Henry put the six rounds into a manila envelope.
“I’ll take these to Wing, Smithy. Is there anything you can do?”
“If you can find me men and some money, yes, Henry. Buffing wheels, used for polishing rather than grinding, a lot of them in a workshop – I can make the space. Men at each, night and day, shifts of ten, maybe. Polishing them, making them bright and shiny. Two a minute, at most. A bit more than a thousand an hour with ten men. Twelve hundred hours of unbroken work, about seven weeks, and they could be made good, most of them.”
“Thirty aircraftmen for seven weeks, Smithy, and the machines.”
“Forty, they must have some time off.”
Billy shook his head – he could not discover so many men.
“I might be able to lay hands on ten bodies for you, Smithy.”
“Thirty weeks, if you can buy in the machines.”
They agreed that thirty weeks was far too long.
“Too long for the men, as well. The dust coming off of these things will be full of toxic chemicals. Destroy their lungs!”
“Work in gas masks, then – which are hot and hard to breathe in and mean they’ll take twice as long… It really ain’t possible, Smithy.”
They fell silent, scratching their heads.
“I’ll take the problem higher, Smithy. How many ‘buffers’, is it, have you got?”
“Four, Henry.”
“Put them to use with the men you’ve got. Put together a supply for ready-use. Hopefully, the answer will come from on high. Christmas is coming! Perhaps Santa will bring us a present.”
The weather put a stop to flying and the pilots were sent on leave. Joe knew a man with an apartment in London and took Jan and Mack and Kurt off with him. The rest scattered to their homes. Thomas remained in his room on the field until the 22nd of December and then set off for Norfolk, overnighting in Norwich and then driving out towards Holt in the morning.
He had exchanged letters with Lucy and she had purchased Christmas presents for him, solving a worrying problem. He picked up a silk scarf for her in Norwich, thinking that could never be unacceptable as a gift.
There was a sign outside a long brick wall on the outskirts of the little town. ‘Holt Lodge’, next to a wide double gate with a small cottage. He turned onto the gravelled drive, stopped as a keeper emerged.
“My name is Stark.”
“Ah, yes, sir. You’re expected, sir. Down the drive, sir, quarter of a mile and hold left at the fork and the Lodge be just there, sir. The other way takes you into the farmyard and you don’t want to be there, not with the mud and that.”
He wondered what ‘that’ was.
The drive was well-kept, without potholes, not at all agricultural. It led to a large house, three storied, six sets of windows on either side of the big front door. Red brick, old and mellowed by at least two centuries, the roof retiled recently. The paint was fresh and the windows sparkled, the signs of servants, who were a costly luxury in these days.
Either Noah had made money in his years out of the RAF, or Lucy had inherited it.
A gardener looked up to the crunch of tyres on the gravel and pointed to a large, open-fronted barn to the left. There were three cars already parked inside. Thomas swung the wheel and reversed into a place on the end. He turned to the back to pull out his bags, was forestalled by the gardener.
“I’ll deal with they, sir. Do you go on inside.”
Lucy was standing at the door by the time he reached it.
“Very smart, Thomas! The new Riley?”
“It looked good enough and was in the window of the nearest showroom. We have American cars in Queensland so I don’t know one English make from another, apart from a Rolls-Royce, which I don’t want and can’t afford.”
“We wondered if you might have flown up – we have a strip on the rear paddock.”
“No squadron runabout. Hurricanes or nothing for us.”
“Oh, that won’t do, Thomas. I’ll speak to Noah. I’m sure something can be arranged.”
She led him inside.
“Tea?”
“Please.”
“The whole family is here – Christmas, of course. Noah has taken Grace up in the Moth – she is working towards her commercial licence having picked up her private licence last year. She was a little young, apparently, but it was possible to make an exception to the rules. The war will be a nuisance there, I would imagine – commercial flying will take a back seat. Lucinda and Tom have ridden out for a couple of hours exercise. I should modify my statement – Lucinda is taking exercise while Tom is kindly keeping her company after being moaned at as an idler. He is an Oxford undergrad, of course. The house is quietly empty for a while – children can be very wearing! How is your squadron coming along?”
Thomas laughed and shook his head.
“Henry is trying to get hold of camera-guns for us. The Cranwell boys have no concept of using guns, and, in any case, we have no ammunition available.”
She looked blank. He explained about the corroded rounds they had been issued. She was appalled, at first; then she accepted it was typical of the current government.
“Chamberlain is a hopeless relic himself – he will see nothing wrong in guns that cannot be fired as he still does not believe there will really be a war. He is convinced that Hitler will see reason, and if he does not, the Navy will sail to Berlin and threaten him.”
“What of the Opposition?”
“Honourable men, most of whom served in the Trenches and will go to any lengths to prevent their sons doing the same. They might well prefer surrender. They have an argument, of course, but they blind themselves to Hitler’s nature.”
Thomas was a flying man. He knew nothing of politics and less of politicians - and thought himself the better man for it.
“So… despite everything, we shall be taken unawares. Unbelievable!”
“Nothing is unbelievable in this country, Thomas. Your cases should be upstairs by now. I’ll take you up to your rooms.”
“Plural?”
“We have an old guest suite – bedrooms and bathroom – which we thought you would prefer. The house is too big for us, but it has been in the family forever and provides work for the village. Not for Holt itself but the village a mile behind us, by tradition. We have no land with the place, which saves us a lot of money. Land is unprofitable in England – farmers lose money unfailingly. My elder brother is reduced to tearing his hair out about the state of agriculture. What does he expect? We settled America, Canada and Australia, all of which are better producers of any and every crop that will grow in England. We wanted an Empire – we have one and it has killed English agriculture.”
“As ye sow, so shall ye reap indeed, ma’am.”
“Lucy, Thomas – we are not so formal here.”
He smiled acknowledgement, finding it difficult not to offer deference to one of his father’s generation.
“The Empire must end with the war, of course, Lucy. We can’t defend it. What we can’t keep secure, we can’t retain at all. Ten years and it will be Canada, Australia and New Zealand and nothing else, free allies, no more.”
It seemed unlikely, she thought.
“The Middle East is incapable of governing itself, Thomas. If we pull out, someone else will have to go in. As for India – the different religions will be at each other’s throats within the day of our leaving. We were posted there for three years and saw how the different religions and castes hate each other far more than they do us. We control India solely because the Indians will kill each other rather than cooperate to drive us out.”
“Probably, Lucy, but we lack the power to stay. This could be a long, hard war and by the end of it, we will be exhausted. The Empire will be no more.”
“Let’s win the war first. When do you expect it to start, Thomas?”
She led him up two flights of stairs as they were talking, ushered him into a suite on the top floor, old and imposing, clean and tidy
and last decorated before the Great War.
“The true English country house, Lucy. Designed for the aristocracy – I’m not sure I fit in!”
“A different world then, Thomas. Comfortable, though.”
There was a maid hanging up his suits and best uniform, brought with him in case a formal need arose.
“Who is your tailor, Thomas?”
“Montague, in Savile Row, Lucy. I was sent there from the Dorchester.”
“Very good – a stiff informality as befits the young officer with a military record. You have created a furore in the upper ranks of the RAF, by the way. Several are very pro-Fascist and have objected to your kills in Spain being credited by the RAF. They also object to your being commissioned – ‘an officer is a gentleman and a gentleman don’t fly for damned Reds’, I quote. Really rather entertaining. There will be a great row when your next promotion is espoused by the go-aheads.”
“I was not aware it was being considered.”
“There are Czech pilots filtering through, making their way through Europe and hoping for a welcome here. As well, there are some dozens of assorted bodies from America and elsewhere appearing, including some English citizens of less than wholly white origin who are causing a degree of upset. Bomber Command is recruiting hard in the West Indies, being so short of aircrew, and some of the people they are getting are obvious pilot material. The only way to keep the brass happy is to create separate foreign squadrons, with no Cranwell types at all, and probably post them overseas out of sight as soon as possible.”
Thomas laughed, aware that his own pleasure at hearing the news would be seen as perverse by the Mosleyite factionaries.
“The Cranwell boys can fly in formation. They know almost nothing else. Half of them will die without making any kills themselves. If war comes in the next two years the Germans will outnumber us by at least three to one in the air – to fight a draw means we must kill three for every one we lose. There’s a chance the foreign pilots can do that; there’s not a hope in hell that the schoolboys will. Some of them will learn fast and start to earn their places, but, to my estimate, a good half will be nothing other than cannon-fodder. They’ll be useful, mind you, Lucy – they will be so obviously incompetent that the Germans will be queuing up to take a poke at them and the rest of us will get through to their bombers while the Me 109s are laughing.”
“What’s to be done, Thomas?”
“Train hard in the squadrons – but most of the squadron leaders are Cranwell enthusiasts, no better than the boys, or so I am told. If we survive the first two years, the problem will solve itself as the useless die and those who can learn do. The planes are more or less good enough and the pilots may become competent – they’re not all stupid.”
They wandered downstairs as they heard the Moth in the distance, went out to the little strip and watched the actual touch-down.
“Very tidy. That’s Noah sat in the instructor’s seat, I think. Your daughter knows how to land at least – and that’s ninety percent of the job done.”
“So they tell me, Thomas. I have never had the least desire to find out for myself!”
He could not understand why – flying was freedom, the sole escape from the pettiness of groundling life. He had never had success with that argument before, did not start it again.
Ten minutes and the Moth was in its barn, tucked away in the care of the resident mechanic, a Great War veteran who had been unable to make a success of a garage and had followed his ears to the field a few years before. Noah and Grace came across to greet Thomas.
The girl walked well, Thomas thought. He could see almost nothing of her, tucked up in a long flying coat from chin to ankles. Dark, as he preferred; blue-eyed; high cheekbones; a pleasant smile and a firm handshake. Reserved, he thought, which was not a bad thing in so young a female. He smiled and turned his attention to Noah.
“’Morning, sir. A cold one for an open cockpit!”
“Freezing. Good flying weather. Could see forever. I don’t get up often enough, sat away in an office. What’s this about ammunition, Thomas? All of it bloody useless according to the report.”
“Twenty years in store in India, sir. Tropical heat and humidity. Corroded beyond use. We’ve got a million rounds in store and none of it can be fired from a Browning.”
“Bloody Hell! Thing is, we’ve got no supplier who can produce fifty million rounds out of his hat. The Americans don’t make three-o-three and the Belgians don’t have anything identical either. Use their stuff and we’d have to re-barrel every Browning, if we could.”
“What about Stark Arms, in Australia, sir? My father’s factory makes three-o-three, I know, but I’ve no idea in what quantity. Elisabeth Jane is running the place, so they tell me. She’s very good, even though the Diggers don’t like working for a woman.”
“I’ll get on the phone to my staff now. They haven’t all shut up shop for Christmas.”
Lucinda and Tom walked their horses in a few minutes later, red-cheeked from exercise in the biting cold. Thomas greeted them – and wrote them off as company.
Tom was an undergraduate, no more than an overgrown schoolboy who had done nothing and was nothing. He did not believe there would be a war and if there was it could not last long, certainly not of a duration to involve him. He could not be expected to curtail his studies at Oxford so would not be available before June of ’40.
“What are you studying, Tom?”
“I am reading PPE, you know. The Civil Service, I expect, though I might consider a political career. What will you do for a real career, Thomas?”
“I shall go back to flying in the Territory I expect. I might take a place in one of my father’s airlines.”
“As director, I presume?”
“Good Lord, no! My sister has the management side sewn up – she’s good in the boardroom! I shall fly. The war will develop four-engine bombers and when peace comes again, they can be turned to civilian use. We should be able to open a route from Australia to London – five days or so as opposed to six weeks by ship. Years of interesting work!”
Neither could understand the other.
Lucinda was no better – she had little respect for the so-called ‘man of action’.
“I qualify this June – I was accepted into Medical School at sixteen. Then I am looking for surgery as a specialisation – thoracic is my interest.”
“Plenty of practical work to come your way then, Lucinda. The Great War produced half a million surgical cases, I understand. This one will offer far more if the Germans introduce a civilian bombing campaign as they did in Spain.”
“I thought you fighter people were supposed to stop them doing so.”
“Not a hope! We have fewer than a tenth of the numbers we would need to stop daylight raids, and night attacks are unstoppable without some new way of finding bombers in the dark. If the bombers come, they will get through. Our aim will be to inflict a few casualties on every raid. If we can manage two percent shot down, then we will kill all of them in two months, an attrition rate for pilots faster than they will be able to replace. But it means that ninety-eight percent of them will be able to drop their bombs. The result will be to produce probably hundreds of thousands of casualties in addition to at least as many dead.”
“The hospitals will not be able to cope.”
“They couldn’t in Spain. Nor could the fire brigades.”
“Then what is to be done?”
“Nothing. Ask your father – I don’t doubt he was saying that action should have been taken five years ago. It’s too late now. Hope we can win.”
“You must win.”
Thomas laughed.
“Too few pilots and planes. Too few soldiers and guns. Too few sailors and modern ships. We can, and will, fight – but I put winning at fifty percent at best. What say you, Noah? You have seen it all at close quarters.”
Noah suddenly became serious, close-faced rather than the cheery host greeting his guest.
“You are an optimist, Thomas. It is now December ’38 and we will be unable to put the country into a full state of defence before December ’41. If the war comes this year, we will be defeated in all probability. There is an emergency plan in the back cupboard to call up Great War pilots to take a twenty hour conversion course onto modern fighters and send them in as a last resort – old codgers like me dug out of our offices. I would say there is a fifty percent chance we will be called on.”
Thomas nodded – it would probably be necessary.
Lucinda was horrified – things could surely not be that bad. If they were, they must talk to Mr Hitler.
“Nothing the British Fascist Mosely would like more, I have no doubt, my dear. If you want a government with him as Prime Minister and a figurehead King supposedly exercising some power, you are welcome. I would rather fly a Hurricane or Spitfire, though they would probably give me a squadron of Gladiators, being a biplane man.”
She could not imagine that the country had fallen so low. They must be wrong.
Grace listened and asked why women pilots could not be called up – there were several hundreds who were fully qualified and licenced.
Noah was inclined to support her.
“The Russians had women pilots in the Tsarist force. They made some kills between them.”
Thomas also agreed.
“There were women flying in Spain, at least one an ace. Better flying and fighting than waiting for an invading army.”
Tom thought that to be ridiculous.
“Women shouldn’t fly and can’t fight. It’s wrong.”
Thomas smiled as Lucy called them into lunch, quickly changing the topic of conversation before either of the other men should point out to Tom that he had no intention of fighting and asked him exactly why.
They walked out in the afternoon to show Thomas the Holt estate, belonging to the Earl, Lucy’s brother, and in the family since Dutch William’s time.
Thomas found himself at Grace’s side as they climbed a low hill overlooking the lake and the old mansion.
“How did you get out of Spain, Thomas?”
The Gathering Clouds (Innocent No More Series, Book 1) Page 8
