Our Time Is Gone (46 page)

He went to the window again. He enjoyed looking out of it. There was something about the place. It stimulated. It made you think. The war might go on for a long time. On the other hand it might finish to-morrow. That would be bad. He was only beginning to get into the swim. But if it all ended to-morrow, it might leave him dropped like a stone. Where would he be then? Nowhere. Back where he started, and with no more hope. Yes, it was worth thinking about. It wasn't exactly the thing to do, still.

‘No, I can't bother. To hell with it!' he said to himself. ‘Yet Downey seemed a decent enough chap. But I wish to Christ I knew what he really thinks of Sheila and I being married? It would help a bit. No, the bastard of it is, you don't
know
these people! I don't even know
her
yet. They're so bloody difficult. Always thinking. Thinking. Thinking.'

He sat down again and wrote:

D
EAR
L
IEUTENANT
D
OWNEY
,

As you said you would be in London seeing your father about the fifteenth, I thought I would let you know that I am here myself at the above address. In case you are interested——

The pen stopped. It was bloody cheek! It wasn't. It was. Only seen the chap once! Not a bad sort. Stuck up, of course. They all were. Thought too much of themselves. But all the same, not a bad sort. ‘Damned if I can understand Sheila! She doesn't know she's born.'

She
didn't
. That was the worst of that kind of living. There were so many things to have that one didn't know which to choose. Too satisfied. Just fancy turning one's back on all that! Fourteen thousand trees! Christ! the woman's crazy! Damn it, I
will
write the fellow! Nothing like having an extra string to the fiddle. Now if I could force her back there, then I'd know I'd got her.

The mere thought gave him confidence. Place going to ruin. Wouldn't lift a hand to save it. By God! I'd like to have a look at that place! I would really. Must be marvellous in a way. And he looked at what he had written. No! That's no damned use. He tore up the page and sat looking at the next clean sheet. Let's think again.

He seemed terribly anxious for her to go back there. But perhaps he could mean something else—perhaps he wanted Sheila to go back and leave him? This made him laugh. Fellow was backing up the wrong street. Anyhow, he was anxious for her to go. Now supposing he wrote saying he had thought over all the Lieutenant had told him, that he was doing his best to persuade Sheila to go. Yes, how about that?

‘I must see this bloody place somehow!' he told himself. Then the note saying he was in London, if
he
, Downey, was interested—well, it wouldn't look so damned cheeky. What a good idea! He smiled.

12A
D
ANTON
P
LACE
, L
ONDON
,

9th
.

D
EAR
M
R
. D
OWNEY
,

Since I had the pleasure of meeting you I have been thinking over all you told me. I quite undertand! I know how difficult these situations are. Well, I can assure you I have not lost sight of the fact that it is her duty to go home and try and do something to straighten up affairs there. But on the other hand she wouldn't go without me. As a matter of fact, which will show you how inseparable we are, she hardly will leave the door without me. So you see I would be with her. Of course that is something you may not have taken into account. But speaking for myself, when you're married—you're married. I hope you realize that it rests with me and not with your sister. In fact she goes by what I say. She prefers it that way.

No! that's rotten! Blast it! I'll go to bed. Write again to-morrow.

He got up from the desk, turned for the door, but suddenly went back to the desk. If I'm going to write that fellow, I'll do it now! What about a short note? The fellow would be in London shortly. Let Downey come to
him
. That was good! And he began a fresh sheet, informing Mr. Downey that he was now in London, and just thought he'd drop a line to say so, and out of consideration for the fact that he hadn't seen his sister for such a long time, he didn't want to keep them separated. The reverse in fact. Anyhow, if he was interested, etc. etc., and almost automatically the letter wrote itself.

That
was done! He sealed and stamped it, put it in his wallet and then, switching off the light, went upstairs to bed. He made as little noise as possible getting into bed. But he didn't want to sleep. Just lie there thinking about the Ram's Gate. Funny name for a place—considering the old man—very funny name! Just suited.

So she'd run away because it was dead. Well! Well! Some people took the biscuit. I'll bet
we
wouldn't have run away from it! By God, no!

Curious people! He turned over on his side. He could hear the easy flow of his wife's breathing. Lying here in the dark, though not dark enough that he couldn't see her face—‘it is a lovely face'—induced in one a turn for nice speculation. You could look at that face, and ask yourself what lay inside that little head. And what was the thing that was dead? Living, she said. Sounded comic to him. There she was, lying there, peacefully asleep, but inside that head lay some curious things, and they all linked up with her home in Ireland.

‘Christ! we've all scattered now. We've rowed and nagged, struggled and fought, but we've never forgotten each other … Yet she—she, well—well.'

It was just like a man being given fourteen thousand pounds and then throwing them into the sea. It was the only sensible way of looking at it. Why, if his mother had had one square yard of cool grass to sit on instead of Hatfields stone, she would not have been a sad old woman now. Ah well! Mother's not old yet. Not really old. Only in the early sixties. What was it his mother used to say to him when he was at school and the boys called him‘Giant'? ‘Built to last.' That was it. ‘Built to last.' She had lasted pretty well herself up to now, considering. More than you could say of some people. And look at his father. Hard graft for a lifetime, and still going strong. ‘Built to last.' His mother wasn't far wrong there. I do hope she writes, he told himself. I have been pretty lousy in a way!

Yes, in a way. Sometimes you
could
forget. Rushing about and getting on—and watching this fellow didn't do you down, and making to-morrow's plans to-day. It was rush on rush, you couldn't help forgetting somehow, and he had been out of the house three years now.

Suddenly he heard his wife's voice. She was looking up at him.

‘Aren't you asleep yet?' she asked in a tired, lazy voice. ‘And what on earth are you sitting up in bed for? Waiting for Father Christmas?'

‘Just thinking and looking at you, and making plans for the morning. Go to sleep and don't worry yourself about me.' He pressed his head on hers. ‘Go to sleep, you've had a lousy day. I feel a bit tired myself.'

She was asleep again without replying.

He turned on his back, hands behind his head, eyes wide open. He wasn't really tired at all. Moonlight streamed into the bedroom. He got up and opened the window, pulled back one of the curtains, stood looking out at the piled chimney tops; then he went back to bed. Damned if she doesn't look more lovely asleep, he thought, strongly tempted to embrace her. But he couldn't wake her up just for that.

At half-past seven he was up, pottering about in the small kitchen. Before the post came he was standing over her bed with a cup of tea in his hand.

‘Wake up, Sheila,' he said, and when she finally sat up, his face assumed the smile of an excited boy. ‘Here's your tea! Just think, Life begins this morning.'

It began in the major key at Newton Buildings, and Captain Fury met other Captains and Government officials, some union delegates, members of the Press, one or two disgruntled human beings who turned out to be nuisances and were ejected. They talked for hours. Thought, suggested, complained, foresaw. They praised and condemned. They pleaded and worried. The leitmotiv was Captain Fury's organization. Without it you could do nothing. Organize. Organize! Bring the whole of labour in. Some said leave them out. Some said it would fail. Captain Fury thumped the table. It succeeded in the North, why not in the South? Besides, the South had many lessons to learn from the North. The South wasn't all England.

A bold, persuasive man they thought. He was right. Organize. Organize! And in this war you had to have the organized support of workers, or you failed. Maritime labour was of the greatest importance. You had one object. One aim. You had to win this war. Therefore you must regiment this labour. They had done it at Gelton, at Morley. Why not London?

‘Hear! Hear! Splendid! Agreed!'

Adjectives floated all over the room!

Life begins this morning, thought the Captain, as, preparatory to being driven in a War Office car to Newton Buildings, he enjoyed the pleasure of a public shoe-shine, fiddling with his belt the while, and studying the pomaded grey hair of his shoe-black. But somehow the major tune turned wilfully into the minor. The room listened to him. Everybody said yes. Yes. There must be a full conference to-morrow. Any suggestions? These flowed thicker than the adjectives. Any dissentient. A humble twenty.

They looked at this twenty. Three union men. One from Gelton, one from Morley, one from London. Captain Fury looked down the long table at them. And then he saw the minor key. In the form of a short thick-set man wearing a cloth cap (he seemed ready to depart at any moment). Suddenly he removed the cap, shifted it in his pocket, half rose as though to speak, then sat down again.

Hadn't he seen the man before? He was sure he had. Wasn't in Gelton surely? He couldn't take his eyes off dissentient number three. He wore a linen cut-away collar. A flaming red tie. A swarthy-faced man with blue eyes almost like those of a child. A stubble of beard. Ginger hair, short stout arms, and one fist on the table. Where the devil had he seen the fellow? Some damned place or other.…

‘The position is that you look at the situation not as it stands, but as it will possibly develop. Some talk has got about that there is something underhand about this campaign. I refute all such talk. It's rubbish! It is a temporary measure, in the interests of everybody in the country. Why not voluntarily
now
, rather than forcibly in say six months? You can't afford to——'

Here somebody shouted ‘You bastard blackleg!' But this in no way deterred the Captain. Blackleg! The word had worn itself rather thin.

Captain Fury accompanied his speech with violent movements of the arms, swinging them left, right and centre, clenching the fist, thumping the table. Organize all labour under the Government. His eye roved up and down. He knew the interested ones. Knew the disinterested ones. And he knew the dissentients. But no, there, ‘now where have we met before?'

He had expected this. The usual percentage of faithful adherents to socialism would stick out for the policy that, in the light of present events, was just as dead as a doornail.

Captain Fury sat down. The chairman got up. Those against would put their cases forward.

Up rose number one. He surveyed the assembly. Then he did a quick movement of finger to nose, made a disgusting noise and shouted: ‘That's my comment. It's the dirtiest trick on Labour I ever heard of.'

Having said this he stamped out from the room.

The calm of the proceedings, indeed the calmness of the seated gentlemen, was upset. The man had passed out of the room like a cyclone.

The next one rose. ‘I know I am a lone voice here, for I am in the position of seeing members of my own party throw down the drain the whole of their principles, their political integrity, their word to the workers. I dissociate myself from this magnificent effort of turning the workers into machines, in order to carry on the bloody slaughter of workers of other lands. I am a worker myself, but I stand ashamed in this room. It is my intention to persuade the workers in my union against enrolling in these so-called auxiliary battalions, which mean that in the end they will go to France to continue the senseless killing. My principles are these——' But unfortunately the principles were not heard, for everybody began talking and shouting.

‘Have you any more to say?' shouted a man from the top of the table.

But the one addressed gave the assembly a contemptuous look and passed out of the room.

‘What about
you
?' roared the chairman down the table.

The short swarthy delegate from Gelton rose to his feet. He adopted an almost belligerent attitude, feet apart, chest out, hands pressed on the table in front of him.

‘What I have to say, I prefer to say to the noble Captain there.'

Everybody looked at Desmond Fury. The noble Captain! Was this ignorance, a joke, or an insult; or was it the Westminster atmosphere?

Captain Fury rose. ‘What have
you
to say about the auxiliary scheme?'

‘
That,
' replied the man,‘wouldn't interest this assembly; it would interest
you
more, for it is
your
idea.' He looked at the faces massed about him. ‘And I prefer to talk with the
noble
Captain—outside. He knows who I am. He passed me twice on the stairs. He never spoke and I saw no reason for recognizing him either. My name is Johns. I am a delegate from Gelton. This conference is an insult to Labour. If I remained here it would be a farce. Good morning,' and the third member of the twenty left the room.

‘Johns! I knew I'd seen him somewhere! That fellow never liked me. Don't know why. Suppose he's too bloody decent. Damned ass!'

So he would see him outside, would he? Well, he had seen plenty of men outside, and round the corner as well. He was no stranger to that. Surely Mr. Johns didn't mean to hit him. He turned to answer a question from his neighbour, Colonel Dent, a wiry veteran from the Punjab who had been deemed the right type to represent the Government on such an important matter. And though his experience of human beings had been in the mass or herd, and more often than not on all fours, he felt he could somehow manage bodies of men who weren't familiar with the queer postures adopted by the conquered tribes. He liked Desmond's bulk. Captain Fury liked his proud face, his tiny grey moustache, his grey suit, his cane. They talked about artillery, which was quite foreign to Captain Fury.