Poppa George and Nana Win (Gramp's parents)

My Gramps was one of the most formative figures in my life and I hero worshipped him as a kid. He was this larger than life person who openly showed this love and wherever he went, there was laughter. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. Because my Gramps was so special to me, I am very interested to know more about his parents who helped make him into the person he became. Here are some facts, photos and some memories.

Read biographical details about Poppa George (George Sorrell) and Nana Win (Winifred Webber)

Mum's Memories of Nana Win and Poppa George

My paternal grandparents used to come and spend every Christmas with us and we would travel up to London to meet them and then we would all go to a pantomime or show. We would walk down Oxford Street on the way to the theatre, looking at the brightly decorated shops. One evening I grabbed grandpa’s hand to show him something special only to find it was not grandpa’s hand but a stranger’s. I can still remember feeling so totally mortified! It’s strange how something so unimportant can affect one for so long!

Nana Win and Poppa George lived in Rustington close to the beach. The beach was covered in pebbles and when we went down to swim, we had to wear rubber slippers into the water to protect our feet. Poppa George had been a policeman but in his retirement he spent all his time in his garden where he grew the most amazing vegetables.

When we eventually had our first car, fondly known as Puffing Bertha because of the difficulty she had going up hills, we used to go down to see Nana and Poppa about once a month. I was horribly car sick so was dosed up with something called avomine. Avomine could only be bought on prescription if it was to be used by a human but if Mum told the pharmacist it was for the dog, she could get it without bothering to go to the doctor first. It made me incredibly sleepy and I would sleep the whole way to Rustington (about 90 minutes), yawn my way through the day, and then sleep all the way home again!

When we were with Nana and Poppa we would always go and help pick fresh vegetables for lunch and then sit and shuck the peas (eating more than we put in the bowl). I can also remember the tomatoes growing in the glass green house had so much flavour and were so sweet. Poppa loved yellow flowers because they reminded him of sunshine so the garden was full of marigolds etc. There was a putting hole in the centre of the lawn and we would spend hours trying to get a hole in one. Dad used to complain about Poppa George and get irritated with certain things he did so it highly amused me as Dad himself got older, that he became more and more like his own father. Probably something that happens to most of us!


Some Background Information from Trish

Poppa George Frederick Sorrell was a policeman in Oxford and then London.  During the war he went back to the police in Tolworth.   He’d retired from the police in his 40s and worked for the AA until the war.  He married Win in 1916.

George’s parents were Frederick Sorrell and Annie Emma Rolls.  Frederick was superintendent and deputy chief constable of Oxfordshire.  Dad did not see much of his grandfather but saw more of his grandmother who, like Nana Win, was very round.

Win’s parents ran a grocer’s shop in Colchester.  Gramps (Tony) used to help in the shop and sold 5 Woodbine cigarettes for 1/2penny.  Her father was a lovely man and her mother was small and birdlike.  He died first and she lived with Win and George at Raeburn Ave until the war when she went to live with a spinster niece in Colchester.  They had 3 kids, Nancy, Win and Frank.


Trish's memories

I remember they always came for Xmas, as well as Auntie Alice,  which meant we were very squished in the small house. I remember sharing Mum’s single bed with her. One year she was very distressed because a freak snowstorm just after Xmas meant all “the oldies” had to stay an extra day or two because public transport shut down.

On Xmas Eve Nana and Poppa helped us write our list of wishes for Father Christmas (never known as Santa in our day) which we then put on the fire so the ashes  would be carried up the chimney ready for his arrival. It was a Xmas day tradition that we had lunch in the middle of the day so Mum was up early putting the turkey in the oven.

Jill and I couldn’t hurry the oldies enough till they were all ready to open presents. Then Poppa always took us for a walk round the neighbourhood (I’m sure to get us out of Mum’s way as she cooked) and we would rate all the gardens we passed on a score of 1-10! After plenty of wine and port with the meal and listening to the Queen’s annual address all the adults would then fall asleep in the pm which Jill and I found very boring!

It was Nana and Poppa who persuaded Mum and Dad to let us have a dog for Xmas. However we were convinced our gift was a grocery store set and we’d even decided who was to be shopkeeper/purchaser first. We were told that because it was in such a big box we would get it Xmas eve. Instead Dad walked in the room with Chippy in his coat pocket she was so tiny. That Xmas we thought she was asleep behind Nan’s feet but really she was chewing a hole in the back of her brand new slippers!

I adored my grandparents and they certainly adored us back. Dad says he was almost embarrassingly adored by Poppa as his only son, so he was relieved when that devotion was transferred to us after our birth. Poppa was rarely without his beloved pipe. I remember him carrying us piggyback to and from the beach.

They had a wooden beach hut there where we could change and store lawn chairs, toys etc.  I remember crabbing in the rock pools at low tide. The waves could get quite rough at high tide and then there was no sand on the beach but we could play cricket on the grassy area behind the beach. I don’t remember either grandparent actually coming in the water with us. Nana was a large woman and very soft to cuddle up to as we snuggled under home knit woolly blankets on the couch to watch TV. She taught me to knit and I can still remember the mantra of needle through, wool over, pull the needle back and push the wool off!

They never drove or owned a car so we would walk to the beach but Poppa insisted on lunch being the main meal of the day, at exactly 1pm so we had to come back to the house then and return to the beach afterwards. Nana apparently never challenged him. Dad remembers dessert was always stewed apple and custard! She could be brusque at times and I  remember the resentment I felt at being given little sympathy after being stung by a wasp.

They both played bridge, although Nana confessed to me that she thought she was the better player so she didn’t always want to partner George! She continued to play until her death and considered that walking to and from the club and the game itself kept her body and brain active. However she was not a particularly physical woman and I don’t remember her taking an active role in the garden. Poppa lived in his garden. It was a double sized lot so lots of room for his veggies. We helped dig up potatoes, squish butterfly eggs on his cabbages, and loved the tiny tomatoes in his greenhouse. He had a shed full of tobacco boxes he used to store nails, odd pieces of string, etc. Nana was sure he also had money hidden in them too, so I hope somebody checked after he died. He always said thieves wouldn’t find valuables if they were hidden in full view in places such as the toes of slippers. Apparently they left money in tins under the coal in the fireplace too! They had a huge row of dahlias which we got to deadhead during our visits. We went once a month once we got the car. There was a sunroom along the back of the house and a huge hydrangea plant by the back door where Nana would empty the tealeaves from the pot (no tea bags for her!) She said the acid in the leaves turned the flowers pink or blue, I don’t remember which!

Poppa died first. He died very peacefully in his sleep  but on autopsy was found to have very severe cardiac disease. He never complained of chest pain and was digging in his garden till he died. Nana then moved into a 6plex apartment complex until her death. Again she was chatting to a neighbor in the morning and appeared fine. Jill and I didn’t go to either funeral and I have no idea where they were buried, or more likely their ashes were scattered.

They had false teeth which they took out at night and left in a jar in the kitchen, much to Jill and my amusement. Poppa also took senna pod daily, so there was a glass of brownish liquid on the kitchen window sill with the pod in it. I remember sitting on his lap at breakfast as a little kid. He would cut his toast into tiny squares then turn his head away as he lifted each piece, saying he’d heard a little bird, and I’d eat his toast out of his fingers before he turned back.

While Nana was widowed I spent a week alone with her over the summer holidays (Jill was already working by then).  She arranged day trips to the vaudeville type theatre in Worthing, and we had a wonderful time together. She died shortly after I started at physio school, but I remember her excitement when I met a promising young guy at one of my first student dances. She was looking forward to updates!

As a young woman she and her sister Nancy ran a high class hat shop. Poppa actually dated Nancy before Win. He called them thunder and lightning as Win was solid and calm whereas Nancy was highly strung and slimmer. He was a policeman in Tooting Bec South London when Dad was born. He had severe asthma as a baby and Nana told me of exhausting times when she sat up all night with him in a steamy bathroom to help his breathing. At one point she thought he’d died and she says she tossed him onto the bed thinking she was almost relieved that finally she could get some sleep, when he started crying again obviously still alive!

They owned the house at 175  Raeburn Ave that Jill and I grew up in. I don’t know if they gave or sold it to Mum and Dad after the war when they moved to Rustington. No wonder we knew all the families in the street so well as Dad had lived amongst them for much of his childhood. People didn’t move much then.

Although both Nana and Poppa had siblings I never remember meeting or hearing about any extended family on the Sorrell side. I know George’s father was also a policemen, and they teased that there was also a gypsy Jack Sorrell in the area. Fact or fiction I have no idea!


Story written by Poppa George

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• Stories written by Poppa George

Stories written by Poppa George (Gramp's dad)

THE OLD MAN

The old man shook his head and smiled, and the smile, as it crept over furrow and wrinkle, seemed as sunshine stealing gently over the sands of the sea. Such, indeed, was the thought of the young girl as she sat there watching him from the shadowy corner of the room. He did not often smile, that old man, and a life's story was written on his wrinkled and time-scarred face, and from the lines of suffering visible there and the look of dreamy, far-off sadness in his eyes, it was easy to discern that sorrow had not always passed his door.

He was poor, very, very poor, but proud too, in a beautiful, noble way, and invariably, when they implored him to forsake the loneliness and cheerlessness of his tumble-down cottage for the warmth and comfort of the Poorhouse, he would jump to his feet with grey head held erect, his face would darken and those kindly blue-grey eyes flash with that cold, bright glitter as of steel in the sun. “Nay,” he would cry, hoarsely, determinedly, piteously, “I conno’, I conno’.”

Such was the girl's errand today; an errand of love; the old man knew it, and she was aware of his knowledge, so that words were unnecessary. But yet the old man smiled; but the smile was not for her, and neither was it because of her that those two great tears trickled unheeded down his cheeks. The girl knew that too, instinctively, and because of the sweetness of her nature and the greatness of love in her young heart, burning tears blinded her eyes, and she felt a compassion for the old man which her tongue could not speak. Almost fearfully she gazed again upon his face, wondering what memory could so illumine him, apparently taking his thoughts so far away from things earthly. Rising softly she walked and looked around the small, bare room, unnoticed by the old man, and what she saw upon the snaky, paintless, mantelpiece made her catch her breath, in reverential awe.

Yet it was merely a vase of blue and white violets placed as near as possible to the photograph of a woman.

It was a cracked, very inartistic vase; the frame, of the commonest, and the face was obviously that of a simple country woman, which, like that of the old man, bore the superscriptions of time and toil and trouble, though through it all the girl could catch a glimpse of a one-time comeliness. Musingly she returned to her chair within the shadows as the old man rose, placed the violets carefully in the buttonhole of his old velveteen coat, and gently taking up the photograph resumed his seat, the while wiping the frame and glass with his great red kerchief and looking down upon the face with eyes that shone with a light ineffable. His whole feeble frame seemed to shake with an ecstasy of emotion and those eyes to be looking away into a world of consummated dreams as he turned to the girl, saying:

“Nay, dearie, nay; I know yo’re kind an’ good – main good an’ well meanin’ – but I’d rather stay on an’ die here than in th’ House. As I’m sayin’, Miss, the sight o’ you do cheer me an’ do me good. But see this Photy here? Well, it is my lassie as was, an’ what is now, as God do know. We was allus ones for bein’ kind o’ free-like, ner an’ me, an’ allus hated the name o’ Workuss. After work, which was in th’ evenin’ time o’ course, we useter walk around the lanes where the viluts an’ primroses do grow. We most-an’-generally allus went the same road, we did, an’ the sweetest o’ th’ viluts I allus picked an’ give to th’ lassie arter I kissed ’em. P’raps you thinks that silly Miss, but we didn’t, th’ lass an’ me. Then, when she had ner nands full up, we’d sit on th’ stile an’ listen to the crickets a-chirpin’ an’ the birds singin’, an’ we’d smell the flowers I picked an’ watch th’ sun a-settin’ away beyon’ th’ hills.

“She was rare fond o’ viluts, was Mary, an’ when she died”, here he turned away his grizzled old head, “I put a heap on ’em in her coffrin, an’ a bunch in them pore white hands which did look so smooth an’ pure, an’ as yo’ see Miss, I allus keeps a bunch near her photy in mem’ry like. Ay, we was allus ones for bein’ what th’ pa’son calls in-de-pendent, Missie, ’speciall’ me, an’ afore I’d enter th’ House yon I’d make a bed o’ hay under th’ stars an’ leave the rest to th’ good God. Many calls me a fool — a right down fool Miss — as p’raps you may do — only couldna say it, but as long as I knows th’ lass is waitin’, an’ as long as I can see th’ blue skies glowin’ an’ the viluts an’ primroses bloomin’, th’ ‘house’ll never see me.

D’ye see lass? Mary is waitin’ for me; I can seem to see her smilin’, an’ th’ good Lord havin’ kep’ me ’till now’ll keep me on to th’ end, I do think. Mary died in this room, Miss, an’ please God I’ll die here too. Ay, she died in this very room did my lass. Faithful an’ true she wur for nigh on fifty year Miss. My Mary lass! My Mary lass! An well, little lassie goodnight to yo’ if yo’ must be goin’. I’ll keep yo’ kindness in mind lass, an’ th’ mem’ry o’ yo’ sweet face, but I conno’ go theer, Missie; nay, surely I conno’”...

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But he had gone in the morning, though to a far different home, to the one he had so dreaded and shunned in life, and when they found him he was holding a fading bunch of violets in one white hand and the shabby frame in the other. But his face was smooth, all lines of sorrow and suffering having vanished, leaving in their stead the light of a peace eternal.

AS THE IVY CLINGS

’Twas evening in the quiet, beautiful village of Sallipoli – that small Turkish Village, so quaintly but picturesquely built, looking down smilingly upon the scintillating Bosphorous, which stretches right out towards the Dardanelles. A somewhat premature Spring enhanced the beauty of the hills, and the wondrous tints of the evening sky lit up the surrounding country with an exquisite indescribable charm. The fragrance of the heavy-laden flowers lay sweet and refreshing upon the merest suspicion of a faintly whispering breeze, and there was but little to disturb the harmony of this idyllic scene. Occasionally, however, the clear tenor voice of a never-wearying boatman, as he sang one of the well-loved plaintive melodies, was softly wafted up to the listing hills, only to die wistfully away into the almost oppressive silence. The pathetically lugubrious beauty of this apparently joyless village seemed to tell of love – love at least but burning, passionate and all-o’erwhelming, but yet to be consummated. The very sadness of the boatman’s song might have been a pitiful wailing for love that would never come, for something which the singer well knew he could never attain, and even the harsh, intermittent cries of the sea-birds, as they skimmed the waters below, seemed to ring with a dejected, well-nigh forlorn appeal in strange congruity with the entrancing environment. But in the garden yonder, ’midst the bloom of the jasmine and the passion-flower, a love scene was being enacted, which, for passion and zeal, must not be decried. What wonder, when the heavy fragrance of the many flowers, and the incense of every breath of nature mingled and confused the senses of the man sitting there, without his thinking or looking upon the intoxicating beauty of the maiden at his side.

But here I must unfold a secret. She was unveiled! Her religion forbade the unveiling of her charms before man, but who could wonder that the man loved to gaze into those soft, shining eyes, and press those sweet, curved lips, red as ripe luscious fruit?

The young Turk at her side was a fit mate for such as she. Tall and graceful as a young sapling, with a perfect symmetry of form, and poise of the head, and with a beauty of face which resembled that of the girl at his side, save for its strength, he appeared as one whom one might well expect to captivate the heart of this beautiful maiden. As they sat there the smell of the almond and cherry blossom was borne to them, and in the ecstasy of their love they were great and wonderfully happy. The man threw his arms around the maiden, and pressed his burning face to her’s, the while drawing her closer, as he murmured “Life of my heart, sun of my soul, Allah has made you beautiful beyond words – Your soul is as the dew-kissed rose – the sweetness of the flowers has been strewn over your lips – the glories of a world of love shine from your heaven-lit eyes, O essence of my life, and yet you love such as I.” He spoke in a voice low and musical, and the maiden trembled with joy as does the fluttering dove when her mate is near, for she loved him as ardently as he loved her. “Illumined Erene, whose breath is the lilies’ fragrance, and whose voice as the song of the trickling brooklet, though we may never wed, we will love each other through life – till death, and onward even after then – Is it not so? Allah has created you for me, my soul, and to take you from me would be as the loss of life.” A pearl is trembling on your eyelash Erene, and a luminous light of love is shining in your eyes. O, sun of my life, I love you, I love you.” The maiden turned her glowing eyes up to his; a wealth of divine love and pride shone in them as she gazed upon him, and a look of ineffable sweetness lightened her face as she answered, “O Hissau, king of my heart, your words are to me as life. Your love, food to my hungry soul. As the gentle breeze creeps slowly over the sleeping lakes awakening the tiny ripples, so did your love, my Hissau, steal over my sleeping soul. Your kisses are to me as the source of summer rain to the thirsty earth, and as the clear shining moon to the traveller by night. But as you say, my soul, we may never wed; my illustrious father has promised my hand to Kassim-Pacho, whom I hate with a hatred as real and abiding as my love for you. Him I must wed, my Hissau, and through my life will ring my soul’s lament for that which could not be – the holy joy of my body’s "life lived with you – the happy communion of our two souls.

"The sweetness and purity of the morning shall I not see – the fragrance of the dew-laden flowers will not delight me – the songs of the happy birds, as they fly in the dazzling sunshine, will not reach my ears, and the divine glory of nature around will be lost to me. The nodding, smiling flowerlet will miss my answering smile, and the birds my song, but how may I say what your absence will mean to me, my king?” He answered her with an embrace hungry and passionate, and as he saw now great was this maiden’s love for him, and how hopeless his great love for her, his soul grew sad, and his eyes assumed a look of far-off melancholy. For some minutes there was an absolute silence – everything around seemed to be listening with hushed and expectant wonder. Then the young Turk turned to his trembling love, and in a voice of pitiful sadness exclaimed “What Allah has decreed, my soul, we know He will fulfil. Your illustrious father has stricken your soul near to death, my beautiful Erene, by giving you to Kassim- Pachè, and Kassim-Pachè has earned my life-long hatred in accepting you – a maiden whom he does not love – You, my own, were made for love – your eyes to shine forth love and not loathing – your lips to receive and bestow maddening kisses of love, and not to curl in scorn. Your body for the embraces of your soul’s mate, not those of a man of sensuality. Allah gave you that smile, O my heart, to lighten and beautify, not to be hidden away and darken the earth”. Here the maiden checked his words with her tiny hand, and rising to her feet exclaimed “Hissau, O my love, though your words are music to my ears, to whom I would fain sit and hearken for many hours, I must return to my father’s house, but will hasten back with something which I know you will wear as a symbol of our wondrous love – our love which must not be – It is but a ring which I treasure highly, and my soul will be happy in the thought that you, my Hissau, wear it – Wait but a little while, dear heart, when I will return”. With a loving wave of the hand the maiden departed, and her lover’s head sank …dejectedly upon his breast, and he stared, with unseeing eyes, at the sweetly-blooming flowers growing in great profusion at his feet. So intent were his thoughts that he did not hear the heavily laden jasmine branches part, nor see the form of a man creep up behind him, as he sat so deep wrapt in reverie.

The man was Kassin-Pachè, and his face wore a look of indescribable hatred and fury as he looked down upon the unsuspecting lover. Quickly he raised his arm, and something flashed in the pallid evening light, and as quickly it descended with a dull thud, and the murdered man gave scarcely a start as his soul sped into the great unknown. The murderer turned up the rapidly whitening face of his unfortunate victim, and, smiling diabolically, hissed out the words “Now Hissan, beloved lover of beautiful Erene; whose kisses were once to her as rain to the thirsty earth, go to your eternal damnation. Little did you think I heard your sweet words of love, or saw your kisses. May your mate be pluck this dagger from your silent heart, and read of your love in those already dimming eyes.” With a look of hate he turned and vanished from whence he had come, as with a cry of love the maiden returned, holding in the air, between her fingers, the ring which glittered as she hastened along.

As she neared the seat, the smile of love on her fair young face turned to one of childish amusement, as she laughingly cried “Waken, waken O my Hissan – indeed the very flowers do blush for your inability to wait, even for me, for so short a while without sleeping – Waken, wearied Hissan, ’tis I, Erene, who calls to you.” Stooping she pressed a kiss upon his brow, and gave a cry of heart-rending horror as her lips touched his icy forehead. With trembling hands she lifted his cold fallen head from his breast, and who may describe her anguish of heart, as she read in those glassy, sightless eyes, that which ever drives away doubt and freezes the heart. She fell at his feet, moaning in bitter pain, the while stroking his cold white hands. As she did so her fearful eyes rested upon the dagger which pierced him, and with resolute hands she plucked it from her lover’s heart, and the flowers were stained with his blood. 

She looked long and almost wonderingly at the weapon, and then at the silent inexpressive face of her lover, when, throwing it to the ground, she placed her arms around his neck, and gazing with a look of wonderful strangeness into his face, cried in a voice of ineffable grief, “Hissan, beloved of my soul, even in death, Allah has decreed that you shall be taken from me by the hand of some foul assassin, whom my heart knows well. But even death shall not divide us, my love, but bring us the closer together. In life, in death, we are inseparable, and as the ivy grows and clings around the rose-tree, so shall my soul cling to your’s. As the parched camel, in the desert, hastens to the life-giving waters, so does my soul hasten after your’s, my king. And what, O my heart, does it mean? A step from a once so beautiful life into far more beautiful death, with you; to be near you for an unending, serene eternity. Behind me I leave your poor murdered body, beautiful even in death, and join your released and happy soul in that boundless realm above. O Hissan, Hissan, sweet love of mine, I come to you.” Even as she spoke she tore the covering from her heaving bosom, and placing the dagger at her heart, with a smile of heavenly resolve, thrust in the gleaming, blood-stained weapon, crying out “Hissan, heart of my heart, I come,” as she fell dead across the body of her lover.

Away, across the hills, the sun had set; the nodding flowers had long since hidden their beauty, only to awaken, more beautiful than ever, on the morrow, with the nowly-risen sun; the evening air was still heavily laden with the fragrance of the jasmine flower and almond blossom, and the voice of one of the boatmen below was still heard, singing one of those plaintive melodies in minor key, as he turned his face to his lowly home. The sea-birds’ harsh cries seemed now to ring with an ever increasing lament for a great and boundless love which had come & gone, and the waters below still scintillated merrily, as the reunited souls of the lovers flew on and on, into the vast territories of the wonderland beyond.

JIMMY AND ANGELA

They had known one another precisely one week. One solitary fleeting week, seven extraordinarily brief days; a very breath of one’s lifetime surely? But what mattered that! What mattered Time or the duration of Time! What mattered the relativeness of Time and the progress, or degrees of withering when love was near!

As the girl paddled so quietly, so smoothly down that quiet, deserted Thames backwater, this summer day, the man, lying back on his cushions, gazed long and fixedly into her eyes, and at the sight of his face, so set, so determined yet soft-willed, she smiled half wonderingly, half fearfully, but with a sweetness and guiltlessness beyond words.

“Oh girl, girl,” the man’s inner voice whispered, “dear sunshine of Heaven, how can I help but love?”

He, too, looked to the face so young and fair and soft in its warmings. As fair as a morning such as this, when the sun shone high in an apparently interminable canopy of delightfully blue; when the air, which seemed to caress and kiss with its warm and clinging pithy breath, too full of the overtures of all sweet things. Full of the music of the birds’ song; that inexplicable but bewilderingly seductive suggestiveness of love; the rapture of a perfect peacefulness and the ever lovable smell of the mignonette, borne to them from the lawn yonder by the merest suspicion of a faint, ever-fanning breeze.

Yes, they were both instinctively sweet, the girl AND the morning; in Nature, posture, but only one of which called for the adoration of the other: two of the same great God’s creation, through the joy of the one was lost in the worship of the other. He had loved her from the moment he had first looked on her, when the freshness and loveliness of love had caused his hands to tremble and the veins to throb at his temples.

But he had only recently returned from the fighting in Africa, an unwounded, helpless young soldier; a babe, scarce able to move, but safe in the hands of many loving nurses, and who wrathfully denounced things in general as, with careful step, they daily carried him to the punt at the river-side.

“Oh, hang it! hang it!” he would cry. “Hang it all! A curse on my helplessness and on a universe and the Boers and their half-languid, dirty, inane surprises.” But at the touch of the girl’s hand and the gentle rebuke of her eyes he would mumble an incoherent apology, but his soul within him cried, “Girl, oh girl, but for you, and the joy of you, what’s there in life for me—a wreck—a useless thing!”

They had known pluckers of love, these two. Words of the lips were unnecessary. They understood, but the man in his but slight knowledge of the byways of woman’s love, saw in his helplessness an unscalable gulf separating her life from his. But how little he knew how very little! How soon he was to know the great answer to all the past gently falling silences—she loved and liked him, and that in his true weakness her little heart bled and bled with an unutterable yearning to share his life and comfort him!

Today as he lay there so helpless, and watched the perfect dip and recover of the paddle and the sky-thriven bend and sway of her shoulders, again his soul cried out—“Oh Angela girl, you’re the one I’ve wanted these many years; the one I’ve dreamed of—I prayed for—Oh, you’re mine; that’s all, mine!”

The girl just smiled as if hearing and understanding his unspoken cry, and smiled yet again. But to hear his voice said, “Angela, dear, kind, faithful friend, how can I ever repay you for your unwavering kindness and help to me? How can I? I’m on short time as they say—mean to live three days at a time, they little girl, little Angela, it’s only during these days that the sunshine has lit up the world and reached my heart! These hours only truly, any worthiness, any good, any hope, and it’s out, since you first smiled on me that it is I’ve thought the world has a place for a—a wreck like me. Oh little Angela, dear, dear little heart, how can I find the words to tell you what you are to me? They jumble in my throat, and I cannot say what you mean in my life, little girl, by my faith.”

“Don’t try, Jimmy dear,” the girl whispered, Heaven glowing in her eyes, and a great joy quavering in her voice, “I know dear, I know.”

“But you girl, you, you, what of you?” the man made answer, straining forward, “Tell me, Angela, that after all, Jimmy dear History, dear helpless old body and all, you know, surely? You care—that’s it! I care, too, so that I cannot tell how—there seem no words.”

“But—but—look at me Angela girl, look, look!” he said in a voice scarce believing, “Look at me—a wreck—a ship with its engines busted—sort of—helpless, quite—quite helpless. God only knows how.”

“Hush, Jimmy dear, hush oh hush.” Earnest were the eyes of the girl, full of an infinite appeal as she crawled to his side and took his own feeble hands in her own soft white ones. “Don’t speak like that, don’t, don’t, don’t!” she said. And in that sweet look of Heaven-whispers she bent her head and laid her sweet young lips on his, and an awe sweeter, better than that of the heavens, affected his eyes.

And after, with her fair face to his, and with a charming shyness, she told him too she had yearned for him to speak, how she longed to find and comfort him—and the man, closing his eyes to the joy of it, just murmured “Thank God, oh thank God,” right out loud in his heart.

How long they lay thus who knows, but the faint evening shadows were drawing around before the girl again took up the paddle. They had many things to speak of—of dreams, hopes, fairies and castles in the air. He told her of his experiences in Africa—of the never-ending rays of an African sun as they would beat down upon them as they waited, crouching behind boulder and rock, with forefinger unconsciously stroking around trigger, mad, mad, mad to fight and forget the horrible "Think" which assailed them. He spoke of the haze of heat which danced and dawdled weirdly, over sand and scrub, and of the unceas’n’ unvoluminous drone of the myriads of tormenting insects. He described with vivid reality, the whirr of the shells as they flew overhead, and the Bang and Crash as they came to earth and burst.

But when he would have told her of the havoc of those death-dealing monsters, she covered her eyes and bade him stop, for such a one had caused his injury.

Then they spoke of happier things, and once again, as he so earnestly, infeatured her, she smilingly stole a kiss from him when catching her foot in the bottom of the punt, she stumbled—the man’s heart leapt and he clutched at her dress—but it was too late—she fell sideways into the dark, darkly waters.

“Oh God of Heaven! The water is deep and the girl wants to swim! The man helpless! ‘Angela! Angela!’” he cried in a terrible scream as he struggled in vain to raise his poor body. “Guide the punt, dear girl,” he shouted the side, “for the love of Heaven!” He could hear the sounds of the struggling—then the gasp! – gasp! – gasp! “Oh God!” Great beads of perspiration started down his face; he elevated his hands until his nails drew blood – “Girl, Girl oh girl! hold, hold the punt!” he shrieked.

But there was silence, and the man screamed and clattered as he lay, tortured by his helplessness, until the world went dim, and a terrible blackness, and then red – red – and burst into swinging cruel sparks, and undying red eyes.

There were no sounds to him but gasps – the sound of that fair, sweet, pure voice, lips he had so lovingly kissed gasping for breath, where words not come. Oh cruel! cruel!

In fancy he saw those eyes, beautiful, oh God, as of even a life; staring, staring wild, and gradually dimming in death. He could see those limp hands clutching – clutching – clutching – nothing but water which slipped through—through her fingers. He struggled madly – oh it was cruel! “God; I will save her – I must!” Was she wondering why he didn’t help her? Surely, she knew – SURELY she remembered! “Angela! Angela!” he screamed again. “I can’t move! Oh girl, girl! I can’t move! Angela! Where are you? Help! Angela! Where are you? Help, oh help!”

But there was no sound, and the man shrieked and screamed, using horrible blasphemies, and turning his eyes to the sweet blue of the evening sky, so like to the blue of those other eyes, cursed the God who had made him, and who had left him here in his cruel helplessness.

Then struggling madly, oh so madly, with eyes glowing and teeth chattering, by some great wonderful effort he raised his almost dead head to the front of the punt, and looking into the shadowy waters, saw — nothing.

“Oh God! Poor, poor Jimmy!”

He gazed and gazed at the cruel water with eyes that looked, looked and looked; two sightless white lips babbled terrible, meaningless, and blasphemous things, and bits arms mad, beating the water.

The stars of the summer night looked down on the sad picture with blinking eyes—On the body of the man whose head fell over the side of the punt, whose arms dangled in the scintillating river, and from whose mouth something dark drifted grim, down, staining, flooding the still, lapping water.

Related

• Memories and photos of Poppa George
• Biographical details of Poppa George