Phoenix and Ashes

Next time it'll be two hats, Reggie thought, ungraciously. That ought to keep them busy enough they'll completely forget to read the blasted thing.

The Literature Prize winner, Maria Holmes, did not get a stationery set; that seemed wrong to Reggie, who had instead culled several unread volumes from his own stores—things given to him in the hospital that he had not had the heart to read. Poems of a V.A.D. seemed appropriate enough, and the complete Kipling verse as well as Kim and The Light That Failed, and a book of Shaw's plays. They weren't the sort of thing that a girl would ordinarily be given, but he had the feeling that a 'bookish' girl was more than ready for something stronger.

The Best Recitation was from a girl improbably called Marina Landman, and was, to Reggie's complete shock, 'The Last Meeting,' written only the year before by Siegfried Sassoon. She recited it beautifully, clearly—he had to wonder if she really understood what the words she was speaking from memory actually meant—

Or to her was it all Romeo-and-Juliet, doomed, romantic young love? Certainly the poem was written that way. Where had she found it? Dear God, if she had seen any of his other poems, she surely would have tossed the book away, weeping. Sassoon might have begun writing his poetry about the nobility of sacrifice in war, and the glory of a grand death, but he was not writing of that now. . . .

Well, it might make him uncomfortable, but evidently no one else was bothered. Or else they had no idea who had written this piece; well, truly there was nothing in it to mark it as the work of a man in the trenches.

Probably someone saw it in The Strand or some other magazine or newspaper, and thought it appropriate for a young girl to recite, he decided. She can't possibly have seen any of Sassoon's other poetry.

He presented her with her prize of stationery and a silver pen-set. She seemed pleased. 'I want to be a teacher,' she told him, when he'd asked her the usual question of what she wanted to do. 'Like Miss Lasker.'

Miss Lasker colored up and looked pleased. 'I'm sure you'll be a fine teacher,' Reggie told her, and signaled the headmaster with his eyes that it was time for the boys to receive their prizes. One more lot, and then I can sit down. . . .

Michael Stone stepped forward and announced the winners. Mathematics Prize, History Prize, Geography Prize—why weren't the girls given challenges like that?—Latin Prize, Best Recitation, and Best Essay on the subject of Patriotism.

The recitation, unmercifully, was 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.' Reggie tried not to listen. It called up too many memories of similar idiotic charges he had seen from the relative safety of his aeroplane—yet another suicidal dash 'over the top' straight into the machine guns. He kept his face fixed in what—he hoped—was a vaguely pleasant expression and wondered what idiot had encouraged the boy to memorize this particular piece at this particular time.

He expected much the same out of the Grimsley boy's essay— But got a shock. It read like the poetry of Wilfrid Owens, or at least, a very, very young Wilfred Owens, one who hadn't yet seen the slaughtering grounds with his own eyes, but knew very well they were there, and knew that their leaders were idiots, and while questioning the sanity of it all, did not question that doing one's duty was the right and proper thing to do.

Oh, it wasn't laid out so skillfully as all that, and there was still more than a veneer of the youthful idealism that sent those first boys to their deaths in 1914, thinking it was a glorious thing to fall in battle. But still, the bones of intelligent questioning were there—and it astonished him.

So much so that the headmaster caught sight of his startled expression and leaned over to whisper, 'Jimmy is the only boy left in his family. Father, both brothers, three uncles and all his male cousins. He'd like to go to university in two years, but—' Stone shrugged. 'Whether he can get a place, I don't know.'

'You just get him ready for the entrance examinations,' Reggie said, fiercely. 'I'll see that he gets there.' He hadn't even known that he was going to say such a thing until after the words were out of his mouth, but he was glad that he had done so a moment later as he caught the look of astonishment, followed by gratitude, on Michael Stone's face.

He nodded to confirm the pledge, then returned his attention to the boy feeling a kind of proprietary determination. Too many of the bright intellectual lights of his generation had been put out already. He would, by heaven, save this one, at least.

After the prizes came the highlight of the day—what one little fellow joyfully called 'A proper tea at last!' with jam buns, currant scones, and iced biscuits, ice creams, honey and more jam for the proper sandwiches, all the sweet things that children craved. And if they could not, as they had in days gone by, eat sweet things until they were sick, well perhaps that wasn't so bad a thing. There was just enough of the rationed sugar to make sure every child got enough to feel properly rewarded—to fill them up, they had to make do with slightly more wholesome fare. The adults did have to make do with what they could purchase at the church fair stalls; this was, after all, the school treat. Every child also got one of the finest crackers obtainable, with little prizes inside like pennywhistles, so that they all went home with at least a bag of nuts from the button hunt and a cracker prize in their pockets, along with the memory of a day stuffed full of fun without the shadow of war on it. After tea, the wagons arrived to carry them back down to the village again; the adults lingered until the church fair officially closed.