“I managed to get half a pound of Orange Pekoe, one of my little luxuries,” said Major Wetley. “I had a brother in the tea-trade before the war, in Mincing Lane, who always sent me a box for Christmas. Now I drink China’s best in his memory. Tell me, what do you make of Swayne?”
“I’ve met people like him before, who were not really sure of themselves, and so they take it out of others——”
“You’ve got it, Maddison! Swayne’s people keep a large jeweller’s shop in the county town, where my wife comes from, so I know all about him. The Swaynes fancy themselves, and tell people that they are county jewellers—you know, imitating the high-class county folk. Well-to-do shopkeepers are terrific snobs, you know. The Swaynes sent their son to Eton, and in my opinion, unless the world changes after the war, Swayne will find himself neither one thing nor the other. Hullo, do I hear the soothing strains of In a Monastery Garden? Miss Shore must be back. You’d better hop into bed!”
Phillip listened at the open door: footfalls were coming up the stairs. There was no time to undress, so he got into bed as he was, pulled the blankets around his neck, and pretended to be asleep.
Nurse Goonhilly came in, carrying a tray with a glass of hot milk. “Are you awake, Maddison?”
“Oh hullo, nurse.”
“I’m sorry if I woke you up. Here’s something to drink. Now sit up and take it while it’s hot, like a good boy. Why, you’ve got your jacket on! Are you feeling cold?”
“I feel cold sometimes, nurse.”
“Well drink this, and I’ll get you a hot-water bottle. It won’t take long. I’ll bring you some bed-socks too.”
He flung off his clothes while she was out of the room, pushed them under the bed, and leapt in, having heard the tap in the bathroom turned off. He was only just in time.
“Now sit up and drink your milk, while I put the bottle at your feet. Why, you were in your coat a moment ago, now you’re in your vest! How did that happen?”
“It may have been some R.A.M.C. orderly—you know ‘Rob all my comrades’.”
“Nonsense! we’ve not any of that sort here. Why, you’ve put it under the bed! I hope you aren’t going to run a temperature on your first night. That won’t do at all. Here, put this under your tongue, and don’t talk. Where are your pyjamas?”
“I think they’re in my bag still.”
“I told you not to talk!”
She looked under the bed, and pulled out a pair of trousers. “Well I never! Do you always keep your trousers under your bed?”
“Always, nurse. Ever since Cambrai last November, when the Germans pinched my best Y.M.C.A. breeches——”
“Oh, I don’t want any of your tales! Trousers under the bed in England because the Germans did something to your precious breeches! Don’t you try to tell the tale to me! I’m too old a bird to be caught with salt on its tail.” She opened the bed, and pushed in a stone bottle wrapped in red flannel. “Come on, shove down your feet! Don’t curl up like a spider. I’m not going to tickle them. Now put the thermometer back under your tongue, and don’t talk this time, or it won’t register properly.” She shook out the trousers, and began to fold them. “Why, you’ve been sleeping in them, what a thing! You’re not in the trenches now, you know. Such a nice new pair, too, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. No talking, now! Not until I take out that thermometer from your mouth.” She put away coat and trousers, turned the socks inside out, and laid them on a sofa. Then his shirt, and short cotton pants. Removed the thermometer. “Ninety-nine point two. There, you see what comes of skylarking about downstairs, when you’re supposed to be in bed! I heard you, and a fine old time you were having, judging by the row inside the smoking room. Lucky for you Miss Shore didn’t come in and catch you at it! Now drink your milk, and be a good boy and put on your pyjamas, and be quick about it, while I go round the other rooms.”
Chapter 15
RELAPSED HERO
8 July, 1918.
at Tregaskis House,
Flushing,
FALMOUTH.
Dear Father and Mother
The above is my address for the next few weeks. I arrived here the day before yesterday, and am now fully recovered from my slight indisposition. By the way, we all wear plain clothes here (or mufti as some I.A. officers call it) and as there is no rank in a convalescent home, please do not put any regiment, etc., on the envelope, or any rank, just P. S. T. Maddison Esq. (my substantive rank is Lieut., of course, but that should not be put on the envelope). And please do not give my address to anyone at all, as I can’t write letters in reply, so keep it from everyone, even Mrs. Neville. When I leave here, after a Board (Medical) I am entitled to three weeks’ leave at home, when I shall see you. Until then, please keep the secret of my whereabouts.
There are a number of M.L.s here, fast submarine chasers, built in the U.S.A. and Canada, each with two 250 h.p. petrol engines and capable of doing 40 knots (a knot is a sea-mile per hour, not, as Kipling wrote, ‘knots per hour’). I can’t say any more, for obvious reasons. Yesterday there was a bit of a row, because a certain Scots captain went out with one, having made friends with the skipper, an R.N.V.R. lieutenant, and came back very late, after midnight, having been almost so far as the Scillies, on a hunt of a U-boat. I have heard of other ‘mysteries’ in that connexion, but will say no more now.
How is Gran’pa and Aunt Marian? Give them my love. Also Elizabeth and Doris. And Mrs. Bigge and Mrs. Rolls. Tell Mrs. Neville I am looking forward to seeing her when I come home, and give her my most grateful thanks for looking after Sprat for me. I have written a brief note of thanks to the Duchess of G. for her kindness & hospitality.
I share a room with an elderly fellow from the A.S.C. and this morning we went down a path through the woods to the private quay and boathouse belonging to the estate. The water is warm, and we bathed. We wore long dressing gowns of white towelling, which are provided. The home is run by Miss Shore, a middle-aged lady who pays for everything from her private income. She lives in Campden Hill, in W. London, and rents this place from a Miss Tregaskis, daughter of the late Lord St. Austell.
There are all sorts of officers here, infantry, gunners, flying corps, tanks, etc. I must dash now, I am with a party going to sail in a quay-punt, a half-decked yacht of sorts, rather tubby and very stiff in a breeze. It holds six, and belongs to an old sailor called Tonkin.
Love to all,
Your affectionate son
Phillip (with one ‘p’)
P.S. My correct address is as above; not c/o.
Major Wetley wrote in a diary every night, after his cup of tea, an act which led Phillip to buy a commonplace book in Falmouth, in which to record his impressions. His journal had been lost in Flanders.
Hired a rowing boat this afternoon for 1s. an hour and rowed to the Implacable at its moorings in the Carrick Roads. It lies high in the water, with only a bowsprit left of its former spars and masts. Riding there, with its regular segmented gun-ports, and cracked and peeling brown paint, it looked like a gigantic cockchafer. (I saw one of these insects after the capture of the Pilckem ridge by the Welsh last August, when they routed the Pomeranian Grenadiers, to whom the Kaiser had sent a number of cockchafers, their emblem.) Making fast my boat, I climbed a stairway built up one side, and walked about on deck, noticing that no seagulls appeared to visit there. There was an ominous feeling about this half-rotten ‘Frenchie’, as Tonkin called it when we sailed round it in the quay-punt. The Implacable was one of the prizes taken by Nelson, or handed over afterwards, and so was never used with the British fleet: originally it was the 74-gun Duguay Trouin. Going down into the admiral’s room, with its windows like the sides of a great lantern projecting over the stern, I had a feeling of its utter vacancy, as though all life had gone out of the ship when it was surrendered, leaving only a cold hostility.
Below the top deck was an under-deck, with ports for the cannons now boarded up. It was a cramping feeling to walk there, one’s head held down le
st it scrape the rough boards above, or rather slabs of massive wood the seams of which were a little ragged with oakum and pitch. Down below again was a crampingly low under-deck, also supported by rows of teak stanchions, set close together to bear the great weight of the decks above. The hammocks must have been slung here in olden times. The place had a grey, inhuman look increased by the roughness of the wooden ceiling and equally rough floor. Neither looked ever to have been holystoned, perhaps the officers never went to inspect the crew’s quarters. I could feel the spirits of men broken here, all tenderness turned into violence except in a few rare souls who were probably derided at first, then in steadiness gaining the respect, even affection, of the majority. They were hard times in those days; we are still on the fringe of them, but the war has taught us many things that will not be lost.
Church on Sundays is optional; nobody goes. I rowed a mile or so up the Fal, to picnic on the rocks of a little bay where were thousands of small yellow shells, among others. The oaks came down to the line of high tide, and I thought that a man could live in the woods for weeks without being found. One could make a cave there, and have a fire at night, the smoke being led up through a hollow tree. After the war, perhaps, I may come here, and live on fish.
One of the M.L. captains, a lieutenant of the R.N.V.R., sailed a hired yacht, and invited two officers—any officers—from the convalescent home to go out with them one day. Phillip went with Swayne. After sailing across to St. Mawes and picnicking, the young married couple invited them to ‘take tea’ with them at their hotel. Staying at the same place was the elderly skipper of a tramp steamer, who had been commissioned with the rank of commander, R.N.R. He wore the D.S.O. riband, and was said to have sunk a U-boat in the North Atlantic off Ireland while commanding a ‘Q ship’—outwardly a defenceless sailing ship being abandoned by her crew, while a submarine stood by to sink it by placing explosive charges in the ship’s hold—thus saving a torpedo. But under a dummy boat upturned on the Q ship’s poop was a six-pounder. When the submarine appeared, the halves of the dummy boat were flung aside, and the gun-crew went into action.
The Germans soon knew of this trick, and some commanders stood off out of range and sank the ‘decoy’ ships, crews and all, with their heavier gun.
Phillip and Swayne were told of this hush-hush action by the R.N.V.R. lieutenant, after introducing them to the captain and his wife; and when the two old people had gone upstairs, ‘to have a lie down before dinner’, as Mrs. R.N.R. said, Mrs. R.N.V.R. remarked, “Don’t you think it’s rather an odd idea to give a man like that, before the war only the skipper of a tramp steamer, the Distinguished Service Order?”
“Why not?” asked Phillip, “if he sank a German submarine?”
“But he wouldn’t have been commissioned if there hadn’t been a war. In any case, the D.S.O. should be reserved for pukka naval officers, who are gentlemen.”
“Oh.”
“And what does that ‘oh’ mean?”
“Well, what is a gentleman?”
“‘What is a gentleman?’ Well, really——!”
“I was thinking of an uncle of mine, years ago. One morning he employed me as honorary unpaid private secretary to write a letter at his dictation.”
“What has that got to do with it?” asked Mrs. R.N.V.R., on her face the slightly haughty air she had worn in the presence of Mrs. R.N.R.
“It was entitled, ‘What is a Gentleman?’, and was a contribution to some letters then appearing in The Daily News. My uncle wrote that a party of friends were in a bar drinking with the landlord after closing hours. They were pretty merry, and making a bit of a noise, when a resident in the hotel came to the door and complained. The landlord then came back and, standing before them unsteadily, said sternly, to his drinking companions, ‘If you cannot conduct yourselves as gentlemen, I must ask you all to leave at once’.”
“Well go on, finish the story!”
“That’s all there is.”
“But I don’t see any point in it!” complained Mrs. R.N.V.R.
“Well, now I come to think of it, there isn’t any point,” said Phillip, regretting his concealed satire. “Thank you both for a very good party!”
“Come again,” said Mrs. R.N.V.R. without enthusiasm.
“Yes, rather! It’s been awfully jolly.”
“Topping!” said Swayne, adding as they left the hotel, “If you ask my opinion they’re a couple of pure bloody unadulterated snobs! That old skipper was a real sailor, not a dolled-up nincompoop like that Wavy Navy fop who, I wouldn’t mind betting, was never nearer the sea than the winkle stalls at South-end before the war!”
*
There was so much to do, life was glorious; to awaken in the morning, to realise you were in England, in a bed with white sheets and a carpet on the floor, the sun shining on the lawns below, where thrushes hopped. To get out of bed, put on bathing robe, and your footsteps in the dew left a darker green track among dewdrops glittering and winking sapphire green, blue, red and sometimes a purple glint in the low sun rising above the line of the woods; and walking down the path through the trees to the private boat slip, to dive in and swim around with your two regular bathing companions, young Sandhurst subalterns who, friendly and open, yet held themselves back from full intimacy with one who had no class consciousness and no criticism of others; an odd bird always a little remote and at times almost childish—putting a stone in each wet bathing suit, or broken sticks in their shoes—this senior subaltern who wore the 1914 Star, and three wound stripes, and spoke of poetry as though it were the greatest thing in life; who said that he had kept going through Third Ypres on a bottle of whiskey a night, but who now, when they went together into the hotel bar on the pier at Falmouth asked only for ginger beer.
*
One morning Phillip went into a drapery and haberdashery shop in the High Street, ostensibly to buy a pair of white socks, in order to scrape acquaintance with the pretty girl sitting in a little glass sentry box, to the roof of which were led overhead wires from the various counters. Told by an elderly assistant that they did not deal in men’s wear, he lingered, saying that he wanted also to buy some hair ribbon for his sister, for a birthday present. While being shown various rolls of velvet, silk, and cotton in many colours and widths, he wondered if he dare send the girl in the glass office a note, by what he thought of as the Wooden Overhead Egg-shell Post: for small wooden shells, containing bills and cash, were shot from the various counters by spring triggers, to speed over the wires and stop above the glass office, and drop into a wire basket. The wooden shell was unscrewed, paper and cash taken out; receipted bill and change sped back to its counter.
Dare he risk being thought a bounder by enclosing his card in a wooden egg? He dared not; and left the shop looking straight ahead, with three kinds of hair ribbon.
The next afternoon when he went in for more ribbon, another girl was in the glass box. The elderly assistant at the ribbon counter asked him if he had managed to get his white socks.
“I’m afraid I didn’t.” He was about to leave when the girl in the box came out and told him where he could find a shop which sold men’s wear. Upon his saying that he was from the convalescent home, she replied, “Father and Mother feel that my sister and I ought to do our bit by helping to cheer up wounded soldiers. We hire a boat for the summer, and perhaps you and others from Tregaskis House would like to come for a picnic up the Fal?”
He arranged to go the next day, and to take one of his bathing companions. Formality was soon dropped. Beth, the elder girl, was fair-haired and eighteen, quite old, thought Phillip, because of her grown-up manner; Editha, too, who was sixteen and had recently left school, had a grown-up air about her, but she played the piano and was interested in poetry, knowing some of the works of Tennyson, Wordsworth, and best of all, the Songs of Innocence by William Blake.
For the next four afternoons he called to see Editha, being invited into the apartment above the shop, where was a railed-in roof-top
terrace leading out of french windows—a sunny place with views over the harbour and beyond to St. Anthony-in-Roseland, where a white octagonal lighthouse rose above the sea, no longer showing its beams because of German submarines. The dreaded Manacle Rocks were five miles westward.
He had tea upon the terrace with Editha. Her mother, Mrs. Sithney, a kind old lady (as he thought of her; she was forty years of age) left ‘the two young people to themselves’, after coming to say how d’you do. It was all fun, thought Phillip; and forgot all about Editha when a new attraction arrived at the convalescent home—three children on bicycles from one of the country houses in the district, for a picnic party arranged by Miss Shore on board the Foudroyant.
Two of the children were twins, sixteen years of age, and different in every aspect except a merry outlook on life. Both had developed mumps at the end of the Whitsun vacation and had remained in quarantine at home. The boy, a naval cadet, was small and dark; his twin sister was big and fair, with yellow hair falling over her shoulders. The third was a cousin, a girl of ten, with a face and self-contained expression that promised beauty later on. Phillip was immediately attracted to them, and became the fourth child of a quartet seeking fun and adventure.
A picnic to ‘the Frenchman’ was arranged—Miss Shore, Mr. Barley Swann, Swayne, Coupar, two other officers, and Nurse Goonhilly sailing to the hulk by quay-punt, while Phillip and the children were towed in the dinghy, already deep in a friendship which was to last forever in his mind, a memory of golden days and laughter—diving from the platform below the companion-way leading up to the massive deck of the ship, exploring the lower decks, one under the other, in deepening gloom until they sat, arms around one another, above the ugly yellow bilge water rocking with the tidal motion of the great and ruinous wooden hulk. It was a melancholy moment saying goodbye, after lingering until the last moment in lengthening shadows; to watch the bicycling figures ever turning to wave, to hear the last far cry of ‘Don’t forget to come over early for lunch tomorrow, will you?’; but his spirits recovered at the thought of bridge in the games room.
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