Free Another part of the wood by Beryl Bainbridge Page B

boys, linking
arms in the lane and laughing dirty-like seeing the light go on in Mrs Parry’s window, knowing old Freddie White was creeping
in, like as not, with his boots in his hand. Everyone knowing each other, a funny kind of knowing – though it was a daft way
to think, because didn’t they still know each other, though some were dead? He was so damn hungry.
    He tried to sit up and someone pushed his head down again and he could swear he was lying on the leather seats of the boss’s
car.
    *
    Balfour waited to help Lionel carry his luggage to the huts. He sat on the bed vacated by the delirious Willie and watched
Lionel doing things with a dustpan and brush to the interior of the car. Now and then the tidy man would bob his head over
the top of the car, his face one big apologetic smile. ‘Won’t be a tick, old man – just want to get the car spruced up.’ May
had dropped sweet papers everywhere, and ash from her du Maurier cigarettes, and there was a frosting of face powder on the
felt floor-covering beneath the passenger seat.
    ‘The little woman loves her sweeties,’ Lionel told Balfour, emerging at last with the dustpan in one hand and brush in the
other. About to scatter the contents of the pan into the hedge, he stopped abruptly and said, ‘Wrong thing to do, don’t you
think? Honour the country code and all that.’ Contritely he put the pan and brush away in the boot of the car and took out
a black leather suitcase and a holdall in tartan cloth. ‘Food,’ he told Balfour, putting the holdall down on the bed. ‘Eggs
and stuff.’
    They left the gate open for Joseph and George to shut on their return.
    ‘Nothing to get out anyway,’ remarked Lionel. They carried the bed at breast height, Lionel’s red face smiling through the
bars at Balfour walking backwards through the field. ‘Not going too fast am I, old chap?’
    ‘No, no it’s all right.’
    ‘Marvellous air, marvellous.’
    Balfour agreed.
    ‘Been here long?’
    ‘Yes – well, a c-couple of days that is.’
    ‘I see.’ Lionel thought perhaps he was shy. It was odd how some people found such difficulty in communicating. He himself
had always been able to communicate. His army training, he supposed. Good fellow though, he thought, looking at the marked
face and the well-developed shoulders. Salt of the earth, that kind. He prided himself on being a good judge of character.
Had to be during the war. Make one mistake in a chap’s ability and it could
mean a platoon wiped out. The thought bursting out beneath his ginger moustache, he confided: ‘Reminds me of the old days,
this. In the war, you know. Carrying supplies up to the line. An army marches on its stomach and all that.’ Short of breath,
sweat dripping into his eyes, he shot a blind glance at his companion. ‘Before your time, of course.’
    ‘I never even got to do my National Service,’ admitted Balfour.
    ‘Oh, how’s that?’
    Without waiting for a reply, Lionel puffed on. ‘Best training a chap could have, best discipline in the world. Quite indescribable.
Seen all types from all walks of life, and – make no bones about it – it separates the wheat from the chaff.’
    Balfour was unhappy about the night before them. He hoped somebody would explain to Lionel the sleeping arrangements. Even
if Lionel did seem to care for barrack-room life, he would hardly approve of his wife dossing down in the same cubicle as
another recruit. Balfour hoped he would take it upon himself to separate the wheat from the chaff and allocate another room
to himself and his spouse.
    ‘Ho, there,’ Lionel shouted, face scarlet with exertion. They were almost at the hut. ‘May, sweetheart.’
    Behind his back Balfour heard May reply, ‘I’m here, Lionel.’ She was leaning against the door of the hut. Through the window
Dotty could be seen filling the kettle with water.
    ‘Isn’t it marvellous, sweetheart?’ asked Lionel, gazing about him at the greenness and the shade.
    Lionel