THE INN KEEPER'S DAUGHTERS

Playing with fire…

We must have been only nine and ten and we were bad, all three of us, we knew, for we had been disobedient. We visited forbidden territory: the foreshore beyond the West Gate. We had been sent on an errand by Uncle Joby, returning a brace of a particular claret to the landlord of the Royal Standard, which stands beside the arch. Our business concluded, the temptation to stay and play was too much. The tide was going out, the exposed mud making sucking bubbling sounds from a million holes. The smell of it was rich, strong and awful, and bore God knew what miasmas of disease from broken, trickling drains. But we knew that under the stones and muddy clumps of seaweed lurked hopping things and shore crabs, which could be prodded into motion by a stick or even a toe. We also knew that at all costs we must not muddy ourselves, or the grown-ups would find out. Rachel was left a little behind, peering into some puddle. Judy and I were almost behind Stockham’s boatyard.

“You have got mud on your drawers,” said I to Judy out of devilment, and of course she stopped and craned her head backward to see.

“I have not, you bad boy, Tommy,” said she. “And they are not drawers, they’re pantaloons.”

“They’re drawers,” I said. “Everyone knows girls wear drawers.” I was even getting a little tired of the sport, for my eye had been caught by a brigantine going out on the tide.

“They are not drawers, Tom, they are proper pantaloons. I should know, shouldn’t I?”

“Gammon! No they ain’t,” said I, carefully pouring oil onto the flames. “They’re drawers as sure as sure. Don’t tell lies.”

“It’s not lies. They are not drawers, they’re pantaloons,” she shouted at me, trying to stamp her foot, which with the mud and slimy stones did not go well.  “Look!” and with that she pulled up the skirt of her sailor suit. I was transfixed. Indeed they were pantaloons of nice white calico and even with a little lace frill around her ankles, although I suppose I must have seen that before but did not notice. Shamefully, I will confess that I can recall every stitch, every seam, every fold, every little crease of Judy’s pantaloons, and her white petticoat under her navy blue dress, to this moment.

*  *  *

Atlanta was never a showpiece. Just a railway town on a junction, sprung up thirty years ago rather like Eastleigh near Southampton, although with more greenery. A third of it had been dynamited and set on fire when the Confederate soldiers abandoned it and destroyed everything that might have been of use to the Union. Then General Sherman had a third burned of what was left, in case it would have been of any use to the Confederacy, when his army marched out towards Savannah and the sea. Atlanta was to be of no strategic use to anyone. We saw railway tracks not simply ripped up but twisted to look like giant hairpins, leaving forlorn locomotives marooned. There were big masonry buildings reduced to a few tottering walls, and wooden ones everywhere, now nothing but ash. Ash still warm. We could see a few furtive people, black and white, scavenging, carting off anything left that might be of value. I found it hard to believe it would ever be rebuilt, although I read that it has and even flourishes.

We made the acquaintance of a journalist, a war correspondent whose advice was invaluable, for just ahead of us then lay ‘tiger country’. If our quest were written up as a human-interest story later, we would not begrudge it in return for his cynical common sense and practical tips.

There were many soldiers on the road, some going forward to the front, some coming back.  We were passed by jingling cavalry (Americans don’t bounce up-and-down on their saddles like we do), field guns, their limbers rattling-clattering, and there were platoons on the march with rifles to shoulders.

The roads had been rough to start with, but with this treatment were puddled and pockmarked with potholes. We lurched and jolted about, knocking into each other until ‘Sorry’ and ‘Pardon me’ became worn out and we lapsed into strained, silent endurance. How much worse for the wagons passing us, full of pale, bearded men with bloodstains and bandages. I saw Rachel’s eyes follow every one. She never looked away or down as some delicate ladies might. I thought about the soldiers in the High Street that she had wept for when she was a little girl. It seemed to me as though she had had some intuition that they would be as these.

There were columns of prisoners of war. Some of their faces were expressionless, some disconsolate, and a few light-hearted with relief. All were hollow-eyed with the boniness of the half-starved. I heard Rachel’s indrawn breath as a group passed by, most of whom were in grey rags supplemented with blankets and any old garments, and the majority barefooted. The Blue and the Grey one had read so effor