Inside the box were toy soldiers and parts of toy soldiers. He set one down and, closing the cavity in its back, instructed Martha to wind it. A second he began to tinker with. ‘I’ve been holding it in my mind for so long. Sometimes all it needs is time and a puzzle works itself through. But I perfected it last night. It doesn’t matter a jot what Emil does in those Wendy House walls, not when …’
With a final exhalation, Kaspar snapped shut the mechanism in the second soldier and wound it up. For some time, nothing miraculous happened. Then, as Cathy watched, the first soldier – which had been marching in ever-decreasing circles – began to wind down. As it neared its end, the second soldier – still with life left in its mechanism – approached the first, took its key in its wooden hands, and began to turn. Energised again, the first soldier sprang back to life and continued its dance.
Martha clapped her hands in delight, just as the second soldier’s mechanism began to slow. This time, the first came to its rescue, winding it back up. When, minutes later, its own mechanism slowed once more, its comrade sprang to its defence. The soldiers marched on and on and on. As long as they were with each other, they would never stop.
‘Emil never learned how to think. He’s good at what he does, that much is true, but he can never think beyond it. He doesn’t understand. Perhaps he never will. But these soldiers don’t have to do his bidding any more, not if they can wind each other up. They don’t have to fight in any Long Wars. Why, they don’t have to be soldiers at all. They can take control, be whatever they want to be. My Martha, the world is bored of armies. It can’t bear another boy to die. It doesn’t need killing. It needs farmers and tinkers. Shepherds and railwaymen and grocers. It’s time we set the soldiers free.’
‘Oh yes, Papa! Oh yes!’
Martha dove into the box and plucked up another soldier to set it marching with the rest. This one’s mechanism had not yet been doctored and it knew nothing of winding up its comrades – and yet, when it wound down, the others sprang to its defence, keeping it running long after it ought to have stopped.
‘You see?’ grinned Kaspar. ‘That isn’t soldiers, killing each other just because they ought to. That’s people, helping each other just because they can. Isn’t it a beautiful thing?’
A Report On a MOST Miraculous THING by Martha Godman (aged 11 ?)
The Topic I am to write about this week is What I Wish To Be. Do I wish to be a school teacher or do I wish to be a mother? Do I wish to be secretary to a rich Financier, or do I wish to be a LADY EXPLORER. The question set is interesting in and of itself but (Martha licked the tip of her pencil here, certain that Mr Atlee would disapprove) a more interesting question presents. How to get what One Wants, with reference to toy soldiers of Emporium Design.
What if One was trapped in a Circumstance of which one disapproves? What if One was made to be a way One did not wish to Be? How might One take charge of One’s own JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE. Destiny, we have been taught, is resolute. But what if One wishes to change one’s God-given Destiny?
Step the First
It is the directions, assumptions and Privileges of Others which keep us in place.
Point 1st: A toy soldier must be wound at all times, or else perish.
Point 2nd: If a toy soldier can be shown to Wind Himself, he need never rely on the Privileges of Others.
Step the Second
Helping Oneself is nothing if One does not help Others. A movement can only succeed when what is Revolutionary becomes that which is Ordinary and Accepted.
Point 3rd: If a toy soldier can be shown how to help others Wind Up, they too can be RELEASED FROM SHACKLES.
Point 4th: Soldiers released from SHACKLES can release others from SHACKLES. As we are taught disease spreads from hand to hand so too does Knowledge and Freedom.
Step the Third
A journey is begun. Who knows where it might lead? The first step is to learn GOVERNANCE OF THE SELF.
Soldiers do not want to be soldiers and if you give them the CHANCE to DECIDE, the most Miraculous Things will MANIFEST.
(Composition by Martha Godman, August 1918)
Cathy put down the paper and felt Mr Atlee’s eyes considering her above the bronze of his pince-nez. It didn’t matter how old you were; a schoolteacher’s gaze would always be withering.
‘Am I to imagine she is making some veiled analysis of Women’s Suffrage? We have covered as much in lessons, and your daughter has never been less than forthright … But all of this? Understanding what one wants, casting off shackles, rewriting one’s own destiny? Your daughter is, dare I say, a little young for radical politics. And this business with toy soldiers? Some risqué comment, I imagine, on conscientious objection? Her, with a father who sacrificed so much to keep this country free?’
Cathy hung her head.
‘Quite apart from anything else, this egregious use of Capital Letters is alarming. I am certain she does this just to spite me.’
Of this Cathy was quite certain: she had caught the girl practising the most ostentatious capital letters by torchlight in bed.
‘I’ll speak with her.’
‘See that you do,’ Mr Atlee declared, gathering his papers. ‘It is for her own good. Mrs Godman, goodness knows, I admire this place, I’m grateful for my years of service – but have you ever thought that, perhaps, just perhaps, Martha might benefit from some exposure to the real world?’
Cathy waited some time after Mr Atlee had taken his leave before she set out to find Martha. Mr Atlee had set her arithmetic problems to work through before his next attendance, but as ever she was not to be found with her books. Cathy found her in the Godmans’ quarters instead, fussing with one of the twins while Nina tried in vain to spoon stewed apple into the other. At six months old they were developing the same ursine look as their papa, the same paunchiness too.
‘Martha, a word.’
‘No, Mama, he doesn’t have words. It’s only babbling. He just makes sounds.’
Cathy thought: it’s as if Kaspar truly is her father; the knowing look, the deftness of tongue, she gets it all from him.
A simple glare compelled her to set the youngest Godman down and come to her mother’s side. Retreating to the corner, Cathy unfurled the report over which Mr Atlee had remonstrated and asked her, ‘What does it mean?’
‘It’s all true, Mama. I wouldn’t tell lies.’
Cathy thought: she wouldn’t; the truth delights her too much. ‘But what is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s the soldiers. Papa will show you. Come on …’
Martha took her hand and led her up the back stair. At the top, the door to Kaspar’s workshop sat for ever ajar.
Kaspar was sitting in the rocking chair that once belonged to Papa Jack, while dozens of self-winding men were lined up in battalions before him. Somebody had been making tallies on a board with chalk. The workshop floor was a parade ground where units turned and fell over, picked themselves up and formed rank and file again. Across the parade ground, whenever a soldier began to slow, one of his compatriots would twirl around, fit his hands into the grooves chipped into the key at his back, and wind him back to full strength. It was, Cathy thought, like watching the dancing of honeybees. The wind-up army moved as a swarm, or not at all.
Kaspar was keeping metronomic rhythm with his foot, but when Martha started tugging on his sleeve he looked up. ‘Cathy,’ he said, ‘look! They’re drilling. We’ve been trying to persuade them to drill differently – why should they stand in battalions if they’re not to be soldiers any more? – but it’s bred into them. Something in the way that they’re made. So – look!’ Kaspar’s hands revealed a mountain of miniature overcoats, woollen jumpers and shirts. Tiny Wellington boots in forest green and navy blue. ‘Dress as a soldier and perhaps you’re a soldier. But dress as …’
‘It hasn’t worked,’ Martha chipped in. ‘They don’t let you put them on.’
‘And then we thought – why should they? They’ve been being told what to do for far too long. Who am I to tell them how to dress? Oh, Cathy, they do the most remarkable things. Cathy, they can learn …’