The '44 Vintage Read Online Free PDF

big house in Lynwood Road.
    It never occurred to him that he might not get the job. Rather, he regarded his successful application as already assured. For the general and he had already met, and the general would certainly remember the boy to whom he had last year awarded the Scholarship prize (E. Wilmot Buxton’s The Story of the Crusades , a splendid, gold-embossed book which Butler treasured) in the final term at North Mill Street Elementary.
    It had simply not dawned on him that it would not be the general, but the head gardener, who didn’t know him from E. Wilmot Buxton, who would be conducting the interviews for the part-time boy; nor had it occurred to him that others might have learnt of the vacancy, and that one in particular, a large boy with a BSA bicycle, would easily outdistance him to Lynwood Road.
    All this became apparent in quick succession, first the bike propped outside the back entrance, then the large boy with a smug look on his face, and finally the head gardener himself, who obviously could not know of his special relationship with the general.
    He had been in front of the head gardener, out of breath and near to weeping for this lost certainty, when there had come a shadow and a sound behind him in the doorway of the greenhouse. The head gardener had looked over his shoulder and stood up deferentially, and Butler had known instantly who was there and had heard the tap of the general’s stick sound as sweet inside his head as the distant trumpets of the relieving force to the last survivor of a beleaguered outpost.
    But at first the general didn’t seem to recognise him in the cool green light of the potting shed; he had looked questioningly at the head gardener.
    “The part-time boy, General,” the head gardener had reminded him. “Ah, yes.” The general had nodded and had turned to consider Butler properly.
    But then, to Butler’s surprise, he had not said “Of course—you are the Scholarship boy from North Mill Street Elementary to whom I presented E. Wilmot Buxton’s The Story of the Crusades last year.”
    “You are Mr. Butler’s son,” the general had said.
    “Yes—“ Butler had floundered for a moment, unable to decide how to address the general. The head gardener had said “General,” but outside St. Michael’s Church on Sundays and in front of the War Memorial on November 11 his father had never used that rank. “Yes—sir.”
    “You remember RSM Butler, Sands,” said the general to the head gardener. “At Messines with the 1st/4th—and he was also with me at Beaumont Hamel the year before … before you joined the battalion … he was one of my platoon sergeants then.” He pointed at Butler’s head. “The same red hair, man—and the same look in the eye, too by God!”
    The head gardener stared at Butler. “Aye, you’re right, General,” he agreed finally, in a voice which suggested that maybe not all his dealings with RSM Butler had been happy.
    The general had chuckled. “D’you know anything about gardening, boy?”
    Butler thought of his father’s allotment, but the easy lie choked in his throat. “No, sir.”
    “What about your father’s allotment?” The general seemed to have a way of reading his thoughts. “Don’t you help him with that?”
    Butler felt committed to the whole truth now. With that sharp eye on him nothing else would be of any use anyway, he suspected. “He likes to do it himself, sir.”
    “I see. And of course you’ve been busy studying, eh?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And how are you going to continue studying and work for me at the same time now?”
    “I can make the time, sir.”
    Nod. “See that you do, boy.” The general’s eyes lifted away from him to the head gardener. He knew that he’d got the job, but there was no longer any particular triumph in the knowledge now that he was aware his father had more to do with his success than E. Wilmot Buxton.
    He thought irrelevantly how very blue the general’s eyes were for