A Fox Under My Cloak (46 page)

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“Twinkle” greeted him in the billet, with spruced-up moustache cut to a stubble between rolled and horizontal waxed points, and an exaggerated mouthful of new false teeth. The top
row was of gold, in contrast to the lower peg-like objects upon which, in the intervals of speaking, he appeared to be champing.

“Breakin' of 'm in, sir. I took this little ol' lot off'v a Frog, in lieu of services rendered.” As he spoke, loose rivets in the gold teeth were jumping about. He gave two rapid champs, which caused a faint rattle. “The ol' girl's getting you some soup, sir; I expected you back last night, had a very nice 'ot-pot waiting, sir.”

“I'm thirsty, give me some water.” He drank nearly a quart.

“'Ere, have a swig o' this, sir, I kep' it for you.” From his kitbag “Twinkle” pulled a bottle of whisky, labelled
White
Horse.
Phillip drank from the bottle; and feeling better, said, “You look very smart tonight!”

“Yes, sir, I'm a noo man, sir, now I got me noo snappers.”

“Have you seen anything of the special detachment?”

“The 'ole lot's gone back to Helfaut, sir. The major sent for you, sir, then 'e came 'isself, sir, and I told 'im you got the gas bad, and was out for a breath o' fresh air. Now drink your soup before the scum forms on it, sir.”

“Don't you belong to them?”

“No, sir. I stayed to look after you, sir.”

“But, my dear chap——”

“That's right, sir. I know what you're thinkin'. 'Ere today and gone tomorrow, that's ‘Twinkle'. But you'd be wrong, sir. I'd be pleased if you could take me with you wherever you goes, sir. Put me on the strenghth, like. Now, sir, you look proper done-in, sir, if you'll pardon the remark. I don't suppose you 'ad no kip last night?”

“God's teeth, it's a muck up, this whole attack, ‘Twinkle!' No water! No cookers! No rations! Nobody knows where anybody else is! And Christ Almighty, the casualties! Thousands and thousands of our chaps lying everywhere, at least ten killed for every one German. I went over with my old lot this morning, but God knows what happened, I was with them one moment, and then I was going on practically alone, so I lay down among some other lot, all mixed up, until a cease-fire.”

He put the bottle to his mouth, and drank till he choked; then sat down, and after coughing and spluttering, with loose lips finished his account to the old man, ending with the Irish Guards officer lashing out with his whip; then sighed deeply, feeling sick.

“Them Micks always was a quarrelsome lot, a-roarin' and a-bawlin',” mused the servant. “Why, in the boosers of
Aldershot
and Caterham they was allus the first to up-end their
beer-mugs
soon as they see a Bill Brown or a Lilywhite come in for a wet. Then up goes the 'ole balloon, belts off, buckles whizzing, fists bashing, boots stampin' on faces. My word, sir, they was wild boys, them Micks. Them horse marines in Union Street
Plymouth
was never near 'em for a real rough 'ouse. The wild geese, they calls 'em, but they're more like wild wolves in my opinion. The Micks loves scrappin' for its own sake. I'll tell you what I seed once in Kingstown Docks, in Dublin, First, let me fill your plate with soup, sir—very 'ealth-giving.”

Phillip was very sleepy; and regarding him, the old soldier said, “My best respects, sir,” then carefully inserting the bottle of White Horse between his loose gold teeth, drank; and after
lip-smackings
accompanied by a rattling of miniature rivets, went on with his story about Kingstown Docks.

“I were on sentry go, and I seed a bloke on a tug-boat pickin' up with a boat-'ook a familiar object all the world over, sir, what floated by out of the sewer. This one 'ad a baby's 'and on the end, and when 'e fished it out, it was 'alf filled with water, so for devilment 'e slung it at a bloke rowing acrost the 'arbour 'oo was a little tich. This object, sir, if you'll pardon the
mentioning
of it–

“Go on, go on, I wasn't born yesterday——”

“Thank you, sir,” promptly replied the servant, taking the opportunity to take another swig at the bottle. “Yum-yum!” Again the little percussive noises, then—“Well, sir, this object, without a word of a lie, catches the little tich full in the face, and seeing what it was, 'e let out a lot o' wicked words and made for the tug, rowin' like billio. I were on dock sentry, so I seed it all. The big bloke run off when the boat come alongside, pretendin' it were a joke, but the little tich went arter 'im, but couldn't catch 'im before the big bloke what chucked the letter 'ad shut 'isself in 'is 'ouse. The little tich come back blindin', and said 'e'd get the big bloke one day. 'Alf a mo', sir, I'll get the 'otpot. Nah don't go to sleep yet, sir, I ain't finished the story.”

“Very amusing. I was wondering why the baby's hand, as a matter o' fact.”

“The women likes it, sir, fascinates 'em, sir. 'Tes nature, in
a manner o' speaking, though it's agin' nature, if you understand my meaning——”

“Quite! Quite! What happened—did the two meet again?”

“Eat your 'otpot, no heel-taps now! You bet your life they did, sir. In Rufferty's it was, sir, a booser. The tug-boat bloke 'ad been boasting what 'e'd do to the little tich when he see'd 'im; and one night he was leaning on the bar, talking big about 'ow 'e'd turn 'is empty glass down when 'e saw 'im—that's a free-for-all challenge, sir—when in comes the little bloke. ‘Good evening, all', he says pleasant like to the customers. ‘Nice night for a wet—even for those 'oo are wet enough by themselves already, the big streaks o' piss in a gaspipe an' all.' At this the big bloke turned down 'is glass, bottom up on the counter. The little tich ignores 'im. ‘Pint a porter, please, miss,' he sings out, putting down 'is tuppence. 'Ee were just about to pick up the wallop, when the big bloke taps 'im on the shoulder, then reaches out and grabs the wallop and knocks it back. Then, all in silence, 'e puts the empty glass down.

“The little bloke still takes no notice, but says cheerful as anyfink, ‘Pint o' porter please, miss,' and puts down two more coppers. Then he turns to the big bloke and says, ‘If you drink that one I won't say what's coming to you,' but the big bloke reaches over again and grabs the glass, throws back 'is 'ead an' drinks the wallop, and is just on the point of turning the glass to the verticle from the 'orizontal, sir, when the little bloke swings an upper-cut what catches the bottom o' the glass acrost. 'is knuckles.”

The storyteller paused dramatically; the dental orchestra played a few bars. “It took sixteen stitches to sew up the
tugman's
big marf! The little tich,” he concluded, “was the
ex-lightweight
champion o' the Royal Navy!”

“Wonderful yarn, wonderful. I could see it as you told it. Now I think I'll have a bit of old-man shut-eye. Oh, hell, I suppose I'll have to go back to the infantry now.”

“You go sick, sir. You got the gas. Affects the 'eart, sir. They can't rumble it, sir. And if you chews some cordite, they can't find it aht, neither. This war's a bad 'un, sir, mark my words. I sin 'em all.”

“What about you?”

“You put me on the strenghth, sir, and you can take me wi' you into 'orspital, and we'll get back to Blighty pronto. You can
put me on the strenghth, sir, or tell 'em I come out wi' you, private like, your valet, sir. I'm a time-expired man.”

“You
are? Since when?”

“Any day I like, sir. You see, I ain't on no strenghth.”

“I don't understand.”

“I managed it, sir, like.”

“But what about your pay?”

“I managed that, too, sir.”

“But if you aren't on the strength of any unit, how did you manage to come out here?”

“Cookhouse wallah, sir. Nothin' in it, sir. You've got to 'ave the experience, of course.”

“What experience, my boy?” Phillip felt O'Connor on his face, and his voice took on a slight Irish brogue.

“Dry firewood, sir. You appears with a noo lot puttin' up tents, an' goes to the cookhouse with a harmful o' good dry firewood, sir, an' start makin' a fire. Then you carries on. ‘We're in, Meredith, we're in!' No-one knows 'oo is 'oo in a noo unit, sir.”

“How did you manage about pay, if you weren't officially on the strength?”

“I turns up, sir, on pay-parade, an' tells the orfficer the truth, that I ain't bin given no pay-book, so 'e gives me one for interim, until the Pay Corps records come, which they don't 'cause there ain't none, an' the dossier gets bigger an' bigger, then we gits to France, an' there the matter rests, as the Marine says to the Admiral's quarter-deck when 'e were took short on sentry-go.”

“So you're not really in the army, then?”

“Twinkle” drew himself up and glanced down at his ribbons. “What, me, sir, arter fifty year and more wi'out a single crime? Not
this
army, I grant you, sir, possibly. Anyhow,” he concluded inconsequentially, “an army marches on its belly, as little ol' Boney said. They can't touch me, sir, I ain't signed no papers since 'ninety-nine, when I went back for the South African war. I don't want to stay 'ere no more, sir. I want to pack up them thicks, an' the ol' major an' mud-'ook, an' see me old mother again, sir. I'm fed up, sir, that's the truth, with everything aht 'ere.”

“So you've got a crown and anchor board have you? You must be worth thousands of francs, ‘Twinkle'. Good luck to you, you deserve it!”

“Look 'ere, sir, I wants to arst you a favour, sir. Will you put me on the strenghth, sir, an' write a letter, sir, to me old mother, an' let me put in some frog money? I can trust you, sir, can't I? I want to 'elp the old woman, she's on 'er last legs, sir.
Ninety-two
next birfday, an 'ad seventeen kids, only me left now, sir. She can change frog money in Lunnon, can't she, sir?”

“How much do you want to send, ‘Twinkle'?”

“Tharsand-franc note, sir.”

“I'll tell you what. The exchange is about twenty-five francs to the pound, so if you like I'll send the money to my bank, and ask them to send her the equivalent in forty pound notes.”

“Blime, she'll get boozed up when she gets forty jimmy o' goblins by post, sir.”

“Why not arrange for half quarterly payments? A bank would send them, if you deposited the money and gave
instructions
to that effect.”

“I don't trust no banks, sir, not since that there penny bank went bust.”

“Well, I have a bank account, and trust it, any old how.”

“Ah, you're a gentleman, sir, and no bank wouldn't put it acrost you, that's why I ast your advice, sir.”

Phillip thought of his father. “If you give me your mother's name and address, ‘Twinkle'——”

A look of hardness and cunning flitted over the old man's face; then with his former manner he said, “Blime, the shock'd kill her! The most she ever 'ad was nine bob one week from the factory when we was all kids. Me dad was killed in the Crimea War when we was all very young, you see, sir.”

The talk seemed aimless to Phillip, so he said, “Well, I'm going to sleep now.”

He wondered where he had seen that hard cunning look before, as he went upstairs to his bare room. There, too tired to remove boots and tunic, he got into his sleeping-sack, to be lulled by the familiar double cracks of the sixty-pounders flashing away beyond the village. Soon he was asleep. He awoke once in the night, to see through the dirty little window panes what he thought of as the pale lilies of the dead—the flares rising along the distant Lens–La Bassée road from Hill 70 to Hulluch. Thank God that he could sleep, he said to himself as he pulled the camel-hair cloth closer round his neck.

He lay in in the morning, aching all over, ruminating, depressed by the feeling that life had come to ruin, that all human hopes were vain. He thought of the men who had slept in the room before him, who had left their records upon the walls. Where were they now? Scrawled on the plaster walls were dates, initials, badges, all in purple pencil digging into the
whitewash
. There were sketches and inscriptions, including a cartoon of Bernard Shaw and Dr. Lyttleton, both of whom he knew vaguely from casual glances at
The
Daily
Trident
to be anti-British, and therefore rotters. They were hanging side-by-side from a gallows, with the text underneath
Love
your
Enemies.
Near them was a warning,
Abandon
hope,
all
ye
who
enter
here,
an idiot's face grinning with the explanation,
After
six
months
in
the
R.
W.F.
There were verses.

Another hand was more poetical.