by Nevil Shute
There was a short silence. “I don’t like ’em that way,” he said uneasily. “I don’t think it’s as good as the way I had them. It only gives you one chance, like.”
“I’d like to give him a piece of my mind,” the girl said decidedly. “What’s it got to do with ’im anyway? He ain’t the one that’s shooting.”
“He’s the Cap,” said Sergeant Phillips justly, “and what he says goes, if you take me. But he’s quite changed lately. What I mean is, we was all matey together up to not so long ago, but now it’s as if he was the officer and everybody else was so much dirt.”
“What’s happened, then, to make him go like that?”
“I dunno,” said the sergeant. “I can’t make it out.”
L.A.W. Smeed had a simple, elemental mind. To her, and at her age, there was only one explanation for the unusual. “Maybe he’s in love,” she said.
Sergeant Phillips considered this for a moment. Everybody at Hartley aerodrome was deeply interested in Love, except perhaps the Adjutant and Flight Officer Stevens, and one or two others more than twenty-five years old. For the majority of the Wing, Love was as essential a commodity as petrol, and much more interesting.
“With that Section Officer of yours?” he said. “The one you asked her name?”
“Might be,” the girl said. “I haven’t seen them about together, though, have you?”
“No,” said the sergeant thoughtfully. “It could be that, though. He wanted to know her name all right.”
“She’s been sort of pale and quiet the last day or two,” the girl said hopefully. “Think she shot him down?”
“If she did,” he said, “he’s got no call to take it out on us.”
In the darkness outside the gate into the station they exchanged expressions of mutual esteem, then broke away and walked in separately past the guard. There was a prejudice at Hartley against walking past the guard arm-in-arm, even when returning from the pictures.
It was true enough that Gervase was not quite herself. Like Marshall, she had not foreseen that the clean break they had arranged would be impracticable. She saw him every day in the mess, and she was troubled to observe that he seemed moody and depressed. Previously, in her experience, Marshall had been the fount of new amusements; he had always seemed to have some new diversion for the ante-room, catching a fish or chasing a badger or shooting pigeons. It troubled her to see him sitting bored and listless with a newspaper.
It troubled her still more that he was watching her so closely. She was not angry with him; he was quite nice and unobtrusive over it, but whenever they were in the room together she knew that his eyes were on her. It made her feel as if all that they had settled in the wood was nugatory and worthless; nothing was changed between them, after all. She thought that by the line that she had taken she had extinguished the fire; it was now clear to her that she had merely smothered it, that it was still as much alive as ever, secretly. She felt as if she was sitting on a volcano, and it worried her.
She took to spending longer hours than usual upon her work, staying on after duty in the signals office. She did this partly from an instinct to avoid the ante-room so far as possible, partly for the diversion for her own mind that her work could give, and partly from a sense of duty. There were indications, clear to all the station, that their spell off operations was coming to an end; she was concerned that when raids started up again her operators should be all on the top line, that there should be no inefficiency in the radio service if a girl went sick and a reserve girl had to be pulled in. She sat on in her office after tea each evening thinking out contingencies, planning for troubles and emergencies that might arise.
She was sitting so one evening at the end of the slack period. It had been announced on the Tannoy at tea time that there would be no leave off the station until further notice; this meant, in effect, a warning for an operation the next night. She was sitting conning over the last details of her organisation for the tenth time, when there was a knock upon the office door. She raised her head, and said: “Come in.”
The door opened, and a very young Pilot Officer came into the room. She had seen him in the mess for some time, but did not know his name; he was small, and rather pale-faced, and bright-eyed. She said “Good evening,” and sat looking up at him.
He said a little nervously: “I say—my name is Drummond. There are one or two things I want to know, and Flight Lieutenant Marshall said I’d better come to you. Could you spare a few minutes?”
She said: “Of course. Shift those papers off that chair and bring it over.” She shoved a packet of cigarettes lying on the desk towards him. “Will you smoke?”
He said: “Oh, thanks awfully,” and fumbled in his pocket. “Won’t you have one of mine?”
To put him at his ease she took it, and he lit it for her. “What’s your machine?” she asked.
He said: “Red C. C for Charlie.”
For a moment she was unreasonably disturbed. She had had a very bad half-hour with the last C for Charlie, and she did not care for the association. New machines had to have a letter, and it was impossible to keep vacant the identification letters of the lost machines. To fill in time she wrote down ‘Drummond—C’ upon the pad before her.
She said: “What can I do?”
He looked at her confidingly. “Just one or two things about the stations and the frequencies. You see,” he said, “it’s the first time I’ve been allowed to go alone.”
She started giving him the information that he asked for. At the end of ten minutes she began to realise with some misgiving that he wanted to memorise all the information that his wireless operator would carry with him on a card of reference in the machine.
She said: “You can’t possibly remember all you’ve written down. In any case, your operator will have it—Corporal Macaulay.”
The boy said: “Yes, but if he got hit or something there’d be nobody.”
Gervase said: “But then you’d just take a look at his card. It should be in his satchel.”
He said: “Well—yes, but I’d rather memorise the more important ones. You see, the satchel might get lost, or something.”
It was in her mind to tell him that if the operator were wounded and the satchel lost, the odds were that the set would be unserviceable anyway. She did not say that. She had learned that pilots were to be humoured; it was not for the ground staff to say how the air crews should do their work. She went on with him and gave him all the information that he asked for; it took them another quarter of an hour. By that time he had lost his diffidence and was talking with her freely.
She said presently: “Have they given you a good crew?”
He said: “Oh yes—they’re splendid chaps. Sergeant Entwhistle’s done over twenty ops, and Sergeant Murdoch is awfully tough. He boxes; he’s a welter-weight, from Birmingham.” He glanced at her, troubled. “I’m frightfully anxious not to let them down,” he said. And then, because she was a girl, and kind, he added: “They’re bound to be watching to see if I know my stuff.”
She said: “You know your stuff all right. You’ll probably find that they don’t know theirs as well as you do.”
He said, troubled: “They’re so much more experienced than I am. If I forgot anything or did anything wrong they’d know at once.”
The girl said: “You won’t do that.”
He smiled at her shyly: “Not on the wireless, with all the help you’ve given me.” He got up to go. “It’s been frightfully nice of you to give me so much time.”
She was two years older than he was, being twenty-one; she felt almost motherly to him. “If there’s anything you want to-morrow,” she said, “come along again. I’ll be in and out of here all morning. But I’m sure you’ll find that it’ll be all right.”
He said: “Of course it will. It’s just a bit worrying, that’s all.” He turned to her. “Flight Lieutenant Johnson told me that when he was pushed off alone he had a completely raw crew, as new to it as he was.�
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Gervase said: “I suppose they did that sort of thing in those days—they had to. But it’s much safer to have an experienced crew like you’ve got.”
He said uneasily: “I hope to God I don’t make a fool of myself.”
She smiled at him. “You won’t do that.”
He went away, and she sat on at her table, worrying. She knew Sergeant Entwhistle slightly, the navigator of C for Charlie. He was a young man with a superior smile and an upper lip that curled a little, very conscious of the prestige that his experience had given him. Abruptly she thought, how much happier Drummond would have been with a completely raw young man as navigator, whose mistakes he could have checked with his abundant energy. But that, she reflected, was absurd. It would never do to send out aircraft with completely raw crews. That might have been all right in Pat Johnson’s time, but not now.
She did not see Pilot Officer Drummond again. The operation the next night was against Bremen; all the machines that could be mustered from the station took off for it between eight and eight-thirty. Gervase was on duty at the control office. By ten-thirty the first ‘Mission completed’ signals were coming in; she marked them on the big blackboard in chalk, covering half of one wall. L for London, R for Robert, Q for Queenie.…
By eleven all the machines were accounted for in her neat writing on the board, except O for Orange and C for Charlie. With a sick heart she sat there at the little desk beside the blackboard, waiting; from time to time she went through to the telephone and R/T room next door. There was nothing she could do to assist the crews; she must wait till the machines began to arrive back again, when she would hear them overhead and they would begin talking on the R/T if they were in difficulty. Orange and Charlie might quite well be with them, their radio sets and damaged and unserviceable.
At a quarter to one the roaring of the first aircraft was heard faintly in the distance; the control officer and his flight sergeant went out on to the balcony with the Aldis lamp, and the operation of landing the machines began. In a few minutes the flight sergeant put his head in at the door. “O for Orange signalling for permission to land.”
That was one of them, at any rate. Gervase marked it with a tick in chalk upon the blackboard; there was now only C for Charlie unaccounted for.
With a sick heart she began the long routine of searching the aerodromes all over England for a missing aircraft. She very soon discovered P for Percy at an aerodrome in Essex, and later in the night she found that M for Mother had been wrecked in a field near Dover, the crew having baled out of the disabled aircraft as soon as they were over land. She found no sign of C for Charlie. At four in the morning, two hours after all fuel must have been exhausted, she handed over to a flight sergeant and went back to her quarters, exhausted, white, and hurt.
She took three aspirins to assist sleep, but for a long time she lay awake, sweating and distressed. When at last she did fall asleep, she had a terrible dream.
She dreamed that Flight Officer Stevens had gone away on leave, and Section Officer Ford had gone sick, and she was left as the senior W.A.A.F. officer in the camp. She was in her office, and the telephone rang. She picked it up to answer it and it was Chesterton, the Squadron Leader (Admin.). He said: “Oh, Miss Robertson. We’ve got two more officers coming in this afternoon. Will you please get Flight Lieutenant Marshall’s room cleared and have his things packed up to be sent to his home? I’m afraid he won’t be coming back.” And she had said: “Very good, sir.”
She had gone out of the office and walked slowly to the officer’s block; she did not want to go; it was as if some power were pushing her from behind. When she arrived before the cheap, painted door of his room she paused; she did not want to go in, but she had to, and presently she opened the door.
The room was neat and bright and sunny; the bed was turned down and a pair of blue pyjamas laid out on it invitingly, but it had not been slept in. In a corner of the room she saw the long green bag that held the little spinning-rod that he had taught her to use, and on the dressing-table she saw the little multiplying-reel that went with it. And in her mind she said in agony: “Oh, please, I can’t do this. Somebody else must do it for me,” and behind her someone said: “But you must. This is the job you’ve got to do.”
So she went forward into the room, and to the little bare table that served both as dressing-table and as writing-table, and she opened the little drawer beneath it, and took out what first came to her hand. It was a blotting-pad, and in among the doodles her own name was written, Gervase Laura Robertson. She put it down quickly, her eyes full of tears, and the next thing that she took out was a snapshot photograph of herself standing at the door of the R/T office talking to her flight sergeant, the photograph taken furtively from the window of the control office. And she said, weeping: “Please, I can’t go through with this. Somebody else must do it.” But behind her someone said: “It would be a waste of manpower for a man to do a simple little job like this.”
She put down the photograph, and the next thing she picked out was a lock of hair, and it was her hair. And the next thing was six inches of shoulder-strap ribbon—her shoulder-strap ribbon—and she said sadly: “I never gave him that.” And the next thing was a letter, sealed, and on the envelope was written her own name, ‘S/O G. L. Robertson’.
And while she stood irresolute, fearing to open the letter, there was a knock at the door, and she said: “Come in.” And the door opened, and Beatrice the batwoman came into the room with a large cup of tea in her hand. And she said: “Oh, beg pardon, ma’am. I just brought Flight Lieutenant Marshall his cup of tea.”
Then she woke up, and she was in bed, trembling and shaken, and her pillow was wet with tears. She did not sleep again that night.
She met Flight Officer Stevens at breakfast next morning. She had no appetite for sausages, but she poured herself out a strong cup of coffee, and asked:
“Has anything come in yet about Charlie?”
The older woman said: “No. Nobody appears to know anything about it.”
The girl said bitterly: “Well, I do. I know something about it.”
The Flight Officer looked up at her. “What’s that?”
Gervase said: “The captain came to see me yesterday—Pilot Officer Drummond. He wanted to know the stations we should be working. He didn’t like his crew.”
Mrs. Stevens said sharply: “Were they quarrelling?”
Gervase thought for a moment, “No,” she said. “I don’t think they were quarrelling. But they weren’t together as a team. I think he was a bit afraid of them. He felt that they were watching him to see if he made a mistake.”
The Flight Officer said: “Well, they would be. That’s only natural for a crew when they get a new captain.”
The girl was silent, sipping at her coffee. Mrs. Stevens glanced at her, and said: “Was he very worried?”
Gervase said in a low tone: “I think he was.”
There was a long pause; the Flight Officer helped herself to toast and marmalade. “There’s nothing to be done about a pilot’s worry when he goes out as a captain for the first time,” she said. “That’s one of the things that we can’t help them in. If you ever hear of a crew quarrelling amongst themselves, let me know, quietly, and I’ll have a word with Wing Commander Dobbie. But nervousness the first time is inevitable.”
Gervase said doubtfully: “I suppose it is.”
They said no more; she ate nothing, but drank two cups of coffee and smoked three cigarettes; presently she left the room and went over to her office at Headquarters. There was no news at all of C for Charlie; she felt that bad news would have been easier than suspense. She moved through her routine work all day, anxious and troubled. It was true that Drummond had not quarrelled with his crew, but she was not so sure of Marshall. When she had talked to Gunnar Franck he had been very sore indeed, very much hurt and upset at his captain’s attitude. She wondered unhappily if she ought to do something about R for Robert; if so, what could
she do?
Her reason told her that she had much better do nothing. A team that had done so many sorties together was not likely to disintegrate because one member of it had become irritable; that was absurd. Irritation with each other was not quarrelling; in R for Robert nobody wanted to murder anybody else. There was minor friction in that crew, but that was not a matter that could go before the Wing Commander.
Gervase pulled herself together, remembering that she had slept very little during the night, and that she had suffered a nightmare in the short time that she was asleep. In the late afternoon she got upon her bicycle and rode out of the camp, and rode steadily through the country lanes till dusk, covering about fifteen miles and returning to the camp tired out with exercise and lack of sleep and nervous strain. There was no news of C for Charlie; nobody knew what had become of that machine at all. With a sad heart Gervase ate an early supper and went to bed immediately; she slept heavily the whole night through.
The weather remained good. In spite of the loss of two machines in the Bremen operation the wing was at good strength after its fortnight’s rest. Next day the station was closed again and the crews made their final preparations for another operation; when the briefing came it turned out that it was to be Mannheim.
Marshall had been to Mannheim twice before; he knew the appearance of the city from the air, and the landmarks in the immediate neighbourhood. He listened to the briefing idly, with only half his mind upon the job, staring at the familiar air photographs in absent meditation, making a desultory note or two about objectives. He was feeling stale and tired and fed-up with the whole business. For many nights now he had slept badly; with the close of the fishing season all the savour had gone out of life at Hartley Magna. He had reached the settled opinion that he had failed with Gervase because he was himself an unattractive fool, and this mood of self-depreciation, like an infection, was spreading into his work. He knew that his crew had become annoyed with him; it was only natural, he felt, for an air crew to become annoyed with an inefficient captain. In recent weeks, he felt, all the zest had gone out of the work; flying and operations now were just another duty to be got through somehow or other before he could return and see Gervase eating buttered toast in the ante-room, and suffer again.
