by Henry Green
‘So little Peewee’s conger eel chasing, eh? Well, I don’t blame ’im. At least ’e’s a man, not like some in this unnatural dejectipated ship, that’s too scared to do more than look over their shoulder.’
‘That’s OK Shiner,’ one of them said, ‘but the skipper’s let us down bad.’
‘Don’t make me sick. We’re all men in this outfit. If ’e likes to go out after a bit of ong dong once in a while I’d be the last to lay the blame.’
‘Yes, you would.’
Shiner took this last remark up, bit it. An argument developed. Richard went to find Chopper. Prudence had not appreciated his calling at the flat for Pye.
Although it was hardly mentioned, each man in this group outside was aghast at the news, for the evacuation of Dunkirk was on. In that deadly moonlight brothers were dying fast, and not so far off. A week’s time and it might be anybody’s turn. But the moon, fixed in the sky without a cloud, flooded everything with intolerance, made such a cold peace below that it did not seem possible that extermination could be so near, over to the east.
Pye felt menace in the streets such as had not oppressed him since the day war was declared.
He was doubting whether his men would be of much use in the great fires they had to expect if Hitler did come over. He did not think there was one to pull him out of a bad spot, bar Wright. They had no experience. He felt the politicians had left his country at its enemies’ mercy, and had given him an inexperienced crew when the whole of fire-fighting was the trust each individual had that the man behind him would get him out if need be. He forgot he had had the training of his men. He said aloud:
‘I feel bloody awful.’
‘You’re tellin’ me,’ a voice replied.
Pye almost started out of his pelt. He was standing in shadow near the entrance to that night club he used with Prudence. It seemed then as if every doorway in London held someone looking at the night, the spread of death it was at present. He had thought he was alone with his bad thoughts, unseen, as he watched Richard go over to Prudence’s. And leave again. But he was not jealous. He did not think that pansy could stay long. All the same, he had recognised him with ease.
‘I never saw you mate,’ he announced, in the general direction of that depth of indigo shadow from which the voice had spoken. ‘It’s a funny thing, this moon. Would you say you could recognise a individual in it?’
‘You’re from the fire post around the corner, ain’t that right,’ the unknown pronounced. The man then spat. Pye began to see him. There was a blink from his watch-chain. ‘I can recognise enough to know you ain’t no ruddy parachutist.’
‘There’s always that,’ Pye agreed. ‘No, what I ’ad in mind was the days I was a youngster. Maybe it’s the night, or something I ate, but I got a fit of rememberin’ back.’
‘Yes,’ the stranger said, ‘it’s worryin’ times these are and no mistake. I wouldn’t wonder but you was speculatin’ on ’ow soon you’ll get action.’
‘I’ve a fine lot of lads under me,’ Pye answered, and then was silent as a taxi drew up outside the club. Richard had been such a short time over at her flat it might be that she was not there. She could drive up any bloody minute for a last drink with that pilot she was always on about.
‘Yes, I don’t seem able to escape from it,’ Pye went on, when he thought he saw it wasn’t her. ‘They say that’s the gladdest time of a man’s life. I’d give anything to ’ave that part back, but not to live.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘To know what really occurred,’ said Pye, dropping his voice. ‘Of course I know, but I can’t be certain, not absolutely. It’s interferin’ with my sleep.’
The stranger was impatient of what, to himself, he termed vapourings.
‘It’s rotten when a man can’t sleep. But did you listen to the twelve o’clock news? It don’t seem possible, now, do it? Not on a bloody night like this,’ he said.
‘Anything in this bloody country’s possible, mate. Well, I must be moving. Good night.’
Stepping out into the light, which made him into a drowned man walking, the sub officer left indignant silence. But he paid no attention. He was taken up at present with a fury for Prudence that he could not put a name to. It was lust. Such had recently been the effect of his worrying about his sister. ‘I must find a woman,’ he said to himself, ‘Oh sod the game.’ He crossed quickly into that bounded sea of shadow. He grew furtive. He imagined women where none were. He spoke suggestively to gentian hooded doorways.
Then he heard a snivelling gulp of tears in treble.
He hesitated. He stood quiet as a cat, intently listening. Again the snivel. At that Pye darted right in. He came back out into full moonlight holding at arm’s length, thrashing with legs, struggling, not the lost girl with flaxen hair he had imagined, crying out for her mother, but a small, rough boy with snot pulsating at his nostrils, skin, hair and eyes all of a colour.
‘Lemme go, lemme go, guv’nor,’ the worm whined and was suddenly quiet, going limp, and who fixed Pye with his crafty eyes.
‘Ain’t you got a snot rag?’ the sub officer asked. ‘First things first,’ he added, echoing Piper.
There was no reply. ‘Come on then, don’t be nervous, lad, you’ve a tongue to your ’ead. ’Ave you got a ’andkerchief, because if so you want to give it a blow.’
The boy sawed the back of a hand across his nose, then wiped off on his trouser seat. Immediately the mucus reappeared, almost Eton blue in this brilliant light, and which trembled, weaving with each breath he took, each calculated silent sob.
‘You’re a scruffy kid, ain’t you,’ the sub officer mentioned, glad to forget sex for the moment. He was beginning to enjoy himself until he noticed the boy was watching.
‘’Ere,’ he said, suspicious, ‘what’s your game?’
Then what he was holding began to twist about again, every part of it moving at once. He had to hold the lad well away from him.
‘What’s the rush?’ he asked.
‘You’re ’urting,’ the boy replied through his teeth.
‘I’m not lettin’ you go in all that hurry,’ the sub officer said. ‘Come on now, what’s your name and where might you live?’
Once more the struggling collapsed. Again the crafty look. This time, Pye did not notice because he was looking up and down the empty street, the river between banks.
‘Would you be a copper, guv’nor?’
‘Jesus Christ, no, not on your life. I’m Fire Brigade, I am. I got LFB on my buttons, look.’
‘Straight up.’
‘No skylark,’ Pye assured the boy, using one of Shiner’s expressions. He could spot no one about, though that was no certainty in this light, with his eyes. ‘’Ere,’ he said, ‘have I seen you before, let’s have a look.’ He was glad of this. He drew the boy towards him, holding hard with both hands. ‘For pity’s sake blow your nose, lad,’ he said, ‘and if you’ve no snot rag use your fist, again,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t suppose I ever saw you in my life, even though it is difficult by this bloody moon. Well, it’s not as if I’d got all night. Come on now, what do they call you?’
‘I’m lost,’ the boy replied.
That did it.
‘That’s a diabolical bloody tale,’ Pye said, bursting out in a murderer’s loud voice, thinking of Christopher. The flesh and bones seemed to shrink in his hands. ‘How old would you be?’ he went on, quieter, to cover up.
‘Rising nine guv’nor. You’re ’urting.’
‘I’m hurting am I?’ Pye announced and did not relax his grip at all, though the sudden rage was dying. ‘Come on now, where d’you come from?’
‘I’m all on me own.’ The snivelling began again.
‘You mean you daren’t go back.’ As he said this it came pathetically over Pye that if he, even at the age he now was, should be living in the country, back with his parents, if he found himself outside he would not dare go back to the cottage, such was his feeling of guilt when th
e fit was over him. Not on a night like this, in any event. His eyes filled with tears.
He cleared his throat.
‘What have you done, boy?’ he asked, in his official tones. He got no reply.
‘You’d better tell,’ he said, meaning it was better to have it out and not, like him, be suckling on an ulcer the sickly, sore-covered infant of his fears. But the way he brought the words out made it seem a threat.
‘Come on now.’ He spoke loud, and, in his upset, he shook the boy, who let out a wail.
‘For Christ’s sake, hush,’ he said. ‘You’ll have all them Auxiliary bloody Firemen round in a minute.’
‘Lemme go.’
Pye’s answer was to shift his grip, and not hold so firm. He thought the bones he had his fingers round, on these two arms, were like sticks, like a girl’s. But the fit had passed.
‘When was it last you ’ad some grub?’ he enquired, calm.
‘Day before yesterday,’ was the lie given him.
‘We’d better get something inside yer,’ Pye said, ‘you just come along, mate.’
‘Where’re you takin’ me?’
‘To the Fire station.’
‘I ain’t never been in a Fire station,’ the boy started. Curiosity won him. He stepped out willingly. Pye kept hold of one elbow.
‘Quietly now,’ said the sub officer, all at once, too late, unsure that it was wise. But he took precautions not to be seen. He got the boy to his room in the billets without anyone knowing he was back. As a consequence he did not learn that Trant had been down until the next day, when it was much too late. For he slept alone, and Chopper never thought to look, assuming that he had taken one more night off. At the crisis of Pye’s affair with Prudence he had often not come back till morning.
After getting the lad some bread and cheese, which had been left out in the kitchen for his own supper, and fixing him up on the easy chair in his bedroom with a blanket in which he went to sleep at once, the sub officer hardly considered the boy again. He went to bed himself quite soon, profoundly miserable, allowing the routine business of the station to run riot in his head. He was surprised, when called next morning, to realise he must have gone to sleep at once.
He was called by Piper at seven with his cup of tea. It was one of those little extras the old man undertook in order to keep on the right side, to preserve the privileges won by doing things for Trant.
‘Shall I get another for the nipper,’ he asked, as if it was most natural.
‘Yes, do that, will you,’ Pye said.
He made the boy wash, he had a lavatory to himself as officer in charge. He did not know what to do next. Then he decided the DO had bawled him out enough, he considered, and he would take the lad into breakfast openly with the men. You could not send him away hungry. After all, there was a war on. The old order there used to be about no visitors in stations was out of date. There was nothing to be ashamed of. You could not hand a mere kid over to the police because he was sleeping a night out in these times. But if he, Pye, as officer in charge, tried to get him away unnoticed, the back way in daylight, they would most surely be seen. Besides Hilly would not charge him for the extra meal.
In this way it came about they both had breakfast with the men, who thought the lad must be the new messenger boy. At that time these boys had no uniforms. And Piper was not telling them what he knew, he was keeping that for later, for Trant.
When Pye heard from Chopper that Trant had caught him adrift he was so worried he gave the lad half a dollar to go. He fairly pushed him away, and tried to forget for as long as he was allowed.
He was not allowed to forget for long.
The telephone bell soon rang. Pye answered. The DO was at the other end.
‘This is Mr Trant here,’ he said, ‘I want sub officer Pye.’
‘Speaking, sir.’
‘Oh it’s you, is it? I want to speak to you. When I came down last night where were you? There’s going to be a charge made out against you. Who d’you think you are? I’m sick and tired of you.’
‘Listen, sir, I . . .’
‘I don’t want to hear any more. You’ve let me down. I’ve ’ad plenty. You’ll be up here sharp at ten fifteen the day after tomorrow, Tuesday, and you’ll keep anything you might have to say till then, you . . . well I won’t say it, only I’ll add this, I’d’ve seen you now but I’ve to go to Headquarters. I’m finished with you.’
‘Yessir,’ said Pye. When he heard the receiver slammed back he buried a burning face in his hands.
Ten minutes later Pye was comforting himself that Trant had not said a word about the lad. As to being adrift he made up his mind to explain how anxiety for his sister had driven him out, how loss of sleep due to worry about her had made him not accountable. Even so he was weighed down. He was in dread. Even the men noticed a greater change in him, at once.
Some months later, after nine weeks of air raids on London, Roe was unlucky one morning. A bomb came too close. It knocked him out. He was sent home, superficially uninjured. They called it nervous debility.
He slept in the train all the way down to Christopher and Dy. He slept in the hired car. He went straight to bed when he arrived. He slept another sixteen hours. Then he got up. He saw the ground was under snow. But this time he felt odd, with an aching emptiness behind the forehead.
Air and light, reflected off snow through the opened window, whipped Roe’s face, smacked his eyes. He noticed steam and smoke-drenched grit up his nose, the leavings of one fire after another, night after night. For a few mornings he could still taste the sour debris when he bit his nails. It made him shake. When he blew out a match he got the stench again. Until, after three days, he began to come out of it, although he was worse than he realised.
He went out with his wife and Christopher. He just put his arm through hers and could not believe the lack of noise. The menace was gone.
The big house was shut up. His parents lived in one of the lodge gates, Dy in the other. Money was short. He had never felt the need for money less.
Yet he would not let Christopher look in by a blank window at what had been home. The furniture he knew was sheeted, the soot deep in each cold fireplace. He called the boy back, whose reply was to make a snowball off the window ledge, over which this same light had once made cannons for his ship of bricks. Christopher threw it at him with the awkwardness of the very young, and came away.
‘It doesn’t seem possible,’ said Richard, expanding.
‘I know,’ she answered.
‘He looks wonderfully well.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and hasn’t he grown? It’s much better for the old chap down here. We’ve been so excited ever since we got the telegram.’
‘Were you very worried?’ he asked.
‘No. We knew you’d be all right.’ He looked at her. He was irritated to find she was laughing.
‘Did you? I wish I had.’
‘Don’t think about it,’ she said. ‘You can forget it all now.’
‘Except about going back,’ he put in. He shook.
‘You aren’t,’ she said, ‘you’re staying here, I’ve arranged everything,’ and this white lie, which he swallowed, satisfied him. But he felt awkward. To hide this he called the boy.
‘Opher,’ he called, ‘what shall we do today?’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘Shall we have a bonfire like we did that last time?’
‘If you like. Look,’ Christopher said, another snowball in his hand, ‘I’m a German airman, I’m bombing.’
‘I’ll tell you what, let’s have a bonfire, then put it out with stirrup pumps.’
This idea was a success. Christopher repeatedly asked, ‘I say when?’ Dy insisted that it should be in the afternoon, for Rosemary was coming over from school.
‘You won’t call me that when she comes to tea, will you?’ Christopher asked. The fact that he did not like being called Opher before his cousin pleased Richard.
‘Of course
not,’ he replied, and felt better. But in less than five minutes he was back at it again.
‘You must have thought I’d never wake up, asleep all that time?’ he asked her.
‘No, that’s all right, I knew you would.’
‘I was badly in need, you know.’
‘Yes. But you mustn’t think any more.’
He could not stop. ‘It’s extraordinary up there,’ he went on. Christopher had drifted ahead. She realised she could not prevent Richard trying to get it out of his system. Because she knew him better than anyone she had planned to take him empty walks, her idea was to keep his mind vacant so that he should have complete rest, and yet not leave him alone. She was afraid he might get hysterical if he let himself go. In fact she thought he was worse than he was. She had made a decision she would call Christopher back, to walk at heel, the moment it seemed that Richard was letting it get the better of him. Christopher would act as a kind of brake.
‘The extraordinary thing is,’ he said, ‘that one’s imagination is so literary. What will go on up there tonight in London, every night, is more like a film, or that’s what it seems like at the time. Then afterwards, when you go over it, everything seems unreal, probably because you were so tired, as you begin building again to describe to yourself some experience you’ve had. It’s so difficult. What did you imagine the room was like that Christopher was in, I mean before the police brought him back?’
‘Oh don’t. I couldn’t. That’s just what was so awful.’
‘Well, I did. Even to the firelight on the walls. Like the flames did the first night.’
‘We don’t know if they had lit a fire. Darling, it’s no use that sort of thing, no help,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ he answered, ‘I suppose I’m trying to involve you.’
‘Don’t be so silly,’ she said. ‘Why not? That’s what I’m here for.’
He started again. ‘I think I only brought it back to when the old chap was taken away because it must have been so much worse for you, at the time, than it was for me. I don’t know. But what makes me laugh,’ and he was not even smiling, ‘is to think how different the real thing is to what we thought it was going to be. And the way the people have changed, you’ve no idea. We’re absolute heroes now to everyone. Soldiers can’t look us in the face, even.’