My Friend, The Policeman

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Title:     My Friend, The Policeman
Author: Robert Cortes Holliday [More Titles by Holliday]

To the best of my knowledge and belief (as a popular phrase has it), I am the only person in the United States who corresponds with a London policeman. About all you know about the London policeman is that he is a trim and well-set-up figure and an efficient-looking officer. When you have asked him your way he has replied somewhat thus: "Straight up the road, sir, take your first turning to the right, sir, the second left, sir, and then at the top of the street you will find it directly before you, sir." You have, perhaps, heard that the London police force offers something like an honourable career to a young man, that "Bobbies" are decently paid, that they are advanced systematically, may retire early on a fair pension, and that frequently they come from the country, as their innocent English faces and fresh complexions indicate. Sometimes also you have observed that in directing you they find it necessary to consult a pocket map of the town. Your general impression doubtless is that they are rather nice fellows.

It was in Cheyne Walk that I met my policeman. I had got off the 'bus at Battersea Bridge, and was seeking my way to Oakley Street, where I had been directed to lodgings described as excellent. He was a large, fat man, with a heavy black moustache; and he had a very pleasant manner. When I came out that evening for a walk along the Embankment I came across him on Albert Bridge, at the "bottom," as they say over there, of my street.

"You're still here, sir," he remarked cheerfully. I asked him how long Mr. Whistler's Battersea Bridge had been gone, and he told me I forget how many years. He had seen it and had been here all the while. In the course of time he directed me a good deal about in Chelsea, and so it was that I came to chat with him frequently in the evenings, for he "came on" at six and was "off" some time early in the morning.

I was a source of some considerable interest to him with my odd foreign ways. "When are you going 'ome?" he asked me one day when our friendship had ripened.

"Oh, some time in the fall," I replied.

"In the fall?" he queried in a puzzled way.

"Why, yes," I said; "September or October."

"Oh," he remarked, "in the autumn." And I heard him murmur musingly, "In the fall of the leaves."

Sometimes I met him in the company of his colleague, the "big un," or "baby," as I learned he was familiarly called, a very tall man with enormous feet clad in boots that glistened like great mirrors, who rocked as he walked, like a ship. My friend had very bright eyes. They sparkled with merriment one day when he said to the big un, nodding toward me, "He's going 'ome in the fall."

It was a warm evening along the side of old Father Thames. My friend, with much graceful delicacy, made it known to me that a drop of "ile" now and then did not go bad with one tried by the cares of a policeman. So we set out for the nearby "King's Head and Eight Bells." When we came to this public house I discovered that it was apparently absolutely impossible for my friend to go in. He instructed me then in this way: I was to go in alone and order for my friend outside a pint of "mull and bitter, in a tankard." The potman, he informed me, would bring it out to him. The expense of this refreshment was not heavy; it came to one penny ha'penny. The services of the obliging potman were gratuitous. I found my friend in the pathway outside with the tankard between his hearty face and the sky. When he had concluded his draught, he thanked me, smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with a large handkerchief, and hurried away, as, he said, "the inspector" would be along presently. Just why the inspector would regard "ile" in the open air in view of the whole world less an evil than a tankard of mull and bitter in a public house I cannot say. But it may be that as long as one is in the open one can still keep one eye on one's duty.

I was hailed several days after this by my friend, who approached rapidly. Well, I thought, he has been very useful to me, and three ha'pennies are not much.

"I have something for you," said my friend, somewhat heated by his haste.

"You have?" I said. "What is it?"

"It's a rose," replied my friend.

"A what?" I asked.

"A flower," said my friend, recognising that we did not speak exactly the same language. "You know what that is?"

"Oh, yes. I know what a flower is," I said. "Where have you got it?"

"I have secreted it in the churchyard, sir," he replied. "I'll fetch it directly?" he added, and was off.

When he returned through the gloaming he put the flower through my buttonhole. "A lady dropped it out of her carriage," he said; "and I thought of you when I picked it up." He stooped and smelled it. "Hasn't it," he said, "a lovely scent?"

I had lived in New York a good while and I had somehow come to think of policemen rather as men of action than as poets. But then in New York we do not dwell in a flower garden; we are not filled with a love of horses, dogs, and blossoms; and we do not all speak unconsciously a literary language.

My friend was very eager that I should let him "hear from" me upon my return to the States, and he particularly desired a postcard picturing a skyscraper. So he gave me his address, which was:

"W. C. Buckington, P. C. B. Deyersan, Chelsea Police Station, King's Road, Chelsea, S.W."

In acknowledgment of my postcard I received a letter, which I think should not remain in the obscurity of my coat pocket. I wish to submit it to public attention as a model of all that a letter from a good friend should be, and so seldom is! There is an engaging modesty in so large a man's referring to himself continually with a little letter "i." My correspondent tells me of himself, he gives me intimate news of the place of my recent sojourn, he touches with taste and feeling upon the great subject of our time, he conveys to me patently sincere sentiments of his good will, and he leaves me with much appreciation of his excellent nature and honest heart. Occasional personal peculiarities in his style, deviations in unessential things from the common form, give a close personal touch to his message. This is my friend's letter:

"DEAR FRIEND--

"It is with Great pleasure for to answer your post Card that i received this morning i was very pleased to receive it and to know that you are still in the land of the Living i have often thought about you and as i had not seen you i thought you had Gone home i have shown the Card to Jenkens and the tall one and also a nother Policeman you know and they all wish me to Remember them Verry kindly to you they was surprised to think you had taken the trouble to write to me they said he is a Good old sort not forgetting the little drops we had at the six bells and Kings Head.

"P. H. What do you think of this terrable war it is shocking i have just Got the news that a cousin of mine is wounded and he is at Clacton on sea he is a Sergt in the 1th Coldstreams Gds got a wife and 4 Children i have been on the sick list this Last 17 days suffering from Rumitism but i am better London is very quiet Especially at Night the Pubs Close at 11 m. and half the Lights in the streets are out surch Lights flashing all round 2 on hyde Park Corner 2 Lambert Bridge 2 War office dear Friend i hope i shall have the Pleasure to receive a Letter from you before long Now i think that this is all i have to say at present so will close with my best respects to you your

"Sincere friend
"WILLIAM CHARLES BUCKINGTON."

The letter which later I sent him was returned to me by the Post Office. And that is all that I know of my friend, man of ardent nature and gentle feeling, lover of flowers, London policeman, gone, perhaps, to the wars. Cheyne Walk would not be Cheyne Walk again to me without him.

[The end]
Robert Cortes Holliday's essay: My Friend, The Policeman

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