A reluctance came over Chopper’s spade-shaped face. He thought Richard was telling on some
Auxiliary who was too flare struck to come outside. But there were witnesses, so he went in. He stayed a longer time. When he came out he had a soft, serious look
on him. He cupped his hands. He shouted in Richard’s ear, almost with
reverence, “More power to his elbow mate, more power to it.”
He might have come from seeing a Prince and Princess.
Richard shouted back, “Pity old Pye never saw,” and wondered if
one of these bombs they rained down each night on London would turn him out of
the cover he had taken, willy nilly, in his coffin, eaten by worms, six foot
underground.
At this moment two ambulance men carried a stretcher up. They laid it down. The twisted creature under a blanket coughed
a last gushing, gout of blood.
Two police brought past a looter, most of his clothes torn off,
heels dragging, drooling blood at the mouth, out on his feet from the bashing
he had been given.
Then, alone, carrying a music case, handkerchief to her mouth,
her thin body made angular in the glare, sharp as a saw, an old lady came
slowly by, on her own, looking to the ground, ignoring it all.
And then that soldier tottered out. He was drunk.
He shouted in Richard’s ear.
“Would you boys like to ‘ave a whip round, see, to raise me a shilling
so I can ‘ave another go?” Chopper
leaned over and was sick. The crew
nudged one another, and wryly smiled.
Twelve months almost to a day before such things happened every
night, Richard wound up the talk with Hilly by saying :
“Well, you never know. Raids may not be anywhere near as bad as
we imagine, when we shan’t know who’s right about the Regulars.”
“Don’t you worry,” she replied, having the last word, “they’ll
be much worse, and these men you think so hopeless now will be wonderful,
honestly wonderful, you’ll see.”
Henry Green, Caught (1943)
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