by Peter Albano
Lloyd refilled the three glasses, lit a Lucky Strike, and spoke in funereal tones. Those little yellow men have had it all their own way. Repulse and Prince of Wales sunk. Hong Kong gone and Singapore is next.”
Randolph winced. Elisa Blue’s father was in Singapore with the East Surreys. She must be upset. He had to see her. Would see her before the evening was out.
Lloyd continued the litany of disaster, “Why they’ve invaded Burma and even Ceylon and India are threatened.”
Randolph nodded. “And the Netherlands East Indies are gone—write them off. They’ll have all the oil they need.”
A patina of anguish shone from Bernice’s face. “It’ll go on forever, won’t it, Lloyd,” she said. “This war feeds on itself—grows like a cancer.”
“Please, love,” he soothed. “The Yanks are in it early this time and the Russians are doing better than anyone expected.”
Randolph joined in. “You know I’ve seen American aircraft plants, Bernice. Their capacity is unbelievable. They crank them out like Fords. Soon we’ll outfly, outman, and outgun them on every front.” He did not mention the fact that most American plants he had seen were still “tooling up” and his belief that a two-year lag was inevitable before American production would be felt.
Bernice slumped back and sullenly sipped her Bordeaux. Lloyd continued in his somber mood. He was disturbed by the news from the Western Desert. The fighting in North Africa had been confused and indecisive and losses had been heavy. With close friends in high posts in Whitehall, the brigadier was privy to information not available to the public. Waving his cigarette for emphasis he compared the wily Rommel to an elusive fox in a briar patch. But General Ritchie was after him, clearing Cyrenaica and relieving Tobruk. Then a surprise counterattack drove the Eighth Army back to the Gazala-Bir-Hachim line. Ritchie rebounded to take Bardia and Halfaya Pass and then the armies rested like two exhausted stags, horns still locked but lacking the energy to destroy each other. “Ritchie’s a good man,” Lloyd concluded. “But the Eighth Army needs more aggressive field commanders. It’s like fighting sea battles. Often there are no lines at all. Commanders must make decisions on the spot without really knowing where the enemy may be. Often he’s in your rear, and by the same token, you can be in his rear.” He shook his head. “Not a place for inexperienced officers.” He took a drink and then punched the desk and spoke before he considered the impact of his words. “Blast it all! This waiting about can get on a man’s wick!”
Bernice came erect, eyes wide, passion modulating the timbre of her voice to low, harsh tones. “You want to go back—you’ve got to go back to the desert, don’t you, Lloyd? This is how it’s always been since 1914. Then it was the Coldstreams who couldn’t survive without you, now it’s the Fourth Armored Brigade and the whole blasted Eighth Army!”
Lloyd lit another Lucky Strike and sipped his drink. “I’m recovered from my wounds and quite fit. I expect orders to return. It’s my duty, love.”
“You’re a broken record, Lloyd. War! That’s all we’ve known. Now my son is in the North Atlantic hunting for U-boats—or are they hunting for him? My husband carries the scars of two wars, is at an age when men retire. . .”
“Men don’t retire from honor, Bernice.”
“Don’t give me that bloody drivel, Lloyd.” Then her words shocked Randolph to the marrow of his bones. “Plain and simple, you—both of you—love war. Live for death.” She stabbed an accusatory finger at her husband. “You’ve been untrue to me. Kept your mistress. That whore war is your mistress! I’ve never had a chance against her. You’ve slept in her bed all these years.” She slammed her glass down on the small Regency table so hard the stem broke and the contents spilled across the walnut top with shards of broken glass. Sobbing, she left the room.
Lloyd sighed and emptied his drink. He spoke softly, “I have my orders, brother. I leave for North Africa at the end of the week. They’re going to fly me in.” He nodded at the door. “I couldn’t tell Bernice. She’s obviously out of sorts—got her wind up. I’ll wait till the end. She’ll never understand.” He poured more Scotch into his glass.
Randolph held up his glass and stared at the amber liquid thoughtfully. He spoke slowly, “No woman can. They weren’t made that way—to understand.”
Lloyd smiled at his brother’s insight and turned a lip under and dampened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “You’re still hunting Kochling?”
“Quite. You know what he did. I told you about Coop Hansen.”
“Kochling may be gone.”
Randolph shook his head. “No. He’s here.” He took a drink. “I can smell him.”
Lloyd’s nod indicated understanding. “You’re awfully keen to kill him—murder him?” he said wryly.
Randolph nodded affirmatively. “In his cockpit, in his parachute, in the water.” He raised his big hands, fingers extended claw-like. “With these, if I could. I’d prefer it that way.”
Lloyd chuckled. His voice was filled with irony. “I say, brother, they’d call it murder.”
“Is stepping on a cockroach murder?”
The brothers stared into each other’s eyes and laughed. Then they raised their glasses in a single unified motion and emptied them.
Seated on the sofa with Elisa close to his side, Randolph stared at the red wine glistening in his glass. “It’s strawberry, my major,” Elisa said.
Randolph sipped it. “It’s nectar,” he said, savoring the liquor. “Fit for Zeus.”
Elisa smiled but her usual Madonna-like serenity was not there. “Singapore will fall,” she said simply.
He tapped his glass with a single finger. “It’s quite possible, Elisa.”
“Now I’ll lose my father. They’ve already killed my brother.” She turned away. “Maybe my father’s dead, too.”
He wrapped a big arm around her narrow shoulders. He would not lie. “Actually the fortress is cut off. It’s a siege. Casualties have not been heavy but they may be forced to surrender. The lot of the POW is not all that bad, Elisa. There are the Geneva Conventions, you know.”
She turned back to him. “It’s better than fighting, isn’t it?”
She needed reassurance and he leapt in. “Why of course. The war would be over for your father. He’d live in a camp until this lot is over. And it’s only a question of time before the Yanks clear out that whole blasted nest of Japs.” He did not mention the amount of time; the years and years of blood and carnage he knew lay ahead.
She snuggled closer and seemed to relax. “I need you, my major. It’s so thrilling when you fly over. It’s like looking up at a beautiful pigeon come home to roost with his mate. . And I know you’re safe—you’re still. . .”
She turned away, unable to finish the sentence. He kissed her forehead, her eyes, and found tears on her cheeks. He kissed them away and then she raised her lips. Soft as velvet, they were parted and warm. The kiss was long and hard and then they clung to each other and he could feel her quick breathing on his ear. “Stay with me. Live with me,” she pleaded.
“Please, my darling. You know I can’t. . .”
“So did my brother, my father know. It’s your damned duty, your white whale.” She leaned back and there was a fierce look in her eyes he had never seen before. “There are so many good reasons to die, so few to live.” She kissed him savagely with a hungry, physical urgency. They locked together, tongues twisting, kneading, pressing like attacking reptiles in their fervor. Pulling up her thin cotton blouse and sliding his hand over her hot silky flesh, he became acutely aware of every plane of her back. He traced the smooth curve of muscles on each side of her back and ran his hand up and down the ridge of her spine. It felt like a string of polished pearls.
“Stay with me. Stay with me,” she repeated breathlessly. “The sky will claim you. I know it will.” She pulled away and her eyes were misty.
He felt the hollow emptiness of hopelessness well deep in his guts. He felt like a man with his arms tied to two Clydesdales pulling in opposite directions. There was no solution, no resolution, only agony. And Bernice came back. Her anguished face. The terrible words. You love war! But that was insane. He agonized over each lost boy. Died with them. Flew to save his lads and punish the enemy. And he wrote the painful letters to next of kin. First Bernice and now Elisa. He loved them both but they would drive him mad. He drained half his glass and stared at the table in front of the couch. “Please, my darling. Please,” he pleaded. He rubbed his forehead with a closed fist.
She sighed and sank back. “I’m sorry, my major. I torture you every time I see you.”
“Oh, no, my darling. Don’t say that.”
“It’s because I love you so much.” She pointed skyward. “You were sent to me.”
He looked up, finally freeing his mind from the vise of Bernice’s words. “Perhaps you were sent to me.”
“Do you love me?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You need me?”
“You know I do.”
“That’s enough.” She found his eyes and held them with the power of her gaze. “Love is as strong as death,” she said.
The phrase was familiar, but his memory failed him. “Which poet?” he asked.
She smiled. “The Bible.”
He drank his wine. She recharged his glass from the bottle on the table in front of the couch. He spoke thoughtfully, “Perhaps when this is over we can talk of being together, can speak of. . .”
“Can talk of love then, Major?” she interrupted, lips tight, eyes flashing, cheeks rouged by passion. “Is there so much hate in this world love has become a transient thing. Major? Is hate immune to the onslaught of time—raging, destroying, immutable? Must the call of the last trumpet sound in our ears till the end of time?”
Momentarily, he was taken aback by her words, but collected his thoughts quickly. “You know that isn’t true. It’s just that these times are too uncertain. I haven’t been fair to you.”
“You mean I’ve lost enough.”
He tabled his glass and stared into her eyes. “Quite right. That’s the harsh reality of it.”
Her mood softened and she stared into his eyes. The little girl was back. “But I’ve already been everything a woman can be to you. We’ve taken everything there is from each other. If I lose you, I lose everything.”
Her circular logic baffled him. There were no openings. He grasped her arms and he could feel her hands on his shoulders. The dark blue of her eyes glowed like sapphires held to candlelight, penetrating all the way to the essence of his being. There was love there; full, brimming, enveloping like a warm summer breeze. He kissed her again, hard and demanding. Wordlessly, they stood together and walked to the curtained doorway.
Within minutes she had disrobed and stretched herself on the bed while Randolph threw his uniform on the floor like a pile of discarded rags. He dropped down beside her and enfolded her in his arms. He ran his hands over her neck, swollen ruby-tipped breasts, tiny waist, sculpted hips, thighs. He kissed her neck, ears, breasts, her fine skin like hot satin under his lips and fingertips. She breathed in short choking gasps; cooed and chortled with joy as he kissed her again and again while his hands explored and caressed. She twisted, writhed, and trembled, finally rolling to her back and pulling him with her. Spreading her knees, she raised them high and he lowered himself between them. He heard her gasp and groan as he finally found her depths.
In contrast to the other nights, tonight’s lovemaking was wildly urgent. His body deep in hers, he plunged, rocked, thrust while her hips met his assault with power that belied her frail body. His former reservations were swept away like a stick in a flood and he was carried beyond his sense of self. Locked in the rood of her arms and legs, he was completely hers, seemed to blend with her so that their very blood seemed to mingle and pulse with the same beat—the beat of a single heart. And it was her breath that filled his lungs, her thoughts that glimmered in his mind. They moaned, thrashed, and although his mouth was glued to hers, somehow he heard her say, “I love you, my major. I love you.”
He gasped into her ear, not sure it was his voice or hers, “I love you, my darling. I love you.”
XIV
Number 54 Squadron
February 11, 1942
The meeting was held in the officers’ mess. A small room, it appeared even smaller crowded with eleven pilots; the squadron adjutant. Captain Edwin Smith; squadron clerk, Lance Corporal Timothy Evans; and two batmen serving coffee, cocoa, and liquor. There was a relaxed atmosphere, the pilots lounging, smoking, and talking. Every flyer was dressed in RAF blue.
Three, the ready pilots, were in flying kit, wearing their helmets; parachutes and Mae Wests stacked on the floor behind them. Actually, they were the “Wolf Blue” section, led by Flying Officer Michael Sturgis—a former flight sergeant with nine victories. Sturgis’s wingmen were both flight sergeants who had been with the squadron for over six months; Gilbert McCarthy with one kill, Dwight Tambler with two. With their fighters parked in the nearest dispersal area a hundred yards from the mess hall and a lorry waiting just outside, they sat near the door where they could board the vehicle in seconds and be airborne in minutes. But Sector Control had not reported a single “bandit” in nearly a week. No one expected a scramble.
When Randolph entered, the babble of voices stopped and every man came to his feet. The squadron commander walked to the front of the room where there was a small platform in front of a blackboard mounted on rollers. Corporal Evans with a pad and pencil sat to one side of the platform while Captain Smith took his usual post at the other side. Everyone looked at the squadron commander expectantly.
“Carry on, gentlemen,” Randolph said, mounting the platform, and the men returned to their seats with the sound of chairs scuffing over the rough unfinished wood planking of the floor. Randolph’s batman, Sergeant Forrest Woodhouse, raised a bottle of Haig and Haig inquisitively. Randolph shook his head and indicated a pitcher of steaming cocoa instead. Quickly, Woodhouse poured a mug and handed it to the major. Randolph eyed his pilots over the mug as he took his first sip and then placed it on a small table in front of him. There were two new faces in the room. Two pilots who had reported the day before while he had been on leave. They looked so young. They seemed younger every time. A strange phenomenon because they were always eighteen or nineteen years old. Rarely, did he ever get a pilot over nineteen unless a veteran transferred from another squadron.
He had met the new pilots that morning in his office in the farmhouse. They both held the lowest commissioned rank of pilot officer. They had stood rigidly at attention in front of his desk as new pilots always did when first introduced to their squadron commander. It tore Randolph’s heart. He had welcomed so many young men to their graves—generations of young men in two wars.
The first was a slender, fair reed of a lad named Robert Burroughs, a barrister’s son from Bideford, Devon. A law student destined to follow in his father’s footsteps, Burroughs had left college to join the RAF. His gray eyes held an apprehensive, almost-frightened look and his left eye twitched nervously whenever he felt stress. At that moment, it had been ticking steadily. He would bear watching. Randolph was sure the lad stood a good chance of killing himself long before the Germans got the opportunity. He was eighteen years old.
The second was Milby Davenport, the scion of a well-to-do family in Birmingham. The son of a steel broker and exporter, Davenport was short and stocky with a compact athletic build that attested to his prowess on the soccer and rugby fields. In fact, he had played semiprofessional soccer for the Birmingham Lancers at the age of sixteen. However, his father had talked him into his office where the boy had languished unhappily until his eighteenth birthday. The day after his birthday, he joined the RAF.
Eyeing the two
youngsters from behind his desk, Randolph had asked his first question. Except for the aircraft, it never varied from pilot to pilot, war to war. “Number of hours in Spits?”
“Seventy-two, sir,” Burroughs answered in a high, wispy, almost-effeminate voice, eyes fixed on some obscure point a foot over Randolph’s head, left eyelid still fluttering. Randolph shifted his gaze to the other new chap.
“Seventy-seven, sir,” Davenport said in a deep voice that was almost theatrical in its resonance. His brown eyes were on his squadron commander, steady and confident.
Randolph smiled. Things had improved. At the height of the blitz, he had taken aboard men with as little as eleven hours in Spitfires. With greater experience and a lull over the Channel, these chaps had a far better chance to survive, unless they escorted another foolish raid to Brest. He dismissed them after reminding them of the afternoon’s meeting.
Now he was staring down at them, the two bright new faces and the nine other veteran pilots. Veterans. A veteran was a man who survived because of skill and luck. Some said good luck played the most important part in survival. Certainly, during a man’s first month of combat fortune’s smile had been indispensable for survival—especially during the Blitz. But now they all had a chance, a good chance for staying alive—if that idiot Air Marshal Sir Richard Peirse had learned his bloody lesson at Brest.
Peirse reminded Randolph of Sir Douglas Haig and his stupid offensives of the Great War that sacrificed hundreds of thousands of England’s bravest and finest uselessly on impenetrable German defenses of barbed wire, machine guns, and preregistered artillery. In so many ways Englishmen insisted on repeating history. Few seemed capable of learning from it. But Major Randolph Higgins had learned. He would not throw away these priceless young men.
