A TIME OF WAR

by MARY HOCKING

  `Go on! I like to fight for what I want.’

  She doubled up her fist and struck him on the mouth, splitting his lip. He pulled her hard against him and kissed her on the mouth; she felt his teeth against her lip and tasted blood. She struggled more frantically, but this pleased him and he began to kiss her passionately. She felt herself falling away, disintegrating. She clawed at his shoulders, pulling him forward and at the same time she brought her knee up sharply in his groin. He doubled up, stumbled and fell on the slippery path and she came down on top of him, pummelling, scratching, biting his wrist. He was the one who cried in the end.

  She sat on the grass where they had fallen, the sweat cooling on her body as the breeze came up from the reedy water. She seemed to see everything with considerable clarity, the dark, passionate green of the grass, the froth of water in the stream endlessly bubbling over the grey stones, the high white tapestry of cloud in the sky. She looked at these things and then she looked at him, lying face down beside her. She had never seen a man cry before. She put out a hand and laid it tentatively on his shoulder; after a moment, the hand began to move, gently massaging his shoulder. Soon she bent over him and her fingers, exploring gently, found the scarred cheek and caressed it.

  `Never mind,’ she whispered. `Never mind. It’s all over now.’

  Chapter Five

  `Second front!’ Beatie said to Kerren.

  They were waiting to cross the main road on their way from the airfield. To their right they could see the tops of a line of trucks, like a giant caterpillar heaving its way between the green hedgerows. They waited. When the trucks went by Beatie waved while Kerren glowered self-consciously over her handlebars.

  `Where are you going?’ Beatie called to the men in the last truck. One of them crossed his eyes and put a finger to his lips; another pretended to climb out of the truck – `I’ll stay with you, blondie!’ It was quiet when the convoy had gone; dust settling in the road, the muted evening pattern of fields and hedgerows undisturbed. Beatie sighed. She did not like to see men in trucks. It was fine when they were stepping into planes, standing on the bridge of a ship; they looked purposeful then, with some idea of what they were doing and where they were going. But she could not bear to see them herded in trucks. She was glad she was not in the A.T.S.

  As they got on their bikes again, Kerren said:

  `One convoy doesn’t make a second front.’

  `One convoy!’ Beatie headed for the lane that led to B camp. `The convoys are passing all the time now.’

  They cycled slowly past a farmhouse with trees in a paddock behind it, the trunks of the trees and the branches still stark and black, but with the faintest hint of pink blossom sprayed over them. Beatie said:

  `That will please our Jess! She’s been waiting for the blossom on those trees to come out.’

  `I hadn’t even noticed the trees.’

  `It’s all wildly exciting to Jessie. She’d never seen a cornfield before she came here, poor little sod!’

  `She wanted me to visit that farm with her,’ Kerren remembered. `But I wasn’t interested. Seedtime, harvest . . . it all seems rather unreal.’ Her present life was so immediate, she had little patience with the remote country life, its rhythm unadapted to the war-time world.

  `Real or not, I must go with her one day,’ Beatie decided. `She’s longing to show one of us round that farm.’

  They cycled in silence until they reached B camp. Kerren was thinking about the second front and hoping that Peter would not return to operational flying. Beatie was thinking about the coming Sunday when she could go out either with Frank, a radio mechanic, or with the Paymaster Commander. An amusing situation, but at the moment it had lost some of its piquancy: it had been a bad day, unusual in her bright world.

  The mess was nearly empty when they arrived. There were two stewards standing in a cloud of steam at the counter; one of them was shouting at the sophisticated Dixie:

  `Not fit for pigs, eh! Well, you ought to know about that. Never wash your neck.’ She handed Kerren a plate of greasy mutton stew with a couple of grey dumplings floating in it and said: `Never washes her neck. That’s what they teach them in Park Lane!’

  Dixie sat with her fingers laced round her cup staring serenely into space. Her fingernails were dirty, too, Kerren noticed as she passed behind her.

  Beatie and Kerren sat at a table by the window. They seldom met out of the cabin and Kerren felt a little awkward, thinking of Peter. But Beatie bore no grudge. Peter was the man who got away: there had to be one like that, it was a thing of fate, unconnected with Kerren. She took a piece of bread, scraped margarine on it, and said the thing she had been waiting to say ever since she met Kerren on her way from the airfield.

  `Isn’t it terribly sad about your met. officer?’

  Kerren was gazing out of the window at the branches of the trees darkening as the sun went down. She said without turning her head:

  `I suppose he finds it difficult to adapt himself, being so old.’

  `I’m talking about Lieutenant Grieve.’

  Kerren’s head jerked round. `Adam!’

  `Jimmy Painter came into the office today while I was typing out the pilots’ reports and . . .’

  `But Adam would never confide in that monkey-faced little gossip!’

  `He didn’t confide in him; but it seems Jimmy met a fellow who knew Adam in Civvy Street. And this fellow said that both his children were drowned on that boat the Germans torpedoed. The City of something-or-other. Do you remember?’

  `And Adam’s children were on this boat?’

  `Yes. And his wife killed herself while he was away at sea.’

  `How dreadful!’ Kerren looked down at the table and absently rubbed at a stain left by a wet saucer.

  `You don’t know what to say, do you?’ Beatie demanded.

  `No.’

  `I’m glad. Because I didn’t know, either. And that beastly little man said, “Never mind, Toots – don’t worry that lovely blonde head of yours”, as though I was some brassy little piece who . . .’ Tears came into her eyes; she made no attempt to hide them, she never hid her feelings. `And I wanted to say something to show him I understood . . . only the trouble was I couldn’t begin to understand.’

  Kerren said, `Will he tell this story to everyone?’ This was something she could understand. She felt anger pulsing through her veins; she hated this odious little man far more than the remote submarine commander who had destroyed a ship full of children.

  `He won’t tell it again,’ Beatie said, `because Peter came in for the reports and Jimmy made the mistake of telling him, too. You could see he was beginning to enjoy it. Peter went quite still – you know the way he does, as though everything inside him had stopped ticking over. And then he ripped into Jimmy. Terrified the little beast. Terrified me, too.’

  Kerren thought that Beatie was deliberately exaggerating the violence of Peter’s temper. She pushed her plate to one side. `I don’t want any more.’ Beatie said she wasn’t hungry either, so they went out of the mess and walked slowly up the cinder track. The sun had gone beyond the horizon now. The breeze was razor-edged, it cut Kerren across the back of her neck so that every nerve seemed to shrill.

  `Thursday night!’ Beatie murmured. `No entertainment, no dances. Everyone will stay in. Twelve women in one cabin!’

  She was right, the cabin was crowded. The air mechanics were down at the far end talking about pilots and prangs as they stripped off their greasy overalls. Jessie was watering a pot of daffodils and Robin was talking to Naomi who was massaging cream into the wrinkles beneath her eyes.

  `I just want someone who will give me a good time without expecting too much.’

  Jessie said, `I’m the same way, Robin. An’ I haven’t got a man either.’

  She went out to fetch more water, leaving Robin speechless. Hazel, who was reading a letter from her brother, said to Kerren:

  `Michael says he may not be able to come to the B camp party. I�
�m afraid he’s on the move.’

  Kerren stormed at her, `I’ve had nothing but second front all day, don’t you start! Your brother has probably got himself a date with a buxom A.T.S. wench.’

  Hazel folded the letter with shaking hands. Kerren hated the hurt, watery eyes, the slack mouth, the weak chin; no one had any right to be so obviously a victim. She took refuge in the relative privacy of her lower bunk and started a letter to Dorothy. `I think it may be serious with that pilot I told you about,’ she wrote. `If only we have enough time . . .’

  Cath, one of the air mechanics, began to move chairs to form a circle round the stove. Naomi seated herself. She lit a cigarette and clamped it between her lips; smoke curled up the side of her face and her eyes narrowed. The others watched her. One could imagine that years ago, before the huts were erected, Naomi had crouched over a fire in the wood, the flickering light dramatizing her swarthy features; sometimes they felt she would be here when the huts had gone, she seldom left the camp site.

  `You know, girls, we could do a lot worse than Guillemot,’ she said. `I was talking to a fellow who’s just come down from Machrihanish . . .’

  She wanted them to join her; she loved to have company round the stove. But the atmosphere was wrong tonight. The twilight period was lengthening; it was always a disturbing time. In the distance they could hear the roar of outgoing aircraft. Cath said, `They’re late tonight.’

  Robin took off her shirt and laid a clean one across the back of a chair. Jessie came in carrying another pot of daffodils; the pot was wet and water and earth spattered the floor.

  `I washed that floor yesterday!’ Robin exclaimed.

  Jessie looked down, lost her balance and fell against the chair; muddy water slopped over Robin’s clean shirt. There was a moment’s silence while Jessie stared dumbfounded and Robin collected her forces for the attack.

  `Out!’ Robin pointed one thin, straight finger at the daffodils.

  `Oh no, Robin, no! There’s going to be a frost tonight; the met. office said so.’

  `And I believe it. But those damned things go out just the same. I had an earwig in my bed last night.’

  `But, Robin, these . . .’ Jessie thrust the daffodils forward and they bowed their heads to Robin, `. . . these are for you, they’re for all of us. I thought you would be so pleased, I thought everyone would be so pleased. . . .’ She looked beseechingly at the others: no one spoke. `I’ve been longing . . .’ Her face contorted and her shoulders hunched; when Jessie cried every muscle in her body laboured. Robin shouted:

  `For God’s sake, try to behave like a grown woman!’

  Beatie, who had been undressing by the stove, tossed her skirt across a chair and came towards them.

  `Don’t you have flowers in the house at home, Robin?’

  They faced each other, Beatie shapely in brassiere and briefs, Robin stalklike in vest and skirt. Robin said:

  `Yes, we have flowers at home.’

  `All right, then. So we have flowers in the cabin.’

  `It’s not all right. And it’s none of your business, either.’

  `You heard her say she grew the flowers for all of us. I like daffodils and I don’t want them killed by the met. office frost. So bugger off and leave her alone.’

  Beatie put her hands on her hips and rocked her body gently, her weight borne easily on the balls of her feet. Opposite, Robin was stiff as a rod. There was silence, broken only by Jessie’s snuffling. Beatie put up her fists and did a little shadow-boxing. `Come on then, Robin! Want to make a fight of it?’ She began to circle Robin, waggling her bottom to a rumba beat. Robin stood still, her arms folded across her meagre breasts. The others began to clap their hands to the rhythm. Gradually, Beatie’s gestures grew more emphatic as though anger must be sweated out through the posturing hips, the insistent feet, through impatient shoulders and the twitching hands, the fingers ceaselessly snapping out the beat. The rhythm changed from the teasing gaiety of the rumba to something more primitive. Robin looked at the sweat running down Beatie’s spine, trickling from the creases at the backs of her knees; it made her feel sick. The others had stopped clapping. Beatie was absorbed by her feet endlessly rotating her body on the one spot until it seemed that the concrete floor must give or Beatie herself be broken. Her face was white and shining, her golden hair stood out like a lion’s mane. Hazel whispered to Naomi, `It’s not quite nice; not like Beatie.’ It was a relief to them all when the arms and body stopped jerking; for a few moments energy was concentrated in the stuttering feet and then it was quite spent. Beatie stood with her head hanging down, one hand pressed to her side as she snatched for breath. Naomi said:

  `Well! Let’s hope you’ve got that out of your system.’

  When she had regained her breath, Beatie took the daffodils from Jessie and put them on the chest of drawers.

  Robin undressed and climbed into her bunk. She lay with her face to the wall, praying fiercely, `Oh God, give me one moment with a man, one moment when I can be equal with Beatie.’

  The others drew together round the stove; they cemented the breach with talk about the pilots on the new course, the instructors, the men in the squadron. Later, they fetched cocoa from the mess. It was muddy and lukewarm, but at least it was something to keep out the chill. When the time for `lights out’ drew near, they said to Jessie, `Sing something for us, Jess.’

  `Not until the black-out is down.’

  One by one they clambered into their bunks and waited until Kerren, last as usual, turned out the lights and took down the black-out. She lingered for a while at the window, looking at the stars between the branches of the trees. Behind her, Jessie began to sing, `Three German officers crossed the Rhine’ and Cath said, `Come off it, Jess! We know that one.’

  Kerren got into her bunk. As she lay, moonlight slanting across her face, she wondered what Peter would think as Jessie began to sing in a soft, unexpectedly pure voice, `She gave me wine and whisky, too!’ She thought he might be rather shocked at this invasion of the world of men. The soft voice went on with the lewd ballad and the stars blinked above the trees, the wind caught the branches of the trees and shadows moved on the wall of the cabin. Kerren thought of the things that Beatie had told her about Adam. Perhaps he was in bed now. What did he think about when he could not sleep at night? she wondered.

  Hours later, when the bombers came back, she was still awake. They thundered overhead and were gone. Or so it seemed at first; then she heard the low uneven throb in the distance. Then silence. Then it came again, stronger, like the pulse of a creature fighting for life, fading, fighting, fading again. Beatie was awake, too. She said, `There’s one who won’t make it.’

  The plane passed overhead and then, when they should still have been able to hear it, the engine cut out. Kerren lay watching the shadows of the trees moving on the wall. It seemed to be much colder; the met. office had been right about the frost.

  Chapter Six

  The plane, a Flying Fortress, crashed on Dincote Hill. It was a bright morning and Kerren could see the twisted metal looking like a strange cactus sprouting from the hillside as she cycled to the met. office. Other planes had been in trouble. She saw a Lancaster marooned in the marshy land to the west of the airfield. The pilot of the Lancaster was a Pole. He and Adam were talking when Kerren arrived at the met. office.

  `I was with Reuters before the war,’ Adam was saying, `and I spent a couple of years in Budapest.’ He drew a deep, nostalgic breath and his bony face softened at the remembrance of pleasures past. Kerren, who had expected to feel rather constrained in his presence, was delighted to find him in such a mellow mood. The Pole sighed, `Ah, Budapest!’ Hunter, fretting over the teleprinter, talked rapidly to himself, his face red with suppressed irritation.

  Kerren sat down and began to plot the chart. She had been depressed last night, but now the enchantment was beginning to work again. These quick changes of mood were themselves a part of the charm. Nothing grew stale here: always a new situa
tion to respond to, a new personality to fathom. She looked at the Pole, dark and brooding, cloaked in the mystery of his impenetrable, far-distant world; as she plotted, she listened to him, talking with that throbbing vehemence, that angry attack on each syllable that made every work full of drama. `Italy! Italy! Italy!’ She had no idea what he meant, but the sense of shame and outrage communicated itself immediately. `Always Italy! As though there was nothing else worth preserving in the whole of Europe!’ Adam understood. He began talking about Budapest again, saying he hoped they would preserve Buda, at least. Kerren was aware of rhythms and cadences rather than words, preferring as usual to create her own dream. She had a vision of lime trees, of light filtering through leaves on to old stone archways, of sunlight and green shadow and peace in the enduring tranquillity of stone, in the indestructible . . . Then Hunter exploded:

  `Blast them to pieces, that’s what they ought to do! Losing time while men die, sacrificing human lives to save monasteries and statues, books, pictures that only a handful of people give a damn about! And music . . .’ He glared at Adam who sometimes played records of Bach to himself. `Mathematical gibberish!’

  Adam said under his breath, `Mathematical and gibberish?’

  `I’ve been to some of those places,’ Hunter was shouting. `Gold-painted ceilings and stinking lavatories, flies on the food, typhoid if you drink the water. . . .’

  The Pole’s nostrils dilated and he said something about Westminster Abbey. Hunter said that `they’ could have Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s, too, if it brought the war to an end sooner. The Pole went out. Kerren plugged in the kettle and Hunter talked to himself over the teleprinter for a time and then went out of the room looking furtive. Adam sighed.

  ` “The tumult and the shouting dies

  The captains and the kings depart

  But still, I see, the teapot stands

  And soon, no doubt, the kettle boils . . .” ’