Henry Williamson Writing Competition

2008  

Source Material

Extract 1

From The Patriot’s Progress.

 The next morning he had to report to the Recruiting office at nine a.m. At a quarter past eight he said good-bye to his mother and father, hastily kissing his mother, and, after hesitation, shaking his father’s hand. “You won’t forget to keep your feet dry, will you dear,” said his mother, and looked at him with pride that hid her sadness. She wanted to ask him to be sure not to forget his prayers; but, remaining  silent, her heart began to ache. Perhaps he won’t be needed out there at all, she thought, but will be kept for Home Defence. "Good-bye, Son!" she clasped him, silently praying. "Good-bye, old man," said his father, smiling. "Write when you're not busy.".................

"Well, mother, it's a righteous cause, and our Jack has acted like a man," said Dad, as the old folk turned back into the house again.

 Lead on. Suck and slop of mud above ankles. Slither and flop and lurch and aching became unreal and everlasting. A hissing shriek, a flash, a clashing crack. Another. Another. Whizz bangs. They were searching for 18 pounder battery positions, firing just in front of the company.

Extract 2

From Tarka the Otter.

A fallen bough of willow lay in the pool near one bank, and Tarka lay beside it. His rudder held a sunken branch. Only his wide upper nostrils  were above water. He never moved. Every yard of the banks between the stickles was searched again. Poles were thrust into branches, roots, and clumps of flag-lilies…………….

At the beginning of the ninth hour a scarlet dragonfly whirred and darted over the willow snag, watched by a girl sitting on the bank………… She watched the dragonfly settle on what looked like a piece of bark beside the snag; she heard a sneeze, and saw the otter’s whiskers scratch the water. Glancing round, she realised that she alone had seen the otter……………For two minutes the maid sat silent, hardly daring to look at he river. The dragonfly flew over the pool, seizing flies and tearing them apart in its horny jaws……….. Tarka sneezed again, and the dragonfly flew away. A grunt of satisfaction from the old man, a brown hand and a wrist holding aloft a hat, a slow intake of breath, and

Tally Ho!

Tarka dived when the hounds came down, and the chain showed where he had swum……

The hounds ran to him, and Tarka turned and faced them, squatting on his short hindlegs, his paws close against his round and sturdy chest. He bit Render in the nose, making his teeth meet. In an instant he drew back, tossing, and bit Deadlock in the flews. The narrow lower jaws snapped again and again, until the press of hounds hid him from sight.

Extract 3

From How Dear is Life.

Away over the extending root-field, with its low layer of mist and smoke, Phillip saw a red arc moving up, dull at first, but soon clearing to a defined curve of orange as it rose clear of the earth. Almost the moon’s rising was a signal, for the sky became bright with many shapes of soundless light:……….

Phillip saw the dim stare of faces vanish as the first droning of shells curved down the sky. With others he lay down in the trench, leaving his rifle in position on the parapet. He pressed his forearms over his head, shutting his eyes. He lay there wincing from splitting concussion upon splitting concussion, the glare of each near- dropping howitzer-shell showing through pressed eyelids. His head seemed filled with black-gold -red after each terrible detonation that out- clanged the earth. No longer was he able to control himself by thinking that each shell meant that the end of their stay in the line was nearer. He had never acquired the power to think; now he lost the power to be. He screamed until his voice seemed torn out of his throat.

Extract 4

From The Gale of the World.

The very air was waiting, while heavy bombards of nimbus clouds approached like a curtain of doom; among them a black whale floundering amidst sudden squalls of tearing, sea -whitening lesser winds which had crossed the bay between Hartland and Lundy and were now screaming over cultivated fields and coombes filled with primeval oakwoods; rocking slate roofs of isolated farmhouses and lifting the thatch of cottages………….

Puffs of hot air struck the cricket ground. And all of a sudden the roof of the pavilion, a jerry built affair, was wracked off and sent, upended……………. To rest awhile, before being hurled up again and, after floating level for some seconds, to whirl upended and find rest among the rocks bordering the Severn Sea.