Wolseley of Fort Garry. Retiring from the Army, time-expired, after the Chitral Relief Force in 1895, he had joined up again during the South African War, and once more in 1914. He sat at a desk inside the single cubicle of “H” lines store-room which was filled to the ceiling with boots, puttees, tunics, greatcoats, and other floggable stuff.
Talking with him and the sergeant instructor in the cubicle, over whiskey and water, Phillip felt quite the old soldier, as he spoke of the Bill Browns, the Coalies, and others with whom he had served in 1914. He took the issue breeches to the tailor in the next hut, and was measured for a tight fit around the knee, waiting while white buck-skin strappings were sewn on by the enlisted man who sat, with needle, thread and ball of wax, crossed-legged on a trestle table beside the stove. Phillip heard about his life in Whitechapel before the war: how suits from Savile Row, Sackville Street, and all the “big” tailors were collected, to be taken home and stitched together, piecework, making sixpence and eightpence a jacket. Phillip liked him, he had brown eyes and a feeling for music and poetry; and charged only a shilling for the job, which took four hours.
From the same stores Phillip acquired a driver’s coat, with large semicircular collar, which he wore into town without badges of rank. It was rather the thing, he observed: seniorofficers often wore burberries and British warms without rank badges. He spoke to one in a shoe shop in the High Street, taking him at first for a very new second loot, with his smooth pink face and incipient moustache; and seeing that he was buying a pair of lace-up Norwegian field boots, advised him to choose a slightly oversize pair, to wear with an extra pair of socks, loosely, to keep the feet both warm and dry in the trenches. The youth, who could not have been more than eighteen, said, “Yes, I found that to be a good idea,” and went on with his purchases, which included a leather jerkin with sleeves. To try this on he removed his burberry, to reveal a major’s crowns and a Military Cross riband on his tunic. At the sight Phillip, who was waiting to buy a pair of string gloves, drifted to the other end of the shop.
Now, in badgeless driver’s coat, the brass buttons of which had been replaced by leather ones, booted and spurred, he mouched about the town, ending up in a bookshop. There he discovered The Oxford Book of English Verse, and opening it at random, read
The blessèd damozel lean’d out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of water stilled at even.
He stood there transfixed, reading stanza after stanza.
Alas! We two, we two, thou say’st!
Yea, one wast thou with me
That once of old. But shall God lift
To endless unity
The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?
His eyes hastened down the page to the damozel’s answer:
There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me: —
Only to live as once on earth
With Love, — only to be,
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he.
But the final answer was the division between life and death.
( I saw her smile. ) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. ( I heard her tears ).
Black depression struck him. There was no union in the spiritual world. Lily was gone for ever. But at least he would have the poem. “I’d like to buy this book, please.”
The bombazine-black girl did not smile, she had a waxen face. What had happened to her? Some Keechey betrayed her? More likely she had grown up in fear. Her avoiding eyes discouraged conversation. He went from the shop to the darkness of the picture palace, followed by tea in the Angel, and reading in an armchair before the fire. He would like to be Lily to the thin little pale girl in the bookshop.
When the bar opened, he went in. The blue-eyed
Talking with him and the sergeant instructor in the cubicle, over whiskey and water, Phillip felt quite the old soldier, as he spoke of the Bill Browns, the Coalies, and others with whom he had served in 1914. He took the issue breeches to the tailor in the next hut, and was measured for a tight fit around the knee, waiting while white buck-skin strappings were sewn on by the enlisted man who sat, with needle, thread and ball of wax, crossed-legged on a trestle table beside the stove. Phillip heard about his life in Whitechapel before the war: how suits from Savile Row, Sackville Street, and all the “big” tailors were collected, to be taken home and stitched together, piecework, making sixpence and eightpence a jacket. Phillip liked him, he had brown eyes and a feeling for music and poetry; and charged only a shilling for the job, which took four hours.
From the same stores Phillip acquired a driver’s coat, with large semicircular collar, which he wore into town without badges of rank. It was rather the thing, he observed: seniorofficers often wore burberries and British warms without rank badges. He spoke to one in a shoe shop in the High Street, taking him at first for a very new second loot, with his smooth pink face and incipient moustache; and seeing that he was buying a pair of lace-up Norwegian field boots, advised him to choose a slightly oversize pair, to wear with an extra pair of socks, loosely, to keep the feet both warm and dry in the trenches. The youth, who could not have been more than eighteen, said, “Yes, I found that to be a good idea,” and went on with his purchases, which included a leather jerkin with sleeves. To try this on he removed his burberry, to reveal a major’s crowns and a Military Cross riband on his tunic. At the sight Phillip, who was waiting to buy a pair of string gloves, drifted to the other end of the shop.
Now, in badgeless driver’s coat, the brass buttons of which had been replaced by leather ones, booted and spurred, he mouched about the town, ending up in a bookshop. There he discovered The Oxford Book of English Verse, and opening it at random, read
The blessèd damozel lean’d out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of water stilled at even.
He stood there transfixed, reading stanza after stanza.
Alas! We two, we two, thou say’st!
Yea, one wast thou with me
That once of old. But shall God lift
To endless unity
The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?
His eyes hastened down the page to the damozel’s answer:
There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me: —
Only to live as once on earth
With Love, — only to be,
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he.
But the final answer was the division between life and death.
( I saw her smile. ) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. ( I heard her tears ).
Black depression struck him. There was no union in the spiritual world. Lily was gone for ever. But at least he would have the poem. “I’d like to buy this book, please.”
The bombazine-black girl did not smile, she had a waxen face. What had happened to her? Some Keechey betrayed her? More likely she had grown up in fear. Her avoiding eyes discouraged conversation. He went from the shop to the darkness of the picture palace, followed by tea in the Angel, and reading in an armchair before the fire. He would like to be Lily to the thin little pale girl in the bookshop.
When the bar opened, he went in. The blue-eyed
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