Read Online R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield by To Serve Them All My Days - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: To Serve Them All My Days
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Sagas, Family Life, Domestic Fiction, England, Married People, Boarding Schools, School Principals
Ads: Link
bones, but maybe that's on account of all those hospital slops they gave you when you were hurt in the fighting.'
He reassured her as to his health, but as he did so a thought struck him. He said, 'God knows, you've earned a rest, Mam. Why don't you pack your things and come back to Devon with me? It's beautiful country down there – like Wales in Grandfather's time – and we could rent half a cottage from old Mrs Bastin, the wife of our lampman. He's got a splendid garden, chock full of vegetables. You'd like it down there.' But she said, sadly, 'Nice to be asked it is, Davy, but my place is here, so long as I can give Gwynneth and Megan a hand with the children. Besides…' and she glanced through the gap between the freshly-laundered curtains of the tiny kitchen, contemplating a view of her lean-to shed and the uniform backs of the houses in Alma Street, 'whatever would I do with myself in a strange place among strange folk? I was born yer, and I'll die yer among my own people. It's different with you. You've moved on, as Dadda said you would.'
He left it at that, but soon the stale, claustrophobic atmosphere of the little town began to oppress him so that he thought longingly of the miles of moorland he could see from his dormer window in Havelock's House. In the last week of August, when the newspapers were trumpeting the British advance on the Ancre and the capture of Bapaume, he slipped away, promising to return for Christmas. Late the same evening, he caught the Challacombe train for Taunton and got out at Bamfylde Bridge Halt, revelling in the two-mile tramp up the twisting roads to the sportsfield gate, still lacking a hinge and leaning outwards.
Dusk was settling in the highest folds of the moor and the scent of honeysuckle and thyme came to him, together with the pungent whiff of grass clippings where old Tapscott, the one groundsman remaining to them, had been scything the grass on what would be the scene of the autumn house matches. The school buildings, from this angle, were silhouetted against a tangerine sky, where the sun was sliding down behind the sentinel beeches of the west drive. He thought, 'It's the damnedest thing… I've been here sixmonths but it's already more home to me than Pontnewydd. Can't imagine being anywhere else…' and vaulting the crippled gate he moved up towards the southern fringe of the Planty, as the boys always referred to it, then down past the cricket pavilion and swimming pool to Herries's thinking post and a blur of light showing in the headmaster's house. 'It's a niche,' he told himself, 'and damned if I don't cling to it as long as I can!' It struck him, passing the Gothic arch into the empty quad, that niches, like most other things, were likely to be in short supply for ex-servicemen in the years ahead.
3
The world of school enfolded him. By half-term even the mounting relief that the war was nearly over was muted by the immediacy of Bamfylde's problems, by the trivia of existence within the periphery of his work and personal encounters. When Bulgaria sued for peace, in early October, he was very elated, but only for an hour or so. Leatty, the games coach (who also acted as assistant bursar) had persuaded him to replace Wilton, the running captain, as chief whipper-in for the fortnightly cross-country events and this was no sinecure for a man eight months out of hospital. Bamfylde took its runs seriously and in rough country like Exmoor, the post of whipper-in was equivalent to a rearguard command. Small boys, lagging a long way behind, and unfamiliar with the country, had been known to get lost. The job of whipper-in was to co-ordinate the efforts of the prefects who were not running colours and keep the laggards closed up over a five-mile course.
And then, on his very first run-in, Archer the Third had to go missing when call-over was held in the quad and the boys were about to disperse for high tea.
It was almost dark then and inclined to be foggy. With storm
He reassured her as to his health, but as he did so a thought struck him. He said, 'God knows, you've earned a rest, Mam. Why don't you pack your things and come back to Devon with me? It's beautiful country down there – like Wales in Grandfather's time – and we could rent half a cottage from old Mrs Bastin, the wife of our lampman. He's got a splendid garden, chock full of vegetables. You'd like it down there.' But she said, sadly, 'Nice to be asked it is, Davy, but my place is here, so long as I can give Gwynneth and Megan a hand with the children. Besides…' and she glanced through the gap between the freshly-laundered curtains of the tiny kitchen, contemplating a view of her lean-to shed and the uniform backs of the houses in Alma Street, 'whatever would I do with myself in a strange place among strange folk? I was born yer, and I'll die yer among my own people. It's different with you. You've moved on, as Dadda said you would.'
He left it at that, but soon the stale, claustrophobic atmosphere of the little town began to oppress him so that he thought longingly of the miles of moorland he could see from his dormer window in Havelock's House. In the last week of August, when the newspapers were trumpeting the British advance on the Ancre and the capture of Bapaume, he slipped away, promising to return for Christmas. Late the same evening, he caught the Challacombe train for Taunton and got out at Bamfylde Bridge Halt, revelling in the two-mile tramp up the twisting roads to the sportsfield gate, still lacking a hinge and leaning outwards.
Dusk was settling in the highest folds of the moor and the scent of honeysuckle and thyme came to him, together with the pungent whiff of grass clippings where old Tapscott, the one groundsman remaining to them, had been scything the grass on what would be the scene of the autumn house matches. The school buildings, from this angle, were silhouetted against a tangerine sky, where the sun was sliding down behind the sentinel beeches of the west drive. He thought, 'It's the damnedest thing… I've been here sixmonths but it's already more home to me than Pontnewydd. Can't imagine being anywhere else…' and vaulting the crippled gate he moved up towards the southern fringe of the Planty, as the boys always referred to it, then down past the cricket pavilion and swimming pool to Herries's thinking post and a blur of light showing in the headmaster's house. 'It's a niche,' he told himself, 'and damned if I don't cling to it as long as I can!' It struck him, passing the Gothic arch into the empty quad, that niches, like most other things, were likely to be in short supply for ex-servicemen in the years ahead.
3
The world of school enfolded him. By half-term even the mounting relief that the war was nearly over was muted by the immediacy of Bamfylde's problems, by the trivia of existence within the periphery of his work and personal encounters. When Bulgaria sued for peace, in early October, he was very elated, but only for an hour or so. Leatty, the games coach (who also acted as assistant bursar) had persuaded him to replace Wilton, the running captain, as chief whipper-in for the fortnightly cross-country events and this was no sinecure for a man eight months out of hospital. Bamfylde took its runs seriously and in rough country like Exmoor, the post of whipper-in was equivalent to a rearguard command. Small boys, lagging a long way behind, and unfamiliar with the country, had been known to get lost. The job of whipper-in was to co-ordinate the efforts of the prefects who were not running colours and keep the laggards closed up over a five-mile course.
And then, on his very first run-in, Archer the Third had to go missing when call-over was held in the quad and the boys were about to disperse for high tea.
It was almost dark then and inclined to be foggy. With storm
Similar Books
