“I’d like to take you out to dinner one night.”
“Perhaps,” said Polly, taking back her hand.
“Well, so long!” said Eugene, fixing the monocle and raising his hat. “Till we meet again!”
They waited while his footfalls lessened in the darkness.
“It seems awfully sad, somehow, to have to say goodbye,” said Phillip. “But life is like that, you know.”
They walked back unspeaking until Polly said, “I am sorry about Bertie. Aunt Hetty asked us not to talk to you about it, but I want to say I’m sorry, Phil.” She took his arm again.
“Oh, Mother doesn’t understand, really. She always tries to hush things up. Was Aunt Dorrie very upset?”
“She didn’t cry, Aunt said, but was very quiet. Gran’pa wants to take them both to Brighton, but there’s Uncle Dick, with his special constable’s work, to be considered.”
“Yes, he’s out until midnight, three nights a week. Poor old Father. What’s the time now?”
The hands of his Ordnance wristlet watch, glowing phosphorescent, showed twenty past eleven. The wire between life and death drew him. He did not speak while they crossed the crest of the Hill; but at the top of the gulley he stopped, holding the sleeve of her coat. “Polly, shall we——?”
“If you like.”
They went along the hurdles opposite the sheep-fold and sat down on the grass.
“You’re shivering,” said Polly. “Here, come inside my coat.”
She held him. After a while she unbuttoned the top of her bodice. “Lay your head here.” He fondled her warm softness, while all feeling for her stayed away with his thoughts. He clung to his thoughts, yet knowing them to be hopeless. It was ended; all he had ever hoped for was dead. He might as well have Polly. He put his lips to her breast, feeling roughness rising in him.
“Polly, has anyone else ever——”
“Wouldn’t you like to know!”
“Not particularly. Come on.”
“All right‚” said Polly.
*
The October night was quiet. From the Hill the distant shunting of ammunition trucks in Woolwich could be heard. It was half past eleven. Richard Maddison had another thirty minutes to go before he reported to the Randiswell Police Station. Each night he visited the dozen special constables on their beats, always at the same times and places, so that they could rely on him appearing regularly. He was tired, quite fagged-out, he told himself as he walked down a street, dutifully looking for cracks of light in doors and windows, and scanning roof-tops for sign of signalling by flash-lamp. He was cold, he had had but a scanty supper, he had arrived home from the office only ten minutes before being called out for duty. He had never been late yet. In the dreary course of his patrol he thought of his dark lantern, and wished that he had not given it to Phillip years before—the boy would have taken it anyway—for then it could have warmed his hands during the coming winter nights.
February 1954—May 1955
Devon.
By the Same Author
by Henry Williamson in Faber Finds
THE FLAX OF DREAM
The Beautiful Years
Dandelion Days
The Dream of Fair Women
The Pathway
The Wet Flanders Plain
A CHRONICLE OF ANCIENT SUNLIGHT
Donkey Boy
Young Phillip Maddison
How Dear Is Life
A Fox Under My Cloak
The Golden Virgin
Love and the Loveless
A Test to Destruction
The Innocent Moon
It Was the Nightingale
The Power of the Dead
The Phoenix Generation
A Solitary War
Lucifer Before Sunrise
The Gale of the World
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2012
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© Henry Williamson Estate, 1955
The right of Henry Williamson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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ISBN 978–0–571–28753–6