To Serve them all my Days Part II

David takes up the job, and finds that he quite enjoys it, though he is still not well and the boys play him up a bit at first. He teaches history and English and finds that the older boys are keen to learn more modern history about the causes of the War which is still going on. He makes friends with the English master Howarth who is a grumpy but intelligent man, who smokes a lot but does not get on well with the science master who claims that he was in the army but was not fit enough to serve in France. David dislikes Carter's narrow mind and his armchair patriotism, but he is beginning to find himself settling into the school. The war ends, and he decides to stay there and study for his degree. Then he meets Beth, a young nurse, and falls in love with her and asks her to marry him. She is from a modest London family, and is not put off when he tells her that he will never be well off as a schoolmaster and that he has his elderly mother in Wales to help out, and that the school is miles from anywhere and the boys and masters largely have to make their own entertainment. They marry soon after their first meeting on holiday and Beth and David move into a rented cottage at the school. Soon Beth gets pregnant and they have twin daughters Grace and JOan. Their married life is happy and David gets his degree but when the children are small, tragedy strikes. Beth dies in a car crash; the children are with her and Joan dies, but Grace survives with some leg injuries. David is horrified and devastated. He goes through a depression but the work and companionship of the boys, and his efforts to help Grace get better help him to recover. In 1926, soon after Beth's and Joan's deaths, David supports the General Strike, unlike many of the masters and boys, and gets in a dispute with Carter who is arrogantly conservative, on the issue. Their relationship is very strained and Herries insists that they learn to work together. Grace begins to get better and David takes her on holiday to London, where he runs into Julia Darbyshire, a pretty young woman who was briefly working at Bamfylde teaching the youngest pupils. She is a war widow, whose husband was badly wounded and she has been on her own for some time. She is now working managing a restaurant in London, and she and David have a brief romance. However, she tells him when he suggests thinking about marriage that she would not wish to be a schoolmasters wife, or to live in the country. He tells her he wont give up hope just yet, and returns to Bamfylde. However things are changing there. Herries is nearing retirement age, and David wonders if he has a chance of becoming headmaster although he is very young and has relatively little experience. He and Carter decide to apply for the post.