A Test to Destruction Read Free Page A

cutting. Allen’s moustache was no more than an eyebrow; the hairs, thin at the end, had been left to grow naturally from the start, for he had never shaved his upper lip; his moustache was soft and thin like that of youths in Italian pictures of the Middle Ages. It was rather attractive, like the faint little soft hairs on an adolescent girl’s lip. Did women like young men with soft hairs on their lips, young men unaware of their callowness? It was unlikely, for only the female had beauty, while the male had strength. He looked at his own thin arms and legs.
    Allen came out of the sea, and picked his way over the pebbles to him. It was strange that Allen seemed to like his company.Phillip rubbed his legs vigorously, taking care to hide the ugly purple wound-scars in his left buttock.
    A hundred yards up the coast the Colonel’s lady had joined Satchville. She wore a sort of crumpled woman’s motoring hat down to her ears, held on by a ribbon, and frills round the neck of her dark blue serge jacket. Her bloomers also had frills below the knees. Black stockings and canvas shoes completed the costume; while her lady’s maid stood just above the wave line, holding a cloak for her mistress, and, for some reason, an umbrella, although it had not rained for several days. The Colonel was playing ring o’ roses with his wife. Then they took turns to dip one another in the waves. They were so free and easy, behind the amiable dignity which both maintained.
    Phillip wished that Father and Mother could have been like that when younger … far away across the North Sea some of the enemy were perhaps bathing in what they called the German Ocean, before getting into their uniforms as grey as the winter waves which beat upon the coast of England.
    “Ready?” said Allen. The two had a competition every morning, to see who could reach the doorstep of No. 9 in the least number of hops over the shingle and roadway. This was the greatest fun for Sprat, who did his best to impede both competitors by jumping around them.
    There was a pile of old picture magazines in one corner of the room, collected from the mess sergeant by Phillip’s batman. They helped to augment the coal ration, since fires were not allowed to be lit in billets until 5 p.m. each day. The way to burn Tatler, Bystander, Illustrated London News, etc. was to roll them into cylinders, which were stood upright in the grate and fired from below. Flames crept up with the forced draught, and a pleasing column of fire roared while they dressed to a record of Chopin on the new trench gramophone.
    *
    In the ante-room of the Officers’ Mess, by the door, was the letter-rack, with pigeon-holes lettered from A to XYZ. In the M hole was a letter for Phillip, addressed in pencil, from his mother. He had asked her not to write in pencil; why had she done so again? He kept the letter until he was in the lavatory before opening it, thinking that it was the usual scrappy note; but the contents made him literally sit up.

    My dear Son
    I hope you are well, and that no news is good news, of course you are very busy with your new appointment. Soon it will be Spring, it will be a good thing when the weather changes. I have some news for you, dear, which I must tell you. Father says he is going to join up, apparently he is not too old for the Pioneers of the Labour Branch, making roads in France or perhaps looking after the vegetable gardens attached to a hospital on lines of communication.
    Phillip was soon back in his room, dashing off a letter in reply saying that the Labour Corps worked right up to the front line, that during Third Ypres thousands were killed, almost as many as the soldiers who had gone over the top. He had seen men older than Father working under shell-fire, men who were grandfathers, with white hair. No, Father must not go; he would never be able to stand the life. He wrote with desperation, he must save Father from going through what he would never be able to stand. It