Fielding Gray Read online

  'William King Fullworthy. Sergeant, the Intelligence Corps. Somewhere in the Burmese jungle.'

  Somewhere in the jungle. It only went to show. Fullworthy, who was scarcely two years older than I was, had won, before he went for a soldier, the most brilliant of all the brilliant awards that Lancaster had to offer. But Fullworthy, it seemed, would not return to claim it: situation vacant. Whereas I, Fielding Gray, had only to step outside into the evening sun, and on all sides the world would lie serene about me, to bring me knowledge, sing my praises, yield me joy.

  And so surely, I thought, in the face of this dispensation I must at least try to show gratitude. But to whom? To what?

  Tobias Ainsworth Jackson. Lieutenant-Colonel, the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Died of cardiac failure while commanding the 14th Supply Depot at Woking.'

  Died of drink. Everyone knew the story, as Woking was not far away and Colonel Jackson, bored with running what was in effect a military funeral parlour, had frequently and calamitously visited his old school. No, I could not be grateful to him for the future which had been restored to me. But to whom else? To dead, bandy Blood? Distasteful. To the rose-lipped Cornet of the Blues, who was poutily languishing opposite? Ridiculous. To the sneering major? Never. To God? He shouldn't have let the whole thing start in the first place. To Fate then? Perhaps. Or to Luck? That, surely, was nearer the mark. One's gratitude was due to Lady Luck, who would resent, one might presume, too much concern for those she had deserted. Prudence dictated that Fullworthy, somewhere in the jungle, should be left to rot unwept.

  'Alastair Edward Farquar Morrison. Captain, the Norfolk Yeomanry. Killed on the beaches of Crete, having first conducted himself with great courage and devotion to duty. Captain Morrison, being pinned down by machine-gun fire .. .'

  It was very difficult not to weep for him. Alastair Morrison had been a man if ever there was one. Like his younger brother Peter. Very slowly I turned my head until I could see, further down the row, the large round face and sturdy trunk of Peter Morrison.

  '... Upon which Captain Morrison waded back into the sea, dragged one man to safety and then returned for the other. He was shot dead a few yards before he reached shelter, Posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.'

  Peter's face, as I watched him, seemed to crumple slightly; he blinked once, then blinked again; after which he sniffed firmly, folded his arms over his chest, and resumed his usual aspect of calm, good-humoured authority. Over the years I had learned to love that look; but now, very soon, Peter would be gone - not across Styx, like his brother, yet assuredly into a different world. For Peter, a year older than myself and at present Head of our House, would leave at the end of the summer; and although I was heir apparent, I would have preferred my friend's company to his title.

  'Hilary James Royce. Major, the Royal Fusiliers. Killed In the retreat from Tobruk.

  'Percival Nicholas de Courcy Sangster. Second-Lieutenant, the Rajputana Rifles. Killed in the defence of Singapore.

  'Lancelot Sassoon-Warburton. Brigadier, formerly of the Ninth Lancers. Killed during the evacuation of Dunkirk ..

  Who would there be, I wondered, to replace Peter when the summer was over? There would be, of course, Somerset: Somerset Lloyd-James, my exact contemporary, who was now sitting just behind me, nostrils bubbling and spots glowing, as they always did when he was amused or excited. But Somerset, though a clever and entertaining friend, could never mean the same to me as Peter; for all his shrewdness he showed little understanding. And besides, he was in a different House. Even if he could and would help, he was not always available. Whereas Peter ... Peter had always been there when wanted, for his home was not far from mine and we had known each other since we were tiny children.

  'Cyprian Jordan Clement Willard Wyndham Trefusis, tenth and last Baron Trefoil of Truro ... Trelawney, Squadron-Leader ... Trevelyan ..

  By this time the old boys were very restless indeed. The marble-jawed major was clawing ferociously at his felt hat. The cherry-trousered legs of the blast cavalier were being crossed, re-crossed, positively entwined. Sufficient unto the day, I thought, the evil thereof. I would worry about Peter departure when it was nearer - there were, after all. nine weeks to the end of the quarter. And there was, too, someone else Not just Somerset Lloyd-James. Someone very different.

  The Honourable Andrew Usquebaugh Midshipman, the Royal Navy ... Valence ... Vallis ... Vazey ..Would it never stop? All right, so they're all dead. What good will it do them or anybody else to carry on about it? 'Alan George Williams ... Derek Williams ... Geoffrey Alaric Williams .. Dear God.

  Yes. There was someone else all right, and he would still be in the school next year. Christopher Roland, who was sitting on the other side of chapel, beyond the choir in the Fifth Form block: short wavy tow hair, square creamy forehead; mild eyes, wide-set, and soft nose; full lips curved slightly downwards; dented chin. My own age and my own House. Not clever, but easy to talk to. Not handsome, but good to look on. Strong build and bones, but a gentle skin. 'Godfery Trajan Yarborough ..X, Y. Z. Surely there was no demise to record under Z?

  'Zaccharias,' bawled the Senior Usher, 'Pilot Officer, the Royal Air Force.

  'And lastly. Emanuel Zyn, Private. The Pioneer Corps. Died of tuberculosis in the hospital of Colchester Military Prison, where he was a member of the maintenance staff.'

  Although the fate of Private Zyn provoked the contempt of all present, the hymn which now followed put them in better accord with the proceedings. Tor all the Saints,' though nominally about the dead, was too brisk in metre and bracing in tune to have reference to any but the living. Joyfully, the heroes in the visitors' pews mouthed their own praises, while the boys, courteous to their guests and glad to be on their feet for a change, added their loyal support. I sang with ironic relish (or so I told myself). Peter Morrison, along the row, joined tunelessly but solidly in, Somerset Lloyd-James behind me lisped away with spirit; and from the Fifth Form block Christopher Roland turned towards me, caught my eye and smiled. One way and the other, 'For all the Saints' restored optimism and good humour all round, so that when the Headmaster mounted the pulpit during the last rollicking verse, he was assured of a friendly audience for his address.

  The audience did not remain friendly for long.

  'Already.' the Headmaster said, 'the expected voices are to be heard among you. “It is all over", the voices are saying: “Victory has been secured. Statesmen have wrought and politicians have intrigued; industrialists have been enriched, general officers have been ennobled; humble men have died and (we trust) will not be soon forgotten, and moralists have moralized assiduously on all these and other accounts. But now it is all over and we can return to the business and pleasure of the old, the real, life. We have endured six years of bereavement, danger, discomfort and official interference; and now we will have recompense in full".'

  Now I came to think of it, this was exactly what everyone around me had indeed been saying; and to judge from the faces of the warriors it was a fair assessment of current opinion in the Mess. And what else, I asked myself, could the head man expect? Wars were fought either to annex or to preserve. This one, as we bad all been told to the point of vomiting, had been fought to preserve freedom, and freedom, to all present in the chapel, meant a return to life as it had been before the struggle started. What they wanted, what I wanted was a return to normal: an end of rationing, of regulations, of being bossed about by common little men in offices, and of depressing notices about duty all over the place. We all wanted, we had all earned, some fun; and who better to pay the bill than the ill conditioned louts who had made all the trouble in the first place?

  This,' said the Headmaster, 'is what the expected voices, the voices of common self-interest, are already saying. It is my duty to tell you. both you who have fought and you who have been made to sit helpless while your friends and brothers went out to die, that there can be no recompense and no return to the old life. This truth is both economic and political; England at
present affords no substance for prizes, and the people of England (to say nothing of the world) will no longer tolerate what most of you here would mean by “the old life”. But it is not on an economic or political level that I speak now. I must speak as a Christian. And as a Christian, I am to tell you that past inconvenience docs not entitle you to present repayment, least of all at the expense of others, our so called enemies, who have suffered worse. “But,” the expected voices will cry indignantly, “it was their fault." Their fault? The fault of ignorant peasants and misguided artisans, of children of your own age, who are at this minute starving among the rubble of their homes? Their fault? And even if it were, shall there be no forgiveness... no charity... no love?'

  There was precious little love to be seen on the faces in the visitors' pews. There was anger, pride, incredulity, sullenness, boredom or greed: no love. And really, I thought, why should there be? People who started wars of aggression, particularly with the British, deserved everything they got; it was no good asking my sympathy for the Germans, leave alone my love. Clearly, life must go on its way, and if luck had destined me for the comfortable courts of Lancaster rather than the ruined backstreets of Berlin, then there was no point in making myself miserable about it.

  'And as for a return to the old life,' the Headmaster was saying, 'I tell you, again as a Christian, that what has happened cannot be dismissed as though it had never been. You cannot say, “The war is over, let us forget it and do as we did before.” The enormity has been too great; the residue of guilt is so vast that we must all bear our share of it. We cannot retire into our pleasant gardens to sit at leisure while the world's wound festers outside our wall. It is not merely a question of feeding the hungry, or curing the maimed and diseased, though these offices will be important: it will also be required of us to acknowledge and to understand a cosmic infection of hatred and evil, which must henceforth be purified and for which the least of us here present must atone.'

  As the Headmaster descended from the pulpit and began to walk back down the aisle towards his stall. I could hear a low and resentful muttering among the officers. One of them gestured obscenely, looked for a moment as if he were going to shout at the Headmaster's retreating back, was checked by a sharp but sympathetic nudge from his neighbour's one remaining elbow. The Headmaster was notorious for subjecting others to the exaggerated demands of his own conscience, but just this once, I felt, he might have been more tactful. Doctor Bunter at the organ, scenting trouble, broke prematurely into the introductory bars of the final hymn, with the result that half the congregation failed to find the place in time and The Day Thou gavest. Lord, has ended' started off like a bucolic round rendered by six hundred lugubrious drunks. But when, half way through the second, verse, proper control was achieved, the sad. familiar song began to take effect. The officers relaxed and sang with restrained solidarity. The boys bellowed happily away in a sentimental trance. There was now a feeling, all through the building, as of souls melting and mingling into one another to form one huge and quivering spiritual colloid. It was a communion on the lowest possible level, a common agreement to wipe out an intolerable debt with the liquid of a few easy tears.

  And Doctor Bunter had thought up a fitting climax, a final outrage of tititlation. As the voices proceeded with lachrymose satisfaction through the last verse ('So be it. Lord; Thy Throne shall never/Like Earth's proud kingdoms pass away'), the organ was reinforced by the drums and bugles of the school J.T.C., symbolically stationed behind the 1914-18 Memorial Screen; and as the last echoes of the hymn were yet fading, a roll of kettle drums was succeeded, irresistibly, by the soaring notes of the Retreat. Cheeks moist, eyes shining, all listened to the call that announced the end of the day: the end of the day for the last Trefoil of Truro and for Private Zyn, for scrofulous Blood and knightly Morrison; the end of the day for boozer Jackson; for scholar Fullworthy, whose elegiac verses had been so delicate; for Connaught la Poeur Beresford; for Williams (A.) and Williams (G.); for Vallis, who had made the winning hit on another evening long ago, and for little Usquebaugh who had always funked his tackles; the end of the day for Sangster and Sassoon-Warburton, that promising young brigadier; for Royce, who had died alone in the desert, and for Vazey, one of fifty suffocated in a submarine, for Captain Cohen, who had been circumcised by a Rabbi, and for Captain Yarborough, who had been circumcised by a bullet: for all these, the end of the day. Tell England with the drum and with the bugle: these, your sons, are dead.

  Yet plenty, after all, remained alive; and these, having given thanks for their preservation, mingled in a grand passagio up and down the terrace which overlooked the 1st XI cricket ground.

  'And what,' said Peter Morrison, 'did you think of the head man's sermon?'

  'Typical,' I told him. 'They all sat around while this horrible mess was cooking, and now they tell us we've got to clear it up.'

  The mess is there,' said Peter. 'Something must be done.'

  'Of course. But need they be so mealy-mouthed? If they just said. “We're sorry, but it's happened, and now we need your help", then all right. But no. It seems we have to feel guilty as well."

  'Everyone has to feel guilty,' said Somerset Lloyd-James, who had just joined us; 'ever since Adam ate the apple.'

  'And what.' said Peter, 'were you doing at a Church of England service? I thought you went to some foul little place in the town. Incense and images.'

  'I had special dispensation,' lisped Lloyd-James. 'in order to hear the head man preach. I was anxious to ascertain his views,'

  'The official line?' I said aggressively. 'Well, now you know it. Sackcloth and ashes.'

  'You might have known for yourself.' said Lloyd-James, 'that your life would not suddenly become one long round of pleasure just because the war was at an end.'

  'Of course I knew. I simply hoped that there would be some prospect of pleasure, that's all. Not people lecturing me about my guilt for a war which started when I was eleven/

  'Good evening, gentlemen,' said the Headmaster behind us. 'I should like you to meet Major Constable. You especially,' he said to me. 'Major Constable has been appointed Tutor of Lancaster. He is being prematurely released from the Army to take up his duties.'

  Out from behind the Headmaster stepped the Major who had clawed his felt hat in chapel.

  'You?' I said stupidly.

  Major Constable did not seem surprised.

  'Yes, me,' he said. His voice was mild, his face, as in chapel, ferocious.

  Tm sorry, er-er- Major Constable, I—'

  '—Mister,' said Major Constable; 'or to you, as a future Lancaster man. Tutor. I shall be out of the army by this time tomorrow. The college is anticipating rather a rush.'

  'I'll be getting on,' the Headmaster said: 'you'll write. Robert, as soon as you're settled in Lancaster?'

  'Yes Headmaster.' said Constable, as intensely as if be were going to send a new instalment of the scriptures. I'll write.'

  The Headmaster stalked off.

  'He seems rather agitated today,' I said.

  'He is a busy man,' Somerset Lloyd-James put in sternly. 'We're all going to be busy,' said Major-Mister Constable with an air of dedication. 'You heard what the Headmaster said in his sermon.'

  'You didn't,' I said carefully, 'seem to be agreeing with him at the time.'

  'On the contrary. Any emotion I showed sprang from a sense of the urgency of what he said. There has been far too much complacency these last few days.'

  'Perhaps, sir.' said Peter softly, 'it's just a feeling of relief?'

  I laughed in the cynical and disillusioned manner which I had been carefully cultivating ever since first reading Dorian Gray three months before.

  'I don't know,' said Major Constable unctuously, 'that the subject is one for laughter.'

  Clearly I was losing marks.

  'Tell me, sir,'I said wildly, 'what is your subject?'

  For a split second he wore a look of outraged vanity, as if it were unpardonable in me not to know
.

  'Economics ... You, the Headmaster tells me, are a classical man. Might one ask what you had in mind for the future?'

  Tm hoping to become a don ... a Fellow of the college/ Constable twitched violently.

  'Why?' he demanded.

  But at this moment the Senior Usher appeared, ushering before him the cavalryman in the cherry trousers.

  'I thought,' said the Senior Usher, 'that you'd all be interested to meet Captain Detterling. The only boy in the history of the school ever to make a double century in a school match.'

  Detterling was not in the least like a schoolboy hero. Though elegantly got up, he had a stringy physique, an unhealthy colour, and a morose mouth. Although the evening was warm he shivered frequently. His hand, when I shook it, was very damp.

  'I must congratulate you,' the Senior Usher was saying to Constable with open distaste, 'on your new appointment to Lancaster. Let's hope,' - with heavy sarcasm - 'that you'll get things back to normal without delay.'

  'One must look forward rather than back just now. ... You'll excuse me, gentlemen. I have a train. It's nice,' said Constable dubiously, 'to have met you.'

  'A dreary man, that,' said the Senior Usher loudly before Constable had gone ten yards. 'I can't conceive what Lancaster is thinking of. He's not even a good economist. If he were, the authorities would have found him something more important to do during the war than running around with a lot of black men.'