The Somme Stations

same, nothing ever would be. It annoyed me to think that the men who’d drawn up the notice announcing the formation of the battalion had not let on about that.

I turned into the street that Dawson and Tinsley had gone down. It was full of buried jollity, light leaking up from the basements, and the muffled sound of dozens of Tommies enjoying themselves. I came to a sign propped against railings. The moment I saw it, I said out loud to myself: ‘Oh Christ.’

It read, ‘COME IN FOR JOHN SMITH’S YORKSHIRE BITTER’. I read it over again, looking for some fault in the wording, some indication it wasn’t true, but the buggers had even spelt ‘Yorkshire’ correctly. I descended the steps, and pushed open the door. That Dawson would be in there was a surety. No doubt this was the place he’d been looking for all along. Someone must have tipped him the wink.

I expected to find him roaring, but when I caught sight of him – which I did immediately on entering – he was sitting at a table talking in a normal fashion. Tinsley was beside him, smiling, and looking very composed, all considered. But then Dawson had only a glass of wine in front of him. Perhaps he had missed seeing the sign. No… I couldn’t credit that.

Dawson was addressing a couple of RE blokes that I recognised from Burton Dump. Tinsley, seeing me come in, waved across the bar. This place was altogether more business-like than the other, and more fun too. The tablecloths were black and white squares, and the place was ram-packed with uniformed men. Was there a piano? I can’t now recall, but there was an undercurrent of musicality, a lot of shouting, a great heat rising from somewhere. Dotted about the bar were other examples of the owners’ good English: a sign reading ‘BOILED EGGS’, a second announcing ‘BREAKFAST AVAILABLE ALL DAY’, a third: ‘THE PROPRIETOR AND STAFF WELCOME OUR VALOROUS BRITISH ALLIES’. Well, the writer was just showing off with that last one.

I pushed my way over to the Dawson table, where Tinsley pushed a wine glass over to me, and slopped in some red stuff from a bottle in a basket. The kid was looking very chipper.

‘How are you going on, son?’ I said.

‘I feel a lot better since I was sick,’ he said.

‘What time was that?’

‘Eight twenty-five,’ he said. He was always exact as to time – it was the engine man in him. ‘Bernie here gave me a cigarette and that did me a power of good.’

Tinsley evidently had a weak stomach, but recovered fast. Had he chucked up on Spurn? Not to my knowledge. The drink had just made him a bit more forward, and a bit more lively too. He’d joined in my scuffle with Dawson after all.

One of the RE blokes was saying to Dawson, ‘But you’re a Londoner – how did you end up in York?’

Dawson took a belt of wine. He was popeyed, but in a jolly sort of way. He said, ‘The fact of the matter is that I just got on a train in London…’

‘King’s Cross,’ Tinsley put in. He had to fix a place by naming the railway station.

‘… And you had a ticket for York,’ said the RE bloke.

‘I had a ticket for nowhere,’ said Dawson. ‘I mean,’ he added slowly, ‘that I had no ticket at all. And that’s why I got off at York.’

‘Eh?’ I said.

‘Oh, I missed that bit out,’ said Dawson. ‘The ticket inspector got on at York – ’

‘That would be old Jackson,’ said Tinsley with a grin.

‘ – So I got off,’ said Dawson.

‘And you’ve been here ever since,’ I said. ‘I mean there. I mean… no… ’

I must have put away a good deal more than I’d thought – that was always the danger of encountering the Chief anywhere near licensed premises. I was instantly sobered, however, by the loud French-accented cry that came from the man at the bar, ‘Mister Dawson, we have found the barrel of the John Smith’s beer!’

The RE man was saying to Dawson, ‘Hold on a minute, how did you get through the ticket barrier?’

But Dawson was making fast for the bar. He came back a moment later with an enamel jug full of the stuff.

‘Apparently, they found the barrel in the cellar,’ he said. ‘It’s odd that, because I mean, we’re in the cellar.’

He offered the beer around, and we all drank it from our wine glasses. Dawson did not talk as we did this. The talking fell to others. I watched him go back to the bar for another jugful after a matter of only a few minutes, and he did not offer this second one around. His face was changing as he drank, giving him the grubby, peeved look of the faces on the criminal record cards in the police office. The talk was going on merrily around me. A bloke was saying, ‘He was fucking kippered at High Wood. Boche flame-thrower. Below the fucking belt is that.’

John Read… that had been the name of the bloke I’d charged with indecent exposure. He’d been the last man I’d arrested before enlisting, and he was William Harvey’s real father. What had become of him? Being drunk, it was hard for me to round up all the facts. They’d keep wandering away. He might well have gone to court and been lagged. He might have been sent down for six months. The Company solicitors would have handled the prosecution. They had all the witness statements… and if Harvey’s father had been gaoled on this charge, would young Harvey have known of it; and would he know I’d been the arresting officer? If so, it would give him a reason to hate me. But he hadn’t hated me, or if he had, he’d kept the fact well hidden. If he did know, he’d have a motive against me, whereas what Thackeray needed to find was a motive the other way about. Even so, this could be seen as the cause of needle between me and Harvey.

The man who’d talked about the flame-thrower was laughing – and laughing too loud – as I tried to get hold of the important questions: did Company Sergeant Major Thackeray know of my connection with Harvey’s true father? Next question: would he be likely to find out? And what would he make of the fact that I hadn’t told him? Well, I hadn’t told him because I hadn’t known. But he wouldn’t believe that.

I found myself eyeing Dawson. He seemed to meet my gaze, saying, ‘You fucking rotter.’

I thought: Here we go, another barney, and this time I won’t be palling up with him afterwards.

‘Fucking treacherous fucking copper…’ Dawson was saying, ‘Fucking monkey.’

And at that word I was let off. I might be a copper, but I was certainly not a monkey. I turned and there was Thackeray himself. He was with another military policeman. They were the only two blokes not holding glasses. The second bloke had a smaller moustache – not as good as Thackeray’s, but Thackeray was being big about it, smiling at him. There were about twenty standing blokes between us and him. He did not appear to have heard Dawson’s remarks – not yet – although the bar had gone a bit quiet. The barkeeper, seemingly panicked out of his good English, said ‘English police here! End of beer and wine!’ (Bars closed early in the garrison towns. Perhaps it was ‘time’.) This caused uncertainty in the bar and another moment of silence, but Thackeray seemed to be indicating to the barkeeper that he was quite all right to keep on serving. I assumed he thought that blokes at the front were entitled to a bit of a drink-up occasionally. The stream of chatter started up again, and it might have been enough to keep Thackeray from hearing as, Dawson, standing, called out, ‘The enemy’s that way, in case you’ve forgotten.’

That was twenty-one days’ field punishment right there – if not five years in a military prison – but Thackeray did not react. I began pulling Dawson towards the door (with Tinsley in tow), going a roundabout way, so as to avoid Thackeray and friend. When we were about halfway to the door Thackeray, who I really believed had not yet spotted us, laughed at something his mate said, at which Dawson yelled out, ‘Can it, you warphead!’

Thackeray stopped laughing He began turning his head our way as I fairly threw Dawson at the half-open door of the bar. We tumbled out onto the steps.

‘Did he clock us?’ said Tinsley. ‘If he clocked us, he’ll never leave off.’

‘John Smith’s bitter…’ I said, as we made our shambling way along the half-illuminated street that led to the railway station.

‘Where?’ said Dawson.

‘You should lay off it,’ I said, and he made no reply.

The railway station was packed with blokes. It too was half shrouded in darkness, but how can you keep a railway station secret? As we got there, two long dark trains came in. One was going to the war and one was going away. We climbed onto the one going to.