R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield

by To Serve Them All My Days

  The story touched her deeply, for she had always been close to Winterbourne, and had never ceased to acknowledge the part he had played in helping her to adjust after a year in hospital. ‘Spats and Sax Hoskins are the very nicest boys we’ve ever had at Bamfylde,’ she said, and he replied, smiling, ‘Well, let’s settle for the fact that they’re among the most original. It’s a funny thing, but the originals are usually the easiest to get along with.’

  He gave her a shrewd, sidelong glance, as she kicked her pony into a trot and passed him on the down-slope to the river bottom, a healthy-looking eleven-year-old, or coming up to eleven in a week or so, with a ruddy complexion and no sign of a handicap as she sat her pony. A year or so ago she had continued to remind him poignantly of Beth, but lately he had begun to see her more as a miniature of his own sister, Megan, when she was flitting up and down the steep streets of the Valley, before the war. Living here, growing up among so many boys, she had a quality of self-confidence not given to many girls of her age, and it might stand her in good stead when she reached the proverbial awkward age. She would never, so long as she lived, show embarrassment in the presence of the male animal, and that was something he supposed, for even his tomboyish sisters had blushed on occasion. ‘Somebody,’ he pondered, ‘has done a good job on Grace, and I can’t really believe it was me. It took me all my time to ride out of the shock of that bloody awful day… Maybe she’s right, and it was Winterbourne, with his painting, and Sax Hoskins, with his foxtrots, and any number of others who went out of their way to help at the time.’

  They got back to school about five o’clock, having left the horses at Stone Cross Farm, and walked up, and there, framed in Big School arch, was Brigadier Cooper, his personal champion on the Governing Board. He noticed at once that the old warrior looked bothered, as though planning a foray across the North-West Frontier that might cost the lives of men.

  He said, briefly, ‘Been hanging around waiting for you since early afternoon. Like a word if you’re free. Where can we go?’ and when David suggested his quarters he said firmly, ‘No, your little lass and the butler will be there fussing with tea. It’s a private word I want. How about the planty?’

  ‘Suit yourself, Briggy,’ David said, and they went off across the football field, past Algy’s thinking post, to the coppice marking the school’s north-eastern border, now showing green where larches and the odd horse-chestnut broke the phalanx of Scots firs.

  ‘Thought you might like to know what’s going on,’ mumbled the Brigadier. ‘That chap is after your scalp and means to get it!’

  ‘Jolly good luck to him, but somehow I don’t think he will.’

  The brigadier’s salt-and-pepper brows knitted ‘Not so sure, P.J. He’s a devious devil, and he’s going to work in what I consider a thoroughly under-hand way. That’s why I’m here, d’ye follow?’

  ‘No,’ David said, ‘but I’d like to. You mean he’s approached some of the more conservative Governors, I imagine?’

  ‘He’s got at that dry old stick, Sir Rufus, for one. And that tyke, Blunt, who still seems to have it in for you over that memorial rumpus. The hard core that never really took to Algy or to Algy’s way of running the show.’

  ‘Is he still flying that damned silly kite about my right to air political opinions on a public platform?’

  ‘No, he’s played that down so far but he’ll bring it forward. It’s his strongest card with that bunch. Matter o’ fact, I did a reccy as soon as I discovered what was afoot. Got the results here,’ and he fumbled in his Norfolk jacket, producing a crumpled scrap of paper on which he had written some notes under alphabetical headings. ‘Here it is – (a) Claims you spearhead staff opposition to everything he attempts, (b) You yourself commit acts of indiscipline.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘You got up that petition about Carter’s boy, the one he intended to sack. Dam’ lot o’ nonsense, sacking a boy for smoking in the bushes. Standard punishment for getting caught has been six of the best for time out of mind. Then there was that Hislop business – he made hay of that, implying you were encouraging gambling.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes, the most serious allegation to my mind. He says your teaching methods are eccentric, that you don’t stick to the syllabus, and refuse to base your teaching on previous exam papers, thus prejudicing boys sitting for school-leaving cert. For good measure, he claims you use historical doggerel that was out of date when he was a boy. What the hell did he mean by that, P.J.?’

  ‘Aide-memoires I use in Lower School,’ said David, and quoted the famous ‘All-Boys-Naughty-Won’t-Memorise-All-Those-Horrid-Hateful-Battles-To-Bosworth’, explaining to a baffled brigadier its use as a reminder of a string of fifteenth-century battles.

  ‘But that’s damned good!’ exclaimed Cooper. ‘If someone had taught me that when I was a nipper I’d have soon had those bloody battles off pat! Fact is, I can’t recall any of ‘em but Hedgeley and Hexham. They stuck in the mind somehow.’

  ‘How did you get all this?’ David asked, steering him back to the point, and Cooper said, winking, that ‘he had put the ferret in’, his usual practice when he wanted to prod rumours into the open. Alcock, it seemed, hadn’t tackled a single Old Boy on the Board, and had been careful in his general approach, but had inevitably made one or two blunders, so that information of the backstairs campaign had leaked.

  In spite of maintaining a casual front David was more worried than he was prepared to admit, even to himself. Championship of Hislop was one thing, and so, to an extent, was his loyalty to Carter over the smoking incident, but it was humiliating to learn that Alcock was calling his teaching to account. He saw, too, that the references to his free-ranging current affairs sessions was merely a lead-in to a direct attack on his political opinions, opinions that Tory Governors would almost surely regard as subversion of the young. He decided, therefore, to test this outright and said, ‘Regarding my public support of a Labour candidate, how do you feel about that personally, Briggy?’

  ‘Bound to be frank. Don’t care for it,’ Cooper said. ‘All the same, I’m not such an ass as to think we can proscribe a man’s politics in his free time. Neither is Alcock, I imagine, and that’s why he’s played it down while the Socialists are in office. There’d be one hell of a row if Fleet Street got hold of a story you were being pressured to resign on that account. Wouldn’t do any of us a dam’ bit o’ good, would it?’

  ‘No,’ David said, ‘and I told him that.’ They stopped to retrace their steps at the point where the plantation turned a right-hand angle. ‘How do you regard it, then? He couldn’t get me kicked out, could he? Not on this kind of evidence?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Cooper said, thoughtfully, ‘but even if he failed you’d have trouble living it down. I’ve had a lot of experience of committee work, and learned enough to realise that all this is doing you real harm. What you do about it is your affair. My responsibility stops at letting you in on what’s being said behind your back. You could confront the bounder, I suppose.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be the slightest use. I’ve already confronted him, on three separate occasions.’

  ‘You might frighten him with a solicitor’s letter.’

  ‘Without anything but hearsay to back it?’

  ‘That’s a point. All I know is you can’t let it go on. Talk it over with one of the old hands, Howarth or Barnaby, maybe. What I’m really driving at, I imagine, is that if he can whip up a sufficient body of opinion against you he could offer his resignation unless you submitted yours.’

  ‘Would that be best for Bamfylde in the long run?’

  ‘No, it damned well wouldn’t! I told you I know more about committees than you do and here’s proof of it. If he tendered his resignation on those terms they’d be obliged to ask him to withdraw it, then put the pressure on you. His seniority assures him of that. Can’t go above the head of a C.O. on behalf of a sub. Throws the whole damned system out o’ gear. The Old Boys woul
d back you, of course, and so, I daresay, would some of those who voted for you, but there are the neutrals, the Any-Way-For-A-Pinters, to think of. In the end they’d come down on Alcock’s side, leavin’ you high and dry.’

  ‘Then it looks as if I’ve got to mount a counter-offensive and I think I know how to do it. Isn’t that a maxim you professionals favour? The thing to do when your retreat is cut off is to advance?’

  ‘I daresay,’ Cooper said, gloomily, ‘but damned if I can see how you’ll go about it. Keep me in touch when you do, however.’

  ‘You can be sure of that. Could I have that scruffy bit of paper of yours? I’ll copy it out and destroy it and I won’t quote you, not even with my back against the wall.’

  ‘If I hadn’t been sure of that, young feller-me-lad, I’d have kept mum and let things take their course.’ He stood looking down across the field at the buildings, etched in the clear evening light. ‘Place means a lot to me, P.J.’

  ‘More than Alcock or Powlett-Jones, I imagine.’

  ‘Yes, if I’m honest, but that’s how it should be with a man’s school. I spent six happy years here. Dam’ place taught me everything I know. Funny thing, I often used to picture it in this light when I was sweating it out in temperatures of a hundred plus, on the far side of the world. Always cheered me up somehow.’

  4

  He had had an inkling of what to do while the brigadier had been listing his shortcomings, according to Alcock. Now, as twilight stole down from the moor, he sought out Molyneux, who he knew was living in school for the holidays while his lodging in the village was being decorated. He did not want Molyneux’s advice but he needed his motorcycle, a heavy Brough Superior, that the French master kept in the cycle shed when he was on duty. Molyneux said he wouldn’t need the machine until the following day, so David thanked him and called Algy Herries’s rectory at Yatton-under-edge, the far side of the moor, catching Algy just as he was leaving to take confirmation class. ‘How long will that keep you, Algy?’

  ‘No more than an hour if you’re thinking of coming over. Haven’t seen much of you this winter but I realise why. The weather’s been foul.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ David said, ‘I didn’t want to involve you. But now I’ve no option if I’m to survive.’

  ‘You sound worried, P.J.’

  ‘I am. May I come right over?’

  ‘Of course, I’ll warn Ellie. She’ll be delighted. We don’t get much company until the warm weather sets in.’

  Algy’s rectory was a large, tile-hung house, built in the era when church attendance was obligatory among a larger population, most of whom had now moved off, the young to the cities, and the middle-aged to places like Lynmouth and Ilfracombe, where the tourist pickings were good. Ellie used no more than half the house but what she called the snuggery was a very cosy room, already beginning to reek of Algy’s tobacco.

  He told his story simply, guessing that both Algy and Ellie already knew most of it, either from village gossip, Old Boys who had visited them and the one or two conversations he had already had with them on the subject of Alcock. He said, ‘I’m not asking you to take sides, Algy. That wouldn’t be fair now that you’re out of it. It wouldn’t be fair on Alcock, either, although he isn’t so squeamish by the sound of things. All I want is a straight “Yes” or “Nay” to a course of action I propose taking. After that I’ll ask a question or two as to tactics and leave you to await results. Is that understood?’

  ‘Are you lecturing me or asking me how to hit back, P.J.?’ but when Ellie exclaimed, ‘I think it’s disgraceful…!’ he silenced her with what was, for him, a savage gesture. ‘Keep out of this, woman, it’s a man’s business,’ and she tightened her lips, looking quite unhappy. ‘Right, now let’s hear what you propose doing.’

  ‘Going over to the offensive before Alcock does. I’m going to write to the brigadier in formal terms, saying it has come to my knowledge that Alcock is slandering me, and request a special meeting of the Governing Body to lay down a directive concerning how much liberty a man has or has not to engage in political activity while serving on the staff.’

  ‘Well, that would certainly stir ‘em up, but it would also have a very predictable side effect as regards your future, P.J.’

  ‘In what way, Algy?’

  ‘I really have to tell you that?’

  ‘I came here for advice.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll give you more than you bargained for. Point one, write to the Governors by all means, but not to one of them known to be predisposed in your favour. Write to Sir Rufus, the Chairman, and do it officially, through the bursar.’

  ‘But Briggy hinted that Sir Rufus was one of those Alcock had approached.’

  ‘Precisely, and made a bad error of judgment when he did it Why? Because Sir Rufus has been a judge and is the only man on that Board trained to keep an open mind. Dry as a fossil, no doubt, but entirely free of prejudice, take it from me. Make sense?’

  ‘Good sense, Algy. And point two?’

  ‘The crucial one. Don’t be the first to introduce that political angle. If it is raised let Alcock be the one to raise it, thereby taking upon himself the risk of involving Bamfylde in a national how-de-do. I went astray there myself during the war. Burnt my fingers defending an Old Boy who claimed exemption as a conscientious objector. Never again. Some of the mud thrown takes years to scrape off. No, no, my boy, your strategy is professional, but your tactics are amateur. Believe me, I’ve been dealing with Governors the better part of my working life, and if I don’t know how many beans make five, nobody does.’

  ‘But surely, that’s the main point at issue, isn’t it? The one where I can fall back on democratic principle.’

  ‘Democratic fiddlesticks! Do I have to tell you, a crusader in the cause, that only the theory of democracy holds any attraction for the majority? And only then when it suits their book. Face the facts, man. How many headmasters or school Governors in Britain today wear a red tie? Two per cent? I doubt it, for even the Liberals don’t muster a handful. The row would flare up. It would have to if you alleged political persecution. The press would get hold of it, there would be questions in Parliament, God help us all, and I daresay you’d be vindicated in the end – famous, maybe, for twenty-four hours. After that your life would be made so damned uncomfortable you’d be glad to leave, Alcock or no Alcock. There’s a much craftier approach than that, my lad, and you’re lucky. You have a weapon in your armoury you don’t even know about and he put it there!’

  ‘You mean his allegations of disloyalty and indiscipline?’

  Herries sighed and said, as an aside to Ellie, ‘Bring the brown sherry, m’dear. Several terms under that fool has dulled the man’s intellect,’ and Ellie rose and crossed to the cupboard where she kept what she still called her ‘Old Boys’ Decanter’. Herries spread his knees, re-addressing himself to David. ‘He’s impugned your teaching methods, hasn’t he? He’s claimed they are eccentric and old-fashioned. Fair enough. So tell me, in terms of round figures, how many boys got a history pass last June?’

  ‘Nineteen. Three distinctions.’

  ‘Out of?’

  ‘I’m not sure, without checking. Twenty-eight or twenty-nine, maybe.’

  ‘You haven’t even done your homework, P.J. But you’ll have to set about it, quicksticks. In that letter to Sir Rufus you’ll enclose a summarised table of pass percentages and distinctions in your subject over all the years you’ve taught at Bamfylde. They should be impressive, especially when set against those of preceding years. Norrington, the fellow you followed when you came in, like a dog out of the rain, averaged under a dozen a year, I believe. Less in his last three years. I have a flair for remembering these things. I didn’t spend all my time sitting on Spyglass Hill, listening to quad gossip.’ He got up and moved over to one of his leaving presents, a black-oak Bible box, converted into a desk. In less than a minute he was back again with a file entitled ‘Examination Results, 1911-17’. Opening it he did a qu
ick cast, then beamed at David over the top of the file. ‘Better than I thought,’ he said. ‘Norrington’s history passes averaged nine a year, over seven years. Making allowances for the smaller numbers we had in the Fifth throughout the war, that gives you a substantial margin. Around double, I’d say. Something to be said for historical jingles, eh?’

  The sherry warmed his belly, and Algy’s lively handling of the situation gave him a foretaste of victory. He said, ‘I’ve always thought of you as the best friend I ever had, Algy… you and Ellie. The best Beth ever had too, and she often said as much. It was different when you were around… we all missed you, but I missed you more than most, perhaps because the others were established when you got to them whereas in my case – it was as you said, a dog coming in out of the rain. And pretty sorry for himself into the bargain. I had no idea how closely you were watching us. I suppose I’d come to think of you as disengaged.’

  ‘It doesn’t say a lot for your powers of deduction, boy. Do you imagine Ellie and I could spend half a lifetime building something, then never look at it again? Even from a distance?’

  ‘I’ve felt damned lonely, particularly since Carter left.’

  ‘Well, I gave you a hint there but you didn’t profit from it. Like everyone else you had to learn from experience.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we do,’ Herries conceded, ‘even in a backstairs business such as this, but there’s no sense in turning up your proud Celtic nose at a short cut, is there?’

  ‘No sense at all. Thank you, Algy, more than I can say. I’ll hurry off now, for I mean to get that letter off tonight.’

  ‘Ah, you can’t do that, I’m afraid. It’s been a long day. A wedding, three christenings, a funeral and a confirmation class. Frankly, I don’t feel up to it.’