The Man Who Would Be King

  ‘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 ’er bed at ’ome,” 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 recognise 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 ’er an’ 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 ’er as though he could ’ave et ’er, an’ she was lookin’ at ’im the same way, out of ’er eyes. 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 ’er half ’old 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 to-morrow, but I saw it – I saw ’er answerin’ 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’s 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 ’er arms out – an’ a look in ’er face! 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!’

  He repeated his oath several times. After a long pause Keede asked him if he recalled what happened next.

  ‘It was a bit of a mix-up, for me, from then on. I must have carried on – they told me I did, but – but I was – I felt a – a long way inside of meself, like – if you’ve ever had that feelin’. I wasn’t rightly on the spot at all. They woke me up sometime next morning, because ’e ’adn’t showed up at the train; an’ someone had seen him with me. I wasn’t ’alf cross-examined by all an’ sundry till dinner-time.

  ‘Then, I think, I volunteered for Dearlove, who ’ad a sore toe, for a front-line message. I ’ad to keep movin’, you see, because I ’adn’t anything to ’old on to. Whilst up there, Grant informed me how ’e’d found Uncle John with the door wedged an’ sand-bags stuffed in the cracks. I hadn’t waited for that. The knockin’ when ’e wedged up was enough for me. Like Dad’s coffin.’

  ‘No one told me the door had been wedged.’ Keede spoke severely.

  ‘No need to black a dead man’s name, sir.’

  ‘What made Grant go to Butcher’s Row?’

  ‘Because he’d noticed Uncle John had been pinchin’ charcoal for a week past an’ layin’ it up behind the old barricade there. So when the ’unt began, he went that way straight as a string, an’ when he saw the door shut, he knew. He told me he picked the sand-bags out of the cracks an’ shoved ’is ’and through and shifted the wedges before any one come along. It looked all right. You said yourself, sir, the door must ’ave blown to.’

  ‘Grant knew what Godsoe meant, then?’ Keede snapped.

  ‘Grant knew Godsoe was for it, an’ nothin’ earthly could ’elp or ’inder. He told me so.’

  ‘And then what did you do?’

  ‘I expect I must ’ave kept on carryin’ on, till ’Eadquarters give me that wire from Ma – about Auntie Armine dyin’.’

  ‘When had your aunt died?’

  ‘On the mornin’ of the twenty-first. The mornin’ of the twenty-first! That tore it, d’ye see? As long as I could think, I had kep’ tellin’ myself it was like those things you lectured about at Arras when we was billeted in the cellars – the Angels of Mons,11 and so on. But that wire tore it.’

  ‘Oh! Hallucinations! I remember. And that wire tore it?’ said Keede.

  ‘Yes! You see’ – he half lifted himself off the sofa – ‘there wasn’t a single gor-dam’ thing left abidin’ for me to take hold of, ’ere or ’ereafter. If the dead do rise – and I saw ’em – why – why, anything can ’appen. Don’t you understand?’

  He was on his feet now, gesticulating stiffly.

  ‘For I saw ’er,’ he repeated. ‘I saw ’im an’ ’er – she dead since mornin’ time, an’ he killin’ ’imself before my livin’ eyes so’s to carry on with ’er for all Eternity – an’ she ’oldin’ out ’er arms for it! I want to know where I’m at! Look ’ere, you two – why stand we in jeopardy every hour?’12

  ‘God knows,’ said Keede to himself.

  ‘Hadn’t we better ring for someone?’ I suggested. ‘He’ll go off the handle in a second.’

  ‘No, he won’t. It’s the last kick-up before it takes hold. I know how the stuff works. Hul-lo!’

  Strangwick, his hands behind his back and his eyes set, gave tongue in the strained, cracked voice of a boy reciting. ‘Not twice in the world shall the Gods do thus,’ he cried again and again.

  ‘And I’m damned if it’s goin’ to be even once for me!’ he went on with sudden insane fury. ‘I don’t care whether we ’ave been pricin’ things in the windows … Let ’er sue if she likes! She don’t know what reel things mean. I do – I’ve ’ad occasion to notice ’em … No I tell you! I’ll ’ave ’em when I want ’em, an’ be done with ’em; but not till I see that look on a face … that look … I’m not takin’ any. The reel thing’s life an’ death. It begins at death, d’ye see? She can’t understand … Oh, go on an’ push off to Hell, you an’ your lawyers. I’m fed up with it – fed up!’

  He stopped as abruptly as he had started, and the drawn face broke back to its natural irresolute lines. Keede, holding both his hands, led him back to the sofa, where he dropped like a wet towel, took out some flamboyant robe from a press, and drew it neatly over him.

  ‘Ye-es. That’s the real thing at last,’ said Keede. ‘Now he’s got it off his mind he’ll sleep. By the way, who introduced him?’

  ‘Shall I go and find out?’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes; and you might ask him to come here. There’s no need for us to stand to all night.’

  So I went to the Banquet, which was in full swing, and was seized by an elderly, precise Brother from a South London Lodge, who followed me, concerned and apologetic. Keede soon put him at his ease.

  ‘The boy’s had trouble,’ our visitor explained. ‘I’m most mortified he should have performed his bad turn here. I thought he’d put it be’ind him.’

  ‘I expect talking about old days with me brought it all back,’ said Keede. ‘It does sometimes.’

  ‘Maybe! Maybe! But over and above that, Clem’s had post-war trouble, too.’

  ‘Can’t he get a job? He oughtn’t to let that weigh on him, at his time of life,’ said Keede cheerily.

  ‘’Tisn’t that – he’s provided for – but’ – he coughed confidentially behind his dry hand – ‘as a matter of fact, Worshipful Sir, he’s – he’s implicated for the present in a little breach of promise action.’

  ‘Ah! That’s a different thing,’ said Keede.

  ‘Yes. That’s his reel trouble. No reason given, you understand. The young lady in every way suitable, an’ she’d make him a good little wife too, if I’m any judge. But he says she ain’t his ideel or something. No getting at what’s in young people’s minds these days, is t
here?’

  ‘I’m afraid there isn’t,’ said Keede. ‘But he’s all right now. He’ll sleep. You sit by him, and when he wakes, take him home quietly … Oh, we’re used to men getting a little upset here. You’ve nothing to thank us for, Brother – Brother –’

  ‘Armine,’ said the old gentleman. ‘He’s my nephew by marriage.’

  ‘That’s all that’s wanted!’ said Keede.

  Brother Armine looked a little puzzled. Keede hastened to explain. ‘As I was saying, all he wants now is to be kept quiet till he wakes.’

  THE JANEITES

  Jane lies in Winchester – blessed be her shade!

  Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made!

  And while the stones of Winchester, or Milsom Street, remain,

  Glory, love, and honour unto England’s Jane!1

  In the Lodge of Instruction attached to ‘Faith and Works No. 5837 EC’, which has already been described, Saturday afternoon was appointed for the weekly clean-up, when all Visiting Brethren were welcome to help under the direction of the Lodge Officer of the day: their reward was light refreshment and the meeting of companions.

  This particular afternoon – in the autumn of ’20 – Brother Burges, PM,2 was on duty and, finding a strong shift present, took advantage of it to strip and dust all hangings and curtains, to go over every inch of the Pavement – which was stone, not floorcloth – by hand; and to polish the Columns, Jewels, Working outfit and organ. I was given to clean some Officers’ Jewels – beautiful bits of old Georgian silver-work humanised by generations of elbow-grease – and retired to the organ-loft, for the floor was like the quarter-deck of a battleship on the eve of a ball. Half-a-dozen brethren had already made the Pavement as glassy as the aisle of Greenwich Chapel; the brazen chapiters3 winked like pure gold at the flashing Marks on the Chairs; and a morose one-legged Brother was attending to the Emblems of Mortality with, I think, rouge.

  ‘They ought,’ he volunteered to Brother Burges as we passed, ‘to be betwixt the colour of ripe apricots an’ a half-smoked meerschaum. That’s how we kept ’em in my Mother-Lodge – a treat to look at.’

  ‘I’ve never seen spit-and-polish to touch this,’ I said.

  ‘Wait till you see the organ,’ Brother Burges replied. ‘You could shave in it when they’ve done. Brother Anthony’s in charge up there – the taxi-owner you met here last month. I don’t think you’ve come across Brother Humberstall, have you?’

  ‘I don’t remember –’ I began.

  ‘You wouldn’t have forgotten him if you had. He’s a hairdresser now, somewhere at the back of Ebury Street. Was Garrison Artillery. Blown up twice.’

  ‘Does he show it?’ I asked at the foot of the organ-loft stairs.

  ‘No-o. Not much more than Lazarus4 did, I expect.’ Brother Burges fled off to set someone else to a job.

  Brother Anthony, small, dark, and hump-backed, was hissing groom-fashion while he treated the rich acacia-wood panels of the Lodge organ with some sacred, secret composition of his own. Under his guidance Humberstall, an enormous, flat-faced man, carrying the shoulders, ribs, and loins of the old Mark ’14, Royal Garrison Artillery, and the eyes of a bewildered retriever, rubbed the stuff in. I sat down to my task on the organ-bench, whose purple velvet cushion was being vacuum-cleaned on the floor below.

  ‘Now,’ said Anthony, after five minutes’ vigorous work on the part of Humberstall. ‘Now we’re gettin’ somethin’ worth lookin’ at! Take it easy, an’ go on with what you was tellin’ me about that Macklin man.’

  ‘I – I ’adn’t anything against ’im,’ said Humberstall, ‘excep’ he’d been a toff by birth; but that never showed till he was bosko absoluto. Mere bein’ drunk on’y made a common ’ound of ’im. But when bosko, it all came out. Otherwise, he showed me my duties as mess-waiter very well on the ’ole.’

  ‘Yes, yes. But what in ’ell made you go back to your Circus? The Board gave you down-an’-out fair enough, you said, after the dump went up at Eatables?’5

  ‘Board or no Board, I ’adn’t the nerve to stay at ’ome – not with mother chuckin’ ’erself round all three rooms like a rabbit every time the Gothas6 tried to get Victoria;7 an’ sister writin’ me aunts four pages about it next day. Not for me, thank you! till the War was over. So I slid out with a draft – they wasn’t particular in ’Seventeen, so long as the tally was correct – and I joined up again with our Circus somewhere at the back of Lar Pug Noy,8 I think it was.’ Humberstall paused for some seconds and his brow wrinkled. ‘Then I – I went sick, or somethin’ or other, they told me; but I know when I reported for dooty, our Battery Sergeant-Major says that I wasn’t expected back, an’ – ’an, one thing leadin’ to another – to cut a long story short – I went up before our Major – Major – I shall forget my own name next – Major –’

  ‘Never mind,’ Anthony interrupted. ‘Go on! It’ll come back in talk!’

  ‘’Alf a mo’. ’Twas on the tip o’ my tongue then.’

  Humberstall dropped the polishing-cloth and knitted his brows again in most profound thought. Anthony turned to me and suddenly launched into a sprightly tale of his taxi’s collision with a Marble Arch refuge on a greasy day after a three-yard skid.

  ‘Much damage?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh no! Ev’ry bolt an’ screw an’ nut on the chassis strained; but nothing carried away, you understand me, an’ not a scratch on the body. You’d never ’ave guessed a thing wrong till you took ’er in hand. It was a wop too: ’ead-on – like this!’ And he slapped his tactful little forehead to show what a knock it had been.

  ‘Did your Major dish you up much?’ he went on over his shoulder to Humberstall, who came out of his abstraction with a slow heave.

  ‘We-ell! He told me I wasn’t expected back either; an’ he said ’e couldn’t ’ang up the ’ole Circus till I’d rejoined; an’ he said that my ten-inch Skoda which I’d been Number Three of, before the dump went up at Eatables, had ’er full crowd. But, ’e said, as soon as a casualty occurred he’d remember me. “Meantime,” says he, “I particularly want you for actin’ mess-waiter.”

  ‘ “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” I says, perfectly respectful; “but I didn’t exactly come back for that, sir.”

  ‘ “Beggin’ your pardon, ’Umberstall,” says ’e, “but I ’appen to command the Circus! Now, you’re a sharp-witted man,” he says, “an’ what we’ve suffered from fool-waiters in Mess ’as been somethin’ cruel. You’ll take on, from now – under instruction to Macklin ’ere.” So this man, Macklin, that I was tellin’ you about, showed me my dooties … ’Ammick! I’ve got it! ’Ammick was our Major, an’ Mosse was Captain!’ Humberstall celebrated his recapture of the name by labouring at the organ-panel on his knee.

  ‘Look out! You’ll smash it,’ Anthony protested.

  ‘Sorry! Mother’s often told me I didn’t know my strength. Now, here’s a curious thing. This Major of ours – it’s all comin’ back to me – was a high-up Divorce Court lawyer; an’ Mosse, our Captain, was Number One o’ Mosse’s Private Detective Agency. You’ve heard of it? Wives watched while you wait, an’ so on. Well, these two ’ad been registerin’ together, so to speak, in the Civil line for years on end, but hadn’t ever met till the War. Consequently, at Mess their talk was mostly about famous cases they’d been mixed up in. ’Ammick told the Law-courts’ end o’ the business, an’ all what had been left out of the pleadin’s; an’ Mosse ’ad the actual facts concernin’ the errin’ parties – in hotels an’ so on. I’ve heard better talk in our Mess than ever before or since. It comes o’ the Gunners bein’ a scientific corps.’

  ‘That be damned!’ said Anthony. ‘If anythin’ ’appens to ’em they’ve got it all down in a book. There’s no book when your lorry dies on you in the ’Oly Land. That’s brains.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Humberstall continued, ‘come on this Secret Society business that I started tellin’ you about. When those two – ’Ammick an’ Mosse – ’ad finished about their
matrimonial relations – and, mind you, they weren’t radishes – they seldom or never repeated – they’d begin, as often as not, on this Secret Society woman I was tellin’ you of – this Jane. She was the only woman I ever ’eard ’em say a good word for. ’Cordin’ to them Jane was a none-such. I didn’t know then she was a Society. Fact is, I only ’ung out ’arf an ear in their direction at first, on account of bein’ under instruction for mess-dooty to this Macklin man. What drew my attention to her was a new Lieutenant joinin’ up. We called ’im “Gander” on account of his profeel, which was the identical bird. ’E’d been a nactuary – workin’ out ’ow long civilians ’ad to live. Neither ’Ammick nor Mosse wasted words on ’im at Mess. They went on talking as usual, an’ in due time, as usual, they got back to Jane. Gander cocks one of his big chilblainy ears an’ cracks his cold finger-joints. “By God! Jane?” says ’e. “Yes, Jane,” says ’Ammick, pretty short an’ senior. “Praise ’Eaven!” says Gander. “It was ‘Bubbly’ where I’ve come from down the line.” (Some damn revue or other, I expect.) Well, neither ’Ammick nor Mosse was easy-mouthed, or for that matter mealy-mouthed; but no sooner ’ad Gander passed that remark than they both shook ’ands with the young squirt across the table an’ called for the port back again. It was a password, all right! Then they went at it about Jane – all three, regardless of rank. That made me listen. Presently, I ’eard ’Ammick say –’

  ‘’Arf a mo’,’ Anthony cut in. ‘But what was you doin’ in Mess?’

  ‘Me an’ Macklin was refixin’ the sand-bag screens to the dug-out passage in case o’ gas. We never knew when we’d cop it in the ’Eavies, don’t you see? But we knew we ’ad been looked for for some time, an’ it might come any minute. But, as I was sayin’, ’Ammick says what a pity ’twas Jane ’ad died barren. “I deny that,” says Mosse. “I maintain she was fruitful in the ’ighest sense o’ the word.” An’ Mosse knew about such things, too. “I’m inclined to agree with ’Ammick,” says young Gander. “Any’ow, she’s left no direct an’ lawful prog’ny.” I remember every word they said, on account o’ what ’appened subsequently. I ’adn’t noticed Macklin much, or I’d ha’ seen he was bosko absoluto. Then ’e cut in, leanin’ over a packin’-case with a face on ’im like a dead mackerel in the dark. “Pa-hardon me, gents,” Macklin says, “but this is a matter on which I do ’appen to be moderately well-informed. She did leave lawful issue in the shape o’ one son; an’ ’is name was ’Enery James.”9