The First of July(51)

So I told him, and he wrote it down in his pocketbook (officer’s, pigskin), and while he wrote he added, in a nonchalant way, “Mine is Chatto, by the way. Benedict Chatto. If they take you, with any luck all your service will be at home. Patrolling the eastern coast and so on. A lot of birds, I’m told. Flat roads and wind.”

Then he looked up and shook my hand, as if we had a bargain. And I said “Thank you, sir.”

Then he said “Good luck,” cheerily. I think they taught them that, because I was to hear a lot of officers speak in that tone.

A while after Mr. Chatto had gone, Mr. Nugent came out with the officer that he’d taken for measuring and opened the shop door for him.

“You know who that was?” he said. “My officer?”

I shook my head, and Mr. Nugent shook his as if he was shocked.

“Captained the MCC. Wonderful fast bowler. Military Cross.”

He looked back to the door where the spirit of cricketing manhood still lingered, this hero having just passed through it. I had never been one for cricket, so I nodded again, up and down this time, thinking how I would have felt if it had been François Faber on his bicycle.

Despite Lieutenant Chatto’s good wishes, in matters of luck I had both sorts. Connie, once I said I was going to be a soldier, would have nothing more to do with me; no matter that everybody knew we’d soon be conscripted, she wanted me to be a conchie, a conscientious objector, a martyr for her cause incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs.

I went to tell Florence, and she said “Ooh, I hope you don’t end up like poor Dick.” But she didn’t kiss me.

Nor was Mr. Nugent the type to hand out guineas. For a start, he was too inconvenienced by my leaving and, anyway, going to serve King and country was no novelty now, even with a bicycle. So I was surprised when, just as I was leaving, he held up a hand.

“Wait!” he said and pulled open a drawer. Out came a box holding a cigarette lighter, our basic model, with khaki cloth, which hadn’t sold well, which was odd as it was good value. He handed it to me, looking embarrassed and surprised at himself.

“Good luck,” he said.

I walked home, thinking I would start smoking as soon as I took the King’s shilling. I stopped on Lambeth Bridge, gray as the water and the sky, and I looked toward parliament in its haze of drizzle, and what I felt was quite different from what I’d expected. Not fear, but a sort of relief in a decision. Now I was part of things; now I would know what other men knew. So I was grateful that my path had crossed twice with Lieutenant Chatto, as if the second meeting had made good our first.

The recruiting office acted like they were doing me a favor in taking me, given that the cyclists were mostly territorials.

“But we have been sent a recommendation,” the officer said, as if that settled it. Good old Lieutenant Chatto had been as true as his word. Fate is a funny thing: “It’s who you know” was a phrase I’d often heard but never grasped until now.

The sergeant said that my bicycle would need mudguards and front and rear lights and handlebars that did not curve down. I was all right regarding the handlebars, but the lights were a cost. Still, I was to get a 2s. 6d. allowance for the bicycle. I walked home and was thinking how I’d give Hercules a run on Saturday evening so he’d be ready. Then I nearly bumped into a young lady, very pretty with soft curls and a rather pert little hat. I had become so much the hero of my little daydream that I must have smiled. Her hand came toward me, touched me, so fast that I was caught off my guard. But then I looked down and saw she had tucked a white feather in my lapel.

“You should be in the trenches,” she said. “My brother died at Gallipoli so you could loiter enjoying the view.”

Then she was gone; I had a sense she was scared to linger in case I laid one on her. After all, she had no idea what sort of man I was; just because I was a coward in her eyes didn’t mean I might not also be violent. The feather had fallen to the ground, but I picked it up; it seemed only polite. There was grit on it, and I wiped it away. There it lay, across my hand, perfectly white. I wondered where these young ladies found them. It was probably a goose feather and from a butcher’s. I kept the feather, but as I walked across the bridge I thought about Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, Egypt and places in Africa where men were fighting. I wondered whether I might be cycling through deserts or jungles and whether I’d be good at it and whether Hercules had the right tires for sand, and I thought I would buy a bigger map than the one I’d had when I dreamed of bicycling on the Continent. For who knew where this war might take me?