Come the Hour

by Peggy Savage

  They arrived at the anatomy department and walked up the stairs to the women’s cloakroom. They put on their white coats. Rita gave her a thin smile.

  ‘Better get it over with,’ she said.

  Tessa was faintly apprehensive. The frogs and the rats hadn’t really prepared her for this.

  They walked down the stairs together and through the swing doors into the dissecting room.

  The room was brightly lit and smelt strongly of formalin. Several long tables were arranged in neat rows, white-coated figures bending over them. It wasn’t what Tessa had expected. There were no bodies lying on the tables, just indefinable lumps of something, obscured by the white coats.

  They stood uncertainly by the door. A small man in a brown lab coat approached them, clipboard in hand. ‘Names?’ he said.

  ‘Tessa Fielding, Rita Lane.’

  He ran his pencil down his list. ‘You’re on the arm this term,’ he said, in a strong Cambridgeshire accent. ‘In the chest at the back.’

  Their eyes followed his pointing pencil. Two large chests stood against the wall at the back of the room. They walked up to them slowly. The lids were standing open. They peered in. One chest was full of arms, the other full of legs.

  Tessa took in a breath. If she was ever going to feel queasy, she thought, this moment was surely it. It didn’t happen and the moment passed. She glanced at Rita who had gone a bit pink, but otherwise seemed unmoved.

  The arms had luggage labels tied around the wrist and they searched through until they found the one marked ‘Fielding and Lane.’ They carried it to an empty table, laid it down and looked at it. The hand was large and strong looking, worn with labour, the fingers slightly curled in. Obviously a man.

  ‘I wonder who he was,’ Rita said. ‘I wonder how he ended up here?’

  Tessa glanced at her. They obviously had the same thoughts. ‘I expect he left his body to science,’ she said. She almost smiled at the thought. Leaving one’s body to science sounded so grand. It conjured up thoughts of great scientific advances, medical breakthroughs, not two nervous girls poking at it with a scalpel. ‘We’d better get started.’

  They got out their scalpels and opened their books at the chapter marked The Arm.

  ‘Remove the skin as far as the elbow,’ it began. They got to work.

  Charlie began to enjoy Cambridge. He enjoyed the work he was doing. He joined a chess club and a music-appreciation society. He enjoyed the way that autumn tinted the trees along the Backs by the river and winter brought clear frosty nights and brilliant starry skies. He delighted in the ancient buildings, unchanged for hundreds of years. He could feel the presence of his ancestors before him, the walls polished by centuries of English fingers, the stones worn by centuries of English feet. He would walk sometimes by the river at night, or stand in the soft gas lighting on Garret Hostel Bridge, watching the mysterious shadows under the gently swaying willows. In the evenings the college bells pealed together, summoning the students home to dine in Hall. To Charlie they seemed to be the voice of this ancient town. The thought that all this had been here for centuries filled him with a deep, almost spiritual contentment.

  Then, sometimes, he would lie in bed at night, thinking, or perhaps trying not to think. In that first conversation Arthur had looked at him as if he knew nothing, and as if he, Arthur, had some kind of inside knowledge. Perhaps he had. In any case, Arthur had brought him up against something he preferred not to think about. ‘History repeats itself’, Arthur had said. History now seemed to him to be a succession of struggles for power, of wars and battles, victories and defeats; the survival of the strongest, or of those with the strongest determination. He had a sense that Arthur and his group of blunt, earnest young men, were staring resolutely into a future that he, Charlie, was trying to avoid.

  One morning when they met on the stairs, he said, ‘Do you really think there’s going to be a war, Arthur?’

  Arthur smiled, a mirthless grin. ‘Read your history books, old boy.’

  ‘What would you do,’ Charlie persisted, ‘if it happened?’

  ‘What I’m training to do,’ Arthur said. ‘Keep ’em flying.’

  Charlie stared at him. ‘You think it would be a flying war?’

  Arthur gave a gusty laugh. ‘Where have you been? Ever heard of the German raids on Spain, on Guernica? Mussolini bombing native villages in Abyssinia? Do you think it’s going to be knights in armour on horseback, waving swords and rescuing maidens?’

  Charlie felt abashed and foolish.

  Amy and Dan read the morning newspaper and laughed. In America Orson Welles had broadcast a radio play – an adaptation of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. Apparently hundreds of listeners thought that it was true that the Martians had invaded, and they fled into the streets in panic.

  They laughed, but Amy was not really amused. What would happen if there were a real raid on London? Would the people panic, run away from the city? Would the roads be blocked with streams of refugees like those they had seen in France in the last war, women and children and old people, desperate and afraid?

  ‘Do you think the play would have panicked people here?’ she said.

  Dan laughed. ‘I don’t think so. I think we’d be out there, hitting the Martians with our umbrellas.’

  Umbrellas, she thought? Is that all we’d have?

  Dan kept the smile on his face. He tried not to think about the million cardboard coffins the government had apparently stockpiled.

  The news from Germany grew ever darker. They read the newspapers in horror. In November the Jews were attacked in the cities, their homes ransacked, their shop windows smashed, men beaten by mobs in the street. The Nazis launched their first aircraft carrier; they built more and more E-boats.

  ‘It can’t go on,’ Dan said.

  Amy thought about the boys she’d seen, getting on to the Cambridge train. Her heart ached. Such beautiful children.

  Chapter Five

  1938-1939

  ‘Happy Christmas, darlings.’ Amy and Dan and the twins sat down to breakfast in the kitchen. ‘Don’t eat too much,’ Amy said. ‘We’ve got Christmas lunch to come. The turkey’s already in the oven.’

  ‘Where’s your father, Amy?’ Dan said.

  ‘Grandpa’s on his way,’ Charlie said. ‘I heard him pottering about.’

  ‘Can I do anything?’ Tessa asked.

  ‘There isn’t much to do, really,’ Amy said. ‘Mrs Parks left everything ready. We only have to peel the potatoes.’

  Amy’s father came in, freshly shaved, looking, she thought, younger than his years. Relief after the Munich agreement seemed to have taken years off him. The thought of another war seemed to have drained him of life. ‘Happy Christmas, everybody,’ he said. ‘A happy and a peaceful Christmas.’

  Dan raised his cup. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  ‘Sit down, Father.’ Amy poured him a cup of tea. ‘Lunch’ll be about two o’clock.’

  He sat down. ‘Mrs Parks gone to her daughter’s?’

  Amy nodded. ‘Her daughter’s having another baby. She always goes there for Christmas anyway.’

  ‘You’ll have to cook lunch, Grandpa,’ Tessa said.

  He laughed. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’

  In the background the wireless was softly playing Christmas carols. Amy busied herself at the sink, washing up a few cups, putting out the potatoes to be peeled. She looked out over the garden. It had snowed a little more in the night, dusting the lawn and the trees and the garden chairs, glinting in unexpected shafts of sunlight. The garden seemed to have a heightened beauty, as if she had never really appreciated the English winter before. The colours seemed clearer, the light brighter, the bare trees showing their graceful bones against the sky. The threat, crawling through the world, diminished though it was now, seemed to have cast everything into a clearer, sharper focus. This year it brought with it an almost painful love of home. The cups and saucers in her hands, even the potatoes for peeling, seeme
d to have a new beauty, a new significance. This was still her home – it was still here. Her family, everyone she loved best in the world, was sitting behind her at the breakfast table, all here, all safe. The winter and the cold and the snow were welcome; anything was welcome, now that the country was its old peaceful self, now that there were to be no tearful goodbyes, no heart-rending partings.

  ‘So how’s Cambridge?’ Grandpa said.

  ‘Lovely.’ Tessa grinned. ‘The human body is an amazing thing, Grandpa. We took an arm to pieces this term. Leg next term. Very interesting. Such a fantastic design, the human body. You’d be amazed what’s in there. You couldn’t invent it if you tried. It’s poetic. I should write an “Ode to a kidney”, or “Shall I compare thee to a neuro-chemical transmitter”.’

  He laughed. ‘Don’t you mind,’ he said, ‘taking a human body to pieces?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘We get it a bit at a time.’

  He grimaced. ‘Good Lord!’

  ‘Grandpa,’ she said, ‘you must have had all this with Mum. Don’t pretend to be shocked.’

  ‘She’s a ghoul,’ Charlie said. ‘I bet she sleeps in a coffin in college.’

  ‘I hardly sleep at all,’ Tessa said. ‘I have too much work to do. I bet I work a lot harder than you do. We don’t swan about like you people.’

  Grandpa turned to Charlie. ‘What about you? How are you getting on?’

  ‘Fine,’ Charlie said. ‘I go to all the lectures, get my essays in on time, and I haven’t been progged yet.’

  Grandpa’s eyebrows rose. ‘Progged?’

  ‘It means being caught by the university proctors,’ Tessa said, ‘for being out at night without his gown or climbing into college after hours. Getting up to no good. They come out at night and patrol the streets. They’re very spooky, creeping around those dark little streets. The Proctor is in his cap and gown and his two henchmen, bulldogs, we call them, are in striped trousers and top hats and running shoes, so they can chase you.’ She pulled a face. ‘Women don’t wear gowns, of course. We’re not full members of the university, would you believe. We’re there on sufferance. Oxford took women as full members in 1920, but not Cambridge. We had student demonstrations to keep women out, and they’re still holding out. Still, we can get up to no good and no one will know.’

  Grandpa laughed. ‘And what happens if you are progged?’

  ‘He is fined six and eightpence, a third of a pound,’ Tessa said, ‘and he gets his knuckles rapped and a glass of sherry in the Proctor’s rooms and a lecture about standards. He is supposed to behave with decorum and uphold the standards of the university.’

  Grandpa laughed again. ‘Why would you want to climb in after hours?’

  ‘To prove a point?’ Charlie said clearly. It was more of a question than a statement. ‘We’re all over eighteen and we’re locked up at night like little kids.’

  Amy smiled at him. Pushing the boundaries. Growing up. That was fairly normal. Thank God the boundaries were so innocent, the growing up so natural. Not like those eighteen-year-olds sent to France in the war, thrust into a vicious maturity before their time. The smile died. Dead before their time.

  ‘Or spend the evening with a girl,’ Tessa added.

  ‘Oh,’ Grandpa said. ‘Have you got a girl, Charlie?’

  Charlie sighed. ‘No, I haven’t. There aren’t enough girls in Cambridge to go round. It’s at least ten to one.’ He grinned. ‘And the only girls I’ve met are Tessa’s ghoulish friends. They look at you as if they want to take you to bits. It’s a bit off-putting.’

  Tessa laughed. ‘You ought to be used to doctors by now.’

  Amy felt a little shock. More changes. Nice changes, though; Charlie with a girl, getting married some day, grandchildren. She shook her head briefly. What on earth was she doing, thinking about that? That was years away. What would they have to go through first? If God were still in his heaven, they would just be peaceful, kindly years.

  After breakfast they gathered in the sitting room for presents. The Christmas tree sparkled in the corner and a bright log fire burned in the fireplace. Amy looked around her in deep contentment. Nothing had changed. The twins were easy this year – they were more than happy with a cheque, but Amy had bought them some joke presents, a teddy bear for Tessa, (‘I expect she’ll chop it up to see what’s inside,’ Charlie said), and a copy of 1066 and All That for Charlie. Dan usually bought her a piece of jewellery. This year it was a pendant, a little ruby heart surrounded by diamonds. ‘Because I love you,’ the card said.

  ‘Come and help me with lunch, Tessa,’ Amy said eventually.

  Dan got up. ‘Do you need me?’

  Amy shook her head. ‘Go and have a walk or something. The sun’s shining now.’

  Dan looked round. ‘Anyone for a walk?’

  ‘I’ll come, Dad,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

  They walked to the park. There were several people about, walking their dogs, smiling and wishing each other a happy Christmas.

  ‘Everybody looks a lot cheerier now,’ Charlie said. ‘I suppose it’s because things have settled down a bit.’

  Dan nodded. ‘Most people are beginning to think we might get through all this without any actual conflict.’ He paused. ‘Unlike the poor Czechs. We let them down, Charlie.’

  ‘Do you think we will, Dad – avoid a war?’

  Dan sighed. ‘I hope so, but who really knows? We ought to be a lot better prepared than we are. I suppose no one can really believe that it might happen again.’

  They walked on. A little dog ran up to Charlie, a ball in its mouth. It laid the ball at Charlie’s feet and waited, grinning. Charlie laughed and threw the ball. The dog scampered after it, his tail wagging.

  ‘There’s a chap on my staircase,’ Charlie said. ‘An engineering student. He seems to have no doubt there’ll be a war – a war of machines, not millions of men in trenches like last time. Mostly in the air, he says. He’s probably biased, though. He’s got a thing about aeroplanes. He thinks we should be concentrating on the Air Force.’

  ‘I think he’s right about the air.’ Dan walked on, looking at the ground, thinking of the aircraft in the last war, of the damage they could do, the sporadic bombing in London and the coastal towns. And things had moved on. There were bombers now that could carry tons of explosives, enough to flatten any city. Where was our defence? The Germans had more planes and more pilots, more of everything. Their factories had been churning them out, while we were just marking time.

  ‘He says we’ve got better fighter planes than theirs,’ Charlie said. ‘Spitfires and Hurricanes. He says they’re better than their Me 110s, and the Spitfires are better than their 109s. And there’s a man called Whittle in Cambridge developing a new kind of aircraft engine – much faster, apparently, but Arthur thinks it’ll be a long time before it can be used.’

  ‘That’s reassuring,’ Dan said, ‘but have we got enough? Enough planes and enough pilots? We’ve just coasted along these last twenty years. They’ve just launched their first aircraft carrier, the Germans. They’re going to double their U-boat fleet. What have we been doing? Nothing. Heads in the sand. We should have listened to Churchill. We have to be strong, and more than that, we have to show that we are strong, and we’re not doing it. That’s all they seem to recognize, these fascists – brute strength.’

  Charlie had a sudden picture of the German soldiers marching at the Brandenburg Gate, faces full of strength – brute strength, if you like. If strength was all that was needed, then the Germans certainly had that. What was it that they were lacking? Their strength seemed to him to have a strange, cavernous emptiness at the core. What was it? A different attitude to life, perhaps? They believed in winning, the hubris of the conqueror, but they did not seem to have any plans beyond that. What did they really want? What did they believe in? Where were they going? They didn’t seem to have the kind of implacable belief in freedom that his country had, freedom of speech, equality before the law,
and based on hundreds of years of stability; a country that pulled together, one that would never even contemplate failure. He suspected very strongly that Kurt didn’t like what was happening, and there must be others like him but were too afraid to say so. How ghastly must that be, not being able to disagree with your own government? And even worse, having to fight and perhaps die for something you didn’t believe in. All they had was brute force. If it came to war the irresistible force would meet the immovable object. What would happen then?

  ‘They seem to be ready for it,’ he said.

  Dan glanced at him. ‘You sound as if you think it’s going to happen.’

  Charlie nodded. ‘We have to face the possibility.’ Dan walked on in silence. ‘It wouldn’t be like last time, would it?’ Charlie said. ‘Last time was a fiasco. It was about nothing, did nothing, got nowhere. Nobody seemed to have any faith in it. They just walked into the guns. Millions of them, just walking into the guns.’

  ‘It changed everything,’ Dan said. ‘It changed the whole world. It opened Pandora’s box. It let loose horrors that the world had never seen before. Killing millions of men, killing innocent women and children. What kind of war is that? What kind of mentality? And there’s the dreadful thought that we might have to do the same, fight like with like. There might be no other way to win.’

  Charlie’s mind scrolled through history as he’d been taught it. ‘I think they have been seen before,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it’s only a question of degree, of numbers.’