No doubt about it, he was tired. Shagged out. The last op hadn’t been as bad as he’d told the doctor, but it hadn’t been much of a picnic either. They’d slogged all the way to Munich, lost a dirty great chunk of one wing over the target, and Van had had to fly back without starboard aileron control and bang D-Dog down in mid-roll when they came in. They’d pulled up with their nose hanging off the end of the runway. To celebrate being alive and in one piece, he’d had a real skinful in the bar and given himself a beaut of a hangover that was going to take some getting rid of.
He swanned into the hotel through the squeaky door and set his borrowed suitcase down near the reception desk. Some old hag was at the counter giving Miss Iceberg hell. He listened with interest.
‘. . . absolute disgrace. Nobody’s been near my room today. Bed still unmade . . . dust an inch thick . . . I demand to see Miss Hargreaves this instant.’ Rap, rap, rap with a stick on the edge of the counter.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Mountjoy, but Miss Hargreaves is out at the moment.’
‘She’s always out. She leaves the hotel to be run by incompetents. I shall demand a reduction in my bill if this sort of thing continues.’
More raps and Miss Iceberg, who had caught sight of him standing there, went all pink in the face.
‘We’re very short-staffed at the moment, Mrs Mountjoy, but I’ll make sure that your room is done at once.’
‘And tell them to clean it properly, not that flick round they usually do.’
‘Yes, Mrs Mountjoy.’
‘And furthermore, Peggy was late ringing the gong for luncheon again today. That girl is useless. You ought to get rid of her.’
‘Peggy does her best, Mrs Mountjoy. She’s still quite new to the job. If you would like to sit in the Residents’ Lounge, I’ll let you know the minute your room is ready.’
The old bitch stumped off, muttering and grumbling. He stepped up to the desk.
‘Strikes me she’s the one you ought to get rid of. Why do you put up with all that baloney?’
‘She happens to be an old and valued customer.’
‘She’s old all right, but not much value to anyone, if you ask me.’
‘I didn’t ask you, Sergeant.’ She whipped the registration book round towards him. ‘If you’d like to sign in, please.’
He dipped the pen in the inkstand and scrawled his name while she unhooked a key.
‘Number sixteen. It’s the one I showed you before. Up the stairs, turn right.’
‘What time’s tea?’
‘Four o’clock. It’s served in the lounge.’
He shook his head. ‘Not that. The evening meal.’
‘You mean dinner?’
‘That’s what you Poms call it. Not me.’
‘Dinner’s at half past seven. You’ll hear the gong.’
He picked up his suitcase. ‘That revolving door needs oiling, by the way. It squeaks like hell.’
‘I’m aware of that, thank you.’
‘Just thought you might want to do something about it.’
He found the room and lay down on the bed on top of the counterpane, shoes on. Too bloody bad if they didn’t like it. Christ, he felt really crook now. There were hammer blows going on inside his skull, his throat hurt and his legs were aching. He closed his eyes and slept.
The sound of the door opening woke him suddenly. He braced himself for the: Wakey, wakey, rise and shine! Ops tonight! before he remembered where he was. Not in the hut ready to go on ops but safe in a hotel room. Miss Iceberg was over by the window, fiddling with the blackout blind. He grinned to himself. She hadn’t spotted him yet.
‘Evening.’
She spun round like a top, letting go of the blind so that it rattled all the way up again. ‘I’d no idea you were there, Sergeant.’ More than a mite flustered, she was.
‘Having a kip. What time is it?’
‘Quarter past nine. I just came to do the blackout. I’m afraid you’ve missed dinner, if you wanted some.’ She pulled the blind down again, drew the curtains across briskly and switched on a lamp.
He rubbed his forehead. ‘Don’t think I could eat it anyway. I’m crook.’
‘Crook?’ Her voice softened a fraction, unless he was dreaming. ‘You mean you don’t feel well?’
‘Too right.’ He put his hand over his eyes. ‘Thought it was just a hangover, but I reckon it’s more than that.’
She came closer to the bed and when he peered between his fingers he was pleased to see that she was looking quite worried.
‘Should I get a doctor?’
‘Strewth, no—’
‘You ought to undress and get into bed properly.’
‘Yes, nurse.’ He started undoing his tie and she backed away towards the door.
‘I’ll send someone in to see how you are in the morning.’
The door clicked shut. He dragged off his clothes and threw them anyhow onto a chair and then fell into bed. The room was spinning round him. Christ, he didn’t know when he’d felt so flaming ill in his whole life.
‘Oh, there you are, Piers. I’ve been looking for you.’
The ball missed its target and ricocheted uselessly round the billiard table. Piers straightened up. ‘Just practising a bit.’
His father took down a cue and chalked the end. ‘What about a game?’
‘Fine.’ He knew he’d lose. He’d only beaten him once in his life and that had been more by fluke shots than anything else.
‘Matter of fact, Piers, I’ve been wanting a word with you . . .’ His father took careful aim. Click and the ball rolled smoothly across the baize. ‘Your mother thinks you’re moping. Women always notice that sort of thing. Or think they do.’
‘I don’t quite—’
More clicks and a ball glided into a pocket. ‘Got it into her head there must be some girl. Someone you’re rather keen on.’ Click. ‘Your go.’
Piers moved round the table and tried to concentrate on his shot.
‘She’s worried about the kind of girl you might be meeting in the RAF. New Service. No tradition. Not like the Army. Pity you wouldn’t join the regiment, as we wanted. Hmmm. You want to take a bit more time. You rushed that shot. Watch me . . .’
They played on. His father was winning easily.
‘I don’t need to remind you that you have a duty to the family name, Piers. Make sure it’s the right type of girl. Same background and all that. Know what I mean? You can fool around with the other sort if you must, and no harm done, but leave it at that. Understand?’
‘Actually I—’
‘Of course you do. I can tell your mother she’s got nothing to worry about. Enough said. Your go. And don’t be in such a rush over it this time.’
‘How’re you feeling this morning, sir?’ The little waitress from the dining-room was standing at the end of his bed, holding a tray. ‘Miss Frost said to bring you up a bit of breakfast today. See if you could manage it.’
Stew closed his eyes again. ‘Thanks. Leave it on the side, will you?’
‘It’ll get cold, sir. Wouldn’t you like a nice hot cup of tea now and a bit of toast? It’d do you good.’
He opened his eyes slowly. ‘All right.’
She helped him sit up, plumped up his pillows and then set the tray before him. White cloth and napkin, silver toast rack, silver teapot and milk jug, silver cutlery, a boiled egg, butter curled up in a fancy roll, little pot of marmalade . . . oh, my word! He’d never had breakfast in bed in his life, and now all this.
‘You’re Peggy, aren’t you?’ Pretty kid. Bright blue eyes. The sweet innocent. With his four-day beard he felt like the wolf dressed up as Red Riding Hood’s grandmother.
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Well, thanks for everything you’ve done.’
She’d been tiptoeing in with jugs of barley water and those bloody stone hot water bottles he’d kept stubbing his toe on.
‘Miss Frost said we must look after you, sir. As you were so far
from home.’
That didn’t sound at all like the Iceberg talking – more like Peggy herself. She fussed over the tray, turning the cup the right way up and putting everything so he could reach it easily. ‘You’ve been very poorly, sir. But the doctor said you’d be all right with a few more days in bed. He said it was the influenza. I thought you could only get that in winter. Shall I pour your tea for you, sir?’
‘OK.’
‘Aren’t you going to eat your egg and toast, then?’
He lopped off the top of the shell and spread the curly butter onto a dainty triangle. ‘I’ve got to get up and get out of here today, Peggy.’
‘Oh, you mustn’t do that, sir. You’re not well enough.’
‘Can’t afford to stay any longer.’ He waved the knife over the tray. ‘Paying for this lot. Can you tell them downstairs that I’m leaving and I’ll need the bill.’
‘Very well, sir, but I think you should stay in bed. Really I do.’
She went away, looking worried, and he lay back on the pillows and ate the toast and drank the tea. Well, he didn’t feel like getting up yet, either, but there wasn’t much choice. The best thing would be to find a cheaper room – somewhere like the Great Northern – and hole up there.
He still felt pretty crook when he got out of bed, but a bath and shave helped. He dressed – cripes, they’d even gone and laundered his shirt and underclothes, and it looked like they’d polished his shoes – and went downstairs. The same old woman was at the reception desk again, banging away with her stick and complaining, this time about the sausage at breakfast.
‘. . . all gristle. Uneatable. That chef of yours should be sacked.’
He leaned across. ‘You should be sacked too, lady, while they’re at it. Don’t you know there’s a war on?’
After she’d stopped squawking and been carted off to the Residents’ Lounge, Miss Iceberg came back.
‘That wasn’t very helpful of you, Sergeant.’
‘Sorry. I reckon she deserved it.’
‘She’ll be difficult for days now.’
‘I’ll bet she is always. You should kick her out, like I said.’
‘It’s not my hotel so I couldn’t possibly do anything of the kind. I’ve got your bill ready.’
He looked at it. ‘This is only for two nights. I’ve been here four.’
‘I’m going by what I’ve got down in the bookings. It says, Sergeant Brenner: Room sixteen for two nights. That’s what you booked, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘As you pointed out to Mrs Mountjoy, there’s a war on. You’ve come a very long way to fight in it, Sergeant and you’ve been ill. Your bill is for two nights. Please, let’s just leave it at that.’
‘Well . . . OK, thanks. That’s nice of you.’
The wind had been taken clean out of his sails. He paid the bill and picked up his suitcase. ‘By the way, the name’s Stew.’
‘You did tell me.’
‘How about yours?’
She was busy with something at the counter. ‘It’s Honor.’
‘Strewth,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Well, thanks again, Honor.’ He put his cap on and tipped his hand to it. ‘Be seeing you.’
When it came to gardens, the English had got it made, Van thought. They didn’t get plumbing, or ice, or showers, or coffee, but gardens they understood. Like nobody else. He followed Catherine’s mother as she led the way round the walled garden behind her house in York, admiring the way everything looked so natural – as though plants had planted themselves and grown the way they wanted, rambling and cascading and creeping all over the place.
‘Actually, it’s past its best,’ she told him. ‘With autumn around the corner. Looking a bit blowsy.’
‘Not to me. And I’ve never seen grass so green and smooth.’
‘Yes, it’s not a bad lawn.’
‘How does it get so “not bad”?’
‘Oh, over the years, you know. Rolling and mowing and feeding. It used to go right to the wall at the far end, but we turned some of it into a vegetable garden when the war started. Tom, my husband, dug it up on one of his leaves. He was killed in France later, on the beaches at Dunkirk. I don’t know if Catherine mentioned that.’
‘Yes, she did. I’m real sorry.’
‘So many of them got away, but Tom was one of the unlucky ones. They told me he was seeing his men onto one of the boats – waiting until they were all on board – and the Germans came over and strafed the beach.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. It seemed totally inadequate.
‘Yes . . . He was a wonderful man. I was devastated. So was Catherine, but one just has to keep going, somehow. Of course, I rattle around in this house now, with Catherine away so much.’
‘I guess you miss her.’
‘I do – terribly. But I’m very proud of what she’s doing. I only wish I was young enough to join up, too. I drive one of the YMCA tea vans around, trying to do my bit. Actually, I quite often go out to some of the RAF bomber stations and go round dispersals, handing out cuppas. So, I’ve seen a bit of your world. Look, this is my favourite rose, The White Rose of York . . . gorgeous, isn’t she?’
The mother was very different from his expectations, as natural as her garden and dressed casually in slacks and a sweater. He liked her a lot. As much as he had disliked Piers’ mother. The two of them strolled on. She showed him the rows of cabbages and carrots and onions and beans. ‘I’m rather proud of them. You’ll have some of the runner beans for dinner tonight. I hope you like them.’
He’d never seen the kind before so he didn’t know the answer to that one, but he’d have laid a bet they’d be better cooked than any he’d eaten in England so far.
‘And I hope you didn’t mind my asking you all those questions about America at lunch Van.’
‘Wish I’d known more of the answers. I haven’t seen much of it myself.’
‘Tom and I always planned to visit your country one day. I’m not sure that I ever will now – not without him.’ She stopped as they reached the far end of the garden and turned to face him. ‘Actually, I’ve got another question I wanted to ask you, but I’m afraid it’s a terrible cheek and none of my business.’
‘Fire away.’
‘Are you by any chance in love with Catherine?’
He smiled. ‘Does it show?’
‘It was just that I caught you looking at her . . . And I so hoped you might be. She doesn’t know, does she? You haven’t said anything to her?’
‘Well, it sure didn’t seem the right time, with Peter posted missing. Besides, I don’t think she’d want to hear it.’
‘Oh, I think she might. I’ve seen her look at you, too. She’s feeling guilty about Peter, of course. That’s always been the trouble. He made a bee-line for her at Beningby and she thought she was in love with him. She’s not so certain now.’
‘It didn’t seem that way. They were always together.’
‘Oh, they would have been. He’d scarcely let her out of his sight, if he could help it. Peter was insufferably possessive – is I suppose I should say. Insanely jealous of anything and everything he saw as coming between him and Catherine. When she brought him home here and I saw how it was, I started saying my prayers that she’d never be crazy enough to marry him. He’d asked her several times, you know. So far she’s had the sense to say no. Or at least, that they should wait.’
‘Well, I guess that’s what they’re going to have to do now, anyway.’
She nodded. ‘When I heard Peter was missing, I’m ashamed to say I was almost glad. That’s a dreadful confession, I know. But I’ve been so convinced that he’d make Catherine unhappy – was already making her unhappy – and that was something I couldn’t bear. And then you came along . . . like the answer to my prayers. So different. So right for her.’ She touched his arm. ‘I’m so sorry, Van. I shouldn’t have said any of this to you. Please forget I ever did. Let’s go back inside. Catherine will be wo
ndering why we’re taking so long.’
They turned back towards the house, and when they were half-way across the lawn, Catherine came running out. From the look on her face he knew exactly what had happened.
‘Peter’s mother ’phoned. They’ve just heard – he’s a prisoner-of-war with the Germans. Thank God! He’s alive.’
PART III
Eleven
HARRY STOOD IN the cold drizzle, waiting with nearly a hundred other men for the trucks to take them out to dispersal. They were dressed in heavy flying clothes, wearing life jackets and parachute harnesses with the rest of their clobber strewn around their feet – parachute packs, navigation bags, ration boxes – so that the place looked a bit like a refugee camp. Sam was tucked inside Harry’s battledress jacket under his Mae West, safe out of the wet, the carrier pigeon snug in its box. He wished he was so lucky.
Their seventeenth op, and he still got the jim-jams every time. He was OK for most of the day until after the briefing and the flying supper. It always started in the locker room while he was getting togged up, and got worse with every stage: the hanging around for transport, the ride out to dispersal, the final look round before he climbed the ladder . . . all the time hoping up till the very last minute that they’d scrub it. Once he got down to the job, it wasn’t so bad – mainly because there wasn’t much time to think about anything else. He was all right until they were approaching the target when the jim-jams got going again and stayed with him until they’d dropped the bombs and were safely away. He didn’t know how it was with the others, but that was the way it always was with him. He groped in his top pocket for his pipe; he wouldn’t smoke it but it gave him a bit of comfort just to clench it in his teeth.
All the other blokes standing around looked so calm, when he was bloody sure they weren’t inside. The jawing and joking going on was to cover up what they were really feeling underneath – bloody scared, like him. But what they were all saying to themselves, same as him, was that it wouldn’t happen to them. It’d be the other bloke who bought it. Always the other bloke.
The Crew Page 17
