THE MINT. T. E. Lawrence / Lawrence of Arabia
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Название: THE MINT
Автор: T. E. Lawrence / Lawrence of Arabia
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788075836540
isbn:
The 'axed' Devonport apprentices, just out of their papers, despise our mob. They have worked in a shop with men. Two barmen sleep beside Boyne, ex-captain in the K.R.R. Opposite lies the naval suburb: - a Marconi operator, R.N. and two able seamen, by their own tale. Ordinary seamen, perhaps. Sailors talk foul and are good everyday sorts. The G.W.R. machinist rejected all kindness, and swilled beer solitarily. There were chauffeurs (read 'vanmen') enlisted for lorry work: some dapper-handed clerks, sighing at the purgatory of drill between them and their quiet stools-to-be: a small tradesman out of Hoxton, cherishing his overdrawn bank book as proof of those better days: photographers, mechanics, broken men; bright lads from school, via errand-running. Most are very fit, many keen on their fresh start here, away from reputation. All are alert when they have a shilling in pocket, and nothing for the while to do.
Men move in or out of our hut daily, so that it flickers with changing faces. We gain a sense of nomadity. No one dare say, 'Here I will sleep tonight, and this I will do on the morrow,' for we exist at call.
Our leading spirits are China and Sailor, Sailor taking the curt title because he is more of a sailor than all the naval pretenders put together. A lithe, vibrant ex-signaller of the war-time, quick-silvery even when he (seldom) stands still. Not tall but nervous on his feet, a Tynesider who has seen many ships and ports and should be qualified as a hard case. Yet good-humour bubbles out of him and in drink he is embodied kindness. With his fists he is a master. His voice renders his frequent bursts of song our delight, for even in speech it is of a purring richness with a chuckle of reckless mirth latent in the throat behind his soberest word. Sailor's vitality made him leader of our hut after the first hour.
China, his sudden pal, is a stocky Camberwell costermonger, with the accent of a stage Cockney. Since childhood he has fought for himself and taken many knocks, but no care about them. He is sure that safety means to be rough among the town's roughs. His deathly-white face is smooth as if waxed, the bulging pale eyes seem lidless like a snake's, and out of their fixedness he stares balefully. He is knowing. When Sailor starts a rag, China produces a superb haw-haw voice that takes off the officer-type into pure joy, with a subtle depth of mimicry. He is always President in our mock courts-martial.
Normally his speech is a prolonged snarl, as filely-grating as his pal's is melodious. China has said 'fuck' so often, inlaying it monotonously after every second word of his speech with so immense an aspirated 'f', that his lips have pouted to it in a curve which sneers across his face like the sound-hole of a fiddle's belly. Sailor and China, the irrepressibles, fascinate me with the attraction of unlikeness: for I think I fear animal spirits more than anything in the world. My melancholy approaches me nearer to our sombre conscientious hut-corporal, whom everybody hates for his little swearing and inelasticity. But he is old, and years, with their repetition, sap the fun from any care-full man.
7. The New Skin
Rumour has it that today we draw our kit. From breakfast-time we hang about in excitement; hoping to lose, with these our old suits, the instant reminder that we have been civvies: and to escape the disdain we now read in the eyes of uniformed men.
Rumour at last turns true. In fours we march to the Q.M. Stores and there stand up against a hail of clothing flung at us by six sweating storemen, while the quartermaster, upright behind his counter, intoned the list. But the list stood on its head... socks, pairs, three; it ran like that... so nobody could know what was what.
We shouldered the kit-bag, draped the tunics and trousers (khaki, alas!) over one arm, hugged the blue clothes, our ambition, with the other; and were chivied to the boot-store where we tried on as many as we could grab of the hundreds of boots upon the floor. At last each had two pairs, fairly fitting, but barge-heavy, and stiff as cast-iron. The boot-man hung them round our necks by their strings, and we staggered to the tailors who next took hold of us that they might chalk alterations on the seams of our blue tunics. Laden with all else of the mighty kit we steered our way back up the camp roads to the hut.
'Quick!' cried Corporal Abner. 'Into your khaki: yes, it'll fit, of course: all khaki fits - where it touches. You're to get shot of your civvy duds before dinner.' Straightway the staff of the reception hut were transformed into old-clothes' merchants. Our hut swarmed with senior airmen, fingering or looking, appraising, disparaging, bidding. Some optimists posted their suits home for use on leave but to most of us home looks long years away, and leave improbable. 'Puttees on,' insisted the Corporal: 'puttees always in working hours.' We wanted to weep while we pulled the harsh trousers as high as our knees and wound the drab puttee from boot-top upward, till it gripped the trouser-hem above the calf. Then we pulled the slack of the trouser dropsically down again over the puttee to hide the join. It did more than hide the join: it hid the reality of our legs and was hot, tight and hideous, like an infantryman's rig. When we had finished dressing we were silenced by our new slovenliness. The hut of normal men had gone, and barbarous drab troops now filled it.
'Fall in' from the Corporal then, slowly, almost reluctantly. What new thing was coming our way? Off we raggedly clopped past the butcher's and the tailor's, to halt before the barber's door. 'First two men,' and in they went. The hasty barber, one eye on the clock of his lunch, ran his clippers up and over our heads. Three slashes with the scissors jagged our top hair to match the plucked staircase of the back. 'Next two,' yelled the barber's fatigue man. Forty before dinner-bugle. Would he do it? Easy. Back in the sheltering hut we gazed again without comment at the botch of bristles upon each other's pale scalps: and were reconciled to imprisonment in the Depot for a while. It's not tempting to be a figure of fun in the streets.
Khaki is prison garb here, the gate-sentry not letting out a man who wears it. So we are confined till the tailors release our altered blue. In our brief lives few of us have been locked up before, and the very feel of it makes an uncreased wing begin to beat against the bars. One adventurer slipped down to the tailor's, after dark, and brought word that half a dollar will secure priority, and even a bob do something: otherwise the tailors are so busy that it may be a fortnight before they can deliver. A fortnight! We have been here three days and it feels like ever.
The afternoon passes in a first effort to stow our kit after the Corporal's manner, to black the stubbornly-brown boots and to smear brown clay (blanco) over the web equipment with which, in marching order, the airman is harnessed against any wanderlust that might make him yearn to go forth without his all upon his back, like a snail. We make a mess of each single task: and wonder despairingly what will happen as our squad goes on square in such amateur fashion. 'Square' snorted Corporal Abner in derision, as though the square was a privilege of angels - 'You are for fatigues tonight.'
8. Officers' Mess
Tonight at six sees us falling in, thrilled, for our first uniformed parade, raw boots, flat hats and all. The older the airman, the sloppier may he wear the rim of his cap. Our prentice legs in the rasping trousers and bulky puttees swung against each other like baby elephants. The dingy overalls which further deformed our shapes were cross-creased from the bale. Gone with our civvies was the civility of the sergeants. Flight Lawton's vindicating stick fell, not too lightly, on my shoulder. 'You, you, you,' he ticked us off. 'Officers' mess. Jump to it.' We wheeled away, bear-driven by the duty corporal to a softly-shining door.
Our leader entered, looked back, beckoned СКАЧАТЬ