New and Collected Stories Read Free Page A

and the easiest way to do it, it occurred to me, was to hope for a big war so’s I could join up and get killed. But I got past that when I knew I already was in a war of my own, that I was born into one, that I grew up hearing the sound of ‘old soldiers’ who’d been over the top at Dartmoor, half-killed at Lincoln, trapped in no-man’s-land at Borstal, that sounded louder than any Jerry bombs. Government wars aren’t my wars; they’ve got nowt to do with me, because my own war’s all that I’ll ever be bothered about. I remember when I was fourteen and I went out into the country with three of my cousins, all about the same age, who later went to different Borstals, and then to different regiments, from which they soon deserted, and then to different gaols where they still are as far as I know. But anyway, we were all kids then, and wanted to go out to the woods for a change, to get away from the roads of stinking hot tar one summer. We climbed over fences and went through fields, scrumping a few sour apples on our way, until we saw the wood about a mile off. Up Colliers’ Pad we heard another lot of kids talking in high-school voices behind a hedge. We crept up on them and peeped through the brambles, and saw they were eating a picnic, a real posh spread out of baskets and flasks and towels. There must have been about seven of them, lads and girls sent out by their mams and dads for the afternoon. So we went on our bellies through the hedge like crocodiles and surrounded them, and then dashed into the middle, scattering the fire and batting their tabs and snatching up all there was to eat, then running off over Cherry Orchard fields into the wood, with a man chasing us who’d come up while we were ransacking their picnic. We got away all right, and had a good feed into the bargain, because we’d been clambed to death and couldn’t wait long enough to get our chops ripping into them thin lettuce and ham sandwiches and creamy cakes.
    Well, I’ll always feel during every bit of my life like those daft kids should have felt before we broke them up. But they never dreamed that what happened was going to happen, just like the governor of this Borstal who spouts to us about honesty and all that wappy stuff don’t know a bloody thing, while I know every minute of my life that a big boot is always likely to smash any nice picnic I might be barmy and dishonest enough to make for myself. I admit that there’ve been times when I’ve thought of telling the governor all this so as to put him on guard, but when I’ve got as close as seeing him I’ve changed my mind, thinking to let him either find out for himself or go through the same mill as I’ve gone through. I’m not hard-hearted (in fact I’ve helped a few blokes in my time with the odd quid, lie, fag, or shelter from the rain when they’ve been on the run) but I’m boggered if I’m going to risk being put in cells just for trying to give the governor a bit of advice he don’t deserve. If my heart’s soft I know the sort of people I’m going to save it for. And any advice I’d give the governor wouldn’t do him the least bit of good; it’d only trip him up sooner than if he wasn’t told at all, which I suppose is what I want to happen. But for the time being I’ll let things go on as they are, which is something else I’ve learned in the last year or two. (It’s a good job I can only think of these things as fast as I can write with this stub of pencil that’s clutched in my paw, otherwise I’d have dropped the whole thing weeks ago.)
    By the time I’m half-way through my morning course, when after a frost-bitten dawn I can see a phlegmy bit of sunlight hanging from the bare twigs of beech and sycamore, and when I’ve measured my halfway mark by the short-cut scrimmage down the steep bush-covered bank and into the sunken lane,