Sergeant Nelson of the Guards (14 page)

When Bearsbreath told us this, Dale asked whether Sergeant Butts got a medal.

“Medal? What for?”

“Heroism.”

“Heroism? He did his duty. Jexpect him to stay and get caught? Jexpect him to leave his pal behind? Ja mean, heroism? Ja think they
chuck
medals away?”

*

“So there it is,” says Sergeant Crowne. “Take it or leave it. The order for C.O.s Parade is, belt and pouches and side arms, and rifle. You want to see them rifles are clean. Them barrels must gleam like Blind O’Reilly, and every nook and cranny must be dug out spotless. Mind your magazine springs: one speck o’ grit and Gord ’elp you. There’s a rifle inspection right after C.O.s Parade; and today being Saturday, the rest of the day is yours to muck about in. Got me? Geordie, be a good lad and ’elp me on with this stuff.”

Thurstan holds up Sergeant Crowne’s webbing. The Sergeant could easily manage on his own, but he is trying to win Thurstan’s
confidence
.

Watching, we experience something of the thrill of the circus … The Tamer, with supreme confidence, kneels … the lion opens the red cavern of his mouth…. The brilliantined head rests, for a second,
between the hungry-looking white tearing-teeth…. Then the Tamer, rises, bowing, and pent-up admiration lets itself loose in applause.

“Thanks,” says Sergeant Crowne, buttoning his epaulettes.

Thurstan, feeling every glance focussed upon him, shakes himself.

That man is dangerous.

A bugle sounds. “Quarter. Get outside to the Square,” says Sergeant Crowne. Still unaccustomed to individual movement, we go down in a tight group.

*

Afternoon. It blows up cold. Yes, in from the North rides a
muddy-piebald
squadron of clouds, the spearhead of the advancing winter. All of a sudden the air bites. Lance-Sergeant Dagwood, a languid-
seeming
slow-talking, meditative, inexhaustible old soldier out of
Birkenhead
, breaks up some odds and ends of timber, using only his fingers and feet. He tears to pieces a piece of two-inch plank with quiet deliberation, as if it were a Japanese wooden puzzle to which he knows the key. He is a bony man with a plain, knobbly face: the best shot in the battalion, imperturbable as a carved image, with hands like wrenches, arms that have the lifting power of cranes, and only one hot passion—the game and play of football. Placidly smoking an absurd little pipe, Dagwood shatters a twenty-pound lump of coal to bits with one calm and awful kick of his iron heel. “The times I’ve done this for my old woman,” he says. A match rasps; the draught sighs, then bellows. The stove is going.

“Where’s Bullock?” somebody asks.

Barker says: “Boxing. Officer says ‘Do you box?’ Ole Bullock says ‘Yes.’ ‘Amatyer or Professional?’ ‘Pro,’ says Ole Bullock. The long and the short of it is, ’e’s gorn to the gym. Gord blimey, I’d ’ate to ’ave to take ole Bullock on. I can use me forks a bit, but nothing like ole Bullock.”

“Can he go?” asks Dagwood.

“Go? One smack from that right ’and, and yer jaw’s just the place where yer teef used to be. ’E’s a pro, I tell yer. ’E met Nippy Oliver.”

Dagwood asks: “Who’s Nippy Oliver?”

“Nippy went ten rahnds wiv Young Kilham.”

“And who’s Young Kilham?”

“No kiddin’, Sarnt? Don’t yer know? Young Kilham drew with Hymie Gold. Hymie Gold went the distance with Fred M’Aharba. Ever ’eard of M’Aharba? It’s a sort of an Irish name, but ’e’s a sheeny: M’Aharba is Abraham spelt backwards. ’E could of been ’eavyweight champion. No jokes, ole Bullock can fight.”

“Did he beat this Nippy Oliver?”

“Certainly ’e beat Nippy Oliver. On’y ’e was robbed o’ the verdict. The referee was crooked. Everybody says ole Bullock won that fight. ’E’s a wildcat, Sarnt, honest to Gawd.”

“Well, that’s all right,” says Dagwood, easily. “He
looks
like a fighter.”

“See that nose, Sarnt? See them ears? Oh,” says Barker, hastily, “I know that sort o’ thing don’t count. But … well, talk o’ noses. I knoo a feller that kept a pub, and to look at this geezer you’d swear ’e’d fought bare fists with everybody from the Pedlar Palmer to Joe bloody Louis. If ever there was any trouble in ’is pub, ’e’d simply lean over the bar and say: ‘Anybody askin’ for anyfink ’ere?’ and people ’d shut up as if somebody’s shoved a sock down their froats. Well, one night ’e got a bit you-know, soppy, and ’e told me abaht ’is face. It ’appened when ’e was a younkster—’e fell aht of a pear tree, and the branches ’ad sort of bopped ’im as ’e come froo ’em. ’E’d never ’ad a scrap in ’is life. ’E couldn’t ’it ’ard enough to shake a blamange. Didn’t ’ave the nerve, any’ow.

“But ole Bullock. I can size a bloke up. I’ve ’ad a few scraps in my time. I—”

Bates snatches this opportunity of saying: “Did Oi ever tell yow about Brummy Joe?”

“Shut up, you an’ your Brummy Joe. I’ve ’ad a few scraps, and I can tell who to scrap wiv and ’oo not. I wouldn’t start anyfink wiv old Bullock.”

“To me,” says Dagwood, “he looks a bit slow.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” says Barker. “But ’e’d be a swine to try and stop.”

“Ah … that, yes,” says Dagwood. “I don’t say no to that.”

Bullock comes back. He has a black eye, and a general air of calm satisfaction.

“Well?” asks Barker. “’Ow dit go?”

“All right,” says Bullock.

“Who d’you work out with?” asks Dagwood.

“Chap called Ackerman,” says Bullock.

“What, a Corporal? A big feller? Jack Ackerman, of Y Company?” asks Dagwood, with interest.

“That’s it.”

“Now Ackerman is good, son. How d’you do?”

“Oh, I did all right.”

“He got you in the eye, I notice.”

“Oh, that? That’s nothing.”

“Give him a pasting?”

“No, we didn’t go on long enough. We just played about.”

“Think you could give Ackerman a coating, son?”

“Oh yes, I could give Ackerman a coating, Sergeant,” says the serious-minded Bullock. “I went a bit easy with him. He hit me a bit. I didn’t hit him much. But if I had to meet Ackerman, why, I’d get him all right.”

“You’ll have to be pretty good to get Ackerman.”

“I’ve never been knocked off my feet,” says Bullock. “Except once. It was a foul punch. I think it was an accident. A Jamaica nigger called Rube did it, at the Pilfold Stadium. He swung and got me in the groin. I don’t think it was the nigger’s fault. His foot slipped, or something. Even then I was only down for five seconds. They wanted to give me the fight, but I went on with it.”

“But you got that blackie!” says Barker.

“In the last round,” says Bullock.

Between Barker and Bullock a firm friendship has come into being.
I see Barker’s eyes gleam with triumph. “There now,” he says. “Ole Bullock could smash ’em all. Couldn’t yer, eh?”

Bullock says: “I can’t think of anybody I couldn’t beat.” He is not bragging. He really cannot think of anybody he couldn’t beat. He
contemplates
his knuckles; screws up his face, and spits a little blood from a cut on the inside of his lip, his permanently swollen upper lip. “I think I could get most of ’em. I’ve seen Joe Louis on the pictures. Given time, I could get him, even.”

Sergeant Crowne says: “What d’you mean, given time? You mean, if you could wait sixty or seventy years till ’e’s nice and old, and slosh ’im when ’e’s too blind to see yer?”

“Oh no,” says Bullock, very earnest, “I mean, given enough rounds. I’d wear him down and then I’d get him. Give me twenty rounds, and I’d get Louis.”

We look at one another, not knowing what to say. The boy from Widnes says: “Don’t——” and then pauses; but he sees no aggression in the dour, battered face of the indomitable Bullock, and so goes on: “Don’t be such a silly Git, Bullock!”

“Why am I a silly Git?”

“Joe Louis’d knock you silly in one round.”

“Oh no he wouldn’t,” says Bullock.

The boy from Widnes protests: “I saw the picture of that thur Louis fighting Max Bur. He hit that thur Bur whurever he liked. And so he would you, Bullock.”

“That’s all right,” says Bullock, amiably.

“Come ’n get a tea ’n’ a wad,” says Barker.

“All right,” says Bullock, and they go out.

When the door has closed behind them, a stranger, a guardsman with a sagging, humorous face, not unlike Walt Disney’s Pluto, laughs a peculiar quacking laugh.

“Joke?” says Sergeant Dagwood. “What’s the joke, Hacket?”

The guardsman called Hacket says: “I’ve seen Bullock fight twice.
I saw him fight that nigger, Rube, at the Pilfold Stadium. And I saw him fight a kid called Francis in Bedford.”

“Well, what’s funny?”

“Well, nothing. Only he’s duff. He’s terrible.”

“In what way terrible? Did he win like he said?”

“Yes, he won all right, just like he said. That nigger Rube was pretty lousy too; he must of weighed seventeen stone, and he was as slow as a dray horse—but even then, he was about ten times quicker than Bullock. He hit Bullock with everything he had. It sounded like
hammering
nails into a packing case. Biffity-biffity-biffity-bif! But poor old Bullock kept on coming back for more. Bullock kept swinging. He might as well have sent the nigger a postcard to tell him a punch was on the way. It was as easy as dodging a steam roller, I tell you! And that foul punch: it made me sick to see it. I thought it would have killed old Bullock. But up he got, bent double, and insisted on carrying on with it. Game! Game as they make ’em. But my God, what a lousy boxer! In the end, the nigger got discouraged: there wasn’t anything he could do about Bullock. He was tired of hitting him. Then Bullock sort of crowded him into a corner and let him have a sort of a right hook. It sounded like snooker balls. The nigger just went flat. The same sort of thing happened with this kid called Francis, in Bedford. The crowd used to like poor old Bullock: they always got a laugh out of him. To see him sort of diving about after this kid … sort of doing the breast stroke, and missing every punch. He’s a swinger, old Bullock. He can’t box any more than a windmill. He just kept rushing this kid Francis, and in the tenth round, again, he managed to get in just one swing. It was like a buck navvy with a sledge hammer—just about as slow, and just about as hard. Hit this kid Francis on the shoulder and pushed him over. The kid was too exhausted to get up. But the funny thing is, he thinks he’s as good as Jack Dempsey. He’d fight anything. Poor old Bullock. He doesn’t know what it means to be licked. He just can’t see it. The expression on his face after he beat that nigger—you’d think he’d just won the Irish Sweep. Not that you could see
much of his face. It’s hard to understand why a man keeps on at a mug’s game like that.”

“A fighter, born and bred,” says Dagwood, thoughtfully.

“Yes. But a man ought to have the sense to see he’s no good at the game, when he pays more than he gets at it.”

“’E wins, don’t ’e?” says Sergeant Crowne, stiffly.

“Yes, but—”

“There ain’t no ‘but’ about it. A man ’as a fight. ’E wants to win. ’E wins. That’s all there is to it.”

“But he doesn’t win in the end; not in the long run,” says Hacket. “Bullock’ll be punch-drunk in another two years.”

“In the end, in the end!” snarls Sergeant Crowne. “In the long run! ’Oo cares about the Long Run? If you’re ’aving a fight, go in and win, and to ’ell with the long run! Let Gawd worry about the Long Run! If it’s boxing, shake ’ands and come aht fighting! ’It ’ard and often, and the end ’ll take care of itself. In twenty million-billion years’ time, the world ’ll come to an end. But it ain’t my business to worry over that.”

“In how many years did you say?” asks Sergeant Hands.

“Twenty million-billion.”

“What a fright you gave me,” says Hands.

“How?”

“For the moment I thought you said only twenty thousand billion.”

“I like a man that doesn’t know when ’e’s beaten,” says Crowne.

“But it can be carried too far,” says Hacket. “Moderation in all things, as Voltaire said.”

“Who’s Voltur?” asks the boy from Widnes.

“Oh, some clergyman,” says Sergeant Crowne. “What was you in Civvy Street, Hacket?”

“A book salesman.”

“You know a bit about printing and paper and all that?”

“A bit.”

“Then your swabbing job will be tidying up the area round the hut. You’ll find plenty of paper there.”

*

The man we call The Schoolmaster rolls up the sock he has been darning, and says: “How do we know what happens in the long run? It’s not for us to consider. Why, even if some very wise man manages to calculate where things will lead in just a little while, he’s lucky and clever. Sergeant Crowne is right.”

The Schoolmaster is a long, calm, fair man with receding hair, and a concentrated, studious expression which makes him look at least seven years older than thirty, which is his age. He wears glasses, and is a Bachelor of Arts; speaks in a slow, carefully modulated voice, and even on a cookhouse fatigue manages to keep his large, thin-fingered hands in a condition of elegance. He has come into the ranks in order to get out of them—after his training here he will go to an O.C.T.U., from which he will emerge as a subaltern. Suspect, at first, on account of his accent, he won our hearts by plain good nature and unconditional mucking-in. It was Barker who said, one day, when the boy from Widnes muttered that the Schoolmaster made him sick: “’E can’t ’elp the way ’e talks. It’s the way they’re brought up, son; they can’t ’elp it. Frinstance, you say ‘Fur ur’ instead of ‘Fair ’air.’ The ole Schoolmaster says ‘Faiah haiah.’ ’E’s not smackin’ it on. A certain class o’ people talks like that. I know a Covent Garden flar merchant that made a packet and sent ’is boy to be a doctor. Well, the ole man—we call ’im Gutsache, because ’e suffers wiv ’is inside when ’e goes on the wallop—’e talks the thickest cockney even I ever ’eard: ole-fashioned slang, real market stuff that nobody can make ’ead or tail of nowdays. Ole Gutsache’ll send a boy for ’is tea like this: ’e’ll say: “Gemme a you ’n’ a strike,’ meaning a Cup of You-and-Me and a Slice of Strike-Me-Dead, or bread ’n’ butter. Well, some time ago I run into ole Gutsache in the
Salisbury
, and there was ole Gutsache, runnin’ on sixteen to the dozen wivaht openin’ ’is mouf, talkin’ to a youngster dressed up like a toff.
Les
jum’
in
the
jam
’n’
gerra
pig’s
’
t
Ella
’s,
’e was sayin’. In plain
English
:
‘Let’s jump in the jam-jar (car), and get a pig’s-ear (beer) at Ella’s club.’ And the youngster says: “Whay, certainleh, Fathah.’ They’d taught Gutsache’s kid to speak Oxford. But the kid wasn’t puttin’ on no airs: ’e just talked that way. Same wiv the Schoolmaster. Give ’im a fair chancet: ’e can’t ’elp it, talkin’ like that, any more ’n’ ’e could ’elp it if ’e stuttered.”