by Peter Rimmer
"I'm still alive," he shouted.
A line of British five-ton trucks came into his flight path. Then he was over them almost touching a canvas roof with his fixed undercarriage. One of the trucks was an ambulance. When he woke he was inside the ambulance. In the field hospital, all they could find was a concussion and a broken leg from the crash-landing.
"Take six, eight weeks," said the doctor. "I've strapped it. Nice and clean. Enjoy England. I always love England in the spring." Then the doctor moved quickly to the next patient.
Lady St Clair had been through them all, worrying about them. Lucinda moping about the house for months, never smiling, never doing anything unless she was told. The girl was twenty-five, not fifteen! She was not the only one in England with a dead fiancé… Robert upstairs, stomping around on a wooden peg before they would give him a foot, that would at least make him look as if he was in one piece… Barnaby writing he was dressed as an Arab and blowing up Turkish trains with some Colonel Lawrence. Dashing all over the Arabian Desert. She had tried to find Aqaba on the map and failed… Genevieve's father-in-law dead, shot in the head by a German sniper at the age of fifty-six. Men had no right to be fighting wars at that age. And her son-in-law standing next to his father when he was killed… Annabel, married to a sergeant who painted pictures, and pregnant with her second child whose chance of ever knowing its father was almost nil. Who was going to support the little mites the Lord only knew… At least Penelope had given birth to a son, though the date of Frederick's home leave was a bit wobbly but she did not want to worry her way down that route. Penelope, for goodness' sake! The straightest young girl in England. The war! It was the damn war. Whether they won it or not, England had fallen to pieces. Everyone just did what they wanted without a thought for other people. Just as well there wasn't a way of making certain the father was Frederick. One day the boy would be Lord St Clair, Baron St Clair of Purbeck. And if her poor husband did not stop worrying about not having any money, he would kill himself. And if the Germans had their way, they would kill Frederick. And then the little bastard would be the eighteenth Baron St Clair of Purbeck. And when his grandfather died, rich. The Lord worked in strange ways! She just hoped the young heir to the barony would have some resemblance to a St Clair. And there was still an outside chance the boy was Fred's.
"I must stop worrying," she said out loud walking into the entrance hall where the telephone was ringing. "Lady St Clair!" she bellowed into the mouthpiece, still not believing her voice could travel down a piece of wire.
"This is Harry Brigandshaw."
"Harry Brigandshaw. Harry Brigandshaw. I've heard that name before… Don't you have something to do with Africa?"
"Is that Harry Brigandshaw?" called Lucinda from the morning room where she was meant to be writing letters.
"Yes, it is. If you know him, you'd better come and speak to him. Now, what was I saying?"
"That you must stop worrying about us mother."
As she picked up the two pieces of the telephone, she gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. Then she put the speaking tube to her mouth. "This is Cinda, Harry. Where are you? Are you all right?"
"London. Smashed up my plane. Broken leg. Can I come down?"
"I'll ask mother."
"Of course he can," said her mother who had been listening. "He's that nice young man from Africa you went to visit. Tell him Robert's here with his foot blown off."
"I know, Lady St Clair." Harry could hear the two voices but only talk to one.
"Give us a ring from the station," said Lucinda.
"I can't walk, you know." He was smiling down the phone.
"I had the same problem with Robert."
"It's strange," said Lady St Clair walking away to do something she had already forgotten about. "The one person I never worry about is Merlin."
"Harry is coming to stay with us mother."
"That's very nice dear… Now, what was it I was going to do?"
Robert St Clair was stumping up and down the platform of Corfe Castle railway station. The new car made by Ford in America was standing on the other side of the station building. Robert hoped Harry would know how to get it started again. The car had been bought as a gift for the family. Jug Ears had died of old age and Merlin thought it time his family joined the mechanical age. He was amazed how few of his Vickers-Armstrong shares he had had to sell to buy the motor car. He had bought the black car on his last leave and shown Lucinda how to drive the thing. Cranking the car to start was the biggest problem, and sometimes when the ignition was turned off the engine went on running, the whole car doing a dance while it waited for the engine to finally stop. Lady St Clair had refused to get into it. Lord St Clair would not come within one hundred yards. When Lucinda drove it around the lanes it frightened off the rabbits, of which there were too many now the men had gone off to war. The fox had not once gone again for the chickens. There were too many rabbits to eat. Burrows all over the hills and dales. They got into the vegetable gardens at the Manor. Cook had said every time the lettuce was eaten 'if it isn't one thing it's another. The hens or the lettuce. Now that certainly is not one of life's little mysteries.' They didn't go away for long; the rabbits. Just ran down their holes. When the noise of the car was gone they came out again. The whole family was sick of rabbit. Rabbit pie. Rabbit stew. Even Cook's famous stuffed roast rabbit with all the herbs and garlic was sniffed at by family and staff.
The train was late. Old man Pringle was sitting on a bench in the sun. Robert had brought him a chicken for Mrs Pringle, the bird gutted but not plucked. Even if he didn't need any sandwiches. And Mrs Pringle had more money than she knew what to do with, thanks to Albert in South Africa. But it was the thought that counted. Robert didn't mention any of the dead sons. He liked the sight of old Pringle sitting in the sun. It brought back his childhood and Mrs Pringle's big thick sandwiches and the pickled onions. Old man Pringle didn't have to work but there was nothing else for him to do. Sitting at home, he got under Mrs Pringle's feet. And since the boys had died they didn't like talking to each other about the good old days.
Lucinda had her hands planted on her hips with the elbows sticking out. Waiting for the train. Robert hoped she would not be disappointed with Harry Brigandshaw once again. And his foot hurt. The one that had been blown off by a British shell exploding in his trench. Maybe when they gave him a wooden foot it would not hurt so much. Slowly the old steam train puffed its way into the station and cranked its way to a halt. One carriage door came open and they waited. A small case was lowered onto the platform with difficulty. Then the crutches were pushed down to feel the hard earth of the platform before Harry swung himself down from the train. Old Pringle was still asleep in the sun. The train, as it always did, puffed off towards Swanage. They all gave each other a hug. When they left the empty platform, old Pringle was still fast asleep next to the unplucked dead chicken. The first daffodils had come into bloom in the station flowerbed.
Holding the front of the bonnet and standing on one leg, Harry gave the cranking handle a solid jerk. The Ford started first time. Easier to start than cranking the propeller of a Sopwith Camel. Then they were off to Purbeck Manor in style, Lucinda driving.
Both Harry and Robert were remembering the first time they had done seven miles together. Walking. Harry was twenty-one. He felt like an old man. And Lucinda had been just fifteen. She had met them, ambushed them before they reached the old house. Now she was a woman with a dead man to remember for the rest of her life. There were rabbits everywhere, Harry noticed. Scurrying away down the burrows.
The telegram reached Sara Wentworth in the tent where the doctors were operating on the mangled bodies that somehow seemed to stay alive. She put it unopened in the big front pocket of her apron. A young man was put on the bench in front of her. She held him down while the doctor sawed off what was left of his legs. Before the doctor finished the man died. A male orderly took the dead man's head and Sara the torso. The
y heaved him off the bench onto a trolley. The orderly took away the body. On the other side of the waist-high bench, another young man was placed from a trolley onto the operating table. He was still alive when they took him away. The doctor had stuffed his intestines back into his body and sown him up.
Just five miles away the German offensive had overrun the British front line. The reserve trench was holding, they were told. There was no time to move the big tent. If the Germans broke through, the doctors and nurses would stay with the wounded. She had been working non-stop for seventeen hours. The doctors had not slept for two days. She thought the telegram was from Fishy Braithwaite and did not care. The man's paranoia had paled into insignificance, faced with the war.
An hour later she looked from right to left. There were no more bodies on trolleys. The doctor told her to go and eat. He would call her if the flow of men began again.
In the canteen she read Jared was dead. Her brother had gone down with his ship. The telegram was not from Fishy Braithwaite. Then they were evacuating the field hospital. Sara sat in the back of an ambulance. She began to scream and the doctor put his hand over her mouth. Only when she stopped thrashing around did he take his hand away.
"You're going home, young lady." He was a kind old man. Well over seventy.
"My brother."
"I'm sorry, Sara. But what can we do? And now the Germans are advancing."
"I can't go home."
"You can and will. Then you can come back if there is anything to come back to."
"There's nothing to go to, either."
"There is. There always is. I know. There has to be. Otherwise humankind would not have survived."
Sara landed at Dover a week after Harry arrived at Purbeck Manor. She landed from the same hospital ship that brought Harry from France. She called her mother at Birchdale from the FANY headquarters in Dover. There was no reply. In desperation she phoned the temporary aerodrome of 33 Squadron, Mervyn Braithwaite had given her the number. She spoke to a captain who said Harry had been wounded and was in England. The man gave her a phone number in Dorset. She gave the man her phone number in England in case he phoned his squadron. What she did not know was that Fishy Braithwaite had overheard the conversation. She wanted to tell Harry Jared was dead but it was not the most important phone call she had to make. Jared had had many friends.
An hour later, 33 Squadron was ordered to evacuate their airfield. When they landed at the designated airstrip further back from the advancing Germans, they had lost contact with their commanding officer. In the confusion, two of the new pilots had landed at the wrong airstrip. Everyone thought the CO was with them, shielding the new pilots. His absence was not reported. At dawn, the next day the squadron flew strafing attacks on the German reinforcements. There were three stray pilots flying with 33 Squadron who could not find their own squadrons. One was a major who took command. They returned to their new field three times that day for fuel and ammunition. By the third day the German offensive had been checked. Colonel Braithwaite was reported missing, presumed killed. One of the young pilots rejoined his squadron. No, he had not seen the colonel go down in the confusion.
Granny Forrester had watched them for a week. The pilot and the granddaughter. And this time she told herself not to interfere. Paying the passage to Africa had brought Lucinda nothing but tears when she came back to Purbeck Manor with Robert. She had been an interfering old woman and told herself not to do it again. With anyone. If Bess wanted to worry herself to death, let her worry. If Ethelbert wanted to spend more time with his prize pigs than his family, let him be. If Lucinda thought Harry Brigandshaw was being more than a good friend after John Heynes, then she should find out herself. For Granny Forrester it either worked the first time or it did not work at all. Making do with something because the right person had not come along led to a life of excuses. Making a marriage work was the biggest lot of rubbish she had learnt in her life. And despite her granddaughter smiling for the first time since the Irish Guardsman was killed, she could see no future in the daily walks. Slow, very slow, as the pilot lifted both feet forward at a time. Sometimes they took the new car. Mostly they walked down the weed-strewn path through the tunnels of climbing roses that had not been pruned for ten years. After the fourth tunnel, they were out of sight from Granny Forrester's bedroom on the second floor of the old house from where she watched. They never looked up at her. Or at Robert's bedroom on the same floor, where her grandson spent most of his days alone.
Beyond the arched roses was a lily pond, an arbour protecting a wooden bench from the wind where the bench caught the morning sun. Once it had been theirs. Hers and Potts's. It was a place for lovers… Then she went down on her knees and prayed for all of them.
Robert had given up worrying about his sister. He let his mother do the worrying. The only surprise was Granny Forrester saying not a word. Everyone in the family was waiting. For something to happen. From wherever it came. Like so many houses in England.
The way out for Robert was writing. He could live in his own story and make his characters happy. His only lifelong interests had been history and his family. And reading books. On Elephant Walk he had read all of Henry Manderville's books. And they had talked about their respective families going back to the time of the Conqueror. Both the St Clair and Manderville families had come across from Normandy with William the First. They might even have known each other, those first St Clairs and Mandervilles. During many an evening, the two of them had swapped family stories, most of them passed down from father to son. Or found on the gravestones. In the family churches. The family tombs. No one in either family had ever written it down.
"One day when you have time Robert, you should write a book," Henry Manderville had told him. "It would have to be an historical novel as so much of your family history is hearsay. Like ours. Maybe you could start by introducing the St Clairs to the Mandervilles before the Battle of Hastings in that year of 1066. I did tell you my old home in England is still called Hastings Court. Harry's uncle lives there. But that's another long story and one I'm not proud of. How the Brigandshaws own my ancestral house."
Without a foot. Without a job. With a small army disability pension, Robert had begun the book. For the first time in his life he was fully absorbed and happy. Whether it was any good or not he did not care. He had found something to do with his life. When he was writing his missing foot was irrelevant.
That morning Robert had watched them go off in the car after breakfast, his favourite meal of the day. There had been fried duck eggs, to which he was particularly partial and so different to hen's eggs. Cook had made Harry and Lucinda a picnic basket with hard-boiled eggs, a green salad, and cold, home-made pork sausages. Little bags of salt, twisted into greaseproof paper, and a bottle of Cook's home-made salad dressing, floating with herbs from the garden. Two flasks of tea and a small cake Cook had taken out of the oven just before she packed the wicker picnic basket. Robert had watched the packing and wanted to eat one of the sausages.
The spring day was perfect. Full of sun with no sign of April showers to be seen anywhere in the blue sky. The birds were trying out their voices for the summer season. A little envious, Robert had gone up to his room and was soon absorbed in his writing, to the exclusion of everything else. The day was quiet. Not one sound of man or woman. Only the birds and insects. Robert had made himself a pile of sandwiches which he ate his way through during the day. He, too, had a flask of tea. He'd gone into an ancient world and stayed there in his mind. The window to his bedroom was wide open to the spring, his writing desk pushed up against the windowsill. He had not heard the constant ringing of the phone far away in the entrance hall. The first thing he knew was a banging on his door. For a long moment, he was unable to bring his mind back into his body and the present.
When he wrenched open the door he found an agitated Cook. He was about to be brusque but changed his mind. For Cook to be flustered there had to be something wrong.
And now he could hear the guns from France.
"What's the matter Mrs Mason?" normally he would have called her Cook but there was something more serious than the family dinner.
"There's a young woman on the phone, Mister Robert. Hysterical, she is. Wants to speak to Mr Harry Brigandshaw. Now how would she know he is here? Says she's going to kill herself if he don't come up to London. Gave me a name and address and made me read it back. I told her the young man had gone off for a picnic with Miss Lucinda and that set her screaming. I told her to hang on and I'd get you. Says she knows you from Africa. All these people from Africa, I just don't know. You'd better come down. Don't want no one killing 'emself on account of me."
When Robert reached the telephone in the hall the line was dead. The London address was on the pad, which hung from the phone, with a pencil attached to a piece of string. There was no return telephone number. It was Sara Wentworth, Jared's sister. He rather thought she had not liked him because he did not have any money.
Upstairs again, and as hard as he tried he could not restart the book. His characters refused to talk to him.
"Well there's nothing I can do as I don't know where they've gone and I only have one foot… Damn. And the book was going so well."
He had had enough worrying about other people, so he lay down on his bed. Soon he was fast asleep. The wind had changed and the sound of the guns had gone away again.
They had eaten everything except the last of the salt in the twisted little bags of greaseproof paper. They had gone deep into the woods the car pushing through the bracken that grew on the side of the bridle path. The oaks were big, hundreds of years old, gnarled roots hunched out of the earth, covered in green lichen and moss. They could hear the lazy sound of summer insects worrying the spring flowers. Lucinda had cleared a patch of last year's acorns from the soft ground and put down the rug from the car. They were truly alone and said not a word.
