by John Masters
There was another long silence, then Johnny said, ‘You make me feel even more ashamed of myself than I usually do.’
Richard cut in quickly, ‘You’re doing your best for us here, doing just what you are doing … You have a job here any time you want it, Frank. Any time. Remember that.’
‘I will, sir. Thank you … Here he comes!’
They ran to the window. A biplane marked with the roundels of the Royal Flying Corps burst out of the drifting clouds at the limit of view from the window, and all of them, including Miss Bamfylde, hurried out and into the open air, heedless of the brisk chill in the wind.
‘What is it?’ Richard asked as the machine flew along the far side of the field, about a thousand feet up, down wind.
Johnny stared, ‘Sopwith … Is it the new Pup?’
Frank said, ‘No, sir. It’s a One and a Half-Strutter. R.F.C. two-seater. The Navy have the single-seater.’
The workers were crowding out of every shed and shop, running toward the field, lining up like a football crowd along the imaginary lines that marked the edge of the landing zone. The aeroplane’s nose dipped and the machine dived toward the earth. A collective gasp went up from the crowd. The nose rose and with the engine strumming like a nest full of angry bees, the aeroplane curled over in a graceful loop, and at the top of the loop eased over into a half roll – completing the Immelmann turn and, being now pointed up wind, immediately started its descent, bumping and heaving in the gusty wind, to make a three point landing a hundred yards short of the tower and finally to blip to a standstill, the engine coughing, the propeller swinging, jerking, stopping.
The pilot eased himself out of the forward cockpit as Frank roared, ‘Jevons! Manville! Smith! Go and hold the wings down!’
The pilot jumped to earth and ran toward him, tearing off his flying helmet and goggles. It was Guy.
‘Hullo, Uncle Richard,’ he shouted. ‘Hullo, Frank … Johnny.’ He shook hands all round. ‘When your request reached R.F.C. headquarters out there, Boom Trenchard told my major to send me … keep it in the family, sort of … but I have to be back for lunch.’
He looked round at the crowded men and women, all cheering and clapping and smiling. He raised both hands in acknowledgement. He’s just a kid, Frank thought, but there was a hard line to his jaw, and crow’s feet round his mismatched eyes, and a curl to his nostril that were not those of youth. He would be a hard master to work for; but it would be worth it.
Guy said, ‘If someone will give me a cup of tea and a Bath bun – better still, a Chelsea bun – I’ll be ready to tell you anything you want to know … that is, if I know it myself.’
‘They’ve gone back to work at Hedlington Aircraft,’ Bert Gorse said disgustedly. ‘Mr Richard just gave them a ruddy carrot – ninepence a day more now, and promises of more if production goes up … Frank Stratton’s going to do what that efficiency bloke was supposed to.’
‘He’ll do a good job,’ Rachel said, ‘and the men like him – the women, too, though he’s shy of them … Guy Rowland made a big impression on them all. The women near mobbed him when he left. Well, we did our best. Didn’t get much help from the party, though.’
‘They’re too busy trying to stop the war altogether, or at least make all the governments come out and say what they’re fighting for, to bother about helping us stop a little bit of it.’
‘We’ll just go on. I spoke to Cowell, in the Star & Garter this evening. Alice Rowland was there, with him.’
‘Is she sweet on him?’
‘How do I know? Looks like it … She left early and I asked him whether he would help us get the use of a school for our meetings. He said he’d try if we got some well known figures, respectable people to join … people the police will act careful of.’
Bert riffled through the pile of letters and newspaper clippings on the table – ‘Here’s what he wants – Mr John Rowland of High Staining.’
Rachel looked round in astonishment – ‘Why, that’s Naomi’s father!’
‘Well, he’s written saying he’s not a socialist but he does think that a way must be found to end the war before all that we are fighting to preserve is destroyed – that’s his own words.’
‘Their son Boy’s been at the front since near the beginning,’ Rachel said. ‘That’s what’s getting on his nerves.’
‘Well, it’s one name for Cowell.’
‘We must get more … people who’ve lost a son … Look through the Courier for the past six months … they publish all the local casualties … Then I’ll go and see the parents, at home. Say we’re so sorry about their boy, and other boys, still being killed over there – for what? Won’t they help us stop the slaughter?’
‘A lot of ’em still slam the door in your face,’ Bert said. ‘The more they’ve lost the more they feel they mustn’t stop till Germany’s paid – been ground into dust … ’Course we’re being ground into dust at the same time, but they don’t think of that.’
Rachel said, ‘We must join the No-Conscription Fellowship, Bert. You know I spoke to their leader, Clifford Allen, and also Bertrand Russell, when I went up to London, and now Russell’s written that they would welcome us joining.’
Bert interrupted with morose heat, ‘What we’ve got to do is get some money. I’m damn near starving.’
‘How much came in in subscriptions?’
‘Ten pounds, twelve and fourpence. But we owed rent, had to pay the gas company, buy more paper and ink. There’s only a quid and a tanner left.’
Rachel said, ‘We can ask the people coming to the meeting to bring money … but we’d have to tell them it’s to keep us alive, not for the work. They won’t like that.’ She had an idea suddenly – ‘The day return fare to London’s only three and fivepence. We can spare that … I’m going to go and see your niece, Florinda, and see what I can get out of her. She has millions.’
‘Garn!’ Bert exclaimed. ‘Florinda won’t give you anything. She’s all for the war … seen the pictures of her in the papers, with Captain the Lord this, Commander the Honourable that …’
‘I’m not sure,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s worth trying. She doesn’t want Fletcher killed, after all.’
‘Fletcher’ll get shot by the bleeding narks,’ Bert said.
‘If they find him,’ Rachel said. ‘I have to go out now. I’ll be back in by supper time.’
‘Hold hard, Rachel,’ Bert said. ‘You remember the other day you told me I was against everything, but what was I for?’
‘I remember,’ she said.
‘Well, I been thinking. I’m for the working man in a union.’
‘Not the working woman?’
‘I suppose so,’ Bert said grudgingly, ‘though what the women are doing now is diluting the factories and black-legging, so the unions are not as strong as they should be.’
‘You’re not for socialism?’ she asked.
Bert said slowly, ‘I don’t think so. I’ve tried, because of you. You believe in it, all that stuff, about Fabianism and parliamentary socialism … it may help, but I think the only important thing is to get working men – all working men – into strong unions – then we could stop the war tomorrow, if that’s what we wanted to do, and to hell with parliament and democracy.’
She said, after a while, ‘Thank you for thinking about it, Bert … and for telling me. If we can understand each other better, we’ll be happier, won’t we?’
The two portly men dining in a secluded corner of the Savoy Grill tucked into their roast beef with relish. They had already demolished some real turtle soup, half a cold lobster each with mayonnaise, roast pheasant with Brussels sprouts and chestnuts, all washed down with three bottles of Mumm’s champagne. The younger one, black-haired, red-faced, healthy-seeming in spite of his gluttony, pointed his fork at his companion – ‘Then that’s settled, eh, Mr Bottomley? You’ll accept a directorship of my company …’
‘Certainly,’ the other boomed unctuously. ‘A privilege … honour …
’
Hoggin continued, ‘And you’ll come to our Edgware Road H.U.S.L. next week, and I’ll show you around, so’s you can write a piece about us in John Bull.’
‘I will, indeed … and please call me Horatio, Bill … But I’ll be just! I owe that to my public … I shall tell it as I see it.’
‘We don’t want no more than that,’ Hoggin said. ‘Can’t ask for more, can we? Just the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’ The old fart knew the game, all right.
Hoggin said, ‘That Joint Select Committee’s just about to report that there’s never been any hanky-panky in the food business, an’ we’re all honest, patriotic blokes, just like them.’
Bottomley said, ‘My article will be timely, then … I shall urge them to turn their energies elsewhere … such as getting business men into the government, like you, or me.’
‘That they should,’ Hoggin said – thinking, not bloody likely, when there’s so much money to be made outside.
The waiter carried away the plates and brought steamed canary puddings. They ate those, and the waiter brought Angels on Horseback savoury for Hoggin and Soft Herring Roe on toast for Bottomley. The waiter brought fruit, port, sherry, madeira. And coffee, balloon glasses, cognac, and a huge box of cigars. Hoggin lit his cigar slowly, puffed thoughtfully in the direction of the ceiling, then fished in the pocket of his tailcoat and brought out a fat envelope. ‘Our address … details of the H.U.S.L. shop you’re going to look at, a little something for expenses …’
Bottomley picked the envelope off the table and slid it out of sight with a dexterity obviously born of much practice. Five thousand quid was in there, Hoggin thought; well, it was worth it.
He leaned across the table. ‘The young lady’s been well taken care of, ’Oratio. You just take her home.’
‘Only one? What about you, my dear fellow?’
‘Oh, me, I stick to my old trouble and strife. Don’t know why …’
The head waiter appeared, a vision of female loveliness close on his heels – a young woman with golden hair, a retroussé nose and cold, blue eyes, radiant in a daring gown of electric blue.
The two men stood up. Hoggin said, ‘Allow me to introduce you to Miss Jenny Jenkins, star of the musical comedy stage … Miss Jenkins, Mr Horatio Bottomley, editor and owner of John Bull’.
She sat down in the chair the head waiter had pulled back for her. Hoggin caught her eye. Another hundred quid gone there … it was worth it; and she’d earn it, with old Bumley belching and farting on top of her half the night, and probably with whisky cock, too.
Daily Telegraph, Monday, October 30, 1916
AMERICAN PRESIDENCY STRENUOUS CAMPAIGN
From Our Own Correspondent, New York, Sunday Evening. Both political parties here are straining every nerve to win the Presidency tomorrow week, and they have spent about £200,000 each on propaganda. No election since the days of the Civil War has excited so profound an interest, and none in which the issues are admittedly of such transcendent importance.
For the first time in a Presidential contest State questions seem subservient to international, and there is a growing recognition among the leaders here that Mr Wilson was right last Thursday when he declared ‘this is the last big war in which America can keep neutral’ …
… Oratorical broadsides were delivered on Saturday by Messrs Wilson, Hughes and Roosevelt. The last named … drew the largest crowd … to the delight of his followers he denounced Mr Wilson as insincere and hypocritical.
If Wilson admits we cannot keep out of future big wars, why have we kept out of this? he shouted. Insincerity and hypocrisy, when successful in high places, work ruin to the nation’s soul, and never have we had a greater degree of insincerity and hypocrisy than is contained in such a plea for re-election by the President, who has himself practised the coldest and most selfish neutrality when all those things that in the abstract he condemns were in concrete committed at the expense of Belgium, the Armenians, and Syrian Christians. (Loud Cheers) For a man to say he will do something in the future he is afraid to do now is abstract cowardice. (Hear, hear)
The Americans seemed to be going at it hammer and tongs, Cate thought. Since the dates when each election would be held were known ahead, the campaigns could begin as soon as any candidate chose. Indeed, it sometimes seemed that the country was in a permanent state of election fever, politicians and statesmen concerned with getting themselves re-elected rather than with the business of the country. He thought Mr Wilson would probably win this coming election on November 7th, partly because a president in office seemed to have a big advantage over there, and partly because – for all Mr Roosevelt’s excoriations about ‘abstract cowardice’ – he had kept the United States out of the war, thus saving many lives and making much money for many of his countrymen. Neither situation held true in England, where holding office was rather an invitation to be judged, and removed, by the people and one’s fellow politicians; and – as of this moment, certainly – for a politician to advocate peace by negotiation would surely result in his defeat, even disgrace. England’s blood was up … that diminishing reservoir of it not spilled and still spilling on the heights above the Somme.
He returned to the paper:
FAMOUS GERMAN AIRMAN
CAPTAIN BOELCKE KILLED
Amsterdam, Sunday.
A Berlin telegram states that during an air fight yesterday Captain Boelcke, the noted German aviator, came into collision with another aeroplane, and was killed in landing in the German lines. It was only the day before that Captain Boelcke shot down his fortieth aeroplane.
REUTERS.
Ah, Cate thought – the war in the air! That is something new, and different. There they die, too – as Boelcke had, and as Guy might – but meantime, what an epic, fought over new horizons, with hitherto unknown feelings, emotions, and powers! Some day a great poet would write a new Iliad about that long-drawn-out seesaw struggle in the skies over France, and these names – Mannock, Bishop, Boelcke, Ball, Guynemer, Nungesser and even Rowland, would be as familiar in legend as Achilles, Agamemnon, Hector …
14
London: Friday, October 20, 1916
Tom Rowland stepped down onto the platform and stretched. The wartime Flying Scotsman was not a fast train, or a comfortable one, and today it had arrived half an hour late at King’s Cross. He had been travelling over twenty-four hours now, first the ferry to the mainland at Dingwall, then the over-crowded little train to Inverness … change … change again at Edinburgh … here at last, nearly half-past six o’clock.
He beckoned to a porter – they were getting fewer every time he came ashore, and some were women. This was a man, but so old and frail Tom felt ashamed to indicate his suitcase on the rack in the compartment, and say ‘That’s all, and I want a taxi, please.’
He settled back as the taxi wound slowly south and west through heavy traffic toward his flat in Half Moon Street. He’d been wondering for months now, ever since the dates of this leave had been firmly fixed, what he was going to tell Jones about Charlie Bennett. Jones was the ‘gentleman’s gentleman’ who ‘did’ for him three hours every morning. Tom had not been paying him while he was at sea, except for a fortnightly visit to dust and check that the flat was in good order. Jones had had no difficulty in finding another employer, for people were coming and going far more than they used to – because of the war, of course. He would not be there now … nor would Charlie, but in the morning … He scowled out of the taxi window at the muted lights of wartime London – he almost hoped for a Zeppelin raid so that he would know what it felt like. Perhaps he’d say Charlie had saved his life and he was rewarding him with these few days in London. Jones would not be fooled. So, did it matter? Yes, damn it all, it did matter. How could he hold his head up, speak directly to Jones ever again if the man knew that he was a … damn! damn! damn!
The taxi drew to a halt. The driver came round, saying,
‘’Ere y’are, sir.’ It was seven-f
ifteen.
Tom hurried up the stairs and let himself into his flat. Everything looked in place … there was the group of his term at Osborne … an enlarged photograph of H.M.S. Agincourt, in which he’d served a commission on the Mediterranean station … the reproduction of ‘Whistler’s Mother,’ another of Turner’s Fighting Temeraire … a copy of Hoppner’s Nelson.
He took off his cap and hung it up; then his greatcoat. Charlie was due at eight. Should he change first? Charlie would be in uniform – had to wear it when travelling. If Tom stayed in uniform it would be hard for either of them to forget that they were a commander and an ordinary seaman, from the same ship of His Majesty’s Navy. He went into his bathroom, turned on the bath, and began to undress quickly.
Clean at last, he stepped out of the bath and began to dry himself. The doorbell rang. He stood a moment, frozen: then swallowing and suddenly trembling, he wrapped the towel round his waist, went through the drawing room into the little entrance hall, and opened the door. Charlie Bennett stood outside, in uniform, his duffel bag resting beside him. He came to attention, his eyes widening and said, ‘Sir …’
Tom cut him short – ‘Come in, Charlie.’
He closed the door behind the young man, then led to the drawing room. In the middle of the room he turned, his hands out. The words he wanted to say would not come. All he could get out was ‘Charlie …’
‘Sir …’ Charlie had let go of the duffel bag. His hands came up to meet Tom’s, his eyes shining.
‘Tom’s my name,’ Tom whispered.
‘Tom …’
They held each other tight, cheek pressed against cheek. Then Tom broke free – ‘I’ll run you a bath … that’s your room … undress … would you like a drink? There’s some beer in the pantry … whisky there … the siphon …’
‘Ah’d reet love a bo’l of beer, sir, Tom,’ Charlie said shyly. Heavens, his Geordie accent was strong, Tom thought; no one’s going to believe we can possibly have anything in common, except – this.
