A Future Arrived

by Phillip Rock

  “Ah,” Allison said, “the fighter chums at their boyish sport. Envious, Ross?”

  “Well, this is sort of like driving a bus.”

  “It is indeed.” He leaned back in his seat and tipped his cap over his eyes. “Wake me when you spot the Thames estuary and I’ll land her on the Medway.”

  There was no need to navigate. He simply held his position in the formation and kept his eye on Fergus in the lead plane. The weather became clear as they swung down across the midlands at eight thousand feet. A clean, snow-dusted landscape lay below, sparkling like a Christmas card in the wintry sun. The broad, ice-green mouth of the Thames estuary came into view and the middle-aged test pilot who had made a thousand landings on the Thames dipped to three thousand feet and gave instructions over the radio. Colin glanced at Allison and decided not to wake him. It was routine—monkey see, monkey do. The little squadron fell into a staggered line astern behind the leader, dropped to a thousand feet over Southend, and curved down toward the ancient fleet anchorage of the Medway past Sheerness. He touched the ship to the broad reach of the bay as gently as a feather floating into a bathtub. As he began to taxi after the others toward the seaplane base, Allison pushed his cap back and sat up.

  “Neatly done, old chum. I’ll drive her in from here. You fly well, but you’re a bit too free and easy with the controls. This is not California of the balmy skies and tranquil seas. Winds can kick up as you’re making your final approach and slap you arse over tea kettle into the drink. Happened to a chum of mine when we were in final training on the Solent last year. Quite altered his old-age retirement plans.”

  COLIN HAD ALWAYS liked his grandparents’ London house at Regent’s Park. It was one of two limestone houses designed by John Nash in 1812 for mistresses of the royal dukes. It was far smaller than Abingdon Pryory and had a warm, comfortable ambiance that was in sharp contrast to the formalities of the country house. He sat in the drawing room with its glowing Renoirs on the walls and watched his grandmother open the parcel he had lugged from home.

  “But what on earth? …” Hanna said in bewilderment as she removed cans, boxes, and jars.

  Colin laughed. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s read about the U-boat sinkings and was convinced you’d be starving.”

  She held up a jar, looking puzzled. “What is this?”

  “Instant coffee. A kind of syrup. You put one teaspoon in a cup and add hot water.”

  “Sounds perfectly ghastly.”

  “I have identical packages for Aunt Marian and Dulcie.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be as delighted as I am. Your mother’s intentions have always been good, so I can’t be angry with her.” She picked through the assortment. “Cook will welcome the sugar I’m sure. Spaghetti with meat balls? In a tin! I’ve never even heard of tinned spaghetti with meat balls. Have you, Tony?”

  The earl glanced up from his magazine. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  She put the assortment back into the box. “I’ll take these in to cook and let her figure it out. You men have time for one drink before dinner. You serve, Colin. Your grandfather has a heavy hand.”

  “One finger?” Colin asked as he picked up the whisky decanter.

  “Have a heart. I’d give a boy more than that.”

  He poured a stiff whisky and opened a bottle of Guinness for himself. “Cheers.”

  “By all means. Cheers and good luck—the latter most heartfelt. It’s good seeing you, but I wish in my old heart that you’d stayed in California.”

  “Don’t you start, please. It’s what I want to do.”

  The earl glared at the fire burning softly in the grate. “Bloody damn war. Rotten waste of a young man’s time. Still, may not come to anything after all. The troops staring at one another from their Maginot lines and Siegfried lines. Queer sort of war if you ask me. How do you go about joining it?”

  “There’s a pilot recruiting office in Aldwych. I guess I just walk in and sign up, but Derek can give me all the dope when he gets here in the morning.”

  “They’ll take you, I suppose,” he said gloomily.

  “They’d better. Let’s drink to it.”

  “Sorry, Colin. I want to enjoy my whisky, not have it lodge in my throat.”

  PILOT OFFICER DEREK Ramsay and two other members of 624 Squadron got off the train at Charing Cross station and then went into the cavernous, Victorian splendor of the Charing Cross Hotel.

  “Sure you won’t join us, Ramsay?” one of the young fliers asked. “Forty-eight hours of pure hell raising.”

  His equally young companion smiled. “I didn’t know one could raise hell at the Albert Hall and the British Museum.”

  “One can try, Barratt. It’s a matter of putting one’s mind to it. It seems a pity to waste two days’ leave on intellectual pursuits.”

  “Try to combine it,” Derek said, looking around the lobby. “But no, I can’t join the party, old lads. I’ve my friend to meet. He should be here.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Civilian … tall as a tree.”

  “There’s a chap over there … leaning against that pillar. Rather like Samson in the temple.”

  “That’s him. Come on, I’ll give you an intro.”

  The two officers had a shyness around strangers that bespoke their age. Schoolboys in uniform. Derek introduced them and they soon left.

  “They look sixteen,” Colin said.

  “Eighteen. I feel downright middle-aged around those two.”

  “Any good in the air?”

  “They try hard. They’ve only had twenty hours in Hurricanes.” He placed a hand on Colin’s arm. “But let me look at you. The terror of Fleet Street. Bash any reporters lately?”

  “No,” Colin grinned. “But I might bash someone from the RAF in a second.”

  “Hit a fellow officer? Not done, old boy.”

  “I’m not an officer yet. Hell, they may not be needing any more fliers the way it’s going—or not going, I should say.”

  “Oh, it’s going. The bomber boys are taking a licking every day, but there’s nothing much about it in the papers. Jerry shot down eleven out of twelve Blenheims during a day raid over Heligoland last week.”

  “Thanks for telling me. Well, let’s get on with it. What do I do first?”

  “Let me check my kit someplace and we’ll walk down to Aldwych.”

  “Leave the bag in the car. I have my granddad’s trusty Rolls—complete with aged driver.”

  “Well, la-di-da. Nothing like enlisting in style.”

  The RAF recruiting officer was an elderly wing commander with ribbons from the first war on his uniformed chest. He smoked a heavy pipe that was black with age and talked out of one side of his mouth. “Your flying log is most impressive, Ross. We shall find steady employment for you, never fear. A spot of training and you’ll soon be posted to a squadron.”

  Colin smiled politely. “I think I’ll need more than a spot of training to fly Spitfires, sir.”

  “Spits? Oh, no, lad. You’re a bit too tall for a fighter pilot, in my opinion. Awfully cramped little things. And besides, we don’t get many new boys with multiengine experience … even fewer who know how to set a plane down on water. Just what we’re looking for. I shall be frank. We have more fighter pilots in training at present than we have planes to put them in. I’m posting you to Coastal Command, and damn important duty it is, too. An island race, you know. Sea’s our life’s blood. Can’t allow Fritz to cut the artery with his damn U-boats, now can we?”

  He felt keenly disappointed as he left the building and walked to where the chauffeur had parked the car.

  Derek was in the back seat, reading the Daily Post. “That didn’t take long,” he said, putting the paper aside.

  Colin grunted, getting into the car. “I go for my physical tomorrow at half past three. But I’m scratched off as a fighter pilot. He thought I was too large to fit the goddamn cockpit! It’s Coastal Command for me.”

&nb
sp; “Good. I’m happy to hear it.”

  “The rocking-chair air force,” he said bitterly.

  “Better than flying a bomber and being chopped about by Messerschmitts. U-boats don’t pounce on you—you pounce on them.”

  “I’d been hoping to fly with you.”

  “Yes, I was rather looking forward to having you in the squadron. Quite a few horses around Kentish Hill. You could have taught me to ride one of them.”

  THERE WERE ONLY a few guests invited to welcome Colin back to England, and the dinner was set for a much earlier hour than was usual for one of Hanna’s dinner parties.

  “This damn blackout,” she said in a burst of annoyance as Colin escorted her down the stairs. “So many of our friends simply won’t venture out in it. Too dangerous, especially on foggy nights.”

  “It’s not too bad, Grandmama—if you’re careful.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. When one gets old it’s a different matter.”

  He gave her arm an affectionate squeeze. “Hey, who’s old?”

  “Hay is for horses. I’m old enough. Seventy-one. Too old to grope about in the dark without breaking my neck.”

  A small party then, for which Colin was grateful, recalling the forty or more for dinners at Abingdon Pryory. The stiff formality. The, to him, boring conversations at the table. They reached the hall just as Dodds opened the front door and the few guests entered en masse.

  “It’s a real pea souper out there,” Gerald Smith Blair said excitedly as the butler helped him off with his heavy navy overcoat. “We jammed into one car and I crawled up Albany Street with Vicky leaning out the window to watch the curb!”

  “At least you made it,” Hanna said. “The navy always comes through. Where’s Winifred?”

  “She’ll be here later,” Vicky said. “She’s expecting a phone call from Papa … from Rheims.”

  Hanna frowned. “I’ll try to phone her first and tell her not to bother. It’s far too dangerous.”

  “She has an army driver,” Jennifer said. “The man can see like a cat.” She smiled at Colin. “Welcome back, darling. I wish it was for a more peaceful pursuit.”

  He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks. And congratulations. Albert’s a lucky guy. Where is he, by the way?”

  She made a wry face. “Somewhere in France. He gets to London occasionally for a few days so it’s not been too bad.”

  He noticed Kate for the first time, standing off to one side. She had changed. The baby fat was gone, although she was still full figured. The change was mostly in her face. Not a plump-cheeked, calf-eyed schoolgirl any longer. The eyes that met his own reflected a cool self-assurance. She had lost her prettiness and had become gravely beautiful.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “And hello to you.”

  He stepped over to her, wondered if he should kiss her, and then thought better of it. He took her hand. “It’s great to see you. Still in that boarding school?”

  “No. I’m staying with Jenny … and seeing a tutor twice a week. I go up to Oxford in April. Trinity term.”

  “Really? Wonderful. Derek will be pleased to hear that. He’s here, by the way.”

  Her face lit up with pleasure. “He is? Where?”

  “In the drawing room having a drink with Grandpa.”

  She hurried off and he trailed after her, feeling an irrational flash of jealousy at her eagerness.

  Everyone left before eight thirty. Lieutenant Gerald Smith Blair, R.N.V.R., steering them out into the darkness and the dense fog. Lord and Lady Stanmore yawned, said their goodnights, and went early to bed. Dodds locked up the house and went down to his room to listen to the nine o’clock news service over the BBC. Colin went into the pantry and brought four bottles of beer back to the drawing room.

  “Guinness or Bass?”

  “Bass,” Derek said. He took off his uniform jacket and loosened his tie. “Damn nice little party. Best ruddy food I’ve had in six months.”

  “How does the RAF feed you?”

  “About as well as the Chinese feed their air force I expect.” He sprawled into a chair and took the beer Colin handed him. “Lord, I’m bushed. They’ve been flying us from morning to night, fair weather and foul.”

  “Will they be sending your bunch to France?”

  “No. We’re an Auxiliary squadron … strictly home defense. Only the regulars are across the pond.”

  “What are the guys like?”

  “Men, old boy … in their thirties most of them. Clannish lot. Been flying together for years. Every weekend and two weeks every summer until the balloon went up. They resented the Air Ministry weeding out the men over thirty-eight and replacing them with us—the two chaps you met and three others. I think they were afraid we might ruin the social tone of the mess.”

  Colin straddled a chair and nursed his beer. “Kate fell all over you like you were her long-lost lover or something.”

  “Lover?” he raised an eyebrow. “Uncle might be closer. I caught the shadow of a frown in your eye from time to time while she was talking to me. Thought you were cold on the girl. Little Kate—of all people.”

  Colin shifted on the chair and studied the label on the bottle. “She was just a kid then … mooning over me.”

  “Hell, it was her first crush, what did you expect her to do?”

  “She sure must be over it now. She didn’t say four words to me all evening.”

  “Talked a torrent with me,” he said through a yawn. “Her exam scores, the degree she would like to try for. A bit about you.”

  “Me? What did she say about me?”

  “Oh, that she thought you’d changed. On the chilly side. Not as happy-go-lucky. Wondered if you were embarrassed meeting her again.”

  “She said that?”

  “No. I put in the latter. My own observation. I think you are. Just how far did you go with her that braw brecht moonlecht necht so long ago?”

  “Far enough for her—I guess.” He could feel his face burn and took a long swig of beer.

  “Tell Uncle Derek, that’s the good lad.”

  “You’re a real crud, Fat Chap.”

  “Come on, don’t be shy.”

  He glared at him. “I felt her tits. Okay?”

  “Okay with me—and obviously okay with her. I doubt if she looks back on that night with pain and horror.” He finished his beer and stood up, a trifle unsteadily. “I’m really going for a burton, old lad. If I’m not awake by noon just roll me over and let me sleep on.”

  Colin sat up for a while, drinking beer and staring into the fire. His thoughts were formless weavings. The Colorado touching down on the Medway, the icy spray splashing the windshield. Flip the wiper switch. Never lose vision. Keep a steadier hand on the controls in case the wind kicks the ship hard on the beam and a wing float gets buried deep in the water. Could cartwheel that way. Finis. Cold in England in early February. Guys body surfing this time of year at Pacific Beach. Lovely and warm that night on Leith Hill with the moonlight washing the tops of the shadowed trees. A hand inside her dress, a large, supple breast nestled against his palm.

  He felt a pang of regret for that night. After he had cooled down in a hurry, realizing that he wasn’t parked out on Point Loma with some beach cutie, she had pressed herself tightly against him and had said that she loved him. What a bastard. He could have said that he loved her too … and respected her … but that he was going away soon and it would be better if it ended here, on a romantic note. The moon. A nightbird trilling in the woods. But no. He had to say something slick and laugh it off before driving her back to the school. And then he had done his best to avoid her.

  “You’re the crud, boy,” he muttered to the dying coals.

  COLIN PASSED THE physical. Signed a few papers, received instructions regarding uniforms, travel warrants, pay while training, when to report and where—and that was it. Royal Air Force, Coastal Command. He walked out of the building into the foggy darkness of early evening and groped h
is way along the Strand to the Savoy Hotel.

  He found Derek in the bar.

  “Kiss me, Mother,” he said. “I’m queen of the may. I leave for the Isle of Wight the day after tomorrow. And, listen, you’re not taking me to dinner, I’m taking you. All of us Yanks are rich, correct?”

  “You’re not, strictly speaking, a Yank.”

  “You’re so damn technical. You’re going to make one hell of a lawyer when this war is over. We should make a night of it. Why are you taking the nine o’clock train?”

  “I already told you. I want to get back early and have a good night’s sleep. We’ll be flying more radio-directed interception exercises tomorrow.”

  “Sleep! That’s become your preoccupation in life.”

  “It’s going to become yours in the very near future.”

  It was getting noisy in the bar, as a group of army officers began an argument over football, so they took their beers into the lounge and sat in deep leather chairs.

  “Do you mind taking a little advice, Colin?”

  “From you? Heck, no.”

  “You have a lot of virtues, old son, but patience isn’t one of them. Neither is restraint. A short fuse, in other words. I’m sure you’re a good flier and you won’t have any trouble completing the training course. But just remember that for the next three weeks or so you’re strictly a probationer. RAF flying instructors are a crusty lot, full of bull and brass and addicted to King’s Regulations and the flight manual. Do it the way they tell you to do it—from buttoning up your coveralls to following cockpit procedures to the letter. If you have to bite your tongue a few times, bite it. I don’t want to find out that you’ve been booted out. Your stepfather may be an American citizen, but you have a British passport and just might find yourself digging holes for the army.”

  “Advice received and accepted. Now then, where would you like to have dinner?”

  “Simpson’s. I made reservations. Kate will meet us there at seven.”

  “Kate?”

  “I thought it would be chummy.”

  “ ‘Chummy,’ ” he repeated in a flat voice. “Sure.”

  Her face was flushed and she looked out of breath when she arrived late at the restaurant. She had been in a taxi accident in Charing Cross Road and had continued on foot. “With very long strides. Sorry I’m late.”