Lucifer Before Sunrise (13 page)

“Rounded edge, guv,” said Bert Close, quizzing it. “I saw a grindstone in the garage. I'll fit it up if you like.”

They hid the parts of the circular saw in the woods, and after putting a sapling across the break in the bank to keep a
smallholder's
cows from straying, returned to the field. The quarter load of poles was arranged as a wigwam beside the gate, where it was proposed to stack many loads.

When they returned from work that afternoon, Poppy had the table in the loft set for supper. Afterwards they walked down to the sea, where the sands were set by thick posts of wood to prevent landings by air or water.

The next morning, while they were on the way to the wood, it began to rain. The wheels of the lorry did not grip as Bert Close, coming down the hill, tried to back into the new clearing. He had to make about fifty gradual fore-and-back movements before the lorry-tail came square with the gap in the hedge. Then the wheels raced, skidded and slipped downhill on yellow clay.

“Leave it to me, guv.”

Getting out of the cab, Bert Close shoved the alleged
kapitanleutnant's
cap on the back of his cropped head, and scowled at the wheels. Phillip awaited an unprintable criticism of his
dilemma
. It was still raining. And the day before, when a sudden shower had lashed down while they were felling, Bert's face had looked black as the sky. Apparently getting wet was one of his dreads. Later he explained that he had caught neuralgia once or twice, badly, from getting wet. Phillip thought it might be need of dentistry, but said nothing. He didn't mind getting wet. Nothing for him could ever be so bad as the frosty days and nights of that 1914 winter in the ‘Die-hard' T-trench filled with water to the waist.

“Get the tractor and chains, please.”

While Phillip carried out the order, Bert Close got out the jack and raised the wheel nearest the bank. Then rocking the lorry, he threw it off the jack. He jacked the wheel again, and once more rocked it off. There was now a three-inch space between bank and right-end of tail-board. He fixed the chain round the lorry axle,
thence to the tow-bar of the tractor. They strewed branches across the line the wheels would go; he got in the cab, started the engine; Phillip got on the tractor seat, and when the chain was taut he went forward in low gear and stopped when the lorry was precisely in position to receive the cut poles.

“Good work,” he said.

Bert Close made no reply. He looked grim. The rain was coming down steadily. Phillip knew that soon the sun would shine again, so was ready to work in the rain. Bert Close didn't, and wasn't. “Come on, guv, give us a hand.” The few poles cut were loaded on the lorry, he drove back in silence to the field. Inside the gate he abandoned the lorry, leaving Phillip to heave off poles by himself. Phillip didn't mind in the least. It rained harder, he couldn't get wetter. It was the suent Devon rain, warmed by the sun above clouds riding in golden glory from the Channel. Soon the sun would be shining.

Root-growing in those parts would be no problem, he thought. What fun to farm in Devon, perhaps these very fields! He imagined the drought-dwarfed roots he had left behind on the biscuit-dry Lower Brock Hanger, the men perhaps at that moment striking at weeds with their hoes, almost like chipping rock; sweat pouring down Powerful Dick's face. Dick the strong solid man, bearing the name of a family which had come over with William of Normandy. Dick the massive worker, running with sweat—for what ran off by day went back at night
via
The
Hero
pub. The old style of British working man, strong on the essence of barley.

With those fancies he filled a pail with water, stripped off shoes and sodden clothes, and washed beside a larch tree no higher than himself. Suddenly the sun was shining, raindrops glinting red and blue on the green boughs set with tiny cones. He opened the door of the Gartenfeste, his wet footprints crossed the floor to the towel on the beam. Soon a stick fire in the hearth was blazing, while from the gramophone in the loft a voice was singing
Summer
Time
from Gershwin's
Porgy
and
Bess
—soaring music, in harmony with silver-birch leaves glowing dreamily under a sky now creamy blue as a starling's egg.

They began at eight o'clock the next morning by clearing the stubs by the gateway. Then they laid the hatch-boards on a bed levelled in the leaf-mould, and upon these the saw-bench was screwed firm by carriage bolts. It was wonderful to work with someone properly experienced in his work. Phillip could scarcely believe that all was happening so easily. Bert Close worked with
an economy of movement and strength, and for the first time in many years Phillip found he did not need to waste mental energy on slow resistent amateurism: a queer sensation, accompanied by a feeling almost of guilt that he was dodging a duty. For the first time in years he was fully himself; no longer a frustrated man.

Axe-edges had been sharpened, metal of curved edges removed by grindstone, file and slip. They started after lunch seriously to throw the poles. It looked to be a formidable task. The shaded wood, the steep slope, the brooding heat, the tough boles growing out of the stubs in all directions, close together, in diameters from three to twelve inches. Phillip wore a shirt, shorts, and an old patched tweed jacket tied round his middle with string. After a dozen swings of the axe the string was untied, folded, put in pocket, jacket laid at foot of a standard oak. Another dozen strokes and shirt joined coat. It was sultry in the wood. Bert Close continued to work in thick dark trousers kept up by leather belt with great brass buckle—his father's—blue shirt, peaked cap on back of head. Sweat glistened on his face flushed as though angry.

Phillip's axe-head weighed six and a half pounds. Bert Close's was seven pounds. Soon crooked grey trunks were crashing
downhill
. Pausing in the muggy heat to look at the rest of the area they were to cut it seemed an awful lot. The sun was glowing behind thinning low clouds. It would be hotter later in the day. Bert's face took on a grim look. They worked ten yards apart. Neither spoke. During pauses Phillip heard the strike of the farmer's mattock in the field. He wanted to wander off, to look for a buzzard's nest, to lie under a wild cherry-tree and gaze at the sky; but that would be fatal at the breaking-in period. He watched how Bert Close stripped branches from a trunk he had thrown by shortening his hold on the axe, and standing close to the trunk. Thus he controlled the arc of the short swing. Phillip copied him.

By four o'clock they had cleared an irregular area, letting in the sun. The longer and heavier poles, some weighing two
hundred-weight
, were cut in half by Phillip with a Norwegian saw. Bert did not think much of that saw. He said the cross-cut would do it in half the time.

“It took us half an hour on the farm to saw through an elm a foot thick with the old-fashioned cross-cut.”

“It wasn't sharp.”

“I sharpened it.”

“I'll sharpen it. It wouldn't cut butter. You oughter'v cut that elm through in three minutes. A lot of ignorant twots you've got
on your farm, guv, if you don't mind my saying so. They don't know their job. It would drive me barmy, working with that lot of moaners. The circular saw wants sharpening, too. I brought a file. I'll do it tomorrow.”

“Do you mind if we saw what we've done to-day? Else we'll be going back empty.”

Without a word Bert Close picked up his cap, struck it on the back of his head, sought fag and match in pocket, lit, puffed, inhaled deeply; and turned away. Phillip was beginning to feel languid. Bert Close was feeling the heat too. All the same, why waste petrol returning with an empty lorry?

“Poppy, any more char left in the can?”

“It's all gone.”

Bert Close cursed.

Phillip carried a heavy pole in silence, having first laid a
plough-chain
across the path. It was hard going with a twenty-foot
200-pound
pole, swinging it slowly over and around the cut stubs. Bare shanks were liable to be scraped. He continued to carry pole after pole to the chain. Bert Close, after his fag was finished, got up and did the same. The afternoon sun was now ardent. Flies drinking their sweat. When the pile was a yard wide and high, Phillip fetched the tractor. He had to come up the steep loose slope of the path in reverse. Sometimes the wheels slipped. Bert Close fixed the towing chain to the top of the fore-chain holding the cord of wood, and Phillip started off downhill.

Pull from the top caused the lower butts to dig into the soft ground, and plough a deep furrow of brown soil before the tractor stopped, its rear-wheels scrapping. Without a word Phillip got off, unfastened the pulling chain, and re-hooked the end of the lower section of the holding chain. Then he got back on the tractor and re-started. The upward pull lifted the butts. The bundle slew down the path behind the tractor, and so to the cleared space by the saw-bench. It was now nearly five o'clock, the hour agreed for work to stop.

“Shall we saw this lot up now, or to-morrow, Bert?”

“Saw it.”

Phillip manoeuvred the tractor into position to drive the belt. It was awkward, root-stubs were in the way. Bert Close fixed the belt.

“Back a bit. Hold it. I'll cut better chocks for the wheels to-morrow.”

“Do you mind if I work the saw? You're not insured, you see,
and as your employer I'm liable. Workmen's Compensation Acts.”

At this moment a policeman appeared with his bicycle. A grim, blank look settled on Bert Close's face.

“Good afternoon,” Phillip called out. “Nice weather.”

“I was looking at your tractor. Don't think I've seen one like that before.”

“Lovely little job, isn't it? All British. Product of the brain of Mr. Harry Ferguson, an Ulsterman.”

“It's so quiet.”

“Very economical. You'll see a lot of these about after the war. Think the weather is settled fine?”

“I think so. Lot of corn was laid over the week-end.”

“Yes. Land's too strong, after the first ploughing of the
sheep-fed
grass. It will be better next year.”

“You're right. Well, I mustn't stop the good work. Good day.”

“Good day.”

“Nosey Parker,” sneered Bert Close, as the policeman bicycled away.

Now for the great moment. Phillip opened the throttle. The saw spun at a thousand revolutions a minute. Bert Close held one end of a pole. With a stick Phillip pushed forward the end resting on the iron bench to the spinning edge of the saw. Sawdust spurted, steel rang. Each log as it was being cut was held by his right hand and put on the tail-board of the lorry. Poppy began to stack them neatly in rows. Phillip could see that Bert thought his way of
pushing
with a stick was over-careful, but he said nothing. It was a way evolved in sawing thick, irregular thorn-trunks on the farm, after experience of jamming the saw and causing the balata belt to ‘throw off' the pulley. He had learned that wood to be sawn must be fed straight to the saw, otherwise it would check the saw, either stopping it or breaking it. If it broke it might fly to pieces and bisect the sawyer's skull. Bert Close watched intently, moving nearer each time as the heavy pole was shortened.

When all were sawn they collected picks, shovels, oil-can,
hand-saw
in silence, and hid them under leaves in the wood. Phillip drove the tractor to its hide and tied canvas cover over it. The belt was taken back lest it rain, with axes, food basket, billy-can. Poppy's bicycle lifted into the lorry, which was half-full, and now for the Cutty Sark Inn! Phillip thought Bert Close needed a snifter to restore him. Although Bert Close was a muscular,
powerful
fellow, he was not used to such sustained work. They each had
three pints of scrumpy cider. Phillip felt light-headed. On the way back he called at the Post Office for letters. One in Melissa's handwriting. He put it unopened in his pocket, to read later. By the time they reached the field he felt afraid to open it. She wouldn't be coming; I don't want to see her; she's written to say she's engaged to someone; I shan't open the letter.

While Poppy was getting the supper, Bert Close began to pick up logs.

“I'll show you how to stack so they don't tumble, guv'.”

They began at the end wall of the underground room. Phillip watched how Bert Close made the corners by selecting the larger, straighter logs to tie-in on the header-stretcher principle of building a brick wall.

“Tell you what, guv', we must arrange the work so's we knock off at five sharp, guv'. Then we'll have time to tidy up like this every day. What's up, aren't you feeling well?”

“Shoot—my—bundle,” Phillip whispered, staggering outside. Never again scrumpy cider! Having got rid of it, he opened the letter, to take the worst; and came back saying brightly “It pickles the libido, Bert!”

“Ah, you aren't used to it, guv'. Feelin' bett'r?”

Oh yes, he was indeed feeling better. Melissa was coming at the end of the month.

That night he lay in warm contentment on a ground-sheet
beside
a small pine tree, while the white owl floated over the
mice-runs
in the tall grass, and the faint strains of
Danny
Boy
came from the loft; and then silence.

The area of woodland they had cleared was now wide open to blue sky and high white clouds. The branches, or shreddings, were all piled in one place. The farmer was pleased with the standards left; apparently Phillip was the only wood-cutter who had kept his promise to leave occasional straight trunks for timber. With the Norwegian saw he trimmed the lower branches of these trees to improve the quality of the bole.

Bert Close had discovered the ease of working without a shirt. He went about clad only in boots, peaked cap, and tight trousers held up by the broad and brass-buckled belt. His shoulder and arm muscles had been enlarged beyond the normal by constant loading and unloading of his lorry; perhaps the recent lifting of so many old tombstones had whipped the cords of those biceps? But he was weak on his legs, after much prolonged driving.

The torso of Bert Close was curiously white when first he had taken his shirt off. White became red, then brown; the face had a clearer aspect; a former tendency to a femetic outlook on life was abated, and those dark looks. Wordless harmony replaced tactful silences. Even so, the work called for endurance. Towards noon the heat under the canopies of trees was intense. During the
preliminary
sweatings there had been moments scarcely bearable. Phillip’s long hours in the hayfield had prepared him for this ‘hard graft’, and Bert Close appeared a little surprised that he could do what he could do, and even outstay him. He told Phillip that the landlord of The Cutty Sark had asked him if the gent really did any work in the woods. Like most men who did little physical work, the landlord’s thoughts about the work of others were based on himself. His own muscles were long interred in beery fat. His words to Bert Close were, “I suppose the gent mucks about with a kid’s chopper, sort of hobby-like?”

Every day the two men worked until half an hour past noon,
when usually Phillip set about making a fire, to boil the water for tea, apart from the others.

There was another reason for wanting to avoid Malandine. It was the haunt, on leave, of a village acquaintance with whom Phillip had more or less lost touch since before the war. And at the time of Dunkirk George Pole-Cripps had cut him dead.

Phillip knew that George Pole-Cripps lived an imaginative life on a level above that of his factual life. Thus, soon after those critical days for the British Expeditionary Force on the beaches of Dunkirk, he appeared in the Ring of Bells limping. His progress to the bar was aided by a walking stick, while his wife’s arm supported the other flank. The inference, strengthened by a look of
desperation
on his face, was that he had recently come from the hell of Goering’s
blitzkrieg
upon the sandhills of Dunkirk.

One morning, when Phillip had gone in, George was showing his walking stick to a visitor. It was fitted with a silver band
engraved
with words indicating that the stick was
A
presentation
from
his
men
,
led
to
safety
through
many
dangers
,
by
our
gallant
Company
Com
mander
Capt.
Pole-Cripps.
Phillip had got up from a bench when George and his wife had come in; but was ignored. Did he know too much? For George was a bit of a skrimshanker and wangler. Phillip remembered that George had once told him that he had managed to get, after being demobbed in 1919, a hundred per cent. disability army pension for ‘rheumatism’, the symptoms of which, he said, were undiscoverable by a medical board. Before every annual board he went on a binge in order to display marks of suffering on his face. After some years he managed to commute his pension to a capital sum of two thousand pounds. So successful was this commutation that by the outbreak of the second war in 1939 George apparently had been totally fit when he went to the War Office to be commissioned, in what, in the first war, had been a non-combatant branch of the Army. And so to the Maginot Line of his imagination, and a return to the village with symptoms of an ordeal at Dunkirk—suitably recognised by the walking stick, and its silver band.

When, later, he met Mrs. Pole-Cripps in the village, he asked why George had avoided him.

“Well,” she said, in her soft voice, “you see, it is rather difficult for Georgie to be seen talking to you in public, isn’t it? After all, he had just come back from Belgium, where many of his men were shot in the back by fifth-columnists. And forgive my saying it, but it is well-known where your sympathies lie, you know.”

Poor Georgie Make-Belief! In due course it came out that he had remained in England before, during, and after the 1940
blitzkrieg
 
in France and the Low Countries. Indeed, he served throughout the war in England, as a lieutenant.

*

The first week of August was one of torrid heat. All their energies were expended by knocking-off time. They shared a mutual weariness. One afternoon on their return to the
Gartenfeste
, Phillip noticed Poppy’s garbage pail beside the woodshed clustered with blowflies. The contents were crawling with maggots. The sight set-off frustrated thought of maggots on Lucy’s dead hens lying unburied on the Home Hills. Thus as blowflies to the sheep, and eggs laid on the anus, soon to be bloody, and eaten away. He felt returning upon himself the mental twist about the farm’s dirt and untidiness—thence to the dead in the North African desert—trash heaps and creosote-sewage dumps spread on the glebe field of the village—maggoty rats’ corpses in the stockman’s yards—Lucy’s complaisance with things as they were—decadent England’s untidiness—mental trash spread on the mass-spirit leading directly to the ultimate blast of the untidying bomb.

“O my God, I can’t stand any more of this life!” he cried aloud.

He had no idea that anyone would overhear him shouting at himself, while with his hand he scoured the garbage pail, wincing away the maggots, wincing away from the Bad Lands. It was with shame, therefore, that he heard a voice saying, “Hullo. Can I be of help?”, and Melissa was walking towards him, with a younger, darker girl.

“I was ranting at myself, for not having scoured out this pail. These maggots may get on someone’s sheep.”

His hand was greasy with garbage, and when she made to take it he pretended not to see. Having washed with carbolic soap, he felt better. Melissa said, “This is cousin Sarah.”

“How d’you do.”

The girl had a heavy-looking face, dark reddish complexion, thick lips. Phillip could feel her disapproval of his neurotic words. Why had Melissa brought her? He felt diminished to the point of nullity when she said, as though casually, that she was sailing in twelve days’ time for the Far East; and replied, “You’ll miss the bombing of London, at any rate.”

“I’ll miss more than that.”

“My two work-mates with me want to go to the pictures at Queensbridge tonight, would you both like to come?” The rather silent girl, the cousin, said to his relief that she had some work to do.