Saplings

‘Whoever Walter is I’m afraid I’m not he. It’s John.’

  The light went out of Lena’s face. She became charmingly social.

  ‘John! How nice. Did you ring?’

  He held her hands.

  ‘Yes. But nobody seemed to be about.’

  ‘Nannie’s gone in to do the shopping and I suppose my woman’s out at the back somewhere. I ought to have heard you. I’d just come in here . . .’ she glanced at her empty glass. ‘I was taking my medicine.’

  John’s face expressed nothing. He smelt brandy. The hour was not yet eleven. Lena was lying. The facts lay in his brain untouched, ready for later consideration. He put his arm through hers. They went into the garden.

  The children did not come in until lunch-time. By then Lena had given John a couple of pink gins and drunk two herself. It was after the second gin that he saw how much she had changed. As Alex’s smart, sophisticated wife she had always been the dernier cri of the family circle. The women said of clothes or furnishings, ‘Well, Lena likes it,’ and that put a gloss on whatever was under discussion. The men had felt, without saying so, that Alex had done well for himself. Lena was smart, pretty, always had her house in perfect control. She was not clever like Lindsey and Dot, but she was a damn good wife and you did not really want women to be clever. The whole set-up of the Wiltshire home was accepted as being the last word in sophisticated living, and Lena was admittedly the architect. She it was who arranged the meals, and organised the house so that it appeared to run itself. She chose clothes for her children that made them stand out noticeably as well dressed. There was criticism, of course. The children were pampered. Alex was dragged out to more parties than he cared for. On the whole though, admiration had been Lena’s portion. Now, after her second cocktail, John saw a Lena that was new to him. She told a couple of stories which, when he had last seen her, he would not have supposed she would have understood. She asked him about his leave with a nudge and a wink in her voice. She hinted that a little of Lindsey went a long way and he was probably having a bit of fun somewhere else, and if not why not. Back in the Regent’s Park days such a suggestion would have been unthinkable. It was taken for granted that everybody loved the people they were supposed to love. Alex had even pretended that he was fond of that ghastly mother-in-law of his, which, of course, he never could have been. Still, in a decently conducted world, you had to pretend those sort of things, and quite right too.

  ‘What about just another tiny one?’ said Lena. ‘Splice the mainbrace, don’t you call it?’

  John shook his head. He took her glass from her and put it down with his own.

  ‘Not at this time of the day, thanks old girl.’ He lifted his head. He could not keep relief out of his voice. ‘I hear the children.’

  The children fell into the room all talking at once. For a moment they did not see John. Laurel reached her mother first.

  ‘Mum, the Jones’ who’ve got that simply perfect dachshund puppy are going to live in Wales and we can have him.’

  Kim had his arms round Lena’s waist.

  ‘Mum, he’s got a face like this,’ he gave one of his imitations, ‘and his coat hangs loose as if it belonged to a much bigger dog.’

  Tuesday was dancing with eagerness.

  ‘We could fetch him this afternoon. We’ve never had a dog, only Pincher, who wasn’t exactly ours.’

  Even Tony added his plea.

  ‘He’s called Stroch. Can you guess why?’

  Lena laughed.

  ‘Look who’s here.’

  For a second the dachshund was eclipsed by John. He was welcomed with rapture by Laurel and Kim. Tuesday could not remember him and was gravely polite; Tony’s greeting was off-hand. John turned to Lena.

  ‘What’s going to happen about this puppy?’

  The children were again all talking at once. Kim lay on the floor and gave an imitation of a dog wriggling with friendliness.

  ‘Mum. Darling Mum. Look. Just like this.’

  Tuesday pulled at Lena’s frock.

  ‘And all the wriggle was for us.’

  Laurel appealed to John.

  ‘It would make all the difference to our lives. In the end we might have kennels and have thousands of dachshunds to sell. They cost pounds and pounds really only this one’s a present.’

  Tony looked at Lena questioningly.

  ‘Stroch. Spelt S-T-R-O-C-H. Can’t you guess?’

  If Lena had not had two cocktails on top of brandy she might have taken longer to give way. The terms were long and the holidays short, dogs in time of war hard to feed, and she detested walking and it was not easy to see who would exercise a puppy while the children were away, but none of these things counted against the children’s happiness. She had not been so much the centre of the picture since Alex had been killed. It was wonderful the children should have chosen today when John was here to see and report back to the family. Her eyes misted with tears. They were at this moment just the united group she wanted. The picture they were making was her ideal. The children clinging to her, their voices calling her. ‘Mum.’ ‘Please, Mum.’ ‘Oh, darling Mum.’ She shook her head to get rid of the tear mist and smiled at John.

  ‘Obviously Stroch is ours.’

  John took the children to fetch the puppy. He enjoyed his walk. He was especially taken with Laurel. He liked the anxious, serious way she looked at him. He was touched by her faith in his knowledge, and her motherly way with the others.

  ‘We’ll have to arrange who has Stroch on the lead coming home, or there’ll be rows. Kim will want him all the time, and really Tuesday ought to come first as she’s the youngest and has always been especially fond of dogs. Shall we make a plan?’

  ‘Do dogs need special medicines? It would be simply awful if Stroch got ill just because we didn’t know. Ought he to be inoculated against distemper?’

  ‘Keeping dogs could be a profession, couldn’t it? I mean, some dogs get famous. How do you start? Just by marrying two dogs?’

  Laurel walked next to John and these questions came to him through the babel of noise created by the others. He remained calm and answered everybody in turn, always coming back to Laurel.

  ‘You leave the routine of leading the puppy to me. I’ll see fair do’s.’

  ‘I imagine you better have a talk with this Mrs. Jones. She’ll tell you the little chap’s medical history.’

  ‘No, I believe it’s a bit more elaborate than that. Have to get strong strains going and that sort of thing.’ He looked down at Laurel’s still childlike face and turned to botany. ‘You know, like growing a champion rose.’

  The children had been taught how they were made ever since they could remember. Alex had disapproved of what he called ‘stork nonsense’ and Ruth, remembering her own rummaging for knowledge amongst books and giggling girls, had taken immense trouble to see that the Wiltshire children knew their facts and did not find them a matter for giggles and whispers. John was amused at the discussion which followed.

  ‘How would they know if Stroch was good stock?’ ‘Would the puppy’s pedigree show it?’ ‘If he was a good strain how soon ought he to be married?’ ‘If he was married and the lady-dog wasn’t theirs to whom did the puppies belong?’

  When John hesitated for a reply to the last question Tony looked at Laurel.

  ‘I know who’ll tell us. Uncle Walter.’

  The children then discussed Uncle Walter. A picture grew of him. Obviously he was considered a friend and a fount of knowledge.

  ‘Americans,’ Kim told John, ‘know absolutely everything. Do you know, he even knows more about London than we do.’

  ‘He reads books about it,’ Laurel explained in an undertone.

  Tuesday gave an excited skip.

  ‘Just think how surprised he’s going to be when he sees Stroch.’

  Kim gave an imitation of Walter.

  ‘Why say, that’s the cutest dog. What’s his name?’

  Stroch’s name was a great joke to the childr
en. Tuesday clung to John’s arm.

  ‘We’ll make him guess.’

  ‘We’ll have to tell him,’ Laurel murmured. ‘You never guessed, did you, Uncle John?’

  Kim bounced on ahead.

  ‘I shall say whose name begins S. T. and whose R. O. and whose C. H. I bet he guesses. He’ll say Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, just as quick as a piece of snow coming out of the sky. You see if he doesn’t.’

  ‘When’s he coming?’ John asked.

  ‘Quite likely tomorrow,’ said Kim.

  ‘Of course he won’t,’ Tony argued. ‘He said he had a heavy week. I bet he doesn’t come till Sunday.’

  Tuesday pulled against John’s arm.

  ‘He will if he can. He doesn’t mind how little time he comes for as long as he gets here.’

  Laurel explained.

  ‘He’s stationed in London. He’s down on all his days off, if they don’t come often enough then sometimes Mum goes up to London to see him.’

  Kim raised his voice.

  ‘Sometimes! Twice every week at the very least, and she never takes us, which I call mean.’

  John let them talk. He was not given to probing into the lives of others, but this Walter had been shoved under his nose. Lena had taken him for Walter when he had arrived. He spent all his leave in the house, and Lena went up to London at least two days in each week to see him. Lena had been having a drink when he arrived and had lied about it. He felt uncomfortable. Poor old Lena, she had every right to comfort herself, had a hard time, but he hoped she wasn’t overstepping it. These children seemed well informed. Judging from the way they talked they saw nothing unusual in the friendship. He hoped Lena would remember that kids were sharp. Old Alex would turn in his grave if he thought that there were funny goings on.

  By skilful manœuvring John got Tony to himself on the way home. Kim was sent on ahead to call Stroch. Laurel would then let the puppy off his lead and they would see if he would obey. Where Stroch went Tuesday followed.

  John was no beater of bushes. He went straight to Tony’s letter.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t get down during the term as you asked.’

  Tony, in spite of the excitement about the puppy, had intended to ask his question.

  ‘It was about submarines I wanted to ask.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Sometimes, they get hit by depth-charges when they are under the sea.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If that happens there wouldn’t be any air after a bit, would there? I mean, everybody would die.’

  John looked ahead at Laurel in her blue frock kneeling beside the minute orange red shape of the puppy. At Tuesday, also in blue, skipping with eagerness. Ahead lay the trees, dark with pine needles, and under them the light green of bracken. In the distance came Kim’s excited cries. ‘Come on, Stroch. Come on, good dog.’ All this was home as it ought to be, as he dreamed of it when at sea. Children were happy. Little girls wore blue frocks and played in the sunlight with puppies. There was, of course, another side to that picture but there was no point in brooding on it. A man did his best. He, personally, had helped to send a lot of Huns to the bottom. That was the only payment he could exact for cruelties and suffering. Yet here, at this moment, was something more. His inclination was to laugh away serious talk and make up for any deficiency in understanding by a good tip when he left. He resisted the temptation. He drew his eyes from the girls and the puppy and gave Tony all his mind. Here was a boy, fatherless because of the war, brooding morbidly on a horrible form of death. Why?

  ‘You mean a direct hit? No repairs possible?’

  Tony felt an attack of fright looming ahead. He spoke in a strained voice.

  ‘Yes. How long would it be before they died?’

  John was not used to handling boys but he was accustomed to men, he knew the signs of strain and when a man was near breaking. He took hold of Tony’s elbow and drew him off the main ride down a side track.

  ‘What’s worrying you?’ Tony’s attack was racing up on him. He always faced an attack alone. He tried to free his arm but John gripped him firmly. He saw the sweat beads on Tony’s forehead and upper lip. The grey tinge under his skin. Then, inexplicably, he read Tony’s trouble. ‘This is to do with your father.’

  John was thankful the other three were out of earshot. He had never seen an attack like Tony’s. Because of the unexpectedness of his question Tony’s defences broke. He had meant to discover how long his father had suffered by oblique questions. He had no intention of explaining himself. The attack was so sudden and complete it was like a fit. He stiffened and fell down. He saw John but on that other level where he was beyond reach. He was trapped, smothered. His fingers beat a tattoo on the moss, bracken and pine needles beneath him, but no one would hear, no one would answer.

  John had no idea what treatment was right so he did what came to his mind. A stream ran in the dip below where Tony was lying. He meant to bring water in his hat but he found a rusty tin. He filled it and threw the water on Tony’s face.

  Tony’s attacks were to a certain degree guided by himself. He held them off until he was alone. Once one had started there were stages which automatically followed. It was as if he went down in a lift. There was his own floor, which he left behind, but eventually there was a basement from which he always rose back to normal level. There was a dread, which he avoided looking at, that one day he would reach the basement and stop there. So far, the crisis of his attacks past, there was his slow return to the blessed everyday world. The cold water changed this. One moment he was wallowing in the basement of despair, the next he was sitting up spluttering, with John’s firm strong hands holding his, John’s face close to his own, and, best of all, John’s slow comforting voice, not speaking from a different level, which could not help, but from the ordinary solid world where it was August, the sun shining, and, just out of sight, the others and Stroch.

  Lindsey was not a novelist for nothing. She was a good, graphic letter-writer. John had been at sea when Alex was killed. It was some months later that Lindsey’s letter had reached him. Lena had been too upset to identify Alex’s body. The Colonel had gone to the mortuary. Elsa had wanted to come with him, he would not hear of this so Elsa had telephoned to Lindsey to meet her father in London and see that he had something to eat. Lindsey had met the train and gone with the Colonel to the mortuary. She had described the room they had waited in, the shocked, grief-loaded people who had waited with them. The Colonel had been called at last. Lindsey seldom entered further than her pen carried her into the sufferings of other people, but she had been genuinely moved by her father’s dignity and touched by his ability to carry himself straight and hide all he felt. The identification over she had taken him to his club, where they had lunch. Lindsey, in spite of being weighed down by depression at her brother’s death, had clearly made one of her few efforts towards helping someone else. She had gossiped about the family, and talked of her new book. ‘Father never heard a word,’ she had written, ‘but he would have thought silence over lunch ill-mannered and I spared him speaking himself.’ It was in the taxi on the way back to the station that the Colonel had spoken of Alex. ‘Your brother won’t have suffered much. He had a bad head injury. Likely to have been unconscious most of the time they were digging for him. They were about four hours getting him. Air revived him, he lived until they got him into an ambulance. Talked sense too. Remarkable. You’re good with your pen. Let the rest of the family know.’ John had read and re-read this letter. He had liked his brother-in-law and his death at home shocked him. It was all wrong. To keep the homes safe was basically what most men were fighting for. Lena and Alex’s home was just the sort of set-up he himself was fighting to keep. Beautiful, orderly, full of children. Sitting here in the wood beside Tony he could see Lindsey’s typewritten sheets. He could see the exact position where the words lay on each page. As Tony had writhed on the ground he had panted out a few words. ‘Tapping. Buried while he was still alive.’
br />   John lit a cigarette before speaking.

  ‘When the bomb hit your home you think your father was buried alive?’

  ‘He was. I went. I heard him tapping to try and get out.’

  ‘I don’t know what you heard but it wasn’t your father. The facts are these. He was buried for four hours. They got him out alive. He died in an ambulance.’

  ‘But I heard him tap.’

  ‘The person for you to see is your grandfather. You know what a mortuary is?’ Tony shook his head. ‘Place where they put the bodies of people who have died or been killed. Your grandfather identified your father. Had a look at the body and said it was his son’s. Your grandfather wouldn’t lie.’

  Tony had hugged his knowledge for over a year. It could not be disproved in a second.

  ‘It was real tapping. Somebody beating with their fingers.’

  John got up.

  ‘I’ll make arrangements for you to see your grandfather. He’ll tell you all about it. Dare say we could fix for you to have a word with the fellow who talked to your father before he died.’

  ‘He spoke?’

  ‘Yes. Said he was alone in the house and gave your mother’s address.’

  ‘When?’

  John once more ran his mental eye over Lindsey’s typed sheets.

  ‘The Sunday. He was killed early on a Sunday morning. May the 10th it was.’

  Tony stared at John.

  ‘But it was Monday when I went. It was Monday when there was tapping.’

  ‘Your father was not likely to have made a mistake. He said he was alone in the house and he was brought out alive on the Sunday.’

  The mist was rising. The nightmare was evaporating. Tony could not yet grasp that he was free. Too long he had lived with Alex suffocating under the ground, tapping for help which never came. Too long he had died slowly with him. John got up and held out a hand.

  ‘Come on, old man. The others will think we’re lost and it’s your turn to train Stroch.’ They walked towards the ride. ‘I’ve told you the truth. You let it simmer. Next week you shall see your grandfather.’

  Laurel, Kim and Tuesday were gathered round Stroch. They shouted at sight of John and Tony.