Читать книгу The Moon Field - Judith Allnatt - Страница 16

George was woken by the noise of a milk-cart in the street outside. The milkman’s whistled rendition of ‘Hearts of Oak’ went through his head like the shriek of an engine with a full head of steam. He lay very still, gritting his teeth until the clink of bottles into crates was over and the clop of hooves on cobbles faded into the distance. He found that he was lying on top of a bed rather than in it and was still in his clothes, although his jacket and his boots had been removed. Gingerly, trying not to groan at the tenderness of his rib cage, he rolled over to face into the room and found Turland, sprawled asleep in an armchair with a pillow under his head and a washed-out green quilt over him, from which his legs protruded, showing a large hole in the heel of one of his grey socks.

Recognising Turland, everything about the night before came back to him in one huge wave of misery. How was he to explain that he had lost his wages and had no board money to give to his mother? He knew how much they needed every penny and that it was all accounted for as soon as it came into the house. He remembered the lessons at chapel on ‘the demon drink’, and how his mother had always said in her milder way that it ‘led to errors of judgement’. As a child, he had thought of God’s Judgement and wondered how God could possibly make a mistake. Now, as though he could hear his mother’s voice in his head, the true implication of human frailty sank in and he recognised his own weakness. He was angry and disgusted with himself.

There was nowhere in his thoughts that he could turn for any comfort. If he thought of Violet, her gentle eyes, her quiet manner, her lovely smile, it was as though a picture of the girl from the pub stood between them. The memory of the girl’s piggy eyes with their fair lashes and the feel of her pudgy, soft hands made him feel grubby, as though to think of Violet as existing in the same universe was to besmirch her. He had sunk low. He had let himself down and behaved like an absolute beast. He thought of Kitty scolding him over some minor foolishness in the past and the way that she would eventually shake her head and say, ‘You are a lost cause, George Farrell!’ and he would know he was forgiven. He had always been able to tell Kitty everything yet the thought of this made him wonder how he could look her in the face again.

There was a tap at the door and Rooke opened it a little way and put his head round it. ‘Breakfast’s started,’ he said.

Turland woke, stretched, and scratched his head. ‘Righto, I’ll be down in a minute.’ He glanced over at George and then added, ‘Here, Percy, see if you can put your filching skills to use and get something for Farrell, will you?’

Rooke nodded and withdrew.

George said, ‘Thanks for giving me the bed – very much appreciated.’ He slowly swung his legs down, using their weight to lever himself into a sitting position, and then braced himself by leaning on his hands, pressing his palms down on the edge of the mattress and straightening his arms to release some of the pressure on his bruised ribs.

‘No trouble. Everyone was in bed so we smuggled you in without a hitch. The bike’s down behind the basement railings.’ Turland pulled on his clothes and sat down again to tie up his shoes. ‘If you want to use the lav you should be all right while everyone’s at breakfast. There’s only Mr Anstey on this floor and he always goes fishing on a Saturday so he’ll be out by now.’ He chucked George a towel and hurried off to breakfast.

George crept along the landing to the bathroom where he splashed his hair and face with water and then stripped, washed and towelled himself down briskly. He rinsed the foul taste from his mouth, dressed and tried to make himself look respectable once more. He rubbed at the grubby knees of his trousers with a dampened corner of the towel and disposed of his soiled handkerchief in the bin marked ‘Laundry’.

When he slipped back to the room, Turland and Rooke were standing back to back comparing their height.

‘Turland reckons he’s five foot five. How much smaller am I?’ Rooke asked.

George obliged by putting his hand flat on Rooke’s smooth, well-oiled head. He marked where Rooke came up to with the side of his hand against Turland’s head. ‘Well, you’re about half a head shorter.’

Turland said, ‘Come on, Percy, you have to make five foot three to get in.’

Rooke pulled himself up to stand even straighter.

‘You’re still about three inches shorter,’ George said uncertainly.

Rooke’s shoulders sagged. Turland turned round and gave him a friendly punch on the arm. ‘Buck up, Rooke. Everyone knows our lads are desperate for reinforcements. I bet they’ll take you on, even at bantamweight.’

Rooke looked pleased and straightened his tie and collar.

Turland turned to George, and eyed his height and broad shoulders. ‘How about it, Farrell? Fancy changing your mind and coming along to make up the numbers? They’d snap you up, you know.’

There was a silence. George felt pleased that Turland thought so well of him and that the lads wanted him to come along as one of them. He’d always been outside the gangs at school, just him and Kitty muddling through, never feeling part of a group, never really belonging. Not like this: friends, comrades, brothers in arms. He thought about the extra pay he’d get, a shilling a day, and how it would help him make things right at home. He thought about casting off the self that he saw as grimy, weak, despicable, and replacing it with the aspiration of glory and honour and being a man. It would be like diving into a clear lake and emerging a new person: fitter, stronger. He imagined them all returning together, victorious: bronzed and battle-hardened men. Perhaps he would be able to do something half decent so that he could hold his head high in front of Violet again. His heart beat a little faster and his spirits lifted.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right, I will.’

Turland nodded sagely, affecting a gravitas suitable to the occasion.

Rooke said, ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ and brought out from his jacket pocket a square package wrapped in a rather greasy-looking napkin. George opened it to find a round of toast with a thin piece of bacon pressed between the slices.

‘Iron rations,’ Rooke said. ‘Eat up, soldier.’

They met up with Haycock and set off for the castle where recruitment was taking place. As they approached the centre of the town, they could hear the sound of a silver band in the next street. Haycock said, ‘Eh up? What’s this all about?’ and they wandered over to the Botchergate to find out. The street, always busy with shoppers, was thronging with people who had been drawn by the music, a martial tune with a solid drumbeat and a brash melody in a major key. George craned his neck to try to see above the spread of caps and hats but the crowd was four or five deep on the pavement and he was too far back. Rooke disappeared into the press, ducking under a man’s arm, and George followed suit, slipping through behind a nursemaid who was trying to manoeuvre a baby carriage.

He reached the others at the front and saw, coming towards them, a military band in navy dress uniform, striped with red ribbon: trumpets and trombones in front, polished to a glaring brightness in the morning sun, a euphonium and the huge bass drum behind. The drummer beat the taut skin with gusto and the sound reverberated as if caught between the high buildings. The rhythm was underwritten by the sound of the marching feet of the soldiers who followed on behind, carrying placards that read: ‘Will You Answer the Call? Now Is the Time’ and ‘Take up the Sword of Justice. Enlist Today!’ A wave of cheering from the crowd followed their progress. Behind the soldiers followed a mass of ordinary men in civilian dress, looking a rag-tag group in comparison with the orderly men in khaki. Some were laughing, some waving at friends in the crowd, while others made self-conscious efforts to fall into step with the marching soldiers. Every now and then, a man or two would break from the crush on the pavement and step out to join the procession and the volume of the cheering would rise as if to carry him forward on a swell of sound.

The band drew level with George and the others. A group of young women applauded but the sound mingled with the music, drowned out as the people all around took up the cheer. Turland plucked at George’s sleeve. Haycock was watching with a broad grin on his face. Rooke took off his cap, smoothed down his hair and put his cap back on again. ‘This is it, then,’ Turland mouthed at George over the ear-splitting noise. The band passed and the rows of marching soldiers followed, four abreast. ‘Ready?’ said Turland.

George pulled at the bottom of his jacket to straighten it. As the volunteers came level with them they all stepped forward. The cheering seemed to George to echo around him. As he came forward out of the shadow of the buildings, he was intensely aware of the heat of the sun on his head and the clear blue of the strip of sky above him. Everything was shining: the glittering instruments; the plate-glass windows of the shops with their fancy goods; the boots and belts of the soldiers they were to follow. They fell into line amongst the men; someone clapped him on the back, others moved to make space for the four of them to march together. They passed on into Lowther Street. The tram wires above them seemed to vibrate with the sound of the band, men raised their hats from the steps of the Royal Temperance Hotel and everywhere people stopped what they were doing to listen to the music. A group of young women, gathered at the upstairs window of a tearoom, leant out and waved and Haycock waved back. One of them took a flower from the vase on the table and tossed it down to him and Haycock caught it.

‘Who’s that?’ George yelled at him over the din.

Haycock shrugged and turned round; walking backwards, he held out his arms to the girl and made a great show of tucking the flower into his buttonhole. He pulled a mock-woebegone face and then turned back to march on.

The band took a sharp left turn in the direction of the main road. A gap in the line of carts and motors opened for them and they joined the road and marched on towards the castle, a queue of traffic quickly forming behind them.

The castle was a huge medieval pile. Built of red sandstone, everything about it was square: the shape of the gatehouse, the lookout towers and the crenellations along the ramparts. The thickness of the walls was such that it almost seemed to have been hewn from solid rock. As they passed beneath the massive archway that led into a wide parade ground, all four young men felt a little over-awed; even Haycock’s swagger was less jaunty as he looked about him with curiosity. George thought about the soldiers who had passed through these barracks over centuries, all the feet that had drilled in this enormous, open square and marched out to do battle. He looked up at the corner towers and imagined the sentries posted there, scanning the surrounding countryside for the approach of opposing forces, preparing for a siege and determining to defend the fortress with their very lives. Wasn’t it something to be part of this history!

The band stopped playing and began to empty out their instruments. The soldiers directed the men towards the recruiting rooms on the other side of the square and the crowd began to disperse towards them. George nudged Turland to indicate to him the queue of men at an open doorway; in unspoken agreement, they all walked around the perimeter of the courtyard to reach it, suddenly shy of crossing the open space on the diagonal and drawing attention to themselves.

The men in their queue were of varied ages and occupations. Most wore the flat cap of the working man or carried their cap folded. Some had the rough-handed look of the labourer, with worsted jacket and heavy boots, whilst others had stiff collars, neat ties and an air of confidence about them.

The line of men moved along until they entered the hall. George could see that men were being called forward one by one to a row of desks, and old memories of school and the humiliation of being called in front of Mr Bevinson to explain himself returned for a moment, making him feel nervous. He moved back a little in the group so that Haycock would reach the front first.

When George’s turn came round, the corporal asked for his full name and occupation, and if he was willing to serve ‘for the duration’. He gave his details and said that he was willing. When he was asked his age, he said, ‘Eighteen years and three months.’

The corporal looked up sharply and said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that. Did you say nineteen?’

George looked puzzled.

The corporal asked him, ‘Do you want to join the war?’

George nodded uncomprehendingly.

‘So you need to be able to take up service overseas, should the opportunity arise,’ he said patiently.

George vaguely remembered the conversation of the previous night in the taproom. ‘Sorry, nineteen and three months,’ he said quickly and the man gave him a weak smile, took down his address, asked him for a signature and then told him to stand in another line to one side. As he left the desk, he heard Rooke step up behind him and declare, as confidently as you like, that he was Percy Rooke, an apprentice baker and that he was born in 1895.

Rooke came over, wearing a non-committal expression. George knew that he must be delighted to have passed the first hurdle and marvelled at his ability not to show it. Rooke seemed always able to blend into the background; he carefully avoided attracting attention and his knack of adopting a deadpan expression made him less visible than those with more animated faces.

‘Why did you say you were a baker?’ George asked wonderingly. Rooke’s capacity for duplicity made him a mystery to George.

Rooke tapped the side of his nose. ‘Scoffum,’ he said. ‘If I can get taken on in the cookhouse I’ll always have plenty of grub.’

George wished that he had thought of that and wondered whether admitting to being a postman had been a good idea. Perhaps he would be asked to take messages. He didn’t quite like the idea of scouting around alone along the front line; he hoped he could stay with all the others.

When they reached the front of the second queue, Haycock again went in before George. He emerged a few minutes later, straightening his jacket, and gave George a broad wink. Before George had time to ask him what had happened, the sergeant, a dapper man with a neat moustache, ushered him in. He closed the door behind him, saying, ‘Take your clothes off and step on to the scales, please.’ A doctor in a white coat was finishing making some notes on a form. George stripped. It was cold in the room. He placed his clothes in a little pile on top of his boots, as there seemed to be nowhere else to put them, and stood with his hands folded over his private parts. As he stood on the scales, he glanced down at his pale body and saw, to his consternation, that a huge area of dark bruising had come out on his left side. The sergeant raised his eyebrows but said nothing, simply noting his weight, and then quickly taking his height and chest measurements.

The doctor came over to examine him. ‘Well-built lad,’ he said over his shoulder to the sergeant and then asked the question that George had been dreading. ‘How did you get this bruising?’

George didn’t know what to say. He could hardly say that he had been set upon and robbed. He felt his cheeks stinging as he thought of his humiliation, how he hadn’t even fielded a blow, much less aimed one in return. ‘It was an accident, sir,’ he blurted out.

The doctor looked at him keenly, clearly recognising a lie.

George heard the sergeant mutter, ‘Fighting, more likely. These young men have no self-discipline.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ the doctor said mildly. ‘The recklessness of youth, though a nuisance in peacetime, can have its uses in wartime. Let the army sort him out.’ George, still smarting from being misrepresented as a roughneck, murmured a ‘Thank you, sir.’

The doctor told George to get dressed and then asked him to read some letters on a white board. George could read all bar the very last row. The doctor wrote something down on his form before asking George to show him his teeth; like a horse, George thought; then, more alarmingly: ‘I wonder if they can tell your age from your teeth?’ However, the form was duly signed and George was told that he could go. He left, feeling that the strict eye of the sergeant was still on him.

When Rooke and Turland had been through the same process, the four gathered once more.

‘I’m in,’ Rooke said, rubbing his sides. ‘I thought my ribs would bust, I took such a breath when my chest got measured.’

When a few others had joined them, they were taken into a room to swear the oath.

The adjutant who swore them in struck George as very fine. He had a strong physique and an upright bearing and his hair was cut very short and neat. His jacket was tightly fitted, and belt, boots and buttons were all polished to a high gloss. George was acutely conscious of the rip in his jacket pocket and the smear of soil on his rounded collar and longed to get out of his dirty clothes and become a proper soldier.

They stood in a row before the adjutant. He let his hand rest on a large, black Bible and stood to attention. He asked them to raise their right hand and swear to serve their King and country.

The room was very quiet afterwards. The officer let the silence linger to bring home to them the solemnity of the occasion and his eyes fell on each of them in turn, as if weighing up their character. George dared not glance around him but felt that every one of the group must feel as serious as he did. Then the adjutant relaxed his face and wished them luck. He gave them all a shilling and said that this was one day’s pay and meant that they were now deemed to be soldiers and subject to the King’s regulations. Rooke put his quickly in his pocket, as though afraid someone might realise they’d paid him three times his usual wage and take it away again. George thought that he would like to keep his as a kind of talisman but then remembered that he needed to give it to Mother.

The adjutant told them to come back on Monday morning and not to wait for their mobilisation papers because the paperwork wasn’t keeping up with the huge influx of recruits. ‘There’s a great need for men, and training must commence as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘We’ll be sending the next draft to camp on Monday so report here by eight thirty.’

They were ushered into a further room to be measured for their uniforms. Here, both men and women were working at sewing machines, treadles clattering as they sewed. Rolls of cloth stood on end, some neatly in line, some leaning at angles against the wall like a parade of tipsy soldiers. More bolts of cloth that looked like tent canvas were piled haphazardly together in a heap on the floor. George wished that he hadn’t had the thought that they were like soldiers.

One of the men got up from his machine. He had a tape measure draped around his neck. He took each man’s name and measurements and wrote them down; then he disappeared into a storeroom and returned with a pile of uniforms in a blue cloth and began to distribute them.

‘They’re the wrong colour,’ Rooke said under his breath.

‘What happened to the khaki?’ Haycock said with disappointment in his voice.

The machinist said, ‘There are too many recruits; we can’t get the supplies so we’re forced to requisition from the post office.’

‘Might as well stay as you are then, Farrell,’ Turland said cheerily.

George was relieved to be given trousers and a jacket, bundled together. Turland and Haycock only had trousers. He slipped the jacket on. It was a bit bigger than his post-office uniform and less tight across the back but the arms were a little short. He turned to find Rooke trying his and stifled his own complaint. Rooke was drowned in his jacket: the shoulders stood out well beyond his actual shoulders and the sleeves were inches too long.

The machinist tutted. ‘That’s the smallest we’ve got, I’m afraid, lad,’ he said to Rooke. ‘Get your mother to turn up the sleeves or they’ll be getting in your way.’ A woman whose needle had broken called him over and he went to attend to her machine.

Haycock said, ‘Well, it fits where it touches,’ and laughed.

Rooke scowled at him and took it off.

George took off his jacket and refolded it. They stood there, uncertain what to do next. The machinist, who had given the woman a new needle, turned and seemed surprised to see them still there.

‘That’s all,’ he said, looking amused and gesturing to a door at the far end of the room. ‘You’re free to go.’ He made a flapping movement at them with his arms and they trooped out feeling a little foolish.

In the parade ground, men were still queuing to enlist; others carrying bundles of uniform like their own were waiting around watching two horses being unharnessed from a cart and led away. The backboard of the cart was unfastened and its load of boots and shoes, of many different styles and clearly not army issue, was tipped out on to the paved ground. The quartermaster arrived and held each pair up in turn, shouting out the sizes. Men called out, ‘Me, sir! Here, sir!’ in return and he would toss each pair over, a scrum ensuing as men scrambled to get hold of them. Rooke, who took a small size for which there was no great competition, got a pair of boots fit for a farmer and said that they more than made up for the jacket, even though it was so big it stood still when he turned round. George decided that he would stick with his own boots. The legwork on his rounds had taught him the value of a pair of boots that were well ‘broken in’ and he had no desire to change.

Whilst the scrum was going on around the pile of boots, Turland waiting patiently and Haycock darting forward every now and then to make a grab, George noticed that a pair of fellows had detached themselves from the recruitment queue and were moving casually along the line to the edge of the square. Something in their manner made George immediately certain that they had changed their minds and sure enough they were making towards the gate. One of the men waiting in the queue spotted them and knocked the arm of his companion.

‘Oi!’ he shouted. ‘Where you off to?’

One of the men glanced back, and then carried on walking, his gaze fixed firmly on the ground.

A ripple of movement ran along the line as men turned in curiosity.

‘Enjoyed your march through town but had enough of the glory now, eh?’ shouted another man.

A mutter rose from the line. The man who was leading the way to the gate said something in reply that George couldn’t hear and he saw him stumble as someone shoved him. He recovered himself and for a moment squared up to his attacker, but then clearly thought better of it and stepped away from the line, beyond easy reach. There were boos and jeers from the crowd and shouts of ‘Cowards!’ and ‘Turncoats!’ The two men hurried away without looking back.

George felt his cheeks and neck burning as if he had been one of them. How horrible it would be to have everyone against you in that way. He almost hated the men for drawing down upon themselves the very thing that George dreaded most himself: that someone would see through him and realise that although he had been buoyed up by the glitter and the camaraderie, lurking close to the surface on which he floated was a current of dark, cold fear. Surely he wasn’t the only one to feel it. He looked around at the others; Turland was smiling, and Haycock laughing as Rooke hopped around absurdly trying to pull on the second of his new boots. He took a deep breath, thought of the feeling he had experienced as he stepped forward in the street and looked up at the blue sky. The moment passed.

Rooke tied the laces of his old boots together and slung them over his shoulder. They set off companionably towards the gate. Haycock said goodbye. He said he was going to drop in at the gas works to let them know not to expect him next week and then go on to visit a few friends and say cheero.

George walked back with the others to retrieve his bike from behind the basement railings. He didn’t relish the prospect of breaking the news of his enlistment to his family or the Ashwells. Nonetheless, now that he had overcome what he told himself was a fit of the ‘collywobbles’, he felt again the excitement of the great change that was to come. As he shook hands, first with Turland, who wished him a safe journey, and then Rooke, whom he joshed about his luck in squeaking into the army at all, he felt a little rebellious pride begin to grow, that he had instigated this and was being his own man. As he set off back towards the main road out of the town, the strains of the silver band reached him faintly once more and he found himself pedalling to the rhythm of imagined marching feet.