Kif: An Unvarnished History Read online

  That prominence, however, was not to be his for long. At the Carnshire's depôt he found that he counted rather less than did one of the hens at Tarn. In those days huts were not yet thought of, and the incipient battalions of the new army were billeted with more regard to space than suitability in the choice of location. Bewildered tyros in the art of self-preservation were harried by openly contemptuous and inwardly resentful N.C.O.'s through the unspeakable discomfort of life in drill halls, concert rooms, riding schools, garages, breweries, anything that had floor space and a more or less weathertight roof. To the old N.C.O.'s of the Half-and-Halfers this incredible collection of odds and ends—mostly odds, as one confided to his crony the sergeant tailor—was a desecration of the fair fame of the regiment. A nightmare. War they understood. It was their business. But it was their own affair. Losses were deplorable but to be understood. This influx of an untutored mob was a tragedy. It was the end of the Regiment. Only the heart-breaking need of that same regiment made the situation bearable at all. That being so they had to make the best of that unnameable rabble.

  When the fifth Carnshires marched out of barracks three months later, the sergeant tailor, standing by the gate to watch them go, jerked his head sideways in a gesture of admiration and remarked to a month-old corporal striding past him, 'Man, the swing o' yez!' That that miracle was possible was due in equal proportion to the faith, hope and philosophy of the volunteers and—let us not forget it—to the much cursed and much cursing N.C.O.'s of the old army who lacking faith and yet almost devoid of hope, had the charity to agonise over us to the end that that multitude of individual worth might not be made null for lack of a welding power.

  During those months Kif was perhaps the only entirely happy man in the battalion. He had never lain soft, and what was hardship to the majority was but mild discomfort to him. Even the peeling of 'spuds' and the scrubbing of floors and tables, the cutting up of meat for the endless stew, the fetching and carrying—all the everlasting fatigues which were such a bitter trial to the ardent spirits of the others, who had entered the army with but one object in view, to get to France as soon as possible—were done by him with a relish that endeared him to the hearts of the weary corporals so beset by martyrs and protestants. Nothing came amiss to him. What did it matter that to-day he was scrubbing out a dixie when he could rejoice in the certainty that to-morrow he would be doing something totally different, that every varied day brought something new? Even inoculation did not damp his cheerfulness, though he was decidedly ill for the first time in his life. For two days he lay on the doubtful comfort of nobbly 'biscuits' and let the world pass round and over him, while he dawdled in a universe that was partly real and partly dream.

  His nurse-in-chief during the two days that he 'went sick' was the red-headed herd from Ferry. When Kif with five other newly enlisted was ushered into the barrack-room at the depot the first person his eyes lighted on was, to his dismay, the author of his happiness. That the dismay was not mutual was evident by the surprised glee on the face of the offspring of soldiers.

  'Hullo, hullo, hullo!' he said, making a little song of it. 'If it isn't little Fifteen! What bit you, childie?'

  Kif's heart stood still. In a moment they would all know. Someone in authority would hear. Inquiries would be made.

  He put down the brown-paper parcel which contained his possessions and walked down the length of the room.

  'If you get me heaved out I'll kill you,' he said simply, but with such intensity in his quick undertone that the youth's laughing face became grave. He looked at Kif intently for a moment and then said wonderingly:

  'Coo! D'you mean to say it was true what you said? God bless me! Well,' he added after a further scrutiny, 'you're safe enough, kid. Take it from me. No one'd ever believe it.' And as he saw Kif's mouth opening with the inevitable question: 'As for me, I'm your man. I wouldn't split on you not if they gave me a commission. You're a sport. Come across to the canteen and celebrate. Think you must have had military ancestors as well, somehow.'

  'What's your John-Willies?' he asked when beer was set before them.

  'Archibald Vicar,' said Kif.

  'Do they call you all that? That's not what the chaps at Ferry market call you, is it?'

  'No, everyone called me Kif.' Quite unconsciously he used the past tense.

  'What's that short for?'

  'Don't know. I've been called that ever since I was little. I think it's the way I used to say my name. Your name is Struthers, isn't it? He had just remembered it.

  'Private James Struthers.' The red-headed one rolled the name delightedly. 'But the "private" is only temporary, so to speak. And I'm going to introduce you to one of the best, so that when I depart from the ranks in my upward career I won't be leaving you lonesome. He hasn't much chance in the army, but him and me's pals.'

  The prospectless one proved to be a young stockbroker, London born and bred, with an understanding eye, a humorous mouth, and literary tastes. He was the complete antithesis of Jimmy Struthers, who seemed to provide him with an immense amount of private enjoyment. Both were typical of their class and professions, and that they should have forgathered even in that polyglot assembly was due partly to the possessive habits of Jimmy and partly to Barclay's attitude of laisser faire and readiness to be amused with whatever came his way. And Jimmy was certainly an entertainment. There was a strange appeal about him, too. One had the same warm feeling for him that one has for a particularly valiant mongrel pup. He had broad cheek-bones and a narrow jaw, and his mouth in repose had a half-pathetic, half-disgruntled droop which was not borne out by anything either in his character or his history. When he was not talking his eves had a half-asleep expression that was almost dazed, but in one moment he would rouse from apparent indifference to an argumentative and gesticulating animation.

  It was with these two that Kif spent the leisure moments of his first months in the army, and it was Jimmy who shooed the solicitous Barclay away from Kif's mattress and constituted himself physician, consultant and nurse where the sufferer was concerned. He had himself been inoculated at the same time as Kif and regarded the proceeding as a direct insult to his status as a human being. Apart from the hurt to his dignity—'like dipping a lot of ruddy sheep'—it seemed to have had no effect on him.

  Kif became a first-class shot and developed a real talent for scout and intelligence work. He cursed night manoeuvres with point and proficiency because it was the custom to abhor them. But secretly he delighted in them. There was something in the darkness and expectancy that vibrated an answering chord in him. Anything might happen. Any one of the dragging palpitating minutes might break suddenly into flaming moment. Night was pregnant with event.

  That ninety-nine per cent of nights on manoeuvres were merely a protracted boredom of cold and discomfort never damped entirely the expectation with which he set out on them. He would sit in the lee of a dry-stone wall—and if you have ever sat behind a wall built of unmortared stone you will realise how very little lee there is—with the rain soaking through the shoulders of his greatcoat and a half-gale coming through the chinks at his back, swearing mechanically and enjoying himself to the top of his bent. He made his tall and by no means slight figure a part of the murky world about him, and for a little glorious hour would live as he had prayed to live, his mind alert to meet the unexpected and throng with plans to counter plans.

  Barclay liked him and was interested in him to an unexpected degree. It was on night manoeuvres, lying in reserve on the edge of a sheltering firwood, that he stumbled on the knowledge of Kif's unattached condition. Kif expressed his intention of not taking the usual leave before going to France.

  But what will your people think?' asked Barclay, to whom one's people were an integral part of one's existence.

  'People?' said Kif vaguely, not because he did not understand the term, but because his mind was on other things.

  'He means your folks,' said Jimmy, with the air of one condoning a slip of the tong
ue.

  Kif explained his situation.

  'And don't you want to see the people at the farm again?'

  That was what Kif had been considering. Did he want to see the Tarn people again? It would be rather nice to swank before them in his uniform, which certainly became him marvellously. And there was Mary. He would quite like Mary to see him.

  That was Kif. He would consider going back, not to gratify any need to see someone who had been amiable to him, but to taste again the magic of someone's approval. Sentiment at that time did not exist in him. He approved of Barclay and understood Struthers, and was happy with them, but he had no definite affection for either.

  He had once, seeing Barclay reading, asked him tentatively for the loan of a book. Barclay, who had been reading Pater, had sent an urgent message to his sister, with the result that for the next week Kif was absorbed in Owen Wister's Virginian, and in the succeeding weeks discovered Kipling. Kipling he approved of unreservedly, and it became difficult to drag him out of an evening to the almost nightly entertainments organised for the troops by the enthusiastic civilians of the neighbourhood.

  'Come on, my son,' Barclay would say, cuffing the black head, the only visible part of which was the nape of the neck appearing between two bony big-jointed hands, 'come and hear charming ladies sing.' At the second cuff Kif would come to the surface and exhibit resentment. Occasionally he was really angry; but he always went in the end. Not because of force majeure but because, being thoroughly wakened out of the dream land of adventure, the attractiveness of the real world of his inhabiting was once more patent to him. Concerts had so far bored him mildly—but you never knew. The glory of not knowing—of living a life that was a succession of corners!

  In the end Kif elected to take his leave—the battalion were then at Bulford—but it was not spent at Tarn, nor did Mary ever have an opportunity of admiring the uniform. Stronger than Kif's desire to taste again the unaccustomed sweets of playing lead was his longing to go out by himself 'for to admire and for to see'. The helpless restlessness which had characterised his existence at the farm had left him when his life leaped from stagnation to movement. That he had by his own doing become a pawn of unseen forces did not worry him. He had taken the stone away, and life moved, and that was all he ever asked of it. Being master of his fate was no ambition of Kif's.

  But he had no intention of refusing heaven-sent opportunities of embroidering it.

  He had meant to leave the other under the impression that he was going back to the farm, but Barclay's solicitude frustrated the intention.

  'Will you stay at the farm?' he asked. I mean, will they put you up?'

  Kif, after a microscopic pause, said airily, 'Oh yes, I expect so.' But his airiness was so ethereal as to be suspect. Barclay looked up from where he was employed with button-stick and polish and favoured Kif with a long and doubtful scrutiny. Kif bore it well for a moment or two, and then a very faint dull flush came up from his collar. Barclay looked a moment longer and returned to his buttons smiling.

  'Where are you going, Kif?' he asked.

  Kif laughed. 'If you hadn't said you had only a sister I'd have said you were a seventh son.'

  'Second sight isn't necessary when you give yourself away by looking as guilty as that. You'll never make a successful criminal, my lad. Is your destination a secret?'

  'It isn't a secret. It's just that I don't know anything about it. I'm just going to look-see, you see.'

  Barclay forbore to probe further beyond hoping that if he came to London he would come and make the family's acquaintance. Kif, who had no intention of doing any such thing—the very thought of it made him sweat—thanked him politely and the subject was dropped.

  Kif began his ave valeque to Britain by going to see a boxing tournament in Salisbury. At Tarn he had read with avidity the boxing news in the newspapers. After that he had read the racing news. Football interested him very little—there was little of adventure in anything so redolent of the village green—and, for similar reasons, cricket not at all. Horse-racing and boxing fascinated him, and boxing came an easy first. When he found himself actually and incredibly a part of what he had so often seen pictured, his joy vented itself in a prodigious sigh which led the man next him—a private of Marines—to say:

  'Fed up, mate? It do seem long when you're waiting. They oughter 'ave a band or something.'

  Kif assented absent-mindedly. He was not going to tell anyone that the mere fact of being in the building, of being one of that waiting crowd, was almost sufficient joy without the prospect of the spectacle to come. He listened in a daze of happiness to the fragments of talk which dropped out of the hum of conversation. Behind him three men were giving each other riddles. He heard one say, 'I'll give you one now. When is a…' Everywhere round him men were arguing, discussing, explaining:

  '…knocked silly in the second round.'

  '…three in the cook-house…'

  '…and I said, ses I…'

  '…far better in the Strand…'

  'I'll lay you six to four…'

  From his seat near the ring-side the huge house soared into a thick blue haze in which the medley of voices seemed to be caught and to hang suspended. Where roof met walls there were heavy violet shadows. Nothing had form or definition. Vague voices, vague shapes, vague shadows. Nothing real except the focal point of the ring, a square of drowned brilliance in the merciless light of the down-shaded arc lamps.

  The ring-side seats filled up. A man in evening clothes came and made a little speech to which Kif did not listen. Another came and made an announcement about a substitution in the programme. Seconds appeared, tremendously important, with basins, towels, and sponges. A slim youth in a blue dressing gown climbed into the ring and sat down in a corner very much as if he had lost his way and was too tired to go any further. He took no notice of the hand-clapping which greeted his arrival and merely nodded vaguely to the animated remarks his second addressed to him. A chunky youth in a paisley-patterned robe, with a flat-topped head of stiff upstanding hair alarmingly reminiscent of a curry-comb, climbed through the ropes, bowed jerkily to every part of the house, and subsided thankfully on the opposite chair. Someone came and introduced them, holding them tightly the while as if afraid of their slipping through his fingers. They shook hands with every appearance of doing their duty in the face of tremendous odds. A gong clanged, and they came to life.

  To Kif it was primarily a fight, and a good one. He saw nothing consciously of the beauty of those poised dancing figures in the flooding light; nothing of the ripple of biceps and deltoid, of swung torso and quick feet, of light sweat that made silver high-lights on the golden bodies, of the gracious appeal of a perfectly trained thing in complete relaxation. But long after the night's entertainment was over the recollection of it caused him a satisfaction that was not due wholly to the excitement of contest.

  In the third round the 'curry-comb' floored the slim youth with an upper-cut which his habitually crouching position had masked until it was too late for the slim one to parry. He went down heavily and the umpire had counted eight before he had struggled to his knees; but he was on his feet in time, blindly fighting off the elated 'curry-comb', who was out to make an end of an easy thing.

  Much good sentiment has been wasted on the man who will fight on when in pain. Pain, instead of evoking the desire to give up, incites to action by a direct appeal to temper, as any animal trainer will bear witness. But the man who has the will to make himself fight when dazed, sick, and half blind is a hero. Something of that Kif felt in the suspense of the moment. He had no pity, as most boys of his age would have had, for the staggering figure fending off attacks he could hardly see, but he had the most intense admiration—an admiration that speared him like a knife, an admiration that began in unaccustomed hero-worship and ended in envy.

  'Game chap, that!' said the marine to Kif when the gong had saved the object of his admiration from extinction and he was being revived by anxious seconds
in the corner. 'The black chap looks to be about half a stone heavier, though he can't be.'

  The fourth round found the slim one so far recovered that the 'curry-comb' reverted to the cautious tactics which had lost him the first two rounds. His supporters became vocal in their disapproval. Victory had been his for the taking, and he had failed to grasp it. With the ingenuity of their kind they aimed their blow-arrows where they stung most maddeningly. Their victim became angry, and twice his opponent's right landed smartly in his ribs through a too impetuous movement on his own part. More and more he lost his coolness. In the sixth round he lost his temper entirely. The slim youth saw his chance and took it, and the bout was over.

  Always afterwards when Kif heard the word 'boxing' he had a lightning picture of these two in the ring.

  Kif left the building when the last bout was over, drunk with satisfaction. Of all heady drinks the achieving of a much-wanted ambition is the headiest. Love, the most vaunted of the intoxicating beverages, is a poor thing, sharp with fear, flat with doubt, bitter with longing. But this realisation of an ambition—even if it is only tobogganing down a grass slope behind Authority's back to the detriment of microscopic shorts—this achieving! To have been, to have seen, to have done! Nothing makes a man so fey, so god-like.

  And Kif, his head buried in Y.M.C.A. blankets, was fey because he had attended a boxing match.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kif set out for London next morning snuffing the wet spring air on his way to the station as a terrier snuffs at a rat-hole. Any morning is a morning for setting out, but two are ideal: a damp spring morning when the little wind is full of the scent of growing things and the sky has lifted from forgotten horizons; and an autumn morning, still and faintly frosty and full of mellow sunlight when the hedges are cut and the trees tidied from the walks. One sings: 'Come and see! Come and see!' And the other says: 'It is over; let us go.' Kif on that spring morning trod the moist pavements as a king enjoying his own.