The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston 3 - Sherston's Progress

by Siegfried Sassoon

  Toward the end of my second week the frost and snow changed to soft and rainy weather. One afternoon I walked out to Adare and saw for the first time the Ireland which I had imagined before I went there. Quite unexpectedly I came in sight of a wide shallow river, washing and hastening past the ivied stones of a ruined castle among some ancient trees. The evening light touched it all into romance, and I indulged in ruminations appropriate to the scene. But this was not enough, and I soon began to make enquiries about the meets of the Limerick Hounds.

  No distance, I felt, would be too great to go if only I could get hold of a decent hireling. Nobody in the barracks could tell me where to look for one. The genial majors permanent at the Depot were fond of a bit of shooting and fishing, but they had no ambition to be surmounting stone walls and big green banks with double ditches. Before long, however, I had discovered a talkative dealer out at Croome, and I returned from my first day’s hunting feeling that I’d had more than my money’s worth. The whole thing had been most exhilarating. Everyone rode as if there wasn’t a worry in the world except hounds worrying foxes. Never had I galloped over such richly verdant fields or seen such depth of blue in distant hills. It was difficult to believe that such a thing as ‘trouble’ existed in Ireland, or that our majors were talking in apprehensive undertones about being sent out with mobile columns – the mere idea of our mellow majors going out with mobile columns seemed slightly ludicrous.

  But there it was. The Irish were being troublesome – extremely troublesome – and no one knew much more than that, except that our mobile columns would probably make them worse.

  Meanwhile there was abundance of real dairy butter, and I sent some across to Aunt Evelyn every week.

  At the end of the third week in January my future as an Irish hunting man was conclusively foreshortened. My name came through on a list of officers ordered to Egypt. After thinking it over, I decided, with characteristic imbecility, that I would much rather go to France. I had got it fixed in my mind that I was going to France, and to be informed that I was going to Egypt instead seemed an anticlimax. I talked big to myself about Palestine being only a side-show; but I also felt that I should put up a better performance with a battalion where I was already known. So I wired to the C.O. of our second battalion asking him to try and get me posted to them; but my telegram had no result, and I heard afterwards that the C.O. had broken his leg the day after it arrived, riding along a frost-slippery street in Ypres. I don’t suppose that the War Office would have posted me to him in any case; and I only record it as one of life’s little contrasts – that while I was enjoying myself with the Limerick Hounds, one of our most gallant and popular senior officers – himself a fine horseman – was being put out of action while riding quietly along a road in the town which held the record for being knocked to ruins by crumps.

  A day or two later, greatly to my disgust, I was despatched to Cork to attend an anti-gas course. I didn’t take my studies very seriously, as I’d heard it all before and there was nothing new to learn. So on the fourth and last day I cut the exam. and had a hunt with the Muskerry Hounds. I had introduced myself to a well-known horse-dealer in Cork who hunted the hounds, and the result was that I had a nice little scramble over a rough country about eighteen miles away from the army hut where I ought to have been putting on paper such great thoughts as ‘gas projectors consist of drums full of liquid gas fired by trench-mortars set at an angle of forty-five degrees’.

  In the afternoon the hounds were drawing slowly along some woods above the river which flowed wide and rain-swollen down long glens and reaches in a landscape that was all grey-green and sad and lonely. I thought what a haunted ancient sort of land it was. It seemed to go deep into my heart while I looked at it, just as it had done when I gazed at the castle ruins at Adare.

  In the county club that evening I got into conversation with a patrician-faced old parson. We were alone by the smoking-room fire, and after he’d been reminiscing delightfully about hunting it transpired that he had a son in the Cameronians. And I discovered that this son of his had been one of the officers in the headquarters dug-out in the Hindenburg trench while I was waiting to go up to the bombing attack in which I was wounded.

  We agreed that this was a remarkable coincidence. It certainly felt like a queer little footnote to my last year’s experience, and the old gentleman laughed heartily when I said to him ‘If life was like Alice in Wonderland, I suppose I should have said to your son – not “I think I once met your father in Ireland” but “I think in nine months’ time I shall be talking to your father in the county club at Cork”.’ We then decided that on the whole it was just as well that the Almighty had arranged that homo sapiens should be denied the power of foreseeing the future.

  Next day I was back at Limerick by the middle of the afternoon. Going into the ante-room I found no one there except Kegworthy. It was Sunday, and the others were all out or having a bit of extra sleep.

  ‘There’s been an old boy up here asking for you. He said he’d come back again later,’ said Kegworthy, adding as an afterthought, ‘Have a drink.’

  I mention the afterthought because it was a too-frequent utterance of his. Kegworthy was one of the most likeable men at the Depot; there were only two formidable things about him: his physique – he was a magnificent heavyweight boxer – and his mess bill for drinks. I had seen several fine men trying to drown the War in whisky, but never a more good-humoured one than Kegworthy. There were no half-measures about him, however, and it was really getting rather serious. Anyhow the mess-waiter brought him another large one, and I left him to it.

  On my way across the barrack square I saw someone coming through the gateway. He approached me. He was elderly, stoutish, with a pink face and a small white moustache; he wore a bowler hat and a smart blue overcoat. His small light blue eyes met mine and he smiled. He looked an extraordinarily kind old chap, I thought. We stood there, and after a moment or two he said ‘Blarnett’. Not knowing what he meant, I remained silent. It sounded like some sort of Irish interjection. Observing my mystification, he amplified it slightly: ‘I’m Blarnett,’ he remarked serenely. So I knew that much about him. His name was Blarnett. But how did he know who I was? But perhaps he didn’t.

  I have recorded this little incident in its entirety because it was typical of him. Mr. Blarnett was a man who assumed that everyone knew who he was. It seldom occurred to him that many things in this world need prefatory explanation. And on this occasion he apparently took it for granted that the word Blarnett automatically informed me that he had seen me out hunting, had heard that I was very keen to come out again, that the hounds were meeting about four miles away tomorrow, that he had come to offer me a mount on one of his horses, and that he would call for me at the Barracks as punctual as the sun. The word Blarnett was, in fact, a key which unlocked for me the door into the County Limerick hunting world. All I had to do was to follow Mr. Blarnett, and the camaraderie of the chase made the rest of it as easy as falling off a log, or falling off one of Mr. Blarnett’s horses (though these seldom ‘put a foot wrong’, which was just as well for their owner, who rode by balance and appeared to remain on the top of his horse through the agency of a continuous miracle, being a remarkably good bad rider).

  He departed, having communicated all that was necessary, and nothing else. His final words were ‘Mrs. O’Donnell hopes you’ll take tea with her after hunting.’ I said I should be delighted. ‘A grand woman, Mrs. O’Donnell,’ he remarked, and toddled away, leaving me to find out for myself who she was and where she lived. No doubt he unconsciously assumed that I knew. And somehow he made one take it all as a matter of course.

  Returning to the ante-room I told Kegworthy how ‘the old boy’ had turned out to be a trump card; ‘And now look here,’ I added, ‘I’d already got a hireling for tomorrow, and you’ve jolly well got to ride it.’

  My suggestion seemed to cause him momentary annoyance, for he was, I regret to say, in that slightly ‘sozzl
ed’ state when people are apt to be irrationally pugnacious. ‘But, you bloody bastard, I’ve never been out hunting in my life. D’you want me to break my bloody neck?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, old chap, I’d no idea you were so nervous about horses.’

  ‘What’s that? Are you telling me I’m nervous? Show me the something Irishman who says that and I’ll knock his something head off.’

  His competitive spirit having been stimulated, it was easy to persuade him that he would enjoy every minute of it, and it was obvious that a day in the country would do him no harm at all. I told him that I’d already hired a wild Irishman with a ramshackle Ford car to take me to the meet, so he could go in that. I assumed that Mr. Blarnett and his horses would call at the Barracks, as he’d said nothing about any other arrangements. So the next morning I was waiting outside the gates in good time. After forty minutes I was still waiting and the situation looked serious when Kegworthy joined me – the Ford car being now just about due to arrive. Shortly afterwards it did arrive, and Mr. Blarnett was in it, wearing a perfectly cut pink hunting coat, with a bunch of violets in his button-hole. He looked vaguely delighted to see us, but said nothing, so we climbed in, and the car lurched wildly away to the meet, the driver grinning ecstatically round at us when he missed a donkey and cart by inches when swerving round a sharp corner. Mr. Blarnett did not trouble himself to tell us how he came to be sharing Kegworthy’s conveyance. With top hat firmly on his head and a white apron over his knees to keep his breeches from getting dirty, he sat there like a child that has been instructed to keep itself clean and tidy until it arrives at the party. And after all, what was there for him to explain? We were being bumped and jolted along a rough road at forty miles an hour, and this obviously implied that the horses had been sent on to the meet. We passed them just before we got there, and Mr. Blarnett revealed their identity by leaning out of the car and shouting ‘I have me flask’ to the groom, who grinned and touched his hat. The flask, which had been brandished as ocular proof, was very large, and looked like a silver-stoppered truncheon.

  It was a fine morning and there was quite a large crowd at the cross roads, where the hounds were clustering round the hunt servants on a strip of grass in front of an inn.

  Having pulled up with a jerk which nearly shot us out of our seats, we alighted, and Mr. Blarnett, looking rather as if he’d just emerged from a cold dip in the ocean, enquired ‘Am I acquainted with your officer friend?’ A formal introduction followed. ‘My friend Kegworthy is riding one of Mike Shehan’s horses. He’s having his first day’s hunting,’ I explained, and then added, ‘His first day’s hunting in Ireland’; hoping thereby to give Kegworthy a fictitious advantage over his total lack of experience.

  Mr. Blarnett, in a confidential undertone, now asked, ‘Will you take something before we start?’ Powerless to intervene I followed them to the inn. Mr. Blarnett’s popularity became immediately apparent. Everyone greeted him like a long-lost brother, and I also became aware that he was universally known as ‘The Mister’.

  They all seemed overjoyed to see The Mister, though most of them had seen him out hunting three days the week before; and The Mister responded to their greetings with his usual smiling detachment. He took it for granted that everybody liked him, and seemed to attribute it to their good nature rather than to his own praiseworthiness.

  But was it altogether advisable, I wondered, that he should confer such a large and ill-diluted glass of whisky on such a totally inexperienced man to hounds as Kegworthy? For the moment, however, his only wish seemed to be that the whole world should drink his health. And they did. And would have done so once again had time permitted. But the hounds were about to move off, and The Mister produced his purse with a lordly air, and the landlord kept the change, and we went out to find our horses.

  Had I been by myself I should have been sitting on my hireling in a state of subdued excitement and eagerness, scrutinizing the hounds with a pseudo-knowing eye, and observing everyone around me with the detached interest of a visiting stranger. But I was with The Mister, and he made it all feel not quite serious and almost dreamlike. It couldn’t have been the modicum of cherry brandy I’d sipped for politeness’ sake which made the proceedings seem a sort of extravaganza of good-humoured absurdity.

  There was The Mister, solemnly handing his immense flask to the groom, who inserted it in a leather receptacle attached to the saddle. And there was Kegworthy, untying the strings of The Mister’s white apron; he looked happy and rather somnolent, with his cap on one side and his crop projecting from one of his trench boots.

  Even The Mister’s horses seemed in a trance-like condition, although the bustle and fluster of departure was in full swing around them. The Mister having hoisted himself into the saddle, I concentrated on launching Kegworthy into the unforeseeable. I had ridden the hireling before and knew it to be quiet and reliable. But before I had time to offer any advice or assistance, he had mounted heavily, caught the horse by the head, and was bumping full-trot down the road after the rest of the field. His only comment had been: ‘Tell Mother I died bravely.’

  ‘You’ll be following to bring him home,’ said The Mister to our motor-driver, who replied that sure to God it was the grandest hunt we’d be having from the Gorse. We then jogged sedately away.

  ‘Will you be staying long in Limerick?’ he asked. I told him that I might be ordered off to Egypt any day – perhaps tomorrow, perhaps not for a couple of weeks. This seemed to surprise him. ‘To Egypt? Will you be fighting the Egyptians then?’ No, it was the Turks, I told him. ‘Ah, the Turks, bad luck to them! It crossed me mind when I said it that I had it wrong about the Egyptians.’

  A quarter of a mile away the tail end of the field could be seen cantering up a green slope to the Gorse. It was a beautiful still morning and the air smelt of the earth.

  ‘’Ark!’ exclaimed The Mister, pulling up suddenly. (Dropped aitches were with him a sure sign of cerebral excitement.) From the far side of the covert came a long-drawn view-halloa, which effectively set The Mister in motion. ‘Go on, boy, go on! Don’t be waiting about for me. Holy Mother, you’ll be getting no hunting with them Egyptians!’ So I went off like a shot out of a gun, leaving him to ride the hunt in his own time. My horse was a grand mover; luckily the hounds turned toward me, and soon I was in the same field with them. Of the next forty minutes I can only say that it was all on grass and the banks weren’t too formidable, and the pace just good enough to make it exciting. There was only one short check, and when they had marked their fox to ground I became aware that he had run a big ring and we were quite near the Gorse where we found him. I had forgotten all about Kegworthy, but he now reappeared, perspiring freely and considerably elated. ‘How did you manage it?’ I asked. He assured me that he’d shut his eyes and hung on to the back of the saddle at every bank and the horse had done the rest. The Mister was now in a glow of enthusiasm and quite garrulous. ‘Sure that mare you’re riding is worth five hundred guineas if she’s worth a penny bun,’ he ejaculated, and proceeded to drink the mare’s health from that very large flask of his.

  As I have already suggested, there was something mysterious about The Mister – a kind of innocence which made people love him and treat him as a perennial joke. But, so far, I knew next to nothing about him, since he took it for granted that one knew everything that he knew; and the numerous hunting people to whom he’d introduced me during a rather dull and uneventful afternoon’s sport took everything about The Mister for granted; so on the whole very little definite information about anything had emerged.

  ‘How the hell did he make his money?’ asked Kegworthy, as we sat after dinner comparing our impressions of the day’s sport and social experience. ‘Men like The Mister get rid of their money quick enough, but they don’t usually make any,’ he added.

  ‘He certainly gives one the impression of being “self-made”,’ I remarked. ‘Perhaps he won fifty thousand in a sweepstake. But if he’d done that he’d stil
l be telling everyone about it, and would probably have given most of it away by now.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s in the hands of trustees,’ suggested Kegworthy. I agreed that it might be so, and nominated Mrs. O’Donnell as one of them. Of Mrs. O’Donnell at any rate, we knew for certain that she had given us a ‘high-tea’ after hunting which had made dining in the mess seem almost unthinkable. It had been a banquet. Cold salmon and snipe and unsurpassable home-made bread and honey had indeed caused us to forget that there was a war on; while as for Mrs. O’D. herself, in five minutes she made me feel that I’d known her all my life and could rely on her assistance in any emergency. It may have been only her Irish exuberance, but it all seemed so natural and homely in that solid plainly-furnished dining-room where everything was for use and comfort more than for ornament.

  The house was a large villa, about a mile from the barracks – just outside the town. There I sat, laughing and joking, and puffing my pipe, and feeling fond of the old Mister who had reached an advanced stage of cronydom with Kegworthy, while between them they diminished a decanter of whisky. And then Mrs. O’Donnell asked me whether I played golf; but before I could reply the maid called her out of the room to the telephone, which enabled the word ‘golf’ to transport me from Ireland to Scotland and see myself cleaning my clubs in my room at the hydro, and deciding that the only thing to do was to go back to the War again. How serious that decision had been, and how blithely life was obliterating it until this visualized memory evoked by the mention of ‘golf’ had startled me into awareness of the oddity of my surroundings!

  Every day that I went out with the Limerick Hounds was, presumably, my last; but I was able to make several farewell appearances, and I felt that each day was something to the good; these were happy times, and while they lasted I refused to contemplate my Egyptian future. Mentally, I became not unlike The Mister, whose motto – if he ever formulated anything so definite as a motto – was ‘we may all of us be dead next week so let’s make the best of this one’. He took all earthly experience as it came and allowed life to convey him over its obstacles in much the same way as his horses carried him over the Irish banks. His vague geniality seemed to embrace the whole human species. One felt that if Hindenburg arrived in Limerick The Mister would receive him without one tedious query as to his credentials. He would merely offer to mount him, and proudly produce him at the meet next morning. ‘Let me introduce me friend Marshal Hindenbird,’ he would say, riding serenely up to the Master. And if the Master demurred, The Mister would remark, ‘Be reasonable, Master. Isn’t the world round, and we all on it?’