Knook Camp, situated at the junction of the A36/B390 south of Warminster, Wiltshire was laid out in October 1914 as an artillery camp, with Heytesbury House used as the officers' quarters.

The camp was also in use during the second world war and was occupied by the 55th Armoured Infantry Battalion, 11th Armoured Division, third US Army. Many of the original World War 2 buildings still survive today.

Heytesbury House was the home of Siegfried Sassoon, the first world war poet, from the 1930s until his death in 1967, aged 80. He already had a connection to Wiltshire before that time though, as he wrote a poem in 1915 about Scratchbury Hill, which lies to the north of Norton Bavant in the Wylye valley.

Rooks - A Ghost Story.

Overture.

He leans forward and taps lightly on the glass that separates him from the driver.

"Straight on here, then fork left at the next junction by the church!"

The narrow streets of Warminster slide past the darkened glass of the car window. The Post Office, the Old Bell public house, the drinking fountain, the road that leads to the railway station. Two small children stand and wave as the car glides by.

"Heytesbury six miles Mr. Eliot!" Shouts the chauffeur. "I've just spotted the sign!"

The poet seems to be drawn down into the deeply padded leather upholstery. It enfolds him in a dermal embrace. The gentle swaying of the vehicle with its purring engine, and the swishing of the September winds are soothing emissaries of Morpheus.

A book of Sassoon's war poetry, a last minute preparation for the conversations to come, lies beside him on the spacious rear seat of the Rolls Royce together with his pipe and tobacco pouch. He dozes. As he often does when travelling in a half waking state. He muses about time, His mind grapples deliciously with concepts of past and present and future time, and how they are all inextricably interwoven and cross-connected.

The car hums quietly onward as it glides along the leafy rural lanes. An unseen kestrel lifts lazily over a hill, and with languid strokes of its wings soars upward against the golden red orb of the late afternoon sun.

Glancing in his rearview mirror the driver sees the slight figure of his slumbering employer in the rear. The journey from London had been stressful. The slow-moving heavy lorries, the lumbering caravans, the exasperating week-end drivers in their lovingly polished cars loitering their way to unknown and probably depressing destinations. It was to be hoped that the journey back to the capital on Sunday would be easier.

Eliot yawns, and the thin skeins of his remaining attentiveness gently float downwards to knit together into a soft gossamer matrix of mute movement. Slumber overwhelms him. He usually has a siesta about this time of day. Tiredness pushes his protesting consciousness below the boundary of awareness. It is as if a celestial body of huge proportions has imploded to draw him down with crushing gravitational force deeper and deeper into a spinning womb of leathery perfumed sleep - a black hole that warps time and space. He snores.

Legatura

The two young men hurry across the narrow gravelled road that runs behind the Officer's Mess of the army camp and disappears into the dense wood. Laughing and shrieking they crash their way through the dense undergrowth. Soon the army camp is lost to their view.

Exulted by the sudden freedom, set free from the capricious cruelty of Sergeant Fudge, the exhilaration bursts out of them in vile oaths, cowboy-like yells and insensible throaty gurgles. Onward they speed in their crazed progress. Deeper into the forest they plunge, crashing unhindered through the rotting vegetation and clumps of soft fern that caress their bare calves. Pausing briefly, in an open gap of dappled sunlight, the duo exchange conspiratorial grins and stand swaying, enraptured by their virile manhood, while contemptuously swatting aside bothersome insects. In the clearings the sounds of secret grasshoppers could just be heard above a continuous background cacophony of cawing rooks.

After a moment of hesitation the mad race continues. Oblivious to the cruel thorns of bright yellow broom that claw like malevolent harpies at their rolled down socks , they blunder forward. Heavy army boots crush the forest flowers into the dank warm loam as the wild flight proceeds, until exhausted at last, they fall, and with kicking legs roll deliriously in the warm, dark, peaty softness of the forest floor.

Later, fighting for breath, giggling and panting, standing in a small clearing, hands on their hips, they sway drunkenly backwards gazing upward to the leafy pinnacles of the tall straight pines that surround them phalanx-like and disdainful.

Swallowing lungfulls of musty air, craning their necks, they unsteadily survey the canopy of the forest, where high above the untidy clumps of twigs that are the rook's nests perch haphazardly in the highermost foliage.

Nicky is the first to recover, and with a sudden dart crashes once more into the bush to continue the mad advance. The liberation from the dull routine and discipline of military life wells up in his chest, as heart pounding he races onward through the vegetation heedless of the brambles that tear at his legs.

Jud is not far behind the taller man, and the crazy chase goes on. Suddenly they can go no further, for the gently sloping forest floor comes to an abrupt end. There, bordered by twisted trees that cling determinedly to the rocky surface yawns a deep gully that falls away sharply before them.

Feinting like boxers at invisible opponents, they stand at the brink, swiping at unseen tickling cobwebs.

Opposite the two men, protruding from the stony bank, is a gnarled trunk that extends out and over the space of the ravine. Tied to the branch, side by side, the remains of two unplaited tattered ropes swing slowly in the breeze.

"Shall we try it?" shouts Nicky?

And then, without waiting for an answer:

"Ignore the bit of rope, it may be unsafe, we'll go for the branch itself, both together side by side."

There is no answer from the other man, only the cawing of the rooks, the buzz of the insects, and the men's heavy breathing disturb the sudden stillness. The sunlight glints through the leafy world above, the musky fragrance of pine clings to their nostrils, sweat streaks their pale young bodies.

"Yeah, C'mon! Let's go for it." Jud says finally. "Come on then -  we'll jump together!"

Dwarfed by the immensity of the forest, gorged on the evidence of their triumphant physical condition, they stand together on the lip of the greensward, calf muscles trembling, lips dry, encircled in a turbulent cocoon of feverish emotion, they are overcome with a sense of awe in their own youth and virility.

"Now jump for the branch on the count of three!" screams Nicky,

"One, two, threeeeeee!"

Side by side the two men launch themselves forward and outward into space. Arms outstretched, upward and outward they fly together, fingers open to grasp the smooth bark of their chosen targets. Upwards they soar, ever upwards, crashing through the soft branches, upward ever upward, the trembling leaves brush their ecstatic faces. The leaves caress their ashen cheeks. Their incarnadine lips brush the quivering leaves. Their eyelashes stroke the fluttering fronds. The leaves accept them and kiss them. They are of the trees. Upward they soar through flocks of rooks that yammer away in a frenzy of black flapping wings. There is a jumble of colours, and soft, glossy raven - black feathers - there are joyful sounds of songbirds - sounds so melodious that they lull the mind and the senses into - into... again... the raven - black - the dark black - the darkness...

The sun breaks through the canopy in a blaze of frost-cold white light. With the returning brightness they dip their hands into the rooks nests, scrabble frantically in the still warm nests. Dirty hands with broken finger-nails, search for the universal egg at the still point of the axle of the slowly turning world. All the nests are warm - empty but warm  - still warm empty nests ... warm.

Questing for eggs they float upward beyond the event horizon of the primeval verdure. Full of excitement, scorning time, flying together, hand in hand, winging their way up narrow precipitous defiles between azure mountains.

"Does the future really contain us at all?" Yells Nicky.

"Why should every event have a cause!" shouts his companion.

Their hymn is in the sylvan cupolas, their elegy is in the awning of the sky. They encircle the planet, nibbling indigo mushrooms, befuddled with wonderment. Blown onward as the searching seeds of galactic space, they perceive the unperceivable. Bathe in radiant emissions of prismatic energy, they laugh together at naked singularities. Drifting together at the speed of light, they are immersed in the luminosity of far-flung expanding galaxies. Then at last, grasping each other's hands, they somersault lazily around the discovered cosmic egg. With a yell Nicky snatches the egg up into his glowing hand, and holds it high.

"I told you so! I told you so!" Nicky laughs triumphantly. "I knew all along that the known God is unknowable. Precognition of causality, every event is preceded by some prior event. Here in my hand is the infinite universe encapsulated within the confines of this rook's egg!"

Ostinato

They walk by a long, high, stone wall. It is hot, and they feel lethargic in the heat of that September afternoon. A cool breeze blows from the west in the shade of the high stone wall.

"Here on the left is a gate, here is a circumstance," cries Nicky, " here we will align a happening, for there is no duration for us if there are no events."

"This is the lodge gate to Sir Siegfried Sassoon's house, " he continues softly, " In we go!"

Suddenly there is an unexpected scream of tyres and a muffled oath from the driver's window as a large black car turns into the drive and whistles past their noses barely missing them.

A white-faced old man, head turned, looks out of the rear passenger window.

"Damn fools!" shouts a hoarse voice from within the retreating car.

The two soldiers walk slowly up the long winding drive-way. Nicky leads the way along pathways of pungent rhododendron and ancient woody plants. They skirt a dark pool, still and sinister. Wearied willows lean sadly over its banks as if in mourning or thoughtful resignation, trailing their green fronds in the water, admiring the reflection of their own beauty in the inky depths.

At last they see the house. It is a very large building of elegant proportions, its pink and brown brickwork and white framed windows are fittingly balanced within its grey lichened facade. It is solid yet delicate in its regency style.

To the front is a terrace on which filigree metal furniture lies scattered about among the bird-splattered statues which grimace from beige stone colonnades. In the foreground of their vista is a spacious lawn, in the centre of which is a large sunshade which almost conceals two deckchairs occupied by a pair of male figures. As the soldiers draw near, a white flannelled figure rises unsteadily, using the shoulder of his companion for support.

Sassoon stands shakily, a tiny, emaciated silver-haired form. "Greetings Nicholas!" He calls affably. "Do come and join us!"

The two young men approach the older pair and stand before them diffidently.

"Nicholas," wheezes the thin old man. "may I introduce Tom Eliot, a very dear friend of mine who is here for the weekend. Tom..." he continues genially, smiling at the seated figure.

"Please dont get up sir..." interrupts Nicky in his deep cultured voice, "and you sir..." he says with grave courtesy indicating Siegfried, "please sit yourself down." I hope you don't mind my pal and I dropping in on you unannounced like this, but we have just been running in the woods and...?"

"Now Tom," Siegfried breaks in, "this is Nicholas Hancock, a dear neighbour's boy from Codford St Mary. His mother runs a preparatory school just up the road a little.

Now Nicholas" he says smiling, " tell us how you are enjoying the army life? I must admit, I hated every moment of it as you are aware. The Gloucestershire Regiment eh! The Glorious Glosters! Well at least you are not posted far away from home, it must be all of three hundred and sixty yards from Knook Camp to Greenways School?" He chuckles.

"I remember when I was posted to Northern Ireland once in 1914 - it took me nearly two days to get home before I even started my leave! Do you go home every night - lucky fellow?"

Eliot who had evidently been listening attentively to these exchanges suddenly intervenes.

"Good to know you Nicholas, now please introduce your friend." says the seated American. His voice is calm and low with just a trace of a New England transatlantic accent.

"Oh! I beg your pardon gentlemen, this is a fellow military sufferer Jud Evans, my scouser pal from the Battalion. He hates the life as much as I do!

'What the hell's a scouser?' drawled the American curiously.

'It's the name we British have for a person from Liverpool,' chips in Sassoon"

There is handshaking all round, followed by offers of drinks which are gratefully accepted by the young men, who by this time have seated themselves cross - legged on the dry grass.

As the shadows lengthen on the daisy-peppered lawn the young men listen enraptured to the two poets wide-ranging conversation. There is talk of the early days in America, of the horror of the Great War in the trenches, of techniques of poetical craft, of publishers, of Ezra Pound, of travel, of great men, of faith and death.

The two pale faced young listeners delight in time's backward flow, they luxuriate in the scholarship, the treasure from the past. They sit on that lawn, bathed in a violet glow of new unknown possibilities, their minds lap greedily at the unveiled learnedness. They sit in cross-legged immortality - replicas of Gods born of the unity of time.

The two old men drink much and talk incessantly. At last the yellow sun sinks low behind the tall dark trees, and in the rookeries clusters of hushed black birds sit on every branch, a myriad glittering yellow eyes aglow in the disappearing solar light. A chilly breeze redistributes the evening calm. It is almost five o'clock. Intoxicated with ideas and alcohol the old men fall gently fast asleep,

There are a few drops of cold rain which become a light spattering. It falls in damp drops upon their white clothing.

"We must get them under cover before we leave." sighs Nicky.

Cautiously the two soldiers drag the two deckchairs complete with the slumbering occupants across the damp grass to the shelter of the arched colonnade.

"Its made a bit of a mess of the lawn." whispers Jud, indicating the four meandering grooves in the green expanse.

Without a backward glance they retraced their route beneath the soughing trees towards the broad entrance of the estate.

Overture (ripetizione)

"Wake up Mr Eliot," shouts the chauffeur, "we're there!"

Eliot wakes and rubs his eyes. The driver applies the brakes to the speeding car and swings the wheel hard over in order to negotiate the tight left turn between the two lion-topped pillars of the main gate entrance to the estate of Sir Siegfreid Sassoon.

"Fools!" yelled the driver, as he turned the wheel quickly to avoid hitting the figures of two young men. "Damn fools!" he shouts out through the open window. "I nearly had them then..." he calls to Eliot, "idiots, not looking where they're going!"

The poet turns his head and glances through the rear window, just catching a glimpse of two figures with pale faces that stand looking silently backward at the speeding vehicle. The car spins round the drive under the tunnel of the trees, passes the dark pool and then emerges into fading light of the final approach. The dark silhouette of the house looms up before them. Sprawled on a deckchair under a stone shelter lies a figure.

"The grass is churned up a bit isn't it sir?" nods the driver indicating two single lines etched deeply into the neatly mown lawn.

Eliot ignores the remark.

"That looks like Siggy in the chair." he mutters as the car crunches to a halt on the gravelled driveway. The American alights arthritically from the car and crunches over to greet the recumbent figure.

But Eliot is too late. His weekend host is dead!

Coda

Later that evening after the police and the others have gone, Eliot sits in the sombre panelled drawing room, among the family photographs and dark paintings. The doctor silently closes the French windows and turns to face the poet.

"Damn those noisy rooks!"

He picks up his empty glass from its place on the piano top and replaces it on the tray. Eliot sips his whisky.

"Did he suffer do you think Doctor..." He says quietly. "Did he have to be alone when he died? Were there no relatives nearby? What about the staff? I suppose it was his heart? Poor old chap, the effort of dragging that ancient heavy deckchair must have done for him?"

The medical man half turns, his leather bag twisting slowly in his hands.

"He did have some friends - a local family - there was a widow, Vivienne was her name. Marriage wasn't on the cards you understand. Just good friends. She liked horses as he did. Bit of a socialite. They were both members of the local Hunt. She had a Prep school about a mile down the road in Codford St Mary."

He pauses and blows a smoke ring,

"Unfortunately she sold up and moved away after the death of her son Nicholas. About five years ago. Tragic case. He broke his back larking about in the woods. Here on Sir Siegfried's estate. Another young soldier died at the same time. They were found forty- eight hours later. The local postman's boy came across them while he was out with his dog.

They were lying side by side, hand in hand. Nicholas was still alive when the boy found them - only just though. The other poor fellow was already dead. Poor Nicholas was muttering something about eggs. Perhaps they had been after bird's eggs? He had died too by the time that the army medic chaps got there.

The most curious thing about it however was that Nicholas had a bird's egg in his hand - it was quite intact. Now that is very strange isn't it? Although the enquiry maintained that they were trying to jump and swing on a branch or something. They both broke their backs. It was awful. A lingering death in excruciating pain. Alone accept for those bloody rooks in those woods. It took them a long time to die."

The medical man buttons his coat and makes ready to leave. "They thought they'd both gone AWOL - you know - 'Absent without leave.' Sir Siegfried was very upset about it. He was extraordinarily fond of the boy. There were whispers that ... I don't know if I should mention this... that in the past... Y'know... Sir Siegfried and his mother were... Y'know... and the boy was..."

"But Siggy was never interested in women to my knowledge," smiles Eliot with raised eyebrows. "In fact it was said that... on the contrary... No! I won't say any more!" Then he asks. "Was it a rook's egg in the boy's hand ?"

"Well actually as a matter of fact it was," replies the doctor. "How on earth did you know?"

Eliot smiles and sends out a silent "thank you" to the now silent birds in the dark trees.


(c) Jud Evans 1968