Give Us This Day (46 page)

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss. Nothing’s easy to find with so many under your feet. Under Miriam’s bed, they were, of all places,” and he turned on her that slow, bewitching smile so that she thought, I’ll capture that too before I’m man
y days older… that smile, against the background of a house like this in a town like this. For that’s the essence of it—warmth and cheerfulness dominating squalor and overcrowding, and everything else these people have to put up with… Yet not letting these things run away with them, keeping them on a tight rein, just as his mother keeps this place spotless, with all that dirt coming into the house from the black mountain yonder…

She said, facing him as she tucked the leaflets under her arm, “Will you be coming up to Mr. Swann’s house in the next few days, Mr. Griffiths?”

“Why, yes, Miss. We’ve a committee meeting there tomorrow, after tea. The agent, the secretary, the treasurer, and the committee men who make out the roster for street-corner meetings.”

“When you’ve done talking will you sit for me?”

”
Sit
for you, Miss?”

“I’m sorry. Let me explain. I paint, you see, and I’d very much like to paint you, Mr. Griffiths. You, holding my brother’s little boy David, perhaps, but with the pithead in the background. It will be light until around eight-thirty and the sketches wouldn’t take long. Would you do it for me?”

He seemed so stunned that she was not sure he comprehended her request, but apparently he did, for presently he said, “You want to
draw
my picture, Miss?
Me?
You don’t mean
take
it, with a camera? Like Dadda up there.”

“No, draw it… sketch it that is… and paint it afterwards. See, I’ll show you…” and she put down the leaflets and whipped one from the pile, diving into her reticule for a sharpened pencil she kept there. “Now keep quite still, Mr. Griffiths!” and she limned him with a few bold strokes, catching what he obviously regarded as an astounding likeness in a matter of seconds. “There, like that. Only much better, of course.”

He took the leaflet and stared down at it. “Why, that’s wonderful! Wonderful it iss! Just like that! Like… like a flash of lightning!” The awe in his voice made her laugh, banishing the last of her shyness and the strangeness of the encounter in this crowded little parlour. “I spend most of my time sketching,” she said, “but I’m not very good at portraits. I think I could be but I should need a lot of practice. Will you do it, after the committee meeting tomorrow?”

“The candidate wouldn’t think it a liberty?”

“Giles? Of course he wouldn’t. He’d be interested in a change of subject. He’s never seen anything of mine but pastoral scenes, in and about the place where we live in Kent.”

“May I… could I keep this bit o’ paper, Miss?”

“Of course, if you want to. But it’s only the roughest kind of sketch.”

“Mam and the others will be struck dumb when I show them. We never heard… the candidate never said… I mean, having a sister who could draw pictures like a camera only better…” He fell to examining the sketch again, clearly regarding his likeness as the eighth wonder of the world.

She squeezed past him and he followed her out into Bethel Street. The sun had finally won its day-long battle with the clouds and the row of tiny houses was bathed in orange light. Higher up the hill, and down below on more level ground, a veil of smoke had drawn a heliotrope curtain across the sky. The shouts of children at play came to them from lower down the street. She said, as to herself,
There’s so much to paint about here. Why, there’s a lifetime of painting ahead of me.
Then, offering him her hand, she walked thoughtfully back towards the track. At the corner of the street she turned and saw him still standing there, silhouetted against the sky, the sketch in his hand.

3

The nine months comprising spring, summer, and early winter of the year 1905 was a flood tide for the Swanns. Change, adventure and enterprise, bringing with them individual and collective advances, ran like a string of Chinese cracker explosions along the Swann ramparts.

Tidings of their forays reached Adam at intervals in the form of bulletins and personal reports and, unlike his wife, he was able, from the serene standpoint of a man of seventy-eight, to ponder each objectively. Some excited him but did not surprise him. After all, it was in the nature of things that George should forge into the future with his fleet of mechanically-propelled waggons, and just as predictable that his daughters, Helen and Margaret, should find men to their liking and go their own way up and down the social scale.

Two subsequent developments, however, one concerning his eldest son, Alexander, the other his son Hugo, found a deeper lodgment in mind and heart. The first because he was still able, even after this stretch of time, to see life through the eyes of a professional soldier, the second because, having come to think of Hugo as a permanent casualty, he was uplifted by the boy’s re-entry into the lists.

News of Alex’s advancement came in late autumn, when he and his wife Lydia spent a period of leave at Tryst and he was told of his son’s invitation to join the counsels of the exalted. At the age of forty-five, Alexander Swann, with several wars and twenty-seven years’ service behind him, was often mistaken for a run-ofthe-mill career officer, advancing by seniority, destined, perhaps, for a colonelcy in a line regiment before retirement. Outwardly, he was very set in his ways and his opinions (prejudices, most people called them) were those of a majority of his colleagues. He looked what he was, too, having acquired a slight paunch and the habit of command, and of strict obedience to the whim of superiors, had imposed upon his voice and manner a certain brusqueness. In addition, somewhere along the line, he had forgotten how to laugh at himself, the one quality, in Adam’s view, that could prevent an army officer developing into an animated duplicate of the stuffed dummies he had once used for sabre practice on the drill-ground. But Adam, almost alone among those whose path occasionally crossed that of Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Swann, was not deceived by this veneer. He was aware that, below the skin, his eldest son concealed a brace of Swann traits that could still rescue him from the mental atrophy that overtook almost every serving officer in middle-age. He had sacrificed the saving grace of laughter, certainly, but he had retained and even developed that professional curiosity that lay at the very heart of the Swann empire, as his obsession with the importance of firepower proved. Urged on by his devoted Lydia, he had avoided all the popinjay pitfalls in his twenties and had become an acknowledged expert on the new Maxim gun and its successor, the heavy Vickers machine-gun. Tirelessly, and often with no apparent effect upon his superiors, he had hawked his ideas around the Empire so that now, whenever the question of increased firepower came up in war games and the inquests that succeeded them, Lieutenant-Colonel Swann’s advice was sought by men of high rank. Sought and occasionally heeded, Adam remarked, for he kept a sharp eye on the army’s technical advances, particularly since the British, descending on South Africa as though it was another Crimea, had taken such a hammering from a few thousand farmers.

The army, he supposed, was changing like everything else about him and modern technologies could not be held at bay indefinitely by an assortment of polo-playing, pig-sticking fops operating at a safe distance from London. Here and there changes were forced upon them, usually by news of French and German innovations, and now that a man of intelligence was in command of the army spring-cleaning that followed peace in South Africa, it seemed likely that progress would accelerate to the point where it might have some lasting effect upon the cavalrymen crowding the highest rungs of the profession.

And this, in fact, was more or less confirmed by Alex, when he accompanied Adam down to The Hermitage one November afternoon and told him of his recent interview with Haldane.

Adam, who since his retirement had spent upwards of two hours a day with his newspapers, was familiar with Richard Haldane, one of the brighter stars in the Liberal firmament, judging him a painstaking and unusually imaginative man. Haldane’s thoroughness, however, seemingly went far beyond Adam’s expectations, for Alex told him that he had been among a group of home-based officers invited to discuss a particular plank in the Liberal platform, grounded on the near certainty that the Liberals would sweep the Balfour Government out of office at the next General Election.

“It’s an open secret,” Alex told him, “that if the Liberals win, as seems certain, Haldane will be offered the War Office. How much do you know of him, Gov’nor?”

“I’ve read some of his articles in periodicals,” Adam said, surprised to find Alex caught up in politics. “He seems to have some far-reaching ideas about military reorganisation. German educated, isn’t he, and spends a lot of his time at Potsdam?”

“He’s very impressed with Germany’s military re-organisation. He admitted to me that we could learn a great deal from the Junkers. Well, not the Junkers exactly, for I imagine they correspond to our cavalry caucus, but from the German General Staff. We haven’t even got a General Staff. If Haldane gets the opportunity, the creation of one is his first priority, but that won’t concern me, save indirectly.”

“You say he sent for you?”

Alex looked a little foxy and Adam guessed, rightly, that he was debating with himself how far he could confide in a civilian.

“I don’t know if I should pass all of it on,” he said, at length. “I can rely on your complete discretion, of course.”

“If you can’t, then God help you, boy,” Adam said. “I’ve stopped hobnobbing in city coffee houses, you know.” Then, “You had it in mind to confide in me, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. Well, Haldane aims at instituting some tremendous reforms in the service. Apart from the creation of a staff, he wants to amalgamate the Volunteers and Yeomanry into a single unit called Territorials, with a strength of fourteen divisions and as many mounted brigades.”

Adam whistled. “That’s a big bite. I hope he doesn’t give some of his turn-theother-cheek Liberal colleagues heartburn. They’re against army expansion, aren’t they?”

“Oh, I know nothing about that,” Alex said, casually. “We chaps aren’t supposed to meddle in politics, but I must say the chap impressed me. For what he’s after is the creation of a highly-trained reserve army, plus the founding of a schools’ cadre for officers, to be known as the Officers’ Training Corps.”

“And that, I imagine, is where you come in?”

Alex coloured, never having learned to adjust to his father’s badinage. “It would mean an acting colonelcy. And a chance to pass on what I know about small arms to people who… well, to put it bluntly, have had their heads in the sand for forty years.”

“Why the devil don’t you say what you mean,” Adam said, irritably, for he had never cared for circular talking when he was young and found it even more frustrating in old age. “Those chaps you’ve been canvassing for years aren’t just ostriches. A majority only took a commission to avail themselves of an idle life, with strong social advantages. The older ones are fossilised fools, and you’ve broken your head against them time and again, so don’t pretend otherwise. What answer, if any, did you give Haldane?”

Alex said, as though confessing to a felony, “I… er… I… took a chance. I said I was wholly in favour of all the changes he suggested, and if I was given the chance I’d do my damnedest to teach part-time soldiers all I knew on the ranges. Was I right?”

“You were right,” Adam said, “and I’ll add something to that. I’m proud of you, boy, for if you had wriggled off the hook you wouldn’t deserve another step nor a chance to haul the army into the twentieth century.” He scowled at the dreaming landscape. “Listen here, as long ago as the eighteen-fifties I saw campaigns bungled and men butchered simply because those in command of them approached every battle with the tactics of Waterloo and Blenheim. The penalty for that was incurred in South Africa, and if we didn’t learn from that we might as well concede the next war, if one comes, to the Prussians, the French, the Germans, the Russians, or the Japs. I wouldn’t put a shilling on us beating anyone but the Turks right now, would you?”

He saw that he had gone too far, but he did not regret it. Alex, notwithstanding his obstinacy, still needed prodding when it came to making bold decisions, of the kind Adam had made every day when he was his son’s age. It was fortunate, he reflected, that Alex had found that funny little wife of his when he was at the crossroads of his career. He said, remembering her now, “Have you told Lydia as much as you’ve told me?”

“No. I was in two minds whether I should tell you.”

“Well, here’s one more piece of paternal advice. Confide in her as you go along and you’ll never go far wrong. For if anyone can push you to the top of the tree it isn’t Haldane, or anyone like Haldane. It’s Lydia, who brought you this far without much trouble. Am I right about that?”

He was relieved to see a slow, rather boyish smile crease his son’s face so he went on, “Of course I am. You know that better than anyone! Tell her tonight, boy, and see what she makes of it.”

Dusk was creeping over the paddocks, and Adam went into The Hermitage museum to retrieve his ulster, shed earlier in the afternoon. Alex followed him in, glancing curiously at the Swann paraphernalia cluttering walls and floor of the building. He said, as though voicing a question that had tormented him all his life, “You were trained as a soldier, Gov’nor, and my guess is you were a damned good one. What the devil prompted you to sidestep the chance of a career like General Roberts’ for… well… all this?”

“I can tell you that easier than I could have told you an hour ago. In my day there were twice as many ostriches and no Haldanes about. Come, boy, it’s getting chilly and I’ve a taste for muffins and a dish of tea.”

They went out and across the paddock to the break in the sentinel row of trees guarding the drive to the house; father and son, separated not so much by a span of years as by the gulf between wars fought with lance and sabre and an era when weapons could kill at a range of several miles. Between them they represented perhaps a dozen generations of professional warriors, and the link, to anyone who knew them both, was still strong, despite Adam’s early renunciation of the Swann trade. After all, Alex reflected, he had laid aside sword and lance fifty years ago, but he was still, in the real sense of the word, a warrior to be reckoned with.