by Jack Jones
‘I smokes a pipe, thank you, sir,’ said Glyn. ‘But I don’t want a smoke now,’ he added nervously.
‘Well, if you’ll just wait here for a few minutes, I’ll send the sergeant major to fetch you.’ So they waited.
After the sergeant major had saluted the adjutant, and the adjutant had saluted the CO, and had given him the little case with the DCM medal in it that the orderly room sergeant had given the adjutant to give to the CO, the sergeant major, who had a game leg and a sandy walrus moustache, fetched Glyn and Saran from where they were sitting in the orderly room out on to the parade ground. And when they got to where he put them to stand in front of all them soldiers, the CO shouted: ‘Slo-o-ope arms,’ and all the soldiers sloped arms, and the adjutant and the two young officers he was getting ready to send out to the front sloped their naked and shining swords. They all stood like a rock for a couple of seconds, and then the CO shouted louder than before: ‘Pr-r-resent arms.’ And present arms they all did. Then, after he had told all the soldiers of the brave things Meurig had done, he walked up to Glyn and pinned Meurig’s DCM medal on his breast, where it shone like anything in the April sunlight; and he shook hands warmly with Glyn and Saran and told them that they had reason to be proud – very proud indeed – of their brave boy who was no more. The regiment was proud of him – and of them. Then he ordered all the soldiers to slope arms again, and after he had dismissed them he walked across the barracks square as far as the gates with Glyn and Saran, asking them questions about their boys who had served and were still serving. And he offered them more tea, but they didn’t want any more, so the CO shook hands with them again; and the military policeman saluted them as they walked past him on their way out of the barracks square. But before they left the CO Glyn unpinned the medal and put it back in the little box which the CO said he might as well have, and as soon as they were out of sight and hearing of the military policeman at the gates Saran said to Glyn: ‘Give me that medal.’ And he gave it to her, and she put it away safe; and as soon as she got home she had it put in the frame in which was the certificate on which it is written of all the brave deeds performed by her Meurig, and he did perform them, for the general signed the certificate, and his signature is on it for anyone to see. And Saran hung the frame with the certificate and the medal in it under the Roll of Honour on which is the name of her brother Ike, who was killed long before her Meurig was born out in Zululand where he was fighting the Zulus that time when the good old 24th was wiped out.
There was only one more trial in store for Saran before the old war was to end in victory glorious and complete for Britain and her allies. She lost no more of her boys, neither were there any more wounded – though her Jim – the young fool as he was to enlist after knowing what his brothers had had to go through – was vaccinated and everything ready to go out to France when the Armistice came and ended the damned thing, thank God. Pity it hadn’t ended before her Jane’s Ossie was blinded, though. Saran couldn’t then, no more than she can now, understand how he came to be blinded without being marked at all. He told her and Jane in the train on the day they went to fetch him home from the place where the blinded soldiers were that a big shell burst close by him and killed several of his pals without touching him. But after it went off and he went to look around he found that he couldn’t see. Anyway, that’s what he told Saran and Jane. But however he had it, it was domino on him for the rest of his life, though he’d have his bit of pension, of course.
Soon after Ossie had started going to the place in Thomas Street where the blinded soldiers were being taught to make mats and baskets and other things – THE ARMISTICE. Saran could hardly believe, but it was right enough, for all the hooters started hooting, and kept on hooting, and in the streets people were behaving – well, anyhow. And in the pubs – well, there again… Glyn, Benny, Ossie, all of them gathered at her house, even Harry stumped up to see her, to rejoice with her. And they rejoiced. In the evening they all, except Harry, wanted her to come into town with them to see the people of the borough rejoicing victoriously, but somehow she didn’t feel like going with them, so she stayed at home with her brother Harry, who didn’t feel like stumping about the town either. After the others had gone down into the town Saran sat talking about many things with her brother. Then she went out to the coal-house at the back to get some coal for the fire, for it was cold enough that night. And as she lifted her head after filling the bucket with coal, she noticed the night sky, which that night was like an arctic ice field on the break. Pearly white it was, and the breaks were of a luminous blue. And there she stood for long looking at it and thinking. Silly, she afterwards thought, that just then she seemed to see the lost legions of war-taken ones – just their heavily shod feet and muddy putties through the luminous blue breaks in the pearly-white night sky – as they marched along the sky and into heaven to meet their God. And from the town below came the sound of voices singing ‘It’s a long, long trail….’ And laughter, followed by cheers. ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, was also borne upwards to her on the wind from where the people of the borough were rejoicing.
Sighing, she picked up the bucket she had filled with coal and walked with it hanging from her strong right arm along the path leading to the house. She stopped outside the window of the living room when she saw her brother on his one knee praying with his eyes fast closed. Funny he looked on his one knee, and his kneeless portion of leg and the peg leg at the end of it stuck out straight almost at a right angle from his body.
He was kneeling close to the wall on which the Roll of Honour on which his brother Ike’s name was inscribed was hanging, just above the frame in which were enclosed Meurig’s DCM and the certificate that had been signed by the general. Standing there outside the window, with the bucket filled with coal all the time hanging from her hand, she could distinctly hear every word he was addressing to God. For he prayed loudly and rhythmically, and in their own lovely native language. After he had commended her and hers to God, he went on to thank Him for having at long last brought the so-long-mad world to its senses. He asked God to comfort all the bereaved ones, and to fortify all the suffering ones. Long he prayed, and the bucket filled with coal which Saran held grew heavier, and she was about to lower it to the ground when her brother humbly concluded by saying that he had asked in the Name of his Saviour all the things he had asked God that night to do. He rose from off his one knee and swivelled his stump and peg around as Saran entered the living room carrying the bucket of coal.
‘I was saying a few words,’ he said, apologetically.
‘Yes, I heard you,’ she said as she began putting the coal on the fire. ‘It’s cold enough tonight. You’d make a fine preacher, Harry, if only you could preach as lovely as you prayed just now. But there, you didn’t have any schoolin’, did you? And without schoolin’… and yet I don’t know, I don’t know what’s up with me tonight, but out there… Harry.’
‘What, my gel?’
‘Do you think… are you sure my boys have gone to God?’
‘To who else, my gel? Certainly they have. All who…’
‘I don’t see why not, even though they were not members of the chapel – or saved in the revival like you.’
‘But they’re saved all the same, Saran. He died for them, remember; and they died for – for – well, for something they thought was right, and worth dying for.’
‘Ay, I expect most of ’em thought that. And now we’ve got to take stock, Harry. Well, that’s easy for me to do now, no matter how hard it was to bear having two of ’em taken, and another two – well, three counting poor Ossie – battered and blinded. Sam’s the only one of mine to come through scot-free.’
‘Nobody’s come out of this scot-free, Saran. Everybody’s…’
‘Oh, it’s no use us keeping on about it, anyway. Let’s have a quiet cup of tea together before all the others get back here.’ She started laying the table. ‘And do you know what I’ve been thinking, Harry?’
‘What?’
‘That it’s time you came to live here with me. You’re getting on, and I hate to think of you in lodgings with strangers all the time.’
‘I’m all right, Saran.’
‘I don’t know so much. Still, p’raps you know best; but if ever you fall out of work you’ll have to come to live with me. Try a bit of this roast pork. It’s lovely.’
What Saran called ‘the proper family reunion’ was out of the question until her Lewis came home from the convalescent place he had been sent to after the third operation he underwent. So whilst she was waiting him home Saran and the rest of the family tried their hand at settling down after more than four years of upside-down life, but it was hard to settle down, for things were still at sixes and sevens, even though the war was over. There was the pat-us-on-the-back coupon election, and the setting up of the Sankey Commission, the formation of the Triple Alliance, and ever so many other things. And there wasn’t any too much work about, either.
‘Well, you’d think that after so many men had been killed out of the way, that there’d be plenty of work for them as is left,’ said Saran.
But there wasn’t; for her Sam for months after he had been demobbed was unable to get a place back in the pit, and if it hadn’t been for his father he’d have been longer still before getting back.
‘If another bloody war broke out tomorrow, I’d be off to it like a shot,’ cried her disgusted Sam one day.
‘Hush, Sam.’
‘I would, indeed to God, mam. Humph, got to beg for a job after having been for the best part of four bloody years… and now the owners want the mines decontrolled so as they can do what they like with us and charge what they like for coal. But if Sankey’s Report is once accepted, the owners’ll…’
‘What’s the Sankey Report?’
‘Nationalisation…’
‘Oh, shut up, Sam,’ cried young Jim. ‘You’re always talking about work.’
‘And so would you if you had a wife and three kids to keep.’
‘What’s going to happen when this reparations coal starts going to France and Italy and…’
‘What’s reparations coal?’ Saran asked.
‘Damn, don’t you know anything, woman?’ Glyn wanted to know from her.
‘How can I when you knows all?’
‘I know what reparations coal is, anyway.’
‘And so would I had I been to where your leaders gab about it as often as you have. Now, what is it?’
‘It’s what Lloyd George…’
‘Now, be fair, dad,’ cried Charlie, who, young as he was, was a great admirer of Lloyd George.
‘Shut up, you young… reparations coal is what Lloyd George…’
‘Oh, don’t make a long story of it by bothering about Lloyd George,’ interrupted Sam. ‘Reparations coal, mam, is the coal that Germany’s got to supply from now on to people as used to have to buy coal from us. Now they’re going to get coal for nothing.’
‘Who said they’re to get it for nothing?’
‘Lloyd George and his bloody clique, woman.’
‘I asked Sam, not you. Anyway, you can’t blame people for taking what’s to be had for nothing. I only wish I could…’
‘You’ll alter your tune when the damned lot of us are without a day’s work, woman.’
‘What’s the odds as long as we can draw unemployment pay?’ young Jim said.
‘It’s not certain that the Government are going to let us miners draw unemployment pay,’ said Charlie.
‘Certainly we are, it’s been decided to bring miners into the scheme,’ said Sam.
‘What, pay for bein’ idle?’ said Saran.
‘Certainly, being as they can’t find us work, woman.’
‘Oh, there’ll be plenty of work soon,’ said Saran.
But there wasn’t, she found as time went on, and her man and boys had to be satisfied with what they could earn by working half-time. And it was now she found the benefit of her saving throughout the years of the war. Not that she drew much of it out of the post office, where she had a sum saved which would have surprised her man and her boys had she been fool enough to let them know. But although she rarely withdrew any of her savings, it nevertheless gave her a feeling of security, to know that it was there to tap as a last resource, and it helped her through the long period of short time which preceded the first great miners’ strike of the post-war period, a strike during which soldiers and sailors were drafted into many of the mining areas.
‘That’s your bloody Lloyd George, that is,’ said Glyn. ‘Him as betrayed us over the Sankey Report.’
‘Well,’ said Saran, ‘if Lloyd George has done all the things you say he has…’
‘He hasn’t,’ up and said young Charlie.
‘What do you know?’ asked his father.
‘I know more about the Sankey Report than you do.’
‘Then keep it to yourself,’ Lewis, who hadn’t been home long from the convalescent place, told him. ‘I’ve heard nothing but Sankey and Reparations ever since I arrived home. What’s the…’
‘P’raps you’d rather us talk about horse racing?’ growled his father.
‘Much.’
‘Well, it’s a good job we’re not all like you.’
‘You’re right,’ said Saran, ‘for if you’d all been cut about like him it isn’t work you’d be talking about.’
‘In any case,’ said Sam, ‘I don’t think any of us will work for the next few months. We won’t give in, that’s certain; and the owners seem as determined as we are; so unless the Government steps in and does something…’
‘Humph, Lloyd George and his clique. A fat lot they’ll do, and if they do do anything, it’ll be for the owners.’
‘Your father’s got Lloyd George on the brain,’ said Saran. ‘Now suppose you all go out so as I can get on with my work. Go on, Sam. And you others. Lord, to think of all you lot running in and out of the house whilst this stoppage is on. I’ve had enough of it in this first fortnight, so if it’s going to last months, as you say, Sam…’
‘Why worry?’ laughed Lewis; ‘isn’t our Benny still doing well at the body-snatching game?’
‘Well, he’s the only one of the family working,’ said Saran.
‘What about Ossie slogging away making baskets in the institution? Isn’t he working?’ said Lewis.
‘Come on, get out of my way, the lot of you,’ cried Saran. ‘Tell Kate that me and Jane are going to the pitchers tonight, Sam.’
CHAPTER 15
SHOUTING THROUGH
They were all there with her to dinner this Christmas again, but there was nobody in khaki present, though there were them as had wore khaki there. First there was Glyn, who thought himself head of the household, and who by this time had been over three years on the retired list. Yes, the first long stoppage of the pre-war years in the mining industry had definitely placed Glyn and most of the miners of his generation, the used-up generation, on the retired list.
‘Finished – done with – scrapped,’ Lewis was fond of reminding his father in that sour way in which he had taken to talk after his return home from the old war with his inside none too good. ‘You and your like kept the home fires burning until we came home…’
‘Yes, I was good enough for them then, but as soon…’
‘And so was Lloyd George good enough for you during the war,’ said Charlie to his father more than once when he used to grouse about being out of work. ‘But no sooner was the war over than you and your sort helped to vote him out of his job.’
‘Certainly, after the way he done us over the Sankey business. But I’m not talking about Lloyd George now. What I’m saying is that after more’n fifty years underground, I’m without a day’s work, and nothing but the workhouse in front of me.’
‘Don’t talk so damned dull,’ Saran used to tell him when he mentioned the workhouse, she knowing that he knew full well that there was but little danger of his ending his days there, and it made
her swear to hear him referring to it as a probability.
‘Fifty years’, Lewis said, ‘would have got you a decent pension had you been a policeman, a teacher…’
‘Ay, anything but a miner,’ said his father.
‘Well, why didn’t your Labour Government…?’
‘Now, woman, leave it at that. I’ve heard enough of your sneers against the Labour Government.’
And with such talk the family marched along under the arches of the years when Britain was shouting its way through the first half-dozen years of the peace. ‘Nothing but chopping and changing, shouting and old disturbances ever since the boys came back from the old war,’ said Saran. ‘First it was Lloyd George, then it was Baldwin; and after him MacDonald – and now Baldwin again. And none of ’em seems to make the slightest difference. No matter what they say, the men are still without work; the pits go on working half-time – our Sam didn’t do more than three shifts a week last year, three shifts for which he drew twenty-six shillings. Isn’t that right, Sam?’
‘As if we all didn’t know what he worked and how much he earned,’ growled Glyn.
‘I was talking to Sam, not to you.’
‘But you talk so damned soft, woman. I’ve told you until I’m sick of telling you that there’ll be no hope for us until we get a Labour Government with power, with a clear majority.’
‘Well, things are no better in this district now that you’ve got this Wallhead.’