That evening it was late when Barras returned. In the hall he encountered Arthur. He paused and in that curious manner, half mortified and half bewildered, he suddenly said:
“You can appeal if you wish. You know you can appeal.”
Arthur looked steadily at his father. He felt himself calm now.
“You’ve driven me into this,” Arthur said. “I shan’t appeal. I shall go through with it.”
There was a pause.
“Very well,” Barras said, almost plaintively. “It’s on your own head.” He turned and went into the dining-room.
As Arthur went upstairs he was dimly conscious of the sound of Aunt Carrie weeping.
That night there was great excitement in the town. Barras’s action had caused a tremendous sensation. Patriotism rose to fever heat and a crowd of people marched down Freehold Street, waving flags and singing Tipperary. They broke the windows of Mrs. Wept’s house, then marched on Hans Messuer’s shop. For some time now old Hans had been suspect as an alien and in this access of patriotic zeal the suspicion was confirmed. His shop was wrecked, plate-glass window smashed, bottles broken, curtains slit, the red and blue striped pole — pride of old Messuer’s heart — snapped into bits. Hans, risen from his bed in a panic, was assaulted, and left senseless on the floor.
Two days later Arthur was arrested and taken to Tynecastle Barracks. It happened with perfect quietness and order. He was in the machine now, everything moved smoothly and independent of his own volition. At the Barracks he refused to accept uniform. He was immediately court-martialled, sentenced to two years’ hard labour and ordered to be removed to Benton Prison.
As he came out of this second court he wondered how it had all happened. And he had a queer memory of his father’s face: flushed, confused, vaguely bewildered.
TWELVE
The Black Maria stopped with a jerk outside Benton Prison and there was the sounds of bolts being withdrawn. Arthur sat up in his dark little stall, still trying dazedly to realise that he was here, inside this prison van.
The van jerked forward again and jerked to a stop. Then the door of the van was unlocked and thrown open, letting in a sudden rush of cool night air. From beyond the door a warder’s voice cried:
“Out.”
Arthur and four others rose from their narrow partitioned stalls and got out. It had been a long cramped journey from Tynecastle to Benton but now they were at the end of that journey and in the courtyard of the prison. The night was heavy and overcast and it was raining heavily, puddles of water lay in the depressions of the asphalt. Arthur looked about him hurriedly: high grey walls with a sharp castellated coping, row upon row of iron-barred clefts, warders in glistening oilskins, silence and a shapeless darkness relieved only by a weak blur of yellow from the light above the archway. The five prisoners stood in the streaming rain, then one of the warders shouted a command and they were marched through another door into a small whitewashed room, the brightness of which was dazzling to the eyes after that outer darkness. An officer sat at a table in this bare bright room with a number of papers and a register in front of him. He was an elderly man with a bald, shiny head.
The warder of the prison van went up to the officer and spoke to him. While they talked Arthur looked at the four prisoners who had accompanied him in the van. The first two were small scrubby men with black ties and long quakerish faces so oddly alike it was obvious that they were brothers. The third man had a weak despondent chin and gold-rimmed pince-nez, he looked like a down-at-heel clerk and, in common with the two brothers, seemed harmless and ill at ease. The fourth man was big and unshaven and dirty, he was the only one who did not appear surprised or distressed to find himself here.
The officer at the table stopped speaking to the warder of the van. He picked up his pen and called out:
“Line up there, will you?” He was the reception clerk of the prison. He began perfunctorily to read out the particulars of each man’s sentence and to enter it in the register with the name and occupation and religion and the amount of money each had come in with.
The dirty man was first and he had no money at all, not one red farthing. He was convicted of assault with violence, had no occupation and was due to serve three years’ hard labour. His name was Hicks. Arthur’s turn came next. Arthur had four pounds six shillings and tenpence halfpenny exactly. When the officer finished counting Arthur’s money he said sarcastically, addressing the neat pile of silver upon the notes:
“This Cuthbert is well-off.”
The two brothers and the down-at-heel clerk followed. They were all three of them conscientious objectors and the officer made a peevish remark under his breath, deploring the necessity for dealing with such swine.
When he had finished the entries he rose and unlocked an inner door. He jerked a silent command with his thumb and they filed into a long room with small cells on either side. The officer said:
“Strip.”
They stripped. The quaker brothers were upset at being obliged to undress before the others. They shed their clothes slowly and timidly and before arriving actually at the buff they stood for a moment in their drawers shivering self-consciously. Hicks must have thought them funny. Stripped stark naked Hicks revealed an enormous unclean hairy body covered in parts with reddish pustules. Standing with his legs planted well apart he grinned and made a ribald gesture towards the quakers.
“Come on, girls,” he said. “We’s all goin’ shrimpin’.”
“Shut up, you,” the officer said.
“Yes, sir,” said Hicks obsequiously. He walked over and stepped on to the scales.
They were all weighed and measured. When that was over Hicks, who clearly knew the ropes, led the way across the concrete floor to the bath. The bath was half full of dirty tepid water with a slight scum on the surface and the bath itself was dirty.
Arthur looked at Hicks who was already splashing his pustular body in the dirty bath. He turned to the officer and asked in a low voice:
“Do I have to go into the bath?”
The officer was gifted with a sense of humour. He said:
“Yes, dear.” Then he added: “No talking.” Arthur got into the bath.
After the dirty bath they were given their prison clothes. Arthur received a yellow flannel vest and pants, a pair of socks, and a very small khaki uniform stamped all over with black broad arrows. The trousers barely reached below his knees. As his eyes rested on the tight short tunic he thought dully, khaki at last.
An inner door opened and the doctor came in. The doctor was a round, reddish-faced man with a number of small gold fillings in his front teeth. He entered briskly with his stethoscope already dangling from his ears and he used it rapidly. He took one swift blank look at each man, stood away from him, perfectly machine-like and impersonal. He ordered Arthur to say ninety-nine, gave him a few swift taps, and asked him if he had ever had venereal disease. Then he passed on. Arthur did not blame the doctor for being quick. He thought, if I were the doctor here I should probably be quick too. Arthur forced himself to be fair. He had sworn to himself to be calm. It was the only way, a quiet acceptance of the inevitable. He had thought it out carefully on the previous night. He saw that otherwise he might easily go mad.
After the medical examination the bald officer went out with the doctor, leaving them in charge of a new warder who had silently come in and who now silently surveyed them. This warder was short and burly with a squat head and a forbidding way of holding himself. He had a short upper lip, very thin lips, and his broad deformed head seemed always to protrude, as in an attitude of watching. His name was Warder Collins.