A TIME OF WAR

by MARY HOCKING

  She was glad that they had had this calm evening together that seemed like a time out of war. But when they said good-bye, he looked at her as though he wanted something for which he could not ask and which he knew that she could not give.

  Chapter Nineteen

  At the end of October there was a crisis in the history of H.M.S. `Guillemot’: an inspection by C.-in-C. South Command.

  `But why Guillemot?’ Robin said when the news was broken to the met. office.

  `Why indeed,’ Adam echoed.

  Everyone agreed that someone had blundered. No one in his senses would let an admiral loose at Guillemot. There was a terrible week of preparation. It suddenly became imperative that chin-straps should be adjusted, suits pressed, that no pilot’s hair should show below his cap, that no Wren’s hair should straggle on to her collar. To a camp where the scruffiness of one’s appearance denoted a veteran sophistication this required a considerable mental adjustment. Worse still, squad drill had to be taken seriously. The Wrens were marched up and down the quarter deck while the Jaunty roared at them unavailingly. Naomi, who was tall, was chosen as a marker despite the fact that she was a little hard of hearing. In the cabins it was no better. The pin-ups had to come down from the walls and there was to be a furniture inspection. As during the previous winter Beatie had chopped up one of the chairs for firewood, this was an embarrassment to Cabin 8.

  In the met. office Hunter worked himself into a frenzy. The key to the hydrogen store was mislaid and one whole day was spent in a frantic search until Adam discovered it in the pocket of his raincoat. Sue broke one of the lamp shades while she was cleaning it and Corder chose this of all weeks to announce that he had long had misgivings about the accuracy of the barograph. Robin was as concerned as Hunter about the outcome of the inspection. Hunter had nightmares in which he was posted to Malta where there would be no weather reports from near-by stations on which to base forecasts, only the vast inaccuracy of ship reports; Robin was afraid that shore leave would be cancelled for the entire camp so that she would not be able to spend the following week-end with Con. She worked like a slave in the office: Hunter was very impressed and wondered whether he should recommend her for a commission.

  Kerren on the other hand was extremely unco-operative. Peter was at sea. He had managed by means of a code they had worked out together to let her know that it would not be a long voyage and that there was a chance she might see him at the end of the month. He wrote about the things they would do when they were together again. `I won’t be angry or difficult next time,’ he assured her. `I do love you so much. You do believe that, don’t you?’ Behind these simple words she sensed a terrible urgency, as though he was fighting time and knew it. All her fears returned. The visit of the admiral seemed a bizarre charade fit only for children who were playing at war.

  `How dare he come here, wasting our time!’ she raged. `What does he know about flying? He couldn’t tell a Swordfish from a Barracuda. All he’s concerned with is whether the floors are polished and the mess is clean: a glorified shop walker! And we’re supposed to be fighting a war!’

  `You should have been at a really pukka naval base like Pompey,’ Marney said. `You’d have got used to it then.’

  `I shouldn’t have stood it for five minutes.’

  `You wouldn’t have stood the work either, dear.’ She coughed, just to remind them of her damaged lungs.

  `Work!’ Cath turned on her. `Don’t talk to me about work. I’ve worked on the airfield from eight in the morning until ten at night in the summer, I’ve worked out there in the winter when the wind cuts your face like a razor, I’ve woken at night sweating because I dreamt I’d forgotten to test a screw or a bolt and a kite had crashed. . . .’

  `When I was in signals at Pompey I worked a fourteen hour shift,’ Marney said, `and at the end of it my arms were blue up to the elbows with carbon paper . . .’

  `Oh, save it for the admiral,’ Naomi interposed wearily.

  Cath and Kerren made a pact that they would in fact tell the admiral. They were both a little unbalanced at this time. Cath could never go out with a man for long without becoming excessively maternal towards him. On the whole she preferred her men to be slightly neurotic, and in spite of his convivial manner she was convinced that Derek Mason was in reality an extremely sensitive, deeply introverted man. Consequently, she took very seriously his strident complaints about the admiral’s visit.

  On the appointed day the admiral was over an hour late. `Didn’t anyone tell him that naval time is five minutes before time?’ Jessie whispered to Kerren as they stood at ease gazing into a cloudy sky for the first glimpse of his plane. Kerren, her face and neck muscles taut with anger, found that the clouds were going out of focus; she looked down and the tarmac came up to meet her. She saved herself from fainting by digging her nails into the palms of her hands. Time passed. Three sailors fainted and the Commander advised that the weight should be rested on the balls of the feet. More time passed. Hazel was sick and was hustled away before others could follow suit. Kerren could hear Jessie making nervous belching noises. She felt the cold sweat of impending sickness herself and fought it back by concentrating all her strength on her hatred.

  She could see very clearly at this moment what was right and what was wrong; there were no shadows or half-tones, no reservations or mitigating circumstances. The Royal Navy, stripped of its glamour, was an outmoded institution obsessively concerned with its moribund customs, its senior officers immured behind a wall of tradition which effectively shielded them from the reality of war. She visualized the admiral with stiff, stumpy body, pink and white face bland as a waxwork, glazed eyes, pursed lips that would jerk like those of a puppet when he gave his orders. What did men like him, fossilized by the dead weight of Admiralty Fleet Orders, know of the terror and ecstasy, the gaiety and unutterable weariness of fighting men? She would spit in his face if only her mouth were not so dry. And suddenly, there he was, buzzing over the airfield, and soon the commands were ringing out, the feet stamping, the stiff bodies straining as though it was the second coming!

  He walked slowly along the ranks of sailors. Kerren noticed that he seemed to speak to one in five. She had cramp in her stomach. She looked beyond the grey quarter deck towards the airfield where the planes looked lonely and forsaken. A whole day’s flying lost! She tried to feel indignant but failed. She wished it was possible to keep anger burning until the last minute, martyrdom would be so much easier if only one could. He had come to the Wrens now and was walking along the row in front of her. He passed Cath by. Kerren swivelled her eyes to the left being careful not to move her head – it was strange how when one contemplated a major act of rebellion one still carefully observed the minor dictates. It looked as though, if he followed his practice of speaking to one in five, he would pass her, too. She doubted that she would have the courage to step forward and shout after him. Now he had stopped to speak to a girl at the end of her row; the girl stammered and First Officer translated rapidly. He moved on and stopped in front of Kerren. She saw his eyes going up and down her sleeve. He was looking for her category badge, and there was no badge for meteorology.

  `What is your category?’ he asked.

  She saw the ranks of sailors still as toys on the leaden deck; the flag breathless on the mast. She felt as though she was the only creature left alive.

  `Meteorology,’ she rasped, and looking glassily past his left ear, she added, `and I should be on duty at the office now.’

  `You think this is a waste of time?’

  He took up his cue urbanely. Perhaps he was adept at quelling rebellions. It left her with very little to say. She said `Yes’ and went on looking past his left ear. Her face was pale and filmed with sweat; under the dark rim of the cap it looked like a rather poorly suet dumpling. The admiral would have overlooked the incident; he was in fact preparing a dourly amused comment to be delivered in the wardroom when Jessie intervened. An explosive mixture of terror and elation produce
d a high-pitched nervous giggle that would not stop. Her face purple, her eyes overflowing, her body contorted in a crude attempt at control, Jessie giggled and giggled and giggled with the agonized helplessness of a person undergoing a refined form of Chinese torture. The sight of First Officer, her face blanched as a frozen chicken, only aggravated Jessie’s condition.

  Kerren and Jessie were confined to camp for two weeks. Kerren was indifferent to the whole episode, but Jessie was devastated.

  `I’ll remember it to my dying day,’ she said. `It was dreadful. I wet my drawers.’

  The others were sorry for Jessie, but they were not sorry for Kerren. Kerren’s action had gone beyond the bounds of the acceptable. All that sweating in the cabin, polishing floors, pressing, sewing, ironing, all that square bashing, that tremendous effort to show the admiral that the Fleet Air Arm could do things as well as the Royal Navy when it chose, and Kerren had to let them down!

  `And what about Jessie?’ Naomi said to her. `You’ve buggered up her love life.’

  `If Jessie has any sense she’ll go off camp whenever it suits her,’ Kerren answered. `I certainly shall if Peter gets leave.’

  `You’d be dismissed the service!’

  `It wouldn’t matter. I’m not doing any good here.’

  She was at this time out of touch with conventional patterns of behaviour and she was consequently rather frightening to those around her. Her feelings were so raw, her violent energies so unharnessed, that she seemed as incalculable as a wild animal. Hunter was almost beside himself with anxiety as to what future acts of indiscretion she might commit. Even Adam was not unaffected by Kerren’s behaviour. Indeed he was in some ways more affected than anyone else. This concentrated emotion, not filtered through the shock absorbers of tact and consideration, bit like acid into his flesh. He refused Hunter’s requests to tackle her. Hunter put this down to cynical disregard. Robin could not be persuaded to help either. Her reasons were entirely selfish. As the time drew nearer for her meeting with Con she found it difficult to think of anything else. She had booked accommodation for herself at the Y.W.C.A. When she had informed Con of this over the telephone he had laughed and said, `Poor Robin. Don’t worry.’ She was not quite sure what he had meant and she did not like the suggestion that she worried. Nevertheless, she did worry, just a little. She did not, however, neglect her work. It was important that she should ingratiate herself with Hunter who at this time was more unpredictable than ever. She managed this so successfully that when the time came he told her she could take the Friday afternoon.

  `I hope it rains,’ P.O. said as she frowned over the duty rota.

  It rained heavily in the morning, but it cleared in the afternoon as Robin made her preparations. She spent a long time on her make-up, not so much for Con’s benefit as for her own satisfaction. The week-end really began with the time when she took her hair brush and made the first heavy stroke from brow to the nape of the neck. When she had finished her hair shone like a close-fitting satin cap. The effect, however, was a little too immaculate and she shook her head gently so that the hair fell forward across one cheek giving her a look of rather exaggerated insouciance. Con would like that. Her lightly amused attitude to life suited him admirably and kept their relationship on the level which he regarded as safe. And yet, was he really so undemanding? There had been times when she had caught him watching her with a baffled, questioning expression. She guessed that he was wondering how she would make out in bed. Perhaps he did not put it so crudely to himself, or perhaps in this respect he was as crude as other men; but however he might express it, this was undoubtedly what he was wondering. She wondered about it too as she studied her reflection in the glass. She was more aware than ever of a certain unreliability, a vagrant, wilful quality. The white-skinned face with its long, patrician nose and thin lips suggested coldness; but the brilliant hair, the slightly drooping eyelids and, most of all, the eyebrows belied this impression. Why the eyebrows? Could one really tell much about character from a study of eyebrows, particularly when they were practically non-existent without a pencil to shape them? But the very lack of eyebrow seemed to give an enigmatic quality to the face and to emphasise the slight heaviness of the eyelids. There was definitely a hint of the sensual here. She turned away from the mirror and put on her cap, placing it well to the back of the head where it would not disturb the nonchalant curtain of hair.

  She walked down to the village, treading carefully through the rutted lanes. The air smelt of the drenched fields. It struck damp, too. She had not worn her raincoat because she liked the straight, uncluttered line of the navy suit. It was one of the reasons why she had joined the W.R.N.S. `All those pockets and buttons and belts – you never notice the poor little Waaf underneath!’ she had said. In the village she was particular about her lift, thumbing only comfortable-looking cars. Eventually she stopped a staff car carrying an uncommunicative American colonel; she relaxed against the soft leather upholstery and thought about the evening ahead. She hoped that the Y.W.C.A. would be comfortable. She looked out of the window. The sun was breaking through the clouds and the fields were very fresh after the rain; the deep green of the grass was so beautiful that her pulse quickened as she looked at it. The colonel asked her if she was going into the centre of Starcombe. To her surprise, she told him that she would prefer to be dropped on the outskirts of the town. `I’m not meeting my boy-friend for half-an-hour,’ she explained. This was true, but normally she would not have chosen to spend that half-hour toiling up the steep road that led to the main street.

  When she got out of the car she went into the railway station. In the lavatory she cleaned her shoes with toilet paper, brushed down her jacket and stowed her cap away in her week-end case. She still had twenty minutes to spare. She left the station and walked leisurely in the direction of the main street. Kerren said that the main street of Starcombe gave her a feeling of wind and space, as though she was walking on top of the world. Robin, who was lazy, usually maintained that this was one experience she could do without; but today, as she looked at the road climbing ahead, purple-tinged after the rain, she felt excited as though she was setting out on a splendid adventure. The breeze ruffled her hair and she put up her hand and smoothed the strands back into place. After that, she lost herself in her surroundings. This was a rare occurrence. Everything around her was bright and sharply defined after the rain, as though a dusty filter had been washed clean. Her own senses were sharpened. She noticed the mother of pearl sheen at the edges of the dispersing cloud, the blue of the sky so deep that it seemed that it, too, had been washed by the rain. The old red-brick houses glowed and the grass and the leaves of the trees glimmered with tiny points of light. The shrubs smelt strongly. It was getting towards evening and in one window on the shadowed side of the road a lamp had been lit although the curtains had not yet been drawn. Other people’s homes had always fascinated her, seeming more secure than her own. She remembered all the hopes that had fluttered in her thin childish breast when she went to parties in unknown houses, the excitement of going up the drive, knocking on the door, the shivering anticipation as she heard the gay laughter within, the unfamiliar faces in the hall, the feeling that anything was possible which lasted right up to the time when she became a part of it and the magic faded. There had not been much magic since then.

  She came to the main street. The White Hart, where she was to meet Con, was on the far side of the road, a Georgian building with a wide grass verge in front of it. There was a wooden seat on the grass and she sat there, looking across at the road up which she had come. Con would not be long now. She waited, without impatience, her hands resting lightly in her lap. Perhaps Kerren had been right about being on top of the world here, the air certainly made her feel light-headed. She looked down the road opposite which fell away steeply so that she could see fields far in the distance. She looked steadily in this direction, sitting still and straight, part of a pattern of mellow brick and grass, of distant fields and the wheeli
ng flight of birds overhead. After a time there was a new element in the pattern, a figure coming up the hill, tall in the slanting evening light, the land falling away behind him. She noted how the long stride carried him forward without effort, yet inexorably, while the light seemed to gather the last of its strength, sparking up from each blade of grass and every paving stone, flaming from the rose-red walls and purple-shadowed fields. She could not see his face because the light was behind him; she did not think to herself, this is Con, what shall I say to him? what will he say to me? She did not think at all. The intensity of the light pierced her body and blood was loosed, throbbing through her veins while she waited for him to come to her.

  Chapter Twenty

  November was a bitter month; although Robin had no complaints about it to start with. All the irritations of life seemed to have smoothed out and she felt she had mastered the business of living. She no longer dreaded the conversation in the cabin at night because now she was within the magic circle that formed round the stove. She had become a full member of the human race. When Con’s course finished he would have another week-end leave. She looked forward to this confidently and did not worry about what would happen afterwards. She did not imagine that she could ever be apprehensive or lonely again.

  While Robin lay in her bunk, warm and mindlessly happy, Kerren thought of Peter. Night after night she imagined he was trying to communicate with her. She heard his voice in the whine of the wind through the bare branches of the trees; and once, when the others came back late from a dance, the breeze from the open door passed across her face and she imagined he was bending over her, the cold north sea still in his breath. He needed comfort, she was sure of that. She whispered softly, `It’s all right, my darling! It’s all right, it’s all right!’ Her hands moved over the coarse sheets, smoothing them incessantly until Naomi in the next bunk called out, `Stop it, Kerren! I’d rather you ground your teeth than did that all the time.’ She lay still after that, but she did not sleep. If she slept she felt as though she had failed to keep a vigil. She grew thin, but she did not spare herself because she felt that she must take his sickness to herself.