The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff

Author:R.C. Sherriff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2023-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

How can I describe the last incredible week in Beadle without giving the impression that the whole lot of us were as mad as March Hares? Sometimes I have wondered whether we were, in fact, completely mad that week: at other times I have thought that we behaved as we did because we were all so incurably sane!

The majority of the village, it is true, had no conception of the peril that lay over them, and the Defence Committee, inspired, no doubt, by Sapper Evans, did everything it could to sustain this blissful ignorance. They organised what I can only describe as a “gala” week.

Fate was kind to us in at least one respect, for the critical night was due to fall upon a Monday. Monday was by far the best day of the week for a crisis, because it gave us a last full week in all its glorious freedom, ending with a final Sunday in which to compose our minds.

And so the Committee strove to fill that last week with every possible diversion to keep the villagers from morbid inactivity.

The week began with a “sing-song” around the campfire beside the dugout in Burgin Park, and was designed to celebrate the successful completion of our work. An immense fire was made from the brushwood, and the whole village sat around in a great, unbroken circle with the Committee and some of the special ladies in chairs brought from the Fox & Hounds.

The choirboys opened the entertainment as twilight came. They sang “John Gilpin Was a Citizen of Credit and Renown,” “Sweet and Low,” “John Peel,” and a few old English folk songs as an encore. I thought at first that it was going to be rather tedious, but as the darkness fell, as the boys in their grey flannel suits merged into the dimness of the hillside, all that you could see was a little pale cluster of faces that seemed to flicker and glow with the gentle crackle of the brushwood fire. There was a wonderful cheer as the last notes died away. The boys broke up with smiles of shy embarrassment, and the Vicar’s wife gave each a bottle of ginger beer and two sponge cakes as a “prize.”

Dr. Hax followed with “Trumpeter, what are you sounding now?” which was not good, although greeted with polite applause. His voice was too loud and assertive, and his manner so condescending that he contrasted very poorly with the sincerity and charm of the choirboys. I was glad when it was over.

But Sapper Evans retrieved the situation and turned the evening from the failure threatened by Dr. Hax’s song into an uproarious success. He was acting as “Compère,” and when he came into the centre of the circle to announce the next item, someone shouted: “Song from Sapper Evans!” The little man vigorously shook his head, but his announcement was drowned by the whole village shouting: “Song!—song!”

It was quite clear that he could not get out of it, and I was sorry for the plucky little man when at last he nodded in surrender, and silence fell.

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