Chapter 5

About a fortnight later an impudent-looking little girl with a big mouth came wobbling up Worge drive on a bicycle, and from a wallet extracted a telegram which she handed to Zacky, who sat on the doorstep peeling a stick. Zacky ran with it to his mother, who refused to open it.

“I’ll have no truck with telegrams—they’re bad things. Fetch your faather.”

Zacky ran off in great excitement, and soon Mus’ Beatup came lumbering in, very red after planting potatoes.

“Wot’s all this, mother?—another of those hemmed telegrams?”

[128]

“Yes, and I reckon Tom’s killed this time.”

“Can’t be—we only got a letter last night.”

“Ivy says they taake four days to come over. He may have bin killed this mornun—got a shell in his stomach lik Viner’s poor young boy.”

“Maybe it’s to say he’s coming hoame,” said Zacky.

“Shurrup!” growled his father.

He tore the envelope, with a queer twitching of the corners of his mouth.

“He aun’t killed,” he said shakily—“only wounded.”

A moan came from the mother’s parted lips, and she closed her eyes.

“Maybe it’s naun very tar’ble,” continued the father. “They said ‘serious’ in Mus’ Viner’s telegram; here it’s only—‘regret to inform you that Private Beatup has been wounded in action.’”

“Will they let me go to him?”

“Aun’t likely—he’s over in France.”

Mrs. Beatup did not cry, but all the colour went from her face and her lips were strangely blue. Then suddenly her head fell over the back of the chair.

“Zacky!” shouted Mus’ Beatup—“fetch the whisky bottle that’s in the pocket of my oald coat behind the door.”

He put his arm round his wife, and lifted her head to his shoulder, while Zacky ran off with piercing howls. These were fortunately louder than those of the poor duck whose neck Ivy was wringing outside the stable. She rushed in, all bloody from her victim, and in a few moments had laid her mother on the floor, unfastened her dingy remains of stays, and dabbled her forehead with water, while Mus’ Beatup, relieved of his stewardship, stumped about, groaning, and drank the whisky himself. In the midst of it all the big-mouthed little girl, forgotten in the drive, started beating on the door and demanding “if there was an answer, please.” [129] Zacky was sent to dismiss her and vented his grief on the messenger of woe by putting out his tongue at her till she was out of sight—a salute which she returned with all the increased opportunities that nature had given her.

Mrs. Beatup soon recovered.

“I caum over all swummy like ... this is the first time I’ve swounded since Zacky wur born ... I reckon this is sharper than childbirth.”

The tears came at last, and she sobbed against Ivy’s bosom.

“Doan’t go vrothering, mother. I tell you it’s naun tar’ble. They said ‘seriously’ when poor Sid Viner wur wounded to death, and Ted Podgam in Gallipoli. Maybe they’ll send him hoame soon.”

“I want to go to him.... He’s got a hole in him.... Why do they kip his mother from him when he’s sick? When he had measles he never let go my hand one whole day, and he said, ‘Stay wud me, mother—I feel tedious bad.’ Maybe he’s saying it now.”

“And maybe he aun’t. Maybe he’s setting up in bed eating chicken and drinking wine, wud no more’n a piece off his big toe.”

She took out a dirty handkerchief and wiped her mother’s eyes. Then she said:

“I maun go and tell Thyrza Honey.”