by Alan Judd
He slipped out of the mess into the welcome dark and fitful gusts of rain. It was more wind than rain but occasional drops peppered his head and face refreshingly. He wanted to stretch his legs and so walked past the huts and across the wet grass towards the airfield perimeter. A lane ran parallel the other side of the fence, partly screened by a belt of young conifers. It was normally quiet, with just the odd cyclist, tractor or horse, but as he approached he heard the subdued growl of multiple engines on low revs. When he was close enough to see through the trees he made out the high black bulks and shaded blackout lights of Army lorries rumbling along nose to tail. Another division heading for camps near the coast, presumably, one of many recent and seemingly endless convoys, sometimes taking days and nights to pass. The Day, the invasion of Europe, the opening of the second front, must be close.
The lorries were canvas-backed Bedford three-tonners, probably an infantry division. Through a gap in the trees he made out the faces of young soldiers, crammed onto benches in the backs, festooned with rifles and kit, lolling at unlikely angles, dozing or comatose, their heads resting on each other and rocking to the movements of the lorries. None spoke and the eyes of those who were awake stared dully at the vehicle behind. It was a vision of a catacomb of corpses, thrown in anyhow.
He left the convoy to its destiny. Across the airfield in the dispersal areas, Spitfires rested on their tail wheels, long noses pointing towards the scurrying, moonlit clouds. There was virtually no chance of anyone flying now but still their ground crews lay huddled beneath them, wrapped in groundsheets. He walked past unnoticed, following the perimeter to where the ground dropped away, revealing, in daylight, a full view of the Romney Marsh. It was a solid dark mass now. Above it the clouds alternately obscured and displayed ever-changing spaces of lighter, fading sky. Frank stood, the intermittent fine sprays of rain wafting like blessings against his face.
Eventually he turned to continue his walk but after a few yards he stopped, assailed by the smell of cigar smoke. ‘Rather you walked round me than over me,’ said Patrick. ‘Don’t much fancy being trampled by a moose.’ The dark clump ahead moved as Patrick stood, his cigar cupped in his hand. ‘Often sit here last thing, clear the mind, pollute the lungs. Wet bum tonight.’
‘I almost walked into you.’
‘Unforgivable to light up, of course, especially for the squadron leader. But I’m careful and no one’s ever caught me at it before.’ He cupped both hands to his mouth and the stub glowed within them. ‘I guess there are worse sins,’ he added after exhaling, ‘not available to us.’
‘They were to Tony.’
‘Yes, if fornication’s a sin. Not sure the RAF would have a view on that, unless it were fornication between ranks. Anyway, good luck to them, poor sinners both. Take it while you can. He won’t be doing much more of it, that’s for sure. Unless there’s fornicating in heaven.’
‘I was close to downing that Yank.’
‘I know, I saw you were, saw you lining up. That’s why I intervened. Understandable, felt the same myself, but it won’t do, not while there’s still Germans to shoot down.’
‘What will happen about it?’
‘Nothing. That is, we’ll put in an official complaint, they’ll deny it, bums on office seats will shuffle paper between them and we’ll all forget about it. Except his people and his girlfriend, of course. But they won’t be told; they’ll assume he was shot down by the Luftwaffe. Better that way. Even worse if they knew.’ He bent and pushed his cigar stub into the grass, grinding it with his boot. They walked on, side by side.
‘Had enough of the mess tonight?’ said Patrick.
‘I just – well, yeah, I guess so.’
‘Too much for everyone, sometime or other. We all need some escape.’
‘Except the Dodger. Seems to suit him.’
‘Horses for courses. Some escape by immersion, diving deeper, never thinking about it. Others like you and me have to come up for air now and again, sit on the bank, take a few breaths.’
‘I didn’t realise you did.’
‘That’s the thing about being in it, you don’t notice those who climb out. Talking of banks, sitting on, how’s your fishing going? Any luck?’
Frank soon found himself talking about the colonel and Vanessa. It was an unexpected relief.
‘Enigmatic,’ said Patrick.
‘She is, yes. I don’t get what’s going on. Something is, but I just don’t get it.’
‘I meant him, your colonel. Sounds as if he knows more than he’s letting on, keeping something back.’
‘Maybe, maybe.’ Frank hadn’t thought much about the colonel. ‘Maybe they’re both spies, trying to get information out of me.’
Patrick laughed. ‘Pretty disappointing Mata Hari, leaving you alone with her father.’
Frank was in bed before the British Bulldog players returned. They were noisy enough but too bruised and tired to be rowdy and there were no pranks or high jinks. The hut fairly swiftly settled down and soon the only sounds that came to his ears, as he lay awake wondering again whether he would die a virgin, were those of sleeping men and the distant rumble of the three-tonners.
Chapter Six
It was a week before he called again on the colonel, a week of low cloud, rain, poor visibility and inconclusive but dangerous daily missions. They did sweeps over northern France, giving the airfields a wide berth but concentrating on railway goods yards and military sites. In order to see, they were forced beneath the clouds, which meant they could report that German anti-aircraft defences were increasingly concentrated and effective. They lost another pilot – Alun, from Wales – and had several planes seriously damaged. The Luftwaffe made few appearances but Patrick and Frank shot up a long goods train of camouflaged tanks and guns outside Abbeville. Its three anti-aircraft platforms were taken by surprise because their approach was so low and fast, shielded by a road bridge which they almost clipped. The arthritic old engine, belching great gouts of smoke out of all proportion to its size, exploded gratifyingly.
‘Pity the crew were French,’ said Patrick afterwards. ‘If only they’d seen us coming they might have had time to jump off.’
During the following two nights Frank awoke sweating and shaking after dreaming of the red brick parapet of the road bridge leaping at him and filling his screen.
On the Sunday, after they had been stood down for the day, Frank had time to fish again. It was another day of low cloud and drizzle which never quite qualified as rain nor ever quite stopped but was silently, insistently dampening, as if the very air were breeding rain. The airfield windsock hung wet and limp.
‘Like a flaccid cock after a party,’ said the Dodger.
Roddy’s bike was still round the back of the hut where Frank had left it. The saddle was warped enough to hold water. He rubbed it down, tied his rod to the crossbar, slung his kitbag over his shoulder and set off along the airfield slip-road. Once through the barriers he had at first to follow the lane used by the convoy. It was clear now and he pedalled in a silence broken only by the regular tick of the Sturmey Archer in top gear until two Army one-tonners, Humber signals trucks bristling with aerials, drenched him by passing within inches of his handlebars as he rode through a large puddle. He heard someone laugh.
He returned to the spot where the colonel had found him. The long grass soaked his trousers but he didn’t mind once he was standing beneath the willows, hanging lower now because of the rain. The green solitude soaked into him, the river was opaque and the only sounds were dripping leaves and the hiss of rain on water. The cattle were nowhere to be seen. He cast and re-cast, giving himself over to the gentle mesmerism of the river with its ever-widening and ever-fading raindrop rings.
The trout surprised him when it took his fly. There was a lively struggle after that first and always thrilling tug on the line, but not a long one and he soon had it flapping on the grass at his feet. He despatched it with his priest, then knelt in the wet grass and held it with
both hands. It was no larger than the others but big enough for his purpose. He wrapped it in dock leaves and laid it carefully in the bottom of his kitbag, then washed his hands of its clear slime. It would have been better to have two but he didn’t want to delay.
This time he cycled up the drive, leaning his bike against the shed as before. The black car in the shed was, he now saw, a Bentley. Also as before, there was no swift response to his pull on the stiff iron bell-pull. He pulled again, provoking a muffled bark from within, and waited hopefully for the sounds of high heels on the parquet floor. There were no sounds but after a few seconds the door opened abruptly.
Vanessa’s smile switched on immediately. ‘Frank, what a nice surprise.’ She looked at the dead fish he was holding, wrapped in dock leaves. ‘What have you got there? Just the one today?’
‘’Fraid so. Just thought I’d leave it with you.’ He noticed she had flat-soled shoes this time, with tweed skirt, blouse and cardigan.
‘That’ll never do. You must taste your own catch. The colonel will be delighted. Come in.’ She stood back, looking him up and down. ‘Lord, how wet you are. Did you have to jump into the river after it?’
‘I guess it’s wetter than it looks out there.’
‘Always wetter on a bike, anyway, isn’t it? Let me have your cap and jacket. I’ll put them by the stove. Give me the fish first.’
‘My shoes are soaking. Shall I—?’
‘They’re all right, just wipe them. Come through to the kitchen.’
She took the trout and led him across the hall and through a door behind the stairs. The kitchen was large and high. Everything in it looked old and well-worn but it was tidy. There was a large black range at one end and a scrubbed deal table with odd chairs in the middle. A floor-to-ceiling dresser, full of crockery, occupied half of one wall. Tinker, the blind spaniel, got up slowly from the rug before the range and resumed his devoted sniffing of Frank’s trousers. She carried the trout into the scullery at one side, saying over her shoulder, ‘Put your things on the rack above the oven. Not on it – it’s too hot.’
She still made him feel a generation younger. He lowered the rack and draped his battledress jacket on it, hanging his cap on the end. At least he knew his blue RAF-issue shirt was clean.
She slit and sluiced the trout with brisk efficiency in the shallow stone sink. ‘Your trousers look pretty well soaked too but I suppose you’d better keep them on.’ This time her smile showed her crooked and overlapping eye-teeth. But at least they were clean and there were plenty of them, unlike the girl in Paddington.
He smiled back. ‘I guess so.’
‘You see that bell on the window ledge? If you open the door and step outside and ring it a couple of times he’ll probably hear it. He’s a bit deaf, so give it a vigorous shake.’
It was an old hand-bell, the sort used by teachers in the junior school playground back home. He stepped out onto the long wide lawn, bordered at the end by shrubbery and six tall elms and at the sides by high brick walls. At the bottom there were a couple of sheds and a greenhouse with rain running off it. He stood on the brick path and rang the bell vigorously. Rooks started up from the elms, cawing, and a small bird darted from the bush near his feet. The ringing faded, leaving only the rain.
‘I should come back in if I were you,’ she called. ‘He’s probably in the potting shed. He’ll come in a minute. Unless you like standing in the rain.’
He came back into the kitchen. ‘I didn’t mean to impose myself on you for dinner.’ It was unconvincing even to his own ears.
She paused at the sink, holding the gutted fish. ‘Of course you must stay. The colonel will be delighted. We see little enough company now as it is.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Unless we’re too boring for you?’
It was the reassurance he sought but he couldn’t resist continuing. ‘No, no, really, it’s just that – well, one trout isn’t much to go round and I don’t want to eat into your rations. Especially as I can eat all I like back at base.’
‘So long as you don’t mind trout with rabbit. We get lots of rabbits and masses of stuff from the garden. There’s a large vegetable garden beyond the wall. Too much, in fact, especially since Matthew, our gardener, was called up. Have to do it all ourselves now. Though quite what Matthew contributes to the defence of the realm it’s hard to imagine. He was the slowest worker I’ve ever seen and much too nice to kill anyone.’ She laughed as she washed her hands. ‘Why don’t you go down and fetch him? He should have heard but he doesn’t always and he often dithers. Take that coat.’
She nodded at an old brown raincoat hanging from the kitchen door. He noticed her teeth again and wondered whether he would ever be able not to notice them. In Canada people’s teeth were whiter and straighter.
He draped the coat over his shoulders. ‘My father’s a bit deaf, too. My stepfather, that is.’
She smiled again as she came towards him, drying her hands. ‘Oh, he’s not my father. And he’s not that deaf, either. Not very. It’s more that if he’s concentrating on something he doesn’t seem to notice anything else.’
‘I thought it was strange that you called your father the colonel. A bit formal. Thought it must be an English custom.’ He paused to give her the chance to say what their relation was but she hung up the towel and took three plates from the wooden rack over the sink.
‘Tell him I’m pouring drinks before dinner. That’ll bring him running.’
The greenhouse was long and very full, built as a lean-to against the wall. Beyond it was a black wooden shed with a single window and an open door through which Frank could smell the colonel’s pipe smoke, sweet and heavy in the saturated air. The colonel was seated on a high stool at a bench, wearing thick brown corduroys and a shapeless old tweed jacket, his blunt fingers pressing the earth around a plant in a large pot. His pipe – a straight one this time – was held between his teeth. His face looked redder and more wrinkled than Frank remembered, his blue eyes more rheumy. He looked up at Frank without surprise.
‘Ah. Welcome back. All in one piece?’
‘Guess so, sir.’ Frank tried briefly and not very hard to imagine the colonel and Vanessa making love. He didn’t like to picture it. But if she wasn’t his daughter, what else could she be? A niece? An orphaned goddaughter? Some sort of paid help?
The colonel pushed more soil into the pot. ‘Any luck today?’
‘One, not very big. I didn’t intend to invite myself to dinner but Vanessa—’
‘Of course you must, of course. You don’t need to bring anything, anyway.’
‘It’ll go with the rabbit, she says.’
‘No shortage of rabbits around here.’ He took his time, breathing loudly through his nose as he pressed compost in with a small trowel. The rain drummed on the shed roof. ‘Been busy?’
‘Here and there, nothing major. Poor flying weather. Vanessa’s just pouring drinks before dinner.’
‘Suppose you have to go low, don’t you, under this cloud? Forces you into the flak. Very unpleasant.’
‘Livens things up a bit, that’s for sure.’
The colonel eased himself off the stool, wiping his hands on his corduroys. ‘Couldn’t lift it down for me, could you? Put it with the others outside the door. Damned heavy when they’re full, these big ones, and my shoulder’s been playing up.’
It was heavier than Frank anticipated but he managed to place it alongside four or five others without humiliation. ‘What is it?’
‘Box. Pretty hardy but needs a good start.’
An idea came to Frank. ‘Vanessa says you’ve lost your gardener?’
‘Matthew? Yes. Agreeable young chap. Old village family. Steady enough worker as long as you’re around to keep an eye on him. Sort of chap whose Army report would read, “Works well under supervision.” Don’t know how he’ll do in the regiment.’ He took his pipe from his mouth. ‘I served with his father, who was gassed at Ypres. Survived the war but his lungs were no good and he died abou
t ten years ago.’
They dined in the kitchen on casseroled rabbit and vegetables, preceded by the neatly-divided trout as an hors d’oeuvre. They had a bottle of claret with the rabbit. ‘Unpardonable extravagance in wartime,’ said the colonel as he poured. ‘Vanessa disapproves, of course, but she can’t argue when there’s a guest, can you, my dear?’ His blue eyes twinkled faintly. ‘Got the habit in France during the last show. Unable to drop it, no matter how hard I try. May as well drink what’s left of the cellar before a bomb lands on it. Another lesson from the last show.’
Vanessa smiled at the colonel and raised her eyebrows at Frank.
‘Are you still in touch with anyone from your old regiment?’ asked Frank.
‘One or two. Only fifteen of the originals who volunteered in 1914 came back. Out of eight hundred. Some have died since then, of course, like Matthew’s father. I was already in the Territorials and got drafted into the eighth battalion early on so I count as an original.’
‘I guess you had it worse than we do, all that hand-to-hand fighting.’
The colonel chewed slowly. ‘Not necessarily. Your war ain’t over yet, remember. When it is, go back through your squadron records and see what your casualty rate was. You may be unpleasantly surprised.’
‘So long as I’m around to do it.’
‘I’m sure you will be.’ Vanessa took his empty plate and put it noisily on hers. The colonel hurried to finish his. When Frank made to get up to help she waved him down. ‘Don’t, this is my job. No cheese today, I’m afraid, but there is tea or coffee. What passes for coffee, anyway.’
She ran water into the sink and put the plates in to soak. Then she put the kettle on the stove and set out three coffees. ‘If you’ll both excuse me, I’ll take mine upstairs.’
Her briskness felt like disapproval but Frank couldn’t think what he’d done to merit it. It was almost a disease, this English habit of not saying what you thought. It was impossible to know how to respond. As she left the room he rose from the table but she swept out without noticing. The colonel seemed unperturbed, his spaniel features blandly unknowing, or perhaps unacknowledging. He took his pipe and tobacco pouch from the dresser and fished unhurriedly in his corduroys pocket for a battered lighter that looked as if it was made of brass.
