A Man of his Time Read online

  She wiped her tears. ‘I have to go.’

  Oliver was a double fool for ignoring such a fine young woman, in spite of what had happened. He watched her to the door, disappointed that she hadn’t taken another drink, because they might then have talked and become friendly again.

  Thomas was sent home with the housekeeping money, and found Mary Ann sitting by the window with her glasses on glancing through Mrs Beeton’s cookery book, which Burton had gone downtown to buy for her on hearing she would like to have one, not long after he had struck her, when even the claddach ring seemed too feeble an apology.

  She recalled Emma Lewin engrossed in her Mrs Beeton, and to have one herself was a connection to the happiness of the past. On seeing her squint at the small type Burton had also taken her to be fitted with spectacles, a further good deed he was glad to do, but considered sufficient to be going on with.

  She put the coins in her pinafore pocket, and took Oliver’s latest letter from behind the clock. ‘On the train to Norfolk we passed Ely, and I was sorry we couldn’t get closer to St Neots, where you said you had grown up … The train was so slow at times going through London that I thought what a lark it would be if I jumped off and came back to see you all. What a surprise that would have been. But I was with my pals, and you don’t do that in the regiment. I’d have relished the surprise on your faces though as I burst through the door. I’ve got stamps and an envelope, and will put this in a pillar box when we get to where we’re going.’ She always told Burton that Oliver sent his best wishes, which couldn’t have been a lie, because even though it wasn’t on paper it must have been in the lad’s heart to say so.

  With Oliver away she had no place in the world, didn’t belong anywhere, had no anchor unless seeing his face at table or knowing he was busy about the yard or garden. She couldn’t think how she lived much of the time, though she cleaned and cooked and served and kept the house running, almost as if she was two people where before she had been one.

  She tried to imagine him on his horse, or shoeing one, or sitting on a stool outside a tent much like the illustration on the Camp Coffee bottle. Or he’d have a pad on his knee writing her a letter, or be eating from a tin plate, or standing in a pub with friends, a pint to his lips.

  It was no use talking about him to people in Woodhouse while shopping because they had similar worries, other thoughts bothering them. Then again there was Edith to think about. They hadn’t heard anything for weeks. Burton as well was nagged with anxiety on both counts – though less so about Edith – but what could they say to each other that hadn’t already been said? Whatever he thought he kept inside, but she knew it could be no less troubling than what went on in her own mind. These days he listened with more patience when she mentioned her fears about Oliver, telling her to stop worrying, that the lad would be safe, that in a year or two he would come back. A comforting hand on her shoulder, he would say: ‘There aren’t any Germans in Norfolk. He’s just in camp there.’

  Happen so, but she was hearing all the time of young men killed or wounded in the fighting, photographs displayed day after day in the Journal and Evening Post. She wasn’t worrying for nothing. In no time at all Oliver could be in France, and the weekly gap between his letters became ages of torment. Burton wondered how she would feel when he did go overseas.

  A letter from Edith told them she had married Tommy Jackson by special licence. How she had managed it they didn’t know, but Edith had always found ways of doing what she wanted. ‘It’s a terrible thing to do, not telling us,’ Mary Ann said. ‘We could have given them a proper wedding.’

  Burton grunted his agreement, though Edith’s headstrong act had no doubt saved them a bob or two. Tommy then joined up as a gunner in the Royal Artillery, after a few days honeymoon at his parents’ house. ‘Another fool in the army,’ Burton said. ‘I would have expected better from him.’

  Mary Ann wrote that Edith could live at home until her husband came back from the war, hoping she would, but Edith replied that she never wanted to be in the same house as Burton again, to which Burton responded, on Mary Ann hinting as much: ‘She can please herself.’

  At least Mary Ann had no more cause to worry about her, and in spite of his daughter’s opinion, never much of a secret, Burton said she could come home any time, though trying to talk sense to her had been like shouting at a brick wall with your back to it.

  When Tommy went to France, Edith got a situation as cook in a hotel at Mablethorpe, intending to stay till her husband came home. Burton was disappointed but, with no liking for the fact, couldn’t dispute that times were changing.

  Mary Ann took up a basket and went down the lane to shop in Woodhouse, hoping the tent Oliver lived in didn’t leak, that the weather was as warm there as it was here, that it would never be raining wherever he was sent, wanting only sunshine in his life, looking on him as a blacksmith rather than a soldier (she still couldn’t think of him as one of those) and praying he would never have to kill anybody so that nobody would need to kill him, yet full of fear in knowing that those who lived by the sword inevitably died by the sword.

  SIXTEEN

  A small feed had been given to the horses, and now the start was delayed for them to drink, which they were often reluctant to do so early in the morning. Major Ley, the inspecting officer – eyes all too aware, large ears that missed no sound, and a broad nose above a well-marked dark moustache – walked the squadron lines to make sure the saddlery was correct, that the withers weren’t pinched or pressed on, nor pressure put on the horse’s spine, that the shoulder-blade bones had free movement, and that weight was on the ribs rather than the loins.

  Oliver, erect in the saddle, knew that his mount was well groomed, accountrements wiped, greased, soaped, scrubbed, polished and, above all, shining. Up since four, everything was in place, and they were ready to go. His sword blade was keen enough to shave with, and his mother would have been frightened half to death to see him wield it.

  Much work and little sleep convinced him there was no other life than that of a soldier for scraping away the past, a life even better when the regiment was on the move. Wherever they were at the end of the day it would be one stage closer to France. A rumour floating about spoke even of Egypt, and if so he would see the Nile where Baby Moses was found among the bulrushes by Pharaoh’s fair daughter. Alma would envy him, but her letters stayed unopened in his tunic pocket.

  The squadron moved through Moulsford, Oliver and other smiths at the rear should horses hang back and have to be looked after. Some NCOs also followed behind in case any men fell out, though none would today. The level stretch called Fair Mile seemed longer than that, for he wanted to get on and see new vistas.

  They crossed the ground of ten days ago, where the division of two thousand men had been inspected by the King. Oliver noted his bearded figure and frozenly severe aspect, changing to benign kindness and concern on speaking to the next man. The King was nowhere as tall as himself, something else to tell his parents when he saw them. Even Burton by then might, after time overseas, have more respect for him.

  An invigorating tang of caustic horse droppings sharpened the air, fodder that had worked through many an irritable stomach. Five hundred horses traversing the hills would leave soil for flowers and cabbages to thrive. Such fertilizer made the garden sprout at home, Burton often sending the girls to collect what had been left along the lane.

  Churn Hill was a green hump in the sky behind, but a good soldier never looks back, the sergeant once bawled. After half an hour they halted on the open downs to check saddles, and for fifteen minutes of the hour, or every three miles at regulation pace, they dismounted and led their mounts on foot, keeping to trail or lane and maintaining a proper distance from the horse in front. A ten-minute break every two hours allowed for a quick smoke or swallow of water, or to loosen the horse’s girth and turn its head to any breeze.

  The springy turf was easy to ride on, and despite no laxness in dressage the sergeants
barked them to attention on approaching a village. They needed little telling, as children clapped from garden walls, men and women waving from the fields.

  They halted at East Ilsley among red roofs and bowering trees in a steep hollow of the hills, its pubs increasing every man’s thirst. Through a cup-shaped hollow of bare chalk, over the hills to Peasmore, beyond Leckhamstead and on by Hangman’s Stone, then down to Welford where Oliver imagined spending the rest of his life it was so embowered in trees, yet so taken with the ride over such fine country he was happier at going on, till flies tormented men and horses, and the trek seemed an endless up hill and down dale, each rider with his thoughts, the camp of morning far into the past, and the place they were going never to appear.

  Faces dusty, beiged by sun and wind, they descended to the Great West Road and crossed the cool Kennet, Oliver craving a swim among its reeds. Eighteen miles, and near to dusk, slow-walking the horses for them to breathe before going into camp, they passed through Kintbury to Hungerford Park, and into the squadron lines made ready.

  ‘If they don’t feed us soon I’ll eat my bleeding horse.’ Kirkby dismounted, and slapped its sweating flank. ‘Won’t I, Bunty? You’d give me a steak off your arse any time, wouldn’t you, my old duck?’

  No one got hungrier than a soldier, though Oliver recalled how famished he often was when knocking off from the forge, though hardly as much after such a day’s ride over the downs. But animals had to be seen to first.

  Beardmore came from the troughs, two buckets slopping water. He handed one to Oliver. ‘We’re going to be here for the winter, some chaps just said.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  Kirkby observed the neat rows of tents. ‘I expect you’ll get your wish before long.’

  Horses unsaddled, rubbed down and tied in the lines, men were told off for guard and fatigue duties. No matter how little daylight was left, a soldier’s day never ended. Yet it did. Shirtsleeves rolled after shoeing two horses, he leaned on a five-barred gate to let the breeze dry his face, and lit a cigarette to drive off gnats and flies, which fed on the horse muck. Fatigue parties gathered it up but there was always plenty. The line of hills darkened across the valley, smoke hovering above cottage chimneys as if it couldn’t make up its mind which way to go for extinction. Hungerford Park seemed like home already, but so would any place after you’d been there a couple of hours.

  From fixing his puttees in the morning to winding them into rolls at night and getting his head down for sleep, the welfare of horses was his concern: rope galls to be doctored, legs to be bandaged, the lame and halt to be attended to, shoes to be made and fitted. Recalling half-forgotten information from Burton made him as much a veterinary officer as a blacksmith.

  Days and even weeks went quickly, the flitting hours barely noticed, work continuous – though when hadn’t it been? Only in sleep were you free, until parading in the morning for inspection, taking your place in line for breakfast, dinner and tea.

  He was glad when the squadron formed up to collect its fort-nightly pay, but an equally good time was the delivery of letters, except that he was stung at another from Alma, because what was there to ask that he could give, and what could he tell her that she would like to hear? He thought of throwing her missives in fragments to the birds, watch them chase as though they were scraps of food. He wanted to lie on the earth and howl at what the letters might contain, except that a soldier must stay strong within the stockade of skin and uniform and get on with his duties. Destroying the letters would be too close to the violence he had enlisted to take part in, so he buttoned the envelope into his tunic pocket with the others, and turned to Beardmore’s, which came from Dora. She wrote in no uncertain terms, in spite of faulty spelling and punctuation, that the letter Oliver had written had been welcome and enjoyed. He handed it back. ‘You should learn to read and write. I’ll help you sometime.’

  Sergeant Wilkinson stopped Oliver. ‘Burton, you’re to go to the sidings in Hungerford and collect a couple of remounts for the colonel. Sign for them, then bring them back to the Park.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’

  ‘And get that scruff Beardmore to give you a hand.’

  ‘Come on,’ he said to Albert who still perused his magical letter, ‘we’ve got some horses to pick up.’

  Albert took his arm. ‘Shall you read me Dora’s letter again when we get back?’

  ‘If there’s time I will.’

  ‘You’re a pal. I’ll look after you when we get to France,’ at which Oliver grunted, and pushed his hand away.

  ‘That one’s a bugger.’ The corporal opened the waggon door and pointed to a fierce-eyed grey stallion of more than fifteen hands stamping a hoof in its impatience to get free. ‘He’s given trouble all the way from Marlborough. I don’t know where they get them. People sell anything to the army. Before the war we wouldn’t have touched it.’

  Oliver steadied the horse onto the station platform and, laying a hand on its mane, it sheered away. ‘You won’t be the worst horse I’ve had to deal with, so do as you’re told.’

  Deeply-arched neck, ribs full and finely bent, chin broad and straight, the rear round and full, legs fine and pasterns short, it was a handsome horse but a lot to handle. The colonel would have some fun taming it.

  A few homely words calmed it for a while, then a loop under its upper lip and over the poll with a slipknot brought a slight jerk of renewed restiveness. ‘You’ve had some bad usage, but you’ll be all right with us.’

  He kept the led horse to the nearside of the road. ‘They knew what they was doing, sending you to collect him,’ Albert called from his more tractable animal. ‘If we go the long way back it’ll be nice and quiet before the colonel gets him. Not that I don’t think we deserve a pint. What about you?’

  He couldn’t consider it yet, as they passed the church along the High Street. Albert whistled a couple of girls who, he said at Oliver’s chiding, expected no less. ‘Maybe a bit of a canter will soothe your nag. Make the bogger pant for its living.’

  Keeping the regulation distance from the nearside of the road, he held the reins in his left hand, shortening them by a foot, such an awkward cuss it hardly seemed to have a mind of its own, unless it had borrowed one from somewhere and hadn’t yet got used to it.

  He steadied the horse into the pub backyard, thinking any man deserved a drink after riding such a beast. Whoever gets him will need a few months to bring him to heel. ‘I’d rather be in the trenches than manage this one.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ll say that when you get there.’ Albert tied his horse up. ‘It’s always better to stay where you are. I heard we’ll be going back to Norfolk for a while, but let’s get a drink. The colonel can wait an extra ten minutes.’ He filled his pipe, as if it might be longer than that. ‘He’s too busy to know the difference, and if he isn’t he ought to be. I’ll go in and see what I can do.’

  Oliver dismounted, and passed over a shilling. ‘It’s my turn. Pay out of this.’ A bucket brimming under the pump provided drink for the horses, but he let the awkward one wait till the last, thinking it might mend its ways if feeling neglected. ‘At least we got you off the train quick enough, didn’t we, you mean-hearted so-and-so? I wouldn’t like to be near you in a thunderstorm. Hold still, while I light up.’

  Two men in the yard were arguing, hard to fathom what about for a while, two carters, or farm labourers, family men of about fifty, too old to heed the call from Kitchener’s boss-eyes. Oliver presumed that one was from Inkpen, and the other from Combe. The Combe man said that the gibbet on the hill between the two villages belonged to Combe, because those who lived there spent money on maintaining it. The man from Inkpen swore that the gibbet throughout history had belonged to his village.

  ‘Then why is it called Combe gibbet?’ the man from Combe said.

  ‘It ain’t called Combe gibbet. It’s called the Inkpen gibbet,’ the Inkpen man retorted.

  ‘That’s the first I ever heard.’
r />   ‘Well, you’re hearing it now. My little girls run up there to play. It’s all bracken by the woody bit called the Bull’s Tail because of its shape. They go up everyday from Inkpen.’

  ‘So I hear you say, but it’s still the Combe gibbet.’

  ‘No it ain’t. It’s Inkpen Hill, so it’s the Inkpen gibbet.’

  ‘It ain’t on Inkpen Hill. That’s half a mile away. It’s on Gallows Down. You can see it from the Bath road, as plain as a pint pot at harvest time.’

  ‘Perhaps you can, but it’s still the Inkpen gibbet.’

  The man laughed with throaty self-assurance. ‘Then how is it Combe maintains it?’

  ‘It don’t maintain it. Inkpen does. I’ll bet you a quart pot to a pickled onion.’

  Their argument went on vociferously, as if they had tackled the matter many a time before, and Oliver might have been amused had the subject been less gloomy.

  A barmaid followed Beardmore, carrying two pints, and two small whiskies on a tray: ‘Compliments of the landlord,’ she said. ‘He took for the jars but sent you the whiskies buckshee.’

  The men stopped their hammer-and-tongs about the gibbet at such generosity, one calling: ‘He’s got a soft spot for hussars. His son’s in the Royal Berkshires.’

  The grey stallion, gleaming malignly, settled itself for a long piss, as if to lessen its weight for another bout of mischief. The rest of the horses took time to do the same business. Oliver lifted his pint, wondering why they had bothered to water the horses since, judging by low cloud and a sudden chill in the wind, they would get enough of it from the sky in a while. ‘What’s your name, love?’

  With her creamy complexion and pile of fair hair he thought her about sixteen, and he smiled when she actually curtseyed. ‘Jenny. What’s yours?’

  He laughed at her cheek in asking. ‘Burton, since you want to know.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’