Read Online R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield by To Serve Them All My Days - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: To Serve Them All My Days
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Sagas, Family Life, Domestic Fiction, England, Married People, Boarding Schools, School Principals
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'I've had my share of luck, God knows, but running across him beats anything that happened to me.'
He had a curious afterthought then, concerned with a squat, bowlegged, round-shouldered man, who had died underground in the summer of 1913, a man who, even then, had had unwavering faith in him and had never been diffident about showing it. It was as though his father, feeling the darkness pressing in, had called for help on his behalf, and Herries, walking his rounds on this high plateau, had heard him across the width of the Bristol Channel.
2
Just over a year had passed since he had visited the Valley on leave, a month or so before the Brandenburgers' mortar shell had blasted him out of the war. It seemed narrower and shabbier, a place of steep, huddled streets, fortress-likechapels, rundown corner shops with nothing much to sell, and the familiar tip overshadowing them all. The corporate spirit of the Valley, that had been its sturdiest plant ever since he was a boy, seemed also to have withered, translating itself into bitterness, a different kind of bitterness from that of frontline men, for it lacked the inevitable sardonic humour. There was no jingo stridency here, only a glowering sense of exploitation by politicians, by mine owners, by royalty leeches, by war profiteers. For the vicarious prosperity that had come to other industrial areas seemed to have by-passed the coalfields. No one was encouraged to forsake the industry and enlist, or join in the scramble for high wages in the munitions factories. Instead they were expected, almost compelled, to go on dragging coal from the hillsides at twice the speed and without comparable rises in rates. There was an undertone of militancy and strikes, of demands to put the industry on a new and realistic basis, a war that had little to do with the war of the headlines. He sensed what was happening even before he talked to his brothers-in-law, both miners, and although this world was almost lost to him now, fenced off by an education that none of these men had had, and experiences at the Front they had been spared, he still thought as a miner's son and could identify with their grievances and fear for their future when the need for coal was not so desperate and their bargaining power had been removed.
For the first time he heard men of his own race openly champion the Russian Revolution, and Trotsky's separate peace at Brest-Litovsk, an act that many Welshmen in the line had regarded as a betrayal, but which miners here saw as a portent of enormous social significance. Ewart Griffiths, married to his elder sister Gwynneth, was the first to put this into words when he said, 'There's a rumour we're going to be asked to dig coal and help turn the Bolshies out but I'm telling you, man, they'll get no bloody help from us down yer! Time we started our own bloody revolution, Davyboy.'
His mother, miraculously, was untouched by bitterness. The tragedies of her life did not show in her round, smooth, unmistakably Welsh face, with its pink and white bloom, still there after sixty years in the valleys, and forty-odd years of making twopence do the work of a shilling. She still kept the little terrace house spotlessly clean, still spoiled her five grandchildren, still cooked an appetising meal from the cheapest ingredients, and glowed when he told her he was now teaching in a school of four hundred boys, a place she would surely think of as a Gentleman's College. To her this was a far greater achievement than surviving three years on the Western Front, scholarshiprepresenting maturity, warfare being a little boy's scuffle in the street outside. 'Been that proud of you, Dadda would,' she said, when he told her his post had been made permanent. 'There's a wonder it is! That Dadda should know it all those years ago, and your brothers Hughie and Bryn too, for you were the only real bookworm of the litter. Are they feeding you well down there, boy? You could do with more flesh on your
He had a curious afterthought then, concerned with a squat, bowlegged, round-shouldered man, who had died underground in the summer of 1913, a man who, even then, had had unwavering faith in him and had never been diffident about showing it. It was as though his father, feeling the darkness pressing in, had called for help on his behalf, and Herries, walking his rounds on this high plateau, had heard him across the width of the Bristol Channel.
2
Just over a year had passed since he had visited the Valley on leave, a month or so before the Brandenburgers' mortar shell had blasted him out of the war. It seemed narrower and shabbier, a place of steep, huddled streets, fortress-likechapels, rundown corner shops with nothing much to sell, and the familiar tip overshadowing them all. The corporate spirit of the Valley, that had been its sturdiest plant ever since he was a boy, seemed also to have withered, translating itself into bitterness, a different kind of bitterness from that of frontline men, for it lacked the inevitable sardonic humour. There was no jingo stridency here, only a glowering sense of exploitation by politicians, by mine owners, by royalty leeches, by war profiteers. For the vicarious prosperity that had come to other industrial areas seemed to have by-passed the coalfields. No one was encouraged to forsake the industry and enlist, or join in the scramble for high wages in the munitions factories. Instead they were expected, almost compelled, to go on dragging coal from the hillsides at twice the speed and without comparable rises in rates. There was an undertone of militancy and strikes, of demands to put the industry on a new and realistic basis, a war that had little to do with the war of the headlines. He sensed what was happening even before he talked to his brothers-in-law, both miners, and although this world was almost lost to him now, fenced off by an education that none of these men had had, and experiences at the Front they had been spared, he still thought as a miner's son and could identify with their grievances and fear for their future when the need for coal was not so desperate and their bargaining power had been removed.
For the first time he heard men of his own race openly champion the Russian Revolution, and Trotsky's separate peace at Brest-Litovsk, an act that many Welshmen in the line had regarded as a betrayal, but which miners here saw as a portent of enormous social significance. Ewart Griffiths, married to his elder sister Gwynneth, was the first to put this into words when he said, 'There's a rumour we're going to be asked to dig coal and help turn the Bolshies out but I'm telling you, man, they'll get no bloody help from us down yer! Time we started our own bloody revolution, Davyboy.'
His mother, miraculously, was untouched by bitterness. The tragedies of her life did not show in her round, smooth, unmistakably Welsh face, with its pink and white bloom, still there after sixty years in the valleys, and forty-odd years of making twopence do the work of a shilling. She still kept the little terrace house spotlessly clean, still spoiled her five grandchildren, still cooked an appetising meal from the cheapest ingredients, and glowed when he told her he was now teaching in a school of four hundred boys, a place she would surely think of as a Gentleman's College. To her this was a far greater achievement than surviving three years on the Western Front, scholarshiprepresenting maturity, warfare being a little boy's scuffle in the street outside. 'Been that proud of you, Dadda would,' she said, when he told her his post had been made permanent. 'There's a wonder it is! That Dadda should know it all those years ago, and your brothers Hughie and Bryn too, for you were the only real bookworm of the litter. Are they feeding you well down there, boy? You could do with more flesh on your
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