NO ENEMY BUT TIME.
A Story
Maurice Rowdon.


They were sitting on a bench at Crewe station, waiting
for the train going south, an old man and his wife.
Their
daughter kept a continual look-out. She was calmer than either
of them, middle-aged and rather red in the face. When the old
man asked her a question, which he did very frequently, she only
nodded dreamily, soothing him.
At last the express train came into the platform and,
after a word with one of the guards, she called out to her parents:
"This is the train! Come on!" She took up their cases, which
were each of them strapped and labelled most neatly, and carried
them on to the train.
But the old man stayed where he was. He always had a
little smile on his face, and, strangely, his eyes, which scarcely
moved, seemed to be listening rather than looking.
"Is it the right train?"
He asked this question of the air, for his daughter had
gone to find his compartment, while his wife, a small woman dressed
in baack, sat meekly at his side looking the other way, unable to
hear his words. Only when he bent. toward s her and enunciated his
words very clearly and slowly could she hear what he said, and then
she would smile, just as if someone had given her an affectionate a
touch. But her face had not the persistent, wondering smile of
her husband. He was brown and fa irly agile for his age, while


she had become rather helpless, with the years grad ually
smothering her.
It was clear that he did not believe this to be the
train. His smile seemed to say, They are playing some kind of
joke, it is a fancy of the young, this cannot be the train.
required courage. He got up from the bench and himself went to
speak with one of the guards. Yes, it was the train.
succumbed now. His daughter, coming down from the train again,
had seen him ask the porter, but she appeared quite accustomed to
his behaviour, for she said, with a perfectly serious face: "Well,
good bye, mum. Good bye, Dad. I've put the cases up on the
racks."
He climbed into the train slowly, still doubtful. The
matter had perhaps passed too smoothly. He peered at all the
compartments and the people in them as he went by, with the same
smile, not quite sure of his ground but smiling to keep up a
certain polite contact with the deceiving W orld. He ca ught sight
of a dining-car steward and wentand touched his arm. He spoke
softly, out of earshot of his daughter, who was attending to the
old woman: "Excuse me. Is this the nine-thirty?"
The steward nodded and was about to pass on when the old
man put to hbm a statement, more complicated and tentative than the
question: "But what I'm looking for is the through-train to
Blacksmith, arriving seven-fifteen."
He seemed to be tracking his train down by means of some
systen of detection rather than catching it, and the steward, with
a homely look in his eye, nodded aga in: "You're all right. This
is the train."
They kissed their da ughter at the door of the compartment,


where a young man and a woman with blonde hair were already
seated, strangers to each other. - The daughter went back to the
platform, calmly and seriously, and came level to the window so
that t she would see them as the train drew out.
The old man looked about the compartment.
"Now where has she put the cases?" he asked.
He. looked up at the racks and saw them, one on either side.
His smile had something of admiration in it, but always it was the
same smile. And thought the cases were perfectly secure, fitting
squarely into the racks, he. went to each one of them and shifted
them a little, pushing them with both hands, though the racks, were
not deep enough for them tojany further. Then he sat down, opposite
his wife. All this time his daughter had watched him. The train
drew slowly out of the station, and they waved briefly.
When the platform was no. longer in sight. he got up and
tapped his wife on the knee. He felt it would be better 1f she sa t
next to him. He seemed happier with her at his side, and they faced
the journey together. Thetr attitude now was solemn, as if they
were present at an event which required tact, sympathy and a certain
poise. They were waiting, though the journey must last five hours.
A question posed itself in his mind: What am I to do with
my macintosh? The fields were very green aft'er rain, and the sky
was low and dark. He arrived at a decision. He took the macintosh
off and folded it carefulky, swaying as he did so. He put the
sleeves inside, shaking them down, then placed it on top of the
cases. He did everything slowly, giving each of his movements the
utmost consideration, as if it were born of long self-scrutiny.
His hands were hard and strong, unlike the skin of his face.
T hey were cruelly cracked and broken. He had worked for thirty years


as clerk to a small engineering firm at the edge of his village,
and he had put in almost an equal number of hours during his life
as a gardener, doing odd jobs for the bigger houses. He had been
sick three times during those thirty years. The first illness had
kept him away from work for five days; the second, eight weeks,
and the third, not long before his retirement, a month. Each
morning he rose at five o'clock, and he was never in bed later than
half-past nine. He had been married for the last BDrty years.
The grass outsade the window was not lovely to him: it was the
world.
The youna man was at his side, near the window, and he was
alone, more so than anyone else in the compartment. He was also
better dressed, and probably he knew more about the world. The
old man watched him for a moment: he gave him a guarded, appraising
look, as 1f he could not propérly credit him with existence, as if
the young man was so much a foreigner that the thought of him made
him giddy. Ar nd for a brief moment he did experience a certain
giddiness as he looked at the young man's jacket, at his crepe-soled
shoes, and saw his frown.
The train passed a small town,' and. the young man leaned
forward suddenly, as if he had caught sight of something in the
distance, behind the village. He leaned forward close to the
window, then, mistaken' perhaps, slowly leaned back again. The old
man did not understand the significance of this gesture, though for
him it was without doubt a public and professional one.
Sometimes. he would speak to his wife. He would bend d own
to her ear as they passed the freshly watered fields and say his
words slowly and loudly: "We have half-an-hour, half-an-hour for
the connection"; "We change at Bletchley"; "It is a long journey";


"At Bletchley we must ask."
Whenever one of the other people in the compartment got
up to go to the lavatory, he would lean forward and shift his begs,
looking up at them as they passed, as if something were now required
of him, as part of the dignified ritual of being on a train.
even shifted sometimes when people passed by in the. corridor.
A thought occurred to him. Perhaps he was intended to
take an interest in his eurroundings, for both the blonde woman and
the young man were looking through the window, - no, more than
looking, craning their necks and staring very intently. In fact,.
they were thinking, ar nd the trees were only the cradles of their
thoughts. But the old man knew, for himself, that they were closely
studying the passing landscape, and with a certain academic intent-
ness. So, accordingly, he leaned forward of a sudden, as if to take
a closer look at something that had caught his eye. And the smile
was still there: it was the smile of one who admired himself for
having just complied perfectly with a rule of professional and
public conduct. He leaned back, for the moment satisfied.
At one of the subsidiary stations his wife made as if to
get up, and this was a movement which caused him immediate alarm.
In one instant all his confident assumptions about the connection to
Blacksmith, the length of their wait at Bletchley, and the time of
their arrival, folded up and sank in his mind, leaving him sick and
anxious. The rituals of this journey, made by other creatures than
himself, by those who caused him giddiness, were beginning to
overpower him, and he felt for the first time that he
was fighting
a losing battle on this journey.
He drew his wife back in her seat, but this
gesture came
from his early
confidence, which her movement destroyed
only a


moment later.
"No, no, #1 he told her. "There are two hours more."
The poise he had slowly' manufactured from the time they
left Crewe had gone, and he was no longer even sure whether they
were travelling south.
He knew none of the names of the stations,
and it was possible that P this was his nightmare fear - they
might be voyaging further and further into the land of other
creatures, and never regain their foothold in the real, but really
real, world, namely, their cottage in Blacksmith.
His wife had not heard him, so he said again: "This isn't
our station, I don't believe." His voice was light a nd subdued;
during his life it had commanded nothing, precisely nothing.
The old woman nodded, understanding at last, but his
anxiety continued, even as the crasis passed - or abated 1 and
the train drew out of this nameless station. Simply by shifting
in her.seat she had banished his composure, and from this moment on
nothing could be trusted. For an hour he sat without speaking,
as the train gathered speed and his wife, rocking a little at his
side, began to doze.
She had a broad, old-fashioned hat, and
lace about her neck, and in her face there was a weariness too old
to repair.
She did not go so far into the world as her husband
did, perhaps because she was deaf. She had long since lost that
will to adventure.
A further crisis promised itself, but came to nothing,
when one of the stewards walked down the corridor calling into
every c.ompartment as he passed: "Take your seats for the first
lunch, please." It was a part of the ritual for which the old
man had not prepared, and when both the young man and the blonde-
haired woman walked by him on their wayto the restaurant-car, he


murmured, half to himself, half to them: "Lunch..."
It was said in a musing way, quietly, almost a question,
but far more a flat statement about foreign creatures, like 'They
mark their faces with blue againstthe evil eye.' He looked up
into their faces as they passed, first at the kandly, lady-helper's
face of the blonde woman, then at the lonely, stern brow of the young
man. And he saw them as one: he allowed them no self-identity.
They were authority, the other side, the impossible. And lunch
itself, somewhere in the deeps of the train, far down the limitless
corridors, among the evil, quaint and unknowable, lunch itself was
impossible, not really real, just between y ou and me, jokes apart.
"Lunch" as said by the steward was only a symbol of a word, like a
bell rung by an acolyte, and when the old man musingly repeated it
to himself he was only catching at the symbol, turning it over in
his hands, wondering at it, before he cast it out on the scrap-heap
of dreams most absurd. He did not believe. He refused to be put
upon. So there was in his constant smile the confidence of one who
knows, even while he is obeying, that he is also being deceived.
That was why he asked again and again about the train at Crewe,
because he so rarely felt able to bestow the gift of his belief.
When the others had left the compartment a proposal formed
itself in his mind: Let us eat. It was in no way caused by the
dream-word lunch which had tinkled down the corridor. It was a
proposal issuing out of nothing quite suddenly. He turned to his
wife, and, bending to her ear, called out: "What about a bite of
something?"
She nodded, ar nd he chuckled lightly. There was no need
to disturb the two cases on the racks. They were in their final
and everlasting form, so to speak. They were strapped round, and
from the handle of each hung a label, with the
following address


written in the neatest and slowest hand: "Mr and Mrs A. J.
Cheameley, 5, Eddison Terrace, Blacksmith. Travelling from
Crewe bo Blacksmith."
These cases need not be disturbed because there was a sling
bag which the old woman carried, al nd this contained, in separate
paper parcels, their food for the journey. With the most devoted
care she unwrapped two of the parcels, and they began to eat.
There
was also a thermos flask, and a small silver tin containing saccanrine
tablets.
This is not to say that his anxiety was over. It was only
suspended.
Now came a singular event which took his mind from the
journey. . It happed when they had poured tea into the small chromium
C ups. She had placed two sacca/hrine tablets into each, and was now
looking for the spoon to stir with. She looked in the side-pockets
of the sling-bag, then into the body of is, but the séarch yielded
nothing. He wa tched her hands all this time, holding his own cup,
waiting.
For the Birst time she spoke: "Did you say the side-pocket?"
He smiled and nodded, so once more she felt inside the two pockets,
and once more she found nothing.
"I think it's with the food," she added, almost inaudibly.
"But no," he answered, warming to the joke. "I put it
there nyself. Lil saw me." Then he put his cup on the floor of
the C ompartment: "Give it to me."
His hands trembled as he took the gag. His search wa S
more careful and slower. He did not look down at the bag, but sat
with his abstracted smile, staring in front of him as he fumbled
among the little articles. It was again a kind
ofartful quest,


with those same listening eyes, knowing you for the deceiver
you were, 1 clever enough no doubt7 and it was just like his
quest for the one and only, the true and proper, the really real,
train of that day in all the world and the stars beyond.
He was forced to realise that the spoon was in neither of
the side-pockets, and now he opened the main part and gegan fumbling
among the parcels of food. His first search was useless. A
further decision was clearly required. He would take out each
parcel in turn and lay it on the seat opposite: the spoon was sure
to be there, at the bottom, hidden at present by the paper.
"I know it's here," he murmured. "I remember plainly.
And Lil saw me."
But he said this most to himself, ar nd his wife did not look
up at him. She was looking at the bag sleepily as he took out each
parcel in turn and laid it on the seat opposite. He was most careful
not to disarrange these parcels, or to break the thread with which
each was tied. She did not touch her tea, being too interested in
the outcome orlthis search. But when the bag was quite empty of
pacrels he found no spoon, and his smile seemed to say, as he leaned
back with the empty bag before him, that at last the decption had
been discovered, and that it was indeed right to withhold belief.
It was almost clear that this latest decpption had something to do
with the train, and its pronibitive rituals.
His realisation that the spoon was lost stunned him, Slowly
he put the parcels back into the bag, placing them squarely sid e by
side along the base, then one on top of the other. He took up his
tea again at nd turned to his wife: "The spoon is gone." She had
understood him.
"What do we stir with?" he asked.


But this second remark she failed to hear. He bent
further towards her and asked_more loudly: "How do we stir?"
The sleep did not pass from her face, but there was recognition in
her eyes - the trace of cleverness lost long years ago - as she
answered: "It'll melt" Nevertheless, the loss of the spoon was
like the absence of a favourite companion, and they became thoughtful
as they sipped their tea, brooding together.
When the .other occupants had returned to their corner seats
after lunch, the old man took out his hand-watch and glanced at it.
He calculated, still gazing down at the great watch-face, that there
was little more than an ho our to run, and he realised in the same
instant that so far there had been no indications of their actually
travelling towards Bletchley. Now his anxiety grew. For what
indication had the landscape given, that this was the true train:
what indication had been given by the other people in the compart-
ment, by the passing stewards, by the subsidiary stations with their
unc ommon names? Now there was only an hour more to run, and the
signs were by no means providential, for surely, as the great statio n
drew near, there should be an increase of indications, a bustling,
as it were, and people warning each other.
But there was only the
same train on the same course, passing through landscape that looked
much the same from hour to hour. The blonde woman. a nd the young
man seemed in no way disturbed, for they were clearly at one with
the train, not at all in his predbcament, and almost able, in a
mysterious way, so calm and powerful did they appear, to direct
themselves of their own accord to their destination, at nd the train
with them. Whereas he would only come upon his station by
accident, after skirting many ambushes.
He felt that the least he could do now was to prepare


himself for the end of the Journey. An hour was none too long,
and even supposing that the deception was successful and that
this train were destined for quite some other place than
Bletchley, they would be wise to get down at the next station,
whatever its name. So-he rose and took his macintosh from the
rack. It was his intention not to wear this macintosh at the
next station, and he realised that, since they had two cases with
them, apart from the sling bag, which his wife always carried, it
would be a nuisance: more, it might make the carrying of the
cases impossible. It must be remembered that at Crewe there had
been his daughter to help him.
He took down one of the cases from the rack. He had
attracted the notice of the blonde-haired woman, a nd she was
looking at him as he unbuckled the strap, clearly wondering
whether, being old, he needed her help. Very deliberately, the
strap now open, he folded his macintosh and laid it over the case.
He intended to pull the strap tight over it, so that it would no
longer be an extra piece of luggage. He was about to buckle the
strap when he grew dissatisfied with the arrangement of the
macintosh and began folding it again. Then it was ready and he
slipped the tongue of the strap through the buckle, swaying against
the seat, and pulled it as far as he could. He wanted to reach
the second - hole, since he knew only this would secure the
macintosh beyond all doubt. The third hole would do, it was
tight enough, but he wished to be quite sure that, perhaps as he
ran for another train, the coat would not slip away from the case
and be lost, like the spoon, for ever. So he released the strap
aga in, rested, then pulled it as hard as he could towards him.
This time he reached beyond th he third hole, but still he was not


strong enough for the second. The blonde woman was watching him
and at last she put out her hand and helped him with it. Together
they pulled the strap to the second hole, and the buckle went home.
He looked into her eyes and said: "We have two cases, you see."
She smiled and nodded. It occurred to. him that in her
lay a means of discovering where the train was going. He was
about to put to her his anxious question, but she had already
turned away and was looking out of the wind Ow. The train began to
cross a valley, still and dark under clouds, and he sat quite still,
staring before him, being rushed at seventy miles an hour into the
unknowable.
When he looked at his watch again the crisis happened for
which he had all this time been waiting. For he now knew, as a
result of suddenly.becoming aware of the time, that the train
could not be bound for Bletchley. The journey, they had told him,
would last five hours: but five hours had already gone by, ten
minutes ago, and still there was this terrifying lack of visible
ind ications. He leaned forward. He wanted to fidget. His wife
was quite unaware of his feelings, which were now those of a
feverish man, for she only wanted to be allowed her old dreams, and
the mininum of worldly events. At last he could no longer prevent
himself.
It was the young man with the stern brow. He turned to
this young man, as being more reliable than the blonde
woman, as
being calmer and more powerful, more at one with the intentions of
the train, more able to understand the impossible.
"Excuse me," he said. The young man turned, his stern
eyes full upon him. "We are making for Bletchley. But I don't
think this can be the right train. I think
we must have passed


He looked from one window to the other, as if to point
out that the countryside lacked proper indications. The young man
stared into his rather watery, light blue eyes and asked him:
"Bletchley? Is that the station between Oxford and Cambridge?"
But these were only fresh dream-words, much the same as
lunch, and there was nothing in them for the old man to grasp on.
Indeed, he did not really hear the question. His anes were
abstracted, as if his anxiety were now too great for him to meet the
world half way any longer: he aould only ask questions, and pass
on to a further question before he had a reply. This he did.
"Idon't think it can be stopping at Bletchley. It has
been five hours already." He shook his head meekly, and this time
he smiled across at the blonde woman, involving her. "We should
have been there quite a time ago."
"Bletchley?" the blonde woman asked. She had the face of
a healer as she turned to the wind OW and saw the sign. "This is
Bletchley. Look." Among the trees the words in black could be
seen, first on one board, then, two hundred yards later, on another:
BLETCHLEY. The old man did not answer her, so sudden had been the
verdict of providence. He simply looked her in the eyes as the
train drew slowly into the waiting. station, and at last he gbegan
to understand. Suffering a terrible relief, he took down his cases
and supervised his wife's departure from the train.
It was indeed
remarkable that so much deception should, at the very last moment,
ha ve worked round to his advantage. He did not speak to his wife
as he carried their cases one at a time to the platform, nor did he
instantly make his enquiry about the next train. His
reprieve.
required a brief celebration, and this was silence.


They reached their village that evening, soon after
seven-thirty. They were both tired as they left the station,
among the deep-green, dripping leaves, and the utterly silent
bushes. It was an ugly village, with a narrow main street
consisting mostly of identical cottages built with reda brick.
Each cottage had its four windows, its brown front. door, and its
ornaments in the lower rooms. They saw no one on their way through
the village, which lay in an evening. repose, quite forlorn after
rain. They walked slowly, he with the two cases, and she with the
sling bag.
She opened the door, while he looked for a moment at the
geraniums in the front garden and at the weeds which during their
two weeks' absence had begun to put up their heads.
He was
recollecting gradually how each thing was placed, and once inside
the cottage he began to pore over every heavy, ageing object there,
reviving its reality, entering the world again, a world at last
where things could be touched and not denied. For here he was
able to believe. He touched his row of old pipes, which he no
longer smoked, and he took a duster devoutly al'ong the crowded
mantelpiece, among the ornaments, while the old woman brought him
tea. . He sat facing the window, sipping.
He had taken down a book belonging to his father, and 1t
lay on the table before him. It was the one book he possessed,
and he had never before opened it. Though it was not particularly
well bound, it had become one of the accepted ornaments in the
room, with its special place near the silver trophy, whic h was also
a gift from his father.
He had tak ken it down quite by accident,
and even now he was hardly conscious of it at his elbow. But a


moment later he opened it, and before him, near the foot of the
page, he saw the words:
The innocent and the beautiful
Have no enemy but time.
His eyes were rested for the first time.
They were dreaming.
He looked up from the page and stared into the distance, beyond
the flowery wall, catching at something, seeking something far
beyond himself.
And at last his discovery came. He got up
from his chair, his eyes fixed on the wall, and murmured quietly:
"That spoon. I've just remembered.
I've got it in my macintosh.' -
And the evening grew darker.