Greene Destructors
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Henry Graham Greene, OM (October 2, 1904 – April 3, 1991) was a prolific English novelist, playwright, short story writer and critic whose works explore the doubtfulness of modern man and ambivalent moral or political issues in a contemporary setting. Greene combined serious literary acclaim with wide popularity. Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a mere “Catholic novelist”, his religion informs most of his novels, and many of his best works (e.g. Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter and The Power and the Glory) are explicitly Roman Catholic in content and preoccupations. His later works show a greater interest in international politics, e.g. The Quiet American.
Bibliography
Verse – 1
Verse – 26
Autobiography – 4
Travel books – 3
Plays – 8
Screenplays – 10
Shortstories – more than 30
Childrens books – 4
Other works – 8
Graham Greene
THE DESTRUCTORS
It was on the eve of August Bank Holiday that the latest recruit became the leader of the Wormsley Common Gang. No one was surprised except Mike, but Mike at the age of nine was surprised by everything. If you dont shut your mouth, somebody once said to him, youll get a frog down it. After that Mike kept his teeth tightly clamped except when the surprise was too great.
The new recruit had been with the gang since the beginning of the summer holidays, and there were possibilities about his brooding silence that all recognized. He never wasted a word even to tell his name until that was required of him by the rules. When he said Trevor it was a statement of fact, not as it would have been with the others a statement of shame or defiance. Nor did anyone laugh except Mike, who finding himself without support and meeting the dark gaze of the newcomer opened his mouth and was quiet again. There was every reason why T., as he was afterwards referred to, should have been an object of mockery – there was his name (and they substituted the initial because otherwise they had no excuse not to laugh at it), the fact that his father, a former architect and present clerk, had come down in the world and that his mother considered herself better than the neighbours. What but an odd quality of danger, of the unpredictable, established him in the gang without any ignoble ceremony of initiation?
The gang met every morning in an impromptu car-park, the site of the last bomb of the first blitz. The leader, who was known as Blackie, claimed to have heard it fall, and no one was precise enough in his dates to point out that he would have been one year old and fast asleep on the down platform of Wormsley Common Underground Station. On one side of the car-park leant the first occupied house, No. 3, of the shattered Northwood Terrace – literally leant, for it had suffered from the blast of the bomb and the side walls were supported on wooden struts. A smaller bomb and incendiaries had fallen beyond, so that the house stuck up like a jagged tooth and carried on the further wall relics of its neighbour, a dado, the remains of a fireplace. T., whose words were almost confined to voting Yes or No to the plan of operations proposed each day by Blackie, once startled the whole gang by saying broodingly, Wren built that house, father says.
Whos Wren?
The man who built St Pauls.
Who cares? Blackie said. Its only Old Miserys.
Old Misery – whose real name was Thomas – had once been a builder and decorator. He lived alone in the crippled house, doing for himself: once a week you could see him coming back across the common with bread and vegetables, and once as the boys played in the car-park he put his head over the smashed wall of his garden and looked at them.
Been to the lav, one of the boys said, for it was common knowledge that since the bombs fell something had gone wrong with the pipes of the house and Old Misery was too mean to spend money on the property. He could do the redecorating himself at cost price, but he had never learnt plumbing. The lav was a wooden shed at the bottom of the narrow garden with a star-shaped hole in the door: it had escaped the blast which had smashed the house next door and sucked out the window-frames of No. 3.
The next time the gang became aware of Mr Thomas was more surprising. Blackie, Mike and a thin yellow boy, who for some reason was called by his surname Summers, met him on the common coming back from the market. Mr Thomas stopped them. He said glumly, You belong to the lot that play in the car-park?
Mike was about to answer when Blackie stopped him. As the leader he had responsibilities. Suppose we are? he said ambiguously.
I got some chocolates, Mr Thomas said. Dont like em myself. Here you are. Not enough to go round, I dont suppose. There never is, he added with sombre conviction. He handed over three packets of Smarties.
The gang was puzzled and perturbed by this action and tried to explain it away. Bet someone dropped them and he picked em up, somebody suggested.
Pinched em and then got in a bleeding funk, another thought aloud.
Its a bribe, Summers said. He wants us to stop bouncing balls on his wall.
Well show him we dont take bribes, Blackie said, and they sacrificed the whole morning to the game of bouncing that only Mike was young enough to enjoy. There was no sign from Mr Thomas.
Next day T. astonished them all. He was late at the rendezvous, and the voting for that days exploit took place without him. At Blackies suggestion the gang was to disperse in pairs, take buses at random and see how many free rides could be snatched from unwary conductors (the operation was to be carried out in pairs to avoid cheating). They were drawing lots for their companions when T. arrived.
Where you been, T.? Blackie asked. You