The Wish House and Other Stories (65 page)

‘I’ll try,’ said the boy obediently, and began to paraphrase, as nearly as possible thus: ‘“Whatever a man may say in his heart unto the Lord, yea, verily I say unto you – Gawd hath shown man, again and again, marvellous mercy an’ – an’ somethin’ or other love.’” He screwed up his eyes and shook.

‘Now where did you get
that
from?’ Keede insisted.

‘From Godsoe – on the twenty-first Jan…‘Ow could I tell what ’e meant to do?’ he burst out in a high, unnatural key – ‘Any more than I knew
she
was dead.’

‘Who was dead?’ said Keede.

‘Me Auntie Armine.’

‘The one the telegram came to you about, at Sampoux, that you wanted me to explain – the one that you were talking of in the passage out here just now when you began: “O Auntie,” and changed it to “O Gawd,” when I collared you?’

‘That’s her! I haven’t a chance with you, Doctor. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with those braziers. How could I? We’re always usin’ ’em. Honest to God, I thought at first go-off he might wish to warm himself before the leaf-train. I – I didn’t know Uncle John meant to start – ‘ouse-keepin’.’ He laughed horribly, and then the dry tears came.

Keede waited for them to pass in sobs and hiccoughs before he continued: ‘Why? Was Godsoe your uncle?’

‘No,’ said Strangwick, his head between his hands. ‘Only we’d known him ever since we were born. Dad ‘ad known him before that. He lived almost next street to us. Him an’ Dad an’ Ma an’ – an’ the rest had always been friends. So we called him Uncle – like children do.’

‘What sort of man was he?’

‘One o’
the
best, sir. Pensioned sergeant with a little money left him – quite independent – and very superior. They had a sittin’-room full o’ Indian curios that him and his wife used to let sister an’ me see when we’d been good.’

‘Wasn’t he rather old to join up?’

‘That made no odds to him. He joined up as sergeant instructor at the first go-off, an’ when the battalion was ready he got ‘imself sent along. He wangled me into ‘is platoon when I went out – early in ‘Seventeen. Because Ma wanted it, I suppose.’

‘I’d no notion you knew him that well,’ was Keede’s comment.

‘Oh, it made no odds to him. He ‘ad no pets in the platoon, but ‘e’d write ome to Ma about me an’ all the doin’s. You see’ – Strangwick stirred uneasily on the sofa – ‘we’d known him all our lives – lived in the next street an’ all…an’ him well over fifty. Oh dear me!
Oh
dear me! What a bloody mix-up things are, when one’s as young as me!’ he wailed of a sudden.

But Keede held him to the point. ‘He wrote to your mother about you?’

‘Yes. Ma’s eyes had gone bad followin’ on air-raids. Bloodvessels broke behind ’em from sittin’ in cellars an’ bein’ sick. She had to ‘ave ’erletters read to her by Auntie. Now I think of it, that was the only thing that you might have called anything at all—‘

‘Was that the Aunt that died, and that you got the wire about?’ Keede drove on.

‘Yes – Auntie Armine – Ma’s younger sister, an’ she nearer fifty than forty. What a mix-up! an’ if I’d been asked any time about it, I’d ‘ave sworn there wasn’t a single sol’tary item concernin’ her that everybody didn’t know an’ hadn’t known all along. No more conceal to her doin’s than – than so much shop-front. She’d looked after sister an’ me, when needful, – whoopin’ cough an’ measles – just the same as Ma. We was in an’ out of her house like rabbits. You see, Uncle Armine is a cabinet-maker, an’ second-’and furniture, an’ we liked playin’ with the things. She ‘ad no children, and when the war came, she said she was glad of it. But she never talked much of her feelin’s. She kept herself to herself, you understand.’ He stared most earnestly at us to help out our understandings.

‘What was she like?’ Keede inquired.

‘A biggish woman, an’ had been ‘andsome, I believe, but, bein’ used to her, we two didn’t notice much – except, per’aps, for one thing. Ma called her ’erproper name, which was Bella; but Sis an’ me always called ’erAuntie Armine. See?’

‘What for?’

‘We thought it sounded more like her – like somethin’ movin’ slow, in armour.’

‘Oh! And she read your letters to your mother, did she?’

‘Every time the post came in she’d slip across the road from opposite an’ read ’em. an’ – an’ I’ll go bail for it that that was all there was to it for as far back as I remember. Was I to swing tomorrow, I’d go bail for
that!
‘Tisn’t fair of ’em to ‘ave unloaded it all on me, because – because – if the dead
do
rise, why, what in ‘ell becomes of me an’ all I’ve believed all me life?’ I want to know
that!
I—‘

But Keede would not be put off. ‘Did the sergeant give you away at all in his letters?’ he demanded, very quietly.

‘There was nothin’ to give away – we was too busy – but his letters about me were a great comfort to Ma. I’m no good at writin’. I saved it all up for my leafs. I got me fourteen days every six months an’ one over…I was luckier than most, that way.’

‘And when you came home, used you to bring ’em news about the sergeant?’ said Keede.

‘I expect I must have; but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was took up with me own affairs – naturally. Uncle John always wrote to me once each leaf, tellin’ me what was doin’ an’ what I was li’ble to expect on return, an’ Ma ’ud ‘ave that read to her. Then o’ course I had to slip over to his wife an’ pass her the news. an’ then there was the young lady that I’d thought of marryin’ if I came through. We’d got as far as pricin’ things in the windows together.’

‘And you didn’t marry her – after all?’

Another tremor shook the boy.
‘No!’
he cried. “Fore it ended, I knew what reel things reelly mean! I – I never dreamed such things could be!…an’ she nearer fifty than forty an’ me own Aunt! But there wasn’t a sign nor a hint from first to last, so ‘ow
could
I tell? Don’t you
see
it? All she said to me after me Christmas leaf in ‘Eighteen, when I come to say goodbye – all Auntie Armine said to me was: “You’ll be seein’ Mister Godsoe soon?”

“Too soon for my likings,” I says. “Well then, tell ’im from me,” she says, “that I expect to be through with my little trouble by the twenty-first of next month, an’ I’m dyin’ to see him as soon as possible after that date.’”

‘What sort of trouble was it?’ Keede turned professional at once.

‘She’d ‘ad a bit of a gatherin’ in ’erbreast, I believe. But she never talked of ’erbody much to any one.’

‘I
see, said Keede. ‘And she said to you?’

Strangwick repeated: ‘“Tell Uncle John I hope to be finished of my drawback by the twenty-first, an’ I’m dying to see ’im as soon as
’e can after that date.” an’ then she says, laughin’: “But you’ve a head like a sieve. I’ll write it down, an’ you can give it him when you see ‘im.” So she wrote it on a bit o’ paper an’ I kissed ’ergoodbye – I was always her favourite, you see – an’ I went back to Sampoux. The thing hardly stayed in my mind at all, d’you see. But the next time I was up in the front line-I was a runner, d’ye see – our platoon was in North Bay Trench an’ I was up with a message to the trench mortar there that Corporal Grant was in charge of. Followin’ on receipt of it, he borrowed a couple of men off the platoon, to slue ’erround or somethin’. I give Uncle John Auntie Armine’s paper, an’ I give Grant a fag, an’ we warmed up a bit over a brazier. Then Grant says to me: “I don’t like it”; an’ he jerks ‘is thumb at Uncle John in the bay studyin’ Auntie’s message. Well,
you
know, sir, you had to speak to Grant about ‘is way of prophesyin’ things – after Rankine shot himself with the Very light.’

‘I did,’ said Keede, and he explained to me: ‘Grant had the Second Sight – confound him! It upset the men. I was glad when he got pipped. What happened after that, Strangwick?’

‘Grant whispers to me: “Look, you damned Englishman. ‘E’s for it.” Uncle John was leanin’ up against the bay, ‘an hummin’ that hymn I was tryin’ to tell you just now. He looked different all of a sudden – as if ‘e’d got shaved. I don’t know anything of these things, but I cautioned Grant as to his style of speakin’, if an officer ‘ad ’eard him, an’ I went on. Passin’ Uncle John in the bay, ’e nods an’ smiles, which he didn’t often, an’ he says, pocketin’ the paper: “This suits
me.
I’m for leaf on the twenty-first, too.’”

‘He said that to you, did he?’ said Keede.

‘Precisely the same as passin’ the time o’ day. O’ course I returned the agreeable about hopin’ he’d get it, an’ in due course I returned to ‘eadquarters. The thing ‘ardly stayed in my mind a minute. That was the eleventh January – three days after I’d come back from leaf. You remember, sir, there wasn’t anythin’ doin’ either side round Sampoux the first part o’ the month. Jerry was gettin’ ready for his March Push, an’ as long as he kept quiet, we didn’t want to poke ’im up.’

‘I remember that,’ said Keede. ‘But what about the sergeant?’

‘I must have met him, on an’ off, I expect, goin’ up an’ down, through the ensuin’ days, but it didn’t stay in me mind. Why needed it? And on the twenty-first Jan., his name was on the leaf-paper when I went up to warn the leaf-men. I noticed
that
, o’ course. Now that very afternoon Jerry ‘ad been tryin’ a new trench mortar, an’ before our ‘Eavies could out it, he’d got a stinker into a bay an’
mopped up ‘alf a dozen. They were bringin’ ’em down when I went up to the supports, an’ that blocked Little Parrot, same as it always did.
You
remember, sir?’

‘Rather! And there was that big machine-gun behind the Half-House waiting for you if you got out,’ said Keede.

‘I remembered that too. But it was just on dark an’ the fog was comin’ off the Canal, so I hopped out of Little Parrot an’ cut across the open to where those four dead Warwicks are heaped up. But the fog turned me round, an’ the next thing I knew I was knee-over in that old ‘alf-trench that runs west o’ Little Parrot into French End. I dropped into it – almost atop o’ the machine-gun platform by the side o’ the old sugar boiler an’ the two Zoo-ave skel’tons. That gave me my bearin’s, an’ so I went through French End, all up those missin’ duckboards, into Butcher’s Row where the
poy-looz
was laid in six deep each side, an’ stuffed under the duckboards. It had froze tight, an’ the drippin’s had stopped, an’ the creakin’s had begun.’

‘Did that really worry you at the time?’ Keede asked.

‘No,’ said the boy with professional scorn. ‘If a runner starts noticin’ such things he’d better chuck. In the middle of the Row, just before the old dressin’-station you referred to, sir, it come over me that somethin’ ahead on the duckboards was just like Auntie Armine, waitin’ beside the door; an’ I thought to meself ow truly comic it would be if she could be dumped where I was then. In ‘alf a second I saw it was only the dark an’ some rags o’ gas-screen, ‘angin’ on a bit of board, ‘ad played me the trick. So I went on up to the supports an’ warned the leaf-men there, includin’ Uncle John. Then I went up Rake Alley to warn ’em in the front line. I didn’t hurry because I didn’t want to get there till Jerry ‘ad quieted down a bit. Well, then a company relief dropped in – an’ the officer got the wind up over some lights on the flank, an’ tied ’em into knots, an’ I ‘ad to hunt up me leaf-men all over the blinkin’ shop. What with one thing an’ another, it must ‘ave been ‘alf-past eight before I got back to the supports. There I run across Uncle John, scrapin’ mud off himself, havin’ shaved – quite the dandy. He asked about the Arras train, an’ I said, if Jerry was quiet, it might be ten o’clock. “Good!” says ‘e. “I’ll come with you.” So we started back down the old trench that used to run across Halnaker, back of the support dug-outs.
You
know, sir.’

Keede nodded.

‘Then Uncle John says something to me about seein’ Ma an’ the rest of ’em in a few days, an’ had I any messages for ’em? Gawd knows what made me do it, but I told ’im to tell Auntie Armine I
never expected to see anything like
her
up in our part of the world. And while I told him I laughed. That’s the last time I
‘ave
laughed. ‘Oh – you’ve seen ‘er, ‘ave you?” says he, quite natural-like. Then I told ’im about the sand-bags an’ rags in the dark, playin’ the trick. “Very likely,” says he, brushin’ the mud off his putties. By this time, we’d got to the corner where the old barricade into French End was – before they bombed it down, sir. He turns right an’ climbs across it. “No thanks,” says I. “I’ve been there once this evenin’.” But he wasn’t attendin’ to me. He felt behind the rubbish an’ bones just inside the barricade, an’ when he straightened up, he had a full brazier in each hand.

‘“Come on, Clem,” he says, an’ he very rarely give me me own name. “You aren’t afraid, are you?” he says. “It’s just as short, an’ if Jerry starts up again, he won’t waste stuff here. He knows it’s abandoned.”

“Who’s afraid now?” I says. “Me for one,” says he. “1 don’t want
my
leaf spoiled at the last minute.” Then ’e wheels round an’ speaks that bit you said come out Burial Service.’

For some reason Keede repeated it in full, slowly: ‘If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?’

‘That’s it,’ said Strangwick. ‘So we went down French End together – everything froze up an’ quiet, except for their creakin’s. I remember thinkin’—‘ his eyes began to flicker.

‘Don’t think. Tell what happened,’ Keede ordered.

‘Oh! Beg y’ pardon! He went on with his braziers, hummin’ his hymn, down Butcher’s Row. Just before we got to the old dressin’-station he stops and sets ’em down an’ says: “Where did you say she was, Clem? Me eyes ain’t as good as they used to be.”

‘“In ’erbed at Orne,” I says. “Come on down. It’s perishin’ cold, an
I’m
not due for leaf.”

‘“Well, I am,” ’e says. “I am…” an’ then – give you me word I didn’t recognize the voice – he stretches out ‘is neck a bit, in a way ’e ’ad, an’ he says: “Why, Bella!” ’e says. “Oh, Bella!” ’e says. “Thank Gawd!” ’e says. Just like that! an’ then I saw – I tell you I
saw
-– Auntie Armine herself standin’ by the old dressin’-station door where first I’d thought I’d seen her. He was lookin’ at ’eran’ she was lookin’ at him. I saw it, an’ me soul turned over inside me because-because it knocked out everything I’d believed in. I ‘ad nothin’ to lay ‘old of, d’ye see? an’ ’e was lookin’ at ’eras though he could ‘ave et ‘er, an’ she was lookin’ at ’im the same way, out of ’ereyes. Then he says: “Why, Bella,” ’e says, “this must be only the second time we’ve been alone together in all these years.” an’ I saw ’erhalf hold out her
arms to ’im in that perishin’ cold. an’ she nearer fifty than forty an’ me own aunt! You can shop me for a lunatic tomorrow, but I saw it – I
saw
’eranswerin’ to his spoken word!…Then ’e made a snatch to unsling ‘is rifle. Then ’e cuts ‘is hand away saying: “No! Don’t tempt me, Bella. We’ve all Eternity ahead of us. An hour or two won’t make any odds.” Then he picks up the braziers an’ goes on to the dug-out door. He’d finished with me. He pours petrol on ’em, an’ lights it with a match, an’ carries ’em inside, flarin’. All that time Auntie Armine stood with ’erarms out – an’ a look in ’erface! I didn’t know such things was or could be! Then he comes out an’ says: “Come in, my dear”; an’ she stoops an’ goes into the dug-out with that look on her face – that look on her face! an’ then ’e shuts the door from inside an’ starts wedgin’ it up. So ‘elp me Gawd, I saw an’ ’eard all these things with my own eyes an’ ears!’