‘Familiar territory to you, I suppose, sir,’ Colonel Rostron observed.
‘I seemed to recognize one or two villages,’ Murdoch agreed. ‘But the scenery is different.’ He looked out of the window of Rostron’s farmhouse — where was Madame Bosnet? he wondered — at rows and rows of medium tanks instead of rows and rows of horses.
‘Yes,’ Rostron agreed. ‘I tell you what, Sir Murdoch, war has become a damned sight more noisy since the last time.’
Murdoch lunched with Fergus and Ian, and managed to have a word in private with his eldest son. ‘How are things going?’
‘Couldn’t be better.’
‘Honestly?’
‘Honestly, Dad. We only had a week together, of course. I wish it could’ve been more. But I have never been so happy. Or let’s say, I will never be so happy as when I get home again.’
Maybe I was imagining things, Murdoch thought thankfully, and went on down to Paris to see Harry.
Who was packing up.
‘Well, thank God for that,’ Murdoch said. ‘I’m afraid, having rejected Sandhurst, you’ll have to start at the bottom. But in view of your name I have no doubt at all you’ll be commissioned in six months.’
‘Dad,’ Harry said, ‘I’m not going to England.’
‘Not going...then where the devil are you going?’
‘I’m going back to the States.’
‘The States? Now?’
‘Yes. My novel is going to be published over there, and the agent says it’ll be good for my career to be on the spot.’
‘Harry,’ Murdoch said, as patiently as he could. ‘There happens to be a war on. Hadn’t you realized that?’
‘Of course I had, Dad. That’s another reason I’m getting out. I don’t want any part of it.’
Murdoch stared at him. ‘Your brothers, your brother-in-law, our country is part of it.’
‘I respect that, Dad. But I think you are wrong.’
‘You think we are wrong to oppose Nazi Germany? You’ve heard what Anna had to say.’
‘I heard. Anna is a somewhat hysterical young woman, in my opinion. But even if everything she said was true, I do not see how we are going to make matters better by killing people. Or by being killed ourselves.’
‘I cannot believe it.’ Murdoch said. ‘I do not believe it.’
‘I’m sorry, Dad.’ Harry attempted a smile. ‘Call me a coward, if you like.’
‘Yes,’ Murdoch said, finally losing his temper. ‘If you won’t fight for your King and Country, there is nothing else I can call you.’
Harry’s face stiffened. ‘Well, then, that’s that. If you don’t mind, I have another dinner engagement.’
‘But I suppose you want me to pay your passage across the Atlantic.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Harry said. ‘Mother has already done so.’
‘Mother? Lee knows about this?’
‘Mom approves,’ Harry said. ‘She thinks fighting a war is crazy, too.’
*
‘What are you doing tonight, Jennie?’ Murdoch asked as he got into the back seat of the command car.
‘I’m for an early night, sir,’ she said. ‘It’s a long drive back tomorrow.’
‘Bugger that,’ he said. ‘Come with me to a show. You’ve no objection to nudity, I hope?’
‘Well...I suppose not, sir.’
‘Right. Do you have a dress?’
‘Well...no, sir.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem.’ They were driving down the Champs Elysées. ‘Those shops are still open. Pull in.’
She obeyed, got out to open his door, frowning at him. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ She hadn’t previously inquired into his meeting with his son.
‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘I have never been so God damned angry in my life. But I also happen to feel like taking a pretty woman out to dinner. Any objections, Private?’
Jennie hesitated. Then she said, ‘No, sir.’
He took her into a dress shop and bought her a white georgette evening gown with wine-coloured lace trimmings and velvet sash. ‘Oh, Sir Murdoch,’ she said. ‘I have never owned anything so lovely in my life.’
‘Handbag and shoes,’ he said. ‘Now there’s just time to have your hair done. There’s a salon at the hotel. We’ll eat at the show.’
‘Sir Murdoch,’ she said, ‘are you sure...well, that Lee would approve?’
‘Lee,’ he said savagely, ‘approves of everything. She has told me so. And Jennie, once you take off that uniform, you can start calling me Murdoch.’
He had a bath, shaved, and dressed; he was staying in uniform. Then he went down to the hotel bar and had a stiff scotch. He did not recall ever having been so disturbed in his life, so questioning of all the values he had ever held and maintained. Life had always been a simple matter, for Murdoch Mackinder, holder of a famous name. One did one’s duty, without looking to right or left, without accepting the possibility of death, sure that if one did die, one’s reputation would remain, like the scent of a woman’s perfume, to remind others that one had passed that way.
He had always accepted nothing less from anyone else, certainly all the members of his own family. Now he felt he had been stabbed in the back. Not least by Lee herself. He loved her. He had never loved anyone else, since Margriet. And he did not doubt that she loved him. But she had a different sense of values. He had known that when they married, but had felt that her values had merged with his during the war. Now he thought that perhaps they never had.
He gazed at the door, and Jennie Manly-Smith standing there. ‘You look quite gorgeous,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Sir Murdoch.’
He held up his finger, and she smiled. And flushed. ‘I have never called you Murdoch before.’
‘Well, enjoy yourself for tonight.’
He bought her a drink, and then they took a taxi to the Moulin Rouge. He asked her about her boys, during dinner.
‘Bert is in the army,’ she said. ‘With the Dragoons, remember?’
‘Of course. You must be very proud of him.’
‘Just so long as he doesn’t get his head shot off. Joe is only fifteen, of course, but he hopes to follow Bert.’ She smiled through her champagne. ‘We’re going to have a tradition like yours, Murdoch.’
‘Something to be proud of. Jennie...don’t have any more.’
She gazed at him. ‘I’m not likely to do that, Murdoch. I’m a widow.’
‘I meant, there’ll always be one rotten apple, if you go on long enough.’
‘Oh,’ she said, the penny suddenly sinking in.
‘Show’s starting,’ he said.
They spent three hours watching the bare-breasted young women, laughing at the comics, who were mainly visual as the management were well aware that at least half of their audience were English soldiers, and drinking champagne. There were three empty bottles on the table by the time they filed out to find their cab.
The hotel was blacked out, of course, and the bar was closed. ‘Oh, great,’ he said.
‘I don’t really feel like anything else, to drink,’ Jennie said.
The hesitation had been only a split second, but it had been enough to have them gazing at each other, as they stepped into the lift and the doors closed.
Jennie licked her lips. ‘I...when I was a little girl, I used to go up to Bath and watch the regiment drilling, or going over the jumps. I...’ another quick lick of the lips. ‘You were always there. You rode better than anyone else, and you looked better. I suppose you were better.’
Murdoch took her into his arms and kissed her on the mouth.
*
‘Are you going to tell Lee?’ she asked.
She lay against him, a brief white wisp of a woman. Her breasts were small, her hips were slender, her legs perhaps a trifle thin. But her passion was beautiful.
The odd thing was, he realized, that she could have been anyone. Anyone in the sense that there were others, such as Annaliese or her mother
, who would willingly have been here in Jennie’s place; and worse, anyone in the sense that had she not been here he would tonight have picked up a whore on the Champs Elysees. He had been in that kind of mood.
‘I think I have loved you, Murdoch, since I was six years old,’ she said.
He kissed her forehead, where it rested on his shoulder.
‘But I think I have loved Lee as well,’ she said. ‘I always envied her. Mrs Mackinder, Lady Mackinder...’
‘Do you envy her still?’
She smiled; her breath tickled the hairs on his chest. ‘More than ever. She has you every night.’ She was silent for a few moments, then she asked again, ‘Are you going to tell her?’
‘No. She wouldn’t want that.’
Another silence. Then she asked, ‘Are you going to have me transferred?’
‘Not unless you wish it.’
She raised her head, then rolled on to his stomach, enclosed him in those thin, strong legs. ‘I would hate it.’
They gazed at each other, and he kissed her again. ‘Then you’ll have to stay.’
*
‘Did you see Harry?’ Lee asked.
‘Yes,’ Murdoch said.
‘So, I guess you’re mad at me.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was very mad at you.’
She sighed. ‘I guess I’m a bit of a coward too, Murdoch.’
‘You are one of the bravest women I have ever met.’
‘But I’m still a woman. That means I’m a coward, where my children are concerned. I want at least one of them to survive this war, Murdoch.’
‘And Harry is your choice.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘They would all be my choice. Harry is the only one I can really hope for.’ She undressed and lay down, watched him pick up his book. ‘I guess you’re sated,’ she remarked.
He looked at her. ‘Does that make you mad at me?’
She gave a twisted smile. ‘Nope. Never mad at you, Murdoch Mackinder. I guess I had it coming.’ She kissed him on the forehead, and picked up her own book.
*
She knew what had happened, but had no idea it was Jennie, he was sure. And the honourable thing to have done would have been to send the girl away. But that would be to indicate her guilt; Lee was too smart not to be able to add two and two. Yet keeping her here seemed to enhance the cheat, especially as he knew he was going to cheat again, if Lee went away and Jennie stayed.
He wondered why he was so concerned. His Scots Calvinistic background, presumably. So he had a mistress, perhaps. He hardly knew a man of his age and position who didn’t have a mistress. Yet it bothered him, as that business in Mesopotamia had bothered him. And now, as then, he longed for action to relieve his internal tension.
But there was no action. On 1 November the Dutch Government pronounced a ‘state of siege’ which merely gave the military and the police increased powers but indicated no alteration in the strict policy of neutrality. However, ten days later the army was mobilized and moved to its frontier positions, and Murdoch was taken on a tour of the dykes and sluices and shown how the various dams were ready to be blown on a single command issued from military headquarters.
‘We feel,’ said his guide, ‘that if we make it perfectly plain to Hitler that we intend to fight for our neutrality, he will think several times about infringing that neutrality.’
Murdoch had to presume they were right. The western front remained in a state of total quiescence which the Americans were calling the Phoney War; it was not until 9 December that the first British soldier died in action, Corporal Thomas Priday of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry being shot while leading a patrol.
‘By 9 December 1914 we had already suffered fifty thousand casualties,’ Murdoch reminded Lee. ‘This is the damndest war I have ever heard of.’
‘And long may it remain so,’ she said. ‘Are we going to get home for Christmas?’
‘I don’t see any reason why not.’
Only a few days later there came the cheering news of the Battle of the River Plate, but England was none the less a gloomy place, with bacon and butter as well as petrol rationed. They spent the holiday with Philippa and Annaliese at Broad Acres, where they were joined by Helen, whose husband was at sea, and baby Murdoch, and also by Rosemary and Helen Phillips; Geoffrey had to remain in London. It was quite a jolly party, despite the restrictions and the blackout, because both Helen and Anna were able to announce that they were pregnant; Helen, indeed, was five months on the way. Lee was delighted. Rosemary was less so, as Harriet, much older than Helen, was not yet married.
‘A whole clutch of grandchildren, all at once,’ Lee said. ‘Oh, Murdoch, do you still love me now I’m a grandmother?’
‘I will still love you when you’re a great-grandmother,’ he promised her, and meant it, although he wished he could stop thinking of Jennie, who had elected to spend Christmas in the village with her father and young Joe. They came up for Boxing Day drinks and kisses.
Jennie looks kind of sad,’ Lee remarked. ‘I guess Christmas is a time when you really do need a man.’
‘Yes,’ Murdoch agreed. ‘Maybe she’ll find one.’ And he hoped so too.
*
He got up to London for a day or two, saw Ironside, who wanted him to remain in Holland for another few months.
‘If anything is going to happen it’ll be in the spring,’ Ironside said.
‘And if nothing happens?’
‘We’ll have to see about launching an offensive. Or settling down to another hundred years’ war.’
It became apparent to Murdoch that there were no offensive plans; had there been, he might have been more usefully employed. He went off to the Admiralty to see Churchill, and congratulate him on the victory at the Plate.
‘One enemy pocket battleship,’ Churchill said. ‘Good for propaganda. But they’ve sunk more of our navy than that. Things are not going well, Murdoch. I can tell you that in confidence. And you’re absolutely right, they have no offensive plans at all. Not even any to limit Hitler’s prospects. Do you realize that, just for example, all of Germany’s iron ore comes from Scandinavia? And it comes by sea, down the Norwegian coast, inside Norwegian territorial waters. I suppose the Norwegians don’t really feel they can object. Now Germany can’t fight without steel. I have been badgering my Cabinet colleagues to mine those waters. But they won’t do it. It’d be infringing Norwegian neutrality, they say.’
‘I imagine the Norwegians would complain,’ Murdoch suggested.
‘Well, of course they would. But we are fighting a war, Murdoch. A war of survival, although too many people can’t see that. If Hitler is sitting tight right now, it’s because he’s getting ready for something big. It can only be here in the west. And we are doing absolutely nothing but waiting to be hit, where and when and how he chooses.’
Churchill was obviously a very worried man; at the end of January he made a speech in Manchester in which he warned the nation that they were drifting into peril, but no one seemed to take much notice. The country, like Holland, was gripped by the coldest winter since 1894 — even the Thames froze — and the idea of campaigning in such conditions was impossible.
But there were others concerned. A week later General Reynders, Commander-in-Chief of the Dutch army, resigned, claiming that for all the Government’s proud words the Dutch military forces were totally inadequate to resist any German invasion. This caused a furore, and the Government attempted to counter it by announcing that they had ordered three new battlecruisers — but these were to defend the East Indies. However, with improved weather in April, everyone, Murdoch included, was taken by surprise by the German invasion of Denmark and Norway, and the shift of emphasis to the Baltic.
Immediately there were plans to send British and French troops to aid the Norwegians — the Danes had already surrendered — and names began to be canvassed. Murdoch as usual volunteered, and as usual was rejected on the grounds of age.
‘I may as well retire and
take up gardening,’ he grumbled.
Lee was as usual well pleased, and even more by the removal of the war to a safe distance. Helen was now in her last month of pregnancy, and Lee decided to go back and be with her; she would also be able to see how Annaliese was getting on. Murdoch and Jennie drove her to the dock, where she had secured passage on a destroyer.
‘Look after him,’ Lee told Jennie. ‘Don’t let him make himself ill with frustration.’
‘I think she knows,’ Jennie said as they drove back to the flat. ‘About us.’
‘Perhaps she does.’
She parked the car, opened the door for him. ‘Does that bother you?’
‘Not if it doesn’t bother her, Jennie. Or you.’
Jennie followed him up the stairs, as she was in uniform. He unlocked the door, went in. She stood in the doorway. ‘Will there be anything else, sir?’
‘Yes. I would like you to dine with me, tonight. Here.’
She hesitated.
‘Or have you a previous engagement?’
‘Of course I have not.’ She came into the flat, closed the door. ‘But...we have to stop it, Murdoch.’
‘Not today.’ He unbuttoned her uniform blouse. It was absurd the way she could make him a randy young man all over again, just by being alone with him.
‘When Lee comes back,’ she said. ‘Promise me, Murdoch. You’ll send me away when Lee comes back.’
He kissed her, gazed into her eyes. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I’m not any good for you. You should be married.’
‘I don’t want to be married. Do you think I could ever be happy with anyone else, after having known you? And Ralph?’
‘So you are opting for being unhappy for the rest of your life?’
‘I’m being very lucky,’ she said. ‘I’m having maybe a month with you, now. Then I must go. It’s not fair to Lee.’
He nodded. ‘One month. A honeymoon. Then we’ll call it quits.’
The Command Page 38
