In the early afternoon the cadre of the new battalion detrained at Northampton, and proceeded to billets in a residential part of the town. Bason suggested that he and Phillip should mess together in one house; they had a bedroom each, and a sitting-room where their meals were served to them by their servants. He said that Major Gleeson didn’t know where they were going to eventually; meanwhile the company of less than forty men, all of them fairly young, was to carry on normal infantry routine training.

Company headquarters was in an empty Mission Hall. The men slept on the floor on straw palliasses. Routine inspections of feet and kit were soon over, when both officers and men were free for the rest of the day.

Two new officers had joined Captain Bason’s company that morning. One was a tall, powerfully-built man who told Phillip that he had been a buyer of carpets for an Oxford Street store before joining up. The other, a short sturdy man, came from Grimsby, where he had been in the fish trade.

On the afternoon of the day following their arrival—a Saturday—the High Street of the town was thronged almost entirely with women and girls. Phillip, walking alone up the street to explore, passed hundreds of them. They seemed to scurry past, to be in unobtrusive hurry, as though they were fearful of missing something. He glanced surreptitiously at the faces coming his way hoping for one upon which he might fill his sense of vacancy. Reaching the end of the High Street, he felt himself to be on the verge of acute loneliness. Desmond would be back after his course at Waltham Abbey; and here he was, in a strange desolate place, where all the faces of the hundreds of girls walking up and down had the same white, subdued expressions. They seemed somehow to be furtive, mouselike.

With relief he saw the figures of the two new company officers in the crowd on the pavement. He went to them, and suggested that they have tea together.

“What a hot-stuff place,” said the other, from Grimsby, appreciatively in his deep voice, as the eyes in his healthy face surveyed the hordes of girls. “Bags of it thrown at you.”

“We’re the first of Kitchener’s Army, apparently, to be billeted in the town,” said Paul, the carpet buyer before the war. “Most of these girls work in the boot factories. They get plenty of money now, on Army contracts.”

“Aiy, they’ll pay for your drinks, an’ all,” said the Grimsby man, named Flagg. “Last night I clicked with a bird——” With a frankness that slightly repelled Phillip he described his luck. As he turned away a young girl passed, and gave him a soft guilty look.

“Go on, Maddison, you’ve clicked,” said Paul, turning politely to Phillip. His eyes were a bit stony, thought Phillip.

“Oh, I’m quite happy walking about by myself.”

“G’ a’ht!” said the Grimsby man. “It’s here, why not ’ave it? You ought to come with me,” he added, generously. “There’s bags of it waiting, wherever you look. What did I tell you? I’ve clicked!”

He set off after a fair-haired pale girl, who had turned to give him a lingering look.

“I can see you are a fastidious man,” said Paul. “I don’t believe in indiscriminate picking up,” he went on reflectively, “I prefer to wait until I see the kind of girl I like, quiet and respectable, with good face and figure, of course. On the other hand, as you’ve seen, Flagg goes after the first flapper who gives him the glad eye. I found a very nice piece last night,” he went on, as though he were describing a Wilton carpet. “She had an excellent appearance, a wonderful soft skin, auburn hair, rich and thick, and took me home to introduce me to her parents. Her boy was killed in the gas attack on Ypres, and she said I reminded her of him. Her people gave me supper, and went to bed, leaving us alone. She got me a drink out of her father’s whisky bottle, and sat at my feet on the hearth rug before the fire. She clung to me, and was very passionate. Very nice too.” He smiled slightly, but his eyes were still stony. “But perhaps you don’t care for taking what the gods provide?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“Well, take an older man’s advice, and look for a girl who will take you home. If she comes from a respectable family, you can bet on her being quite safe.”

“I know what you mean, Paul.”

“One has to use judgment, as in everything else in life.” Wigg, complete in pea-jacket and cap set slightly down on one side, sauntered up to them.

“Taking a look at the market?” asked Paul.

With a barren glance at him, Wigg strolled on, cane under arm, hands in flapped pockets.

“Bit stuck up, isn’t he? A bit dissipated, too, I should judge. What was he before the war?”

“Tobacco at Smyrna, he told me.”

“That explains his contempt for women, and also for me. His type is recognisable among the customers who used to come into my department, on leave from the East. Not quite pukka sahibs. I know the type well. Some of them brought home carpets to sell, and treated us rather as though they were still among dagos.”

“Talking about tobacco, how about some tea?”

After tea Paul said he was going to call on his girl of the night before, and take her to the pictures; and alone once more, Phillip wandered up the High Street, wondering if he should go by himself to the flicks; but in the glow under a lamp-post he saw a girl walking alone. She gave him a half-look, and strolled on. Her white hungry face lured him to follow. He kept to a distance of about a dozen yards. At the top of the street she walked slower. He adjusted his pace, reluctant to meet her. She walked beyond the thinning throng of Saturday night shoppers, and stopped under a lamp post, as though waiting for a bus. She seemed nervous, and glanced about her.

At last he said, “Are you going for a walk?”

“If you like.”

An iodine-brown moon rose over the roof-tops as they walked on up the street. He tried to see her face; and wondered what to say to her. Her compliant manner made him feel that he might be able to be like the Grimsby fish-salesman Flagg, with his muscular calves and thick thighs, full lower lip and resonant decided voice.

“I don’t know my way about this town. Where are we?”

“We’re in Gold Street now.”

They walked on. “Where does this way go to, d’you know?”

“Gas Street. Down there is the Horsemarket.”

They came to another cross. “That’s Scarletwell, and down there is Silver Street.”

“Silver sounds nice. I’d like to see it.” At the end she said, “This is Sheep Street.”

“That just about describes it!” He thought of the flock of girls from the factories, baa-baa’ing—and Wigg the wolf and Flagg the ram among them. “This way leads to the public park,” she said, a little breathlessly. He took her arm and felt she was trembling.

They walked round an open space. The ground was damp and cold. He walked on, feeling more and more shadowy. They came to the gate, and were back where they started.

“Where else is there to go in this wilderness?”

“There’s the churchyard near Green Street.”

Side by side they returned down the Horsemarket, and came into Gold Street, where was the churchyard. In the yellow moonlight they threaded in and out of the graves, stopping at last beside a vault with a flat top, against which he leaned, while she stood a yard away, facing him.

“Is this a popular place for couples?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you been here before?”

“No, never.”

“Have you ever got off with anyone before?”

“I used to walk out with a boy,” she replied, shivering.

“You’re cold.”

“Oh, I’m not really.”

“Are you a native of this town?”

“No, my people come from Rugby.”

“Have you heard of Rupert Brooke, by any chance?”

“No. Does he live in Northampton?”

“He was at Rugby. The school, I mean. His father was Head Master. Rupert Brooke wrote those famous poems, and died of pneumonia at Gallipoli last April.”

“Go on.”

Silence followed this remark. He wondered how he could get away without hurting the feelings of the pale face waiting—for what everyone wanted. Or did they? Was love no more than—clicketting? Yet, if only he dared—

“What happened to your boy, if it isn’t a rude question?”

“He cast me off.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “you are cold, I can hear you shivering. Let’s walk, shall we. I fancy there’s frost in the air.”

They walked down to the main street. There he bought her an overcoat, and while she was still struggling with words of gratitude he said that he had to go, and with a good night and a salute, returned to his billet.

Northampton
4 December, 1915.

Dear Westy

I was delighted to hear from your cousin Frances that you were back in England and getting along well. I have often thought of you and of the old days opposite the Lone Tree ridge, on that morning of 25 September when you copped a few packets. If only your plan to get round the flank had been carried out earlier, I think we should have got through to the Haute Deule canal. Even so, from what I saw of the reserves, we might have been surrounded in a counterattack, for all their supplies had been lost. The staff work—well, non est, or should it be non fut? But they had their difficulties, and were hampered higher up, I fancy. Anyway my part was absolutely nothing. I was a mere spectator of something that was already decided.

When I got back on the evening of the 25th, to my billet, I was put on light duty for four days by an M.O. who wanted me, I fancy, as a fourth for bridge in the mess at night. So I was able to go here and there and see parts of the show as a mere spectator. Among other things I came across the Cantuvellaunians, with whom I had “trained” before I came out. I got involved and went over the top with them at noon on 26th. They had no idea of anything; they had also lost their transport, as had all the other 24 battalions of the two reserve Kitchener divisions which came up 12 hours late, unfed, without water, and exhausted by forced marches. As they crossed over the Lens—La Bassée road most of them went down in rows under m.g. fire from Hill 60, Bois Hugo, and Hulluch.

The attack fizzled out and the German Red Cross men let the walking wounded go back, me among them. About that time the entire front gave way; I saw thousands of our troops going back, for miles on either side. Poor devils, they couldn’t stick it any longer, first time in, and no water or food. Anyway, they were up against uncut barbed wire, as usual.

Well, Westy, that is all my news. I’m now scrimshanking with what I suppose are pioneer troops, most of them old navvies with dry clay-faces rutted by the tracks of cart-wheels, any age up to 70. They get six bob a day, as much as A.S.C. lorry drivers. They booze most of it away on Saturday nights. At least, that was so until now; we are an off-shoot of that lot, and forming anew.

We’ve only just got shifted here, and nothing doing at the moment; but I am looking forward to seeing Frances again shortly; and also to seeing you, so make haste and get better. I remember you whenever I hear They Never Believe Me; I shall never forget that dugout, and the clock that wouldn’t stop ticking before Zero hour!

Walking about in this town tonight, I saw the moon rising over the roof-tops exactly the colour of iodine. Then it turned terra-cotta red, the hue of a neck-wound contused by internal bleeding, after death. I expect this is morbid, but I often amuse myself trying to connect one aspect of life with another, by means of similies.

Later, when the moon was higher, brighter, clear of factory smoke, I thought of it shining down upon Le Rutoire Farm and Mazingarbe, throwing long shadows from the crassiers and pyramidical slag-heaps around Loos, and dimming the electric sparkles of musketry around the Hohenzollern Redoubt, as seen from the high ground of Maroc. Isn’t it strange what a fascination the front has for one, when one is away from it? Something seems to be drawing one back again; despite all the hell of it when one was there. I feel the romance of war, even in the dead lying on the chalk, to be absorbed again whence, originally, human life came. Our bones are calcium, and were not our original ancestors fishes? So we are cousins to the minute sea-shells that are the chalk-beds of the world.

I must stop before I utter any more bilge! Well, Westy, make haste and get well, and all the best, mon capitaine,

Yours till the last bottle,

             PHILLIP.

P.S. Brickhill House, Beau Brickhill, Gaultshire, will always find me. It is my cousin’s place.

Captain Bason came back on Sunday night and Phillip asked if he might have forty-eight hours off to go and fetch the Swift. On the way back, he thought he would go to Brickhill, and sleep the night with Polly. Beau Brickhill was, according to the map, only about twenty-five miles from Northampton.

“Sorry, old sport. You’ve got to attend a course on the Lewis gun, beginning tomorrow. By the way, I’ve invited Frances down for next week-end, and how about Alice coming, too? The landlady says they can get a double room next door. I’ll pay their fares, of course.”

“Well, I’ll pay my whack.”

Frances and Alice arrived on the Saturday afternoon. They carried longer umbrellas, and wore what they called freedom skirts, with jackets of Crow Blue, a black material which had dark blue sheens on it at certain angles. They wore shin-high boots, a-swing with tassels. After tidying up, as they called it, in the bedroom which Bason had arranged for them to occupy in the house next door, the girls returned to the sitting-room, for what Bason called high tea.

Afterwards they played whist and rummy. Phillip played his trench gramophone. When he put on The Eternal Waltz, with its haunting lilt of faraway splendours and romantic loves, Frances and Bason rolled back the carpet, and began to dance. Phillip sat by the gramophone, his ear close to the tinned concave reflector. Alice raised eyebrows at Bason.

“Come on, you slacker,” said Bason, kicking him as he passed, “don’t leave Alice out in the cold!”

“I can’t dance.”

“Come, I’ll show you,” said Alice, holding out her arms.

“But I’m no good, really.”

“It’s quite easy. Just let yourself glide to the lilt of the music.”

“I feel glued to the floor,” he said, with a laugh to hide his fear of being clumsy and foolish.

“Come on,” said Alice, smiling steadily into his eye, “you’re not going to get out of it.”

“My shoes have rubber studs on them, and won’t glide.”

To his relief the motor ran down at this point. He wound the handle, while Alice looked through the case of records, picking out one after another, swiftly to reject disc after disc and half-drop them on the growing pile. He wanted to ask her to be careful, but kept silent. Obviously she thought little of them.

“Haven’t you got any foxtrots more up-to-date than Hitchy Koo?”

“Afraid not.”

“Got any Winner records?”

“Sorry. Only His Master’s Voice, and some cheap Zonophones.”

“Do you like only serious music?”

“Well, yes.”

She went to the gramophone. “Put on that waltz again. I’ll show you the steps. It’s simple—one, one two, one, one two. Take off your shoes, you can do it in your socks.”

There was a hole in one toe; but he overcame his dread, took off the shoes, and stood trepidant before her.

“This arm goes round my waist, like this.” She hid his hand behind her, pressed it firmly. “Now give me your other hand.” A whiff of La Rola scent, as in the advertisements of the girl with wind-blown hair, further discomposed him. “Now, follow my steps, one, one two, one, one two. That’s right. Only don’t hold yourself so stiffly, let yourself go loosely, as though you were balancing a pile of books on your head. Don’t laugh!” She shook him, and said, “You’re not trying! Now be serious,” with a little shake. He felt easier, and thought it rather a joke when he bumped backwards into Bason.

Thereafter the joke was repeated at intervals, the two manœuvring to give one another bumps.

“How about a drink?” suggested Bason, when they were resting. “I’ve got some gin, and a bottle of crême de menthe. You ladies no doubt will plump for mother’s ruin? No? Well, how about some of the green eye of the little yellow god?” as he held up the bottle.

“Only a little, please, Bruce,” said Frances. “Not more than a thimbleful, really.”

Bason gave them each half a small glass. “What about you, Phil? Mother’s ruin?”

“Beer, thanks, Bruce.”

They sat round the fire, and sudden complete easiness came over Phillip. He lay stretched out in an armchair, on the small of his back, feet stretched to the blaze, feeling that he had known them all his life. Outside the December afternoon died as it had begun, in dullness; within the room all was contentment. He marvelled anew at the wonderful turn his life had taken; he was living a man’s life, every day brought its different adventures.

Seeing that Bason’s glass was empty, he arose with Indian smoothness and unscrewed the top of a beer bottle, gently controlling the sneeze of gas, and then with extreme care three-quarter filled the glass which Bason held on his knee, as he lay back on the sofa beside Frances, one arm amiably around her shoulders. His company commander’s face, with its expression of happy relaxation as he stared into the flames of the fire, conveyed perfectly his thanks.

Continuing his silent unspeaking glide Phillip went to Alice with the liqueur bottle. One raised eyebrow and a gap between finger and thumb of half an inch beside the small narrow glass held in her hand, a meticulous pouring of the thick green liquid, a little jerk to contain the drip; then in the same flow of silence, save for the flap of flames, he half-filled Frances’ glass, and afterwards his own glass, from the beer bottle. Holding them in the spell of his movement, he glided to the gramophone, wound it slowly, put on a record, set it flowing in circular motion as the centre of a dark deep whirlpool, and gliding away, stood beside the aspidistra fern in its brass cup on the stand and held down his eyes as the two voices, one delicate and ethereal, the other deep and tender, brought back memories of “Spectre” West and Y Z night before the battle of Loos.

Pretending not to see that Frances’ eyes were on him, as he lifted the sound-box from the last groove, and that Alice was patting as though secretly the sofa for him to come beside her, and that her lips were parted, and her eyes, smaller than those of Frances, had the dreamy look he had noticed when he kissed her in the cinema box, Phillip put on the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, and went back beside the fern, to feel the sad beauty of darkness, and the dying music of the sun.

“Play some more, Phil,” said Bason.

There seemed to be a feeling of unity, of friendliness and ease in the room beyond ordinary hankering desires, by which usually he had wanted to escape from the dull and terrifying nihilism of being alone. It was dark outside, the flame-light jerked about on the ceiling. He lit a candle beside the gramophone, and played record after record.

“Oh, not that old thing! They play it in every electric palace!”

He felt foolish, and took off Sinding’s Rustle of Spring.

“How about Tchaikowski? The Sugar Plum Fairy isn’t bad.”

“All right, if it’s the best you’ve got.”

“Don’t be so beastly, Alice!” said Frances, sitting up.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Phillip.

“Have another crême de menthe?” suggested Bason, lazily, re-crossing his strapped leggings, and jingling his spurs. He yawned without putting hand to mouth.

“Can’t we do something? How about going to a dance?” said Alice. “I like light and gaiety.” She got up and danced by herself, round the table. Coming to Phillip, she put her arm on his shoulder. He felt proud and grateful, and crossed his arm with hers, on her silky shoulder. He was happy again.

“You want taking out of yourself,” said Alice, nuzzling his cheek with her nose.

Bason lit the gas. Then he opened a box and produced three balls and a magic wand. He did things with the balls, holding them between the fingers of one hand, waving the wand, and with a twist of fingers, the balls vanished. There were several variations of this, then he did other tricks, remarking, “The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.”

“I saw Chung Ling Soo once saw a woman in half on the stage, wonder how it was done,” said Phillip, thinking of Desmond beside him in the sixpennies of the Hippo.

“Like this?” said Alice, doing the splits on the rug before the fire, showing a length of silk stocking. Bason pretended to hide his eyes with a hand. “Ooh,” he said, grinning at Phillip.

“Really!” said Frances, as Alice began a pas seul, snapping her fingers as though they were castanets. Soon they were dancing again, to the Eternal Waltz. The table was shoved against the wall, and the fun went on, until the landlady appeared with a tray, to lay the table.

“My,” she said, “you young people are enjoying yourselves.”