The Penguin Book of First World War Stories (35 page)

‘What wrong thing, Martlow?' asked Sir William with some indignation. If the fellow meant anything, it was that he would have been spirited away by Sir William.

‘Oh, anything,' replied Martlow. ‘Anything would be wrong that made me miss this pleasure. You and me conversing affable here. Not a bit like it was in the old days before I rose to being the chief glory of Calderside. Conversation was one-sided then, and all on your side instead of mine. “Here again, Martlow,” you'd say, and then they'd gabble the evidence, and you'd say, “Fourteen days,” or “Twenty-one days,” if you'd got up peevish and that's all there was to our friendly intercourse. This time, I make no doubt you'll be asking me to stay at the Towers to-night. And,' he went on blandly, enjoying every wince that twisted Sir William's face in spite of his efforts to appear unmoved, ‘I don't know that I'll refuse. It's a levelling thing, war. I've read that war makes us all conscious we're members of one brotherhood, and I know it's true now. Consequently the chief glory of the place ain't got no right to be too high and mighty to accept your humble invitation. The best guest-room for Sergeant Martlow, you'll say. See there's a hot water-bottle in his bed, you'll say, and in case he's thirsty in the night, you'll tell them to put the whisky by his side.'

After all, a man does not rise to become Sir William Rumbold by being flabby. Sir William struck the table heavily. Somehow he had to put a period to this mocking harangue. ‘Martlow,' he said, ‘how many people know you're here?'

Tim gave a good imitation of Sir William's gesture. He, too, could strike a table. ‘Rumbold,' he retorted, ‘what's the value of a secret when it's not a secret? You three in this room know, and not another soul in Calderside.'

‘Not even your mother?' queried Rumbold.

‘No. I been a bad son to her in the past. I'm a good one now
I'm dead. She's got a bit o' pension, and I'll not disturb that. I'll stay dead – to her,' he added forcibly, dashing the hope which leaped in Rumbold.

‘Why have you come here? Here – to-night?'

The easy mockery renewed itself in Martlow's voice. ‘People's ideas of fun vary,' he stated. ‘The fly's idea ain't the same as the spider's. This 'ere is my idea – shaking your hand and sitting cosy with the bloke that's sent me down more times than I can think. And the fun 'ull grow furious when you and I walk arm in arm on to that platform, and you tell them all I'm resurrected.'

‘Like this?' the proper Mr Fosdike interjected.

‘Eh?' said Tim. ‘Like what?'

‘You can't go on to the platform in those clothes, Martlow. Have you looked in a mirror lately? Do you know what you look like? This is a respectable occasion, man.'

‘Yes,' said Tim drily. ‘It's an occasion for showing respect to me. I'll do as I am, not having had time to go to the tailor's for my dress suit yet.'

‘Martlow,' said Sir William briskly, ‘time's short. I'm due on that platform.'

‘Right, I'm with you.' Tim moved towards the platform door.

Sir William, with a serene air of triumph, played his trump card. He took out his cheque-book. ‘No,' he said. ‘You're not coming. Instead –'

He shrank back hastily as a huge fist was projected vehemently towards his face. But the fist swerved and opened. The cheque-book, not Sir William's person, was its objective. ‘Instead be damned,' said Tim Martlow, pitching the cheque-book to the floor. ‘To hell with your money. Thought I was after money, did you?'

Sir William met his eye. ‘Yes, I did,' he said hardily.

‘That's the sort of mean idea you would have, Sir William Rumbold. They say scum rises. You grew a handle to your name during the war, but you ain't grown manners to go with it. War changes them that's changeable. T'others are too set to change.'

Sir William felt a strange glow of appreciation for this man
who, with so easy an opportunity to grow rich, refused money. ‘It's changed you,' he said with ungrudging admiration that had no tincture of diplomacy in it.

‘Has it?' mused Tim. ‘From what?'

‘Well –' Sir William was embarrassed. ‘From what you were.'

‘What was I?' demanded Tim. ‘Go on, spit it out. What sort of character would you have given me then?'

‘I'd have called you,' said Sir William boldly, ‘a disreputable drunken loafer who never did an honest day's work in his life.' Which had the merit of truth, and, he thought, the demerit of rashness.

To his surprise he found that Tim was looking at him with undisguised admiration. ‘Lummy,' he said, ‘you've got guts. Yes, that's right. “Disreputable drunken loafer”. And if I came back now?' he asked.

‘You were magnificent in the war, Martlow.'

‘First thing I did when I got civvies on was to get blind and skinned. Drink and civvies go together in my mind.'

‘You'll get over that,' said Sir William encouragingly; but he was puzzled by the curiously wistful note which had replaced Tim's hectoring.

‘There's a chance,' admitted Tim. ‘A bare chance. Not a chance I'd gamble on. Not when I've a bigger chance than that. You wouldn't say, weighing me up now, that I've got a reformed look, would you?'

Sir William couldn't. ‘But you'll pull yourself together. You'll remember –'

‘I'll remember the taste of beer,' said Tim with fierce conviction. ‘No, I never had a chance before, but I've got one now, and, by heaven, I'm taking it.' Sir William's apprehension grew acute; if money was not the question, what outrageous demand was about to be made of him? Tim went on, ‘I'm nothing but a dirty, drunken tramp to-day. Yes, drunk when I can get it and craving when I can't. That's Tim Martlow when he's living. Tim Martlow dead's a different thing. He's a man with his name wrote up in letters of gold in a dry canteen. Dry! By God, that's funny! He's somebody, honoured in Calderside for ever and ever, amen. And we won't spoil a good thing by taking
chances on my reformation. I'm dead. I'll stay dead.' He paused in enjoying the effect he made.

Sir William stooped to pick his cheque-book from the floor. ‘Don't do that,' said Tim sharply. ‘It isn't out of your mind yet that money's what I came for. Fun's one thing that brought me. Just for the treat of showing you myself and watching your quick-change faces while I did it. And I've had my fun.' His voice grew menacing. ‘The other thing I came for isn't fun. It's this.' Dolly screamed as he took her arm and jerked her to her feet from the corner where she had sought obscurity. He shook her urgently. ‘You've been telling tales about me. I've heard of it. You hear all the news when you lie quiet yourself and let other people do the talking. You came in here to-night to spin a yarn. I watched you in. Well, is it true?'

‘No,' said Dolly, gasping for breath.

‘I mean –' he insisted, ‘what you said about you and me. That isn't true?'

She repeated her denial. ‘No,' he said, releasing her, ‘it 'ud have a job to be seeing this is the first time I've had the pleasure of meeting you. That'll do.' He opened the platform door politely. ‘I hope I haven't made you late on the platform, sir,' he said.

Both Sir William and the secretary stared fascinated at Dolly, the enterprising young person who had so successfully bluffed them. ‘I repeat, don't let me make you late,' said Tim from the now wide open door.

Rumbold checked Fosdike who was, apparently, bent on doing Dolly a personal violence. ‘That can wait,' he said. ‘What can't wait is this.' He held out his hand to Martlow. ‘In all sincerity, I beg the honour.'

Tim shook his hand, and Rumbold turned to the door. Fosdike ran after him with the notes of his speech. ‘Your speech, sir.'

Sir William turned on him angrily. ‘Man,' he said, ‘haven't you heard? That muck won't do now. I have to try to do Martlow justice.' He went out to the platform, Fosdike after him.

Tim Martlow sat at the table and took a bottle from his pocket. He drew the cork with his teeth, then felt a light touch on his arm. ‘I was forgetting you,' he said, replacing the bottle.

‘I ain't likely to forget you,' said Dolly ruefully.

He gripped her hard. ‘But you are going to forget me, my girl,' he said. ‘Tim Martlow's dead, and his letters of gold ain't going to be blotted by the likes of you. You that's been putting it about Calderside I'm the father of your child, and I ain't never seen you in my life till to-night.'

‘Yes, but you're getting this all wrong,' she blubbered. ‘I didn't have a baby. I was going to borrow one if they'd claimed to see it.'

‘What? No baby? And you put it across old Rumbold?' Laughter and sheer admiration of her audacity were mingled in his voice. With a baby it was a good bluff; without one, the girl's ingenuity seemed to him to touch genius.

‘He gave me that paper,' she said, pride subduing tears as she handed him her splendid trophy.

‘Three pounds a week for life,' he read, with profound reverence. ‘If you ain't a blinkin' marvel.' He complimented her, giving her the paper back. Then he realized that, through him, her gains were lost.

‘Gawd, I done wrong. I got no right to mess up a thing like that. I didn't know. See, I'll tell him I made you lie. I'll own the baby's mine.'

‘But there ain't no baby,' she persisted.

‘There's plenty of babies looking for a mother with three pounds a week,' he said.

She tore the paper up. ‘Then they'll not find me,' she said. ‘Three pounds a week's gone. And your letters of gold, Mr Martlow, remain.'

The practised voice of Sir William Rumbold, speaking on the platform, filled the ante-room, not with the rhetorician's counterfeit of sincerity, but, unmistakably, with sincerity itself. ‘I had prepared a speech,' he was saying. ‘A prepared speech is useless in face of the emotion I feel at the life of Timothy Martlow. I say advisedly to you that when I think of Martlow, I know myself for a worm. He was despised and rejected. What had England done for him that he should give his life for her? We wronged him. We made an outcast of him. I personally wronged him from the magistrate's bench, and he pays us back
like this, rising from an undeserved obscurity to a height where he rests secure for ever, a reproach to us, and a great example of the man who won. And against what odds he played it out to a supreme end, and –'

‘You're right,' said Tim Martlow, motioning the girl to close the door. He wasn't used to hearing panegyrics on himself, nor was he aware that, mechanically, he had raised the bottle to his lips.

Dolly meant to close the door discreetly; instead, she threw it from her and jumped at the bottle. Tim was conscious of a double crash, putting an emphatic stop to the sound of Sir William's eulogy – the crash of the door and the bottle which Dolly snatched from him and pitched against the wall.

‘Letters of gold,' she panted, ‘and you shan't tarnish them. I'll see to that.'

He gaped for a moment at the liquor flowing from the bottle, then raised his eyes to hers. ‘You?' he said.

‘I haven't got a baby to look after,' said Dolly. ‘But – I've you. Where were you thinking of going now?'

His eyes went to the door behind which Sir William was, presumably, still praising him, and his head jerked resolutely. ‘Playing it out,' he said. ‘I've got to vanish good and sure after that. I'll play it out, by God. I was a hero once, I'll be a hero still.' His foot crunched broken glass as he moved. ‘I'm going to America, my girl. It's dry.'

Perhaps she distrusted the absolute dryness of America, and perhaps that had nothing to do with Dolly. She examined her hand minutely. ‘Going to the Isle of Man on a rough day, I wasn't a bit ill,' she said casually. ‘I'm a good sailor.'

‘You put it across Sir William,' he said. ‘You're a blinkin' marvel.'

‘No,' she said, ‘but a thing that's worth doing is worth doing well. I'm not a marvel, but I might be the metal polish in those gold letters of yours if you think it worth while.'

His trampish squalor seemed to him suddenly appalling. ‘There, don't do that,' he protested – her arm had found its way into his. ‘My sleeve's dirty.'

‘Idiot!' said Dolly Wainwright, drawing him to the door.

Wistfully, admiringly, the old voice added, ‘It's snug in here, upon my word!'

‘Yes, it's comfortable enough,' agreed the boss, and he flipped the
Financial Times
with a paper-knife. As a matter of fact he was proud of his room; he liked to have it admired, especially by old Woodifield. It gave him a feeling of deep, solid satisfaction to be planted there in the midst of it in full view of that frail old figure in the muffler.

‘I've had it done up lately,' he explained, as he had explained for the past – how many? – weeks. ‘New carpet,' and he pointed to the bright red carpet with a pattern of large white rings. ‘New furniture,' and he nodded towards the massive bookcase and the table with legs like twisted treacle. ‘Electric heating!'
He waved almost exultantly towards the five transparent, pearly sausages glowing so softly in the tilted copper pan.

But he did not draw old Woodifield's attention to the photograph over the table of a grave-looking boy in uniform standing in one of those spectral photographers' parks with photographers' storm-clouds behind him. It was not new. It had been there for over six years.

‘There was something I wanted to tell you,' said old Woodifield, and his eyes grew dim remembering. ‘Now what was it? I had it in my mind when I started out this morning.' His hands began to tremble, and patches of red showed above his beard.

Poor old chap, he's on his last pins, thought the boss. And, feeling kindly, he winked at the old man, and said jokingly, ‘I tell you what. I've got a little drop of something here that'll do you good before you go out into the cold again. It's beautiful stuff. It wouldn't hurt a child.' He took a key off his watch-chain, unlocked a cupboard below his desk, and drew forth a dark, squat bottle. ‘That's the medicine,' said he. ‘And the man from whom I got it told me on the strict QT it came from the cellars at Windsor Castle.'

Old Woodifield's mouth fell open at the sight. He couldn't have looked more surprised if the boss had produced a rabbit.

‘It's whisky, ain't it?' he piped feebly.

The boss turned the bottle and lovingly showed him the label. Whisky it was.

‘D'you know,' said he, peering up at the boss wonderingly, ‘they won't let me touch it at home.' And he looked as though he was going to cry.

‘Ah, that's where we know a bit more than the ladies,' cried the boss, swooping across for two tumblers that stood on the table with the water-bottle, and pouring a generous finger into each. ‘Drink it down. It'll do you good. And don't put any water with it. It's sacrilege to tamper with stuff like this. Ah!' He tossed off his, pulled out his handkerchief, hastily wiped his moustaches, and cocked an eye at old Woodifield, who was rolling his in his chaps.

The old man swallowed, was silent a moment, and then said faintly, ‘It's nutty!'

But it warmed him; it crept into his chill old brain – he remembered.

‘That was it,' he said, heaving himself out of his chair. ‘I thought you'd like to know. The girls were in Belgium last week having a look at poor Reggie's grave, and they happened to come across your boy's. They're quite near each other, it seems.'

Old Woodifield paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard.

‘The girls were delighted with the way the place is kept,' piped the old voice. ‘Beautifully looked after. Couldn't be better if they were at home. You've not been across, have yer?'

‘No, no!' For various reasons the boss had not been across.

‘There's miles of it,' quavered old Woodifield, ‘and it's all as neat as a garden. Flowers growing on all the graves. Nice broad paths.' It was plain from his voice how much he liked a nice broad path.

The pause came again. Then the old man brightened wonderfully.

‘D'you know what the hotel made the girls pay for a pot of jam?' he piped. ‘Ten francs! Robbery, I call it. It was a little pot, so Gertrude says, no bigger than a half-crown. And she hadn't taken more than a spoonful when they charged her ten francs. Gertrude brought the pot away with her to teach 'em a lesson. Quite right, too; it's trading on our feelings. They think because we're over there having a look round we're ready to pay anything. That's what it is.' And he turned towards the door.

‘Quite right, quite right!' cried the boss, though what was quite right he hadn't the least idea. He came round by his desk, followed the shuffling footsteps to the door, and saw the old fellow out. Woodifield was gone.

For a long moment the boss stayed, staring at nothing, while the grey-haired office messenger, watching him, dodged in and out of his cubby-hole like a dog that expects to be taken for a run. Then: ‘I'll see nobody for half an hour, Macey,' said the boss. ‘Understand? Nobody at all.'

‘Very good, sir.'

The door shut, the firm heavy steps recrossed the bright
carpet, the fat body plumped down in the spring chair, and leaning forward, the boss covered his face with his hands. He wanted, he intended, he had arranged to weep…

It had been a terrible shock to him when old Woodifield sprang that remark upon him about the boy's grave. It was exactly as though the earth had opened and he had seen the boy lying there with Woodfield's girls staring down at him. For it was strange. Although over six years had passed away, the boss never thought of the boy except as lying unchanged, unblemished in his uniform, asleep for ever. ‘My son!' groaned the boss. But no tears came yet. In the past, in the first months and even years after the boy's death, he had only to say those words to be overcome by such grief that nothing short of a violent fit of weeping could relieve him. Time, he had declared then, he had told everybody, could make no difference. Other men perhaps might recover, might live their loss down, but not he. How was it possible? His boy was an only son. Ever since his birth the boss had worked at building up this business for him; it had no other meaning if it was not for the boy. Life itself had come to have no other meaning. How on earth could he have slaved, denied himself, kept going all those years without the promise for ever before him of the boy's stepping into his shoes and carrying on where he left off?

And that promise had been so near being fulfilled. The boy had been in the office learning the ropes for a year before the war. Every morning they had started off together; they had come back by the same train. And what congratulations he had received as the boy's father! No wonder; he had taken to it marvellously. As to his popularity with the staff, every man jack of them down to old Macey couldn't make enough of the boy. And he wasn't in the least spoilt. No, he was just his bright natural self, with the right word for everybody, with that boyish look and his habit of saying, ‘Simply splendid!'

But that was all over and done with as though it never had been. The day had come when Macey had handed him the telegram that brought the whole place crashing about his head. ‘Deeply regret to inform you…' And he had left the office a broken man, with his life in ruins.

Six years ago, six years… How quickly time passed! It might have happened yesterday. The boss took his hands from his face; he was puzzled. Something seemed to be wrong with him. He wasn't feeling as he wanted to feel. He decided to get up and have a look at the boy's photograph. But it wasn't a favourite photograph of his; the expression was unnatural. It was cold, even stern-looking. The boy had never looked like that.

At that moment the boss noticed that a fly had fallen into his broad inkpot, and was trying feebly but desperately to clamber out again. Help! help! said those struggling legs. But the sides of the inkpot were wet and slippery; it fell back again and began to swim. The boss took up a pen, picked the fly out of the ink, and shook it on to a piece of blotting-paper. For a fraction of a second it lay still on the dark patch that oozed round it. Then the front legs waved, took hold, and, pulling its small, sodden body up, it began the immense task of cleaning the ink from its wings. Over and under, over and under, went a leg along a wing as the stone goes over and under the scythe. Then there was a pause, while the fly, seeming to stand on the tips of its toes, tried to expand first one wing and then the other. It succeeded at last, and, sitting down, it began, like a minute cat, to clean its face. Now one could imagine that the little front legs rubbed against each other lightly, joyfully. The horrible danger was over; it had escaped; it was ready for life again.

But just then the boss had an idea. He plunged his pen back into the ink, leaned his thick wrist on the blotting-paper, and as the fly tried its wings down came a great heavy blot. What would it make of that? What indeed! The little beggar seemed absolutely cowed, stunned, and afraid to move because of what would happen next. But then, as if painfully, it dragged itself forward. The front legs waved, caught hold, and, more slowly this time, the task began from the beginning.

He's a plucky little devil, thought the boss, and he felt a real admiration for the fly's courage. That was the way to tackle things; that was the right spirit. Never say die; it was only a question of… But the fly had again finished its laborious task, and the boss had just time to refill his pen, to shake fair and square on the new-cleaned body yet another dark drop. What
about it this time? A painful moment of suspense followed. But behold, the front legs were again waving; the boss felt a rush of relief. He leaned over the fly and said to it tenderly, ‘You artful little b…' And he actually had the brilliant notion of breathing on it to help the drying process. All the same, there was something timid and weak about its efforts now, and the boss decided that this time should be the last, as he dipped the pen deep into the inkpot.

It was. The last blot fell on the soaked blotting-paper, and the draggled fly lay in it and did not stir. The back legs were stuck to the body; the front legs were not to be seen.

‘Come on,' said the boss. ‘Look sharp!' And he stirred it with his pen – in vain. Nothing happened or was likely to happen. The fly was dead.

The boss lifted the corpse on the end of the paper-knife and flung it into the waste-paper basket. But such a grinding feeling of wretchedness seized him that he felt positively frightened. He started forward and pressed the bell for Macey.

‘Bring me some fresh blotting-paper,' he said sternly, ‘and look sharp about it.' And while the old dog padded away he fell to wondering what it was he had been thinking about before. What was it? It was… He took out his handkerchief and passed it inside his collar. For the life of him he could not remember.