Heart of War (9 page)

The door flew open, without the customary knock, and a large man with a pleasant, vaguely vacant expression behind the wide eyes, hurried in, ‘Mr Richard … Bert's in there, telling them to break everything!'

Richard and Bob stood up simultaneously. The big man was Willum Gorse, eldest son of the old poacher of Walstone, Probyn Gorse, and father of the twins Florinda and Fletcher Gorse, and of four other children. Bert Gorse was Willum's fiery half-brother, son of Probyn by his second Woman, whom he had taken after Willum's mother died; he never married either of those, or his current Woman.

Willum gabbled, ‘He's in the main machine shop now, Mr Richard. He's speaking to the men, and shouting and saying bad things, but he can't help it, Mr Richard. His mum always beat him and me when we was nippers, and …'

Richard listened no more, but hurried out, and, with Bob Stratton at his heels and Willum Gorse shambling fast behind, ran down the passage, across the yard and into the main machine shop.

The silence struck him at once. Only the lineshafting up in the roof turned; the driving belts hung motionless on their pulleys. The electric lights shone harshly down on rows of abandoned machines and tools. At the far end four black-painted Rowland Rubys – the last that would ever be made, probably – stood near the great exit doors, all but finished. Between him and the four cars half the total work force of the factory – two hundred men and women – were crowded round a bench in the middle of the huge room. Bert Gorse was standing on the bench, and now, as they walked forward at a slower pace they could hear his voice, echoing in the cavernous shop. In a moment they made out some of his words: ‘Rowland's is going to close … tomorrow or the next day, no one knows, except the bosses … but it's closing …'

By now Richard and Bob were close at the backs of the crowd. Willum had fallen aside, his powerful hands
wringing as he gazed up at his small, angry half-brother.

Bert continued, ‘So we'll all get lay-off slips … and some of us will get what I already have.' He pulled a paper out of his coat pocket and waved it in the air. ‘A call-up notice! Work today, out of a job tomorrow, blown to bits the day after!'

Richard noticed that the crowd close round Bert was all men. The one-third of the work force that was female was standing in groups round the walls, arms folded, holding themselves aloof from the men.

Bert shouted, ‘You'll get the call-ups as soon as you're out of here, unless you're married … and that won't save you for long, mark my words! Well, I'm going to stay at home! They're not going to get Bert Gorse out of the way and shot to bits that easy, not on your life, they ain't!'

‘They'll come and get us, if we're called up,' a voice cried. ‘Wot's the use?'

‘There's ways,' Bert shouted. ‘Don't go! None of you. Tell 'em to fuck 'emselves! Stand together!'

‘'Ow do you know about us being laid off?' another voice called, anxiety clear in the pitch.

Richard was about to cut in, but Bert, who had just noticed him, forestalled him, yelling, ‘I
know
. The War Office don't want to buy Mr Richard's mobile machine-gun vehicle, and Rowland's is going to close until they can refit to fill shells. And all us men will be out of work, and then in the Army, because they'll use only women with the shells!' He seized a huge ball-peen hammer off the bench and waved it over his head. ‘Show 'em what we think of them!' He leaped down and smashed the hammer into the head of a turret lathe. A piece flew out of its cast-iron driving pulley and Bert swung again. A confused roar arose from the crowd of men, at first formless, but gathering shape and anger as it grew. Other loose equipment was seized and wielded. The vast room echoed to shouts, the clang of steel on steel, the crunch of glass. Tool bins toppled, their contents rolling across the floor, driving belts sagged as they were cut.

Richard shouted in Bob's ear – ‘Call the police!' Bob pushed away through the mob as Richard jumped onto the bench. His voice cracked in his effort to make the angry and frightened men hear – ‘Stop!' he screamed. ‘Think! …
What choice do we have? No one can buy or use our cars because of the war … what else can we do? … Some of you will have jobs here … but how can we employ master mechanics pouring lyddite into shell cases, turning screw caps? We'll try to find other, suitable work for anyone displaced. For God's sake, stop!'

But the destruction went on and slowly Richard lowered his arms. They were animals. They deserved the Western Front, and by God he'd see that as many as possible were sent there. He walked out, and back to his office, looking neither to right nor left, his ears mentally stopped against the sounds of destruction behind him.

‘He's coming down the road now,' Probyn Gorse said. ‘You skip out and play by the river, Violet.'

Violet and all Willum's younger children lived in Hedlington with their mother and father; only the elder twins, Florinda and Fletcher, lived here with their grandfather, and now Florinda was in London with the Marquess of Jarrow … and Violet had come down by train and hurried up from the station to tell her grandfather that she was pregnant, and that Mr Stratton was coming. Now she went out of the front door – the only door – and wriggled through the bushes to the bank of the Scarrow, where brambles and bracken hid her from the cottage. Inside, Probyn waited, sitting by the plain table. His Woman fed a few more chips of wood into the stove; his grandson Fletcher sat in another chair, this one backless, by the window, reading. Outside, the Duke of Clarence barked once, and they heard a man's voice – ‘Down, there!' – then the knock on the upper half of the door, which was in two parts, like a stable door.

‘Come in,' Probyn growled. The door opened, and Bob Stratton stood framed in his Sunday best, wearing gloves and a tweed overcoat with a cape attached, and of course his bowler hat and a stick with an ivory knob. He looked ill-at-ease in spite of his obvious prosperity and substance compared with the stark austerity of the cottage and everything in it.

‘Mr Gorse?' he said.

Probyn nodded.

‘I think we met once, some years ago, when Mr John had
a lot of us from Rowland's for the day …'

‘Maybe.'

Bob looked at the Woman, then at Fletcher. Neither glanced in his direction. He cleared his thorat – I wish to speak to you privately, Mr Gorse.'

Probyn said, ‘We don't have no secrets here.'

Bob cleared his throat again. There was no help for it. He said heavily, ‘I have reason to believe that some boy has got your grand-daughter Violet in the family way, Mr Gorse. She's run errands for Mrs Stratton and myself, and I thought you ought to know. She's too young to have a baby and care for it, so …' He pulled a five pound note from the wallet, ‘If your, ah, lady will do the necessary so Violet doesn't have it, I'll be happy to pay.'

The note lay on the table by Probyn's elbow. Fletcher's lips moved as he read Shelley's
Mont Blanc
to himself, but he heard what was being said, too. Silly old bugger, he thought, as if we were going to believe that.

Probyn spoke over his shoulder, ‘Would you do it?'

The woman said, ‘No.'

Bob fumbled in the wallet for another fiver. The Woman said, ‘She's going to have a dozen afore she's finished, and none of 'em by a husband, so she'd best learn about it now.'

Bob felt the sweat break out on his forehead, under the band of the bowler. ‘Please!' he pleaded, ‘her mother will go to the police …'

‘No,' the Woman said.

Bob took off his hat and wiped his forehead. He looked pleadingly at Probyn, ‘Can't you help me … as man to man … you understand.'

‘Yes,' Probyn said shortly.

Bob waited. In a minute he would cry. He must not so demean himself in front of these people. The notes lay on the table. At last he picked them up, and put them back in his wallet.

He turned to leave, and Probyn said, ‘You'd best tell your wife.'

Bob nodded. Tomorrow … the day after … tonight. There was nothing else for it. God had turned his back.

Bob Stratton reached Lady Blackwell's Hospital at four the same afternoon, after returning to Hedlington before lunch, eating his normal large Sunday dinner, and having a nap: in
fact only lying down, and hoping that sleep would come, which it did not. At last he got up, restless, and after a while Jane said, ‘Why don't you go and see Frank? You haven't seen him for a week.'

His eldest son was walking carefully round the ward in blue convalescent uniform when Bob arrived. On recognizing his father he said, ‘Hullo, Dad … Sit down … tell me about the riot at Rowland's. I've heard all sorts of stories.'

Bob sat down in the chair by the bed, and Frank lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. Bob said, ‘Bert Gorse egged the men on to break up the place because we were going to have to give them all their notices, and then, he said, they'd all be called up.'

Frank said, ‘Do most of 'em a lot of good, if they were. And the R.E.s could use them.'

‘They broke up some of the machinery. We had to send for the police. We thought there'd be trouble again next day, when they were to come and hear Mr Richard speak and get their slips … There wasn't. Mr Richard never said anything about the trouble, just about the shell-filling factory, and they clapped him when he'd finished …'

‘They were all exhausted and frightened, like, by what they'd done,' Frank said reflectively. ‘Did they do much damage?'

Bob said, ‘Thousands of pounds, but the insurance will cover some of it, and we'd have had to get all of it off the floor anyway, so it didn't turn out so bad as it seemed at first … You're looking well, Frank, considering.'

‘You look a mite peaked, Dad,' Frank said. ‘That trouble at Rowland's must have worried you.'

Bob nodded. Could he tell Frank about his real trouble?

Frank said, ‘They're going to give me a physical exam tomorrow, and then let me out for a month's convalescence.'

‘Even before they know the result of the examination?'

‘Ah, that's just to decide whether I'll ever be fit for active service again.'

‘You'll never be … not with only one kidney, and a hole in your lung and two or three in your tripes.'

Frank was pale and thin, but otherwise looked well. He was still wearing the beard that he had grown when he was appointed Pioneer Sergeant of the 1st Battalion the Weald Light Infantry – for Pioneer Sergeants were the only men in
the Army allowed to wear a beard. As Bob had learned, his son, a superb mechanic and craftsman, had been greatly influenced by his seventeen months in the Army, particularly his year in France.

He said, ‘They'll want you as foreman at Hedlington Aircraft, as soon as you're fit. Mr Richard told me. You'll never go back to France.'

‘I will Dad, if I'm able. I'm Pioneer Sergeant … but I'd like to have a little time with Anne and the nippers first, that I would.'

‘You'll have the rest of your life,' Bob said. He got up to go. ‘Anything you want?'

‘No, Dad. Just give my love to Mum and tell her I'll be seeing her the day after tomorrow, when they let me out … Heard anything from Fred?
Mister
Fred, now.' He laughed cheerfully.

Bob said, ‘He was all right in his last letter. They were out of the line, he said. No shelling, but trouble with the French civilians and the military police.'

‘Same as it always was, and always will be, I suppose,' Frank said. ‘Well, thanks for visiting, Dad.'

He accompanied his father to the door of the ward, and watched him until he turned a corner of the corridor, and was lost to sight. The old man's shoulders are stooped, he thought, and his head sagging. Getting old, like all of us.

The two elderly women sat alone in the big drawing room of Laburnum Lodge. Jane Stratton kept a handkerchief to her eyes, and cried and sobbed intermittently throughout; but Rose Rowland, sitting bolt upright, almost motionless, was the sicker of the two, the skin of her face yellowish and taut across the bones, the thinning hair hidden under a lace cap, her hands – one on the arm of her chair, the other holding one of Jane's – were those of a living skeleton.

‘I don't understand,' Jane sobbed, ‘girls … only ten, nine years old even, he said … just as long as they weren't women, grown up, like.'

‘I understand,' Rose Rowland said gently, her voice weak.

‘But why? … We've been married forty years this year, and I never said no … though he never was a great one for that …'

Rose waited a moment for the sobbing to subside, then said, ‘We must think about the girl first. I'll try to persuade Mary not to have Bob prosecuted. Prosecuting won't help Violet. Bob will have to pay Mary something, say five shillings a week, until the baby's grown up. You can afford that?'

‘Oh yes, m'm, since Bob's been made manager.'

‘And he'll have to pay all the expenses of having the baby. If Mary agrees to this, she and Violet must promise not to say anything to anyone about who the father of the child is, because the police would have to prosecute on their own, if they heard … Neither Mr Harry nor Willum need to know anything about all this.'

‘Oh, no!' Jane muttered. ‘Mr Harry wouldn't believe that Bob could do such a thing, them knowing each other so long.'

‘I'm afraid at our age one learns that men can do anything … So, if Mary Gorse agrees, that will take care of Violet and the baby.'

‘Yes, m'm.'

‘Now we must think of Bob. Since I have been ill I have had a great deal of time to read. I have learned that there are things which seem like crimes … and are regarded as crimes by the law … which are in fact diseases … or compulsions … inevitable results of upbringing, of events that took place when the people concerned were very young. The study and treatment of all this is a new science, called alienism. There aren't many alienists in England yet, but there are some. One is a Dr Deerfield, who lives and practises here in Hedlington. He's an Austrian by birth, a Jew, from Vienna. He came to England about sixteen or seventeen years ago, changed his name from Hirschfeld to Deerfield, and was naturalized in, I think, 1908. He has a medical degree, of course – from Vienna. I have known him well for many years. I think Bob must see him, for treatment.'