by Peter Rimmer
“Well go and get the story and try not to get yourself killed.” Matt Vogel was editor of the Colorado Telegraph and what he said was law. They could argue but what he said, in the end, was law. So Glen had sulked.
“You want the real reason, Glen Hamilton? The real, real reason why we are going to kill a whole bunch of young American boys that I hope very much won’t include you? Money. It’s the money. If the British and French don’t win the war we don’t get our money back. Fact is, if the Royal Navy had not been there to stop us, we might have shipped the war materiel to Germany and Austria. Then they would have owed us money and we’d have gone in there to fight the British and French. Every war in history has been about money. Whatever they say about right and wrong and going to war with God on our side. They’re talking shit. Never been any damn difference since man came out of the primal slime. After this war, if we get our money, we’ll be the richest damn nation on earth. We didn’t bleed none up to now. And that was smart. They’ll put you in the army. In uniform. A captain. So off you go and get the money, Captain Hamilton. That’s where our interests lie.”
“It can’t be that poor.”
“Oh yes, it can.”
He was a journalist attached to British Military Headquarters, where his job was to interview the British liaison officers who had been pulled out of the front line to tell the Americans how to fight a trench war. It was Harry Brigandshaw’s unnerving stare that first gave him the shivers.
“You don’t talk like the other officers. Are you Australian?”
“No, a Rhodesian.”
“Where’s that?”
“A little jewel of a country in south-central Africa. I’m a farmer. My brother was killed so I came over. Revenge sounded good six thousand miles away.”
“You did all right, sir.”
“But they didn’t, Captain. Every man I killed could just as easily been my friend. And none of this ‘sir’ business in the mess. Chances are we’re the same age. Both colonials but you won’t admit to it. All the product of mother England, who was a product of mother Germany, if you include Saxony, who was a product of I don’t know where. Or like my friend over there, Merlin St Clair, a product of mother Normandy which is now a province of France… You must have a lot of factories in America. I flew over the product. If the Germans could see what you’ve sent they’d give up now.”
“But they won’t.”
“No. Not yet. Now it’s pride. Desperation. Hatred… And please don’t try and interview me for your newspaper. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“How did you survive?”
“My father was a white hunter. One of the best. He talked to me when I was alone in the air. He is dead, you see. Killed by an elephant.”
“Can you talk about Africa? The bush, I think you call it.”
“Anytime.”
“Do you still hunt?”
“Only for food. And once for revenge. I have a friend at home who believed in revenge. The British hanged his father for going out with the Boers. His father was a Boer but lived in the British Cape. We sowed the seeds of hatred, as we are all doing so well right now.”
“I’d like to visit Africa.”
“Maybe you shall. After the war.”
“Can I visit with you?”
“Everyone is welcome at Elephant Walk.”
“What’s Elephant Walk?”
“My farm.”
“What squadron were you in?”
“I said no interviews, Mister?”
“Glen Hamilton. Denver. Colorado.”
“How d’you do? Now, will you excuse me?”
“You knew Colonel Braithwaite.” Glen Hamilton knew perfectly well Harry was 33 Squadron.
“He was a great pilot. An officer and a gentleman. Sadly missed.”
“He’s alive. They’ve got him in an asylum. Did you know?”
“Colonel Braithwaite was shot down by ground fire. Rifle fire to be exact. He was dead at the controls when the aircraft crashed. His plane was positively identified by a British corporal who had more than once identified the individual markings of the CO of 33 Squadron. I had hoped he would have been awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously. It is the only decoration we have that can be awarded to a dead man.”
“You were at Oxford with him.”
“Yes. That’s common knowledge. Why he had me posted to 33 Squadron.”
“And you knew his fiancée who died as a nurse in the same German advance.”
“Sara was a lovely girl. I’ll buy you a drink in the mess if you stop trying to interview me. You are trying to make a story out of nothing. Why ask me my squadron when you knew perfectly well?”
“You were there when he shot her.”
“Where are you trying to go, Mr Hamilton?”
“I’ll have that drink… Research. Not for my newspaper. Every journalist is a frustrated novelist. The policeman talked in a pub. Said he had a good idea for a book he was going to write after the war and because he can’t write he told me. The truth is always crazier than fiction.”
“I’ll ask you one thing now. Keep your mouth shut. When the war’s over, come to Elephant Walk. Men and women do things in a war they would not do otherwise. Quite frankly, Mervyn was as mad as a hatter. But a great pilot, who trained many other great pilots. If your personal greed for sensation writes such a story you are as sick as Mervyn Braithwaite.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Good. And British policemen don’t write books. Or think about writing them. There is an Official Secrets Act… Now, the drink. And there is Merlin. Fighting a war from a forty-bedroom French château is absurd,” Harry said looking around at the luxury. “And there is Jack Merryweather.”
“You British all seem to know each other.”
“The ruling class, I’m afraid, are a small brotherhood. My grandfather is a baronet from the days of William the Conqueror. As is Merlin’s father, though his father is a baron. His eldest brother and heir to the barony was killed in action yesterday. His sister Lucinda’s fiancé was killed. His sister Genevieve’s father-in-law and husband were killed within days of each other. They were both in the same regiment… This great château with all its finery and regimental silver, its fine wines from old cellars, its permanent dance of good manners, all this is the product of the upper classes, who have ruled England and the empire for a thousand years. This last pirouette in such fine surroundings is the end of them, for better or for worse. Probably some good will come out of it. I don’t know. But please, Glen Hamilton, let our skeletons rest in their cupboards in peace.”
“What are you going to do after the war?”
“I’m going home. To peace. To solitude. To the sound of the bush. To the most wonderful place in the world to live. Africa… Merlin, come and meet an American. He’ll want to interview you but say no.”
The next day Merlin went forward with an American major as far as the reserve lines. They were shelled the day after and the major asked to be taken back to the château. After that, no one asked to go out to the front before he was sent. They sat at tables explaining everything to do with war. How to set up a machine gun. How to draw the lines of fire. The only thing Merlin could not teach them was how to stay alive.
Three weeks later the major was killed in the first American offensive on that part of the front. By then Merlin could not remember his face. There had been so many of them, so eager to learn.
The one permanent American was Glen Hamilton, the American newspaperman from Denver, Colorado. Harry had avoided him after that first drink. Then his leave came up at the same time as Merlin’s and they arranged to go to Purbeck Manor together. By then the Allies were advancing right across the Western Front. Like the Battle of Waterloo, when the Prussians had come to help the British at the end of the battle, the American intervention was too much for the Germans. The irony was not lost on Harry.
Merlin was going to be home for Christmas. Glen Hamilton had been away from America for s
ix months. The Colorado Telegraph wanted him to go to London to interview senior British generals at the War Office. Merlin asked him down to Purbeck Manor for Christmas. Merlin wanted Glen to read the book just finished by his brother Robert. The family wanted an opinion from a professional before the manuscript was sent to a publisher, to save any embarrassment. Had it not been for the small boy born to Penelope, he would have been heir to the barony. In her letter, his mother had written that everyone except Barnaby would be home for Christmas. The sergeant married to his sister had been badly gassed and was out of the war. Merlin wondered if he was going to get back his ten pounds. Not that it mattered anymore. With luck, Harry would propose to Lucinda, and one of the girls would have a life and a fully functional husband. Barnaby was now in Syria with General Allenby.
Glen Hamilton had never intended to write a novel. And war stories sent back with hundreds of other American journalists were not going to get noticed. Not going to make him famous. He was a journalist who wanted a story no one else had, not a reporter of state news that was forgotten in twenty-four hours. Some in Denver called him a snooper but he never cared what other people said.
Matt Vogel would have called it luck but it wasn’t. He had been in London before the American army began pouring into Europe writing back potboilers for the Colorado Telegraph when he had the idea to write about the people who had fought the war so far and not the places and battles and tally up the dead. He wanted to put faces to the battles and the mangled remains strewn across France and Flanders, so he started asking questions. Going to the pubs the British so often frequented. Buying drinks. Looking for smashed up men who had a story to tell which was mostly all of them. He told the men he bought them drinks because of what he was doing. Looking for a character. Someone larger than life.
The sergeant mechanic was drunk, and like all drunks talked too much and regretted what he said in the morning. He had seen Colonel Braithwaite leave his Sopwith Triplane on the edge of the airfield and take the motorcycle. All the squadrons were in disarray and scattering in front of the German advance. When he read later his colonel was killed in his own aircraft he knew it was a lie. He also knew the CO was as mad as a March hare, along with everyone else at 33 Squadron. But the madman was good at keeping his young pilots alive and that was all that mattered in a war. That, and killing the enemy. The next day he regretted his indiscretion and hoped the American with the flush wallet was equally drunk. The sergeant had forgotten that right at the beginning, the American had said he was a journalist.
The American had got him reminiscing about the squadron. He was drunk by then and said with that drunken fondness that the CO was mad.
“How do you mean, mad?” Glen had asked. He was completely sober but acting drunk.
“The other pilots said when he killed he yelled at the top of his voice the same words over and over again.”
“What were the words?”
“‘I’m not a wet fish. And you’re dead.’ Don’t know what the word fish was about but the last bit was clear. We had a ground attack one day on the airfield. The CO was the only one to turn his plane at the end of the airfield to face the three German aeroplanes. Cool as a cucumber, our CO shot from still on the ground. The one Fritz died on impact, the second came out alive. The CO ran at him with his service revolver yelling the same words. Even I heard that day. If it wasn’t for Captain Brigandshaw who tackled the CO it would have been murder. Saw Captain Brigandshaw pick up the fallen pistol and put it in his pocket. I was looking out of one of the temporary hangars. They got Fritz off the station the same day, back to Blighty to go in the ‘cage’. The CO saved my life that day. Those three planes flying straight at me with their guns firing. The one broke off and got away. The CO shot the other two out of the sky. The officers’ mess was going to be next. More important to kill the pilots than smash up their aircraft on the ground. You can build a new aeroplane but you can’t build a new pilot so quickly. Those Germans knew just what they were doing.”
“What happened to the CO?”
“That’s the funny thing. The War Office said he was shot down by rifle fire. They recognised his squadron and personal markings. But he wasn’t. He scarpered on a motorcycle. Ran away. Then months later I was back on a week’s leave and having a pint in the pub on the Bayswater Road with a couple of squadron mates, and we were talking about the squadron and one of us mentioned Captain Brigandshaw too loud, and one of the locals came over. Said there’d been a murder on the Bayswater Road. The bloke was one of the crowd that had gathered. There was a dead girl on the steps and a man in flying gear on the ground with a crutch pressed into his throat. The local heard the copper take the names. One of ’em was Brigandshaw and the man the copper arrested was Braithwaite. A few days after I’d seen the CO leave his aircraft and the girl was killed, the colonel was reported killed in action.”
Knowing when to stop when he was onto a good thing, Glen Hamilton bought the sergeant another drink and left.
Finding the police officer in the Holland Park police station who took down statements was easy. He confirmed Harry Brigandshaw and Lucinda St Clair had seen the girl killed. Gave him the name of the dead girl. Then told him to go to the War Office to find out what happened to Mr Braithwaite. The policeman was quite open, even talkative. The War Office was not. They said they knew nothing about a murder on Bayswater Road.
“They should have done,” said the friendly policeman on Glen’s second visit. “When the army took the poor sod away from the station he was still yelling, ‘I’m not a wet fish. And you’re dead.’ Bloody bonkers. The army was welcome to him. And there’s more to it, I would think. The dead girl was engaged to Braithwaite and she had visited Brigandshaw in Africa. All in the statements. The dead girl had called Brigandshaw in a panic. The army told us to drop the case. We do what we are told.”
Glen Hamilton’s deliberate lie to Harry Brigandshaw about the hearsay of the policeman was to keep up the charade of writing a novel. The invitation to Purbeck Manor was a bonus. He would ask Merlin’s sister out of the blue what she knew about the killing of Sara Wentworth. Once he found out where they had hidden the flying ace, he would break the whole gory story right across the world. He would be syndicated. He would be famous. And to hell with the British and their upper class. The sheer bloody cheek of Harry Brigandshaw, to call him a colonel made him want to spit. He was an American… He had his story. To hell with them. The fact he was accepting hospitality for Christmas under false pretences never crossed his mind. Or the fact that he was going to fall in love with Lucinda St Clair.
For Granny Forrester, there was nothing to celebrate except Christmas. She had helped to tuck sprigs of holly behind the old pictures that littered the house. Most were dark faces of the ancient dead, nameless and sometimes crashing down from the old walls, to be put back with a renewed screw or another length of picture wire. They were found in the mornings, fallen on the stairs, or ready to be trodden on down the dark damp corridor, waiting for help. Some were grime-covered pictures of lifelong dead. Fox hunts with splashes of red coats. Men with feathered hats and old guns. Landscapes. Seascapes. Horses. Dogs. And no one knew the painters’ names or cleaned away the grime of centuries. She had the feeling they were all about to take their last bow, finally swept away by war and poverty. Not that any of it mattered. When the old died, a picture here or there made no difference to their death. Memories faded like the pictures.
The child, of course, was not a St Clair or any of her family but they would see. The boy was only six months old. Richard. Richard to replace the idiot Richard. She thought, whenever looking at him silently as was her wont, that the father had Turkish, Moorish blood. The knowing eyes that fixed on her own were coal-black and mocking. The hair was curly dark. No one had ever found coal-black eyes in a family portrait, despite the soot of years. Of course, no one mentioned it. Rather fitting. The end of the old. The beginning of something new. Maybe that was it. But she was rich, Penelope, and that was al
l that mattered in the world. Poor Frederick. Poor Penelope. Damn the war, and all the wars before them, and the wars to come!
She wore mittens on her hands, and two pairs of woollen socks on her feet and the chilblains burnt, as did most of the joints in her old body, that once had had so much promise. The draughts came at her from under every door in the old house. Sitting in front of the fire was warm in front but cold at her back. She quietly wondered if she would make it through the winter. Not that it mattered. She had had her life. A good one. A few good years with Potts. Watching the children. Helping her daughter. There was always a time to die, and though she tried to believe her Christian religion, she was never quite sure. The idea of heaven was good and comforting. The idea of seeing Potts again was wonderful. She didn’t really believe it. Earthly words for deathly comfort. As much comfort for the living left behind and waiting their turns of life… None of it really mattered. The earth would take her bones. If her soul floated away, what would it do on its own? Could souls recognise each other? Live together for all eternity? And where? And why? And what would be the purpose?… She would have this Christmas, and then wait to find out… She never spoke to the others. They had their problems, the only ones that mattered to them, and those she tried to help them solve. Her own problems were never important to other people.
She had never met an American before and doubted if she ever would again. And there was a problem she could see with her old and rheumy eyes. Poor Lucinda. Trying so hard with the nice young man from Africa she had wanted from a child and briefly had. The American wanting her and Harry lost in a world he would never escape. She caught him often staring into space. Seeing none of them. Remembering… She hoped the distance of Africa would bring him comfort. Strangely, she was sure the tension between the two men had nothing to do with her granddaughter… She was going to celebrate Christmas and hope for the best, in the here and now. Barnaby was safe in Damascus. Her Barnaby. Then she smiled to herself. She would have to live through the cold of winter to see him back again. The American had said they would win the war in 1918.
