Love and the Loveless

by Henry Williamson

  As he got up from his knees, he heard the impersonal mild sarcasm of the voice, “No idea, sir, no idea! Why not get inside your mount, and let ’im go on ’is own?” as Phillip picked himself up and, as though indifferent to what had happened, examined the knees of his best fawn cavalry twill breeches for mud damage. Then, as he was leading away his docile mount, he saw the sergeant loop gracefully five times as he cleared the jumps around the course.

  “There you are, sir, if I can jump these five little fences, you can do it. Now try agen, sir.”

  “It’s all very well for you, sergeant, but you’ve got a decent horse!”

  “You’re welcome to try my mount, sir.”

  He went to the sergeant’s horse, and hoping that he would not show his nervousness, mounted, and pulled up the irons, for he did not want to be dragged. With the reins laid on the bay’s neck, he turned it round. Then he clapped his heels and feeling it was all a fantasy, that he was only just remembering in time to sway forward at each jump, hands low on withers, and lean back as the horse cleared a fence, he went round somehow; and dismounted, his thighs quivering as though stretched, as he stood beside the sergeant.

  “Very kind of you, sergeant. A beautiful action. It was a combination of Arab blood and your schooling that did the trick.”

  “We’ll make a roughrider outer you yet, sir!”

  It had been like sitting in an armchair, thought Phillip, with jubilation, as he tried to remount a cocoanut on four legs. He found he had no strength.

  “Take it easy, sir,” said the sergeant, quietly. “The muscles of your leg aren’t used to it. We’ll find you a more suitable mount tomorrow.”

  The next afternoon he was given a black gelding which the sergeant said had some blood in it, declaring that the broad brow and large brown eyes showed the Arab.

  *

  In the days that followed the section exercised beyond the confines of the domain wall, long trotting journeys into the surrounding country. Down obscure lanes they went, with stirrup irons pulled up on leathers, past fields of plough and stubble, cornstacks and ricks of hay, grazing fields and coppices. The black gelding was a high-stepper, with a tendency to pass other horses; a touch on its flanks, and it would break into a canter. Phillip was often bumped and shaken to the point of wanting to dismount, but he kept going; and one day, suddenly, he acquired a sense of balance, and with it, a feeling of mastery.

  It happened when it began to rain as the section was trotting home. He was riding without stirrups, an action helped by rain having given a firmer grip between cloth and leather.

  Soon his tunic and breeches were saturated; he was filled with an inner glow. When the order was given to canter, inside the park gates, the horses flung out their forelegs, eager to get back to feed-bags of oats and chaff. Passing through an avenue of beech trees, the sergeant put his horse at the gallop. Immediately his horse followed, the air behind was filled with flying clots of earth as the black strove to get ahead of the bay in front of it. He felt tremendous exhilaration as his wet breeches gripped the saddle flaps. He felt an ease of balance, so that he looked back over his shoulder at the other riders, completely confident in both himself and his horse; and letting the gelding have its head, with reins laid slightly upon its neck, he drew level with the sergeant, who thereupon gave his mount a touch of the spur. A neck-and-neck race was on through the rain, showers of sods flew behind the two leaders. Phillip had his irons drawn up and crossed over his saddle bow, he felt he was hinged to the horse’s motion from the knees up. As he drew away from the sergeant, he experienced a new power upon himself, accompanied by a surging joy. It was not confined to the feeling that he could ride, but to other things in life. It was nothing to do with what he had hitherto thought of as himself; the feeling was wider, beyond the shut-in feelings, and calmer—a sure feeling, like the one Lily had, when he had met her again, after four months, and she had told him that she was going out to France to nurse the wounded. She was so calm, serene, and composed. As he fled across the park he felt that he had come through the shadow that had always lain upon his life, until now; and with a touch of the reins he brought the gelding down to a canter, then to a trot—which he found smooth and gliding, a series of little undisturbing low bumps, a mere ripple, horse and rider harmonious in joined motion. With three words, “Stand, Black Prince!” the horse stopped. He lifted his right leg over its head and slid to the ground, to find that he was quivering like the horse. If only he could buy it! The Black Prince! He stroked its nose, rubbed its cheek-bone, and the white blaze down its face. “Black Prince”, he said, feeling as though he and the gelding were great friends already. The horse pressed against his hand, and gave a low whinney.

  At the start of the next riding lesson, when he made for Black Prince, standing with others tied by head-ropes to the picket line, the gelding watched him approaching. Phillip saw that Black Prince’s ears were erect, and when he went to its head, the gelding gave a whuffle of recognition. He had brought a carrot from the cookhouse; Black Prince saw it, the brown eyes brightened, the horse held its head ready for the unfastening of the head-stall, by which the bit was slipped from its mouth. After the carrot was eaten, the horse helped, by head movement, to slip the bit back into its mouth. Black Prince is intelligent, Phillip thought; he knows, as Lily had known.

  *

  The days shortened. Dusk came early. Electric-light bulbs shone behind brown army blankets that served as hutment curtains; for Zeppelins, despite the flamers, were still coming over. Grantham was now a place of darkness, which somehow lived the vaguest shadowy life of its own, peopled by civilians seen as flat surfaces, diminished in the soldiers’ world because they were not in uniform, fairly useless, with unreal faces scarcely perceived. There were also many soldiers of the rank and file; these, too, were one-dimensional figures of another world, of ugly issue uniforms, heavy boots, and almost dead faces as they saluted mechanically. So much for Grantham in the eyes of Phillip, as the last of the leaves drifted down into the dampness of November.

  The Angel gave forth a promising mild roar as the door into the bar was opened, to reveal scores of faces, in various shades of red and brown and varying states of animation around tables, with similar figures booted and spurred standing at the mahogany bar. The privileged stood or sat in a narrow room marked Office on one glass panel of the door. For Phillip the main bar was the attraction, for behind it was the centre of most young men’s thoughts: two coveted figures in daring three-quarter-length skirts and black silk stockings, young women with fair hair and blue eyes, daughters of the landlord: the elder girl was, according to Teddie Pinnegar, married to the son of a peer—a khaki wedding—even so, said Teddie, she was not stuck-up over it, but helped to serve in the bar.

  Where was Teddie tonight? Phillip had had a bath in a borrowed canvas trough on his cubicle floor. He felt very clean and sure of himself afterwards as he put on new shirt and slacks, polished belt and shoes, new M.G.C. badges on his tunic lapels; but now, looking about him and seeing no one he knew, he felt thin. He waited to be served at the bar, while others thrust past him, some calling cheerily to the girls. He envied the hearty ones as he gave way to the thrusters, while quietly awaiting his turn. Then with relief he saw the smiling face of Pinnegar coming in at the door, with two pips on each shoulder strap. He was with a captain whom Phillip had not seen before. The captain went into the dining room, and Pinnegar came to the bar. Phillip said, “Congratulations, mein prächtig kerl!”

  “It was in the London Gazette this morning,” Pinnegar beamed. “I’ve got two months’ back pay to come, what’s more. How about a drink, to christen it?” The new gilt star shone beside the old dulled one. “How are you getting on, Phil?”

  “Oh. not so dusty. We’re passing out next week, with any luck.”

  “If you’d stopped on the gun, you’d have got a company, you know, with your seniority.”

  “I prefer horses and mules, any day, mein prächtig kerl! It’s the bes
t job in France! I’ve had my fill of going over the top. How about you? Any chance of a company?”

  “Not now. I would have had one, if I hadn’t gone sick after Flers. Second loots, who’ve been acting as brigade machine gun officers, are coming back for refresher courses, and being given three pips. Anyway, I don’t give a damn, I’ve palled up with a dam’ fine chap, a captain, who’s got a racing Mercédès, and never puts up the hood. They call him All Weather Jack, and he’s a dam’ fine sport. He’s applied for me to be his second-in-command when he gets a company. Sort of adjutant, you know, runs orderly room and supplies. I’d prefer it to transport any day. Chance of a third pip, if he gets a crown.”

  “With the transport you can get a dry sleep in a camp bed every twenty-four hours. That’s all I want.”

  The staring sleepless nights of the first battle of Ypres were still with Phillip, and the black cold rain in the flooded trenches of the winter of 1914.

  “I’d like you to meet my pal Ho-bart, Phil. He’s just gone through to order dinner. We’re having pheasants and claret. They’ve got a wonderful cellar here.” He lowered his voice. “Jack Ho-bart’s got pots of money, from Ho-bart’s boot polish. Quite a useful pal to have. Two double whiskies, please!” with a smile at the blue-eyed barmaid. “That’s the Honourable’s sister,” he said sideways. “Marvellous blue eyes, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes.” Lily, Lily; if only she were Lily.

  “Jack’s just come back from France,” went on Pinnegar. “As I said, he’s an awfully nice fellow. I’ll see if I can wangle you dinner with us. It’s his birthday. We’re going on to the theatre afterwards. He’s got a stage box.”

  “I haven’t signed out.” Phillip shrunk from the idea of sponging.

  “What’s the odds? It isn’t as though it’s a battalion mess, and who’s to know, or care for that matter? Anyway, Ho-bart’s got pots of it, so we may as well help him spend it. I’d feel the same if I were in his shoes. What’s money for, but to be spent?”

  Captain Hobart threaded his way to the bar. Phillip saw at a glance that he was Yeomanry, by his open genial look and hair parted in the middle and brushed back, with a whiff of eau-de-Cologne; by the cut of his well-worn breeches, washed almost white, and the buttons fastened beside and below the kneecap, the top button of each row pressing upon the little crater in the kneecap, the “button of the knee” as tailors called it; by the pale fawn stock tie, the well-boned mahogany boots, the silver spurs set high upon each ankle, with leather straps above and below. A pre-war officer, he decided. Teddie Pinnegar, by contrast, wore a pair of the much-advertised Harry Hall’s breeches with a wide cut. They were horsey, and of a rather livid salmon-pink hue, fastened with laces, and kept almost formally in shape below the knee by whale-bone strips inserted beside the lace-holes. His shirt and tie were very nearly of the same hue, so was his cap, with the peak worn at an angle and the crown crushed in: rather bounderish, Phillip thought, rather a show-off; not that Teddie, he hastened to tell himself, was a bounder, not at all, only he didn’t seem to know, exactly, what made up good form.

  “This is Phil Maddison, Jack.”

  “How do you do, sir.”

  “Don’t you call me sir, young feller! My name’s Hubb’t. Or Ho-bart, as some prefer to call me.”

  “Now don’t you pretend you’re not Ho-bart of Ho-bart’s Boot Polish, Jack, for I’ve been telling Phillip all about you——”

  “How about our appointment with the Widow? It’s my birthday, let’s crack a bottle, shall we? In fact, I’ve got some on ice. Let’s go into the office, what?”

  Pinnegar winked at Phillip, to confirm the success of his strategy. Phillip felt uneasiness; it looked like deliberate sponging. He was soon reassured in the company of the two girls, and their mother, who were glad to see everyone, as was Captain Hobart. A nice fellow, he thought; so was Teddie, but he wished he would see that Hobart, under his easy manner, was bored by the continued remarks about his name.

  “What tripe some pronunciations of names are! Mere snobbery, when you come to think of it. Everyone trying to be one up on the people next door! It’s like fashions in women’s hats at Ascot”—with an ingenuous smile at the younger blue-eyed girl who had brought in the ice bucket. Then,

  “Shall I crack it for you, Jack?” he asked, as he lifted a bottle of Veuve Cliquot 1906 from the ice, and started to undo the wire over the cork.

  “No, you must let me take the risk,” replied Hobart, taking the bottle, and loosening the cork. Pop! It struck the ceiling, while Hobart managed to get most of the froth into a glass. Some fell on Pinnegar’s new breeches.

  “My word, now I’ve spoiled your new Harry Hall’s, Teddie!”

  “That’s all right,” cried Pinnegar. “I wet them myself sometimes! Well, cheero, Jack, all the best, and many happy returns!”

  After the toast had been drunk, Pinnegar went on, “As I was saying, women at Ascot before the war went there solely to out-do other women in hats. Don’t you agree? You’ll bear me out there, I dare say, Jack?”

  “I never looked at the hats, Teddie.”

  “I bet you didn’t!” said Pinnegar, knowingly. Then, to Phillip, “You want to keep in with Jack! He’s looking for a transport officer! He might ask you, if he takes a fancy to you.”

  While Phillip was trying to think of something to say, Captain Hobart turned to him and said, “I hear you were hit on July the First. What section?”

  “Albert—before Ovillers. I got a couple of scratches, so I wasn’t there long.”

  “I’ve just come back from Albert, or what’s left of it. They’ve nearly brought the railway up, now we’ve got the high ground to the north and east. It was badly plastered after you left.”

  “I’ve often wondered if the Golden Virgin on the campanile was shot down.”

  “No, She’s still there. The saying now is that when She falls, the war will end. The French engineers went up last month, and fixed her with wire. No connexion between rumour and fact!”

  “Can you tell me what the ‘Notre Dame de Brébières’ represented?”

  “‘Our Lady of the Shepherdesses’. It was corn and sheep country, you know, all around there. Hence the dedication. She was also known as ‘The Virgin with the Limp,’ as she dragged her right foot. The French are realistic in their affairs, and bring symbolism into their everyday living.”

  “I never saw any shepherdesses!” said Pinnegar. “The women were a lot of old scarecrows in black clothes and sabots.”

  Captain Hobart continued, “It’s hard to imagine it, but I knew that country before the war. I used to fish some of those Picardy streams—all spring-fed out of the chalk, you know. Do you fish?”

  “I’ve fished in Kent, and also in Devon.”

  “Ah yes, small trout, but very lively, and excellent eating. Those Department du Nord rivers hold some awful good trout, you know. Two and three pounders quite common. Not quite up to the Test, perhaps, but as good as the Avon at Salisbury. Do you fish wet or dry? Wet, I suppose, in Devon?”

  “Most fish wet, but I used a dry fly.”

  “Good man! Go after your fish, no ‘chuck and chance it’. How’s the transport course? Passed out yet?”

  “No, we have that next week.”

  “I’m gettin’ a company, I expect Teddie told you?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Care to come along with us?”

  “I’d like to, very much.”

  “Good man. I’ll try and work it. With any luck we ought to be out in the New Year. There’s a big show coming off in the spring, at Arras. When I left, Fifth Army was getting ready to clear the Ancre valley. It’s no secret, of course, the old Hun knows it as well as we do. Good hunting!” He raised his glass, and they drank together. “You hunt the deer on Exmoor, don’t you? I’ve never been so far West, I’m a fox-catcher from these parts.”

  “I’ve never hunted.”

  “Like to hunt?” Captain Hobart filled his glass.

 
; “Rather!”

  “We’ll go out one day. There are several meets within reasonable hacking distance. We’ll get hold of some gees, there are several among the remounts capable of toppin’ the timber. We must foregather!”

  “I’ve got an awful good horse in my section. It’s a black gelding, sixteen hands high, some Arab blood in it. I’ve been wondering how to wangle it for myself, when I leave the riding school.”

  “Who’s your Riding Master?”

  “I don’t know his name, but he’s in the Seventeenth Lancers, with long black moustaches, and rides a chestnut gelding that lopes along with a beautiful South African triple canter.”

  “Sounds like ‘Ropey’ Griggs. A case of whiskey will grease his palm. Not a word about it to any one, of course.”

  “No fear. Well, thank you, Captain Hubb’rt. I ought to say goodbye now, and go back to camp. Will you have a drink with me?”

  “That’s awful good of you, but would you mind if we make it another time? It’s my birthday, you see, and as a matter o’ fact, there’s another bottle coming! Won’t you stay and help us make it a dead’n? And I’d be delighted if you’d join my table for dinner. I think if we’re going to be in the same company in France, the sooner we get to know one another the better, don’t you?”

  “Well, thank you very much.”

  “That’s settled then. I’ll tell the head waiter.”

  When he returned, Hobart said, “Wonderful old pub this, isn’t it? Where we sit now, Richard Crook-back signed the death warrant of Buckingham in 1483, his best friend, who went the way of all the rest of his pals. As you know, Richard the Third found himself alone, at the end of his life, forsaken on the field of Bosworth. Wonderful to think of history going on, isn’t it, past and present all one in time? It helps one to keep this war in perspective.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “What is happening today is all a part with what has happened before. It’s the same life now as it was in the past. The means differ, that’s all. War, fighting, struggles between men—it’s inherent in human nature.”