Read The Gale of the World Online
Authors: Henry Williamson
‘One day it will be widely known that Birkin’s political career began with original thinking at least two generations before his time. Some of my older readers may remember that he was the youngest member of Parliament soon after the Great War ended; that he left the Tory party because they represented the old order of Europe which crumbled into war in 1914, and faced the
post-war
period with the same ideas, and attitudes. So he joined the Labour Party. Many perceptive men recognised him for a young man of outstanding brilliance, industry, and courage. Now let the author of this book speak for himself:–
We were divided and we are conquered. That is the tragic epitaph of two war generations. That was the fate of my generation in 1914, and that was the doom of a new generation of young soldiers in 1939. The youth of Europe shed the blood of their own family, and the jackals of the world grew fat. Those who fought are in the position of the conquered, whatever their country. Those who did not fight, but merely profited, alone are victorious.
‘There follows an analysis of failure, due to ‘the split mind of Europe’. Fascism failed because it deserved to fail; it was too national. Its opponent of a financial democracy failed, too. It could only frustrate those who would build a New Order. And the New Order failed because of its own inherent weakness. The author examines the odd behaviour of Hitler, when the British Expeditionary Force was routed in May 1940, and nothing was done, at the time, to follow up the victory by Germany.
Why the first principle of the pursuit was not applied in these circumstances remained one of the mysteries of History. Now it
appears that it was not only not attempted but it was not even seriously contemplated … Was it some extraordinary idea existed that all could be settled by political skill alone when passion had reached such a point? Was the illusion nurtured that the British mind in such circumstances would move as logically as the Continental mind, which knew something of military matters? If so, both the
invincible
courage and the yet more invincible ignorance of the English were profoundly underrated. Did some extraordinary sentimental
consideration
traverse the mind of German leadership to the destruction of every realistic consideration? It is almost unbelievable that any such feeling should have influenced so far: but it is one of the tear-laden paradoxes of History that the man, whom the mass of the English learned to regard as their greatest enemy, cherished a sentimental illusion toward a ‘sister nation’ which, in the eyes of historic realism, must border on the irrational, and, in the test of fact, was pregnant with the doom of all he loved …
It is clear that in the German conduct of the war at this point every rule of real policy was broken …
In all real things which concern the clash of body, mind and will the same eternal reality holds: when the big fellow staggers—attack——attack—attack-–no other thought until it is done. If it was not contemplated that the attack on the French front in 1940 would
succeed
, it should never have been undertaken. If it was considered, as must have been the case, that it would succeed, the pursuit to the conclusion of the war, which could only mean the invasion of Britain, should have been prepared in advance by express and urgent instructions of political leadership. Nothing should ever be put into execution which has no chance of success; if success is won the opportunity which it presents should never be neglected, particularly if that opportunity is the chance of a final decision …
What strange enchantment brought the long pause on the German side after the fall of France until they again violated every principle of real policy by turning their back on an undefeated enemy to advance upon Russia? They turned their back, too, on an enemy still resolute. He was mortally weak, it is true, but he had vast latent resources available to him for slow building into effective operation, and a long array of friends and relations—including the potentially strongest country in the world—who could gradually be cajoled and manoeuvred by a great traditional political skill, in alliance with the incessant intrigues of the Money Power, into a world coalition of overwhelming force. Did the tomb of Napolean, enshrined in the vast bitterness of that same, and then, ineluctable experience, never whisper again in the Paris of late 1940, “ask me anything but time”.
The wounds of Europe must be healed before the work of
construction
can begin. They are wounds of the spirit, and they are kept open by animosities and memories of atavistic savagery. These old
things have no interest to the creative mind, but they impede our work. That is why we ask Europe not to look back, but to stride forward. In these pages I have attempted to describe some possibilities which beckon us onward in the march of the European spirit. They are worth that effort of the living mind and will, which forgets the past and, thus, achieves the future. Division is death, but Union is life.’
At this point Phillip felt a return of exhaustion; his left eye was aching; and pulling himself upstairs, fell upon the bed. Soon there was the
tip-tip
of claws on wood, as Bodger walked up, to curl beside the bed-frame. The dog was shivering. Phillip took off his jacket and laid it over the dog so that only the nose was visible. And there the two lay curled, man on bed and dog on floor, while the room lost light and the moor beyond the window dissolved in mist.
Early in the morning he wandered down to the village to buy food for Bodger and himself. The appearance of a man fishing from the shore was somehow familiar: that sturdy frame,
yellow-grey
unbrushed hair, was surely of Osgood Nilsson, fellow Brother Barbarian? With an expert flick of a short steel rod he sent soaring a leaded silver spoon to fall into jostling white of waves breaking as though irritably away from the tide flowing fast up the Channel. Phillip had had a good breakfast of tinned herrings in tomato sauce, with brown bread-and-butter, and felt optimistic. He could see the glint on the metal spoon just before it went into the water. And the leap of a bass which had taken it, shaking head in air before falling back to dash seaward to the screeching of the
reel-check.
“See that?” cried the fisherman, half turning his head. Yes, it was Osgood. How glad he was to see the dear old fellow!
After the fishing they went to the Rising Sun, an inn aptly named: its windows caught the first light of morning above the Severn sea. One had to watch old ‘Goody’, of course, and break away as conveniently as possible after he had pulled up one trouser to show a suppurating wound from the First War … sign that he was about to go on the bottle.
Carrying a 4-pound bass, and some dried bay-leaves for s
easoning
, Phillip set off for home, knapsack filled. And as he was
walking
across the common to Shep Cot a mounted figure appeared on the skyline, an arm waved: horse and rider lost definition as they sunk the hill, until a white speck made it plain that the rider was Miranda, followed by her goat.
Phillip was surgingly happy; alarmed; querulous for the
breakage
in his writing. These contrary feelings left him void yet elevated; and pretending not to have seen her, he went into the cot and sat down at the table, picking up and strewing about various foolscap envelopes containing contributions.
“Lie down, Bodger. Quiet now!”
At last a knock on the door, which he had left half open. “Good afternoon, Cousin Phillip. Am I disturbing you? I’ve brought over one of your shirts.”
“How kind of your mother to send you, Miranda. Let me tie your cob to the Silver Eagle, and so provide my worn-out old engine with more horse-power! Hullo, Capella! I see you know Bodger,” as the animals touched noses.
“Cousin Phillip, what I’d like to say is that it would extend my education if you’d allow me to help you with your magazine. Addressing envelopes—anything at all. It’s my half-term.” She was nervous, she lost colour. He put an arm on her shoulder, and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “What a kind family you Bucentaurs are!”
“Well, you see—,” she went on, her vitality returning, “I want to be a writer when I leave school. Meanwhile, if I can be of help to you, I shall be getting some idea about technique. I can more or less type, Cousin Phillip, would you mind if I answer letters for you on your portable Royal?”
“Well, I certainly need help, Miranda—someone to pick out the best of the contributions sent in. There’s a score and more envelopes on this table, most of them unopened. The first number ought to be going to the printer—and I haven’t yet found a printer!”
“Mr. Riversmill told me there’s one in Minehead who has some good type faces which might suit you. So I got his trade card yesterday. Here it is. May I put it on the chimney shelf, for when you may want it?”
“Wonderful girl!” He wanted to kiss her. She knew this, and was a little disturbed.
“The printer said he might be able to get local advertisements, if they don’t cost too much.”
“Hurray! I’ve got a business manager, as well as an assistant editor! One other thing: Do you know how to cook a bass?”
“Well, as you haven’t a grill, Cousin Phillip, it might be broiled in your crock, gently, with bay leaves, and fennel.”
“I’ve got some bay-leaves. And potatoes. I’ll do that, Miranda.
It would help more if you’d look through these contributions.”
She drew up a stool beside the hearth, and began to read. Bodger and Capella curled side by side on the corn sack. Phillip, sitting at the table, glanced at the girl, so intently reading on the three-legged milking stool, which he had bought for half-a-crown from the farmer’s wife across the common. Cinderella: all but one ear and tip of nose hidden by dark hanging hair.
He went on with his typing, adding to the quotation from
The
Alternative
one short sentence.
*
‘Well, there speaks the authentic voice of the Lost Legions of 1914–1945.’
*
And had no further idea until Miranda showed her face to say, “Oh, Cousin Phillip, this is a beautiful poem I’ve been reading! It was written by James Farrar when he was sixteen, in the late summer of nineteen forty. There are other poems, too, and some prose sketches. It’s beautiful and precise, like your own prose and that of Hereward Birkin!”
She put typescript pages before him, and went back to the stool. Phillip read; and exclaimed,
“This Battle of Britain poem has almost the mastery of Wilfred Owen, Miranda! We must get in touch with the writer at once. What is his name and address?”
The girl didn’t reply. She seemed to have grown smaller as she sat huddled by the fire, arms drawn in, hands pressed to bosom, head bowed, eyes closed. He saw tear-drops on the tiled floor beside the dog-ear’d Notebook; and reading the letter sent with the poems, that the author was dead, resisted an impulse to comfort her; and went on typing.
*
‘What poets fell in the continuation of the fratricidal European war which re-started in September, 1939? I know of one: James Farrar, a luminous youth who in a brief life wrote several lyrics in the English language which gave promise that here was a master.
‘James Farrar’s promise revealed itself when the tall, fair-faired boy was about sixteen years old. Imagine him wandering in the Surrey countryside one afternoon in the late summer of 1940, while the Battle of Britain was being fought twenty and thirty thousand feet over his head.’
SEPTEMBER
1940
I walk endlessly, no clock drips by the hours,
The burnished hedgerows, clotted and high,
The still woods, the dead meadows, the closed flowers,
Shrunken under that bright scarred sky.
A light-play, as of sun on August leaves,
A height-soft moan, a wooden intermittent rattle,
And, as the scrollèd conflict eastward weaves,
Feelers drooping darkly out of battle.
They come slowly, soft tap-roots questing down,
At the groping tip of one glisters a bead of light:
I see them, as waterflies struggling not to drown,
Soundlessly pass into earth, and meet night.
What is it that they are fallen?
Sane men hold it to be just
That each, when dead feed the earth like pollen,
Lies strewn in some broken field in a wrack of dust.
“Cousin Phillip, I like this poem also,
very
much!”
THE BELOVED
When I am in the fields she lies
Alone upon the hills, for she is Day
And I am Night, and brightest shine her eyes
When I must look away.
But briefly as in summer dawn we meet,
Her beauty in a flood
Burns vagrant through my blood.
And when the swift floats high
On molten tide of sunset, silently
Together in the meadows do we lie,
But never wed shall be:
For soon she sleeps in mist and I must rise,
And when the stars are grown
Must seek the hills alone,
“I must go now, cousin Phillip. Thank you for letting me see the contributions. I hope the shirt is all right. May I bring over the other tomorrow, if it’s a fine day?”
*
Lucy returning from the garden where she had gone, at Jonathan’s imperious bidding, to see an owl.
“It sits on that old appletree every evening, watching for rats after the chicken food, Mum, and swivels its head right round to look down over its back! There! It’s just flown away!”