Читать книгу Follow My Dust - Jessica Hawke - Страница 10

OFF TO GAOL

I

Those early years spent with the grandparents were to exert a lasting influence over the man-to-be. Young Arthur William met his brothers only when at school, which was then Bond’s Academy, and situated about a mile nearer the centre of Gosport. School was seldom continuous save during the summer, for there were long periods when the boy was confined to his room with bronchitis.

Home discipline, if not quite so rigid, was decidedly beneficial. School homework to be done without aid, and without rebellion. A time to rise and a time to go off to bed. And there were periods when quietness was imposed should grandfather be unwell, or grandmother confined to her room.

Rules obeyed, life was good. Affection was bestowed generously, and the threatened spoiling by the old people was capably balanced by the forethought of the aunt. The boy received every possible advantage. He was the eldest son of the eldest son, and they dreamed dreams for and of him.

Disraeli was dead. Gladstone was lowered into the crypt of Westminster Abbey. Queen Victoria had passed through Gosport from the Isle of Wight to be received by her mourning subjects in London. The Boer War ended and the troops came home, and all the boys and girls stared and cheered Roberts and Kitchener and Buller, when the latter appeared in the dark green uniform of the King’s Royal Rifles to lead the regiment to Holy Trinity Church on Sunday mornings. A new and glorious era was beginning.

There was no room for anti-British feeling, either in Gosport or Portsmouth. The Lloyd Georges of those times never dared to run around these towns. The greatest literary figure was Rudyard Kipling, the most loved was Charles Dickens, and in the home of young Upfield, Ralph Connor was chief favourite.

The march of events was presented to the boy through the pages of the Illustrated London News, and for him national figures became persons quite likely to call at the house. Beyond these great people, from Disraeli to General Sir Redvers Buller, were a group of others equally real: Mr. Pickwick, Mrs. Bardell, Mr. Snodgrass, Alice and those extraordinary people she met at the other side of the looking- glass. And beyond even these, in a place where they wore strange clothes, were yet other real people, such as David and Moses, and Matthew and John, and the gentle Christ.

Periodically there came to the house a man who had a round red face, light blue eyes, and a ready smile. He came to visit the aunt, and when they set out on a walk, there was a scene because the boy was not to go with them. There came another aunt from America, and with her husband, who seemed to do little but lie on a sofa and be coaxed off to bed even before the boy’s time. Then there was a flurry of activity, when all the men wore top-hats and frock-coats, and all the younger women donned new dresses with leg-of-mutton sleeves. Arthur William’s father and mother were both there that day, and his father and uncles tied dozens of old boots to the back axle of the carriage which bore away the gay aunt and the man with the round face and the light blue eyes.

2

For a space Arthur William lived with his parents and brothers, of whom there were now four, and when he again went to live with the grandparents, the man who had so long reclined on the couch had gone, and the aunt wore sombre black, and always a bonnet with long black ribbons.

At first, almost every fine afternoon he accompanied this aunt to the cemetery and watched her kneeling beside the grave and snipping the grass with cutters as she watered it with her tears. It appeared that she had much in common with the cemetery manager–tall and cadaverous body, weak brown eyes, long red nose. Sometimes he cried with her. Sometimes at lunch or at dinner the aunt would abruptly burst into tears, and be chided by the grandmother for lack of control. This behaviour always cast a gloom over the boy, to be dispersed only when he could escape into the garden.

When winter came, there were long periods in bed suffering from bronchitis, and then father would come with toys and books, and, inevitably, copies of the Illustrated London News.

During the summer months the boy would lie abed and watch the day depart, and nothing delighted him more, winter or summer, than to watch the clouds, and people them with beings from the books read to him.

It was when he was confined to bed that his grandfather died, after a short illness, and then there were two widows dressed alike. When grandma’s sisters, the butchers now retired, called to take tea and talk wittily, there were four Queen Victorias, save that the sisters did not wear black ribbons.

Grandfather’s passing hurt. Thereafter, Arthur William would not eat an apple from grandfather’s favourite tree. But he climbed all the trees, the back wall overlooking the nursery and the division wall of the next garden, owned by a doctor. The neighbour came to believe that Arthur William was interested in his apples and strawberries, and so espied the box on the flat roof of a summer house abutting this party wall. He noted that the boy climbed the wall to reach the roof and to peer into the box, and sometimes stealthily to remove an article, appear to clean it with his handkerchief and replace it.

Curiosity drove him. Hearing that Arthur William was again confined to bed, he placed a ladder against the wall and reached for the box, an old tin one. Within it he found grandpa’s half-topper, together with the handkerchief serving as a duster.

Quite often, headed by their band, the Royal Marines would march by, and sometimes the King’s Royal Rifles would pass, and came the time when this regiment included detachments from the Colonies which had come to take part in the Coronation of Edward VII.

In mid-summer, when the apples fell, the boy would gather them and place them with exactitude on the rear lawn; the band, the position of all officers, accurately copied. Following a naval review at Spithead, the apples were made to represent the ships; ten apples in a packed line for each battleship, six for each cruiser, four for a destroyer, two for a torpedo boat. Every ship would be in the correct position according to the boy’s observation when taken on a passenger ship to view the fleet.

The last act of this period was dominated by a Christmas tree.

As grandma was confined to her bed, she had a large tree placed in her bedroom, and the entire Christmas Eve was given up to dressing the tree and fruiting it with presents. Then it was covered with a dust-sheet until the following evening, when arrived all the grandsons and the one granddaughter. Arthur William had to be the M.C., but it was a most successful party, and when a week or two later grandma settled to sleep the long sleep she spoke of the children and the tree.

3

The passing of Grandma Upfield brought to a close a period in the life of Arthur Upfield, and began another which in all respects was parallel with the greater changes which swept over Great Britain with the Coronation of Edward VII. It was as though everything, from ships to newspapers, horse-drawn public conveyances to the railways, schools, libraries and shops, all were changed in the few succeeding years.

The high-sided ironclads vanished to give place to warships lower on the water, faster, sleeker, culminating in the naval triumph of the dreadnought. The horse-drawn trams stopped, the roads were torn up, and the rails laid for electric trams. The street lights of incandescent gas gave way to modern electric standards. Powerful engines replaced the puff-and-snort locomotives on the railways. And new ways of shop window dressing were studied by business people, new methods of accountancy, new schemes devised to meet increased competition.

Arthur left the sheltered world of quiet affection, where most things came his way without competition, to enter a world in which his parents were fully occupied with business, and where he had to compete with his brothers. They were Edward, a year younger, Frank, two years younger than Edward, toddler Nelson, born on Trafalgar Day, and John, a small baby.

There was no crowding, not in that enormous house over the business premises. At the rear was an enclosed yard providing excellent playing room, and long vacant stables with a large loft which became the play-place in wet weather. What saved Arthur from jealousy created by competition was that, having had to adventure alone, he now adventured in company.

There was always the harbour. There was the ‘Green’ more often than not stacked with great logs which provided the planks and masts and spars for yachts and small ships, and close by were the shipyards of Camper & Nicholson, who built the series of Shamrocks, and the ‘lofts’ where the sails were made. And, when bicycles came, there was Haslar Creek, beyond which was the Naval Hospital and outlying forts, and Stoke’s Bay, to which the railway was extended; and Porchester Castle, a vast heap of masonry set on a perfect lawn of many acres.

Arthur did have important advantages over his brothers. He had received the concentrated attention of several women; they had had to compete with business for the attention of their parents. Arthur had lived in a vastly different world, a world where dwelt the heroes of books, the heroes beyond the seas. Because of this, not because he was the eldest, he became the leader in games and mischief. His inventiveness in this direction possibly outweighed his failing of being a bad loser.

The shop was opened at eight-thirty, and remained open until nine in the evening, but on Saturday night it remained open and doing good business at eleven o’clock. It seemed that the only reason for the shops not remaining open after midnight on Christmas Eve had a religious basis; and for the first hour of Christmas the Upfield shop was open only to the assistants, who might then select any present they wished.

Discipline of the boys was more rigid on Sundays. First, Sunday School, after which all the boys and girls would march two by two to the Methodist Chapel off the High Street. Here the parents would join the children in the family pew. Sunday School again in the afternoon, a full two hours. Chapel again in the evening. No games were permitted on Sunday. Of books there were many, and there was always one of the assistants or a domestic willing to read to the younger children.

After chapel, supper. After supper the real get-together in the drawing-room, where father told stories of his early adventures, and replied as best he might to questions such as: “Is it true the Navy’s going to build a submarine like the one in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? How big will it be? How fast will it go?” And: “Mr. W. said that soon they’ll be able to telegraph without wires. Is he right?” In those days it was never: “Hey, Dad, what about a drive in the car?” Cars were something of a wonder; catapults could be more easily acquired.

There was a well in the centre of the building, based on a skylight over a portion of the main shop. The boys were playing marbles in the yard when father appeared from the rear door. He wore a small black imperial beard. His eyes were dark, and they could stare or laugh, hold you like the point of a sword, or encompass you with a warming glow.

At this moment his eyes were masked. He held in his hand a glass marble. To Arthur he said:

“You see this marble? Some wretched boy must have fired it up into the air, because it dropped down through the skylight and almost hit a lady customer. Did you fire it with a catapult?”

“No, Dad.”

“Well now, would you do something for me?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Take this marble to Inspector Smith at the police station. Tell him I sent you, and tell him how it must have been fired into the air by a boy with a catapult, and would he try to find the culprit.”

“All right, Dad.”

Wide-eyed concern in the eyes of the brothers. Off went Arthur to the police station, where one had to pass through iron gates in a high stone wall, along a wide stone-paved space bordered by prison cells, the court, the quarters for unmarried constables, the officers’ quarters, and the charge office.

Inspector Smith was seated at his desk. He was large and red, and sported a handle-bar moustache. Like the constable at the charge desk known by young Upfield, Inspector Smith was a familiar figure. He sat back and listened to the tale, nodding his head gravely, and uttering noises expressive of horror.

“Bad, young man. Very bad,” he said. “We’ll have to investigate this affair. My word, that customer in your father’s shop could easily have been killed, couldn’t she?”

Solemnly Arthur agreed. The interview was going off quite well, until:

“I wonder, now.” The inspector stood and held the marble against the light. “This tells me a story.” He rummaged in a drawer and produced a magnifying glass with which he gave long attention to the marble. “Looks like you fired this. Did you?”

“No, Inspector,” replied Arthur.

“Turn out your pockets on to the desk.”

A whistle, marbles, odds and ends. Finally the catapult, a real beauty. “Ah!” breathed the big man, leaning forward to glare at the weapon.

“So you did fire it, didn’t you, young feller?”

The stubborn liar: “No, Inspector.”

The inspector pounded a bell and a constable appeared. He roared: “Lock him up.”

Bawling, the criminal was gripped by an iron vice shaped like a hand, and was conducted to the cells. Bawling, the criminal was locked in, and between yells he heard the slow and ponderous feet march along the corridor. An hour passed, and he still snivelled, and then the lesson was spoiled by a woman. The bolt was shot back and there appeared Mrs. Inspector Smith, as large as her spouse and as red of face.

“You poor mite! I never heard of such a thing! Locking you up like this. You come along with me. Dry your tears. Come along.”

A softer hand this time, a hand holding a hand. Out of the cell, along the corridor and into the early evening sunshine, across the police yard and into a private door, and thence to a kitchen where the table was laden with buttery muffins. At the table, the large Inspector Smith in his shirt-sleeves.

He waited until the snivelling ended and the guest was eating. “Just tell me the truth, Arthur. That’s all.”

“Yes, I shot the ally.”

The inspector’s eyes widened, his face widened, he was the picture of astonishment.

“Then why ever didn’t you say so?”

“Say so!” echoed his wife. “How could he when you frightened the life out of him? Never you mind, Arthur. But listen to me. Never tell fibs. If you do wrong, own up to it.”

“Of course,” supported the inspector. “By the way, how high did you shoot that marble?”

“Out of sight, Inspector Smith. I’m sorry. I won’t…”

He was going to say ‘do it again’, but the policeman cut in with:

“Good! Don’t ever tell lies again. And never fire a shot up into the air. You know, what goes up gotta come down. And never fire without a target. So easy to hurt someone.”

The weapon appeared from thin air. “You promise to be very careful in future?”

“Yes, Inspector.”

“I mean about telling lies.”

“Yes, Inspector.”

“Good. Take your cat. and be off home.”

They smiled at him, and the grandmother and the blessed aunts came through so that he thanked Mrs. Smith for the tea and muffins before clearing out fast. It was a good lesson, but not to be learned for many a year. What was learned was never to lie unless the cover-up was especially good.

But they were good times, sensible times. . . . The police were able to co-operate with parents and when a policeman took an obstreperous boy home, the father dealt it out, instead of stupidly complaining of assault and battery. The schoolteacher dealt it out as and when required, and if the victim whined at home, the parents added their contribution, instead of raving about poor little Freddie being tortured by a cane in the hand of a fiend.

4

Perhaps no man did more than Alfred Harmsworth to prepare the mind of young Upfield’s generation to accept the ever accelerating changes, as well as the preparation for the trials even then looming beyond the North Sea.

Down the street was the shop of the newsagent, a shop which became ever more important during Upfield’s steps into the reading age. It was at the time that Answers drew attention, and what attention! Answers, in its brown cover, sold for tuppence, and it arrived in Gosport late on Monday evenings for sale on Tuesday. On the Monday evening there gathered outside this shop many people waiting for Answers, their main interest being the current instalment of ‘Money’. This serial was followed by another entitled ‘Convict Ninety- Nine’.

Among the crowd were boys who were not interested in Answers but in a paper called The Boys’ Friend, a tuppenny paper printed on green paper, which swiftly came to the fore over the Boy’s Own and Chums. Later, The Boys’ Friend published three tremendous serials entitled ‘Britain Invaded’, ‘Britain at Bay’ and ‘Britain’s Revenge’. These stories dealt with the invasion by Germany of the British Isles.

Another paper issued by the Harmsworth Press, called The Boys’ Realm, was printed on pink paper. It was published on Saturdays, and devoted to sports. Later still, a third paper appeared, printed on white and called The Boys’ Herald. This came out on Thursdays. All matter published in these papers was reasonably well written, straightforward and clean, and hard-pedalled on high adventure in the school, on the playing fields, and over all the then great British Empire.

Illiterate and backward children made a ready effort to read these papers, when learning at the national schools was a trial to be endured.

When the new and free library was built, a goodly proportion of borrowers were boys who sought after the works of Fenn, Henty, Marryat, and later still the science novels of the great new writer, H. G. Wells. And there was a decided revival of Jules Veme. There must have been thousands of young men who might never have met these last-named authors had it not been for the boys’ papers published by Alfred Harmsworth. Where the schools failed to create silk purses from sow’s ears, he did.

5

Arthur became the leader of five boys, a cell within the family, as the family was a cell within the strong heart of a truly great nation. The boys were made independent by the necessity of their parents’ business obligations. If one of the boys was abed sick, Arthur would tell him stories, even relating a story serial fashion, continuing for a week or more. When all was well, there was hide and seek, which developed into something like melodrama.

Now the house was of three storeys, and there were two sets of

stairs, and all the upper regions were unlighted, some rooms being used as additional store-rooms, others as workrooms for the milliners, and a few as bedrooms. Those rooms occupied by the assistants were in a wing off one of the staircases.

It was a fine house for hide and seek, it being possible for the hunted to keep ahead of the hunters by constantly moving. The only places barred were the bedrooms occupied by the parents, the staff and the assistants, and, after one experience, the roof, which was gained up steps and through skylights.

By day even the youngest, John, could join in this game. By night John could also join with the hunters, who might carry a hurricane lamp, or, when fortunate, an electric torch. Then came the ultimate of the game.

Only two boys engaged in this phase, the hunted and the hunter. No lights were to be carried. Neither wore footwear. The hunted was given five minutes’ start, and he would wait somewhere on those upper floors in pitch darkness and silence. The hunter would then start up one of the two flights of stairs, and his success or failure depended on which of them made a betraying noise.

As time went on, the participants learned the position of every creaking floorboard. They learned how to pass before a window, crawling below it, how to open a creaking door without noise. They learned how to control breathing, how to prevent the rustle clothes, or the soft swish of cloth brushing an obstacle. When complete familiarity with every item of furniture in particular rooms was gained, the boys not participating were first sent up to haul and rearrange the furniture.

Read a good thriller, or study the details of a particularly gruesome murder, and then try this out in a large house.

Stand and wait, and torture your ears to catch a sound when there is no sound other than noises from the street miles away. Move without sound from room to room, dark rooms, vacant rooms, dead rooms, and then shrink inward from a sound which isn’t human, or shrink away from a Thing which is blacker than the prevailing darkness. And suddenly feel a hand against your face when you have been playing this game for half an hour and longer. And go away back, and play it when you were nine or ten. Reaction will depend, of course, on your imagination, or lack of it.

6

There was an enemy. His name was Budd. The boys called him Prodigal Budd. He was tall and staid and about seventy. His long white beard and his hair needed washing. He wore a black half-topper and a grimy frock-coat. For amusement, he informed on boys.

Edward was with Arthur and Frank on the top floor when they saw Prodigal Budd standing at the kerb on the far side of the street, leaning gracefully on his stick and watching the traffic. Edward was an expert with a catapult, and with stones.

The boys raced down the stairs and out to the stables, where, on bags, the large store of potatoes was sometimes gone over for rotten ones. This day there was plenty of ammunition. They sped back to the top room, agonised by the thought that Prodigal Budd might have moved on.

Glory be! He was still there.

Brother Frank nominated Edward, but Arthur asserted his unjust claims. There was almost a fight. Standing before the open window, Arthur measured the range whilst holding a potato so rotten that the fluid within would break out under the slightest violence.

The dastardly missile sailed out over the street. The line of its flight was a thing of beauty, and the certainty grew that Prodigal Budd was for it.

The potato missed by a beautiful fraction the brim of the top-hat, missed by another wondrous fraction the tip of the long red nose, exploded grandly in the dead centre of his white beard. The stuff flew upward, outward, and downward. Prodigal Budd dug it out of his eyes, looked about with genuine astonishment, finally looked upward, to see Arthur almost overbalancing on the window-sill, helpless with laughter. It cost the father two shillings, and the son a severe thrashing.

However, all ended well because it was the only bull’s eye Arthur ever scored, save with a rifle. Subsequent triumphs were many, but he paid dearly for them all, with the exception of one glorious episode.

7

At one of the several schools at which Arthur blighted the hopes of his parents, the masters who taught French and history were fast friends, united in a passion for photography. Often they were seen tramping the countryside, loaded with large cameras and equipment.

The history master was tall and severe, but just. He was feared but respected, whereas the French master was hated with a deadly thing. He was sarcastic; he for ever praised the few boys who could assimilate his teaching, and sneered and jibed at those who were dense, including Arthur and the son of the Inspector of the Harbour Police.

As often happened, one Saturday afternoon the two boys were in a rowing skiff, fishing at the entrance to the harbour of Haslar Ceek, and within a few yards of H.M.S. Vernon, the submarine depot ship.

A little way up Haslar Creek were a dozen or so submarines moored to the stone jetty, and there was nothing to prevent anyone from walking on to that jetty. As the boys were fishing, they saw the photographers set up their cameras with the intention of taking pictures of the creek and the ships.

Then around the stem of H.M.S. Vernon there swept the police launch in command of the father of Arthur’s fishing companion. The launch went astern, and the inspector hailed the boys and wanted to know what luck. Luck had been good and he was given most of the fish as he was due to go off duty, and would be home much before the boy. Then up spoke Arthur:

“I say, Inspector! See those two men along there, with those cameras and things? Looks like they’re German spies. Been there a long time, and taking heaps of pictures.”

The inspector shaded his eyes, stiffened, ejaculated a nasty word, shouted for ‘Go ahead’. Off swept the launch, the two boys alternately watching and grinning at each other. The launch went on past the photographers, who appeared to take no notice of it. Then it abruptly headed for the stone-lined bank, stopped with its bow just touching the bank, and men sprang from it. They ran up to the road, converged on the ‘spies’, surrounded them. One camera seemed to rise in the air, tripod and all. Then followed what appeared to be an interrogation.

Arthur was now all for rowing the boat to the far side of the Vernon, but his friend pointed out that he would have to go home some time, so let trouble, if any, come soon.

The men regained the launch, and the photographers moved off. The launch came down the creek, powerful and fast, sending up quite a wash; it passed the rowing-boat, and when the inspector waved a cheerful au revoir, the boys regarded each other with slow smiles of relief. After the removal of plates, exposed and otherwise, and a severe reprimand, the photographers were permitted to leave. It was fully a week later when the inspector casually asked his son if he knew those ‘spies’ were his schoolmasters.

The son admitting to it, the inspector said:

“Lucky for you and young Upfield that they were taking pictures in a prohibited place.”