The Somme Stations

I said, ‘Sir Godfrey Glanville Gordon…’

‘That idiot.’

‘You don’t know who he is.’

‘He sounds like an idiot.’

‘He’s the general manager of the North Eastern Railway.’ The wife was gathering up the bulbs, not satisfied with the run. ‘He’s raising a battalion from all the railwaymen, and I mean to sign up tomorrow.’

No reply. She threw the bulbs again – another roll of the dice.

She looked up and said, ‘What are you going to do, Jim? Run the Germans over with trains?’

‘I should think we’ll be a bit like the Royal Engineers.’

‘And is this man Gordon joining up? Will he be fighting alongside you all?’

‘Well he’s got a railway to run. The Chief reckons the commanding officer’s going to be a chap called Colonel Aubrey Butterfield.’

‘Audrey? That’s ridiculous.’

‘Aubrey.’

‘Why, Jim?’ she said, brushing her skirts and rising to her feet. ‘Why are you joining up?’

‘Everyone else is.’

‘Try again, Jim.’

‘All right, to keep the Germans out of wherever it is… Belgium.’

‘It’s a bit late for that.’

‘France, then.’

We walked over our lawn, which was too big, and stood before our house, which was likewise, but rather tumbled-down. At first we’d rented it, but the wife had insisted on buying it, which she managed at a knock-down price, her perpetual aim being to keep up with the other socialist ladies, who were all rich.

Without a word, we stepped through the gate, and onto the narrow road that led to Thorpe. To our right, beyond the hedge, lay the flat field that was used for cricket. Two boys had it all to themselves.

‘That’s the end of the cottage garden,’ the wife said at length.

‘What is?’

‘Your joining up.’ I was supposed to be building a cottage garden, whatever that was. In any event, it must be bordered by a wall of expensive brick. ‘When will you go off?’

‘Oh, not for a couple of weeks, and at first I’ll be close by. We’re to train at Hull… I’ll plant the cottage garden next year.’

I kicked a stone.

‘You’re very sanguine.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What does that mean?’

Well, I knew really, and the fact was that I was not sanguine. The thought of war, even a short one, put me in a considerable state of nerve tension. ‘Anyhow,’ I said. ‘Do you want us to fight them or not? Your lot seem torn on the question.’

By this, I meant all those committees in which the wife was involved by virtue of her part-time job with the Women’s Co-Operative Guild: the movements for women’s suffrage, Labour Party governance, Christian Socialism and whatnot. The committees were all in favour of brotherly (or sisterly) love but in practice argued constantly about whether feminism went with Christianity, violence, protectionism, and now war. But it wasn’t all high principle with the wife. For example, she opposed point blank anything suggested by a certain Mrs Barratt, who was her main rival in York Co-Operation. The wife had several enemies, all women (according to her) of a ‘pushing’ kind. Many of these, it appeared, had come out strongly for pacifism, which inclined the wife rather in favour of the war.

‘After all,’ I said, ‘there’ll be no votes for women, or anyone, if the Germans win.’

By way of reply, she said, ‘Where are we going, Jim?’

‘I thought we were off to collect Harry and Sylvia.’

‘They won’t have had their teas yet.’

The children were being looked after – as always on the wife’s workdays – by Lillian Backhouse, who was the wife of Peter Backhouse, verger of St Andrew’s Church, Thorpe-on-Ouse.

On Thorpe-on-Ouse Main Street, we stood in the middle of the road. All the houses were hidden behind the great hedges. I looked down at the dust on my boots. In the distance, I could hear the rattle of a thresher.

‘Fancy a drink?’ I said to the wife. She nodded, and we stepped into the darkness of the Bay Horse inn, where I bought a pint for myself, and a lemonade for the wife, before returning once more into the light – the garden, which was overgrown, and quite empty. We set down our drinks on a rough wood table with benches alongside. At the foot of the garden was a half-wrecked railway carriage in the green of the North Eastern livery. It had been meant as a sort of summer house, and it had been wrecked before it was brought into this garden, having been in a smash at Knaresborough station. I had often mentioned this to the wife, but she never took it in.

‘It’s just engulfing us all,’ she said with a sigh as I drank my beer.

I went back inside to buy another pint, and when I came out and sat down, the wife’s mood had improved.

‘You must be made an officer, Jim. You might be a captain.’

There was a regular army captain in Thorpe: a Captain Briggs, and at church he sat in his own pew, marked with a little tin badge reading ‘Captain Briggs’.

‘Can’t you be made an officer for showing valour in the field?’ asked the wife.

‘Not if you went to Baytown National School.’

‘What’s the one below captain?’

‘Second lieutenant.’

‘What a mouthful.’

I could tell what she was thinking: it wouldn’t fit on one of those little plaques.

‘I’ve just thought,’ I said, ‘Lillian’s taking them swimming in the river.’ (I meant the children.) ‘Have we to go and watch them?’

‘No,’ said the wife, and she was looking at the old carriage.

‘Do you want to go behind that… thing?’ she said.

And we went behind, where there was a little copse, and no fear of an interruption. There we did what we had done a couple of times before in that spot, although not for years, which is to say that we committed a nuisance or indecency, in the words of the Police Manual.

Ten minutes later, we were out in Main Street, and kicking the stones on the dusty road again. I was thinking of myself as an army officer. Why not? They were making men up from the ranks at a great rate, and how many of the new officers had faced down desperate men on lonely station platforms? How many had hunted up murderers? I had done those things – not easily, and not without fear, but I had done them. And I would look well in an officer’s uniform. What had that junior coat cutter in Brown’s, the best York tailors, said when the wife had forced me to buy a handmade suit? ‘It’s a pleasure to fit you, sir… The greyhound breed.’

But he probably said that to any normal-sized fellow.

Lillian Backhouse was walking towards us with one of her own children in tow, and our two. All the children had wet hair, fiercely brushed in the same way. Harry carried a book, as usual. The wife wanted him at the Grammar school, so that he’d become a good citizen (and rich into the bargain), for which he’d have to be coached up in Latin and Greek, at a longer cost than we could really afford. Lillian smiled at Lydia, who kissed her, saying, ‘Hello love’, immediately afterwards giving a strange glance back at me. It was all to do with not wanting the children back yet.

Harry and Sylvia came rushing up to us, and the wife – her strange mood continuing – said straightaway, ‘Your father’s signed up for the army.’

‘Not yet,’ I said.

‘He means to do it tomorrow,’ said the wife.

I looked at Lillian Backhouse, and she didn’t know what to say. Her husband, Peter, was over forty and worn out from digging graves, so I didn’t think he’d be going off. Young Sylvia was looking at me curiously.

‘Do you want to get killed?’

‘I will definitely not get killed,’ I said.