‘Long as it’s only their own,’ Lizzie said.
‘They’re not all like that,’ Sarah said.
‘Biggest part are,’ said Madge. ‘Place I used to work before the war, the son were like that. Oh, and when they found out you should’ve heard Missus. She stomped and she shrieked. Chandelier were going like that, I thought bugger were coming down. But you know he had no sisters, so he never met lasses that way. Goes to school, no lasses. Goes to university – no lasses. Time he finally claps eyes on me, it’s too late, isn’t it? It’s gelled. And even the ones that aren’t like that, they take one look at the Missus and bugger off round the Club.’ Madge strutted along the basement corridor with a finger held be low her nose, saying in a strangled, public school accent, ‘“I shall be dining at the Club tonight, m’dear. Don’t bother to wait up.’ Then he staggers in at two o’clock and flops out on bed in dressing room. Beats me how they breed.’
Raucous laughter from the other women as they spilled into the work room and sat down at the benches. The supervisor, a round-faced, bespectacled, crop-haired lady in a severely tailored suit, bore down upon them. ‘Do you girls ever intend to start work?’
They watched her walk away. ‘Eeh, I hope a man never tries to shove anything up her flue,’ Lizzie said. ‘Be cruelty to moths.’
Sarah pulled the first belt towards her and started to work. No reason at all why they couldn’t talk, since the task here required no concentration. It was intended as a break from the very demanding work on detonators, and from other jobs too, where masks had to be worn. Rather badly fitting masks. On more than one occasion Sarah had pulled hers away from her face and shaken out the yellow dust that had collected inside it. She remembered her mother’s strictures on her appearance, the broad hints she’d dropped about handing in her notice and going home to help with the tea hut. But I like it here, Sarah thought. And then she corrected herself. You like it now because Billy’s here. You mightn’t be so keen when he’s gone.
She turned, cautiously, to avoid attracting the supervisor’s attention, and looked round. The women sat at small tables, each table forming a pool of light under a low-hanging bulb. Apart from the work surfaces, the room was badly lit and so vast that its far end disappeared into shadow. All the women were yellow-skinned, and all, whatever their colouring, had a frizz of ginger hair peeping out from under the green cap. We don’t look human, Sarah thought, not knowing whether to be dismayed or amused. They looked like machines, whose sole function was to make other machines.
Sarah’s eyes fell on the next table, where the girls were close enough to be identified. After a while she looked puzzled and leant across the table to whisper to Lizzie. ‘Where’s Betty?’
‘You may well ask,’ Lizzie said. She sniffed and remained silent, enjoying the moment of power.
‘I am asking.’
Lizzie glanced round quickly. ‘You know she’s missed four times?’
All the girls nodded.
‘Tried everything,’ Lizzie said. ‘She was supping Dr Lawson’s Cure as if it was lemonade.’
‘It is,’ said Sarah.
‘Well, she must’ve got desperate, because she stuck summat up herself to bring it on. You know them wire coat hangers?’
Nods all round.
‘One of them. She straightened the curved bit and –’
‘We get the picture,’ Sarah said.
‘Yeh, well it’s worse than that. Silly little cow shoved it in her bladder.’
‘Aw no.’ Madge turned away as if she were going to vomit.
‘She was in agony. And you know she kept begging them not to send her to the hospital, because like she knew she hadn’t come all right. But anyway the girl she’s lodging with got that frightened she went and fetched the landlady. Well of course she took one look. She more or less says, “Sorry, love, you’re not dying here.” Took her in. And the irony of it is she’s still pregnant. She looks awful.’
‘You mean you’ve been to see her?’ Sarah asked.
‘Why aye. Went last night. You know, her face is all…’ Lizzie dragged her cheeks down. ‘Oh, and she says the doctor didn’t half railroad her. She was crying her eyes out, poor lass. He says, “You should be ashamed of yourself,” he says. “It’s not just an inconvenience you’ve got in there,” he says. “It’s a human being.”’
Sarah and Madge were eager to know more, but the supervisor had noticed the pause in Lizzie’s work and came striding towards them, though when she reached the table she found only silence and bowed heads and feverishly working fingers flicking machine-gun bullets into place inside the glittering belts.
On the night before a Board, Rivers took longer than usual over his rounds, since he knew the patients whose turn it was to be boarded would be feeling particularly tense. He was worried about Pugh, who had somehow managed to convince himself, in spite of repeated reassurances to the contrary, that he was to be sent back to France.
Sassoon, Rivers left till last, and found him lying on the bed in his new room, wrapped in his British warm coat. It was needed. The room was immediately beneath the tower and so cold that, in winter, patients who’d sweated their way through a succession of nightmares often woke to find the bedclothes stiff with frost. Siegfried seemed to like it, though, and at least now he had the privacy he needed to work. Rivers took the only available chair, and stretched out his legs towards the empty grate. ‘Well, how do you feel about tomorrow?’
‘All right. Still nothing from the War Office?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. You’ll just have to trust us.’
‘Us? You’re sure you don’t mean “them”?’
‘You know I’ll go on doing anything I can for you.’
‘Oh, I know that. But the fact is once they’ve got me out of here they can do what they like. Pen-pushing in Bognor, here I come.’
Rivers hesitated. ‘You sound rather down.’
‘No-o. Missing Robert. Don’t know why, we came quite close to quarrelling.’
‘About the war?’
‘I don’t know what about. Except he was in a peculiar mood.’ Sassoon stopped, then visibly decided to continue. ‘He had a bit of bad news recently.’
Rivers was aware of more going on in this conversation than he could identify. Sassoon had been distinctly reserved with him recently. He’d noticed it yesterday evening particularly, but he’d put it down to pre-Board nerves, and the worry of not hearing from the War Office. ‘From France?’
‘Oh, no, something quite different. I did ask if he’d mind my telling you, so I’m not breaking a confidence. Friend of his – a boy he knew at school and was very fond of – in an entirely honourable, platonic Robert-like way – got arrested for soliciting. Outside a barracks, actually not very far away from the school. As far as I can make out, Robert feels…’ Sassoon came to a halt. ‘Well. Rather as you might feel if you were… walking down a pleasant country road and suddenly a precipice opened at your feet. That’s how he sees it. Devastated. Because, you see, this… this abominable thing must’ve been there all the time, and be didn’t see it. He’s very anxious to make it clear that… the has no such disgusting feelings himself. We-ell.’
‘So you were left feeling…?’
‘Like a precipice on a country road.’
‘Yes.’
Sassoon looked straight at Rivers. ‘Apparently he’s being – the boy – sent to some psychiatrist or other.’
‘Which school was this?’
‘Charterhouse.’
‘Ah.’ Rivers looked up and found Sassoon’s gaze on him.
‘To be cured.’ A slight pause. ‘I suppose cured is the right word?’
Rivers said cautiously, ‘Surely it’s better for him to be sent to this psychiatrist than to go to prison?’ In spite of himself he started to smile. ‘Though I can see you might not think so.’
‘He wouldn’t have got prison!’
‘Oh, I think he might. The number of custodial sentences is rising. I think
any psychiatrist in London would tell you that.’
Sassoon looked downcast. ‘I thought things were getting better.’
‘I think they were. Before the war. Slightly. But it’s not very likely, is it, that any movement towards greater tolerance would persist in wartime? After all, in war, you’ve got this enormous emphasis on love between men – comradeship – and everybody approves. But at the same time there’s always this little niggle of anxiety. Is it the right kind of love? Well, one of the ways you make sure it’s the right kind is to make it crystal clear what the penalties for the other kind are.’ He looked at Sassoon. ‘One of the reasons I’m so glad you’ve decided to go back. It’s not just police activity. It’s the whole atmosphere at the moment. There’s an MP called Pemberton Billing. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of him?’
Sassoon shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, he’s going around London claiming to know of the existence of a German Black Book containing the names of 47,000 eminent people whose private lives make their loyalty to their country suspect.’
‘Relax, Rivers. I’m not eminent.’
‘No, but you’re a friend of Robert Ross, and you’ve publicly advocated a negotiated peace. That’s enough! You’re vulnerable, Siegfried. There’s no point pretending you’re not.’
‘And what am I supposed to do about it? Toe the line, tailor my opinions –’
‘Not your opinions. I think you told me once that Robert Ross opposes the war? In private.’
‘I wouldn’t want to criticize Ross. I think I know him well enough to understand the impact those trials had on him. But what you’re really saying is, if I ‘can’t conform in one area of life, then I have to conform in the others. Not just the surface things, everything. Even against my conscience. Well, I can’t live like that.’ He paused, then added, ‘Nobody should live like that.’
‘You spend far too much time tilting at windmills, Siegfried. In ways which do you a great deal of damage – which I happen to care about – and don’t do anybody else any good at all.’ He hesitated, then said it anyway. ‘It’s time you grew up. Started living in the real world.’
18
__________
Prior was not making a good impression. Getting a few simple facts out of him was like extracting wisdom teeth. At first Rivers thought Prior was simply being awkward – always a fairly safe assumption with Prior – but then he noted the tension in his jaw and realized the extent of the internal conflict that was going on. Prior had said he wanted nothing more than to get back to France as soon as possible, to get away from what he called ‘the shame’ of home service, and Rivers had no doubt that was true. But it was not the whole truth. He also wanted to save his life, and, in insisting on the importance of the asthmatic attacks, Rivers had, perhaps cruelly, held out the hope that he might be permitted to live. Small wonder, then, that Prior answered questions in monosyllables and finally, when asked whether he felt physically fit for service, said nothing at all, simply stared at Huntley, unable either to claim that he was ill or to deny it. Watching him, Rivers was filled with the most enormous compassion for his dilemma. Poor little blighter, he thought. Poor all of them.
Outside in the waiting room Sassoon looked at his watch. They were running almost an hour late and he wasn’t even next. Pugh was next. Pugh was a Welshman with prominent green eyes and the worst twitch Sassoon had ever seen, even in Craiglockhart, that living museum of tics and twitches. Pugh’s consisted of a violent sideways movement of the head, accompanied by a sound midway between a gasp and a scream. He did this approximately every thirty-five seconds. Like everybody else in the hospital, Sassoon’s reflexes were conditioned by the facts of trench warfare. It was almost impossible for him not to dodge whatever it was Pugh was dodging. Something Owen had told him about Pugh was hovering round the fringes of his mind. Yes, that was it. Some kind of freak accident, a hand grenade bouncing off the wire. Pugh had been picking bits of his platoon off his gas cape for an hour.
Sassoon looked at his watch again. Even allowing for the fact that nobody in their right mind could take long to decide whether Pugh was fit for duty, he couldn’t hope to be out of the place before six. He was supposed to have tea with the Sampsons at four thirty. Even if he left now and caught a tram immediately, he still wouldn’t be on time. It was too bad. People who were prepared to die had at least the right not to be kept waiting. He closed his eyes again. He was so tired he really thought if it wasn’t for Pugh and that dreadful jerking, he might have managed to nod off. He’d hardly slept at all last night.
In his breast pocket was a letter from Joe Cotterill, the Battalion Quartermaster. Sassoon knew it almost off by heart. Joe’s journey to Polygon Wood with the rations, the ground as full of holes as a pepperpot lid, nothing but mud and dead trees as far as the eye could see. They’d spent the night in a shell-hole, lost, under heavy fire. Several of the ration party had been killed. But, said Joe, the battalion got their rations. Reading that, Sassoon had wanted to rush back to France at once, but then, right at the end of the letter, Joe had said: Buck up and get out of there. Go to Parliament. Surely they can’t keep you there against your will? The trouble was, Sassoon thought, sighing and looking at his watch, that Joe’s anonymous ‘they’ was his Rivers.
Thorpe arrived. ‘D-d-d-do w-w-w-wwe kn-kn-know wwhwhat’s t-t-t-t-taking s-s-so l-l-long?’ he asked after a while.
Sassoon shook his head. Pugh shook his head too, though whether in answer to the question it was difficult to tell. And suddenly Sassoon had had enough. ‘And I for one don’t intend to stay and find out.’
He had a fleeting impression of Thorpe and Pugh with their mouths open, and then he was striding out of the room, down the corridor, through the swing doors and away.
‘Pugh next, I think?’ said Bryce.
‘Hang on, old chap,’ Huntley said. ‘Got to pump ship.’
The door closed behind him. Bryce said, ‘Where do you suppose he finds these nautical expressions?’ Receiving no reply, he turned to Rivers.
‘Why we had to take an hour over that I shall never know.’
‘Prior didn’t help himself much, did he?’
Rivers didn’t answer.
‘And at least you got what you wanted. In the end.’
The major came back, buttoning his breeches. ‘All right, all right,’ he said, as if he’d been waiting for them. ‘Let’s get on.’
Pugh was quick and distressing. Since the orderly had gone off to have dinner, Rivers himself went into the waiting room to summon Sassoon. Thorpe was sitting there alone. ‘Have you seen Sassoon?’
‘He’s…’ Thorpe went into one of his paroxysms. ‘G-g-g-g-g-gone.’
‘G-g-?’ Deep breath. ‘Where has he gone?’
Thorpe economized with a shrug. Rivers walked along to the patients’ common room and looked for Sassoon there, and instead found Prior, sitting at the piano picking out a few notes. Prior looked up. Rivers, thinking it was a long time to wait till the result was officially announced, stuck his thumb in the air and smiled.
‘All right, Thorpe,’ he said, going back to the ante-room. ‘You’d better come in.’
Rivers came out of Thorpe’s Board to find Sassoon still missing and Sister Duffy hovering in the corridor, wanting to talk about Prior. ‘Crying his eyes out,’ she said. ‘I thought he’d got permanent home service?’
‘He did.’
Rivers went up to Prior’s room and found him sitting on the bed, not crying now, though rather swollen about the eyes.
‘I suppose I’m expected to be grateful?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Because I’m not.’
Rivers tried to suppress a smile.
‘I told you I didn’t want it.’
‘It’s not a question of what you want, is it? It’s a question of whether you’re fit.’
‘I was all right. It never stopped me doing anything the others did.’
‘Now that’s not
quite true, is it? You told me yourself you were excused running through the gas huts, because on the one occasion you tried it, you collapsed. Your participation in gastraining exercises was restricted to listening to lectures. Wasn’t it?’
No response.
‘It’s all very well to joke about being the battalion canary, but it’s true, isn’t it? You would be overcome by gas at much lower concentrations than most people, and that could be very dangerous. And not just for you.’
Prior turned away.
Rivers sighed. ‘You realize the other man who got permanent home service is throwing a party tonight?’
‘Good for him. I hope it’s a good party.’
‘Why do you hate it so much?’
Silence. After a while, Prior said, ‘I suppose I’m not your patient any more, am I?’
‘No.’
‘So I don’t have to put up with this?’
It was on the tip of Rivers’s tongue to point out that the relief was mutual, but he looked at the swollen eyes and restrained himself. ‘What don’t you have to put up with?’
‘The blank wall. The silences. The pretending.’
‘Look. At the moment you hate me because I’ve been instrumental in getting you something you’re ashamed of wanting. I can’t do much about the hatred, but I do think you should look at the shame. Because it’s not really anything to be ashamed of, is it? Wanting to stay alive? You’d be a very strange sort of animal if you didn’t.’
Prior shook his head. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Tell me, then.’
‘I’ll never know now, will I? About myself…’
‘But you do know. You were a perfectly satisfactory officer, until –’
‘Until the strain got to me and I stopped being a perfectly satisfactory officer. Where does that leave me?’
‘With the whole of your life ahead of you and other challenges to face.’
‘If you were a patient here, don’t you think you’d feel ashamed?’