Lady Chatterley's Lover

would be very hard to afterwards. He remembered his days in India and his narrow escape from death during a tribal attack. He was hiding in the naafi under a table with a tea urn on it, when a cobra struck at him but just missed him and bit the tea urn. That tea urn had saved his life, he was so grateful he bought the tea urn, and brought it back to England with him, where it now took pride of place: Derbyshire. He recalled his old Indian Army sergeant, but he was too far away to hear, and his colonel who had died of pneumonia for his country.
    Those days had gone, now he was in England a civilian gamekeeper. His job was to raise pheasants so he raised them up three feet. He had left being an officer and was back among the common people where there was no pretence. A penny more or less on the bacon was terrible, especially for the Jews who bought it disguised as Catholics. And the call for higher wages was a futile cry, there was no solution short of death, but, there was no shortage of death, only money.
    Ah! But here in a Derbyshire forest he felt safe, no Afghan tribesman could find him here, but they were fiendishly cunning, so he kept his rifle at the high port as he ran behind tree after tree. He was thinking, what did he care about money? Nothing! Even though he needed a fresh sock, so what! He could carry on with just one, not only was he carrying on with one sock, he was also carrying on with Lady Chatterley. He was ten years older than she, but she was a stone heavier. In the silence of these woods he was thinking of Lady Chatterley. He would have given all he had to be with her. That would be: one walnut veneer wardrobe, one kerosene oil stove, one secondhand pine table, one fireside stool, one dog basket, one iron Army-style bed, one tick mattress, three blankets, one oil lamp, one zinc bath, one zinc bucket with broken handle, one bedside mat (worn), three pairs of underpants, three vests (need of repair), one sock, parrot cage empty (parrot died), one meat-safe, one washing-board, one banjo, two pairs ex-officers pyjamas, two pairs trousers ( sic ) one pair in constant use, one face-flannel, one bar Sunlight soap, one bottle Anzora hair-cream, one comb (teeth missing), one hair-brush, one sink pump, one frying-pan, one ex-Army overcoat (button missing), one doormat, one coal-scuttle, one packet Quaker Oats, one slice bacon, one egg, one knife, fork and spoon, half a pound of prunes, one tube Colgate toothpaste, yes, all that he would have given. The trouble was getting a furniture-van to move it at this time of night.
    Like a maggot ( sic ) he was drawn towards Wragby Hall. He saw a light in the house go on. He did not see Mrs Bolton come to the window. She started, there was a man out there, a black figure in the twilight; you rarely saw one in Derbyshire unless it was a coal-miner who hadn’t washed!
    Mellors was looking for an entrance to the house: if only, if only the key-holes were bigger. He tried forcing his head through one but it was useless. Ah! Up there was her window, it was open , she was waiting for him! By the house lay a long pole. That’s it! He would pole-vault into her room. Securing their love blanket to his hands he started to run.
    Mrs Bolton saw the man flash past, launch himself up, up, up, he missed the window, but not the wall, against which he crashed, fell back senseless, where fortunately the ground broke his fall. The sun was getting up, so was the gamekeeper, but nowhere as bright. As he got brighter, Mrs Bolton saw it wasn’t a black man but Mellors! So! He was Lady Chatterley’s lover. He, He. Why, she had been a tiny bit in love with him herself but she had never shown that bit to him, although he often asked to see it. When she was studying, he had helped her a lot with anatomy, he felt all her important parts. He’d been clever at school, he learned French and things, ‘La plume de ma tante est dans le jardin’ and things he could say. He’d been a nice lad and helped her. He was clever at making things clear to you. If you jump in front of a train it will kill you.’ At the zoo he pointed at a lion. ‘If you go in his cage he will kill you, I’ll show you.’ He threw his mother-in-law in and the lion ate her. ‘See what I mean...?’ At college he passed with honours. He became an overhead blacksmith 46 shoeing horses from overhead.
    Well, well, so her ladyship had fallen for him, she must have seen his lovely white loins. Mind you, she wasn’t the