smallgayjew | [Milliways]: Drummer Hodge

It's a Wednesday, and even though they've had a field trip, Posner gets himself to Hector's classroom for their weekly poetry discussion. Hector isn't there when he arrives, and he's about to give it up and go home when the man finally comes in the door.

“Still here?” Hector asks when he sees Posner perched on a table.

“It is Wednesday, sir,” Posner reminds him.

“Yes, well...I thought with the day trip to Fountains...”

“It's only half past four.” The truth is, he wants to do the poetry. It's one of his favorite parts of the week.

“Well, in that case, where's Dakin?”

“With Mr. Irwin, sir,” Posner admits, disappointed for himself as much as for his teacher.

“Of course,” Hector answers with a sigh, closing the door behind him.

“He's showing him some old exam questions.”

Hector makes an affirmative noise. “With all the appropriate gobbets, no doubt.” He pulls out a chair and takes a seat facing Posner. “Well, no matter. We must keep up the fight without him. What have we learned this week?”

Posner lays his book, open, in front of Hector. “'Drummer Hodge', sir. Hardy.”

“Ah. Nice.”

Posner steps back then and clears his throat before beginning. “'They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined—just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew—
Fresh from his Wessex home—
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Norther breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.'”

When he finishes, for just a moment, Posner holds his breath, stuck still in the rhythm, the language of the poem.

When he finally does look at Hector, Hector whispers, “Good. Very good,” and gestures for Posner to take a seat. “Any thoughts?” he asks, his voice a bit steadier, once Posner is seated.

“I wondered, sir, if this 'portion of that unknown plain/Will Hodge for ever be' is like Rupert Brooks, sir? 'There's some corner of a foreign field...' 'In that dust a richer dust concealed....'”

“'Tis. It is. It's the same thought. Though...Hardy is better, I think. It's more...more...well...down to earth. Quite literally down to earth.” Posner smiles, nodding, appreciating both the humor and the insight. “Anything about his name?”

“Hodge?” He tries to figure out what significance that name could have, but Hector cuts off his pondering.

“The important thing is, he has a name. Say Hardy is writing about the Zulu Wars. Or...or later. Or the Boer War, possibly. These were the first campaigns where soldiers, common soldiers, were commemorated. The names of the dead were recorded and inscribed on war memorials. Before this, soldiers, private solders, were all unknown soldiers. And so far from being revered there was a firm in the nineteenth century, in Yorkshire, of course, which swept up their bones from the battlefields of Europe in order to grind them into fertilizer.

“So, thrown into a common grave though he may be, he is still Hodge the drummer. Lost boy though he is on the far side of the world, he still has a name.”

For a moment, Hector looks so sad, that Posner is tempted to reach across the table and hug him. Instead, he merely asks, “How old was he?”

“If he's a drummer, he would be a boy soldier, not even as old as you, probably.”

“No, Hardy,” Posner clarifies.

“Oh, how old was Hardy? Oh, um...when he wrote this? About sixty. My age, I suppose. A saddish life, though not unappreciated.

Posner has to wonder if he means Hardy or himself.

But Hector moves on. “'Uncoffined' is a typical Hardy usage. It's a compound adjective, formed by putting 'un-' in front of the noun. Or verb, of course. Un-kissed. Un-rejoicing. Un-confessed. Un-embraced.”

Posner listens, carefully, that familiar, dull ache of dissatisfaction settling in his chest. It sounds like a litany of his life so far and continuing on into the foreseeable future.

“It's a turn of phrase he has bequeathed to Larkin, who liked Hardy, apparently. He does the same. Un-spent. Un-fingermarked.”

A few months ago, those words would not have brought the blush to Posner's cheeks that comes now.

“And with both of them, it brings a sense of...not sharing. Of being out of it. Whether because of diffidence or shyness, but a holding back. Not being in the swim. Can you see that?”

“Yes, sir,” Posner answers, his voice sounding strange to his own ears, as though he hasn't used it in years. “I've felt that a bit.”

His eyes are on his hands as he speaks, but after a moment, he looks up at Hector. He's not sure what he wants to see in the man's face, but...something. Something to tell him this isn't awful, that he's not alone.

Hector is quiet for a long moment, looking, it seems, everywhere but at Posner. Eventually, after he has gathered his thoughts, he says, “The best moments in reading are when you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is,” he holds up his hands as though reading a book, “set down by someone else, a person you have never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” His eyes close as he speaks, and he reaches out his hand in illustration, and Posner desperately wants to take his hand, to feel that connection to someone physically there, not to someone long dead, penning verses to drummers in Africa. He slides his hand forward, almost touching Hector's.

And then Hector's hand is withdrawn, and the moment passes.

“Let's just have that last verse again, and I'll let you go.”

Posner nods, reciting quietly, “'Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.'”

He takes a deep breath, getting himself back under control, and the connection is lost.

Dakin comes in then, carrying a motorbike helmet, and Hector's attention is diverted completely from Posner.

"And now, having thrown in Drummer Hodge, as found, here reporting for duty, helmet in hand, is young Lieutenant Dakin."

"I'm sorry, sir," Dakin says with that expression that defies unforgiveness.

"No, no," says Hector, like everyone else, not immune to that face. "You were more gainfully employed, I'm sure. Why the helmet?"

"My turn on the bike. It's Wednesday, sir."

"Is it?" Hector asks, and Posner sits back, left out, as always, from this particular portion of their student lives. "So it is. But no. Not today. No. Today I go a different way. 'The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that way, we this way.'"

He hurries off then, and Posner and Dakin exchange curious glances. Never before has Dakin been denied a ride home.

[ooc: All dialogue is from the Fox Searchlights film The History Boys or the Alan Bennett play of the same name.]

[Milliways]: Drummer Hodge

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