Quite honestly — I say this quite honestly — I would not think of doing it to anyone I knew, even if I’d only just been introduced. My way, it’s much safer, and I think I might claim it is more moral too. In the war, you know, they trained you to kill strangers; you got paid for it, and were even given medals. Sometimes I think that if I gave myself up and really told them my point of view — I mean really and sincerely from the heart — they would not, well, they’d give me a medal instead. I mean that. I’m not joking.
The first man I ever did it to, that was in the war. It was like a new life opening up for me. Since then, I suppose I’ve never done more than two a year, but how my life has changed! They talk a lot of nonsense about it, all these criminologists, so called. They don’t know. But the bad habits it’s cured me of!
I used to sleep so badly, I used to be nervous, used to drink too much, and all sorts of bad habits you mustn’t mention. I read somewhere it weakened your eyes. And a funny thing, after I did that first fellow, I never had asthma again, and it used to trouble me a lot. Mother still sometimes says, “Remember how you used to wheeze all night when you was a little chap?” She’s very affectionate, my mother. We make a good pair.
But this first fellow. It was an East Coast port — I forget the name, not that it matters so much, although I sometimes think I wouldn’t mind going back there, you know, just for sentiment. Of course, I suppose your first — well, your first, you know, victim (there’s a daft word!) is very much like your first love affair, if you go in for that sort of thing.
All the others, however many of them there have been, have never come up to that first one. It’s never been quite the same. I mean, they’ve been lovely and well worthwhile from my point of view — but not a patch on that first one.
He was a sailor, and he was drunk, and I was in this convenience on the sea front. Terrible night it was, raining like fury, and I was sheltering in there when this chap reels in, quite on his own. I was in my army uniform — rifle, bayonet, and all — and he knocked my rifle over into the muck.
Really I was more scared than annoyed. He was so big, see, well over six foot, and terribly heavy. He asked me if I had a girl friend and of course I said no. So then he came at me — I mean, there wasn’t much room. I thought it was some sort of sexual assault, but afterwards I thought about it over and over, and I came to the conclusion that he was just attacking me. You know these stupid people: they just like to use their fists, given the chance, and I think he was attacking me because he thought I was standing there with a purpose and that I had abnormal ideas. Which of course was not so. Happily I am very very normal.
Obviously I am tremendously brave too, because I was not scared when he came at me, although I had been before. My brain went very clear, and I said to myself, “Vern, you can kill this drunk with your bayonet!”
A great and tremendous thrill ran through me as I said it. And when I stuck the bayonet into him, it was as if I had guidance from Above, because I did not hesitate or miss or strike in the wrong place or not strike hard enough, or anything that anyone else might have done. At that time, I really did think I had received guidance from Above, because I was praying a lot in that period of my life; nowadays, the Almighty and I seem to have lost our old rapport. Well, times change, and we must accept the changes they bring.
He made a loud noise — very much like a sneeze. His arms went up and he fell all over me, pushing me against the door as if he was embracing me. Again that tremendous thrill went through me. Somehow it has never had the same power since.
I hung on to him, and he kicked and struggled to be fully dead. It was a bit alarming, because I wasn’t sure if he was really a goner; but when he was finally still, I stood there grasping him and wishing he had another kick left in him.
The problem of disposing of him came next. When I pulled myself together and thought, that one was easily solved. All I did was drag him out of the place, through the rain, to the sea wall. I gave him a push; over he went, into the sea. It was still pouring with rain.
This is a funny thing. I saw that he had left a trail of blood all the way to the edge, but I did not like to stop and do anything about it because I hate getting wet; I hated it then and I’m still the same.
Perhaps that may sound careless of me. Perhaps I trusted to Providence. The rain poured down and washed all the stains away, and I never heard anything more about the matter.
For a while I forgot about it myself. Then the war was finished, and I went home. Father was dead, no great loss, so Mother and me set up together. We’d always been good friends. She used to buy my vests and pants for me. Still does.
I got restless. The memory of the sailor kept returning. Somehow, I wanted to do it again. And I wondered who the sailor had been — it seemed funny I didn’t even know his name. In a book I once read it talked about people having “intellectual curiosity.” I suppose that’s what I had, intellectual curiosity. Yet I’ve heard people say that I look rather stupid — meaning it in a complimentary way, of course.
To recapture that first thrill I bought a little bayonet in a junk shop and took to looking into conveniences. I don’t mean the big ones that are so noisy and busy and bright. I like the quaint old Victorian ones, the sleepy ones with drab paint and no attendants and hardly any customers. I am an expert on them. To me, they are beautiful — like old trams. Call me sentimental, but that’s how I feel about them, and a man has a right to express himself. They arouse artistic promptings in me, the real ones do.
It was pure luck I found the one in Seven Dials. Most of the area was demolished, but this fine old convenience has been left, dreaming in a side alley. It is still lit by gas, and the gas-lighter man comes round every evening and lights it. That was the place I chose to — well, to repeat my success in, if you like.
It wasn’t only a question of art, oh, no. In my job you have to be practical. I found that the inspection cover inside this place would come up easily. A ladder led down to another cover, eight feet below the first one. There were also pipes and things. When you opened this second cover, you were looking right into the main sewer.
It was as good as the seaside!
For my purpose this unhygienic arrangement could not have been better. I mean, when you’ve done with the — well, with the man’s body — it must be disposed of. I mean, finally disposed of, or they’ll be round after you, you know, the way they are in the films — like the Gestapo, you know, knocking at your door at midnight. Funny, here I sit in this cell and I don’t feel the least bit scared. I didn’t do it, really I didn’t.
It’s a very lonely habit, mine. When you’re sensitive, you feel it badly at times. Not that I’m asking for pity. I reckon a lot of these chaps — well, a lot of them was lonely.
So I did it again. It was a sturdy little man this time — said he was some sort of a scout for a theatrical agent or something. Very soft-spoken, didn’t seem to worry about what I was going to do. Most of them are really worried — wow! This scout, he just shed a tear as I let him have it, and did not kick at all.
Some hobbies start in a funny way — casually, if you like. I mean, as I got him down to the lower cover — I threw him down, of course — all the stuff came out of his inner pocket. I gathered it up and stuffed it in my own pocket before slipping him into the sewer, where the water was running fast to bear him away.
Frankly, it was a waste of effort. The glow just wasn’t there. No inspiration and no relief. It just didn’t come off. At the time I resolved never to do the trick again, in case — you never can be sure, you know — in case they found out.