by David Storey
‘This is Fritz,’ the farmer said, indicating the shorter of the two, ‘and this is Luigi,’ he added. He indicated the other man, who stooped down and shook his hand. ‘They’re prisoners of war, so if they try to escape you’ll let me know.’ The farmer laughed, the two strangely contrasted prisoners laughing with him. ‘They’ve to be back in camp, tha knows, by six, so if there’s any hanky-panky tha mu’n march ’em to the gate.’ He turned with a wink, thickening his accent. ‘They’re all right,’ he added. ‘I’ve had ’em afore: but tek no notice of the way they wuk.’
He spent the next two weeks working with the Italian and the German. The former had been a soldier, captured in the desert, the other a pilot shot down in southern England. They spoke, in his presence, a made-up language of signs and gestures, but whenever he was alone with either one they spoke English fluently with a slight, half-mocking, thickened accent.
His father had cycled past the field one day. Colin saw him leaning by the hedge, his bike propped up against the gate.
He went across, slowly, wiping his face.
‘This is where you work, then, is it?’
The field was up the road from the farm, on the lower slope of an adjoining hill. In the farthest distance, on a clear day, were visible the buildings of the town, the cathedral spire, the wedge-shaped tower of the town-hall. Now, with the day overcast, all that was visible was the broad sweep of the field itself.
‘That’s thy two prisoners, is it?’ His father gazed down the field, between the stooks, to where the tall Italian and the stocky German were lifting sheaves, arguing, flinging them down. Sometimes they’d dismantle a stook in fear that one of their own sheaves had been incorporated by the other; they always worked separately, but never far apart.
Even as his father watched they had begun to quarrel.
‘You no good.’
‘You no good.’
‘You bad.’
‘You bad.’
‘Schweinhund.’
‘Bastard.’
They started fighting, their gestures as stylized as their conversation.
His father laughed; he watched them with a slow amazement, the tall, boneless figure of the Italian coiling and uncoiling around the squat, muscular outline of the fair-haired German. ‘Sithee, then.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘It’s a wonder they do any work at all,’ he said.
‘I do nearly all of it,’ Colin said. It was really the stooks he wanted his father to see, the straightness of the rows, the way they ran down the profile of the field. His father smiled.
‘I can see they’ve got their heads screwed on,’ he said.
The two figures now were rolling on the ground: they disappeared behind the sheaves, re-appeared for a moment, the German on top, then, a moment later, the Italian.
‘Don’t they ever have a guard?’ his father said.
‘I’ve never seen one,’ Colin said.
‘They mu’n escape, tha knows, if they don’t watch out.’
‘I don’t think they want to,’ he said, and shook his head.
The prisoners’ camp was a mile up the road. He’d cycled past it one evening, on his way to Saxton: rows of wooden huts ran back from the road, surrounded by barbed wire and overgrown hedges. Only one soldier was visible, stooping down by a car, in his shirt-sleeves, examining its engine.
‘Do they spend all day doing that?’ his father said.
‘They work sometimes, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose they have any need to, though,’ he added.
‘Nay, they’ve been caught fighting this country, lad. I hope thy’s not forgotten it,’ his father said.
The two men now were standing up; one was dusting down the other’s clothes; then, as a final gesture, ceremoniously bowing to one another, they both shook hands.
‘They might be all right on a stage, but this is a war-effort they’re supposed to be helping.’ His father gestured to the fields around. ‘Every bit done here leaves space in a ship.’
He gripped the gate between his hands.
‘If they mu’n not help the ones who’re looking after them they mu’n lock ’em up: that’s my view,’ his father said. A sudden smile, nervous, half-expectant, crossed his face as the two men, seeing him by the gate, called to Colin and came across.
‘This is my father,’ Colin said, and added, almost as a provocation, ‘He’s come to see you work.’
‘Work?’ The broad, tanned face of the German turned to gaze up at the long, mournful face of the Italian beside him.
‘Work?’ the Italian said, imitating the German’s accent.
‘We leave all the work to Colin, Mr Saville,’ the German said, his accent now so casual that his father looked at him in some alarm, almost as if, mentally, he’d stood to attention and begun to salute.
‘Aye, he works very hard,’ his father said, glancing at the field. On numerous occasions since his first week of work, his father had said, ‘They’re paying you a boy’s wages for a man’s work: I know what bargains these farmers get.’ Now he added, ‘The only trouble is people take advantage of how hard he works,’ and repeated ‘advantage’ as if uncertain that the German had understood his meaning.
‘Oh, we help him all we can,’ the German said, and added, ‘We help Colin all we can, Luigi. Help.’
‘Help,’ the Italian said, bowing slowly to his father, his dark eyes examining him now in some confusion.
‘Back to work, Luigi,’ the German said, and added, ‘Work.’
The Italian bowed; he examined his father a moment longer then turned back slowly towards the field.
‘I suppose you have to make allowances,’ his father said. ‘If we were prisoners on the other side I don’t suppose we’d work too hard. They do summat, I suppose,’ he added.
He turned to the bike.
‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ he said.
Colin watched his father ride off along the lane; he could see him some time later, riding along the road that led off across the fields, his small figure stooping to the bike, unaware perhaps that he was still visible from the field for he never looked back.
‘Your father is a farmer, too?’ the German said when he went back to the sheaves.
‘A miner.’
‘A miner?’ He added, ‘He’s not a farmer, Luigi. He works underneath the ground.’ He made a shovelling motion with his hand, pointing down, then fanning his hands out slowly either side.
‘Ah,’ the tall man said. He spoke in Italian for several seconds.
‘Luigi says: does he dig for gold?’
‘For coal,’ he said.
‘Coal,’ the German said. He added, ‘Carbon.’
‘Ah,’ the Italian said again and with a mournful gesture shook his head.
‘And when you grow older, will you become a miner, too?’ the German said.
‘No.’
‘What will you become?’ His light-blue eyes gazed steadily at him.
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ he said.
‘A farmer?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘A soldier?’
He shook his head.
‘Will you leave your beautiful land? Will you travel the world?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Never go to Italy. Italy bad,’ the German said.
‘Germany bad,’ the Italian said.
‘Go to the Mediterranean,’ the German said. ‘Blue seas, blue skies.’ He gestured around. ‘Nothing at all like you have it here. Go to Africa. Go to Greece. But not to Italy. Italy bad.’
‘Germany bad,’ the Italian said and, as Colin stooped to the sheaves, the two men fought again.
He worked at the second farm until two days before he started school. He called at the farmhouse in the evening to collect his wage. The door to the kitchen had been standing open; the farmer’s wife was baking at a stove inside.
She was a small, stoutish woman, her face inflamed from the heat of the fire. On some evenings, when the
y were working overtime, she’d come to the field with tea and scones, bringing the tea in a metal jug, already sweetened and mixed with milk. Now she came across with a large round cake.
‘I’ve baked this for you, love. Just something to remember us by.’
‘He lives on fresh air, this lad,’ the farmer said. ‘Just look at his muscles. He’s grown a foot with us at least.’
The cake was slipped into a paper bag. He put it in his own bag, along with the wage.
‘And he’s kept a guard on them prisoners an’ all,’ the farmer added.
‘Has he?’ The farmer’s wife came to the door to see him off.
‘He’s been a right good officer,’ the farmer called, half-hidden in the shadow of the kitchen.
From the footbridge he glanced back at the farm: the farmer himself had appeared at the door.
‘If thy ever wants a job you must come back here again,’ and still stood there, waving, when he reached the road.
15
‘How much did they pay you?’ Stafford said.
He told him about the farm, and then the prisoners.
‘I don’t do much work during the holidays,’ Stafford said. He added, ‘I was over there, you know, for the day. I know the Thorntons. They live in that house beyond the trees.’
He walked beside him, his canvas bag hitched up beneath his arm. He whistled for a moment between his teeth.
‘Are you playing football this term?’ Colin asked him.
‘I’ve been injured this week.’ Stafford shook his head. ‘I’ll probably come in later. It hasn’t been arranged.’
When they reached the turning to the station, Stafford had added, ‘I’ll come down to the bus stop, if you like. I’ll be catching the later train tonight.’
They walked through the narrow alley and into the town-centre. Crowds of boys were moving down from the direction of the school, joined by groups of uniformed schoolgirls.
Stafford had called across at one point; two girls, on the opposite side of the street, had waved. One girl had called out, pointing back in the direction of the station.
Stafford smiled and shook his head.
‘Look at that,’ he said. He indicated a shop window, catching Colin’s arm. ‘What do you think?’
A wooden plaque of the school’s coat-of-arms was set in the centre of the window, beside it a tray of coloured scarves.
‘Some of those look pretty nifty.’ Stafford leaned to the window, gazing in, his head against the glass.
He moved to the door, holding it open.
An elderly shopkeeper inside had already looked up; he appeared to recognize Stafford for he came out quickly from behind the counter.
‘And what can I do for you?’ he said as Colin followed Stafford in.
‘We’d like to look at the scarves,’ Stafford said. ‘The ones in the window.’ And when the shopkeeper brought them over, sliding the glass panel at the back of the window and lifting them out, Stafford had added, ‘Not the school’s, Mr Wainwright: those civilian ones,’ laughing then at his own expression.
‘The civilian ones,’ the shopkeeper said, beginning to smile himself.
They were made of silk; he spread them on the counter.
‘And have you got your coupons, sir?’ he said.
‘Do you need coupons for one of these, then?’ Stafford said.
‘I’m afraid so.’ The shopkeeper shook his head.
‘What have you got without coupons?’ Stafford said.
‘Well, any number of things,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘Tie-clips, for instance. Do you fancy those? I take it’, he added, ‘it’s for a present.’
‘Yes,’ Stafford said, and glanced across.
A tray of tie-pins was laid before him.
‘What do you think to that one?’ Stafford said.
He picked it out.
It was a silver-coloured tie-pin shaped like a feather. Its image, Colin saw, was that of a quill. A tiny nib was fashioned one end.
‘Do you like it?’
‘Yes,’ he said, impatient now to get to the stop.
‘I’ll take that one, Wainwright,’ Stafford said and from his inside pocket drew out a wallet.
‘That’s rather an expensive one,’ the shopkeeper said.
‘I thought it might be,’ Stafford said.
He laid out the money.
‘Could you wrap it up?’ he said. ‘Decently, I mean. In a sort of box.’
Outside the shop Stafford glanced at his watch and added, ‘Are we late for your bus? What time does it leave?’
‘If I hurry,’ he said.
‘We’ll run for it in that case,’ Stafford said.
They ran through the centre; at one point, for a while, they ran on the road, Stafford dodging the traffic and keeping abreast.
‘Keep running: I’ll keep up,’ he said.
The bus was waiting when they reached the stop.
Stafford stood beside Colin as the queue climbed on.
Then, close to the door, he said, ‘Here you are, then. I hope you can use it.’
He thrust the parcel into Colin’s hand.
‘Go on. Take it. You’ll never get on.’
And when he hesitated he thrust it to his hand again.
‘See you tomorrow,’ Stafford called, already moving off along the pavement.
He saw Stafford’s head, its fair hair conspicuous amongst the crowd, moving swiftly up the hill, back towards the city centre: he watched a moment longer then, as the crowd moved on, the fair-haired figure disappeared.
He opened the parcel when he got back home.
‘That’s beautiful. Wherever did you get that?’ his mother said.
‘It was a present,’ he said, and added, ‘From a friend at school.’
‘It isn’t your birthday yet,’ she said.
‘I know,’ he said. He shook his head.
‘Do they give presents to you, then, like that?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose they do.’
‘Have you bought him one, in that case, then?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I suppose I shall.’
‘Well, love,’ she’d added, ‘make sure you do.’
He didn’t see Stafford at school the following day; he went to his classroom at the afternoon bell: everyone had left. He walked down to the station: there was no sign of Stafford on the platform.
On the Monday he only saw Stafford briefly, from a distance, leaving the field at the end of break; he didn’t run after him or call across. The next time they met was on the Tuesday afternoon: Stafford was coming out of the pavilion, already changed. He waved across, calling, and trotted casually across the field.
He never mentioned the present again. Colin scarcely wore it; he clipped it on to his tie occasionally on Sundays; he went to the Crusaders now in the afternoon, still with Bletchley, and less frequently with Reagan, who, since his failure in the exam, had been often ill.
Bletchley wore a suit on Sundays; over the previous year he had worn his school uniform to church but as it faded it had been replaced by a suit of dark-grey cloth with long trousers and a double-breasted jacket. Both he and Bletchley as well as Reagan were in the same Crusader group; a banner with the device of a fish was clipped to the end of their pew. The vicar took the service: small, portly, with thick-lensed glasses, he spoke with his head inclined towards the ceiling, waiting for each word to echo before he called the next: ‘I … I – shall … shall – wait … wait – here … here – for … for – si … si – lence … lence.’ He sang loudly, standing by the pulpit, sometimes disappearing behind the varnished pews to the organ, where, through an angled mirror, he could watch the groups below.
With no Mr Morrison to talk to Bletchley would frequently fall asleep; he would prop his arm on the end of the pew, immediately beneath the banner, and with his head against his hand, his face shielded, he would assume an attitude of rapt attention; in the shadows of the church, and beneath the extended shield of his ha
nd, it was impossible to tell that he wasn’t listening; even when the vicar called for the answer to some question he would put up his hand, slowly, instinctively, half-dazed, having to be roused, cautiously, if he was asked specifically to answer.
Reagan had grown taller over the previous year; he too, in response to Bletchley’s challenge, had taken to wearing long trousers; they emphasized his now almost skeletal figure with its massive, bulbous head. Occasionally he could be seen walking across the backs, his hands in his pockets, glancing in windows and open doors and recoiling abruptly whenever someone called. He had been moved to a private school in the city, and each morning his mother took him to the station to catch the train, waiting for him on the platform of the village station each evening and walking back up to the village with him, hand in hand.
‘They mu’n be getting married soon,’ his father said whenever he saw them pass the window. ‘Reagan’s not got a look-in where yon lad’s concerned.’
‘It’s because he’s sensitive,’ his mother said. ‘He’s always been sensitive, even as a baby. She’s always had to look after him,’ she added.
‘He’d be less sensitive if he’d had a boot up his backside,’ his father said. ‘I’d de-sensitize him inside a week if I had him in this house.’
‘Oh, we know how sensitive you are,’ his mother would add.
‘Sensitive? I’m sensitive,’ his father said. ‘I’m more sensitive than yon streak o’ whitewash.’
‘Yes: and we know that, Colin, don’t we, love? We know how sensitive your father is,’ she’d tell him.
‘I’m sensitive enough to work in that pit,’ he’d add.
‘Are you?’
‘And give you a decent living.’
‘Do you?’
‘And you can’t get more sensitive’, he’d say, ‘than that.’
Steven had started school. He spent a lot of his time now out of the house, coming in at meal-times. But for the fact that they slept together Colin would scarcely have seen him. His brother had a pale, feather-like existence: built broadly like himself, he floated from one interest to another, running constantly from one demand to another, from one group of boys to another, his laughter frequently, whenever he was excited, filling the backs, a loud, harsh, almost hen-like cackle.