Lucifer Before Sunrise (20 page)

When at last Mr. Gladstone Gogney’s tackle puffed along the farm road it was November. The next day the threshing of the barley stack was more awkward than usual, for the latest batch of searchlight soldiers were even more inexpert than their
predecessors
. Four of them arrived nearly two hours late. Their
spokesman
, another bespectacled pale-face, introduced himself in these words, “How do, I’m a farmer, too.”

Phillip said, “Good,” despite all appearance to the contrary.

“All farms should be run by and for the People,” ‘the farmer’ announced.

“You mean the Sunday newspaper?”

“Nao. I mean Government of the People, by the People, for the People.”

“You’re an American?”

“I’m British.”

“Good. Now help us to get started.”

“After the war,
I
mean!”

“Now,
I
mean!”

“What’s the big idea?” he cried plaintively, looking to grinning mates for support.

“To thresh this stack, for the Government of the People—that’s me—by the People—that’s you.”

“Capitalism,” he muttered.

“Come on, ‘Farmer’!”

By lunch-time little had been done. The egg-and-bacon pasty that Lucy brought them for lunch, in a clean napkin, was almost all wasted. They threw away what they didn’t want, with never so much as a word of thanks for it, or for the jug of milky, sugary coffee.

However, for the record, it must be said that the majority of the searchlight soldiers who helped Phillip and his men at harvest behaved differently. They were older men, of a later call-up. Two were furniture-removers in civil life, and worked as members of a team.

Once more Bert Close came to give a hand. The farm lorry couldn’t get through the boggy places. Even his lighter lorry, fitted with double wheels, could not get through—until towed by tractor.

While they were shooting corn through the lewkum door Mr. Gladstone Gogney arrived in his car and said his tackle must leave on Monday night, latest. Phillip replied that as tomorrow was a Saturday, and the men didn’t like working on Saturday afternoon, and the soldiers wouldn’t, he didn’t see how they could possibly thresh two stacks by Monday afternoon. He reminded Mr. Gogney that over a year ago he had promised the tackle for his six stacks, for September. He explained that the oat-stack, standing unthreshed by the Decoy, held much of the food of the horses and of the cattle for the coming winter. He was short of labour, the ground was already too soft for the lorry to move, he would have no one to cart the corn with horses later on; indeed, it would be impossible for Mr. Gogney’s tackle to get there until the spring, for otherwise it might disappear forever into black, spongy peat-like soil. With great respect, would Mr. Gogney permit the oat-stack to be threshed now?

To all this Mr. Gladstone Gogney, sitting at the wheel of his car, listened as though impassively, staring in front of him. Phillip had never seen him smile. Was he a shy man? Perhaps a scared man? For suddenly Mr. Gogney said, still looking straight ahead, with a note of pleading in his voice, “You see, Mr. Maddison, a big
farmer has just rung me up saying he wants twelve days threshing to get his seed-wheat sold for the market. He’s a big man, Mr. Maddison, and I can’t afford to offend a big man, can I?”

Bert Close, also with impassive face, was listening.

“But did the big man bespeak the tackle before I did? I asked you twelve months ago.”

“No, he asked yesterday. I’ll have to take it away Monday. I can’t afford to offend a big man. The war won’t last for ever, will it? I’ve got to think of that, you know.”

“But supposing it rains all Monday, and I
can’t
thresh on that day?”

“I’ll have to take the tackle away on Monday, wet or fine.”

“But then my beasts will be without oats all the winter.”

“Well, I can’t afford to offend a big man, can I?” repeated Mr. Gladstone Gogney, appealingly.

“Very well, I’ll have to thresh tomorrow, Saturday, Mr. Gogney. We’ll do the little stack by the barn, that will be a short day.
Perhaps
half a day if I can get the searchlight soldiers to work properly. Then we’ll do the oats on Monday.” Thereupon Mr. Gladstone Gogney drove away.

But the next day was raining, there was no threshing. Phillip went to market and sold the Steep barley (100 coombs) for
sixty-nine
shillings a coomb, to his usual merchants, Messrs. Coppice, Douleur, and Less.

There was a cheerful atmosphere in the Corn Hall.
Foreign-Office
hats were on heads again; merchants looked more ‘filled up’ than on the previous week; hen-jerking glances were gone. The confident atmosphere affected Phillip, and he joked with Mr. Coppice, or was it Mr. Douleur, or Mr. Less? There were, to him, odd names of other merchants painted on their boards or sides of desks. There was a Few, a More, a Sadd; a Case, a Box, and a Bagge; a Gow, a Seago, a Gotobed. Feeling himself to be properly of the market place—a business man indeed—he joked with the corn merchant about gold bricks being at the bottom of each of his sacks. This, since he had already bought Phillip’s barley, got the scantiest attention. They had to work swiftly, those merchants; the Corn Hall was open only for an hour once a week.

*

The weather cleared on Sunday. On Monday they threshed the mixed wheat and barley stack before the Corn Barn. Later Phillip saw his error. He should have asked the driver to return the tackle to the oat-stack by the Duck Decoy. It was a ponderous slow
assembly, and he did not like to give Bob the engine man the trouble of setting-in again, since Bob had been so late getting home every evening when threshing there. So he put himself in a muddle by this act of diffidence.

Steve was in charge of making the straw stack. There were to be two layers of the stack, each from the different corn; wheat on the lower, barley on the top half. Steve built the wheat straw on a loose pyramid of calder—straw-dust and fragments from the threshing of the barley. During the interval of cleaning the sieves of barley kernels, before the threshing of the wheat, Steve could have removed the calder heap, or got someone to help him; but he didn’t. Based on the slippery pyramid the stack of wheat straw, just as they finished two hours later, slid over and nearly buried Steve and the new fork Phillip had bought him.

The engine driver, a quiet and decent fellow liked by all, was looking on.

“You wouldn’t think our chaps had all been trained in the Brigade of Guards, would you?” Phillip said.

“No sir,” he said quietly, “I would not.”

“You are right. They were trained by the Marx Brothers.”

“Yes, sir?” said the engine driver, politely. He had never been to the cinema. He added, with a subdued look on his face, “My mate and I always dread coming to thresh in this village. So did my father before him, with this same engine. Elsewhere we go, there’s a different spirit somehow, and the men work with a will. I’ve often wondered why it is.”

“The cockle strand, perhaps. And the fat flat-fish in the creeks. No man need starve in this district, so the fear of being out of a job has never been so severe as elsewhere.”

“I’ve seen several farmers come and go here on the Bad Lands,” the driver went on. “It’s always been the same end. I’m sorry I’ve got to take the tackle away now, sir, but it’s my orders.”

Phillip thanked him with a silver crown for his good services—and they were good. He was the sort of man who did more to help than he need have done to keep his job.

So Mr. Gladstone Gogney’s tackle pulled out of the Bad Lands. It was five months before the plume of jetty smoke above the thunderous mass of iron, coal and water shuddering over pot-holes arose in the valley again, watched by nervous, staring cattle in the yards, their faces grey-patched with under-nourishment.

There is an old saying that trouble never comes singly; soon troubles were coming, literally, in regiments. One day towards the end of October three soldiers on motor-bicycles arrived by the Corn Barn. They were soon followed by an officer in a small camouflaged car. With this obvious advance-guard came several lorries, also camouflaged, and loaded with stores. Phillip regarded them with grim dismay: was he to have another camp on the farm, which meant more scrounging of hens, eggs, and anything else that could be ‘won'? He concealed his thoughts when the officer came towards him and without any preliminary greeting whatsoever said, “Where's the water supply, do you know?”

Phillip told him. Without further words the subaltern turned away and gave an order to a sergeant to bring the water-lorry and get it filled. Phillip walked after him, and said with what easy amiability he could assume, “Perhaps if you want some water, you will tell me, then I will ask one of my men to fill your tank for you? Are you passing through the district?”

“We are going to stay several weeks up there,” he replied, pointing to the Home Hills and the woods above.

“Then you are the advance party?”

“That's right.”

“May I see the requisition order?”

“Haven't you had an order? One has been sent to you.”

“I haven't had it, and until I do receive it, I must ask you not to attempt to occupy this agricultural land. I am the owner of it, and responsible for the farming as well.”

“Well, you can't stop us. There's a war on.”

“Yes, that's why I must safeguard my crops.”

“You'll get compensation.”

“That is not the point. How many are coming?”

“Several hundred, I expect.”

“What's your regiment, please?”

“That I will not tell you.”

“Then what is your name?”

“I'll give you no information.”

He was using the current ‘security measure' of giving no
information
‘likely to be of use to an enemy'.

That could be countered by its equivalent, “How do I know who you are? How do I know you are not German parachute troops in British uniform? May I see your identity card, please? I am
entitled
to ask, you know, as the owner of this land.”

“The captain and the major will be here soon, and I'll send them to you.”

‘Scroggy', an old cavalryman who was at Mons in August, 1914, said to Phillip, “Horatio Bugg is telling all who'll listen that you are a fifth-columnist, and the police had released you, otherwise when Hitler comes they would all be liquidated.” He roared with laughter, “Can you beat that?”

“Our one and only Bugg,” replied Phillip, “is an odd bod.”

“You're quite right,” replied ‘Scroggy'. “His father was as hard a worker as his son is idle. Horatio started life as an office boy, but pinched the petty cash and so lost his job. That was before the first war. Now he considers himself to be a gentleman of leisure,” cackled ‘Scroggy'. “Horatio was exempted in the first war, his conscience wouldn't let him fight, ha! ha! ha!”

*

Army lorries were moving upon the farm roads. They were ten-tonners. Ribbed tyres tore up the loam-and-gravel surface. At the top of the hill they turned off on the grass, and began to
unload
their gear by the pine trees on the ridge. Soon branches of trees were being lopped and torn down for camouflage. After watching this, Phillip sought out and asked the officer when the main body was expected.

“I am unable to tell you.”

“For how long do you propose to remain here?”

“You must ask the officer commanding.”

“My ewe-flock is on the Home Hills, together with the cows and bull, as it is the only available grass, since paddock and meadows are flooded after the recent heavy rains.”

“Sergeant, move that Bren gun over there!”

Phillip went home and telephoned the local Anti-Aircraft Gunnery School, which had a permanent camp by the marshes. He learned from the Adjutant that territorial troops were coming to practise for a few weeks, that their camping site was already
allocated on the extended area of grass between arable and marsh known as the Sheep Walk. There would be a lot of them, several hundreds, the voice said, adding, “I should kick them off, if they're on your farm.”

Phillip thanked him, and said he would; and then seeing the subaltern officer down the road, went after him. Before he could catch him, the young man went into the public telephone-box. Phillip guessed he was asking for further instructions; and when he came out, told him that his camping site had been allocated on the Sheep Walk. Again he made no reply.

Horatio Bugg, Phillip noticed, had a satisfied look on his face as he walked past his yard.

*

Later that afternoon an elderly major called at the farmhouse with another officer whom he introduced as his second-in-command.

In civil life both had probably been tradesmen, judging by their manner and address. Like the Yeomanry who had come in the summer, these troops also came from Derbyshire; but with a
difference.
The major, who had a heavy reddish indoor face, began by telling Phillip that he had never received a complaint from any farmer on whose land his men had been: that they were coming only for ten days or so, after which another unit was replacing them, and then a third replacing the second lot.

Phillip asked him straightly: “Is this land requisitioned, or is it not? If it is, why have I not received the requisitioning order?”

“The order will come, no doubt.”

“But there is doubt, sir, if you will forgive my mentioning it. Will you please give me a direct answer to the question?”

The major looked at the captain. The captain was younger, or looked younger. He wore the two later ribands of the 1914–18 war, once known as Squeak and Wilfred. The major, whose left breast was modestly vacant of riband, looked like an alderman of some provincial town. He left it to his junior to deal with Phillip.

“The order, as far as it is humanly possible to say, is being made out now,” said the captain, suavely, with a smile.

“I understand that you are supposed to be parking on the Sheep Walk, by the marshes. Your subaltern told me categorically that my land was already requisitioned. Is that true, or false?”

“I think he was a little uncertain about his facts,” replied the captain, with an attempt at amiability, adding, “Of course, you will get compensation.”

“I am not concerned with compensation, but with my livestock. What area do you intend to occupy?”

“We shall require all the grassland of the hills.”

“That is twenty acres, all my grazing that isn't marsh or
meadow-land
. Will your men enter the woods?”

“No, we shall not go into the woods at all. You really need not worry. We have never had a complaint yet.”

“I am not concerned with possible complaints, but with the health of my livestock. My bull, my cows, and my sheep are already on the twenty acres of the Home Hills, the only dry
grazing
we have. My meadows are flooded. Not only will the grass be trodden into mud if my stock is put on the meadows, but the ewes' feet will rot, and some will die. Your men have already left our gates open. If anything happens to the bull or other stock, it will be a serious matter, for which I am legally responsible.”

“Well, we've never had a complaint yet,” repeated the major shortly. After a first glance Phillip had avoided looking at his florid fleshy face. He looked as though he ate a lot of meat.
Perhaps
he was a butcher in civil life. The lack of medal ribands was puzzling; surely he could not be younger than he? But wasn't he looking at this man through the eyes of himself a quarter of a century ago? Heavens, did he look older than that corpulent body?

“I am not complaining. I am trying to avoid an irregularity which might reflect on your Divisional Commander. This farm is a unit of the home front, to be maintained to full efficiency for the service of the nation, and my stock must remain on the grass of our Home Hills. Can't you telephone your D.A.Q.M.G. at Division and so ascertain whether or not Deepwater farm is the proper camping site allocated to you? The adjutant of the Anti-Aircraft Camp told me you were supposed to go on the Sheep Walk.”

The major looked at the captain again.

“We will put sentries on the gates at night,” said the captain. “I think you will find things will be all right.”

“We've never had a complaint so far,” repeated the major.

After a meal of bread and cheese and pickled onions, Phillip hurried away to help with the loading of the sugar-beet. It was wet weather, the beet were thick with mud. Time was precious; time was alarming; soon the frosts would come, and if he did not get it off soon, the beet might rot in the field. Then there was the ploughing to be done, also before the frost. How could he plough on the tractor, and at the same time cart sugar-beet? And Billy wanted to join the Air Training Corps——

Rain fell every day. Soon the roads were worse than they had been in the winter of 1936/7, when Phillip had first viewed the dereliction of the Bad Lands.

He asked for an order limiting speed of the monsters to 5 m.p.h.
They roared to and fro as before. The loamy gravel Phillip and his team had dug and spread four years previously—nearly a thousand tons of it in under two months—was scattered; grass churned to blackness; branches of trees everywhere torn down; doors lifted off iron hooks from stable and granary, for use as washing perches beside the river; tool kit of the Silver Eagle—which stood, with a ‘new' (made out of bits and pieces from knackers' yards) engine in a bay of the hovel—stolen. Also—minor disaster now that he had to rise early to feed the horses—someone had pinched a new alarum clock for which he had waited during ten months. Why had he left it in the back of the car? Lucy's clock (borrowed by Phillip) was faulty; more alarmed than alarming, in the sense that it was liable to panic and go off at any time, irrespective of setting. Several times Phillip was awakened before midnight, imagining it was time to get up.

Matt said the ewes would take fright easily and slip their lambs if something was not done. He had to keep them on the paddock, which was a swamp. It was a Passchendaele autumn—rain, rain, rain. Several ewes were limping. Matt pared their feet, treated the rot with ointment, but the wet got them down. More were feeding on knees than on feet.

The Aberdeen-Angus bull and his cows had to remain on
Denchman
Meadow, which was under water. What had been a green and level sward was now a mess of hoof-holes—an aerial
photograph
of the Salient in 1917.

No requisition order had been served.

On the last day of October Phillip helped to sack up, in the Corn Barn, one hundred and six coomb of Steep barley, and then to lift the two-hundredweight sacks on to the lorry taking the load to the railway station.