. He wrote a letter to The Times, saying in effect that Haig had been starved of reinforcements, although the Cabinet had received ample warning that the German attack was coming; and yet Lloyd George had persisted in retaining a million and a half troops here in England. There’s been a lot of talk about that letter, in fact, it’s not too much to say that it shook the country. The Asquith Liberals, led by Asquith himself, put down a motion of no confidence, based on General Maurice’s letter.”

  “You know, Mr. Kerr, I heard about this from my Colonel, Lord Satchville, when I was adjutant in the reserve battalion, last February. And it was Mr. George, damn him, who broke Hubert Gough, when we in the Fifth Army had held the Germans from breaking through! It wasn’t Haig, you know, who sacked Gough.”

  “So I understand, sir. Well, as I was saying, the Maurice debate, as the papers called it, was expected to provide some fireworks, and it did, but in the other direction. Lloyd George sent his critics spinning by reading from the document which had come from General Maurice himself, giving him the comparable figures for our troops with the B.E.F. in January 1917 and again in January 1918. There were more men in France at the later date, declared Lloyd George, and General Maurice’s own figures proved it. He waved the letter to a packed House. Someone went and told Maurice, who said that the figures were not those of the second amended list he had sent to the Prime Minister. Lloyd George replied, ‘I am quoting the General’s own figures! Here they are, signed by the General himself!’, as he waved the letter.”

  “And it was the first list of figures, and not the corrected one?”

  “I have heard that, sir.”

  “It must have been, for we had fewer men in the B.E.F. last January than we had a year before! It’s obvious, because all infantry brigades were broken down from four battalions to three, throughout the entire B.E.F.! Even then, most battalions were far under strength.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard the same thing from a number of officers. Lloyd George is a slippery customer. I did hear that when Asquith resigned, after Lloyd George had intrigued against him, all letters sent to 10 Downing Street to the Asquith family were marked ‘Gone Away’ in blue pencil, and returned through the Dead Letter Office of the G.P.O. Not quite the thing, was it?”

  Mr. Kerr looked at his watch. “If you’re not doing anything better, would you care to be my guest at lunch? I know a chop-house not far from here, where one can still get a chump chop and some excellent Stilton cheese——”

  *

  At the senior officers’ meeting, held in one of the many large rooms crammed with gilt furniture, and hung with pictures in gilt frames on walls lined with watered crimson silk, the Duke, in the uniform of a Colonel Commandant of the Depôt, took the chair. With his cousin Satchville on his right, his adjutant on his left, he spoke about the circumstances of General West’s death. There was, he read from a paper before him, a proposal to place a mural tablet in the Cathedral, by permission of the Dean and Chapter, in memory of their fallen comrade. A suitable place would be near the corner where the Regimental colours of past generations were reposited.

  Also, he continued, it had been suggested that a Fund be raised, to which all ranks could contribute, to provide for Harold West’s parents a sum to help them in their declining years. As they knew, Mr. West the father was an old member of the Regiment, having served in India, Burma, and China, among other stations, and all his three sons had given their lives in the service of their King and Country. In due course members of the Regimental Officers’ Association would be informed as to particulars.

  While he was reading, Phillip, with concealed impersonal glances, was trying to recognise who was present; he recalled some of the faces from the book of photographs in the ante-room at Landguard. There was Major-General Mowbray, grave and courteous in silence; Colonel Vallum, who had played rugger for England, and won the Victoria Cross at Neuve Chapelle; Lieutenant-Colonel K. T. F. S. (‘Knock Them For Six’) Percy, who having captained England at cricket had found immediate promotion in Kitchener’s Army—thereafter his senior rank prevented his being sent to the front, since he lacked experience of command in action; Lieut.-General the Earl of Tyrone, Colonel of the Regiment, a Guardsman commanding a corps in France; and dear old Moggers, in what looked like a home-made civvy suit, whose arrival on a diminutive Levis motorcycle, wearing a bright green velour hat too small for him, the brim turned down all round as in the pre-war fashion, had suggested to Phillip a bucolic Pan half disguised as a red toadstool springing up in the woods through the moss.

  He recognised about one fifth of the faces, the others were strangers, all wearing South African and 1914 ribands after their decorations.

  “It has been proposed that Harold West’s last act, inspired, like his behaviour in all circumstances, by the highest qualities of chivalry and selfless devotion to others, be brought to the notice of the appropriate authorities for His Majesty the King’s Commendation. Would anyone care to make any observation on this proposal, before I ask for a show of hands?”

  Phillip stared at the carpet. He tried to breathe deeply, for steadiness. Why had he been asked to at
tend: was he supposed to second the motion, if that was what it was. Why had he come, he had no proper place there, his acting rank ended when he was gassed. If only he could get away; he couldn’t breathe in that atmosphere. And the shameful sweating under his armpits had started. Why had he not put a handkerchief pad there, instead of lending his only clean one to Brill?

  His heart thudded in his ears as a voice said, “Has it been determined why O’Gorman was not wearing his cork belt when the mine struck the hospital ship?”

  The Duke turned to his adjutant, Major Mills, who said, “The matter was not raised at the Court of Inquiry, sir.” The roof of Phillip’s mouth dried, the sweat dripped fast. The Duke was saying, “It can be presumed that Private O’Gorman, in the arduous circumstances, found the somewhat bulky cork-belt in the way while helping to lift the stretcher down the sloping deck, which was then canting at about thirty degrees.”

  “Can you tell us, Maddison?” said Lord Satchville.

  He must say something. That he was in another part of the ship at the time, as he had prepared, should the dread question come. Now his mouth opened, but he could not speak.

  “I think it might be accepted,” went on the Duke, after an interval of silence, “that in consideration of all the circumstances, the matter be allowed to remain in abeyance. It was unfortunate that Private O’Gorman was without his life-jacket, but on the other hand, had he not, with commendable sense of duty, gone to the aid of Harold West, it is unlikely that he would have taken off his jacket. Perhaps the Colonel of the Regiment would give us guidance in this matter?”

  “I agree, Duke, with the line taken. What useful purpose would be served by an inquiry at this time? Maddison, I understand, was temporarily blinded by mustard gas. Nevertheless he sent his orderly to help Westy, as all of us who were privileged to know Harold West called him. A most commendable action, in my opinion, after the order of sauve qui peut.”

  “Hear hear!” They were praising him. He hid his face with his hand to conceal tears. Afterwards Lord Satchville came up and said, “I haven’t had an opportunity before to tell you, Maddison, of my personal satisfaction in how you have borne great responsibilities in the field, and to offer you my congratulations.”

  The luncheon extended the ordeal. He dreaded that the stain of sweat under his arm-pits would show through the tunic borrowed from Denis Sisley, and kept his arms almost rigid by his side. It was a simple luncheon: thick brown soup, the usual salty ‘boiled blood’, followed by slices from a haunch of venison, tasteless and pale-green in colour. He sat between Moggers and Vallum. Claret was served. The Duke, Phillip noticed, was not eating venison, but a grilled fish with pink flesh, obviously a trout, brought in by his special butler on a trolley and served to him by his valet, who also put a dish of spring onions before his master. The butler dropped a bit of ice in his wine: rather strange, he thought, since he had always heard that red wine should be drunk at room temperature. After the meat there was a hot caramel pudding, with chilled cream ladled over it from a large golden bowl, and a variety of stewed raspberries and strawberries in jelly, presumably preserves, also with unlimited cream. The Duke had no helping, but munched his spring onions.

  He felt more at home with his neighbour, Colonel Vallum, a massive man with a big head, strong jaw, and modest manner, when he told him, almost as a confidence, that his hobby was painting wild flowers, ‘when I can get the time’. Vallum went on to explain that he was a clerk, employed at the War House, ‘all paper’. He wore with the dark red V.C. riband, the D.S.O., 1914 Star, Legion d’Honneur, Croix de Guerre avec palme, the Montenegrin eagle, and Coronation Medal.

  “I was a schoolboy at King Edward’s coronation, and got it for shouting at him as he walked by underneath, on his way to be crowned. I had this in my pocket—it always brought me luck.” He put a small object on the table between them. “D’you know what that is?”

  “It looks like a piece of yellow phosphorus, but it couldn’t be that.”

  “It’s a piece of pancake I grabbed during the Greaze in School Yard.”

  “Oh, you were at Westminster, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “I went to school at Blackheath.”

  “Rugger?”

  “No, soccer.”

  “Before I got the shape of a rhinoceros I used to play in the Rectory field at Blackheath—you know it, of course.” He made crumbs with his bread. “You did well in France, Maddison. I was reading about you before I came down here.”

  Moggers winked at him. “I told yew yew’d do, Lampo, old son.”

  I didn’t—drip—I didn’t—drip—I didn’t—drip-drip-drip.

  “Gentlemen, let us rise and drink the health of His Majesty the King!”

  *

  One Monday morning he went up to London to see Georgiana Lady Dudley, who, bright and gay as when he had seen her last, marked him down for the next vacancy in a private convalescent home in the West Country.

  “So you are home again, Colonel Maddison! Let me see—last time it was?—of course, in the early summer of 1916! And how are you? Much better? I am so glad! Last time, let me see, you went to——? Of course, Lynmouth! Dear, dear Lynmouth! I remember how we set out one day to go there from Watermouth, with dear, dear Bobo Curzon, and the coach wheels skidded all the way down that awful hill! I do hope you will not find Falmouth too relaxing after Lynmouth, it’s much flatter, too! If you come across the Tregaskis at Carligan, do remember me to Zoe Tregaskis, won’t you? They have such lovely gardens. South Cornwall has almost the air of the Riviera, don’t you think? Oh yes—your address? Hus’b’n Abbey. And how is the Duchess? Tireless as ever, I expect, in her hospital? Goodbye, Colonel Maddison!”

  Had she really remembered him, or was she helping life along with grace and kindness? Both, probably: it was the only way to live. He wandered down to Piccadilly, a place entirely of memories: gone the uniforms of the Allies in those early days and nights, when he had been with Desmond and Gene. He felt himself to be almost a ghost. What to do? Go down to see Mother? By hurrying, he could catch the 12.30 from St. Pancras, and be in time for Lady Abeline’s picnic. That darling child Melissa, smiling blue-eyes and honey-coloured hair, Melissa the honey-bee, Melissa whose nurse insisted on her wearing white gloves in the park, Melissa—Lily and her dreaming, azure eyes.

  To be with the four-year-old child was happiness, sans memory, sans thought. To him came the old desire, no longer frantic but with acceptance that it would never be, to find rest in the tenderness of eyes, hair, warmth of arms, the near-delirious softness of dove-like breasts. He stood still, resisting, resisting the near-terror of loneliness in this city of many streets filled with wheels and faces pressing upon the eyes, and the laughter of passing strangers. He bought a paper to look for a theatre matinée, and was held by bold type on the front page: a new German attack on a wide front down by the Chemin des Dames at Rheims. The Wolff Wireless Bureau claimed a break-through, with thousands of prisoners, both French and British, and hundreds of guns. British divisions so far down the line? They must have been tired troops sent south to rest.

  There was no end to it, he thought, giving the paper back to the newsboy. For a moment he wondered if he should go to the War Office, and ask to be sent out immediately, saying that he was perfectly fit.

  The paper did not say who the British troops were, of course, although nowadays some regimental names were mentioned by war correspondents, usually long afterwards when prisoners had been taken. Anyway the Germans knew as much as the British High Command knew about the German dispositions. Should he go at once to the War Office, say he was perfectly fit, and ask to be sent out again, as a subaltern perhaps? Those 18-year-old boys … at least he would be able to help them in a small way. But they would not be able to do anything, he was officially still in hospital.

  He went to see Mr. Kerr in Cundit Street, and told him his news.

  “Falmouth, that’s a pleasant place. I suppose you’ll be wearing plain clothes most of t
he time? They do a lot of sailing down there. The oaks up the river Fal will be showing their best at this time of the year, too. How are you off for flannels, and a tweed jacket, sir? I mention it now, so that we can have all you require in the way of fittings at one time.”

  “Yes, I’ll want a tweed jacket, and some trousers—grey flannel, I think.”

  “I’ll show you some patterns.”

  They went to the back of the shop to the bolts, Phillip thinking that if they had been found in Wytschaete, they would have been soiled and lousy within twenty-four hours. He was rather amused by Mr. Kerr’s concern for their qualities, as though there wasn’t a war on; but another side of him took it all in. “We’ve been fortunate enough to get hold of some very decent Donegal tweeds, in spite of all the controls and shortages. I wonder what you will think of this peat and sedge mixture? It’s a summer weight, and will go well with any trousers.”

  “Yes, I’d like a jacket with patch pockets made of this, also two pairs of white bags. And while I’m about it, I think I’ll have another tunic, for the summer.”

  “I have a light-weight serge here, made from the wool combed from a pedigree flock of Border Cheviots. A very active little animal, the Border Cheviot, as resilient as the heather——”

  Phillip approved this cloth at once, and ordered a jacket with slacks to match. No cuff badges of rank: he’d probably come down to commanding a platoon, when he went back to France again, he told Mr. Kerr.

  “Yes, sir?” said Mr. Kerr, lightly. “Would you prefer cloth rank badges on the shoulder straps, or gilt and enamel? We’ve also got some in dull bronze? They’re in three sizes … here we are, sir.”

  The smallest were scarcely more than a quarter of an inch across. “I’ll have this size, Mr. Kerr.”

  “In gilt or bronze?”

  “Bronze.”

  “They’ll be hard to distinguish, sir. Perhaps you want that?”

  “I think I’ll have them medium size, in gilt.”

  “That would balance up the jacket, sir. Now the buttons. You’d prefer the usual gilt, or leather? I always think that the smaller round leather button looks well with a fine serge cloth, particularly for a mounted officer.”