Any Human Heart (8 page)

Peter, who has not seen the toothsome Tess for weeks, has finally managed to construct a means of communication. They leave notes for each other behind a loose brick of an old gatepost. He is trying to arrange a rendezvous as far away from Abbey as possible and together we have come up with the idea that it might be best achieved during the night exercise which, according to Tozer, is due to take place in the woodland around Ringford. Ben quizzed a school gardener who lived in Heringham and he said there was a nice pub in Ringford called the Lamb and Flag. Peter left a note in the gatepost urging Tess to meet him in the Lamb and Flag at 9.30 p.m. on the 4th of June. Peter invited us along as well — which I thought was unduly civil of him, but there you go.

The school play was last night, I forgot to mention.
Volpone
— wretchedly bad. Cassell says he has a place at Christ Church — perhaps Oxford won’t be so grim after all.

Sergeant Tozer, bless him, has given us a wonderfully idle role in the night exercise: six of us are to guard a signal box on the branch line to Ringford, somewhere on the left flank of the Abbey defence. The section is under the command of a man called Crowhurst-Joyce (a corporal) and the other two are a couple of fifth formers from Swinton’s — all malleable, Ben thinks, though I’m a little worried about Crowhurst-Joyce — he has a little too much military zeal and I don’t think he’ll be easily suborned. It might not be quite so easy to slip away.

At Corps today Tozer was all fire and brimstone. Abbey was meant to be defending a notional ammunition dump that St Edmund’s would try to capture. Tozer was disappointed to have been cast in a defensive role, but, as he kept repeating as though he’d forged the axiom himself, The best means of defence is attack.’ Aggressive patrolling would be Abbey’s secret weapon, he insisted; in this way we’d stop them as far off as possible, never let them get close.

‘How “aggressive” is aggressive, sir?’ Ben asked, with due eagerness.

‘Use your initiative, Leeping.’

‘What — even up to a mile in front of our positions?’

‘The aim, boy, is to sow confusion in the enemy ranks.’

‘So the sooner our aggressive patrols make contact the better.’

‘Catch on fast, Scabius.’

We carried on for another minute or two — as much for Crowhurst-Joyce’s benefit as anyone else’s — ensuring that the idea of aggressive patrolling was firmly established in everyone’s mind.

Well it all worked like a charm — at first. We were paraded after luncheon and issued with our rifles and ten rounds each of blank ammunition. Then Mr Gregory, who looked a sad sight in his uniform (how did he ever become a captain?), lectured us on the importance of what we were about to do. ‘This is not a game,’ he kept repeating. ‘You boys may be called upon one day to fight for your country. What you learn here will stand you in excellent stead.’ Then we were all bussed out to Ringford Woods — which turned out to be a mixture of patches of oak and elm coppices, scrubby heath land and some newish plantations of conifers.

The signal-box section were dropped off at the branch line. The box itself stood high on an embankment from where we were afforded a good view of the countryside to the south — whence the St Edmund’s forces would be advancing. Our brief was that, if we saw any St Edmund’s activity, we were to send a runner back to base and an aggressive patrol would be dispatched to intercept. Crowhurst-Joyce had been issued with a pair of binoculars.

It was a coolish overcast afternoon and evening. We lay about the embankment (under the amused and curious eye of the signalman — who obligingly brewed us up some tea) with someone always scrutinizing the woods and fields beyond. Studying the map we had been issued with, we reckoned we were about a half-hour walk from Ringford and the Lamb and Flag.

At about 7.30 — the first hint of dusk coming upon us — Ben, who had the binoculars, said he had spotted some movement at the fringe of a stand of elms. Crowhurst-Joyce scampered over and peered through the lenses. ‘Can’t see anything,’ he said.

‘No, there was about a dozen or so,’ Ben insisted. ‘I just got a glimpse of them.’

‘I volunteer to go and check,’ I said.

‘You can’t go alone,’ Peter said. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘We’ll all go,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll show you exactly where they were.’

‘Hang on—’ Crowhurst-Joyce said, sensing his authority being threatened.

‘We won’t engage,’ Ben said. ‘We’ll scout, then report back. Then you can send one of these sprogs back to Gregory.’

‘But I’m in charge of this section,’ Crowhurst-Joyce whined.

‘You’re still in charge, Crowhurst,’ I said. ‘But remember Tozer said we should use our initiative.’

‘You’ll get the credit,’ Ben said. ‘Don’t worry.’

So we picked up our rifles, crossed the tracks and slithered down the other side of the embankment and headed into the woods. As soon as we were lost to sight we circled round and rejoined the branch line — a quarter of a mile or so down from the signal box — and tramped on down it until we could see the church spire of Ringford in the distance. Our plan — to explain our non-appearance in the night exercise, or if we were discovered — was to say we had got lost in the woods and had decided to rejoin the main unit, only to become further lost as night closed in. We hid our rifles in a bramble bush and unwound our puttees. We had our own shirts on under our tunics and our own ties in our kitbags. We looked a little odd, I had to admit: not quite soldiers but not quite bona fide civilians either. But Ben said no publican was going to query our outfits: we certainly didn’t look like schoolboys, and we were hardly deserters. We made Peter discard his tunic just to differentiate ourselves somewhat, then pushed on through a hedge and on to a lane that led into Ringford. We were ensconced at a table in the Lamb and Flag by 8.20.

It was quite a nice pub, the Lamb and Flag, not too busy, and we had pickled eggs and sardine sandwiches with our pints of bitter. We did attract a few strange glances from some of the regulars as one or other of us went to the bar for replenishments — our khaki trousers and hobnail boots did rather signal ‘military’, I thought — but nobody queried our presence. The landlord asked us if we were anything to do with the archaeological dig at Little Bradgate and Ben said, very smartly, that we were on our way there to lend a hand, so that seemed to settle the question of our identity.

Tess arrived early, just before 9.00, and asked for a port and lemon. Ben and I both went to the bar to fetch the drinks to allow the lovebirds a moment alone. When we returned they were sitting squeezed up against each other, holding hands.

This was as close as we had ever been to Tess and, given we had witnessed her tender ministrations, both Ben and I could hardly conceal our curiosity. She was a quiet plumpish girl with a pale square face and the slightest hint of dark downy hair on her upper lip and a slightly more luxuriant silkiness upon what we could see of her forearms. When Peter introduced us she said, in a quiet voice, ‘How do?’ to each of us, her eyes lowered demurely.

She and Peter talked to each other in hurried, almost inaudible voices. I could tell from the pitch and timbre of her words that she was tense — a crisis brewing at the Home Farm — and that whatever they were planning clearly was of some urgency. Ben and I went back to the bar for our third pint. By now I was feeling a little tight.

‘Look at them,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it. It’s like a dream.’

‘A bad dream,’ Ben said. ‘How did Peter end up with this wench? What’ve we done for him, Logan? What did we think we were playing at?’

We talked on resentfully, glancing round from time to time, not bothering to conceal our jealousy from each other. I looked at Peter, almost with hatred, as he sat there holding hands with his sturdy country girl.

‘I can’t take much more of this,’ I said.

Ben looked at his watch. Ten to ten,’ he said. ‘Better telephone school and tell them we’re lost.’

Then the door of the pub swung open and Captain Gregory and Sergeant Tozer walked in.

In half an hour I’m up before the Lizard. We have been separated, like prisoners, and have each been moved into new studies. I feel curiously indifferent about my fate — in fact I think I’d rather like to be expelled. Ben feels the same: the sooner he goes to Paris the better, he said, and invited me to join him. Only Peter is in a state of shock, terrified as to what his father might do if he were sacked.

The only bit of luck we had was that Tess was not discovered. Peter had leapt away from her the minute he spotted Tozer and Gregory (who were making for us at the bar) and, besides, they would never have dreamed there could have been a girl with us. They were in a filthy mood: St Edmunds had captured the Abbey ammunition dump with conspicuous ease.

Things became worse when we couldn’t find the bramble bush beneath which we’d hidden our rifles and Tozer swore vilely at us until Gregory asked him to stop.

Parker has just poked his snouty face round the door and has said that the Lizard will see me now.

Later. I am going to be controlled about this. I am going to set down the facts and record the sequence of events as they unfolded while they are fresh in my mind. I must never forget this, I must never forget what happened.

I knocked and was summoned in. The Lizard was standing looking mournfully out of the window, his pipe going hard. He puffed steadily as I stood there and I could hear his lips making unpleasant little popping sounds like a gas mantle not firing properly.

‘I’ve bad news for you, Mountstuart,’ he said, still looking out of the window. ‘But I’m not going to sack you — nor Leeping and Scabius. I would have to sack all three of you. I can’t sack two and not the third.’

‘Yes, sir.’ I wanted to say something audacious, something devil-may-care, something haughtily indifferent — but I couldn’t think of anything.

‘The bad news I have to tell you prevents me from sacking you, you see.’

I knew before he uttered the words.

He turned. ‘I’m sorry to say that your father died this morning.’

And then the stinking FUCKING bastard flogged me. Twelve strokes of the cane. He told me I was gated for the rest of the term and I would be charged with the cost of replacing the missing rifle. Then he opened the door of his study and showed me out. He never uttered one further word of sympathy. I hope he dies in pain and rots in hell.

1 Peter Scabius, LMS’s closest friend from his schooldays, along with Benjamin Leeping.

2 As far as is known, the Livre d ‘Or was never printed. No trace of the manuscript survives.

3 Lucy Sansom, LMS’s first cousin, was one year older than he. Her mother, Jennifer Mountstuart, had married Horace Sansom, an engineer from Perth, Scotland. Horace Sansom was currently working for the Bengal Railway Services, hence Lucy’s presence at her uncle and aunt’s at Christmas 1923.

4 Henry Soutar, LMS’s housemaster, a sexagenarian, not much liked by LMS and his set and dubbed The Lizard’ because of his exceptionally seamed and wattled face.

5 The village where St James’s Roman Catholic church was located and where Abbeyhurst sent its Catholic boys for Mass. About three miles away from the school.

Logan Mountstuart went up to Jesus College, Oxford, in the Michaelmas term of 1924. The journal commences in the following term, 24 February 1925. In the meantime, following the death of Francis Mountstuart, his wife, Mercedes, had sold the house in Birmingham and moved to London, to South Kensington, where she bought a five-storey, white-stucco terraced house in Sumner Place and fitted it out in some style. Peter Scabius was also up at Oxford, at Balliol College, and Ben Leeping, as he had always promised he would, was established in Paris working for an art gallery and learning his trade as a dealer.

To Balliol for lunch with Peter. Balliors commons are so much better than Jesus’s: three types of cheese, bread and oatmeal biscuits and a jug of beer. I felt strangely depressed, for some reason. I think it’s because Peter so unreservedly and uncritically loves Oxford and all it holds for him and I find the place stifling and disappointing. He had also received a letter from Ben — and I thought, jealously, why is Ben writing to Peter and not to me?

I went on to King’s lecture on Constitutional Reform — inaudible and therefore a waste of time. On the way out of Balliol I met Quennell,
¹
who told me he was writing a book on Blake. I did not tell him about mine on Shelley. Why? Was I afraid it would make me look presumptuous or pretentious? Just because Quennell has already published a book of poems doesn’t make his ambitions superior to mine. I really must make more effort to — at least —
appear
confident: all this hiding my light under a bushel is pathetic.

Le Mayne was very complimentary about my essay on Cavour and the Risorgimento and has invited me to one of his celebrated lunches on Saturday. Stevens
²
kindly reminded me that I needed to go to roll-call tomorrow or risk a gating. This place is so like school: a school where one can smoke and drink, but an extension of school none the less.

Les Invalides
³
was quiet for a Friday night and Mrs Anderson was not yet drunk and consequently recognized me. She made me a plate of foie gras sandwiches and I drank a bottle of claret as I read the newspaper. Cassell came in with a couple of friends and asked me to make up a four at bridge, but, as they were already half stewed, I decided it would be better to make my excuses — they play for too high stakes, especially when drink has been taken.