Our Time Is Gone (73 page)

Yes. That was the most surprising of the surprises. A letter from Peter. ‘But I won't read it now.' He leaped out of bed, went to the door, called: ‘Sheila?'

‘Yes, darling.'

‘Oh God! Those
darlings
make me sick,' he said under his breath. ‘Are you coming up? What are you doing down there? Is breakfast nearly ready?'

She came into the room. ‘You've returned a very irritated Des!' she said. She carried a large tray. ‘Make a place for it,' she said. ‘I've done you two eggs.'

‘A minute,' he said, and swept letters and envelopes off the bed. ‘There.'

‘Now we can begin,' she said. ‘And I want you to tell me
all
about what you
did
in Gelton, who you
saw
in Gelton, what you
said
in Gelton.' Leaning over the bed she gave him a quick darting kiss, then began pouring out tea. ‘What's the matter?' she asked quickly.

‘Matter? Nothing! You're coming to bed too, aren't you? You look as if you'd been up all night, anyway. Come on! We can eat in bed just as well as out of it,' and he began to move the tray to the table.

‘I wonder,' he thought, ‘if she's guessed something. She looks—well, I don't know—but she——Oh, I don't like her look,' he said to himself.

‘Nothing matters,' he said. ‘Come on! To hell with Gelton! To hell with everybody! Sheila! Sometimes I don't think you realize how much I love you. Nothing matters to me but that,' and then his eye caught sight of the other letters on the table. ‘Nothing,' he said again. ‘Only you, darling,' and with a sweep of his hand he cleared the letters. They blew about the floor under the draught from the door. They didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

And he sat there, hungry and not hungry, trying to eat and not wanting to eat. Suddenly he moved the tray to the table, caught his wife by one arm and pulled her across him. ‘Nothing matters but you.'

He stared into her eyes. He wanted to say. ‘I believe I know why you cried when we were leaving Gelton, and didn't cry when you were leaving that world of rot and waste, and——' But all he said was:

‘Sheila, darling!
You
are the only one who matters. Let all the rest of the world go hang!' And he crushed her down upon the bed.

The pieces of paper, the envelopes made whispering, shuffling sounds as they blew about near the door.

She said: ‘I am the only one that matters?' and she caught hold of his ears with her fingers, smiled into his face. ‘I wonder where he's really been,' she thought.

‘You are,' he said.

‘Truly?'

‘Truly.'

‘Before everything?'

‘Yes. You
are
everything,' he said. ‘
Nothing
else counts.'

He forced her head on his chest and she could feel the thumping of his heart.

‘It beats like a hammer,' she said, ‘your heart. Oh, Des! Des.'

‘That's because it's a strong heart, Sheila. It always has been. But I made it strong myself. You have to. Everything counts on yourself. People can't give you strong hearts, they can't even make you live. You do all those things yourself. I'm only young. You wait! I'll show you. And when the time comes I'll tell you something that will surprise you. D'you ever regret running away and marrying me?'

She did not answer. He ran his fingers through her hair.

‘Do you?' This was it. This was better than the whole world. This was what he loved. Coming back to her, and sinking back into the cosy world. And how warm and cosy the world was when she was with him.

‘You haven't answered me,' he said.

She looked at him, gave a little smile—nodded.

‘Darling—you
are
funny,' she said, and burst out laughing.

CHAPTER XII

I

‘You are being transferred to-morrow,' answered the sergeant. ‘You'll be going a long way, but you needn't worry yourself, conchie. You're not going to the bloody trenches.'

Joseph Kilkey looked up at the sergeant. He was seated in a wooden hut, peeling potatoes. He did not make any answer. He seemed to be deaf. The sergeant shouted in his ear.

‘You're being transferred to-morrow! Don't you understand, you deaf bastard?'

‘I quite understand you,' replied Mr. Kilkey. ‘Where am I going to?' He dropped the knife to the floor, rubbed his hands on his trousers and stood up.

‘Find out,' said the sergeant, turned on his heel and went out.

When he had gone the man picked up the knife again and resumed his task. If he looked out of the door he saw a wide stretch of mud, churned by feet into a paste. If he looked through the window he saw the same thing. He was surrounded by mud.

‘Transferring me to-morrow,' he said to himself. ‘Where, I wonder?'

He had now been here for seven months. He had seen practically the worst of the winter. It was early August, and for the past fortnight the camp had seen nothing but showers of rain, lightning, thunderstorms. Hence the mud. But the sun was shining to-day. ‘Transferred to-morrow! But where?'

He had arrived here with the draft of the Gelton Regiment. They had tried in every way to make him follow the crowd. They had tried to break him. On parade he became a joke. A sergeant struck him twice just to see what he was made of. Not much, he thought. Never be a soldier. Still, there were things one could do and Joseph Kilkey did them. He peeled potatoes, carried water, cleaned the lavatories, washed greasy dishes, carried stores. He filled buckets of water with a thimble. He walked a quarter mile with an empty sandbag, filled it with sand, carried it a quarter mile back again, emptied it, filled it again, returned to the place he had got it from. He did this on Tuesdays. On Thursdays he emptied a large tank by the thimbleful, carried the bucket eight hundred yards, carried it back again, emptied it, filled it again. On Saturdays, he went about the camp with a stick, nail attached and gathered the warriors' rubbish. He worked to their plan. When soldiers saw him approach they flung every kind of rubbish through their windows, but only after he had already cleaned
that
particular area. A few liked him—the rest hated him. They made deliberate nuisances in lavatories so that he might be fully occupied. When night came there were other tasks. Getting out of his bed to clean it of the remains of food thrown into it. In this way he passed his seven months at Calton. On Sundays he asked to go to mass. This meant an eight miles walk to the only Catholic chapel that existed. This was not allowed excepting on rare occasions.

‘So they're transferring me,' he said. ‘Where in the name of God do I go next?'

The war raged. It seemed an everlasting war. And this strange world was getting farther and farther away from the other one—the normal world, the healthy world, the world where he worked, where he was free, left alone.

‘Well, in seven months they ought to realize that I mean what I say.'

A man shouted in through the door. ‘Any letters, conchie?' and stood there kicking the wooden step. Joseph Kilkey replied;

‘Yes, I've two. I'll get them for you.'

‘Hurry up then.'

Another man came. A corporal. ‘Where you running off to?' he asked, thumbs jammed in his belt. ‘Where the hell are you legging it to?
Double!
'

‘I'm just getting my letters,' he said, ‘I won't be a second.'

‘Be half a second instead,' said the corporal, putting his foot behind Kilkey.

The two men watched him skeltering through the mud. ‘Funny beggar,' the corporal said. ‘All these stinking conchies are funny!'

Joseph Kilkey came back with two letters, and handed them to the mail man.

‘What you bin told about sealing these bloody letters up. Here, open them again,' and then he added quickly. ‘Never mind, I will,' and he slit them open. ‘Can't never trust you bastards,' he said, and went away with the letters.

‘Get back on the job,' said the corporal, and he too went off.

Mr. Kilkey went back to his job. Half a barrel of potatoes. Some job. Still, it was a bit of a blow—a change from the lavatories and dishes.

At one o'clock a man shouted through the door: ‘All right, conchie, chuck it.'

Joseph Kilkey immediately left the hut. To-day was Saturday. Normally he had the afternoon to himself, provided he stayed within earshot. Somebody or other always wanted you. There were things one needn't do—one could refuse to do, but it wasn't worth refusing. ‘Ah well,' he said to himself as he crossed the parade ground. ‘I'll be out of this to-morrow.' But he would not forget it. Not for a long, long time. He reached a small low-roofed hut, and went inside. Two other men were seated at a table writing letters. ‘Mail's gone,' said Mr. Kilkey. ‘Just taken mine over.'

‘I'm in no hurry,' replied one.

‘Nor me,' replied the other. They went on writing.

In the far corner was Joseph Kilkey's bed. A length of board, straw paillasse, two blankets, his own overcoat. He sat down, looked at the men, and then said: ‘I'm being transferred to-morrow. Have you heard anything about it?'

A small parcel lay on the bed. He knew by the shape of it, by the rough handwriting on the envelope, who it was from. He took it up and opened it. Some tobacco and a letter from Mrs. Ditchley. The parcel had already been opened and fastened up again. ‘By heck,' he said, ‘this tobacco isn't half a do.'

‘So are
we
being transferred,' replied the younger of the two men, who looked across at Kilkey. ‘We're all being shifted to-morrow. Thirty-eight of us. To prison. Conton, I believe. But then you can't believe a word these people say.'

‘And when I get there,' said the other, ‘I'll refuse to do anything.'

‘Do you think this war will last very long?' enquired Mr. Kilkey.

He looked directly at the younger man, Keele by name. He had taken a great liking to him. He had stood alongside him when the sergeant had made him touch his toes, then knocked his hat off into the mud. He, Keele, had watched him bend to pick it up, had seen him receive a push from behind, from a fat soldier who laughed as he fell into the mud. Yes, he liked Keele. Keele had caught his fingers as they stood in the ranks, had squeezed them to give him courage. And the sergeant's quick eye had seen this, and he had barked: ‘Look here, you sods. What game are you up to?' Had parted their hands with a downward thrust of his fist. Yes, he liked Mr. Keele.

‘They've tried every way they could,' remarked the elder man, ‘to make us lose our tempers, but they haven't been successful.' He looked straight at Kilkey. ‘Once or twice, old man,' he said—old man made Mr. Kilkey smile—‘once or twice I thought you'd give way. Good heavens! If you'd raised your hand only once they would have had you. You know I can't understand what you're doing here at all,' he concluded. He got up from the table.

He was a tall, lean man, named Carruthers, and in the early thirties. So far as Mr. Kilkey knew he had once been an accountant, and Mr. Keele had worked in the same office, but what he was, Mr. Kilkey did not know. What he did know was that he liked both these men, and more and more he realized that but for them he would not have come through. They had been for seven months the butt, the joke of the battalion, whilst somewhere—the authorities were considering their destiny.

‘Well, I won't be sorry anyhow,' Mr. Kilkey announced. He went out and had a wash at the pump. Then he went back, lay on the bed, lit his pipe, and for the first time that day rested, felt peaceful. ‘So we're off to-morrow! Well! Well!' The two men went out.

He picked up Mrs. Ditchley's letter and read it. Her letters were all the same, and none failed to show her extraordinary interest in the casualty lists. If it wasn't Tom it was Dick; if it wasn't Dick it was Harry. Now she announced that Willie Evans had been killed. Seventeen out of Price Street. From this she turned to Mr. Kilkey's son. She had been twice to see him. ‘I'm not a Catholic myself,' she wrote, ‘but I do like your nuns.' Dermod was very well. She had not been able to find where Mrs. Fury lived. She hoped he was well and that he wasn't being treated too badly. She prayed every night that the war would soon be over. ‘And with good wishes to you, I remain your friend, Mary Ditchley.'

He closed the letter and put it under his pillow. He got up and went to the table. ‘Well, I will now, anyhow,' he said. He tore a page from his pad and rolled it into a ball. Later he wrote:

I
N
C
AMP
,

August
13
th
, 1916.

D
EAR
M
RS
. F
URY
,

I daresay you'll be surprised to hear from me. I have been in this camp seven months now. I don't know whether you heard about it. But I got papers calling me up, which was a mistake. I shouldn't have been called up at all, as I'm a skilled man at the ship. I told them that, and they said the War Office will see about that, and here I am after seven months and they're still making up their minds. Well, at the moment I am as well as can be, and I trust this letter finds you the same. I was very sorry to hear from Denny that you had been in hospital. I hope your family are well. I suppose Denny and your boy Anthony are still at sea. This is an awful war. Well, I don't know of course what you will think about me, but I'm a conscientious objector. But you will have heard of them by now. I refused to fight. Well, Mrs. Fury, I do hope the war will end soon. Poor people never get anything out of war. But everybody doesn't believe this. [These two sentences were later blacked out by the sergeant censor]. There's not much to say about myself, except this, that since I came here I have met one or two very nice gentlemen, and we often talk. They seem to be very well-educated men. I'm sure you would like them. I was surprised to get your new address, and hope you haven't shifted again before this letter arrives.