THE CINDER PATH (35 page)

Dorset. Four days of the seven he stayed down

there, but spent hardly any time with her; her off-duty hours were limited. Even when they met in his room in

the hotel they were strangely both constrained. Although she was warm and loving and he wanted above all things, above all things to love her, there was a barrier between them. The barrier was Victoria. They both knew

it, although her name was never mentioned. She loomed up between them as his wife and Nellie's sister.

It was just before they parted that he said to her, "I've written to my solicitor today, I've asked him

to go ahead with divorce proceedings," and her only answer to this was to put her arms around his neck and

press her mouth to his.

Now she was back in the North and he was

here, and all he seemed to be living for was to be moved nearer to her, for he knew that once he was on his

feet, divorce or no divorce, they would come

together.

And there was another thing he didn't like to think about that happened on that leave; he had made it his business

to look up Johnny only to be told that Johnny

was dead. He had been kicked by a horse while on

some kind of manoeuvre up on the fells.

Johnny who didn't want to go to France in case

he caught one had died by a kick from a horse.

Life was crazy. The whole world was crazy.

"Ah, that's it. Nice to see you sitting up,

Major."

"I'll feel better when I'm standing up,

Doctor."

"All in good time. . . . Well, while I'm

here I might as well have a look at my

handiwork."

There was some gentle shuffling, the curtains were

drawn round the bed, the bedclothes were drawn back,

pads removed, then began the jokes.

"Nearly a complete board for noughts and crosses

here. Whose move is it next?"

"Mine I hope." There was no amusement in

Charlie's tone.

"All in good time. All in good time. Healing

nicely, Sister, don't you think?"

"Yes, Doctor, beautifully."

"When can I be moved?"

"That will do for now, Sister. Put the pads on

temporarily, leave the dressing, I want a

word."

The nurse now pushed a chair to the side of the bed,

then departed.

The doctor sat down, gave a special nod

to the sister, and she too departed; then he looked at

Charlie, and he said slowly, "You may go back

North once you are on your feet."

"You mean it?"

"Yes."

"You got them all out then? I thought. ..."

"Not quite."

He pressed himself back against the pillows now and

stared at the doctor. "It's still there then?" he said.

"That's about it."

"But you said ..."

"Yes, I know what I said, but when we got in

we thought it was a bit tricky. You're a lucky

man you know to be alive."

"dis . . And I mayn't be alive much longer?"

cc

"Oh, nonsense! Nonsense! You could go on for

years and years until you become a doddery old

farmer."

"That's if it stays put?"

"No, no, of course not; we're hoping it

moves. They do you know." "But in the right

direction." 'As you say?-the doctor lowered his

head now-"in the right direction."

"The other direction would be short and swift?"

There was a pause before the answer came: "Yes,

short and swift."

Charlie rubbed one lip over the other before he

asked, "And if it went in the right direction would you try again?"

"Like a shot." The doctor put his hand over his eyes. "Sorry, like a surgeon."

They both smiled now, then the doctor said, "Of

course when I say you may go North it will be

into hospital. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Well, we can't let you go in the condition you're in at present, it'll be a little time yet. I

don't think you realize how badly shattered you were and we've dug into you seven times in the last three

months, but if you'd had any flesh on your body you

know the shrapnel

wouldn't have got so far. You've got to be built

up, and it's got to be done before you get back to your farm and pick up everyday responsibilities, you

understand?"

Yes, he understood, and also the meaning behind all the doctor's kindly chat. They wanted him in

hospital for observation in case the piece of

shrapnel inside him decided to move. If it

moved in the right direction they could get it out, or

given time, he understood it could settle in and make

a home for itself where it was at present near his heart.

It was three weeks later when he went North,

but before that time he'd had a visitor. It was on the

day after he'd had the conversation with the doctor when the nurse, waking him from a doze, said,

"There's someone to see you." His heart had leapt at the thought that Nellie had made it after all. He'd

had a letter from her only that morning to say that the dragon of a sister wouldn't even allow her to put her

two weeks" leave together in order to make the

journey South, but she had put in for her discharge

offering as an excuse her mother needed her to run the

farm. And her mother had willingly gone along with her

on this, hoping that she would eventually return home.

But when his visitor turned out to be Betty, he was

really visibly startled and not a little touched by the thought that she must have some affection for him to have undertaken the journey to this out of the way place.

It was only a matter of nine months since he

had last seen her and he was shocked at the change in

her. She looked haggard, old, and her expression

was even tighter than usual, so much so that it was hard to believe she was only twenty-four years old.

Then in a matter of minutes after the usual

greetings had been exchanged he thought he had found

the explanation for her visit when, looking him

straight in the face, she asked bluntly, "Is it

true what I hear about you and Nellie Chapman?"

He considered her for a moment before replying,

"Well, Betty, if what you have heard

is that I intend to marry Nellie once the

divorce is through, it's true."

"You're mad."

"That's as may be, but that's what I intend to do.

And this time I know what I'm about."

"And what about me?"

"Well, we've been over this a number of times,

Betty, haven't we? We agreed that when you left

to marry Wetherby I would

see that you didn't go to him emptyhanded."

"And what if I don't marry Wetherby?"

"What do you mean, has something happened?"

"I'm not marrying Wetherby." Her lips

scarcely moved as she brought out the words and he stared at her for a moment before putting out his hand and placing it over hers. But it hadn't rested there a second before

she jerked her own away from his hold and demanded, "So where does that leave me now?"

"There'll always be a home for you there, Betty, you know that." But even as he said the words he was thinking in agitation, Oh no, not this now! Betty's tongue,

he knew, could impregnate a house with so much

acid that it would turn everything sour. Yet what could he do?

"A home?" she repeated. "Where? In

the corner of the kitchen? I've run that place since

my father died, yes, since he died because Mother

wasn't any good, and you weren't much better. It would

have gone to rack and ruin if it hadn't been for me and now you say I'll always have a home."

He was feeling very tired and he was

becoming increasingly agitated inside. He lay

back on his pillows, and a nurse passing up the

ward came to his side and said, "You all right,

Major?"

He nodded at her, saying, "Yes. Yes,

I'm all right." Then the nurse, looking across at

his visitor, said, "Please don't stay long,

he's easily tired."

Although Charlie closed his eyes for a moment he

felt rather than saw Betty's impatient shrug and

lift of the head.

When he again looked at her she was searching in her

handbag for something, and she brought out a sheet of paper, saying, "Will you sign this? I want to sell some

cattle."

"But you have my authority to sell the cattle; it was all arranged before I left."

He watched her press her lips together and turn

her head to the side, saying, "Well, I

wish you'd tell the authorities that. The laws are

changing all the time, men coming round to examine this, that, and the other, and because it's your farm and you're back in England they want your signature."

She handed him a pen, and he obediently wrote his

name on the bottom of the folded sheet of paper.

As she replaced the paper in her bag she brought her

short body straight up in the chair and asked,

"When are you likely to be home?"

"Oh"--he shook his head-"not for some time yet I should think, they're going to transfer me North, but

I'll still be in hospital. I don't suppose

they'll let me out, for good that is, until I'm

fit, but as soon as ever I can I'll take a

trip out and see you."

She was on her feet now-she had pushed the chair

back-and she stood looking at him for a moment before she said, "Good-bye, Charlie." There was something about the emphasis she laid on the words that made him sit

up and lean towards her, saying, "Now, you're not

to worry, Betty. I'll see you're all right,

I promise."

"I'll be all right, never you fear." She pulled at the belt of her coat, and he noticed that it was

one she had worn long before the war. She had

never spent money on herself, not like their mother.

"Good-bye, Charlie." Again it sounded like a

definite farewell.

"Good-bye, Betty. Take care of yourself.

I'll. . . I'll be with you soon."

TCP 14

She had walked to the bottom of the bed by now, and she stood there for some seconds and stared at him before she turned and went down the ward, a small, shabby,

dowdy figure.

He felt an urge to jump up and run after her

and to take her in his arms and comfort her. She must be taking the business of Wetherby very hard. He had

always known the fellow was no good, but if Betty had

liked . . . loved . . . and was capable of adoring

anyone it had been Robin Wetherby. It was odd that

this small sister of his who was so accurate in her

appraisal of others had not been able to see through

Wetherby. Indeed love could be blind. Anyway, he

decided he would talk to Nellie about her, and

Nellie would agree with him that he must be generous

towards her.

He closed his eyes. He had become upset

by her visit; he felt very tired, he wanted to sink

through the bed and down into the earth, down, down.

He'd had this experience a number of times of late.

He couldn't understand it. Why hadn't he felt like this during all the battles? But he had, that time on the

Menin road just outside Ypres. That was when he had

been transferred to the Third.

They were making for the Blue Line and were being peppered most of the way by machine-gun fire from the ruined

houses, and he had become so tired that he felt his

legs were giving out. But it was on the road he

realized that in the last extreme officers and men

became as one: there were officers who gave their lives for their men and men who gave their lives for their

officers. Never again after this did the ah-lah twang

of some of his fellow officers irritate him. Whether

the breed of officer he had encountered back home was

of a different species he didn't know. Perhaps the

simple answer was that when a man was confronted with

death his spirit rose and faced it. Death had a way of

levelling rank.

It was after the Menin road and the battles that

followed in October '17 when they fought through rain and gale, mud and slush, when men from colonels

downwards died like flies, and when the subaltern often found himself in command, that the pips began to descend on to his own shoulders. . . .

But he was going down again, down, down, he was

sinking into the mud. He grabbed at a leg and it

came away in his hand. The top was all raw flesh

but there was no blood coming

from it because it was frozen. Now he was crawling into a hole. It was a big hole, it widened even as he

looked at it; there had been water in the bottom which

had been soaked up by the bodies heaped there, but those pressed tight against the sides were live. The hole

began to spin and he opened his mouth and shouted, yelled, bawled, and all the men scrambled out of the hole, but as they stood up so they toppled back one after the other

as an aeroplane came diving towards them, the

pilot hanging head down, his face on fire. When

he fell among the men he landed on his feet, and he

looked young and unscathed and he flung his arms wide

and he laughed as he shouted, "They only gave me

days but I've been alive for six weeks and now

I've got all eternity!" All eternity. All

eternity. All eternity. The heap of men in the

middle of the hole got higher, the whirling became

faster. A face was pressed close to his; it was the

adjutant's. How had he got there? He should have

been back at base. He was smiling quietly at