A Solitary War

by Henry Williamson

  “Yes, I am most grateful for what you have done, ‘Yipps’. But the basic situation remains. Has Teddy any capital?”

  “Well, it’s a long story, but put briefly, if Teddy had been less unbusiness-like in certain things, he might still have had a business. He trusted his partner’s word, and was let down. He founded the business, now the partner and the associates he brought in possess practically all of it.”

  “Then he has no capital?”

  “He has a share in the business still, if he can realise it. The other directors have voted themselves big salaries which makes Teddy’s original shares of little value. His block was yielding a good income before the war, when, with an offer of finance, Teddy agreed to accept new capital. He had an allocation of new shares, of course, but to-day they are worth only a shilling or so, where before, the original shares were worth a pound. Anyway, the factory may go over to war work, then the shares may harden. But surely he has told you, ‘Little Ray’?”

  “I can’t see, from what you say, how he was swindled. Many small firms have lost trade owing to the war.”

  “Teddy may try to get a job in London,” she said quietly. “I hope he will, for his sake. He tried to join up as intelligence officer in the R.A.F. when the war began, but there was a long waiting list, many of them authors—like yourself. Most of you genii made a bee-line for that intelligence funk-hole in the R.A.F., I notice.”

  “That means that the idea of partnership goes no further? For I don’t think his scheme of taking pupils here is practicable. They’re apparently to live, some of them anyway, in Penelope’s house. Quite honestly I can’t see any possibility of such a scheme. My name on the title-page of a book doesn’t mean very much, and even if it did, as a farmer I’ve no standing at all, except perhaps as a local joke.”

  “All you think about is yourself. Do you ever think of the future of that poor child Billy? Standing in the cowshed with a little whip, while that redpoll calf you bought for ten shillings, Nimrod, is being suckled? Spending his days in that dark little place with a dirty old cowman? It’s dreadful to think of! You ought to send him back to school, you know. Lucy told me he got a scholarship, so it won’t cost you anything.”

  “But I don’t think he will learn anything at school of the least use for the future.”

  “Can you say the same of the farm, my dear man? All he learns here is to be like the men—the men, you say, who don’t care about looking after things properly. Look how Matt bangs his pails about. I believe he drops them on the concrete road harder when he sees me. They’re almost half the size they should be—like a hat in an illustration of a Surtees’ novel, after its wearer has taken several tosses in the hunting field.”

  “I’ve noticed his pig pail—crenellated is the word. It was a first-quality feeding-pail, too. I bought the very best I could for him, telling him it should last a lifetime. But Matt and Luke——”

  “Matt! Luke! What names! ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, went to bed with their breeches on’. Well, if you think labourers are a proper model for youth to form itself on, I don’t!”

  “Matt is sensitive, kind, faithful, and does his best, ‘Yipps’. I know he hasn’t any mechanical sense. He simply drops that pig’s feeding-pail on the concrete by the water-tap every time he returns them empty. As I said, that pail should, with care, last a lifetime. But he has dropped it there regularly twice a day for over three years. In that time it’s had over a thousand blows equal to those with a three-pound hammer. Except that the hammer is made of concrete, and the weight of the blow is the weight of the pail dropped from about twelve or fifteen inches. And Matt declares that it has paid for itself many times over, simply because it’s fed three or four lots of pigs. Why, in a German farm they prize such things, almost from generation to generation. They haven’t had the pick of the world’s richness, you see, to corrupt their social values——”

  “Stop!” cried Mrs. Carfax. She put her fingers in her ears. “For heaven’s sake, stop pimminin’ about that pail! Anyway, what has a pail got to do with Billy. Can you answer that?”

  “Well, ‘Yipps’, you mentioned the pail, and it is, as it were, symbolic of the entire social structure, here and throughout England. So a pail carefully used has everything to do with the new generation.”

  “I don’t see any point in what you’re saying. And anyway, is it good for Billy, at his impressionable age, to be in the midst of such things?”

  “Certainly not. But I hope he will learn by contrast.”

  “No child learns by contrast. If you weren’t so selfish, you’d see that he needs a mother’s care.”

  “I see in that pail a symbol of decadent village standards, of town life, of national life, of the Empire itself. The standard of good craftsmanship is gone, everything must be cheap, nothing must be too well-made or it will last too long and there won’t be enough work in the factories. Hence the consumption crisis that was one of the precipitating causes of the war.”

  “Then why not buy cheap pails at Woolworth’s? Isn’t that the solution of your Great Pail Grouse, ‘Little Ray?”

  “The principle of easy living and easy money is behind the war: the principle of usury. I see its effects in all those about me. I see the war in all those about me—the cause of the war. And I struggle, ineffectually I admit, against them.”

  “My dear ‘Little Ray’, you’re talking absolute nonsense, and you know it! It’s all this ‘Haw-Haw’ stuff you and Teddy listen to, night after night. Absolute rubbish, in my opinion. Anyway, isn’t your own country good enough for you?”

  Phillip had heard that remark before,

  “It will be when all farms are flourishing again, when the soil’s fertility is being conserved instead of raped, when village life is a social unity, when pride of craftsmanship returns, when everyone works for the sake of adding to the beauty and importance of life, when every river is clean and bright, and the proud words ‘I serve’ are in everyone’s heart and purpose. Then my country will be good enough for me.” He felt suddenly exhausted.

  She said after a silence, “I begin to understand you. You’re a disgruntled patriot. Just you rest. Put up your feet, ‘Little Ray’.”

  Now he was afraid of her in a different way. “Yipps, I’m not a true farmer. A real farmer breathes business like the air. He starts to be a farmer before he is born. Billy is starting to be one as a boy of fifteen. The towns may become deserts, under bombing, if the shooting war starts. Willows and elderberries will grow on the fallen walls and courtyards—I hoped that Billy and the other children would be what my grandfather called ‘rosy-faced countrymen’, when the towns are deserts of rubble. That’s the main reason why I undertook this job. To work.”

  “I’m willing to work.”

  “You do work, ‘Yipps’.”

  “‘Little Ray’, be serious for a moment. First, let me make you tea.”

  “I’d love some, ‘Yipps’. I’m thirsty to-day, after all the wood Teddy and I sawed up. You’ll have some, of course?”

  “Yes, I’ll put the kettle on. You like ‘Earl Grey’ don’t you? I managed to get a tin in Yarwich the other day.”

  “The kettle may need more water, it’s nearly boiled away.”

  “Stop pimminin’. Put up your feet as I said, and lie back in your chair, and take your ease.”

  She seemed not to have seen the retriever bitch; but obeying her, he got up, lifted out the animal, sat down with it in his arms, and settled down to be the animal’s mattress. Feeling wanted, Deidre sighed happily.

  The black cast-iron kettle hanging from the serrated and smoke-crusted lapping crook on the chimney bar was softly simmering. ‘Yipps’ went into the kitchen, got a jug of water, filled the electric kettle, and plugged in the lead.

  “It takes seven minutes for this kettle to boil,” she said. “The element is furred thick with this awful hard water. You ought to be living in the Old Manor, you know, not this steward’s cottage.”

  At last the
copper kettle, with its green acid stains, was steaming. Phillip’s thoughts were with Lucy. Was she having a cup of tea with Tim at that moment?

  “You look tired, ‘Little Ray’. You need sugar, it provides energy. Don’t you usually take it?”

  “It’s rationed, and the children need it more.”

  “Well, they’re gone now!” she replied, sharply. “Except Billy. I’m really concerned for that boy. All he talks about is suckling calves. I saw him returning one of your precious pails the other day. Rattle, bomp! it hit the concrete. So there you are! What is the boy going to be when he’s grown-up—a cattle drover? A pail basher?”

  “As long as he doesn’t become a Cut Price Prince with a chain of shops and a suite at the Morchester, that wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “Can’t you be serious for a moment? You’re wasting your life here, you know.”

  “All life is a waste, in one sense.”

  “Ooh, you men! You’re slippery as eels!”

  He wanted to go to his cottage and write his book. It was a book of optimism and hope, of the natural zests of farming land. He had to drive himself to write it against the deadly feelings of not knowing how his self-created impasse would end. He was a unit of a divided continent which had lost direction.

  “Supposing when Billy is grown-up the poor little fellow doesn’t want to be a farmer at all? Where is he then?”

  “But why shouldn’t he want to be a farmer? And in any case, if he’s trained naturally in body and mind——”

  “You mean as a labourer.”

  He could not further keep his feelings out of his voice. “What is wrong with being a labourer? A labourer on the land is the backbone of the race.”

  “Poor Billy—no mother, no schooling. Were you happy with his mother, who died so young, ‘Little Ray’?”

  “‘Yipps’, you know what the death of a loved one means——”

  “Yes indeed, ‘Little Ray’.”

  They sat in an easier silence before the fire. At last he said, “About Billy’s schooling, I believe in education for character, not academic knowledge. We need to begin again, in Britain and Empire, as pioneers, but with the motto of the Prince of Wales who was kicked out by Money. That motto is ‘I serve’.”

  “Poor Billy. You and he—‘orphans of the storm’.”

  “‘Yipps’, the storm may blow all away before its over. We’re at the beginning of a war that’s going to alter the entire conception of life. Look how people are flocking to the countryside now. Teddy is right in what he says. When food gets short, everyone will want to buy a farm. That is the basis of his idea to provide a sort of funk-hole for rich men’s sons on the land—there’ll be a lot trying to turn farmer to dodge service in the army.”

  “At least they will have had some education before they go as pupils on a farm. With such young men Billy might very well feel inferior. Oh, if only you would use properly the good brain God gave you!”

  “I can’t believe that Billy would be inferior to the pallid, lanky youths returning by train from the grammar school, or from somewhere more expensive.”

  “Doesn’t the fact that Billy’s supposed to be the son of a gentleman mean anything to you?”

  “He’s not the son of a gentleman, he’s the grandson.”

  “Well, I think it is all a great shame! The trouble is, as Penelope told me only this afternoon, there is very little of the real person left in you.”

  “That’s what Cabton said.”

  “Don’t mention that creature to me. Ugh, cleaning his nails with that horrible knife! Well, I can’t get anything definite out of you, that’s certain. Does it ever occur to you that you get people here to work for you, use them, and then get rid of them when you’ve no more use for them? Oh yes, I know all about them. First there was Ernest, your brother-in-law. Then there was Felicity, and a Roman Catholic priest, and those horrible fascists. And now that child Melissa. Not to mention Teddy and me. Well, nothing I can do seems to please you. I’ve never been treated anywhere else in my life, as I’ve been treated since I came here! As for Billy, I can tell you it worries Teddy and me considerably, the future of that poor child. More tea, ‘Little Ray of Sunshine?”

  “No, thanks, ‘Little Ray of Table Shine’.”

  “But usually you have two cups at night.”

  “I won’t tonight, thanks very much.”

  It was freezing again, he didn’t want to awake about 1 a.m. and lie in bed an hour or so before deciding, wearily, that he would have to get out and grope for the pot.

  “Then you’ll be thirsty later on and will want some, and accuse me of being uneconomical the next moment. At least, you’ll think so, even if you don’t actually say so, won’t you, ‘Little Ray?”

  “I won’t have any more tea, thank you, ‘Yipps’.”

  She poured him out a cup. “There, you don’t know your own mind. So I will decide for you.”

  “Okay, as Teddy would say.”

  “Why didn’t you say so at first, instead of pimminin’, eh? Oh, it’s like a vault in this room.”

  Sitting down again she seized the bellows and blasted the embers with the spout thrust into their heart. Sparks and grey ash shot and floated in the smoke-black hollow of the bricks.

  “If Teddy goes, will you take me as a partner?” she said, blowing less violently but still wasting the life of the embers. “I have a few thousands to spare. I can’t see poor little Billy neglected so. I feel for him as though he were my own son. Rupert will be coming home from his prep-school in a few days, and Billy will have a friend. With the money of a half share you could send him to school, and he and Rupert could enjoy themselves here in the holidays. What do you want for a half-share, two thousand, isn’t it?”

  He replied with forced lightness of tone, “Of course, I’m not sure it is exactly two thousand, ‘Yipps’. That’s only what I valued the stock and covenants and tillages at—including the sugar-beet, and this year’s corn, in stack and barn. It may be less than that sum, I can’t really say.”

  “Well, no need to be pimminin’ over minor details, ‘Little Ray’. Doesn’t my offer solve two problems at once?”

  It creates two more problems, he thought. “May I think about it when I have talked to Teddy?”

  “It has nothing to do with him. He has no capital.”

  “Then perhaps the sensible thing to do is to sell the farm and have an auction, ‘Yipps’. I’ll go back to the army, in the ranks.”

  “Don’t you ever think of me? All my things are here, and my house may be let by now!”

  “But surely you said that it was in the market anyway to be let furnished before you ever thought of coming down here with Teddy?”

  “I don’t wish to hear any more about it!” she said, and crouched to the blasting of the embers.

  “I—I think I’ll go and throw a dart with Teddy. Well, if I don’t see you again, I’ll say Goodnight now.” But ‘Yipps’ had gone behind her shut door.

  He walked down the village street to his cottage. All was dark around and before him, except for two wavering spots of light no bigger than halfpennies. Voices. Dim spidery outlines—Billy and ‘Pinwheel’ coming home from the talkies at Crabbe.

  “Hullo, Dad.”

  “Hullo, sir. I wonder—may I have a word with you, sir?”

  “Come to my cottage, ‘Pinwheel’.”

  Chapter 10

  ‘PINWHEEL’ PROPOSES

  Seen by electric light behind 1918 army blankets, the improver’s eye was bright.

  “It’s about a cottage, sir. I was wondering if I could, in my spare time, which seems excessive, sir, help Captain Pinnegar do up your new cottage? Then perhaps I might—purely as a service cottage of course—have this one.”

  “So you want to be on your own?”

  “Frankly, sir, I feel that I cannot sit at your groaning board, as a passenger, any longer. I’m not paying my way on the farm. I speak only for myself, sir, but I have eyes in my head. If y
ou’ll forgive my saying so—the farmer is getting nothing out of the present organisation.”

  “‘Pinwheel’, you are a good fellow. Let me show you the books of ‘the Bad Lands’.”

  The farm books—trading accounts, capital account—were now kept meticulously. Phillip went over them item by item. “Well, that’s the situation, ‘Pinwheel’.”

  “I won’t comment, sir, on your confidence, which does me honour, if I may say so. Things are in the red, I agree. But I would like to say one thing—if this were a dairy farm, with all the meadows you have, and the steep fields—‘the Bad Lands’, as you call them—put down to grass, or seed mixtures for milk, and the cows folded on them, and perhaps a milking bail taken out to the fields—well, your farm should produce, every year, a nett profit equal to more than half the entire capital value of the land at the price you paid for it, sir. Fifteen hundred a year.”

  “You would like to see it producing milk, and a pedigree herd?”

  “I would very much indeed, sir. And I don’t think it would be too difficult. The concrete roads through your yards are done. The cowhouse floor is done—there is a dung and liquid manure passage, I see, hidden under Matt’s private archeologically-preserved inside dungstead. Your artesian well is bored, water is laid on throughout the cowhouse. It only wants to be used. There are plugs in the horizontal pipe leading from the tank for drinking bowls to each stall. I see wonderful possibilities, sir, of a rising annual profit to eighteen hundred or even two thousand pounds.”

  The effect of ‘Pinwheel’s’ practical enthusiasm on Phillip was one of slightly antagonistic helplessness. He observed this reaction upon himself, and thought that it was due to habit: during the past three years, almost every day had been such that his mind was set to confront the spirit of negation.

  “There’s another reason why I thought of a cottage, sir. I really want to get married, for that is the proper base from which to work. In the immediate past”—he grinned—“I didn’t know which of two girls I liked best.”