Perys remembered the hay barn and Eliza’s liaison with the Heligan gamekeeper . . . but Polly had more to say.
‘Esau has always been a simple soul, Perys, but he’s well-liked in Mevagissey. The fishermen who haven’t gone off to war are angry that Eliza should be carrying on while Esau is a prisoner. Most of their anger is directed against Edward. I think you should warn him, Perys.’
‘Edward will be leaving once a medical board has visited Heligan.’ Perys was reluctant to commit himself to talking to his second cousin if it could be avoided. ‘He’ll be invalided out of the army and return to his family home.’
‘A lot could happen before then,’ Polly warned. ‘There are some hotheads in Mevagissey who don’t share the respect of Heligan servants for the family.’
‘All right, I’ll try to warn him off,’ Perys said, with some reluctance, ‘but I can’t promise anything, Polly. I am not exactly Edward’s favourite relative.’
‘At least you will have tried to warn him,’ Polly said, ‘and I really do think you should.’ Suddenly becoming brisk, she said, ‘I must go now or I’ll have the housekeeper searching for me. Thank you for being Martin’s best man - and please, take care of yourself. I’m going to say goodbye to you now because I wouldn’t be able to do this in the morning.’
Stepping closer, she gave him a hug and a kiss. Then, scarlet-cheeked, she hurried from the room, leaving behind her a slightly bemused Perys.
He smiled to himself at the thought of how horrified Aunt Maude would be had she witnessed the display of affection shown to him by a Heligan maidservant.
* * *
Perys’s meeting with Edward served only to confirm to him how obnoxious his second cousin was.
Edward was in his room and in response to Perys’s knocking called out for him to ‘Come in’.
When Perys opened the door and entered the room he found his relative lying on his bed, reading a book. At sight of his unexpected visitor, Edward put down the book, sat up slowly and swung his feet to the ground.
‘What the hell are you doing in my room?’ he demanded.
‘I am here to do you a favour,’ Perys said, ‘although I really don’t know why I should. I’ve come to pass on a warning I was given - about you and Eliza Rowe.’
Edward was startled but replied belligerently, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about. Even if I did, what I do is none of your business.’
‘That is what I told my informant you would say,’ Perys agreed, ‘but I promised I would pass on the warning anyway. It seems that folk in Mevagissey know what is going on between the two of you and are not happy about it.’
‘They can mind their own business too,’ Edward declared. ‘And just who is this informant - that little farmer’s girl of yours?’
It was Perys’s turn to be taken by surprise.
Observing this, Edward sneered, ‘Oh yes, I know all about her. As far as I am concerned this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. It must be most convenient for you both that her husband is unable to see what is going on around him.’
Perys knew Eliza must have told Edward about Annie, but he was no less angry with him for the manner in which he had repeated her gossip.
‘I knew it would be a mistake to come and talk to you, but if anything happens I will at least have a clear conscience.’
‘Tell that to the husband of your farm girl.’ Edward was enjoying what he regarded as a verbal victory over Perys. ‘And kindly close the door on your way out . . . Cousin.’
Chapter 57
Perys arrived back with his squadron just in time to take part in their relocation to an airfield close to the French town of Albert.
The British army’s offensive extended north of the River Somme and the squadron’s aeroplanes were kept busy recording the progress - or lack of it - for the benefit of the generals at army headquarters.
Meanwhile, German fighter planes were reaping a grim harvest among the slow-flying reconnaissance aircraft.
Nevertheless, Perys and the French pilots who were also flying Spads proved their aircraft were a match for the much-feared Fokkers of the German air force, even though they were greatly outnumbered.
During the ensuing months they fought against daunting odds to enable the BE2cs to obtain the information required by Field Marshal Haig and his staff at General Headquarters.
Then, towards the end of the campaign, when the onset of winter was adding to the appalling discomfiture of the ground troops, another of the aircraft Perys had evaluated - the Sopwith ‘Pup’ - began arriving in France in rapidly increasing numbers. It quickly established itself as the equal of the Fokker and, at last, the dream of Major Thomas Kemp was realised.
The first fighter squadrons were formed, their sole purpose being to shoot down enemy aeroplanes and establish Allied superiority in the skies above France. Command of the squadron formed at Arras was given to the delighted Major Kemp. Perys, now a substantive captain, became his senior pilot and a flight commander.
The popular commanding officer’s elation was of a tragically short duration.
The squadron came into being on a Wednesday. By Friday Thomas Kemp was dead, killed in a collision between the aeroplane he was flying and that piloted by a young second lieutenant flying his first operational mission.
It came as a severe personal blow to Perys, who greatly admired Thomas Kemp, both as a man and as his commanding officer. He doubted whether there was another flier in the Royal Flying Corps capable of taking his place, but he was given little time to mourn the man who had been a friend and a much-respected senior officer. For ten days, while they awaited the appointment of a new commanding officer, Perys took over the squadron.
It was a difficult time. The pilots of the newly formed fighter squadron were largely unknown to each other. The only thing they had in common was that they were all young, this and a burning ambition to shoot down German warplanes.
Although not the oldest of the squadron’s pilots, Perys had more flying hours than any of the others and his leadership was readily accepted by them. Even so, the main subject of conversation in the mess each evening was of who would be appointed as the new commanding officer.
Ten days after taking temporary command, Perys returned from a morning sortie in which he and his flight had downed two German reconnaissance aeroplanes, to find the new commanding officer awaiting him on the airfield.
It was Rupert Pilkington, now a major.
The two men greeted each other warmly and Rupert said, ‘I have just spent half-an-hour being briefed by your acting adjutant. He tells me I have been given command of a crack squadron. I hope you won’t resent me coming here and taking over from you?’
‘I couldn’t be more pleased,’ Perys replied, honestly. ‘It’s a relief to be handing over responsibility and I am thrilled that it should be you who is taking over the squadron. I am also thankful not to have lost any pilots during my brief tenure.’
‘You have done a splendid job,’ Rupert said. ‘It has not gone unnoticed at RFC headquarters.
As they walked together to the squadron administration office, Perys asked after Morwenna.
‘She is fine,’ Rupert said. ‘We met up in London only a couple of weeks ago and I was able to catch up on all the family news.’ Glancing at Perys, he added, ‘You have heard about the tragedy involving Edward, of course? It was a damned peculiar business.’
‘I have had no family news for months.’ Perys replied. ‘Aunt Maude usually keeps me up-to-date on what is going on but, as you know, she has been in America for some time, fund-raising for one or other of her many war charities. Tell me, what has happened to Cousin Edward?’
Remembering the warning he had tried to pass on to Edward, he feared the worst and was not as surprised as he might have been when Rupert replied, ‘Edward is dead.’
Amplifying his blunt statement, he explained, ‘It must have happened soon after you left Heligan. He was found dead in the harbour at Mevagissey.
There was some mystery about his death at the time. The landlord of one of the Mevagissey public houses swore in the coroner’s court that Edward had been drinking heavily there for much of the evening, but one of the convalescent officers who had also been drinking in the village said none of the officers from Heligan had seen him there. Whatever the truth of it, the verdict was accidental death. It was a tragedy, really. I know neither of us liked Edward very much, but he had been wounded fighting for his country and was within a few days of being invalided out of the army.’
Perys decided to say nothing of what he knew about Edward’s ‘war wound’, or of the warning he had passed on to him from Polly. Nevertheless, he was uncomfortably aware of something Annie had said to him in 1914, when they visited the injured Henry Dunn.
She had said that the fishermen of Mevagissey ‘looked after their own’.
Perys strongly suspected that they had once again proved this to be so.
Chapter 58
In recognition of the number of German aircraft he had shot down during his command of the squadron, Perys was awarded a second Military Cross, one of three given to the squadron’s pilots, and by the end of November 1916 the bloody battle of the Somme was over.
The end of the fighting was decided as much by conditions on the battle-field as by the sheer exhaustion of the combatants. The few insignificant square miles of ground won by the Allied armies had been churned into a wasteland of mud in a carnage that had claimed more than a million-and-a-quarter casualties.
The soldiers who had fought and died to no avail spoke many differing languages, but, spilled on the shell-torn earth, an enemy’s blood was indistinguishable from that of a friend.
Winter would bring peace, of a kind, on the ground, but in the air great changes were taking place, the Royal Flying Corps developing along lines that would shape its future for more than half-a-century.
Instead of squadrons made up of aeroplanes designed for a number of different purposes, they now had separate fighter squadrons the ‘scouts’; the bombers; and others whose purpose was reconnaissance and artillery spotting. Each would have an important but very different part to play in the aerial warfare of the future when tactics too would assume increasing importance.
Rupert and Perys trained their squadron as a unit, each pilot being responsible for covering another in combat. Each, in his turn, would be protected by another.
However, the main purpose of a ‘scout’ was to shoot down the enemy. Because of this the fighter pilot became glamorised as a ‘knight of sky’, fighting a personal battle against an adversary. It was a mode of fighting that had not been seen since the days of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
However, 1917 was to bring about other changes that would eventually bring this, the most costliest of conflicts, to an end.
Germany was about to embark on an all-out war at sea and her submarine commanders were given orders to sink any vessel found in British waters, or which the submarine commander believed to be en route to a British port, regardless of the flag it was flying.
This unwise and draconian measure would bring a hitherto dithering United States of America into the war against the Germans. The vast resources of this mighty country would more than offset the collapse of Russia, Germany’s Eastern enemy, which was about to tear itself apart in a bloody revolution.
* * *
In March 1917, when British and French generals were planning yet another offensive, Perys received a letter which left him stunned. Forwarded by Maude, who was now back in London, the letter had been written to Perys by his grandfather.
It began by saying that now Perys had passed the age of twenty-one, it was time for some changes in his life. Incredibly, his grandfather then expressed deep regret for the fact that his own Victorian upbringing and that of Perys’s grandmother had left them unable to cope with the shame they had felt over the circumstances of Perys’s birth. They had now come to realise that they had been guilty of a tragic injustice to him and were deeply ashamed of the suffering they had caused to both him and his mother.
Letters sent to them by Maude Tremayne and by Rupert had made them realise how much they had lost by their indifference towards him. Even more regrettable was the unhappiness they had caused him during the years when he most needed the support of a family.
Grandfather Tremayne went on to say that nothing he or Perys’s grandmother could do would ever compensate for those lost years, but he had been in correspondence with his London solicitor with a view to ensuring Perys’s future would be happier and more secure than his past.
Hardly able to believe the contents of the letter, Perys went on to read that his grandfather was making over to him all the properties he owned in England, together with monies deposited in his name in a London bank.
He added that he and Perys’s grandmother had property and money enough in Italy to ensure they would live out their remaining years all the comfort they needed.
Accompanying the letter was another from the London solicitor, listing the properties and land which had been made over to Perys, together with details of the monies and investments that would also be transferred to his own hitherto meagre bank account.
The grand total was staggering! Perys found it difficult to grasp that he was now a wealthy man with properties in a number of English counties. Among these was the home of his grandparents on the Sussex Downs and a number of farms in Cornwall. Perys was astonished to learn that among these were Tregassick and its neighbour which, with others, were being administered on his behalf by the Heligan Estate office.
Perys remembered Annie had once said that although the farm was administered by Heligan, it was owned by another member of the Tremayne family, but he never dreamed the owner was his grandfather. Now, of course, he was the owner. He wondered what the Bray family would think of the situation. He decided it was not necessary to tell them just yet.
Reading through the list of properties and possessions being passed on to him, Perys found his grandfather’s hitherto parsimonious attitude difficult to excuse - but today was not a time for recriminations.
Seeking out Rupert, a still-stunned Perys told him of his astonishing and unexpected good fortune.
Rupert offered Perys genuine congratulations, adding, ‘I am very, very pleased for you, Perys. My only regret is that it has taken the old boy so long to come to his senses. He should have listened to the family many years ago.’
‘Do you know him very well?’ Perys had never before thought to question Rupert about the relationship he had with his grandfather.
‘I have met him a few times.’ Rupert replied. ‘He would occasionally visit the home of my parents.’
‘What sort of a man is he really?’
When Rupert appeared startled by the question, Perys explained, ‘He would never speak to me while my mother was alive - and I never even saw him afterwards. I had thought I might once, when I was in trouble at school for fighting - a not uncommon occurrence, I am afraid. The headmaster told me he had written to Grandfather Tremayne, asking him to come to the school and deliver a final warning to me about my behaviour . . .’
When Perys fell silent, Rupert prompted, ‘I take it he didn’t come to speak to you?’
Perys shook his head. ‘He sent a letter to the headmaster saying, ‘Talking to the boy will achieve nothing. If he so much as looks as though he might misbehave, beat him.’ Perys managed a wry smile. ‘The letter actually did me a favour. I think the headmaster was shocked by Grandfather’s attitude and was never quite so hard on me after that.’
Giving Perys a sympathetic look, Rupert said, ‘Well, now the old boy has finally relented, do you have any ideas about spending your newly acquired wealth?’
‘Yes. Well . . . two ideas come to mind immediately. The first is that when the next spell of bad weather grounds us, I’ll take the squadron out for a night on the town.’
‘And the second . . . ?’ Rupert queried.
After only
a moment’s hesitation, Perys said, ‘Now I am no longer a pauper, I intend writing to Grace and asking her to marry me.’
Chapter 59
Perys was able to keep his promise to treat the squadron to a night out only a few evenings later. They went to Amiens. It was far enough away from the front-line to enable the squadron’s pilots and observers to forget the war for a few hours. They enjoyed a superb meal and consumed enough wine, cognac and other drinks to make them all grateful that bad weather kept them grounded until the evening of the following day.
It was to be the last party the squadron would enjoy for a couple of months. For many it would be the last they would ever know.
The latest offensive was launched against heavily defended German lines near Arras, and air reconnaissance was considered essential if it were to succeed.
The task of the fighter squadrons was to ensure that reconnaissance aircraft were able to carry out their duties unmolested by German airmen.
They performed well - but at a terrible cost. Baron Manfred von Richthofen and his pilots flying the German Albatross aeroplane reaped a rich harvest in the skies above France as new and inexperienced British pilots were flung into the battle in unprecedented numbers. Some lasted only days in the skies above the battle-field, others a matter of hours.
At night, in the quiet of his darkened room distant thunder of artillery only faintly discernible when the westerly wind eased, Perys turned his thoughts from war to what he hoped would be happier times.
He had not yet received a reply from Grace to his proposal, but it was hardly surprising. Fierce fighting was raging all along the battle-front and casualties were appallingly heavy. All branches of the medical services were stretched to the limit.
* * *
Perys and Rupert were sharing a drink in the quiet of Rupert’s office one evening in April 1917. Both men were feeling the strain of the offensive and Perys had been discussing with his second cousin the question of replacements for two flight commanders who had been lost in action that day. One had been shot out of the sky by Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the other by his brother, Lother.
The Lost Years Page 29
