A Test to Destruction

by Henry Williamson

  “No fear! I never want to see Freddie’s again!”

  Before the door was fully opened, out came Ching’s hand of welcome. “I just want to offer my congratulations, Phil! I saw your name in the office list for Monday, and came over hoping to find you at home. I’m in luck!” He saw Phillip looking at the silver Disabled Badge in his lapel. “Yes, I’ve got a pension now, and it calls for a celebration. How about coming down to Freddie’s?”

  From the top of the stairs Mrs. Neville called out, “Come on up, Ching. Don’t stand there on the doorstep.”

  Ching moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, and promptly stepped over the brass threshold. “Put your things on the stairs—we don’t stand on ceremony here,” but Ching had already hung up his purple velour hat over the newell post. “Come in and find yourself a chair, Ching. I’ve known of you as ‘Ching’ from the days of the Bloodhound Patrol, when you and Phillip and Desmond used to go on your Saturday afternoon escapades——”

  “Ah,” replied Ching, dolefully. “They were the days.” He moved a hand in an arc across his eyes, as though brushing away memory. “Lots of things have happened since then.” He held his head for a few moments in silence. Then, “I suppose Phil’s told you all about me?” He looked from face to face. “I mean, about this?” He pointed to the badge.

  “I don’t remember Phillip telling me anything, Ching.”

  “Well, I may as well tell you, then. I’m a fraud, and I don’t mind who knows it.”

  “We’re all frauds at times, Ching.”

  “Anyway,” went on Ching, ignoring Phillip’s attempt to ease him, “what happened was this. I couldn’t stand any more, and when we had to go over a second time at Inverness Copse, I thought out a new way of pretending to be shell-shocked——”

  “You told me about that the last time I saw you, in December, in the High Street, Ching. You’re not the only one, by a long chalk. No need to go on.”

  “Anyway, what happened was this, whatever I told you then.” Ching’s voice was now low, as though from the shaky base of his being. “I thought that to get away with it I’d have to do something pretty original, so when the Colonel came round with the adjutant, as we waited at the cross-roads——”

  “Yes, you told me that. Do you find it easy to settle down to office work now?”

  “Half a mo’. Where was I? Oh yes. Well, when the C.O. came round I pretended they were two Jerries, and ran at them with my bayonet, shouting like hell, and what’s more, at the time I believed it——” He gave a hollow laugh—“almost! Anyway, they stared at me, and seeing a shell-hole between us, I pretended not to notice it, and charged through it and managed to go in head first into the mud. They pulled me out, and I pretended to have had a fit. That’s how I got home.”

  There was a pause, while Ching rolled his head in his hands. Then Mrs. Neville said, “I’d say that you were shell-shocked, Ching! In any case, you were obviously in no fit state to continue.”

  “I was never in a fit state for anything, really. Anyway, I got back, and now they pay me eighteen bob a week for life. It pays for my weekly rum ration, three bottles a week. Why not? I’m no good to anybody, no girl will look at me, and when I tell people the truth, they either turn away from me, or say, as you did just now, Mrs. Neville, that I’m a case of genuine shell-shock. Oh, it’s no good trying to tell me that the remedy lies in my own hands,” he went on, seeing that she was about to speak. “Everyone tells me that. What have I got to live for? I ask you?”

  “You could live for others, surely?”

  “What others? The whole world’s run on hypocrisy! I’m a hypocrite, I don’t mind admitting it, but most others never admit their hypocrisy. You ought to see our office! When I tell them that the Russian revolution is a good thing, and has got rid of hypocrisy, and the sooner we have a revolution in England the better, they can’t face up to it, but tell me either to shut up, or that I’m shell-shocked.”

  “We were all more or less shocked before the war,” said Phillip. “I know I was.”

  Ignoring this remark, Ching said, “Well, I won’t bore you any longer.” He looked at his watch. “I’m going down to Freddie’s.”

  But he sat on there, talking in the same strain until Mrs. Neville, who was looking out of her open window, exclaimed, “Why, there’s Doris, just turning the corner!” She waved. “Doesn’t she look well! Come on up, Doris!” she called down. “Phillip’s here. He’s just leaving to go home, come up a minute, do!”

  Doris brought with her brown face the spirit of harvest fields, talk of corn sheaves set in stooks, of flax pulled and tied by hand under the sun. Ching stared at her—bosom, hair, cheeks and finally her eyes, without remark; then he seemed about to say something, for his tongue moistened his lips; almost immediately he became dull. “So long, everyone,” and with that he went out of the door and thumped down the stairs.

  “You want to be careful of that feller,” said Mrs. Neville softly, as Phillip left with his sister.

  “Oh, he’s quite harmless, Mrs. Neville.”

  “I wouldn’t altogether say that, Phillip. There’s something about master Ching——”

  When he returned home Hetty said, “Oh yes, the luncheon at Simpson’s, Phillip—Gran’pa says you are not to worry if you cannot manage to be there. He quite understands that you may want to be with your friends. We thought of going up early, as there are bound to be a lot of people outside the Palace.”

  “I suppose I should have applied for tickets for you.”

  “Perhaps we shall see you afterwards; but if you don’t come I am sure we shall understand.”

  *

  He left by an earlier train on the Monday morning to avoid being seen in uniform, and after walking the length of the Embankment from Charing Cross to Blackfriars and back again, thinking of Francis Thompson and the nights of the poet’s dereliction under the arches of Waterloo Bridge, while panic slowly moved up despite exterior calmness, he took a taxi down the Mall. In front of him, beyond the stone island of the Victoria Memorial, were many people lining the railings before the forecourt. Beyond, over their heads, he could see red draping in front of the stone steps of the Palace entrance; and as the taxi bore to the left, rows of chairs in front of a red dais.

  The taxi drew up behind others, to await its turn at a side gate. He gave the driver a pound note, and looking out, saw that the cabs in front had brought wives, mothers, and sometimes children, with those in uniform. It was too late now to ask for tickets for Mother and the others. When he got out he saw that he was the only one without relations or friends. His invitation was scrutinised.

  “Members of the Armed Forces receiving Honours this way, please.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen accompanying Recipients of Honours that way, please.”

  It was twenty minutes to eleven. A Staff major checked names outside a door. Inside was a board with an arrow pointing down a corridor. There was an official every few yards to direct them. After a long walk, reminding him of the great barrack-like passages of Husborne, he emerged into daylight at the far end of the building, and walking round the outside of the north wing with others saw before him two areas of wooden chairs, the larger area already half filled with civilians. The chairs of the nearer area were numbered. Two Grenadier captains, each wearing a red brassard embroidered with the Royal cipher, and carrying a nominal roll, checked the numbers on the letters of appointment with the names on their rolls; and again when a man was in his seat.

  There was a further check when a major arrived to thrust into each tunic breast a hooked pin.

  By now the band of the Grenadiers was playing almost softly in the great forecourt. Phillip was calm and composed, observing without emotional distraction the exteriors of others about him.

  It had been a quiet Sunday (church in the evening with Mother and the girls) following hours of darkness awake under tyrannous thoughts. At the worst moment, at 3 a.m., the devil had percolated most of his spirit: he must get a
way, vanish, go out on the tide from London Bridge: he was a hopeless hypocrite, he had condemned Ching for the same reason that Downham had threatened to have Moggs shot for cowardice when the Gothas had bombed the hutments in the oakwoods north-west of Poperinghe a year ago: Downham’s fears had been put upon shell-shocked Moggs, his scapegoat. He was a worse coward, for not speaking up to clear O’Gorman’s character at the conference. He had ordered O’Gorman to leave his rifle and equipment beside him, before he had sent O’Gorman to find ‘Spectre’ on the top deck. In the circumstances, I ask leave to be allowed to forego this award and to resign my commission. I cannot allow O’Gorman to be known henceforward as the man whose carelessness was the direct cause of Harold West’s death. It is no excuse to say, or think, that he had gas gangrene, that he might have died anyway. Is it not possible that the salt water might have checked the sepsis? So, gentlemen——Bah! I am a snob, the truth is that I do not want Mother and my sister Mavis to be outside the Palace because I am ashamed of their lack of restrained impersonal manners. But who am I to criticise them? I hail every Tom, Dick, and Harry as a bosom friend. No reserve. WHAT ABOUT WESTY AND HIS PEOPLE? I have not yet been to see them. I have never been any good. Downham found me out in a lie on my first day at the office, when I pretended to have shot wildfowl in the Blackwater estuary when I had never been there.

  But these torments had lifted with the light, and the familiar cheeping of sparrows on the roof ridge next door; optimism arose in the glow of a cold tub; and later, when he went down to see Mrs. Neville, she, as befitted a special occasion, got out the bottle of brandy kept for air-raid emergencies since 1915. Soon laughter was filling the room as she proposed to Phillip that Wakenham should do the thing properly. “Can’t we find that rascal scoutmaster of yours, Purley-Prout, and get him to come? And Mr. Jenkins, wearing that yachting hat he puts on to cut his hedge in? What about old Mrs. Tinkey downstairs——?”

  “Don’t forget Dr. Dashwood!”

  “He’s had a baby, did you know? Yes, he married the Randiswell baker’s daughter, and now he’s a father! It hasn’t sobered him yet!” she shrieked.

  “Seriously, Mrs. Neville, I would like Mrs. Feeney to come.”

  “Ah, she’s an old servant, you see, dear. An old servant gives one an air.” With a shriek, “Can’t we get the Lanky Keeper on the Hill to dress up as your butler? And how about me coming as your old nurse?”

  *

  The Wakenhamites—Gran’pa Turney, Great-aunt Marian, Hetty and Elizabeth—took a taxi from Charing Cross down the Mall, and got out at the Victoria Memorial, in front of the Palace. Steps led up to this monument and its terrace, where already many people were standing in position, with a view over the iron gilt-topped railings of the forecourt.

  They saw two groups of chairs within the railings, the left group half occupied by civilians, while the right group, nearer to the Memorial from which they looked, was for soldiers in khaki, obviously those to be presented to the King.

  “Surely,” said Thomas Turney, “we should be included among the relatives over there?” as he pointed with his unrolled umbrella.

  “I don’t think Phillip was given any ticket, Papa.”

  “I’ll go and see if I can get some,” the old man replied. Immediately Hetty became anxious, being unable to go against the will of her father. But with Marian beside her she managed to say, “I think we shall see quite well from here, perhaps, Papa?” But Thomas Turney had already made up his mind.

  “Wait here, Hetty. I’ll not be long.”

  She watched him crossing to the railings by the main gates, where a tall policeman bent his head to listen before giving direction with sweep of gloved hand towards a distant gate.

  *

  Unaware of their arrival, Phillip was sitting on his chair. It was nearly half-past eleven by his wristlet watch, the band was playing softly, with no brass, only wood-wind, while he strove to steady his thoughts. The band stopped; there was a stir among the civilians on the flank, heads were moving sideways, some rising up only to subside, he observed while still looking to his front. Faraway in the other world beyond the railings arose a woman’s voice, others took it up, tossing it in pieces, shrill tern-like cries around the atoll of the Victoria Memorial, sea-bird-shrill cries before a storm, clamouring, rising up together … the picture broke before cheering. Then prolonged stentorian cries of command pierced the cheering. He stood up with others rising before and around him to attention while drums rolled and massed trumpet notes arose with the Royal Salute.

  The King, dressed in the uniform of a Field-Marshal and followed by his Aides-de-Camp, appeared under the arch in the centre of the Palace front. He took the salute, gloved hand to red and gold cap, remaining so until echoes of throat-tearing command to stand at ease had died away over the murmuration seeming to come from the walls of the Palace.

  The chaps getting the V.C. were in the front row, they were to go first. Two of them, ahead of the generals and other brass hats, were readjusting cap peaks, after pulling down their tunics. Could they be nervous, too? Garfield was one of them; he had a devil-may-care look, and no wonder. The thought of Garfield, now a eunuch, calmed him. He himself was really very lucky!

  The figures in front began to move away, led by the V.C.’s, in single file, unspeaking, each one going towards the pool grouped twenty yards away from the King. Then, to clapping on the left, the foremost figure walked stiffly towards His Majesty.

  Phillip sat still, until it was his turn to join the file on the right of the chairs. He took off his right-hand glove, and slowly rubbed a moist palm on the reassuring roughness of barathea. Time hung heavy; each clapping of spectators caused anew anticipatory qualms, with the corrective will to remain calm.

  One by one the senior colonels in front left for the pool. It was near his turn to move forward now. He cleared his throat, breathed deeply for calmness. The terror of open space, with only one before him as protection, was restricted by thinking that at least no machine-guns would open up. He heard before him the murmur of the gruff, near-guttural King’s voice. The salute, the step back of the other fellow—now he must go. The scenery dissolved. He saw the Queen’s upright figure and expressionless face a little back from the King’s movements as the bearded figure half-turned to glance at dark blue velvet held by an Aide—hang right arm limp, open fingers. No move forward until after name was called. Why hadn’t he got tickets? The officers before him had turned left, after leaving the King twenty yards or so, to sit near their people. He would have to go there, too, lest it attract attention to himself—a bogus, lonely soldier. Damn! he always allowed imagination to prey upon him before anything occurred, when it was never so bad as imagined.

  Quite a nice day for it, really. Not a cloud in the sky. Now for the high jump——

  “Lieutenant, acting Lieutenant-Colonel Phillip Sidney Thomas Maddison, The Gaultshire Regiment——”

  Swallow saliva, proceed—proceed—stop. Right turn. Wait for the King to turn before saluting.

  Blue eyes almost naked with weariness within creased pouches of skin held his gaze. He found himself saluting automatically from booted brittleness upwards.

  The blue eyes came out to him, giving a feeling first of endearment, then of calm self-possession, of modesty which prompted him to lower his eyes before that weary blue gaze. The King turned, looking down upon the dark blue velvet tray upon which lay the cross of white enamel embossed with a gold crown on a green mound. The King turned it over with gloved fingers, and Phillip saw green and red on the enamel of the reverse side, below the deep cerise glow of the riband enclosed within bars of cornflower blue.

  The King took a step forward, coming close to him, so that the beard with its streaks of grey was below his downward glance as he stood there, pressing slightly forward to aid connexion between riband and pin. Then the King, stepping back, said in a deep, slow, throaty growl, “Are you gettin’ on all right now?”

  “Yes, your Majesty!”

&n
bsp; Pause. He felt that he was holding the weary blue gaze in the modesty of his own regard.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-three, sir.”

  The King turned to the Queen, and said something, of which the only word he caught was ‘David’. She smiled, and her face was suddenly kind and gentle. The King’s gloved hand came out to him.

  “The Queen and I are glad that you are gettin’ on well.”

  “Thank you, sir!” he said, and stepped back to salute in jubilant relief. A turn to the left, a ripple of clapping, he was walking away on air. Across the courtyard the order was lifted off, and put in a case, then the pin was removed, and the closed case given to him. A slow salute from the Grenadier major, he responded as slowly, and went quietly to sit down in one of the back rows. There he saw Colonel Vallum, Major Henniker-Sudley and 2nd-Lt. Garfield. Vallum came over to him and murmured congratulations.

  “You’re expected to join us at the Café Royal for luncheon, you know. Colin and the others will be here soon. Wonderful day, isn’t it. I’ve just heard that we’ve made a big advance in France, and there’s a good chance of gettin’ through the Hindenburg Line, and finishin’ the war this year.”

  “By Jove, that’s good news!”

  After a pause he said, “I wonder if there’s any chance of my getting out to France again, as a subaltern.”

  “I doubt it. You’re back in B2, aren’t you? But I can tell you that officers of the rank of captain and under are wanted to serve in India. In fact, it’s already gone out to Eastern Command. I think the engagement terms are for two years after cessation of hostilities. Your adjutant will have details when you get back to Landguard.” The idea of remaining in the army made him happy. But this feeling left him when, with five others of the Regiment, he walked through the gate, and saw Mother, Grandfather, Great-aunt Marian and sister Elizabeth looking at him, as they stood beside a man with a camera, obviously from some newspaper.

  *