So she wanted me to be confirmed and she wanted me to get some musical ideas, but I said I couldn’t contend with ’em both. She said I ought to do one or the other, and I said music was as good as confirmation any day. She said it wasn’t quite as good, but still it was very good and so she let me off being confirmed. To tell you the truth, I did not much care for this holy father she was struck on; his breath smelt rotten, and he brought us some Jerusalem artichokes once that nearly did me in. I got rather keen on the volunteers, only I wasn’t grown up enough to join them. They used to go round about our town lugging four great cannons behind some horses and chaps on ’em dressed up like soldiers. They didn’t look quite like soldiers, not quite, but the drivers had whips and helmets and jackboots with spurs on; and there’d be a squad of volunteers on foot, all dressed up like soldiers, only as it happened our town was a garrison town and had a barracks full of regulars like the Inniskilling Dragoons or the Lancers, and you couldn’t help noticing the difference. Especially on Sunday mornings when the proper army turned out from the barracks to go to St. Martin’s Church for the service, with the band playing. Hundreds of ’em, all of ’em with swords and spurs and tight trousers with yellow stripes down the leg, dead in step from the front rank to the back one—plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk! When you watched ’em sideways from behind, it looked like one long scorpion with thousands of legs. Going under the railway arch by the pill factory you couldn’t hear yourself speak, especially if there was a train going over. And when any of ’em died they did have some grand funerals. Grand and solemn, the poor corpse on the gun carriage leading the regiment for the only time, Union Jack on the corpse, his helmet on top of that, and his old horse walking behind him without a rider. Ma always cried when she saw the horse. There’d be all the regiment following, very slow step, carbines upside down, and the “Dead March.” Lord, it made you feel good! And when they’d finished burying him in the cemetery on the hill, they’d fire a few shots up in the air and blow on the bugles. So long, old pal, so long. Then they’d all turn home again, quick march, quick as you like now, with the band playing something lively, like Biddy McGrah:
Biddy McGrah, the colonel said,
Would you like a soldier made of your son Fred,
With a sword by his side and a fine cocked hat—
Biddy McGrah, how would you like that?
and everybody would be laughing—nearly everybody—whistling and laughing and jolly like.
Still, the volunteers was quite nice. They was all right. One of the volunteers’ wives (he was a sergeant) knew my ma and knew I was musical, so her husband asked us if I would like to join them as a bugle boy. Course, there wasn’t any chance of ever going to any wars—I shouldn’t have cared a lot for that sort of thing—but I thought it ’ud be grand to have red stripes and a bugle with white cord and tassels. My! So I told my ma to say as I wouldn’t mind being a bugler boy as long as there wasn’t anything to pay, because I tell you straight you can’t keep on for ever buying, buying, buying these here instruments. So this sergeant comes along one evening and takes me with him down to the drill hall to try and see how I could get on with bugles. It was a big hall where these four cannon was kept, but the sergeant took me up some wooden steps to a loft where the practice was going on and set me down on a box and left me there among a lot of chaps dressed anyhow in their ordinary clothes, but they had all got helmets on and I watched ’em blowing on bugles enough to deafen a Greek. Then they had a go on some trumpets made of brass, larger than the bugles and very pretty. I liked ’em much better; there’s more music in a trumpet, you know; it makes a nicer kind of noise, much grander and looks more nice. It’s the proper thing you have to blow before the King when he goes out, or these judges when they go to assizes, not like these fat little bugles which only give a kind of a moo—there’s no comparison.
After about an hour the bandmaster come up to me and asked me what I wanted. Of course, I didn’t really know, because the sergeant hadn’t told me what to say—they do mess you about, these chaps, and all for nothing. This bandmaster was a posh fellow, all got up with black braid on his tunic and a quiff. Well, I told him something, and he says:
“You’re not very big.”
“But I’m tough,” I says.
“How old are you?”
I told him, and he said I wasn’t old enough, but anyway he went and fetched me a bugle to try on. I wasn’t half surprised when I found I couldn’t blow the thing at all, not a sound, not in five minutes! I hurt my face trying. So then he gets me a trumpet, and the trumpet was no better than the bugle—not for me. And it looked so easy! Well, the result was he said I was too young (of course I knew that already) and too little, and said I should have to eat a lot more pudden for a year or two and then try again. I tell you, I was ashamed about the whole blessed lot of these volunteers. I was quite angry, too. It gets you that way, messing about over sizes and ages when you been left school and out to work for nearly two years. If a chap’s old enough to go out to work he’s old enough to go bugling. I should say so, and you couldn’t expect a nipper like me to play Annie Lorry on the thing the very first time. I should say not. Anyhow, I gives him a salute and says: “Good night, sir.”
I couldn’t find the sergeant, he’d mizzled, so I started off home by myself. It was dark outside and the gas lamps were all alight. Mind you, I was in a great wax, but it somehow made me feel as if I wanted to cry. My ma’s a bit that way too, only she cries about nothing at all. This drill hall was in a quiet street, but not far off I sees a crowd where there was a row on. I like a bit of a shindy so I wedges my way in. The row was over a couple of drunken soldiers out in the middle of the road challenging anyone to fight, and nobody ’ud take ’em on! There they was, the crowd all standing on the pavement each side, and the two soldiers prancing up and down the middle of the road offering to pay anyone who’d fight ’em. They’d got forage caps on and spurs and canes in their hands, both of ’em half canned, but one of ’em a bit more mad than the other. He kept on yelling out:
“Come on, ye bastards, I’m the ten-stone champion of Belfast! Forty men I’ve killed and I’ve eaten tigers alive!”
Not a soul in that crowd said a word or blinked an eye—he sounded too awful. The second soldier walked behind the other and kept swishing his own leg with his cane and asking everybody very quiet-like: “D’ye want to fight? D’ye want to fight? He’s the cock of the world.”
As if they would! But it made you feel angry though, it does make you get angry, that kind of thing. I could feel my savage blood surging up, but I thought I’d better keep quiet. Nobody wanted to tackle this champion and he got angrier and angrier, going up to fellows and grabbing them by the lapel of their coats.
“Come on, come on,” he said, “it’ll do ye the world of good.” But the chaps all dodged away from him.
“Almighty God!” the soldier yells, “I must kill somebody. Come on, ye yeller guts, all of ye!” And he picked hold of another chap and spit in his face. Then the people in the back of the crowd started calling out: “Send for the picket. Where’s the police?” And I’m blessed if this champion didn’t come up to me and say: “D’ye want a bit of a brish?”
I thought to myself: “Lord, shall I have just one good sock at his eye!” but before I knew what I was thinking of I said: “No, thank you, sir,” and he passed on to someone else. We all stood silent there like a flock of sheep waiting to be pole-axed and not daring to say a word. I was ashamed, but still, if anyone had tried to move away he’d ’a’ been pounced on by this soldier and corpsed straight there. And this pal of his kept swishing his own leg with his cane: “D’ye want to fight? He’s the cock of the world.”
Now, standing just by the crowd was a deaf and dumb bloke known as Dummy—but I didn’t know his right name. Everybody knew him because he was dumb and couldn’t speak or hear, but these two soldiers didn’t know him. Old Dummy stood there with his bowler hat on, but he couldn’t ’a’ known much about what w
as going on, being deaf, and anyway he couldn’t say anything ’cause he couldn’t speak, and this fighting soldier seemed to take a regular fancy to Old Dummy.
“Come on,” he roars out at him; “come on, you’ll do!” and prances in front of him, wagging his fists. Old Dummy never said a thing—well, he couldn’t, you see. But this soldier didn’t know that and kept prancing at him till some woman at the back shrieks out:
“Don’t you hit him! He’s dumb, he is. Let him alone, you dirty coward!”
When the soldier heard that he stopped still and looked all over the crowd. Everybody shivered in their shoes, you could ’a’ heard a pin drop.
“What did I hear? Me? Who said that? Who said it?” And he didn’t half swear. He chucked his cane to his pal and marched right into the crowd and banged poor Dummy’s hat hard down on his ears.
“Will ye fight?” he says, and poked his ugly face out to Dummy and tells him: “Come on, hit me, hit me here.”
Old Dummy could only make a funny noise with his mouth—“Mum . . . um . . . um . . . um . . . um”—and he put up his hands to save his hat. That only made the soldier madder still. He rushed at Dummy and fetched him a terrible slosh across the jaw with his right and followed it up with another biff in the neck with his left. Talk about wallop, I never seen anything like it—and really, there’s something grand about this scientific art of boxing. Poor Old Dummy went down like a sow, full stretch on his side with his nose in the gutter. The blood was coming out of his face. He didn’t move and he didn’t say a word—well, of course, he couldn’t. And that did seem to stir up one or two of these people. They began shouting at the soldiers and some picked Dummy up and carried him across into a pub called the Corporation Arms—I could see its gold letters shining sideways because of the gas lamp farther up. When the two soldiers saw the damage they done and the crowd getting so threatening, they went to clear off. The champion got his cane from his pal and marched away like a lord, but his pal stopped to argue with some of the people, and while he was arguing who should come out of the Corporation Arms but Arthur Lark! He was a tough nut, was Arthur Lark, a carriage-cleaner up at the railway; only just left off work, because he still had his uniform on, green corduroys, and was having a drink when they took Dummy in the pub where Arthur was. He come walking up to the crowd very quiet and says: “Is this him?”
They says: “That’s one of ’em,” they says, and without any more ado Arthur knocked the soldier’s pal senseless with one punch. Oh gosh!
“Where’s the other?” says Arthur.
Of course he’d gone off, but we all pelted after him, this champion one, and except for a couple of women no one took any notice of that blooming soldier lying in the road like a dead ’un. We soon saw the champion of Belfast staggering along and wagging his cane about, but just then a bobby pops round a corner, sees our crowd, and steps in the road and stops us. A big chap, fifteen stone I bet he was, and I could tell you his number only that wouldn’t do! Stops us: “What’s all this? What’s going on here?”
Arthur Lark never budged an inch. He up and told the bobby what was on and what had happened, what the soldier had done to Dummy. The bobby said: “I’ll run the bleeder in.”
“That’s no good, no,” says Arthur, “what’s the use a doing that! Soon as you got him the picket ’ull come and fetch him away! You let me have a word or two with him now, just five minutes. Shan’t want any more. You turn your eyes another way, you go on up the street for a walk, it’s a nice evening, ain’t it?”
I can see old Arthur now, a fine bloke with a funny bent face. After a bit more palaver the bobby did a grin. “All right, go on,” he says, “but hurry up, and don’t forget—I ain’t seen you, I ain’t seen anything!”
We went off with a whoop again, and the bobby shouted: “Not so much noise there, please!”
Coughdrop, he was.
When that soldier heard us all coming after him he turned and gave one look and then bolted for his life. We youngsters headed him off a side turning. Arthur got up with him at the bottom of the street, where there’s a row of houses with gardens and iron railings facing you. The soldier didn’t know whether to run to the right or the left, and Arthur caught him wallop in the gutter. I never saw such a blow in my life, right in the guts, and lifted him fair across the pavement bang into the iron railings. And so help me God, the railings cracked and broke, fair crumbled up, and when the soldier fell the bits fell all over him. He lay down there quiet as a lamb. We gathered round and picked up the bits of iron railing.
“Get up!” says Arthur.
But the soldier wouldn’t get up, he said he couldn’t, he said it was a foul blow: “It’s damn near killed me!”
“Foul!” Arthur says, and he shoved his fist right in front of this soldier’s nose: “D’ye see that! Was it a foul blow? Was it?”
“You let me alone,” the soldier said, “or you’ll be sorry for it.” And you could see he was real bad.
“You got that for striking a harmless dumb man what couldn’t help hisself,” said Arthur.
“How did I know he was dumb?” the soldier said.
“How did you know! Couldn’t you see it? And deaf, too!”
“How did I know he was deaf?” the swaddy said. He was sweating like a stoker and his face was the colour of suet. Anyone could see he was real bad. So Arthur said: “Here, some of you chaps, just fold him up and put him in a tram for the barracks. With my compliments, say.” And off goes Arthur as calm as a cucumber! He left us to it. That’s what I liked so much about Arthur; so quiet with his old bent face, and no fuss; he just put this soldier out of mess and left us to it. Presently we saw the policeman coming towards us again.
“Come on, soldier,” we says, “here’s a rozzer coming, you better get up now.”
He managed to sit up all right after a bit, and then he says: “Go away or I’ll blind the lot of ye to hell!” So we mooched off and left him, because of this rozzer. But I think he was all right—anyways I never heard no more about him nor any of ’em. I suppose he must have been all right, because you don’t half cop it for killing a soldier. He was supposed to be the true champion of Belfast, but he didn’t like the way Arthur cooked his eggs for him. My God! But there’s no doubt about it, boxing is the most patriotic thing after all. To my mind it’s absolutely noble. I mean what’s the good of these here bugles, blowing your insides out? Give me a pair of dukes like Arthur Lark.
Well, after all my blooming trouble this musical business didn’t come to anything again, so I give up the idea altogether. Somebody showed me a pipe called a oboe, but it cost a fearful lot. Besides, I couldn’t make any sound come out of it. I dunno why everything you wants to go in for costs so much. I can’t make it out and I can’t stand it neither, so I give up these musical ideas and bought a rabbit off a fellow as said he was going to learn me all the doings of the noble art of self-defence.
Ninepenny Flute (1937)
A Little Boy Lost
“THE BOY OUGHT TO HAVE A CRICKET BAT, TOM,” SAID Eva Grieve to her husband one summer evening. He was a farm labourer, very industrious, very poor, and both were so proud of their only child that they sometimes quarrelled about him. They all lived together in a tiny field that was shaped like a harp and full of sweet grass. There was an ash tree in it, a water splash, a garden with green things, and currant bushes in corners; and of course their little cottage.
“He can’t play cricket,” Tom Grieve replied.
“Not without a bat, he can’t; he ought to have a bat, like other boys.”
“Well, I can’t buy him no cricket bats and so he can’t have it,” said Tom.
“Why, you mean wretch—” began Eva with maternal belligerence.
“For one thing,” continued her mate, “he ain’t old enough—only five; and for another thing, I can’t afford no cricket bat.”
“If you had the true spirit of a father”—very scornful Eva was—“You’d make him one, yourself.”
So Tom chopped a cricket bat out of a slice of willow bough and presented it to his son. The child hardly looked at it.
“Course not,” snapped Eva to her sarcastic husband, “he wants a ball, too, don’t he?”
“You’ll be wanting some flannel duds for him next.”
“I’ll make him a ball,” cried Eva.
Eva went into the fields and collected wisps of sheep’s wool off the briars for her firstborn and bound them firmly into a ball with pieces of twine. But the child hardly looked at that either. His mother tossed the ball to him, but he let it fall. She pelted him playfully with it, and it made his nose bleed.
“He’s got no one to play with,” explained Eva, so she cut three sticks for a wicket, and in the evenings she and Tom would take the child out into the harp-shaped field. But the tiny Grieve did not care for cricket; it was not timid, it simply did not care. So Eva and Tom would play while David stood watching them with grave eyes; and at last Tom became very proficient indeed, and so enamoured of the game of cricket that he went and joined the village club and no longer played with Eva; and the child wouldn’t, so she was unhappy.
“He likes looking at things, but he doesn’t want to do anything himself. What he ought to have is a telescope,” said Eva. But how to get a telescope? She did not know. The village store had stocks of hobnailed boots and shovels and peppermint drops, but optical instruments were not in demand, and Eva might for ever have indulged in dreams—as she constantly did—of telescopes that brought the interior of heaven itself close up to you as clear as Crystal Palace. But one day she went to a farm auction, and there had the luck to meet a great strapper of a gypsy man, with a husky voice, a long ragged coat, and a depressed bowler hat, who had bought a bucketful of crockery and coathooks and odds and ends, including a little telescope.
The Hurly Burly and Other Stories Page 22