A TIME OF WAR

by MARY HOCKING

  His room was not much bigger than a cell and it looked out on a barbed-wire fence with woods beyond. They did not lock him in at night, but there are other ways of imprisoning a man. Sometimes when the hated wall of trees seemed to move nearer, he wondered what would happen if he were to walk out, return the salute of the sentry, and then walk and walk and walk. . . . It would not be possible to escape, of course, because England was a prison bounded by water on all sides. When they captured him, they would look at his record and see that once before he had been mentally ill. They would send him back to that dreadful hospital. No one would take any notice of anything he said: no one would think you were sane if you explained that you were tired of war.

  He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. He should be at the control tower, but it would not matter if he was late; the office ran better when he was not there. He wished he had had a letter from his wife. She was so busy with her Red Cross committee that she seldom had time to write now. Sometimes he suspected that she was enjoying the war because it had released her talent for organizing people. He let out a moan of protest, as though she was there and would come hurrying to his side. She was good to him, in a domineering way. He dreaded that when the war was over she would find her committee work more interesting than looking after him. If he survived, of course. . . . He could hear the engine of a car running outside the Captain’s quarters. The Captain used his car too much. There was a lot of talk about the way civilians behaved, but no one wasted petrol so much as senior service officers. . . . He felt the blood throbbing in his wrists. He must calm himself. Peace, peace, think back to a time of peace. . . .

  It was a familiar exercise, almost automatic now. When he had been rescued after days of drifting in an open boat, no one had expected his sanity to survive. But as he lay in the hospital, images began to come into his mind which did not belong to the uncoordinated world of madness. First, there was a plaited wooden fence, dust-grey with age. It was some time before this image was extended to include a green lawn. And then one day in the gap between the fence and the lawn, the flower-bed appeared and he saw the valerian running wild. It had seemed to take all his strength to get that far; he had to wait for some time to get any farther. He never knew whether it was hours, days or weeks later that he saw one spray of valerian moving gently in a breeze against the blue of the sky. And as he looked down, the blue of the sky deepened into the blue of the sea. Then, in one stride, the whole sweep of the bay was there, and he was a boy again, leaning from his bedroom window, looking out across Runswick Bay. He had found himself: he was sane. After that he could vary the image. He saw the bay sometimes in the evening, the water glassy in the fading light, the distant cliffs still tinged with pink as the sun went down; then all colour drained away, sky and sea merged in grey vapour so that the lobster pots, which were beyond the darker grey shadows of the currents, seemed to float in the sky. When the images dissolved one thing always remained, the valerian growing against the wooden fence. He saw it now, lying in his small, hot cell, and his face softened, the cracked lips smiled, the furtive eyes relaxed. If only memory could bear one away for ever. . . .

  The door swung open and where the valerian had been he saw the startled face of a Wren steward. `I’m sorry, sir! I thought you were on duty.’ The door shut and there was giggling in the corridor. He got up, flung open the door and bellowed to the two girls to be silent. `Banging about all over the place, making an infernal noise!’ He snatched at his cap and went out. He was bad-tempered at the office, upsetting the new Wren, a downy fledgling much given to tears. Corder looked at him reflectively as though wondering how long he could go on like this. In the afternoon when Kerren Shaw came on duty it was worse. She had heard that her husband had been posted to a carrier.

  `How did you hear?’ he demanded.

  `He left a message with Mick Archer at Lee and Mick told Jake up in Flying Control and . . .’

  `Monstrous! No wonder we lose ships. What would the Russians think?’

  She did not care about the Russians, she was locked in her own misery; but Corder gave him that reflective look again.

  `The man’s on the razor’s edge,’ he said importantly when Hunter had departed on one of his mysterious errands.

  `Aren’t we all!’ Kerren muttered.

  `What’s more, he’s no use at his job. His idea of forecasting is to study the sky and the wind sock. He’s no better than a farmer!’

  Kerren went out to do the obs. and Corder was left to ponder Hunter’s failings. The situation was one he found hard to tolerate. Although he was not on duty the next morning, he came down to the met. office to see how things were going. Sub-Lieutenant Boxer, Staitham’s replacement, was on leave and Hunter was acting as duty officer. F had chosen this of all times to pay one of his rare visits to the met. office. When Corder arrived, F was standing in the centre of the room, his hands behind his back, rather in the stance of someone about to recite `The boy stood on the burning deck’. Hunter, his nose a mottled purple, was leaning over the chart. Robin and the new Wren, Sue, were standing by the teleprinter, still as though turned to stone. F’s face was set in benign lines, but under the sandy eyebrows the bright eyes raked the room; they swept the floor, taking a mental picture of the forbidden electric kettle, scaled the walls, noting the disreputable duffel-coat on the hook at the back of the door, traversed the ceiling, examining the shades of the lamps which Kerren had neglected to dust when she cleaned the room the previous night, and finally focussed on a spider gallantly weaving its web in the dark corner above the anemometer. F watched the spider as though it was a phenomenon entirely new to him. Hunter looked up from the chart and squinted out of the window at a few scales of altostratus forming over Dincote Hill. Then he looked in the direction of the teleprinter. His eyes fixed on Sue, willing her to read out the report from the Irish stations. She, however, thinking that he was drawing her attention to the fact that her sleeves were not rolled up, hastily put on her jacket. Hunter brought the tip of his tongue round his teeth as though trying to rid them of some noxious object, and said:

  `The cold front is moving fast.’

  `When will it rain?’ F’s lips moved, the rest of his features remained set; it was rather like watching a macabre puppet, Robin thought. And just for a moment she saw this whole scene as a nightmare through which Hunter lived daily.

  Hunter said, `About 1500.’ He gnawed his lip and prepared to qualify the statement, but F was too quick for him.

  `Bad visibility?’

  `Very.’

  Hunter, appalled by this staccato exchange, gazed despairingly at the chart. F’s lips twitched in a frosty smile.

  `A decisive answer! That’s what I like.’

  Hunter nodded his head vigorously. `Must be decisive, that’s what I keep impressing on them! Not much use if you can’t be decisive!’ He noticed Corder and looked at him coldly.

  F moved over to the chart. `Damned if I know how you do it.’

  Robin thought his bright button eyes took in rather a lot for a man who had no knowledge. Relief made Hunter expansive.

  `What about a cup of tea, sir? No one makes tea like our Wrens.’ He made a jovial face at Robin.

  F said, without turning round, `You have good equipment, too, I see.’

  Hunter’s eyes glazed over. He looked like a bewildered, apprehensive dog. Robin picked up the electric kettle and said brightly:

  `Can’t we tempt you, sir?’

  F looked at her, and she looked back at him. His eyes really were rather terrifying, a lot of power there and not much mercy. On this occasion he chose to be amused. He said:

  `I have never been tempted by tea.’

  Hunter gave a whinny of laughter and F went out of the room. Hunter took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

  `You know what he wanted that information for?’ His tone suggested the D-day landings, at least. `The course is due to do its final dummy deck landings this afternoon.’

  Sue got on
a chair and flicked at the spider with a roll of teleprinter paper. Corder looked down at the chart and said in a schoolmasterish voice:

  `And you think it’s going to rain, do you, sir?’

  Hunter turned on him. `What the blazes do you mean by that?’

  Robin hurried out with the kettle before Corder started explaining. While she was filling the kettle in the lavatory one of the pilots on the course came down the stairs. She called out to him:

  `F is probably going to cancel your dummy deck landings this afternoon.’

  `Whizzo!’

  Corder was still hanging around when she returned and Hunter had got over his bad temper and decided to make use of him.

  `Since you’re so keen,’ he said, winking at Robin, `You might as well take over until Grieve comes on this afternoon. I’ve got one or two things to attend to.’

  Corder bent over the chart looking important. After a few minutes he went out of the room without asking for his second cup of tea. He returned later looking portentous.

  `F is talking of cancelling flying this afternoon.’

  `Even pilots must rest,’ Robin pointed out.

  `But he’s doing it because Hunter told him it was going to rain.’ He sounded quite tragic and Sue looked alarmed. After another examination of the chart, he said absently, `Have we got the Irish yet?’ Robin laughed and his ears went red. `Never mind. It won’t be raining here this afternoon.’

  `Too bad for us!’ Robin murmured.

  `Not really.’

  She stared at him. Corder giggled at her shocked expression.

  `I’ve told them that our earlier forecast was a mistake and that it won’t rain.’

  `You miserable little toad!’

  It was not at all the sentiment he had expected. `Wren Egan!’ His voice squeaked. `You can’t talk to me like that.’

  `What will you do? Report me to Hunter?’

  He opened his mouth and shut it again. Then he turned away and sulked until Adam came on duty in the afternoon.

  `The old man made a mistake,’ he said before Adam had had time to take off his cap. `It had to be put right, so I had a word with the C.F.I. . . .’

  `And he had a word with me.’ Adam spoke quietly, but his tone had more effect on Corder than Robin’s outburst.

  `You mean he checked up on me?’ he enquired warily.

  `He asked why the devil the met. office was issuing conflicting weather reports.’

  `I can explain that.’ Corder stabbed his finger at the chart. `Although this depression has been moving across fairly rapidly, that anticyclone over the Azores is building up and I estimate that it will, in fact, be stronger than the depression and . . .’

  Adam stared thoughtfully at the chart. The telephone rang. Robin went to it. It was the C.F.I. asking for Adam. As he came to the telephone, she said:

  `Sir, I think you should know that Hunter told F it was going to rain . . .’

  `He made a mistake,’ Corder interpolated.

  `And F has cancelled flying. You may have noticed the absence of aircraft overhead.’

  `But it won’t rain,’ Corder insisted.

  `It bloody well will!’

  Adam raised his eyebrows and looked from one to the other. Then he stood for a moment, the receiver in his hands, looking out of the window like an actor making sure that he knows his opening line before going on stage. Robin watched him. Corder watched him, too. It was very quiet. Robin could hear a thrush trilling somewhere out on the grass. Then Adam spoke:

  `What’s all the fuss? You have our official forecast. . . . No, I’ve nothing to add to it.’ There was a longish pause, then he laughed and said, `A case of “My salad days when I was green in judgement”!’

  Corder went out of the room looking as though he was going to cry. Adam replaced the receiver. He looked out of the window; there was still a lot of blue sky. He said resignedly:

  `Oh well, better to be wrong with Hunter than right with Corder, I suppose.’

  `Bully for you, sir!’

  `You had better do the obs. And pray for rain while you’re about it.’

  It began to rain at half-past two; mist clamped down over Dincote Hill and by three o’clock visibility was down to three hundred yards. Flying control telephoned to say, `You’re all bloody geniuses down there!’ Robin was jubilant.

  `I think it was rather fine of you to back Hunter like that, sir.’

  Adam answered drily, `He’s a knowing old bird. Although he dithers so, his forecasts usually turn out well.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  `But the astonishing thing is that I was so completely on Hunter’s side,’ Robin told Kerren when they were alone in the cabin the evening of the following day. `I couldn’t bear the thought of him being done down by Corder. He’s a bit of a failure, of course, but at least he knows it. Corder has no idea what a shower he is.’

  `I suppose not,’ Kerren answered listlessly.

  `And as for F! I’m not sure I don’t prefer the failures to the iron men.’

  `Must you be profound in this heat?’

  The anticyclone had built up and it was very hot. The Wrens had been sunbathing and there had been a lot of low flying. Although it was now half-past seven and the sun was behind the trees, the atmosphere in the cabin was stifling; against the windows the thick foliage was a green shutter closed against light and air. Kerren, sitting on Naomi’s bunk, swatted a mosquito while she listened to Robin. When Robin had finished, she said:

  `Peter thinks they ought to do more for people like Hunter. There’s all this plastic surgery for men who’re disfigured, but they don’t do much for the ones who’re shot to pieces inside. Peter thinks . . .’

  `It’s funny the way we always end up talking about Peter, isn’t it?’

  `I’m sorry, but you have no idea how utterly, unbelievably desolate it is not having him here.’ Kerren flung herself full-length on the bunk and gazed through the open window at the green wall of trees. `Sometimes I try to visualize him on the ship and it doesn’t come off; and then, quite suddenly, I can see him, doing something unimportant, like going down a ladder. I think of all the minutes, hours and days when he’s moving about the ship and I can’t watch him, be with him, enjoy him. A whole part of his life lost to me. And I feel so jealous! Jealous of the ship, jealous even of the handrail that he touches!’ There was silence for a moment. Beyond the windows, the sun burnt like a great blood orange hanging somewhere in the heart of the wood.

  Kerren said, `Don’t you feel like that about Con?’

  `No.’ The heat in the hut made Robin feel sick. She talked about Con in an exhausted way. `I don’t much care what he’s doing when he’s not with me.’

  `Don’t you want him now, this very minute?’

  `Not particularly.’

  Kerren looked at Robin whose face was pale and filmed with sweat.

  `Haven’t you and he . . .?’

  `For goodness sake, Kerren! You used not to think solely in terms of bed.’

  `I’m sorry, Robin. It’s so different when you’re married.’

  Robin touched her forehead and made a mock obeisance.

  `Me very humble in presence.’

  `Dear Robin! Am I utterly impossible?’

  `Just happy.’

  `Are things so bad with you and Con?’

  `Not bad.’ Robin aimed at another mosquito. `We walk, pub crawl, dance, go to the flicks; but we don’t get any nearer to each other. Sometimes I think he makes an opening, but I don’t respond and he covers it gracefully.’

  `Why don’t you respond?’

  `Because I don’t know where I am with him, I suppose.’

  `A man doesn’t always make a solemn declaration of love.’

  `Oh, for Christ’s sake, Kerren! You don’t know everything, you know a little about one man. Con isn’t like Peter. He isn’t like other men. I’ve heard the fellows in his outfit talking about him and they think he’s odd. He doesn’t fit into any of the accepted moulds, and that�
��s a sin against the American way of life. He’s a lone wolf, a rogue male: it scares them.’

  `Never mind about them, the miserable conformists! How do you feel about him?’

  `Damn the mosquitoes! Do you think this area is malarial?’

  `Undoubtedly. What do you think about Con?’

  `He’s good value. But sometimes it all seems rather pointless. Look at the way he behaved over his leave. I had hoped that we might spend some of it together after he had finished scrambling about in the Lake District. But what does he do? Sacrifices that precious Lake District trip to see Beatie’s parents. All I get is a bunch of flowers!’

  Robin turned away and began an intensive search in her drawer for soap, flannel and talcum powder.

  `If there’s no future in it, Robin, why not drop it?’ Kerren was determined to give advice. `Drop it before you get hurt. He’s the kind who might be hard to forget.’

  Kerren went on talking about love, saying how important it was that both the man and the woman should be prepared to give ungrudgingly. `You could be terribly unhappy otherwise.’ Robin closed her eyes tightly, her small, sharp teeth bit into her lower lip and her jaw clamped hard; she looked momentarily old and haggard, the muscles rigid in her thin neck. After a moment or two, when she could control herself, she reached for her towel. She slung it over her shoulder and turned quickly towards the door where she took time to spit at Kerren:

  `You ought to do one of those columns for the women’s magazines, my sweet. It would keep you occupied until Peter comes back to give you more first-hand experience.’

  Kerren said, `You bitch!’ But Robin had gone. Kerren sat quite still on the edge of the bunk. Her excitement had evaporated, little shivers ran up and down her sunburnt body and her head throbbed when she moved. She felt menaced by the close, dark summer trees. She looked down at the floor of the hut, speckled with cigarette ash and talcum powder. She said, `Peter.’ Her voice sounded small in the big room. She got up and began to stride about, slamming Naomi’s half-open drawer, pushing at chairs that were in the way, kicking at bellbottoms and a singlet which one of the air mechanics had dropped on the floor. This aimless thrashing about only made her more disturbed than ever. She clambered on to her bunk. This was worse; now that her limbs were still she became acutely aware of the heavy pressure of blood demanding a release that could not be given.