by Thomas Wood
“About twenty minutes or so, I suppose.”
I stood there awkwardly while the exchange continued, the girl looking over at me a number of times, as if she was expecting me to pull him off her. She knew what was coming.
“Excellent. Excellent. Maybe we could try that out after, Johnny? Hang on a minute, why don’t you come with us? You’ll be able to show us where it is.”
The girl smiled politely, “No, thank you. I don’t really mix well with your sort.”
“Your sort…”
“Come on then, Mike,” I interrupted, about thirty seconds too late, “let’s go and see this Major, shall we?”
I smiled apologetically at the girl as I walked past, with the kind of face that said, “I really am so sorry about him.”
With a slight smile in the corner of her mouth, her head bowed back down towards her desk, she continued rifling through the papers that she had been attending to earlier on.
“Your sort?” he repeated. “What did she mean by that?”
“Probably because you support West Ham, mate.”
“Oh, don’t remind me. I’ve been missing the football ever since it was suspended,” he had a moment of contemplation, as he thought back to all the games that he had witnessed down at the Boleyn Ground.
“Oh, come on,” I said, slapping him on the shoulder, “it can’t be all that bad. At least they’re not losing for one thing.”
“I’m sure they would give it a jolly good go at it, if they had half the chance.”
“What about the wartime league? You’ve got football there.”
“Not the same,” he muttered as we began to climb the stairs. “Standards are slipping all the time. Games called off. Not enough players to really call a team. That reminds me, I heard that Terry Woodgate joined up not that long ago. That’s another of our regulars gone.”
“I hope they all make it home.”
“Me too. Come to think of it, I hope I make it home too,” he chuckled softly as we climbed the stairs, getting to the second floor.
There was another girl, at another desk, not as pretty as the one before, but still pleasant enough. It seemed, though, that Mike had had his fingers well and truly burnt. He wasn’t going to be trying again in this building. Especially when there was half a chance that none of them mixed with ‘our sort.’
After words were exchanged with her, we were shown to a door. I had always imagined that majors and the like hid behind larger doors than the one we were presented with, far grander and more imposing than the dark oak, but otherwise rather plain door.
“Major Hubbard,” announced the girl. “Flying Officers Hope and Parker, Sir.”
“Ah, yes,” breathed the Major, in the kind of throaty way that only a member of the upper class can do. “Gentlemen, please come in. Come in.”
He clicked the lid of a pen back into its housing and stood up, as we both offered him a salute, which was only returned in the form of a handshake.
“Gents, I hope you don’t mind my brevity, but I’d rather like to get straight to the point of this meeting. I have quite a few people that I am due to see over the next few hours. Please, take a seat.”
We perched ourselves on the green leather chairs that awaited us on the opposite side of the desk to the Major.
“Hope and Parker. Hope and Parker,” he muttered to himself, a couple of times, before sliding two files from the mountain that he had stockpiled on his desk. There were so many there, the tower slowly teetering to one side, that I anticipated he had half the files that the British military kept on its personnel.
He clicked his tongue a few times as he perused our files, reminding himself of our service record and whatever else might be stored in one of those things. I had never had the fortune to look inside one.
Mike and I both sat stony-faced, arms on laps and ready for a dressing down in front of the headmaster. He had seemed friendly enough as we had been welcomed in, but even the nicest of men could turn into the ugliest at the drop of a hat.
“Michael Hope.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Born 1917. Educated at St John’s College Cambridge, studying history, art and architecture. Represented your college in rugby, cricket and football. You’re quite the sportsman,” remarked the Major, switching the files in front of him, presumably to my own.
“Flying Officer John Parker. Also born in 1917. Also educated at St John’s studying English and French Literature. You too represented St John’s in cricket and football. Did you not fancy playing ruggers?”
“Not quite my scene, Sir.”
“Fair enough. Of course, I am an Oxford man myself. But I won’t hold that against you. From what I have heard you two have an exemplary record. Quite the fliers so I’m told.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
He shuffled around, drawing a pipe from under all the rubble of his desk. He stood up for a moment, to get a bird’s eye view of the worktop, before catching sight of his target.
He shook the little box of matches around in front of us, “There they are.”
He took his time lighting it, before turning to the two, very confused men who sat before him.
“Now I suppose you’re both wondering why you are here. There’s nothing to worry about, I can assure you. I just wanted to ask you a few questions. I hope that is okay with you?”
He angled his speech upwards, as if it was a genuine question, but we had both been around these types of men before, and knew full well that his question was, in actual fact, a statement.
It would have been far more pertinent to have said, “I am going to ask you a few questions. Whether you like it or not.”
The Major walked to the window located behind his desk, which allowed both Mike and I to exchange a confused look with one another.
“Now, Parker. Judging by the fact that you are studying French literature, am I right in presuming that you can speak French?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“How good are you?”
“I spent many summers over there, Sir. When I was a youngster.”
“Alors, es-tu bon?” he asked, turning to me.
“Yes, Sir. I’d like to think that I am rather good.”
He broke out into a wry smile, one that seemed to tell me that he had found exactly what it was that he had been looking for. I was not entirely sure if being one of his chosen ones was a matter for elation or a cause for concern.
“Any other languages?”
“A bit of German, Sir. Enough to get by.”
“And you, Hope. You are something of an artist, I gather. You spent time in France recently, I believe.”
“Yes, Sir. In Paris. At the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts school.”
“Never heard of it myself…But then again, my drawing is no better than a child’s. How long were you there?”
“Six months, Sir.”
“Good. Good.”
We had been in the office for about a quarter of an hour now, and although we had been there on the promise of brevity, we were still no clearer as to our purpose for being there.
“Sir, what’s this all about?”
“We are looking for good chaps like you. Who have spent time in France recently and understand the culture. Translation work mainly. You’ll find out more soon enough. I’d like you to report to one of our preliminary schools in Sussex. June will give you all the details on your way out.”
“Our schools, Sir?” Mike enquired, as the same thought had rushed to my mind at the word choice.
“Yes. All will be revealed to you in good time gents. As I said, you have nothing to worry about. Right then, off you go. Don’t forget to see June.”
We got up to leave, saluting the man who already had started to brief himself on the next visitors that he would perplex.
“Oh, just one other thing,” the Major piped up as we reached the door. “What were you doing in Cornwall, Parker?”
“I was resting, Sir.”
; “In a funk hole?”
“That was not my purpose for being there, Sir. I was trying to adapt to how my life would be now.”
“Yes, I read about that in your file. A tragedy. I’m most terribly sorry—”
“It does not matter now, Sir. It is done. Nothing I can do about it now.”
We left the room without so much of another word, but I had been ruffled by his closing comments to me. I really did hate it when people kept trying to bring that situation back into my mind, especially after I had tried so hard to forget it.
6
As I walked through the creaking doors of the Hertford Arms, I couldn’t help but wonder if Mike had had another go at trying to chat up the young woman who had recommended the pub to us in the first place.
I quickly ran my eyes over the pub, which didn’t take me too long, as it was only a small one, not the kind of pub that I was used to frequenting at all. The bar rang the length of the establishment, curving into an oval at the edges to lead to some back rooms. Around the perimeter was a mixture of old, stained-glass adorned booths and some rickety looking tables, the kind that looked far too unsteady to trust a pint on top of it.
But Mike, the kind of chap that would trust Herr Hitler with his grandmother’s life, was sat in the corner patiently, two pints wobbling precariously on the tabletop.
“Hello Johnny. Over here, I’ve got one in for you already!”
He was sat in all his finery, as Flying Officer Hope and, all in all, he looked quite dashing as he sat quietly in the pub, all alone. But there wasn’t a single woman around to take him in, not even a schoolboy ready and waiting to be regaled by his daring adventures in the sky. The whole place, save one stool that occupied a haggard old man, was barren.
“Was that girl having us on when she recommended this place?”
He chuckled slyly, as we both lifted our pints to our lips in unison, as I was frightfully nervous that an imbalance on one side of the table would send the whole thing sloshing into my lap.
“Not sure, really. But we’ll find out soon enough. I’m meeting her here later on.”
I looked up at him, the darkened features of his face suddenly illuminated in jubilation and triumph.
“You managed to wear the poor thing down then?”
“Oh yes,” he replied, “I always do, don’t I?”
He did, somehow. He was never particularly confident, there was some sort of deep-seated discomfort that rumbled in the pit of his stomach, but as soon as he was around a woman, especially a pretty one, everything seemed to ebb away.
I supposed that it had something to do with his own looks, not handsome in the conventional sense but handsome enough. His dark wavy hair, which was slicked back with enough Brylcreem to drown a whale, revealed a small forehead, which seemed almost inadequate for the size of his head.
His eyes were set back and dark, his face a maze of shadows and crevices. Everything, upon first glance, would hint at a deadly serious man, one of such severity that you daren’t look at him for too long, in case he captured your soul. But in actuality, that couldn’t have been further from the truth, which is why he caught the attention of so many women.
The way that his darkened face would suddenly explode into a wide-eyed and toothy grin was enough to perplex anyone and, if he held their attention for long enough, they would be trapped.
“So, come on then. What did Hubbard want with you this time?”
I took another sip of the warm beer in front of me, still far nicer than anything I tried down at Telwyn farm, as I mulled over the second appointment that I had with Major Hubbard, the man who had mysteriously summoned us just over a week before.
I tried to formulate something for him but, for the life of me, I could not think about what had happened.
Hubbard had hardly revealed anything to me whatsoever as to what our involvement in his little project might have been, but instead simply chatted to me, about my life, about my time in Hurricanes and my family.
“Still not quite sure, Mike. He asked me the same old questions. This time with a lot more French involved. He tried me in Italian and German as well.”
“Didn’t know you dabbled in those languages too, old fruit.”
“I don’t. Not really anyway. Enough to ask for a coffee and the way to the train station, but that’s about it.”
“That’s more than me anyway.”
“I think interpretive work is where we’re headed, you know.”
Mike disagreed as he mustered a grunting noise as he took an over-exuberant sip from his glass. It took one painful swallow before he could explain himself.
“If it was interpretive work,” he mumbled, lowering his voice so that the haggard man at the bar couldn’t hear a single syllable, “then why was he asking me so much about my art school?”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. He asked me to draw what I could remember of the school. The grounds, the rooms, anything that I could recall of it. Wanted me to draw it all from memory.”
“But you were there years ago.”
“Exactly. And the place is bigger than Buckingham Palace. I’m certain of it. I was only there for a short while. Not exactly long enough to learn the blueprints of the place.”
“So, how did it go?”
He pulled a face that told me he thought he had done far better than he was expecting.
“A few rooms were probably out of proportion. But all in all, a damn fine effort.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, staring towards the bottom of our glasses and wishing that we were somewhere else. For me, it was back with all the others at 249 Squadron, who I had not seen in some time now. For Mike, I was certain that it was back at the front desk of Major Hubbard’s office, chatting to the young woman that he would shortly be meeting.
After what felt like an eternity of deafening silence, Mike spoke.
“I dreamt about Teddy Higgins last night. Actually, every night really. Since it happened.”
Instinctively, I rolled my neck around, a satisfying pop happening just after a half-roll. It was something that had plagued me for many months now, a result of constantly checking all around the skies for that faint black dot that we were aiming to intercept.
Now, all it did was cause me pain, that needed to be relieved every now and then, my chosen times to do so frequently being when I felt grotesquely uncomfortable or wary.
“You shouldn’t dwell on it so much. These things have a habit of lingering around. They make you question what you could have done.”
“I’m sure I could have done something.”
“Like what, Mike? You were fifteen thousand feet in the air. You could hardly hop out and catch him.”
“I know. I know. But I could have stopped him from getting hit like that.”
“Mike, listen to me. This is a war we’re in. People have died and will continue to do so. In all likelihood we’ll snuff it soon enough. Do you reckon the other lads will dwell on you so much?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“They have a job to do, Mike. It’s only because you’re off ops at the moment that is making you think like this.”
It hurt me to talk to him in such a forceful manner, but it was exactly what I needed to hear myself. No one would linger on my own demise for a moment longer than they needed to. They would have a beer in my name and be back up in the skies the very next day. That was just how it went in this war.
But every now and then, someone stuck in your mind. Someone lingered for an hour or two longer than they should have done. But it was those that would have you spiralling out of control at fifteen thousand feet, with hot oil bubbling out all over you. They were the ones that could make you lose your focus.
“Want another?” I nodded my head towards his empty glass, before swiping it up in my grasp and getting it refilled.
As I headed back towards the table, I caught sight of the young lady that had greeted us on our arrival at Major Hubbard’s offices. I wa
s both surprised and pleased to see her there, standing on the other side of the street, waiting for a bus to pass by before skipping across the road. I hated the thought of Mike sitting in the pub on his own, waiting for his date that would never arrive.
I plonked the drinks down on the table, rather too hard as the legs began rattling on the uneven floor.
“I better drink mine nice and quick.”
“Why’s that?”
“Your girl is here, that’s why.”
“Aren’t you staying?”
“You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? Why on earth would I want to stay? I find it uncomfortable enough just watching you talk to them, never mind sharing a drink too.”
“Fair enough.”
I took a large sip from my glass, without sitting down, as I watched the girl daintily make her way towards the doors of the Hertford Arms.
“Here, you take the rest.”
“What? No, she’ll think I’m addicted to the stuff.”
“Just tell her you’re thirsty. Good luck, Mike.”
As I spun on my heel, I suddenly remembered one of the questions that had been burning a hole in my mind for the whole journey to the pub, but it was one that I had completely neglected in my conversation with Mike.
I glanced at the girl, whose arm was now slightly outstretched and reaching for the door. For a brief moment, I thought about abandoning the question altogether, in case she was to report back to Major Hubbard that we had broken his rule of silence.
“Mike,” I gasped as I dashed back to the table, sloshing some of his two pints over the surface. “Do you know any Morse code?”
“I did a signals course some years ago. When my father wanted me in the Navy. But it was a long time ago now. Then of course when I did flight training, but I wasn’t great at it. Why’s that?”
“Just something our friend said to me earlier on. Thought that it was a bit strange.”
His face looked puzzled for a moment before he locked eyes with his new accomplice, at which point his darkened face began to shine like a beacon.
“Hello.”
“Sorry, I was just leaving.”
“Oh, please don’t leave on my account, Flying Officer Parker.”
