Treason if You Lose

by Peter Rimmer

  “And to the Australians. Trevor Hemmings paid me a visit back at the start of June. Waved to Montgomery from the Leatherhead roundabout, the day I learnt of Anthony’s death. Trevor’s kid brother was killed. His face is scarred and he walks with a limp. They gave him the DFC for landing the plane without undercarriage. Plane was full of holes. Can we ever repay them? The Poles, the Australians, the Rhodesians. A few years after the war is over they’ll forget them.

  “Vic Bell thinks Churchill will be booted out of office after the war. When he’s won them the war and they don’t need him anymore. Attlee’s socialists will get into power. A free pair of spectacles more important than saying thank you. Vic says Attlee’s Labour Party are going to bring in a welfare state. Sounds good on paper but who’s going to pay for it after we pay back the Americans what they loaned us to fight the war? When the danger’s over people think differently. They become selfish. The party that promises the most in a democracy is the one that wins. Promises, promises. They don’t care if they can’t do what they promise when they get into power. All Churchill promised was blood, sweat and tears. Then we didn’t have an alternative. The truth was obvious. So was the need for good leadership. Vic says Labour will borrow money they can’t pay back and leave the mess to a Tory government when the Labour Party in turn get kicked out of power. You wonder if any good comes out of changing the government. Trouble is, if you leave them in power too long they think they are God and can do what they like. We’ve never found a proper way of governing ourselves.”

  “At least it won’t kill anyone if Labour gets in.”

  “Don’t you be too sure if they ruin the economy. Revolutions always start on an empty stomach. Then some opportunist shouts his mouth off. Always keep out of politics, Tinus. It stinks. How are Fleur and Celia?”

  “The band’s as popular as ever. Barnaby has signed up every top musician except Vera Lynn, according to Fleur. He’s made another fortune out of the war. Someday a very young girl will see him coming. Make him marry her. That’s where his money will go. To some flighty eighteen-year-old.”

  “It’s his money.”

  “What do you do with all that money, I ask you. It’s never made him happy. Everything he does is for the moment.”

  “Just maybe Barnaby is the clever one. That there isn’t a future. Only the present. A whole lot of nows that make up our lives when we look back. Why, when we get old like me, we look back on the past with nostalgia.”

  “You’re not old, Uncle Harry.”

  “You want to go for a walk? Stretch our legs?”

  “This old place is very beautiful.”

  “Yes, it is. But still not as beautiful as Elephant Walk. There you are, you see. The nostalgia. We never know we’ve got what we want until it’s all over.”

  “I didn’t want this war. I’ll be glad when that’s over. America. I never thought of America.”

  “Canada to the north. Mexico to the south. What more could a man want? I wish I could make your Aunt Tina happy.”

  Wisely, remembering the words of his uncle earlier on, Tinus kept his thoughts to himself. All he hoped for in his own life was to make Genevieve happy. With her face foremost in his mind, Tinus whistled for the dogs and followed his uncle in the direction of the trees.

  It was wet under the trees where the sun had not been after the morning shower. Pigeons were calling to each other. When they passed the cedar trees that guarded the ancestral burial ground of the Mandervilles, Tinus tried not to look. The dogs had raced off ahead, barking at each other. Among the tall cedars were the yew trees cut in the shape of boxes before the war by the gardener, before he went off to war to join Dent the chauffeur in the Royal Army Service Corps. They had fallen into silence, Tinus walking behind his uncle along the path that led through the trees. Uncle Harry turned into the old burial ground where some of the older tombstones had half sunk into the ground. The place was untended, the old, moss-encrusted headstones difficult to read. Going in among the graves of his ancestors made the hair stand up on the back of Tinus’s head.

  “It’s as if they are watching me,” said Tinus.

  “You’re watching yourself, the living bones from those buried in the ground. I can’t bury Anthony among his ancestors but I can put up a monument with the words “Flight Lieutenant Anthony Brigandshaw DFC, great-grandson of Sir Henry Manderville, died fighting for his country three days before his twenty-first birthday”. Even if the Mandervilles will never again own Hastings Court, or the Brigandshaws in all likelihood if Clement Attlee gets his way and taxes the old families out of existence. Future Englishmen passing this way should understand what a young man did for his country with little reward. I like that idea. I like the idea of young hikers passing this way a hundred years from now on their way to Headley Heath. Stopping. Seeing the small monument. Pausing in their own passage through life. Seeing one life cut short in its prime. By then fascism will have a new word, a new meaning, but that won’t matter. Maybe one of them will mutter a short prayer for my eldest son. Somehow, that gives me comfort. I’m going to put the small monument next to the grave of my grandfather. What do you think, Tinus?”

  “I think it’s very lovely. Anthony would be proud.” Thinking of his old schoolfriend André Cloete, Tinus hoped old Mr Cloete had done something for André in the Cape.

  Then they walked back to the path that led them to the ancient oak trees, the trunks of the oak thicker than the outstretched arms of three grown men holding hands in a circle around the tree. The roots of the trees pushed out of the ground for many feet in all directions, thick green moss growing in the space between the roots.

  “You want to sit down under this oak. Don’t sit on the moss, it’s wet. It’s rather special to me, Tinus. It was near to here that I was made.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When your grandmother brought the body of her father back to Hastings Court for burial we took a walk down the same path we have just taken. Mother and son. She took my hand as if I were a child and sat me down under this tree. Then she talked very quietly. I had the feeling she was really talking to my dead father.”

  “It was near to here, Harry. The grotto where you began. I was sixteen, your father a year older. Pure love overcame both of us and in the making of that love the seed of you, my son, was born. I have never loved a living soul the way I loved him. There was nothing but beauty on the soft green moss. It’s not all death, Harry. There’s life as well. The pure joy of living. I’m going back to Elephant Walk because there I still feel the presence of my husband. Your father. You don’t mind. Daddy’s come home so now I can go home to Rhodesia.”

  Watching his Uncle Harry remembering his mother’s words, Tinus sat silently under the tree until the sadness seemed to seep out of his uncle’s body. Feeling uncomfortable, Tinus got up to look for the dogs. There were some things better not put into words, he told himself. How strange, he thought, his own grandmother making love, something he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams.

  They walked for half an hour in companionable silence, thinking their separate thoughts. There was no one to be seen on Headley Heath. They found the witch’s circle of logs with the old, flat sitting stone in the middle. The logs looked new, cut recently and placed in a circle.

  “Who did this?” asked Tinus.

  “I wish I knew. So far as anyone in the family can remember there has always been some kind of a ring round the flat stone. Each log is placed to seat one person looking at the sitter on the stone. No one ever admits to placing the logs. No one has ever dared move them. Grandfather told my mother the druids kept the place for their ceremonies. No one ever saw a druid as far as I know. Those logs have been placed recently. You can see by the soft gum oozing from that one. Legend says the stone was as tall as a man when it was first put in place. Century after century of sitting upon wore it down to that flat stone. Maybe it was pushed down in the ground or sank. Nobody tried digging them up. Why don’t you go and s
it on it Tinus? Ask the circle to keep up your good luck. Can’t do any harm.”

  “What do I say?”

  “‘Bring me home in one piece to my love’ should fit the bill.”

  “You actually believe this circle is magical?”

  “Been there a very long time. Has to be there for some reason. Can’t hurt. I asked the circle for help at the start of the First World War. I’m still around. Just sit on the stone. You don’t have to say it out loud. Go on. The dogs have put up a hare. That should sort them out. Go on, Tinus. Sit on the stone. Think of it as a wishing stone. That’s the stuff. Just look at that hare run. Now there’s an animal built for speed. Do you still wear the rabbit’s foot Gregory L’Amour found under the cedar trees and sent you on a chain as a lucky charm?”

  “Every time I go up. Every time I make enemy contact I rub the fur of that rabbit foot. There’s not much fur left. Whatever he meant to Genevieve, I’ll always remember Greg for that charm. They were once lovers but why can’t we all be friends? Every man and woman has their own private history.”

  “Then sit on the stone and ask the ancients to help you marry her. I’ll be silent.”

  With Uncle Harry watching, Tinus sat on the stone, his knees up to his chin. Then he closed his eyes and prayed to the gods. When he opened them Uncle Harry was smiling.

  “That’s better. Now I feel much better. Where are you getting married?”

  “Probably in America. They’re going to make a big fuss.”

  “They always do with film stars. Gregory never got to fly in combat.”

  “He was lucky. What’s so glamorous about killing a man you never even knew?”

  “Kill or be killed, Tinus. Since time immemorial. Like that poor hare if it can’t run fast enough. Oh, good. The dogs are giving up. Good for the hare. Ran them right into the ground. The perfect example of the fittest surviving in a war. And for the hare that was war, make no mistake.”

  “You’re feeling better, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am. Let’s go home and drink a cold beer. How the English drink it warm I never know. A good Rhodesian always drinks from a bottle that has frost on the outside. Feel like a beer, nephew?”

  “Lead on. You’re right. Those dogs are blown. The hare’s stopped running and looking back at them, no longer afraid. Are you sure that wasn’t a game?”

  “Quite sure. If those dogs had caught that hare they would have eaten him.”

  “Or her.”

  “Nature at its best, or its worst. Take your pick. How’s your mother? Have you heard from her recently?”

  “We write to each other every week. Sometimes it’s easier to say what you are really thinking in a letter. I’ve got every one of them. Mum says she’s kept mine. That one day when the war’s over they should be chronicled into a book. She wants to call it ‘War from the Cockpit’.”

  “I can ask Robert St Clair to look at them. Better still, your friend Bruno Kannberg now we know he’s alive. He’s the chronicler. Robert’s more a storyteller. Or so he says. The way I see it the book should be titled ‘Letters to a Mother from Her Son’. Bruno will have to incorporate Madge’s letters to you. Anthony hated writing them. Whenever he could he phoned Tina in Cape Town. She never writes either. Never had one the whole time she was living in Bishopscourt. Must be some kind of record.”

  “Gillian would be pleased if the book sold. Genevieve says she likes money.”

  “Never fall in love with possessions, Tinus. They don’t know how to love you back. Give Genevieve lots of good memories, not diamonds. Oh, and children, or Merlin will never forgive you. He never had a son so he wants a grandson. He told me so last time I was at Purbeck Manor.”

  “He’s happy with the idea of me being his son-in-law?”

  “Very much so.”

  “The day the war ends I’m writing him a formal letter asking for the hand of his daughter in marriage.”

  When they reached the house there was a message for Tinus calling him back to his unit. The Germans were putting up more resistance to the Allied advance than expected. Janusz had phoned for him to go to RAF Tangmere, their old station, from where they would be flown back to France. The brief moments of respite were over.

  “I’ll drive you to Tangmere on the motorcycle,” said Harry. “Less petrol. How’s Janusz getting to the aerodrome?”

  “It’s easier to round up the chaps in London. Four other pilots are on leave. They’re driving to Tangmere in one car. We thought the bad days were over. With the daily pattern bombing of German cities Hitler would give up. Worked the other way by the look of it.”

  “Amazing what a man will do when his back is to the wall.”

  The tension came back to both of them. Everything else but getting to Tangmere was forgotten. The children no longer laughed when they heard Cousin Tinus was going back to war in a hurry.

  “We thought the war was over,” said Beth.

  “It will be soon,” said Tinus giving her a big smile. “Enjoy the rest of the summer holiday before you go back to your new school.”

  “Are you going to teach me to fly when the war’s over?” asked Kim. “Dad says he won’t teach me. I want to be a pilot.”

  “Maybe when you are older.”

  “I’m fifteen. The boys who don’t go to public schools leave school at fifteen and go out to work.”

  “Say goodbye for me to Dorian. Where is he?”

  “Went to see a friend in the village. She’s a girl. Her brother’s fifteen and got a job on a farm. I hate school.”

  “Kim, we all do. It’s just nice to get a good education and go to university. Won’t you want to play cricket at your new school?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Good. When I come back next time I’ll coach your batting.”

  “It’ll be winter.”

  “Then we’ll kick around a football. Look after your mother and father for me.”

  “Please come back, Tinus.”

  “Of course I will. I was just sitting in the magic circle asking to come back soon.”

  “Where’s the magic circle?”

  “The one on Headley Heath.”

  “Oh, that one.”

  Uncle Harry appeared in his old flying coat carrying his goggles.

  “You can pick up your stuff next time. The weather looks fine. Nice day for a ride through the countryside. Do you know, this motorcycle is twenty-five years old and still goes like a dream. I’ll drive. You get on the pillion. Back in a couple of hours, kids. Wave to your cousin.”

  6

  While Tinus Oosthuizen was hurtling through the Surrey countryside on the pillion seat of a motorcycle on his way back to war, Genevieve was sitting at her desk in her flat in Los Angeles writing him a letter. It was quiet in the room with the window closed as she collected her thoughts to put down on paper. Every time she wrote to Tinus with the idea of coming back to England he wrote back telling her to stay in America until the war was over. There were no ifs or buts; according to Tinus, nothing could be done for their relationship until the war was ended. She wanted to tell him about Bruno Kannberg being heard from after going missing in action but did not wish to chance her luck in case it backfired on Tinus.

  Gillian Kannberg, living in Los Angeles, having not gone back to New York after seeing her war correspondent husband off to war on the West Coast, was in a flat in the same block living comfortably from the generous widow’s pension sent to her every month by the Daily Mirror. The survival of her husband had come as a shock to Gillian in more ways than one.

  “You don’t think they’d dare to cut off the pension,” she had said to Genevieve the day after receiving Arthur Bumley’s phone call from London telling her Bruno was alive. “I’ll never be able to afford this flat, or apartment as they call them in America. We only just lived in that tiny flat in New York with the help of royalties from the books. Now that’s stopped. People are reading war books, not books about film stars. What am I going to do? I’d have
asked Bumley on the phone if he wasn’t so snooty. Nathan answered the phone as I didn’t want to get out of bed. Newspapermen can pick up the story down a telephone line without having to see it. Well, you know, Genevieve. With Bruno dead I wasn't doing anything wrong. Not by then, anyway. What will I do if they chop off my money? Nathan will walk out on me.”

  “Shouldn’t you be thinking of what Bruno says when he comes home and finds you living with another man?” Sometimes Genevieve was inclined to lose her patience with Gillian.

  “He’s not coming home now is he! The war isn’t over. He’s in a Japanese jail in Singapore.”

  “What did Nathan say when you told him your husband is alive?”

  “Nothing. Gave me one of those faraway looks, as if he was thinking ahead.”

  “He still hasn’t landed a part?”

  “No, he hasn’t. But he will. I know he will. He’s so good looking.”

  “You still have to be able to act. Gillian, you should be thrilled. Your husband is alive.”

  “I know I should be, but what am I going to live off? I live up to the last cent as it is.”

  “You could always go back to being a shorthand typist.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t typed in years. The last big job was retyping your script for Mr Hollingsworth. What am I going to do?”

  “Kick Nathan out the door and be thankful.”

  “What if Bruno doesn’t like me anymore?”

  “He’s your husband.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to get myself pregnant.”

  Writing down what she wanted to say to Tinus was more difficult than saying the words with a smile or a gesture. Writing was harder than acting. When she acted they were distracted by her looks in every sense of the word. An intense, sexual smile could not be written in words. Genevieve looked at the blank sheet of paper on the green blotting pad in front of her. Once again her mind went blank. Talk of Gillian Kannberg was trivial to a man daily fighting a war. Life or death were right in front of him, not the whims of a stupid woman with sawdust for brains. As much as she liked the company of Gillian in her loneliness, the flightiness of the woman was absurd. Nathan wanted a free billet while he tried to break into film. The moment he had a part worth anything he would dump Mrs Kannberg like a hotcake, straight on the floor.