THE CINDER PATH (19 page)

Betty came into the room and, coming to the bed, demanded,

"What happened?"

"I spilt the linctus."

"Trust you!"

His glance flashed upwards towards her, but she

took no notice of it; then as if her mother was past

hearing she said, "Come downstairs a minute, I

want a word with you."

After she had left the room he straightened the

bedclothes and said, "I won't be long."

When he reached the kitchen Betty was taking a

pan of broth from the stove, and after she had placed its sooty bottom on an iron stand on the table she

said, "Robin just called in. He tells me

they've got German prisoners working over at

Threadgill's place. You want to go and see if

we can have some."

"How can I go and leave her now?"

"She'll last out; Doctor Adams

said it could be days or even weeks."

"I don't agree with him; she's in a pretty

low state."

Betty stopped stirring the broth and, lifting the

long steel ladle out of the pot, she banged it down

on the table, saying, "Well, we're all in a low

state if you ask me. I'm at the end of me

tether. And I'm telling you,

Charlie, here and now we've got to talk about things."

He rested both hands on the end of the table and, bowing his head, said, "All right, all right, we've got

to talk about it. But with me it's the same as before. You may marry Wetherby tomorrow if you like but I'm not having him living in here; if he marries you he's got

to make a home for you."

"Well"-she leant towards him now, her hands

flat on the table-"If I go, who's going to look

after the place, inside and out?"

"That wouldn't be your worry, I'd get along

somehow."

"Oh yes, you would. Look"-she moved round the table now until she was within touching distance of him-"what you hoping for, that when the house is empty she'll come back?"

He lifted his head and stared at her and

said, "No, that isn't my hope, Betty.

She'll never come back here; nor do I want her

here, but at the same time I don't want Wetherby

either." His voice had risen now.

"What have you got against him?"

"I'll tell you what I've got against him.

He's never kept down a job in years. He

lives on his old people, and they haven't got much,

and if he came here you would find yourself doing the work for both of you."

Her small body stiffened. "I couldn't be

expected to do more than I do now. I know ... I

know"-her head bobbed on her shoulders-"you don't want me to get married, you're afraid of losing

me. I'm worth two men outside and a couple of

women inside to you, and what for? What do I get out

of it?" Her tone sounded weary now.

"I've told you, marry him tomorrow or any time you like, and when you do I won't let you go empty-handed.

But now we'll say no more about it."

As he turned from her and went up the kitchen again

she called after him, "I will marry him! I will!

I'm not going to die in this god-forsaken place

looking after you, you with a face like a melancholy owl!"

The green-baized door cut off her

voice and he walked across the hall and up the

stairs. The whole house seemed silent, empty,

as if there were no life in it. A face like a

melancholy owl. Yes, he supposed that's how he

looked to people, like a melancholy owl. He stopped on

the landing. Why didn't he let her bring Wetherby

here? If anybody could make him work she could. And

anyway, he

himself didn't have to live with them, he could go away.

He could join up.

What! and stick bayonets into German

bellies, blind men, blow off their legs, their arms,

disfigure them for life? Join up? Him? Never!

IT was in March 1916 that conscription for single

men came into force, the married men being given two

months' respite. Then, on June 5th to be

exact. Kitchener went down with the Hampshire-the

ship struck a mine off Scapa Flow-and so the man

whose portrait and pointing finger had admonished every Britisher that his king and country needed him was no more; that he had been a great strategist only to the

unknowledgeable, the ordinary man, was an accepted

fact by those in high places.

Power is a disease, the only disease that man hugs

to himself and bandages with strategy. And so

Lloyd George had made himself Secretary for

War. Those who, for the last year, had been crying out for conscription waved their banners while their opponents

verbally lambasted them as fools, for were there not more than enough men already recruited to fill the gaps in Flanders?

And where was the money coming from to equip the new intake?

What was wanted was

guns and more guns; machine-guns, not merely

rifles, machine-guns that went ratrat-tat-tat,

taking a life with every beat.

And what was more, leaders were wanted, young

imaginative men, not old dodderers who couldn't see

their noses before their faces. This wasn't a war of

"Up men and at "em!", the Charge of the Light Brigade all over again, but a war that was to be fought out in the ground as it were. Men had to become like

moles, looking only to the earth for their habitation, and while being moles they had to develop minds like

foxes.

Of course, as it always had been said, all younger

generations thought they knew better than the older ones, but in this case a lot of the younger commanders did know better, for they were stressing it was motorized

vehicles that were wanted, not horses and wagons.

There were twice as many horses in France as

there were motor-buses, motor-cycles, and

lorries put together, and horses had to be fed, and

undoubtedly there would come a time when their straw and chaff would be needed to supplement the bread back

home.

It wasn't until July 1/ 1916 that the

romance went completely out of the war. On

that day nineteen thousand men never lived to see another, for the Germans mowed them down as if they had been

insects, and, added to the list, fifty thousand

crippled in one way or another.

The Somme changed the Britishers" attitude

towards the war. The slaughter went on until

November, when both sides were brought to a halt.

Choked with mud, their senses dulled against death, they dug in for the winter.

Yet poets still wrote poetry-although the tang

had become bitter-and officers still behaved like

gentlemen. Whenever possible officers' uniforms were

immaculate, and to ensure this should be so a batman was as necessary to an officer as was the port in the mess.

There was trouble in Ireland-there was always trouble in Ireland-there was trouble in Russia, there was trouble in Romania, there was trouble at sea, but Lloyd

George still kept giving out his messages

of hope to the people. Weren't they pushing the enemy back?

Weren't they taking German prisoners? Hadn't

they scared off the German Fleet? No mention that the

Germans had scared off the British Fleet too.

Such is war. It can be lost on despair, or won

on morale.

Charlie stood before a wooden table which was the top

one of six in the long, narrow room. He looked

down on the head of the soldier who was writing, and like a prisoner up before a judge, he answered the questions

thrown at him. Age? Name? Occupation? Eventually

a card was handed to him. The arm lifted, the finger

pointed: "Go along the corridor." But he never saw the speaker's face.

He had no need to ask what he was to do along the

corridor. He stood in a queue and eventually

he was told to take his clothes off. He was sounded and prodded, his knees were tapped, he was told to put his

clothes on again.

"Bloody conscripts!" "And had to be pulled in." 'And what a bloody lot! all but the deaf,

blind and lame."

"But you, mate . . . they'll use you for a trench

board over there, you're long enough. Go on, get the

hell out of it!"

He didn't get angry, it was no use;

anyway, he was feeling too numbed to arouse himself

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and the whole procedure was as he had been led

to expect. The ignorant were always bullies; and he

told himself he wouldn't find them only in the ranks.

This last assumption was proved when after four hours

and twenty minutes of sitting, standing, waiting, he

found himself outside being ordered to get into line with another twenty or more men.

"Officer is goin" to inspect you, an' my

God! if he doesn't pass out it's "cos

he's got a strong stomach. . . . Get Charlie

off yer back, you!"

As the fist hitting him between his shoulders knocked

him out of line, Charlie coughed, and when he turned

swiftly about and faced the corporal, that

individual cocked his chin up in the air, narrowed his

eyes and from his jutted lips he said, "You would like to, wouldn't you, lanky? Well, me advice is,

watch it! watch it! If you weren't short on

spunk you wouldn't be here now, so you'd better keep

the little bit you have till you meet up with

Jerry."

Charlie stood in line again, his shoulders straight

now, his face red, his teeth clenched.

He was a fool. Once again he had been a

fool. He could have got out of it, he was a

farmer, but in a moment of madness he had decided he

must get away, away from the farm and Betty and her

constant nagging to have Wetherby there. Well, he had

potched her on that. Anyway, he had left Fred

Ryton in charge and Fred got on well with the

German prisoners. Funny that, the German

prisoners. He had liked them, and had learned

to speak a bit of German from them. One of them had

spoken fluent French and he had polished his own

French on him. Yes, he had liked the Germans;

and now he was going to learn to kill them. But by the time they had taught him to use a rifle the war would

likely be over. Pray God it would anyway.

If not . . . well a German might get in first

and that would solve all his problems.

"Divn't let him rile you, mate." The

voice came to him in a whisper.

Charlie didn't move his head but he cast his

eyes sideways, then looked to the front again to where

the corporal was walking across the square

towards a row of buildings on the opposite side.

"He's a nowt!"

"I agree with you there."

The head was turned slightly towards him, and again

Charlie cast his eyes sidewards.

"How did you get here, you're not from these parts?"

"Yes . . . yes, I am."

"Well"-there came a smothered laugh"...y divn't sound like it."

"I come from over near Otterburn."

"Aw, I'm from Gateshead. Me name's

Johnny Tullett."

"Mine's Charlie MacFell."

There came the sound of the laugh again. was

'Charlie." And he called you Charlie. "Get

Charlie off yer back," he said; that's what made

you turn on him likely. Me mother always used to be

sayin' that to me when I sat humped up. ...

Look out! Look out! here comes Nancy-Pan."

The corporal was once more standing in front of the

line.

"This "ere's the new batch, sir."

"Ye-rs. Ye-rs."

The young second-lieutenant with a chin that looked as

if it had never given birth to a hair

walked slowly along the line of men.

"I can see what you mean, Corporal.

Ye-rs. Ye-rs."

At the end of the line he turned and walked slowly

back, eyeing each man as if he were viewing something

that had been dragged out

of a cesspool. Then as if the sight of the men had

made him slightly sick and he couldn't bear

to address them, he looked at the corporal and

nodded to him as he said, "Carry on. Corporal."

The corporal carried on. And he carried on,

too, in the hut when he never ceased to shout as he

instructed them into what they had to do with their bedding and their kit, and what would happen to them if they didn't do

what he told them to do with their bedding and their kit.

He was in the middle of telling them what life was

going to be like for them during the next few weeks when the door of the hut opened and a sergeant came in. The

sergeant stood just within the door and the corporal was shouting so loudly that he didn't hear him until the

sergeant spoke his name.

"Corporal!"

The voice startled every man in the room, even those

who were looking at the sergeant, and the corporal

sprang round and said, "Yes, Sergeant.

Yes, Sergeant," and scurried like a scalded cat

to his side.

It brought a feeling of pleasure to Charlie when

he realized that here was someone who could out-shout the obnoxious individual. He likely could

out-bully him too. In any case he

evidently had the power to make the fellow jump.

He noticed, too, that the sergeant didn't even

condescend to look at the corporal as he said,

"Get down to the office, there's another batch there."

"Yes, Sergeant. Yes, Sergeant." The

corporal almost left the hut at the double, and now

all the men watched the sergeant walk slowly into their midst. They watched him turn around slowly and