R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield

by To Serve Them All My Days

  Gosse was not only resourceful, he was also quick-thinking. Out of the corner of his eye he noted two things. One was his henchman Meadowes, who had followed his angled descent but stopped higher up the slope, puzzled; the other, a few yards to the right, was the remains of what had once been a wire fence, no more than a rotted post enmeshed in rusty wire. Above the frantic howls of Driscoe he put his hands to his mouth and shouted, ‘He’s stuck! He’ll never make it! Find the whippers-in – tell ‘em a new kid is drowning in Man Dixon’s bottom. Run like hell…!’ and as Meadowes scudded off across the great, slabsided field, Gosse made his own dispositions, slopping through mud on his side of the fence and dragging the isolated stake from its bed.

  The wire was rusted and tangled, but it was a matter of seconds to unravel some ten feet of it and loop the free end round his shoulder. Then, wading as far as the fence, he threw the billet to Driscoe and was immensely relieved when he saw failing hands grasp it either side of the staple, and a mud-spattered face stare up at him with an expression of baffled hostility – ‘Just as though I’d flipping well pushed him there,’ as he told an enthralled audience in the Outram dormitory that night.

  The wire tautened and the strain paid out another three or four feet, so that Gosse, his shoulder wedged against the nearest upright of the fence, was able to get some kind of purchase and even attempt to twist the loose end round the lower horizontal. He did not ask himself how long he could hold on there but as long as the fence stood the strain, the billet held by Driscoe did not crumble, and the wire did not part, there was a prospect of supporting Driscoe until someone with more muscle and more practical apparatus arrived on the scene. In the meantime Gosse gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. He did not want to see Driscoe disappear under the mud, or watch his final struggles through the wide gap in the planks. It was enough to know he was still there, chest deep in the black, filthy stuff, and would sink no deeper so long as the wire remained taut.

  Gosse did not see the combined approach of Coxe, Venn and Davidson, who arrived in a bunch, their whistling breath indicating that they had run a downhill mile in approximately the time it would take the best of them to complete the 880-yard circuit of Lower Side pitch. They crowded him even closer to the fence, Coxe taking the strain and Davidson, himself a moorman, straddling the fence and lowering himself on to the far side. Then, with what Gosse thought of as great cunning, making a bridge of his body by taking a grip of the lower horizontal and calling to Driscoe to grab his ankles. Venn, unable to find more wire, replaced Coxe as anchor, and Coxe, taking his cue from Davidson, scaled the fence farther along, noticing as he crossed it a section of loose planks. It took him only a moment to prise one loose and squirm along the inside of the fence to the spot where his friend Davidson was lying face downward in the mud. Driscoe was no farther down and had even contrived to flounder a few inches nearer the fence in order to improve his grip on Davidson’s shins but it seemed that he had not entirely lost his head for he still held the wire between his teeth.

  They huddled there, all five of them, in an ungainly group, a tableau that, viewed from a distance, looked like a clumsy exercise in gymnastics. Driscoe was hardly more than a black bubble on the surface. Davidson was only visible above the thighs. Venn was now flattened against the near side of the fence, with Gosse still trying to loop the fag-end of the wire to the cross-piece. There was progress of a sort, however, for Davidson, turning his head to spit out mud, saw Coxe’s plank and shouted, ‘Under my knees, Frankie! Hard under my bloody knees! Quick, for Christ’s sake…’ so that Coxe, kneeling, plunged the board deep into the slime, aiming to burrow under Davidson’s thighs. Despite ample lubrication, the passage of the rough timber made him wince but he found that it strengthened his purchase so long as Coxe remained kneeling on his end of the board. Beyond that, however, there was little they could do and glancing sideways Coxe saw that Driscoe could not hold on indefinitely. Then Venn called from the other side of the fence. ‘They’re coming, Frankie. Pow-Wow and Man Dixon. They’ve got ropes!’ and Davidson, ordinarily a very taciturn boy, made the only joke of the operation, grunting, ‘Shout up to them! Tell ‘em not to hurry, will you?’

  4

  His instinctive front-line reactions were not as immediate as they had been, at the time of the Havelock fire. The war was a long time ago now, and although he thought of himself as very fit for a man turned forty, the habit of contemplation slowed him down when it came to making snap decisions.

  He had been at the tail of the field, shepherding the few Second Formers running the course over the crest of the pasture and down into the valley, but once he saw the last of them wade the ford, and disappear into the spinney, he stopped to have a word with Man Dixon, remembering him not as he saw him now, a stolid, thickset moor man, but as the day-boy who, in 1925, had been credited with killing old Bat Ferguson with a buzzsaw rendering of the French adjective vert. He reminded him of the incident now and Dixon, as master of the family holding, could afford to grin. ‘Arr,’ he mused, never having lost his upland burr, ‘and there was a particle o’ truth in it, Pow-Wow. I never could get my tongue round his ole French words, and I reckon he would ha’ knocked me across the class if he hadn’t seized up on the spot.’ He spoke philosophically and man to man, as though, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, he was David’s contemporary. ‘Things are looking up downalong, I hear,’ he added.

  All the local farmers, even those who had attended Bamfylde as day-boys, referred to school as ‘downalong’, just as they qualified for the majestic title of ‘Man’ when they became farmers in their own right. David confirmed that things were indeed looking up, that they now had more than three hundred and fifty on the roll, and a waiting-list of a hundred and seventeen. ‘Well,’ Dixon said, unsentimentally, ‘that’ll be your doing, Pow-Wow. We never did take to that foreigner they brought in,’ and at that point three rearguard whippers-in came over the crest, Venn, Coxe and the local boy, Davidson, loping abreast and in no particular hurry, for they were all First Fifteen rugby colours and lukewarm concerning other sporting activities.

  Then, plunging up the reverse slope, and sobbing for breath, Meadowes appeared, gasping out his news, and David’s first impulse was to dash off down the steep slope but Dixon grabbed him, shouting, ‘Wait on! It’s all but a mile. The youngsters’ll make it in half the time. Wait, ‘till I fetch tackle… had a heifer in that mire only last week…!’ and he went off at a heavy run to his outbuildings farther along the crest, and David turned to speed the seniors on their way but they were already a hundred yards down the slope, heading for the spot indicated by Meadowes’s stabbing finger.

  He said, making a tremendous effort to control himself, ‘How bad is it, Meadowes? How deep is he in?’ and Meadowes, as blown as he had ever seen a boy, wheezed, ‘Deep, sir… Up to his waist’ and was sick, bowing his head and sagging at the knees.

  For a man weighing fourteen stone, Dixon was very quick on his feet. Almost at once he reappeared, pounding along the crest carrying a coil of rope and what looked like a leather harness. ‘Leave the kid here,’ he shouted, without checking his stride, ‘but look where you’re going – bog patches right along that bottom,’ and went ponderously down the great, angled slope, and through a belt of brushwood that brought them to the river north of the ford.

  He thought, as he ran, ‘Dear God, don’t let it happen. Not now, not this way! A kid of thirteen, drowned in a bog… it’ll be the end of everything…’ and then he remembered that Coxe and Davidson would be there by now, and that both were tough and resolute, although he wasn’t so sure about the jester, Venn.

  They came on the group suddenly, at a spot where the cattle had churned the floor of the valley into a sticky gluelike porridge, not unlike the crater-landscape of Passchendaele. They were still holding on, and his instinct for authority, trimmed and tested over the years, reasserted itself as he took in the situation at a glance. Coxe called, from the far side of the fence, ‘Throw us the ro
pe over, sir! Davidson’s got a good hold on the fence…!’ and Man Dixon grunted, ‘Tiz harness, boy… Get it under his armpits somehow,’ but by then David was across the fence and crawling along to the point where Davidson was still lying prone, with the unrecognisable Driscoe clinging to his shins, both of them half-enmeshed in what looked like a coil of rusty wire.

  They were only just in time. Despite Coxe’s efforts, his success in reaching Driscoe’s left arm, and his tremendous efforts to drag him closer to the palings, the boy was weakening and his fingers were slipping the length of Davidson’s legs. He had also lost his end of the wire and with it the feeble anchorage it had provided. By wading in beyond his knees, however, David got a firm grip on Driscoe’s right arm and his presence enabled Coxe to enlarge his hold on the left, so that between them they managed somehow to slip the leather harness over his shoulders. Floundering there, dragged forward into the mire, the task proved fiendishly difficult and even when it was accomplished they had no room to pay it out so that Driscoe could be dragged clear by sheer weight of muscle. But then, as though he had materialised out of the slime, another mud-spattered Junior appeared and David recognised Gosse, who piped, ‘Leave it, sir! Hold him, and I’ll take it…!’ and somehow he did, without rising upright, and the rope tightened almost at once as Venn began to haul.

  They came clear in a flurry of mud, Coxe, Gosse, himself and Driscoe, whose legs, plucked from the slough, made a sound like a cork being drawn from a bottle. Even then, with Davidson lying prone between bog and palings, they would have got no farther forward had not Venn shown initiative by ripping away the bottom section of the barrier so that they could scramble through en masse, a jumble of arms, legs, wire, rope and splintered fencing.

  Man Dixon took charge of them at that stage, lifting Driscoe in his arms and trudging back along the river to the point where a gravelled path climbed to his yard. The rest followed at a distance, with Davidson, the last to emerge, spluttering and coughing in the rear.

  It was with a sense of wonder that he heard Driscoe speak, sitting with his head between his knees on Dixon’s bagged-out sofa in the big farm kitchen… ‘Lost my glasses… went off the path…’ but then he too was sick, obligingly on Dixon’s hearthstones, clear of the sheepskin rug spread there. One of Dixon’s Welsh collies drifted in, sniffing curiously at the vomit and Dixon, cuffing the dog, called over his shoulder, ‘Fetch a cloth an’ bucket, Mother, and clean him up. We could all do with a wash, I reckon.’

  He remembered little of the shuffle home, with Driscoe carried pick-a-back by Coxe, and little Gosse, who had lost both shoes, picking his way fastidiously over the stretch of flint road beyond Stone Cross. Venn told him how they had managed until he and Dixon had arrived but it was not until later, when they had all had a shower, and Driscoe had been dosed and put to bed in the sanatorium, that he remembered to send for Coxe, senior of the trio, and get a detailed story.

  Coxe said, ‘I did what I could, sir, but it wasn’t much. Davidson took the brunt of it. I had to wedge one of those planks under his legs and it took the skin off his knees. There were old nails sticking in it. I think matron’s bandaging him right now.’

  David said, ‘Go up and wait for him, Frankie. Then come down again, with Venn. You can skip prep, all three of you. And send someone else for those infants, Gosse was one… who was the other?’

  ‘Meadowes, sir. Gosse was the one who saw him first. He’s a plucky kid, and had his wits about him. He threw Driscoe the wire, but that was before we got there. He would have gone under but for that. I’ll find Davidson, sir,’ and he left.

  He sat at the desk stirring his tea, a desk occupied by a succession of Bamfylde headmasters, all of them, including Alcock, now gazing down at heedless newcomers in the Rogues’ Gallery in Remove passage. He felt drained, used up and disconsolate, thinking, ‘My God, but it was a near thing. We should have been finished if it hadn’t been for that bunch and that’s a fact. I’d best write to Mrs Driscoe tonight, for the kid will, as soon as he perks up,’ and then, following a perfunctory rap on the door, Miss Nixon appeared, holding an envelope that she laid on the desk. ‘Driscoe’s glasses, Headmaster. He seemed anxious about them and Parker went out to look for them with a flashlight. They aren’t broken, and I’ve cleaned them as best I can.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Nixon,’ he said, absently, ‘and thank Parker for me, will you? Driscoe will be all right after a good sleep, or so matron says. He was sick and got the filthy stuff off his chest minutes after we pulled him out.’

  She withdrew quietly, disapprovingly he suspected, and he let his tea go cold. Presently there was a more subdued knock and all five of them sidled in, Davidson walking stiffly under his bandages, then Coxe, then Venn, miraculously transformed after his tussle with the mud, and finally the two Second Formers, Gosse and Meadowes. He said, ‘Find a seat somewhere. Nothing official,’ and they disposed themselves, only the dandy Venn at ease.

  ‘That was a terrific show,’ he said, ‘and I wanted to thank you all in private before I do it in public. I imagine Mrs Driscoe will write to you later. I’m not making any bones about what happened down there. But for you chaps Driscoe would be dead. And buried. You all appreciate that, I suppose?’

  They said nothing and each of them studiously avoided his eye. ‘It’s odd,’ he thought, ‘it’s always so damned difficult to find the right words to compliment the English,’ but he went on, ‘I’ll write an account of it exactly as it happened, and print it in this term’s register. All I really wanted to say, beyond that, is don’t play it down for fear of putting on side. I’ve a reason for saying that. I’d like to think we’ve all learned something about playing fast and loose with the moor in winter.’

  Gosse piped up then, so unexpectedly that Meadowes hic coughed with embarrassment. ‘It wasn’t Driscoe’s fault, sir. He’s as blind as a bat without his specs.’

  ‘I daresay. So the moral seems to be, no specs no movement. And that goes for anyone overtaken by dusk on any of the runs. Stay put and holler. Good night, and thanks again.’

  They got up and filed out but he sat on brooding. Presently Chris came in, carrying the whisky decanter and soda siphon.

  ‘You need a drink, Davy.’

  ‘I need a bottle,’ he said. ‘Neat. I’ve just had them all in and thanked them. You’ve heard the full story I imagine?’

  ‘Matron told me. You put up a pretty good show yourself, Davy.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said grimly, ‘and I’ve been sitting here coming to terms with the fact that I’m slowing down. If it had been left to me, or even to me and Dickie Dixon, that poor kid would be as dead as Carver Doone. All we did was to speed it up a bit. They’d have coped.’

  ‘You’re forty plus,’ she said. ‘Most men your age wouldn’t have gone on the run at all, so don’t sit there blaming yourself for an unforeseeable accident.’

  ‘It wasn’t unforeseeable. Or shouldn’t have been. I’ve been over that Middlemoor course every year since December, 1918, and I knew there were patches of dangerous bog in that river bottom. I should have talked Dixon into fencing all the level ground and putting up a damned great notice.’

  ‘Most boys will climb fences, and all boys will ignore notices. Besides, you appear to have forgotten something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your indirect contribution.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Those five boys. Just tell me something, how long is their aggregate stay here?’

  He began to discern her line of reasoning. ‘I could work it out. Venn is just entering his fifth year. Coxe and Davidson are old stagers. They were here one term with the Stoic. The two Cradlers can only sport a year between them, they both arrived last spring. That’s a total of sixteen years, give or take a term or two.’

  ‘During which time they’ve all been taught and trained by you.’

  ‘Me among others.’

  ‘No, Davy. Not as regards what they did this afternoon. That’s yo
ur doing.’

  She got up, removed the tea tray and set the drink in its place but then, noting his frown, took his face between her palms and kissed his mouth in that assertive way of hers. ‘It’s true,’ she said, ‘think about it. They all seem to me to qualify as handkerchief donors, and that’s your doing. Not one of them was here when Algy Herries told that story.’

  His arm slipped round her. At times like this, when he was feeling vulnerable, he was immensely grateful for her and as always, when aware of a need of her, his senses stirred, demanding close physical contact. He said, ‘By God, I was lucky to talk you into coming here, and even more right to persevere when you wanted to pack it in. I couldn’t cope alone any more.’

  ‘You’ve had to most of the time. Let’s make an early night of it. Leave all that bumf on your desk. I’ll get supper now and when it’s lights out for them it’ll be lights out for us.’

  ‘That’s two hours or more. I’m not sure I can wait that long.’

  ‘You’ll have to,’ she said, ‘for I’m hanged if I want last minute interruptions by the duty prefect. It’s happened more than once.’

  She switched off the desk lamp and they went through into the parlour where a bright log fire burned in the everlasting down-draught. Supper was laid. It looked very cosy in here. His overall grasp of the job returned to him a little soggily but definitely, like Driscoe emerging from the bog, and with it a buoyancy that stemmed, he supposed, from a sense of reprieve. He said, taking in the trim lines of her figure as she stooped to throw another log on the fire, ‘I wish it was holiday time. I wouldn’t bother with supper or bed,’ but she was equal to him.

  ‘There’s always old Rigby, and even if he’s asleep beside the kitchen stove, there are the Sunsetters. We haven’t that much dignity to squander, sir.’