Sanctuary Wood, Ypres: School Visits

How can they understand a war poem? How can we?
Wars were far away and long ago
And nothing seen on television ever really happened.
Now the woods are full of children
Running through the muddy trenches
Dodging round the water-filled craters
Gawping at, or completely failing to notice
The occasional unexploded shell
And squeaking when their nice new jeans
(Fashionably ragged and torn at the knee)
Are stained with filth in the communications tunnel.

Below the woods the fields are grey with mist
Shrouding the view to the sinister places
The Menin road, and up to Passchendaele,
Behind us, Messines Ridge and Plugstreet. The children
Have been told, but already they’ve forgotten
And soon they’ll be off for hamburger and chips
(They’re looking forward to their succulent Belgian chips)
And leave the trenches and the shattered stumps
The rusty barbed wire and all the iron harvest of war
And arching over all, the chestnut trees
- None more than seventy years old
But sprouting strongly, because well fertilised
By someone who in happier circumstances
Might have married my grandmother
Or yours

A SOLDIER
OF THE GREAT WAR
KNOWN UNTO GOD

The Wizard is worried

When Udlotwin called on me the other day he looked so distraught and haggard that I barely recognized him. I'd never seen him like that before.

I should explain that Udlotwin (that's not the name most people know him by, of course) is a wizard. We'd been friends for years. I've often wondered why he took to me, since he told me very early on that I had no gift for magic whatsoever. Perhaps that might be why he liked me: other people might have pestered him to teach them some magic, or at least demonstrate some; by I accepted what he said and never bothered him further on the subject.
   He slumped into a chair and begged for a glass of water. When he'd drunk this, and was looking a little better, I obviously asked him what the trouble was.
   "Did you ever meet Geoffrey Dakin?" he asked me.
   "No,but I seem to remember your telling me about him. He wanted to become a magician, you said".
   "Yes, he did. And he had some of the necessary ability; just a little. That was the trouble: he'd have done better to keep well away. That's what I advised him, but he didn't listen. When I heard he'd died suddenly, with no obvious physical symptoms, I immediately suspected the worst. I managed to get into his flat,and my worst fears were confirmed".
   "Why, what did you find?"
   "Enough to show me that he'd being trying out some very risky ideas; fortunately without any success. But then I found something really important. To a layman it might have seemed no more than a simple wooden fruit-bowl; but I knew what it was: a Horn of Plenty. I wondered where on earth he could have got it".
   "What's a Horn of Plenty?"
   "A famous magical device! Things that are placed inside it multiply, and go on multiplying".
   "You mean if I put some money in, more and more money would come out?"
   "That's just what a layman would think, and probably what poor Geoffrey did think. But there's much more to it than that. A Horn of Plenty is basically a machine, and it works just like any other machine. It won't function without an input of energy; but it's a special kind of energy, which it takes from the magician. Even I would find it exhausting. You, as it happens, don't possess any of this energy. Geoffrey had some, but not nearly enough for this task. I guessed that was what killed him - though of course it might have been something different; something much more sinister. I won't go into that".
   "So what did you do?"
   "I took the Horn away. I couldn't leave it lying about: you never know who might get their hands on it. But just carrying it for any length of time would tire me out. I needed somewhere safe to hide it. So I cast around until I located a Doorway".
   "A Doorway? What's that?"
   "It's an entrance to a different world: a different universe. It'd be easiest for you to understand if you think in terms of multiple dimensions. This particular Doorway appeared to be just a hollow tree. I thought it might be safe to hide the Horn there. So I opened the Doorway".
   "And what did you find there?"
   "Initially, nothing much. A great heap of stones was completely blocking the other side. But I sensed that something, or someone, was there. And at that same moment it sensed me. A picture formed in my brain of a monstrous being, something like an enormous gorilla, but with a face like no creature of this world, ferociously shaking the bars of a cage. And its voice was yelling at me. "Let me out!" it shouted, "Let me out!" And it knew I had the power to release it, and I knew that was what must be prevented at all costs.
   "It was so overwhelming that I utterly lost control of my mind. I collapsed. I've no idea what happened next. When I recovered consciousness, I found myself lying on the grass in a strange park I'd never seem before. A well-meaning passer-by asked me if I was all right, and helped me to my feet. I was so weak I could hardly stand. And the Horn of Plenty was gone.
   "What had happened? Had I dropped it somewhere? Worst of all, had I perhaps left it beyond the Doorway, where that ..... that THING ...... could get hold of it?

"What am I going to do now?"

Puzzles

I came away from the auction with a small box of Chinese bric-a-brac, which I had bid for because I liked the look of a piece of jade which formed one of the items. When I got it home, however, the jade turned out on closer inspection to be obviously modern, and not even very good quality at that; and I was relieved I hadn’t bid more. 
   Most of the other items in the box were frankly rubbish, but one or two attracted a second glance, if only to try to convince myself that my money hadn‘t been completely wasted. There was a carving in dark wood, beneath a glass dome smaller than a child’s fist, consisting of a man in a robe seated at a table. There was a teapot and a cup detached from the main carving and lying loose: probably the carving had been broken, but somehow it reminded me of those cheap little toys where you have to manoeuvre ball-bearings through a maze, or into slots in a picture. I even attempted to shake the dome to get these objects back onto the table, but failed miserably and gave up after a few goes. 
   At the bottom of the box was a medallion the size of a coin, on a chain. There were characters I couldn’t read on one side of it, and it surprised me, because I didn’t think it was the sort of thing the Chinese went in for. I suspected it wasn’t really Chinese at all, and I certainly didn’t find it at all attractive, but in an idle moment I hung it round my neck.
   For some reason, I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to return to the game, or whatever it was, under the glass dome. I shook it, and it took very little time or effort to get the cup and teapot into their right places on the table; but somehow they weren’t tiny any more: the whole carving had expanded until it was life-size, and I was right there beside it, watching. And the man in the robe was alive and moving. I watched as he poured himself a cup of tea, and then picked it up to drink it. And I realised that he mustn’t drink it, because the tea was poisoned; and I tried to shout at him not to, but no sound came out.The poison must have been very potent, because he collapsed almost immediately. And he realised what had happened to him, because he was able to lift his head from the table to look directly up at me, and his look said,
“YOU DID IT!”

Fear

I found myself on the outskirts of a large burial-ground. The light was murky. Some distance away, with her back to me, a young girl in a red dress was laying flowers on a grave. Closer to me, but somehow much less distinct, was another figure, who seemed to be a woman in beige, who was watching the girl. I was seized with a terrible fear that they would notice me and turn round, and I would find they had the faces of werewolves; or even worse, they would have no faces at all. I decided to tiptoe quietly away. The figures did not move, and I realised the scene was only a picture. But then I discovered I could not move either, and that I was part of the picture too.

The Grail

When I heard a rumour that one of the knights who undertook the quest for the Holy Grail was still living, I felt I could not rest until I had spoken with him. Many had heard the story, but few had any notion of where he lived, and even his name seemed to be in dispute. It was only after many tedious journeyings I discovered him. His name was Bors, and he lived a solitary hermit in a desolate forest. He was now an extremely old man, and it was immediately clear that for many years he had cared nothing for his appearance or the condition of his clothes. For a long time he met my queries with immovable silence, but at length, either out of pity or wearied by my endless importunities, he began to talk, like one who had almost forgotten the use of his mother-tongue or the sound of his own voice.

He began to tell the long story of how the company of knights set forth to find the Grail, through dark and trackless forests and over perilous mountains, how they battled monsters and giants, how they endured endless traps and temptations laid before them by devils, how the faint-hearted abandoned the quest as one year followed another, though the valiant few pressed onwards, sustained by the vision ……  But all these stories I had already heard, so I cut short his account with impatient questions.

What did your companions propose to do with the Grail when they found it? This question for the first time appeared to animate him.

- You do not DO anything with the Grail. It is not for USE. The Grail IS, and always will be: that is all. It exists, beyond all time and all space. Nothing more is required. He who has seen the Grail has beheld all the secrets of the universe: of life, of death, and of the life to come.

And these secrets are?

- They cannot be expressed in words.

I felt that little was being learnt, so I moved to a new line of questioning.

How did you find it?

- Not through any effort or merit of ours. The Grail is not to be ferreted out or dug for, like some sack of buried gold. It may permit itself to be found. Only one who is wholly without sin can find the Grail. He must not only be pure and undefiled in his actions, but in his words too, and even in his thoughts. As a sinful man, I could not come near it, but as an act of grace far beyond my deserts, I was permitted to glimpse it, from a distance, for an instant. That momentary vision I have held in my mind ever since, and I desire nothing but to continue to meditate upon it.

What did the Grail look like?

- It is beyond any description.

But it must have had a shape: a colour?

- It has all colours, many of which human eyes cannot perceive, and at the same time it has no colour. It is not confined in a single fixed shape, as mortal objects are: it embodies in itself all the shapes that ever are, or were, or could be.

By this time, I was beginning to wonder whether my journey had been wasted. Either he was simply a fraud, or he was a deluded old man lost in a dense fog of impenetrable mysticism, and unable to convey any useful information. In anger I said, I do not believe you found the Grail at all: in fact, I begin to doubt whether the Grail even exists.

- No matter, he said, for I know I saw the Grail. That is sufficient. I am at peace.

My Grandmother's Clock

It sits on my mantelpiece
My grandmother's clock
And I should very much like
To ask the clock what it knows
Of my grandmother and her time.

But we all know that it's a mere
Affectation of literature
To ask a clock what it knows
For the face of the clock is eyeless
The hands of the clock do not feel
It tells the hours unknowing
And it speaks, but says nothing but "tick"
And although it stopped when she died
(At a great age, in her own home)
This fact is wholly without
Any metaphysical cause
(There was no-one to wind it up)

So it sits on my mantelpiece
My grandmother's clock
And a hundred years from now
It will sit on someone else's
And its eyeless face will look on
A world I shall never see
And its unfeeling hands will tell
Hours I can never know

And still it says nothing but "tick".

A Fancy-Dress Party

No, I won’t be coming to your Christmas party. It’s nothing to do with you, of course; and you know I’m not a Scrooge person. I like Christmas. No, it’s just that you specified it was going to be fancy dress; and you see, there’s just no way I could ever go to a fancy dress party. They terrify me; especially at Christmas. If you’ve got a moment, I’ll explain why, and I hope you’ll understand.

Do you remember when I used to teach at the school in Oldbury? And then I left quite suddenly, and I didn’t tell anyone why. I expect you assumed I’d got into some kind of trouble; but I hadn’t; and it’s all connected with why I won’t come to your party this Christmas. I’ve never told anyone about this before.

You see, one of the traditions at Oldbury school was that on the last day of term in December, when we’d broken up and all the boys had gone home, we had a final staff meeting where we all wore fancy dress and the headmaster gave out various silly prizes for how good our costumes were. And of course the boys got to know about it, and so another tradition was that some boys would always try to gatecrash our little do, dressed up of course so we wouldn’t recognise them. And I believe it was a matter of great prestige if any of them got through the meeting without being discovered.

So at this particular occasion we all trickled into the staff room in a variety of costumes, mostly home-made but a few hired for the occasion, and we looked around at each other wondering if there were any of the boys present. What about the person in the gorilla suit? Or the one rather feebly got up as a ghost, with eye-holes cut in an old bed sheet? Or the one dressed for a Venetian carnival, complete with swirling cloak, tricorn hat, rapier, and one of those black and white masks with a huge nose? Then Henry came in.

Now Henry had only joined us in September: just a temporary appointment to cover an unexpected vacancy. He was a strange, secretive sort of fellow, who kept himself very much to himself and none of us really got to know him at all. He lived in cheap lodgings near the school, and never appeared at the pub or at any social events. Heaven knows what the boys made of him; probably had fantasies that he was a wanted criminal in hiding, or something like that; but he had a very unpredictable temper, so they didn’t  dare tease him too much. For all we knew, they could have been right. I didn’t find out the truth till this time I’m talking about, and very disturbing it was too.

So Henry came into our meeting. He’d attempted fancy dress himself, but he hadn’t been very imaginative, and I recognised him straight away. All he’d done was to wear a kind of nightdress and stick a tea towel on his head and a Saddam Hussain moustache on his face. Nobody would really have taken him for an Arab in a million years: he simply looked ridiculous. And when he came in, he spotted the man in the Venetian mask, and I’d swear he went absolutely white, and swayed as if he was going to faint. I heard him mutter “My God!”, and he literally fled from the room. Now at the time I supposed he’d just suddenly felt ill or something, and then the meeting began and I forgot about him. And the headmaster gave out the silly prizes as usual, and I thought the Venetian man might win something, but he didn’t seem to be there any more. I presumed it must have been one of the boys, who’d skedaddled when he thought he might be unmasked.

In fact, the whole thing slipped from my mind, what with the general relief of term ending, but that evening I got a phone call from Henry’s landlady. I don’t know why she called me, or how she got my number. Would I come round quickly, please: Henry had been taken ill and was in a very bad way. So of course I went, and there he was all in a heap on the floor, though there wasn’t any blood. I only knew basic first aid, but I did what I could until the doctor turned up, and he took one look at Henry and summoned an emergency ambulance to cart him off to hospital: he’d had a heart attack, and it was touch and go whether he’d survive. Actually, the doctor told me that if I hadn’t come on the scene so quick, Henry would be dead. But survive he did; and when I thought he might be well enough to receive visitors I went to see him in hospital, since the poor chap didn’t have anyone else to turn to. The nurse wasn’t particularly keen to let me in. “He’s still very weak”, she said, “and very nervous about the lest little thing. Do take great care that you don’t disturb him”. And I could see what she meant when she opened the curtains around his bed and immediately said, “It’s all right Henry! It’s only me, and I’ve brought Bill from the school to see you. Just you lie back and don’t fret!”

He looked terrible. And when the nurse had gone, the first thing he said to me was, “Did you see him? The man in the mask? Did you see him?”
“Yes”
“Really and truly see him? Because other people don’t, you know. I’m the only one who sees him”
“Yes, I saw him all right. He had a hat, and a long black cloak and a sword”
Henry was quiet for a long time, and then he said, “Well, at least that proves I’m not mad, and I suppose that’s something”. And he told me this absolutely weird story, which normally I wouldn’t have believed for an instant.

“It happened when I was in Venice on holiday”, he said, “and one evening I was in that grand piazza outside St. Mark’s. It was pretty crowded; all sorts of people milling about, with one or two even in the traditional carnival costume, hat and cloak and mask; I assumed as some kind of tourist trap. I went up to one of these to have a close look, but there was a great mass of people swirling around, with the result that I got pushed from behind and bumped into him. And I really can’t describe how scary that was, because it was just like coming up against clothes swinging on a washing line. I mean, I bumped into his cloak and there was nothing inside it, just emptiness. I barged right into him, until my face was up against his mask, and there were no eyes looking out from it, just blackness. I can’t describe how horrible it was. But when I backed off, he moved, and he started to draw his rapier, and I knew he intended to kill me. I fled in panic, and left the city that same night.

“I thought that would be the end of it; and maybe it was only some kind of nightmare, but I found out it wasn’t. Ever since then he’s been following me. I’ve had to keep moving. I don’t know how he travels, or how he finds me; and I think he’s quite slow, because sometimes it’s weeks before he catches up with me. Sometimes I can see him, though not many other people can, and at other times I just sense his presence. It’s taken him since September to find me here, and for a while I even imagined I’d escaped him forever. Then I saw him at that party. I rushed back here to grab my stuff and run, but he somehow followed me and cornered me in my room, and then he drew his sword …….. I think it must have been as insubstantial as he is, because they tell me I had no sign of a wound, but I felt the most awful pain in my chest, and then I didn’t know anything till I woke up in hospital here.
   But I can’t stay here. He’ll know I’m not dead, and he’ll come looking for me again. As soon as I can walk, I’ll have to get out or here and find somewhere else to hide - though sometimes I wonder what the point is; he’s bound to get me in the end; I might as well let him do it now”.

Henry’s voice began to rise in despair. “It’s all so unfair! What did I ever do to him? I didn’t bump into him on purpose. And he won’t even let me apologise. What can I do? What can I do?”

At this stage the nurse, overhearing Henry’s sobs, came in and told me I’d better leave. I suppose she gave him some kind of sedative. Anyway, I came home. And that was the last I ever saw of Henry, because the next day my wife and I had to go away somewhere, and by the time we got back Henry had discharged himself from hospital and disappeared. He never contacted any of us again. I often wonder what happened to him. Is he still alive? Did the masked man finally get him? Or was he actually paranoid, with the masked figure just some stupid 6th-former showing off, and the rest of the story just a product of Henry’s diseased imagination? That would be the most rational explanation, of course, and I’d like to believe it.

Now you might say; that’s all very well, but so what? What’s that got to do with refusing to come to a Christmas party? Well, I’d have to admit, I’m still scared. Henry said you’d generally sense the man rather than actually see him; and once or twice I fancy I’ve sensed him. I’m not going to describe it, but it wasn‘t a pleasant feeling at all, I can tell you. You’ll say it’s just my own imagination being too active, but there you are: I thought I could sense his presence. At such times, I wonder if he blames me for saving Henry’s life, so I’m next on his list, or whether he’s lost track of Henry and thinks I can lead him to him. Afterwards I can try to laugh it all off, because I’ve never actually seen him and nothing nasty’s happened so far. But suppose I do actually see him: what then? And if at your party someone comes in Venetian costume, I think it would be my turn for a heart attack. So I hope you’ll understand why I’m staying at home.

Pagan Philosophy

A poem about the Caucasus, with reference to recent events there

The people are like their mountains
beautiful, wild, untameable,
hard, crushing any weakness,
implacable in revenge on outsiders
who show them no respect

Silly people in the cities
may speak of dying for a cause
but a serious man knows
that for your cause to triumph
you must kill

In the end we all die.
What matters is how we die
and what better way to die
than in defence of your home
surrounded by the bodies of your enemies?

The only true immortality
is to live in legend
when your children's children
tell stories of your mighty deeds.

The mountains and their people
once inspired Pushkin and Lermontov and Tolstoy
and now they inspire Vladimir Putin
- a serious man.

pgs

Making Contact

Michael gazed idly through the window of the train as it dawdled its way across the Welsh countryside in the drizzle and deepening gloom of an October afternoon. Until he arrived at his destination there was nothing he could do, but his mind was too preoccupied to settle to read a book. This was his very first mission: to locate his contact and deliver the message he had been given, which was “It’s snowing in Venice”. What might that mean? Nobody had seen fit to tell him, and he suspected he wasn’t supposed to enquire. He didn’t even have a proper address for the contact, or a physical description: only that his name was Jones and that he lived in a certain Welsh village whose name Michael was by no means sure of pronouncing even remotely correctly, since it consisted largely of Ws and double Ls. Nor had he been given any idea of what was supposed to follow once his message had been delivered.
It had occurred to Michael that this might well turn out to be not a real assignment at all, but some kind of trial to test out his reliability and usefulness. Quite likely he was supposed to display initiative in first of all locating the contact and then in following any instructions he might be given in return - perhaps another message? perhaps a package to deliver, or some other task to fulfil? Or perhaps above all he was supposed to use his judgement as to whether the contact was a man to be trusted? Maybe even now assessors were lurking and watching, to report on how he performed? - in which case the mysterious Jones was doubtless one of the assessors.
For as long as he could remember, Michael had known this was the career he wanted. As a small boy he had been fascinated by disguises and codes and invisible writing. His school friends had noticed, and had given him nicknames like “James Blonde” and “006 ½, licensed to hurt”, and he had learnt from this not to reveal his ambition to become a spy - at least, not until he met someone who might be useful in his ambition, and even then only by making cryptic hints rather than stating it openly. To this end he had worked hard to pass his exams and had assiduously sought to make the best contacts. And it had worked: eventually he had been interviewed and presumably secretly vetted. And here he was.
The train finally arrived. It was now quite dark outside. A few lights shone in the village behind the little station. No-one else left the train. The only person about was the man at the ticket window. Michael approached him.
“I wonder if you could help me: I’m looking for Mr Jones”.
“Ooh, there’s plenty of us called Jones here! There’s Jones the milk, and there’s Jones the gas and there’s Jones the bread; and me, I’m Jones the train!”
This, thought Michael, is clearly a test I‘ve been set. I shall need to show persistence and thoroughness, and at the same time be very discreet in my enquiries, so as not to raise suspicion. I’d better start here.
“I’m sorry I can’t be more precise”, he said, “The fact is, I didn’t expect to be here at all. I was supposed to be going to Italy, but it was cancelled at the last minute. The weather’s terrible there. They say it’s snowing in Venice!”
An expression of gradually dawning comprehension crept over the railwayman’s face. “Ooh, it’s Jones the spy you’ll be wanting! D’you know, you’re the third person who’s been asking for him this week?”
Somehow, Michael had not expected intelligence work to be like this.

Conversation

"The most frightening experience I ever had", said Nigel, "was when I was a student, living in lodgings in a scruffy part of town. I woke up in the middle of the night and found a man sitting on the end of my bed. It was too dark to see clearly, but it looked like he had a knife. He asked me, "Where's the drugs then?" I was terrified"
"Did you think he was a burglar or a policeman?" asked Martin. "Because if you thought it was the police, you should have demanded to see his search-warrant".
"I don't know what I thought. I was trembling all over and I couldn't even think straight, let alone talk coherently".
Martin said, "If I was sure it was a burglar, I'd have said the drugs were hidden in the kitchen, and I've have taken him there. Then I'd have grabbed the big kitchen knife, and I've had said, "I'm a trained fencer, so now I've got the advantage over you!", though I suppose that legally I should have told him to clear out rather than just go for him".
"It's all very well for you to talk! You weren't there! I bet you'd have been every bit as scared as I was! In the end he went away, but by that time I was a gibbering wreck! I couldn't sleep the rest of that night, and I couldn't face staying in those lodgings any longer. I went and dossed down with a friend until I found somewhere else to live. I still have nightmares about it".
"So this intruder: he didn't find the drugs, then?" But Martin hardly bothered to listen to Nigel's reply. He was running through in his own mind how he would have seen off the intruder, or, if the man did after all prove to be a policeman, the sensation he would create in court with his brilliant orations in his own defence.

The Abbot

The Abbot walked moodily down the path that led from the west door of his chapel, kicking at the pebbles as he went. Everything was highly unsatisfactory, and he could see no obvious means to bring about improvement. For a start, he was suffering from acute indigestion. He silently pronounced anathema on whatever miscreant might have ruled that barnacle geese were a permitted food during Lent. His stomach could never cope with goose, but, for God’s sake, he had a position to keep up; he had important guests to entertain; what was he supposed to give them: bread and water? At least the pains in his guts had the effect of temporarily taking his mind off the far greater problem.

     The map! Buying it for the monastery had seemed such a good idea at the time! That man who called himself Vladimir, who spoke his Latin with the funny accent, had been so plausible! He described how he had guided the last crusade across the Bulgar lands to Constantinople, and how he had found an map in a church wrecked by Turkish raiders; and then, with the most reverent air possible, had uncovered the amazing parchment. The Abbot could not read the writing on it, which he understood was in Hebrew, but Vladimir had translated it for him. It was a map on which Saint Paul’s journeys were marked by the hand of the Apostle himself, miraculously preserved over the centuries. He had demanded a very high price for the map, but the Abbot’s head was filled with visions of the countless pilgrims who would flock to the abbey, and he had scarcely bothered to bargain. Indeed, since he lacked the available money to meet the price, he had pledged the monastery’s land as security that the balance would be produced by Michaelmas. The fame of the map had quickly spread, and now the King himself was soon to arrive to admire the amazing relic. How jealous the Bishop was! All he had to boast about in his cathedral was a fragment of a knucklebone of Saint Hilarius, patron saint of professional fools and clowns, and even that was of the most dubious provenance!
All had been going so well until that miserable travelling scholar Brother Cedric had paid a visit. He had examined the map and immediately pronounced it a clumsy forgery. “Not so much a Mappa Mundi and Mappa Tuesday!” he had snorted scornfully. “I verily believe it was drawn not much earlier than last Tuesday; and as for the writing; it is not Hebrew, it is gibberish!” How fortunate it was that the aforesaid Brother Cedric had shortly afterwards been caught in a compromising situation with a milkmaid from the village, and been ordered to walk all the way to Santiago di Compostella as a penance! That should keep him out of the way for a couple of years at least; but rumours were bound to spread.
     The more the Abbot reflected on it, the more he was haunted by the uneasy feeling that the wretched Brother Cedric might perhaps have been right. In which case, what in heaven’s name was he going to do now? He had no authority to pledge monastic land as security for a purchase without consulting the head of his Order. Not only that; he had summoned the famous goldsmith Master Thomas from Paris, and commissioned him to make the most gorgeous frame for the map. More money: unimaginably vast sums of money!

     The Abbot kicked moodily at the path. One small stone flew up in the air and landed painfully on his toes. Muttering an anathema under his breath, he bent down to examine in offending object. It was an unusual stone, perfectly round, and of a peculiar colour and texture. Suddenly an idea occurred to him. He had long been irritated by the custom of the local people to pray to a certain local saint when they suffered from internal disorders. According to legend, the saint was a hermit who in the dim and distant past had miraculously cured one Queen Bertha of a longstanding digestive affliction. Personally, the Abbot believed this so-called saint lacked any canonical justification, but was merely a deplorable peasant superstition; and it was a matter of deep regret that the unauthorised cult was even becoming widespread amongst the nobility. But now …..
     For the first time for many days, the Abbot laughed, as new and exciting vistas opened up before him. This little oddment that he held in his hand was none other than the gallstone of Queen Bertha, which a saint - shall we call him Saint Gastric? the nobles would be vaguely aware that they'd heard the name somewhere before, and the peasants could easily transfer their worship once it won official approval - had miraculously extracted from her body by the power of prayer alone, without need of surgery! A holy relic indeed! The Abbot was suddenly feeling much better, and it occurred to him that he could now swear, with perfect truth, that holding the sacred gallstone in his hand had instantly relieved his indigestion! In his mind he saw a procession of pilgrims, clutching their bellies, noisily burping and breaking wind, flocking to his abbey to seek relief from the saint. Why, even the King was said to be a sufferer, which was hardly surprising, given the prevalence of highly-spiced food at his court.
     How to account for the sudden appearance of this new holy relic? Not a problem: he would say he had bought it from Vladimir, alongside that accursed map. Two treasures for the price of one would seem a reasonable bargain to anyone; and he was sure that Vladimir would co-operate in the plan, once it was explained to him that this new development would greatly increase his chances of actually getting his money. Then he could tell Master Thomas the goldsmith that the terms of his employment had been changed, and what was now required was a reliquary for a much smaller object.

Humming a Te Deum, the Abbot turned around and strode towards his chapter-house, rehearsing in his mind the account he would shortly be giving to his amazed brethren.  

The Troubadour

An exotic figure walked fastidiously across the straw-strewn floor of the great hall of the castle. His clothes were of scarlet and blue silk; he wore a black velvet cap and boots of the finest soft leather. On his back he bore a lute. His face was unnaturally pallid and his lips bright and shiny, and a close inspection suggested that both had been achieved by the application of makeup. Such an apparition had never been seen in the kingdom before. Some of the men-at-arms gawped; others sniggered or passed crude comments amongst themselves. The stranger ignored the vulgar noises, and addressed the guard at the door to the private rooms.
“Now then, my man, pray inform the King that the troubadour Joscelyn de Melun has arrived from Provence and craves audience with his majesty!”
“Indeed! And is his majesty expecting you?” It was not the most promising response, but when the stranger fingered his purse in a meaningful fashion, the guard passed through to make further enquiries. He felt puzzled. It was part of his job to remember faces, and despite the outlandish garb and the affected accent, he felt certain he had come across this specimen somewhere before. Shortly afterwards he returned to usher Joscelyn into the royal presence, then resumed his post outside the door, still puzzled as he searched his memory.

In the small audience-chamber, the King was seated on a richly-carved chair beneath a brocade canopy. As Joscelyn knelt to kiss the royal hand, he thought; he’s impressive enough when he’s sitting down, and I’m told he looks even better on a horse: it’s only when he’s on his feet that you notice his short bow legs. I’d advise him to keep motionless, like a statue, whenever possible. And he really shouldn’t keep scratching himself: it completely spoils the effect.
“So, Joscelyn!” said the King, “You have come to me from Provence; and I suppose you seek employment at my court.”
“Yes, your majesty. Your kingdom, though very grand, is a little remote, perhaps, from the centres of fashion. The Kings in other parts have lately been employing troubadours like your humble servant here to compose poems that tell of their mighty deeds. I understand that, as yet, no-one has undertaken such a service for your majesty.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s quite true. The peasants sing songs about me, or so I’m told.”
Indeed they do, thought Joscelyn: mostly highly disrespectful songs; sometimes very rude indeed! But what he said was, “I‘m sure that is the case, your majesty; but sadly that kind of traditional verse is now completely out of favour in the most cultivated kingdoms. In Provence nowadays everyone is writing in heroic couplets . And this is what I have come to offer your majesty: a great epic, in the very latest style and the best possible taste, which will cause your name to live forever, not only here in Britain, but throughout Europe!”
“Well, it’s a thought!” said the King. “you will, of course, be well rewarded if it’s good enough. Explain to me how you intend to proceed.”
“The poem would begin, as is usual in these cases, with your majesty’s childhood and early adventures. As yet, unfortunately, I know little about the subject. Could your majesty, perhaps, tell me something concerning your noble father?”
The King looked unhappy. “I remember that he was drunk most of the time. He was a very violent man.”
“I see. And your mother?”
“I don’t remember anything about her. I think he kicked her out when I was a baby.”
This won’t do at all, thought Joscelyn. Oh well, we can always fall back on the traditional biography for a hero.
“Ah, but of course there were rumours that he wasn’t really your father!” he said in a conspiratorial voice, “We all know the story of how, when the Emperor visited this kingdom, he was so smitten by the great beauty of your lady mother that …. Well, need I say more?”
I don’t remember any such story, thought the King. Is this fellow hinting that I’m a bastard? But that would explain all the hostility, wouldn’t it? And then, if I’m really the son of the Emperor himself… now there’s a thought!
All he said was, “Did the Emperor really come here?”
“Of course he did! In disguise, naturally. He always travelled in disguise: he said it was the only way he could really find out what was going on in his domains.”
That’s a clever idea, thought the King: I might try it myself some time. He continued, “I left home when I was still quite young.”
“Of course: heroes always do. No doubt you narrowly escaped some plot to murder you: that’s pretty standard as well. We’ll flesh out some details later. Next, you must have had a famous sword: how did you acquire it? Did you have to undergo some kind of ordeal?”
“You mean my first sword? I pinched it from my father’s armoury when I left home. I’ve still got it somewhere. I didn’t know it was famous.”
“But it surely had a name? Heroes’ swords always have to have names!”
“Oh, you mean like the Vikings? Something like “Skullsplitter” or “Blood-drinker”?”
“No, your majesty! That Viking stuff is hopelessly out-of-date: no longer fit for the best courts! Let’s move with the times! Your sword must have some ringing, poetic name, and there should be a romantic story about how you gained it. Never mind: we’ll work on that as well. Then I suppose you fought a great many battles before you gained your kingdom?”
“Yes, there was a lot of fighting. But it was a long time ago, and it’s all got a bit blurred by now.”
“But I expect you killed the odd dragon. No: that won’t do; no-one around here believes in dragons any more. How about a giant: that sounds more realistic. Did you ever kill any giants?”
“Well…. There was Kevin. He was an Irishman. He was pretty big, as I recall. But I don’t remember any details.”
This job is going to require a great deal of embroidery on my part, thought Joscelyn. “Next,” he said, “how did you win the hand of your true love, the Queen?”
The King winced, “Do you have to bring Agatha into it?” he asked plaintively.
Joscelyn suppressed a smile. He’d heard how Queen Agatha ruled her husband with a rod of iron: wouldn’t let the royal household spend a single groat without her express permission. There was no getting round Queen Aggie, the courtiers said - or at least, it was a very long walk!
The King continued. “She was the daughter of the Lord of Salopia. They sent me a picture of her, but when I met her, I found she didn’t look anything like it. But her father insisted that we go ahead and get married anyway. And then her father died and I inherited all his lands, so really I shouldn’t complain.
“Is that enough to be going on with for the moment? You’ll have to leave now, because I’ve called a conference of all my knights. I’ll see you some time and you can tell me how you’re getting on with the poem.”
Joscelyn knelt to kiss the royal hand again. As he backed respectfully out of the presence-chamber he thought, if I can make a proper epic poem out of this drivel, then I’ll really have earned every penny he pays me! As the guard opened the door for him he took a small foreign coin in his hand, but before he could bestow it, the guard suddenly exclaimed, “I know where I’ve seen you before! You were a local lad, weren’t you? Hogg the baker’s boy, that’s right! Then you disappeared. So you went down to Provence and became a troubadour, and now you’ve come back here, all togged up! Well, good luck to you, I say! But where did you get the Joscelyn?
The troubadour said nothing. He gave the man a long, cold stare and returned the coin back to his purse.    

The Old Man's Choice

Paul sat in his chair as rigid and motionless as a statue, but inside his head thoughts spiralled endlessly around without reaching any conclusion. In the past he had always had confidence in his judgements; it had been one of his strengths; but not so now. Was he doing the right thing? Was it too late to change? How was he to know? He had always done his duty, and had never once doubted that his role was to lead, but he had never pretended to great intelligence. Throughout his long career, others had always done the detailed and difficult work for him: his function was to provide dignity and stability, and to calm down those brainy chaps when they got over-excited, as they often did. And he had been respected, and generally successful. But now here he was, alone. The brainy chaps had gone. He should have gone too: he realised that. More than once he had retired, and then allowed himself to be called back. He should have resisted that last call; in his heart he had known it all along: the only time in his life that he had ever acted weakly. Surely at more than eighty years of age he should have been allowed to live in peace! It had brought him nothing but uncertainty, when every course of action seemed distasteful.
Now there was this man he had to meet: a man young enough to be his grandson. Not that he would have wished any grandson of his to turn out like that! He had already met him more than once, and had disliked him intensely. The fellow was common beyond belief; obviously risen from the gutter; ill-mannered, disrespectful, dishonest and consumed with violent ambition. Paul’s oldest friends had warned him against having anything to do with this person. Where were his friends now, when he needed them most? Gone; all gone. He was alone, and what was he to do? For the first time in his life, Paul felt helpless; a mere cork, drifting in the tide of events. It was so unfair! 
The door opened to admit the unwanted visitor. Paul rose ponderously to his feet, and maintaining dignity till the last, stood as ramrod-straight as if still on the parade-ground. The other man was plainly ill-at-ease. He had taken the trouble to dress formally for the occasion, which served only to make him look ridiculous. The two exchanged stilted and unmeaning compliments, scarcely bothering to disguise the contempt they felt for each other. But the formalities had to be gone through. So the older man and the younger shook hands, and Field-Marshal-President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany.

The Master of the Angels

When Lorenzo di Prato heard the rumour that his only daughter considered herself betrothed to the young painter Tancredi, he was not pleased. He considered it entirely unfitting that he, a prosperous and respected cloth-merchant, should have his family linked by common gossip to a struggling, penniless artist. This was not the future he intended for his child. So when he confronted Gianetta, and she could not deny her friendship with the young man, he had the girl shut away in a convent until she should come to her senses.
Tancredi was saddened, and also insulted. Admittedly he was as yet unknown, but he was sure his prospects were good. Had he not been commissioned to work on the altarpiece at the new church? It would depict the Adoration of the Virgin, and he was to paint one of the side panels. He was certain that this would establish his reputation as a painter, and quickly lead to fame and wealth. But also he truly loved Gianetta, and now he missed her greatly. As the days and the weeks passed by without her, he became more and more depressed. He began to neglect his work. Increasingly he became aware that it was dull and uninspired, and yet he was unable to do anything to improve it. He took to hanging around the gates of the convent for hours at a time, hoping for just a glimpse of his beloved; but the walls were high and windowless, and no man could enter without permission.
Gianetta was also very lonely and unhappy. To ease her grief, she took to praying in quiet places away from the nuns. Especially she liked to climb to the top of the campanile, where there was a small platform: the only place in the convent from which it was possible to catch any glimpse of the city outside. Here she would pray fervently for help and deliverance. And here one day her prayer were answered; as two Beings descended in majesty from the skies and took her hands; and then in an overwhelming miracle glittering wings grew from her own shoulders, and together the three of them rose beyond the prosaic earth and soared upwards into the cloudless blue.
The only person who saw them was Tancredi, from his lonely vigil outside the nunnery gates. As soon as they had risen beyond his sight, he rushed back to his church and seized his brushes; and he painted his panel before the vision could fade from his memory. It showed three angels in brilliant colours. It was much the best part of the altarpiece, and its fame spread far and wide, so that his reputation was established and he was known ever after as the Master of the Angels. But he never married Gianetta, for the poor girl was now incurably insane, and was never again able to leave the shelter of her convent. Most of the time she was quiet, but occasionally she would escape the vigilance of the nuns, and then she would climb the tower of the campanile, and would be found there, wildly invoking the heavens with tears in her eyes.
"Fly!" she would call, "Oh, fly! Please, fly!"

The Library Van: a true story

Between leaving school and going to university, I worked for six months at the Cumberland County Library. One of the tasks there was to go round remote parts of the county on the travelling library van. For some of the tiny villages and remote farmhouses, seeing us every three weeks was one of  their few contacts with the outside world.
               One woman had an invariable procedure. “I want 5 murders, 3 romances and a western”, she would say, and leave us to choose them for her. She would then cast her eye over our selection, discarding a few because “they didn’t look very good“, or because she thought she might have read them before. Other customers had their own systems for dealing with the latter problem; such as making a pencil mark on a certain page once they’d read one of our books. In cold weather some kind ladies would bring us mugs of tea, though since they invariably stirred in large quantities of sugar, I could never drink mine.
She wasn’t the only customer who let us choose her books, and some of the choices we made must have caused some surprise. Harold the van driver once persuaded a lady at a remote farm to take home James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. “Is it a good book?” she asked. “It’s a very famous book”, said Harold. “I want something I can read in bed”, she said. “It’s probably best if you read this in bed”, Harold told her. I never found out what she made of it, since I don’t recall we ever saw her again.

Harold explained to me the perils of engaging these people in conversation. They probably never saw anyone except us and the postman for weeks at a time, and they were often desperate for a talk, but we had a tight schedule to keep, and if we let them stay on the van for too long, we’d never get round in time. Harold’s policy was to agree with everything they said. “You can’t have a proper conversation with someone who always agrees with you”, he said. I witnessed this technique in action at an isolated farmhouse up near Kershopefoot on the Scottish border; the home of an artist who was in fact a Nazi. He clambered onto the van in his paint-stained overalls. “Things is bad!” he told us, “There’s Jews in high places bleeding this country white!” “You’re right there!” said Harold. The man soon went away. But I’m afraid I forgot Harold’s advice on one occasion, when once an old farm labourer got on the van and told us, with no introduction, that all farm land should be nationalised. “You’ll be a socialist then”, I dutifully said. Oh no, he always voted Conservative. I couldn’t retrain myself from asking why, and he told me this long story about how, when he was a boy on the Earl of Lonsdale’s estate back before the First World War, he once opened a gate for the Earl’s carriage to come through, and there sitting beside the Earl was the Kaiser, who had come to spend Christmas up at the castle. The Earl had given him half-a-sovereign and said, “You look a promising young chap. If you ever want a job, come up to the hall and see me“. But then he’d gone off to the trenches, and it was only in the 1920s that he’d met the earl at a county show and the earl had said to him, “I recognise you! You’re the lad who opened the gate for me back before the war! Why didn’t you come up to the hall and take the job I offered you?” And ever since then he’d voted Conservative. Politics is a bit primitive up on the Border. I’ve often reflected that my vote could be cancelled out by someone like that.

What Remains

Judging by the family portraits they left us, they must have been well-off. The husband and wife are depicted side-by-side, wearing their best clothes. He chose to be painted holding an official-looking document with a red seal attached, suggesting something legal. His wife, more informally, is shown sucking the end of a pencil, with a quizzical expression on her face, as if she was wondering whether she might have left something off her shopping list. In a separate picture a younger woman, presumably their daughter, is also sucking a pencil and clutching a notebook in her left hand, but her expression more resembles a poet searching for the next line.
    They would have been proud of their home, with its brightly-painted walls. They had a dog, and like many home-owners since, they had put up a sign warning intruders that their dog was very fierce. They would especially have loved their neat little garden, which had a few statues amongst the flowers, and we can imagine them enjoying a drink of wine there with their friends in a summer evening. Their surviving pictures show they had good taste, and maybe they regarded the somewhat explicit artworks favoured by their neighbours as a bit vulgar. Our family preferred pictures of birds and plants. One particularly delightful painting shows a young girl gathering spring flowers, so realistic that you can see the blossom falling around her.
     But it was not blossom which fell on our family on that terrible day many years ago: it was something far more deadly. And they are gone, so we are no longer certain even of their names, but their home and their pictures still survive; pictures in which the blossom never did fall, but is frozen forever in an eternal spring.      

Note:-

I wrote this after visiting the magnificent Pompeii exhibition at the British Museum last week. I have, of course, included items which would have been found in many different houses at Pompeii as if they all came from the same house; but that is how they were set out in the exhibition. 

The Last Morning

And now the thunder ends. The eager sun
Strikes diamonds in the glistening July fields.
Larks rise into the blue. The very soil is glad.
The waiting-time is almost at an end.
It was for this
We gathered, left behind the wretched life
Of comfortable homes and mindless games
Endured exhaustion, and the curses, and the pain,
Drenched by the storms upon the open heath,
Blistered our feet along the cobbled roads
Of France, bearing enormous loads;
But we were fiercely glad.
It was for this.
The rolling hills rise eastwards to the sun;
There we shall go today.
Now all is tense
We stand, anticipating the release
The waiting time is almost at an end……
At last the whistles blow, the moment’s come
And morning light is playing on the Somme.

(July 1st, 1916)

Unprepared: a dream

I had spent the morning working on a cupboard-full of someone else’s junk, extracting the few items that were worth saving and putting aside the remained to be thrown out, and then I met Kom. He must have spotted how bored I looked, and he asked me if I was yet ready to be initiated. He had mentioned this before, and this time I said yes.
Initiated into what, you might ask. Here Kom would employ a word which he said was untranslatable: somewhere between a religious faith and a view of life. I took it to mean some exotic form of Buddhism, or something on those lines. I didn’t inquire; but I certainly wasn’t prepared for what followed. Kom led me into the older part of town and through a nondescript door to a courtyard beyond. On the opposite side was an open doorway, which was evidently where I should go. A couple of other people were waiting there already: they did not turn to look at me. Kom said that etiquette required that I should wait for the person ahead to disappear out of sight before I entered. I asked Kom if someone would instruct me what to do, and he said yes, of course.
While I waited a watched an old man in the courtyard who was going through a dance, involving many singular jumps and hops. His bare legs looked wiry and strong, and he moved as lightly as any gymnast or ballet-dancer, He looked totally self-absorbed and took  no notice of anyone else. It seemed plain that he was an adept. After a while the way ahead of me was clear.

Inside the doorway there was a metal ladder leading upwards. I climbed it. The climb took a long time, and was partly in darkness, but at last I emerged into daylight.  
I was high above the town, standing on a platform of glistening white quartz. It looked like a natural formation, though it was not much wider than the top of a column, and the sides were almost as steep. I did not like this at all. I once went rock-climbing with a friend, and felt most uncomfortable on the exposed heights. I sat down, hoping it would be safer. Then the instructions came:
“Conquer your fear. Look down on the city bone-yard and do not be afraid” One of the oddest things is that I can’t remember whether these words were written down, or spoken, or just popped into my head. I looked. There was a city below me, but it did not resemble the town I had come from. In was totally silent, and I could not see a single human being anywhere. Beyond the city there was countryside and further off, faint through the haze, a range of mountains. It was not scenery I recognised. Then I looked to see what to do next. There was a sort of path down, but it looked very slippery and dangerous, without anything to hold onto. More instructions came:
“Why the need to hurry? You can stay here for ever if you wish”

I cannot for the life of me say how I did get down: I have no memory of it whatsoever. I wonder if I fainted. But I certainly didn’t fall, or I wouldn’t be here today. Am I, perhaps, in a sense, still up there on that high and perilous seat? I tried discussing this with Kom, but he cut me short, saying that everyone’s experience was different and it was best not to talk about the subject: he would take me to the next stage when the time was right. What his own initiation involved he refused to say.

Abroad Thoughts From Home

(with apologies to Robert Browning)

Oh, to be out of England
Now that April's here!
For whoever wakes in England
Finds, each morning, as he feared,
That the east wind's blowing with might and main
And the garden pond is frozen again
And the snow disfigures the hedgerow's brow
In England, now.

The Old Bus: a true story

When I was teaching at the High School, someone in authority decided that, rather than always having to shell out money to Bassett’s Coaches for our outings, it would make sense to buy our own transport; and so we obtained The Bus. It was a truly awe-inspiring motor; the year’s latest model - the year in question being somewhere round about 1948. Truly it would have graced any museum of the history of transport; but this did not make it any easier to drive. There was no power-assisted steering, and no synchromesh on any of the gears, which quickly led to one of the geography teachers acquiring the nickname of “Captain Crunch” for his efforts behind the wheel. Max, my head of department, who was a keen motorist, described changing gear as like stirring a cricket stump in a bucket of marbles. He was a little chap, and sometimes he had to employ both hands wrestling with it. “Christ!! Bloody hell!!” he would exclaim as he did battle with the gears amidst heavy traffic in the middle of Stoke. Once, when he was having a particularly bad time on the way back from a trip to the Gladstone pottery, one boy foolishly made some sarcastic comment on his driving. “If you think you can do any better, then come and have a go!” snarled Max, still sweating in his attempts to find third gear. The boy was rash enough to answer, “Okay then!” Max was so enraged that he stopped the bus and charged up the central aisle, with every intention of thumping the wretched youth, but before the blow could land, the handbrake started to slip and Max had to race back to the controls. And by the time we arrived back at the school, Max was far too occupied with the tricky problem of parking the bus (which could only be done in reverse, after first edging the bonnet up the drive of the house opposite, at the risk of doing irreparable damage to the flowering cherry) to take any further action.
The worst journey I experienced came near the end of the one summer term, when we took the first formers on the annual history trip into Shropshire. The first stop was Ludlow, which we reached without mishap; but when we stopped at the entrance to the castle, we were approached by a policeman. “You can’t park here”, he told us, “You’ll have to go to the coach park”. Mark, who was driving, pleaded with him: we’d come a long way and we shouldn’t be there for more than an hour. The policeman eyed the bus narrowly. “I wouldn’t like to have to give a full roadworthiness check to this vehicle, sir”, he said meaningfully. We went to the coach park. The stop for lunch at Stokesay castle passed without mishap, although Nick, our youngest teacher, had with typical disorganisation forgotten to bring any sandwiches, and was reduced to begging for contributions from the pupils (fortunately one boy had been provided by his mother with no fewer than nine chicken legs, and was able to come to the rescue). But then there was an untoward incident in the grounds of Buildwas Abbey, when one of the boys had his shoe subjected to a sexual assault by a randy little puppy. “Sir, it’s weed on me!” he said, inaccurately. The crowning moment of the day came as we drove back through Hodnet. One of the boys complained that he felt sick. We were travelling along narrow, twisty roads unsuitable for stopping, and we were in any case late, so I passed him a plastic waste-bucket already half full of bent coke tines and screwed-up crisp bags. He chundered voluminously into this receptacle, and then a little later approached me again, in some distress. “Sir“, he said, “the brace from my teeth fell in!” I said that if he thought I was going to start fishing for it, he was mistaken. “But the dentist’ll be mad at me sir!” he moaned. When we finally arrived back at school, I made him and another boy who had annoyed me empty the bucket into one of the vast grunions by the gate. During the course of this operation, I observed they both contrived to get it all over their jackets, but I decided I had done quite enough for the day, and went home.
The old bus was still there when I left the school, and I never found out what happened to it. Presumably it has long since left this life for that great multi-storey carpark in the sky - assuming, of course that it was permitted to enter.

The Woods Where Once I Walked

The woods where once I walked
I glimpsed them from the train
From thirty years ago
I still saw in my mind
Catkins and budding leaves
The dappled light of spring
And kingcups by the stream
And bluebells under the trees
As I glimpsed the woods from the train.

But now the trees stood bare
Like a parade of ghosts
In the clammy winter fog
And the grass lay seared with frost
And no-one walked in the woods

And the train swept on to the north.

A Snuff Bottle

George read through the advertisements in the local paper.
     “For sale: several Chinese works of art: soapstone carvings, ink painting of bamboo, blah, blah, amber snuff bottle ….. Hmm, now that might be worth investigating!”
     He had yet to find a really good amber snuff-bottle to add to his collection. Of course, the chances were that this was just some rubbishy modern piece; but even so, it would be silly to let the chance slip away. He dialled the telephone number given on the advert. A woman’s voice answered. He gave his name, and then, in order not too sound too eager, asked about some of the other items first, and only came to the snuff bottle as if was an afterthought.
     The woman gave him a brief description of the object. “It's about two inches high, with a carving of a dragon on it. There's some Chinese writing on the bottom, but of course I can't read it. It's a beautiful golden colour, and it's got a stopper with a little spoon for the snuff", she told him. "I really can’t say how old it is; I’m not an expert at all! You see, I’ve inherited all these things from my aunt, and I need to dispose of them as quickly as I can, because I live abroad. Why don’t you come and have a look at it? And if you think it’s any good, you can have it for ….. what shall we say? ….. fifty pounds? Fine! How about next Tuesday? Three o’clock?  Now, how to get here: do you know Foxton? Well, go out from there on the Brackenford road, and after a couple of miles you’ll see a turning on your left, just opposite the bus stop. Go down there, and after a few hundred yards there’s a big holly hedge on the left and a sign saying Bluebell Cottage. That’s where I am. Park your car in the drive. If no-one answers the bell, it probably means I’m in the back garden, so come and look for me. See you then!”
     After he had put the phone down, it suddenly occurred to George that he might have heard the woman’s voice before, but he couldn’t  quite recall the circumstances.

     As he drove out on Tuesday, George reflected on his possible good luck. The description of the snuff bottle had genuinely excited him: it had sounded exactly like the real business! He wondered how he might turn the situation even more to his advantage. Should he, for instance, regretfully inform the woman that her snuff bottle was a modern fake, but, rather than make the visit fruitless, he would take it off her hands for thirty pounds? or perhaps only twenty?
    He found Bluebell Cottage without difficulty. It was the only building down a narrow country lane. As predicted, a ring of the front door bell brought no response, and he wandered round into the secluded back garden. This also seemed deserted.
     “Hello, George!” came a voice from behind him. He spun round.
     “You!” was all he could manage to say.
     “Yes, George, it’s me! It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I rented this cottage specially to meet you again, and here you are. I remembered how you used to collect snuff bottles, and I just had to pray you hadn’t given up the hobby. I hope you appreciate the research I put in, to make sure I could describe one that you’d want! So here we are together again, after all those years. It’ll be just like old times. Well; not quite like old times….”
     And she drew a small pistol from her pocket.

Homage to Rupert Brooke

(To be sung to the tune of the Prelude to Act III of “Carmen”, by Bizet)

The boy who sang by Granta’s stream
Of spires and fenland, games and laughter in the morning
Taken by a wider dream
Out eastwards sees the golden sun of blazing dawning
Hears a voice singing proudly now of songs of war and duty

     beauty

Youth and honour lie in Flanders field
And by the banks of Somme and Yser seek for fame
A sword to draw, a lance to wield
A shield to bear the man that dies to win a name
And hear him sing, Now may God be thanked who matched us with his hour

     power

Loud rejoicing as the boat sails away
To sun-baked islands, seas that once were dark as wine
Where heroes fought a burning day
And deeds as brightly as the Hellene sun will shine
And so he goes, seeking Ilium’s walls and Hector’s martial story

     for the

Boy who sang by Granta’s stream
In storm and glory
To the war
Is gone.
..........................................................................................
Notes:-
Rupert Brooke was the golden boy of English poetry in the years leading up to the First World War. His most frequently quoted poems are "Grantchester", about the villages around Cambridge, and a sonnet, "Now may God be thanked, who has matched us with his hour", expressing his excitement at the declaration of war in 1914. Brooke promptly volunteered for service, and in early 1915 was shipped out to the Mediterranean for the Gallipoli expedition. But he never got there; dying of a mosquito bite on the island of Sykros on April 23rd. He was 27 years old.
   This poem is designed to be sung to Bizet's music, and the words are chosen with this in mind: for their sound as well as their meaning.
   The imagery  is deliberately archaic, because Brooke had no idea what the war would actually be like - but neither did anyone else! "Ilium" in verse three is Troy: as you stand on the ramparts of Troy you can see the main Turkish war memorial on Gallipoli,on the far side of the Dardanelles straits.

Miniature

Becky said to her father, "My friend told me how she found this tiny little man in her garden". Her father looked up from his book with an expression suggesting interest, so she continued.
   "He was just a few inches high, but he looked the same as an ordinary man. He was wearing clothes like you see in the history books, and he had a tiny sword in his hand".
   Becky's father, of course, wasn't fooled for an instant by this roundabout way of approaching the story. While Becky was speaking he turned round to scrabble in the bookcase until he found the volume he wanted.
   "So did the tiny little man say anything to your friend?" he asked, "And did he speak English?"
   "Yes: he asked her to help him".
   "He'd certainly need some help!" her father said. "Here we are: Gulliver's Travels; the voyage to Lilliput, where the people are only six inches high. Has your friend read it, I wonder? Now in Lilliput everything is tiny: the animals, the birds, even the trees. But it would be a different matter if  any Lilliputians tried to live here, where things are large. They couldn't last five minutes; it would be sheer murder!"
   "Why?"
   "Just think about it. How could people only six inches high defend themselves against stoats and foxes, or against hawks and owls? I think they'd have to live in the trees, like squirrels, and build themselves nests".
   "They'd have weapons! This man had a sword".
   "Swift's Lilliputians had sword too. It's a nice idea, but unfortunately it's impossible. If you were just six inches high, you couldn't build a fire hot enough to work metal. In fact, fire would be a terrible danger, like it is to all small creatures, and so would floods. You can read in this book how in Lilliput the royal palace catches fire and how Gulliver puts it out, though it's actually very rude!"
   "Couldn't they survive somehow?"
   "I think their best bet would be to get into someone's house and live under the floorboards, like the Borrowers. Then they'd be warm and dry, and they could pick up scraps of food, and find needles and nails to defend themselves against rats or other animals. I think if the tiny man asks for help again, your friend ought to invite him indoors.
   "Oh, and by the way, she might ask him where he learned to speak English."

Later, Becky went down to the wild area at the bottom of the garden behind the pond, and waited. After a while the little man appeared again. He was so small he only reached half way up to her knee. He had black hair and a black beard, and wore a kind of white tunic. His sword was still in his hand.
   "Would you like to come and live in our house, to keep you safe from wild animals?" asked Becky. But all he said was "Help me!" Becky wasn't sure whether she heard him speak, or it was a voice inside her head.
   "How can I help you?" she asked.
   "Find the Sampo. Find the Sampo".
   "But I don't know what that is, or where to look!" Becky said. But the little man had vanished.

(To be continued)