the maltese angel (53 page)

"Yes." David glanced away before looking back at him, then said, "Yes, that's what I understand, she's been sent home. I think she's going into a training job there." He smiled now, rather sadly as he said She be a great miss, will our Susie. She was a great comforter. Oh yes.

"

Gerald's eyes narrowed and he moved his head slightly to the side

without taking his eyes off David. There had been something in that tone he hadn't liked, that he wished he hadn't heard, that he didn't want to understand. Still he pursued with his questioning:

"What do you mean by a great comforter?"

"Well, she was, wasn't she? Great girl, Susie. I knew it would come as a bit of a shock to you. It was to me, I can tell you. And not

only to me. Oh, Susie's little grey nest in the West will be sadly missed."

He was seeing the room now: the boiler, the table, the oil lamp, the frying pan, the bed. Oh, yes, the bed, and the comfort of that bed.

There wasn't much room in the bed ..

David's voice seemed to come to him from a distance. Although it was in an undertone it was very loud in his head, for he was saying, "Don't look like that, man. You must have known. God! You must have known.

And you know, you were favoured: it lasted a long time compared ."

When Gerald's fist shot out it was warded off painfully by David

knocking it aside. But when he repeated the action, he felt the impact of David's fist on his mouth.

And he not only tasted his own blood but smelt it, and it smelt as strong as a carriage full of mangled flesh. He knew he was now being pinned against the hut wall by David's thick stubby arms and chest and, with his face close to his he was spilling words over him: "All I can say, chum, is you're a bigger bloody idiot than I thought.

Couldn't you see she was one of nature's bed warmers And I say, thank God for it. She knew what she was doing all right, and she enjoyed it.

There are women made like that. And we knew what we were doing, too, the risks we ran with any of them .. and what they ran an' all.

Anyway, you're not an infant. You know what's going on. Why did you think she was any different when she came so easy, as she did? It

should have told you. "

David slowly eased himself off Gerald's shoulders, muttering as he did so, "Sorry. You'd better have your lip seen to. Funny, but you're the last person on God's earth I expected to battle with in this bloody war. The only thing I can say is, I didn't start it, and I'm not going to say now that I understand your reaction, because I just don't. I was always under the impression that you knew what you were doing and you knew who you were doing it with. Anyway, I know the matron's been on her track for some time. She was giving her girls a bad name. You know, some of them in there' he jerked his head back towards the

hospital 'are wearing chastity belts. Of course, I don't blame them, nor do I blame the Susies of this world, for God knows what we would do without them. The alternative, as I see it, has always left a nasty taste in my mouth." He now leant forward and looked into the white, stiff-drawn face of the man whom he liked and called a friend, and he said, "In spite of our high-falutin' moral stand against this wholesale slaughter, we remain men with the needs of men. There's no bloody

saints among us. Some heroes mind, those who are back in the English prisons. Oh yes, those back there in the English prisons are the real heroes for you. Only yesterday I heard about

the treatment meted out to a couple of them, and it's unbelievable that Englishmen are torturing Englishmen. Give me the Germans any day, rather than such individuals. " He paused now before again leaning forward and saying, " Come on. Come on, old fellow. Say something.

Let's forget about this. Come on. "

But Gerald couldn't say anything. He pulled himself from the wall, wiped the back of his hand across his bloodied chin, then turned and walked away. And David stood looking after him for a moment, then he bowed his head and muttered, "Damn and blast!"

He was no fool. He was no simple-minded individual; he was an

educated, highly intelligent man. Without being swollen-headed, that was how he saw himself. He saw the futility of war and the greed and the insensibility of those who created it and of those who kept it going. Like drovers driving their herds of cattle to the

slaughterhouse. But then, not quite: they sent in their cattle, their battalions, but they did so from quarters well behind the lines, some even from as far away as London.

Yet being knowledgeable in this way, why hadn't he the insight to

realise that first night that, unlike himself, she was well practised in the art of so-called loving. As she had admitted, she had wanted him for a long time, but then she hadn't said, as she could have, that he wasn't like the rest of her clientele.

Clientele.

My God! What had he just thought? He wasn't just a fool, he was an idiot; and more so, for marriage had crossed his mind. He had gone as far as to wonder if his mother would take to her. He did, however, recall the doubt there. But why should there have been a doubt? He had never gone into that, for he knew the words to describe her that his mother would have used: cheap and slightly common. But would that have deterred him, the way he was then feeling about her?

How had he felt about her? Had it been love or just body hunger? Were you capable of distinguishing between the two when you were in that state?

During the following days different members of the unit remarked on the change in Ramsmore. He had never had a lot to say, unless you could get him into a conversation on books or poetry. But now he scarcely ever opened his mouth. That was, until around the lyth of March, when a long section of the front was pinned down for two days and nights by gas shells. And this was the third and final thing that sent him into oblivion, albeit not right away.

First, he had to experience the results of the gas attacks. The cases were horrifying: a choking, throttled mass of humanity. For two solid days and nights the Germans had bombarded the great stretch of the front with gas shells. And this was soon commonly recognised as being the prelude to their making a big push. The Red Cross and its

orderlies, their own Friends' Unit and its orderlies, everyone

available was mustered to cope with the influx, which soon developed into a melee. Even so, it became evident to many and was remarked upon that Ramsmore was not just talking, that he had taken to much swearing and blaspheming. And David made it clear he preferred the dour man, that to him the present pattern had all the signs of an approaching breakdown.

From this particular stretch, the trains ran every day to Rouen. If they left in the evening they didn't arrive there till about five the next morning. But what was worse, they had to pass several stations this side of Amiens and see hundreds of stretcher cases lying on the ground and hundreds on hundreds of walking wounded waiting patiently to be loaded into some vehicle or other.

When it was rumoured that the Fifth Army had been routed, spirits could not have been lower, and everyone

waited for the end, telling themselves that whatever the outcome it couldn't be worse than this.

The end didn't come quickly. Nor, to David's surprise, did Gerald's final collapse; for not only through April and May did he continue to be very voluble, but at every available moment he could be seen

scribbling in his notebooks.

It was on the and of June that Gerald sent a batch of hand-written material to the War Office in London, and with its despatch his mind closed down on him. That night he lay in his bunk and a voice from a great distance told him not to get up again, and of a sudden, he was enveloped in a great peaceful silence.

So Gerald Bede Ramsmore, the conscientious objector, was called up before not a military court but a medical one, after which he found himself in hospital, where he lay quite content as long as no-one tried to get him back on to his feet, for then he became aggressive.

He arrived in England on a stretcher and heavily sedated. He was taken straight to hospital. And he knew nothing about the Allies preparing to advance again and doing so in August, and nothing whatever about the armistice on the 11th of November.

"Where are the men?"

"I've let them go. Rob will be back later to give me a hand. There's a Victory Tea in the Hollow."

"It's three o'clock in the afternoon."

"I'm well aware of that."

"You're taking too much on yourself."

They were both standing in the doorway of what had been the old barn.

And now Carl stepped into the open as if putting distance between

himself and this man. And after taking in a deep breath, he said,

"Yes, perhaps I am, but that wouldn't be necessary if you hadn't left the whole of this place on my shoulders for years now. When, may I ask, did you last turn a hand in this yard? You walk through it only when the fit takes you."

Carl watched Ward's colour deepen into an almost purple hue, and his voice was a growl as he said, "You forget who you are talking to."

"No, I don't forget who I am talking to. I only know that ten years ago I wouldn't have dared to address you in this way. But now, when you don't give a damn for man or beast, I consider it my right to speak my mind. And I've been wanting to do it for a long time, and there's no time like the present. I've been working for you for over thirty years and not only have I kept this farm going, I've turned it into a profitable business. Oh, yes," he made a wide gesture with his hand as if throwing something off, as he said, "There is the carrot of the half-share. Well, I don't give a damn for that, let me tell you,

because I could leave here tomorrow and

start up on my own, and the men would come with me. "

"Huh! Start up on your own? Don't make me laugh. What would you pay your men with? Eh? ... My men ... with rabbit skins?"

A number of seconds passed before Carl, his voice low but his words steely, said, "The agreement was that I had a part of the profits over a certain amount. Yes;

on top of this I had my wage and Patsy had hers, and we've saved. "

"Huh! You've saved. I know what you've got over the profits and your wages. And what would that amount to? You couldn't run a house and allotment and one man on it, never mind livestock."

Carl's jaws were tight. He knew that this was true. However, it would be a start, and he knew he could rely on Mike and McNabb; they would go along with him, small wage or no. Then a thought struck him. He did not know from whence it came, unless it was perhaps from Janie's talk of the prospects that lay in the Hall acres when the young master was well enough to come home. And now he heard himself say, "I certainly wouldn't have to start at the bottom for land. There's an offer open to me from the Hall. There's land there and buildings that would house stock; all it needs is labour. And as I warned you, the men would be with me. So what d'you think of that?"

What Ward thought of it had silenced his tongue for a moment. He knew only too well what would happen to this farm if Carl left. But he

couldn't bear to be downed in this manner. So he answered, "Talk. That woman hasn't enough money to hire a couple of servants, never mind stock a farm. And this is the gratitude I get. You forget what I took you from. You owe everything you are to me."

"I owe nothing that I am to you, sir, for from that boy that you took in, I worked for my keep, and more. But you owe me a lot, for you

crippled my wife. Yes. Yes, you did."

"I did no such thing. It was the other one I was thrusting away. I did not cripple your wife, and don't you dare say that again."

"I'll say it, not only again, but with my dying breath." And now he leant forward and growled into Ward's face, "You crippled my wife. You could have murdered her, and the youngster, but in a different way from that you did your daughter. Oh, you can look like that, but I know what I know."

Ward now stepped back into the doorway as he muttered, "No! You're out of your mind. You're mad. You could be brought up for even suggesting such a thing. Do you know that?"

"I'd be quite happy if you did bring me up. I saw you taking the poison from the tins. You made one mistake, though: you left the milk glass on the wash-hand stand and there was sediment in it. And I'm not the only one who knows."

After saying this he realised he might be incriminating the doctor and so he added hastily," I took it to a chemist and had it analysed." And then his imagination took him further when he added, "He put his findings in writing."

Carl now watched Ward put his hand out as if to support himself on the stanchion of the door, but felt no pity for the man, for now he was speaking his mind.

"You became obsessed with your daughter, as you had been with your wife," he went on.

"You could do nothing wrong. Your love for them became a mania. But for the child that your daughter gave birth to, and no matter who the father was she was the daughter of your child, and you are her

grandfather, what have you done for her? I'll say what I've thought for years. It's a damn good job she didn't inherit any trait of either your wife or your daughter, else her mind would have been turned years ago under your treatment. But what she

has inherited. God knows where from, has stood her in good stead and given her the strength and the power to stand up to you, because she doesn't fear you. As she herself said, she only hates you. And you're the one to know what hate can do. You had your first lesson from the village. But that first wave did nothing to what they felt for you after you ruined three families, one of them for the second time. "

He stepped back quickly as he thought Ward was about to strike him.

But when the hand left the stanchion of the door and was lifted forward like a blind man groping his way, he did feel a sudden pang of mixed guilt and sympathy.

He stood where he was and watched the older man walk across the yard and round to the front of the house. He never entered these days by the kitchen door, not since Patsy took to crutches.