Waiting For the Day

by Leslie Thomas

  Miller said: ‘It remains to be seen, sir.’ He waited, then asked: ‘Am I going, sir? Or have they turned me down?’

  ‘You’re going,’ said the colonel.

  ‘Great, good.’

  ‘But you won’t be jumping by any parachute. They can’t accommodate you. You can ride the plane, if that’s what you still want to do, captain.’

  Miller said: ‘I owe it to them. You know what happened with my big idea?’

  ‘Sure, I do. Things like that will happen. Men get killed in training. As we know too well.’

  ‘It didn’t make me popular,’ sighed Miller. ‘It was just lousy luck that Dakota was shot up. A fluke. That Messerschmitt just happened to be there. But you trying telling those boys that, sir. Four of their buddies didn’t come back. One came down by ’chute but has since been reported dead.’

  ‘A sad tale,’ said Jeffries with no emphasis.

  ‘That’s why I owe them,’ said Miller. ‘I’m not top of their popularity poll but they want me to be with them, to take the same risks.’

  ‘You have a wife,’ said Jeffries. It was not a question.

  ‘I do. She looks after our dogs. The young pilot who died, he had a wife too. A new one.’

  They began to walk back to the mess. There came the sound of male conversation from inside. ‘Why the parade tomorrow?’ asked Miller.

  ‘Colonel Hendy wants to show his men off,’ said Jeffries. ‘He wants to show the folks around here that they’re fighting men and soon they’re going to be doing just that – fighting. He thinks the English here don’t have a high opinion of the Yanks, as they call us. In some cases it’s become a term of contempt: Yanks. He wants to march them down the street just to show that we mean business, that they’re not a bunch of toy soldiers.’

  They went into the mess where each had a drink and then another. ‘After the parade, Miller, I suggest you get out of here real quick. Get up to your Dakota, boys. You wouldn’t want to miss the show and it seems like the curtain is going up soon. Very soon.’

  He made a telephone call to London that night. ‘Use this one, sir,’ said the sergeant of the guardroom. ‘The nearest public booth is in town, and it’s off limits tonight anyway because the colonel wants the fighting to be in France, not in Dorchester.’ He pointed to the receiver. ‘Uncle Sam can afford it.’

  Kathleen answered. He heard her draw her breath. ‘I thought you’d never call me again. I’m so glad you rang,’ she said. ‘I must have been mad, or drunk, probably drunk, that night. And you’d had a bad day.’

  ‘Some men were killed,’ he said simply.

  ‘Oh, God. What a selfish bitch I am. Blame the booze. Can I see you soon?’

  ‘It will have to be soon,’ he said. ‘I’m away from London just now but I have to come through tomorrow night.’

  He sensed her disappointment. ‘But I won’t be here. I’m just back sorting some things out. The play is touring and we’re at Reading.’

  ‘I know where Reading is,’ said Miller. ‘It’s on my route from here.’

  ‘Oh, good. I’m so glad you called. What time?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Things are confused just now. It will be late evening, I guess. I’ll find the theatre.’

  Kathleen said: ‘It’s in the middle of the town. Come to the stage door. You won’t need to see the play.’ She paused. ‘It sounds like you’ve had enough drama.’

  They were in Miller’s car, mounting the hill to the crossroads at the top of Dorchester town. Harcourt pulled up at a red light. The traffic was entirely military except for a farm wagon drawn by two nodding horses moving sedately in the middle of the jeeps and trucks. The horses stopped, tossed their manes and snorted in the hold-up. A boy in short trousers and a grubby khaki shirt held the reins and shouted unnecessarily in a country voice at the horses. Squatting on a bale of straw in the open cart was a wrinkled woman wearing a straw hat who surveyed the soldiers with indifference.

  ‘She don’t give a shit,’ said Colonel Jeffries, sitting beside Miller. ‘War’s all the same to her.’ He glanced to the left where there was a statue on a plinth. ‘This Thomas Hardy,’ he said. ‘Are you familiar with his writing?’

  Miller admitted he was not. ‘Gone With the Wind is about my level,’ he told the colonel. ‘And I’ve never gotten to the end of that yet.’

  Jeffries laughed, a rare occurrence. ‘Gone With the Wind, that’s an old war,’ he said. ‘But old wars often won’t lie down. Where do you hail from, Miller?’

  ‘Bismarck, North Dakota.’

  ‘I come from Virginia. They’re still fighting the Civil War down there.’

  The car began to move. Miller said: ‘In not too long they’ll be writing books about this war,’ he said.

  ‘And getting it all wrong,’ said Jeffries caustically. ‘Men who never fired a shot putting it all down on paper – making money.’

  They were now in the steep street of the town. Miller could see Harcourt, who never spoke conversationally if another officer were in the car, shaking his head privately at the grey quaintness. The pavements were already lined with people. There were schoolchildren in summer clothes waving Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes. ‘The kids seem like they’ve got the message,’ said Miller. ‘They’ve come to cheer the Yanks.’

  ‘It won’t harm them,’ muttered Jeffries grumpily. ‘If those God-dam Nazis had gotten here then they’d have been ordered to turn out. Maybe they’d be waving swastikas. People here don’t seem to realise what’s about to happen, and happen real quick, that these young guys marching along in their pretty uniforms are going to be battle veterans pretty soon.’

  ‘Maybe our boys should march in battle kit,’ suggested Miller. ‘Bazookas, everything.’ The parade, not even carrying rifles, had been forming up at the camp in their smooth dress uniforms.

  ‘Could be,’ said Jeffries. ‘Maybe they don’t want to frighten the kids.’

  ‘The kids would dig it. Boys like guns and girls like soldiers. Girls in Paris turned out to see the Germans marching in. But like you say, could be that they had to.’

  There was a saluting base halfway up the lopsided street and the mayor in his scarlet robes and chain, a bishop in his ecclesiastical hangings, and other civilian men in tidy suits, some with bowler hats, were already on the platform. Jeffries and Miller saluted them at the dais and there was more ceremony when a US lieutenant general and a British brigadier arrived with the colonel of the local American unit. The bishop stepped forward and said a prayer and a blessing although it mostly went unheard for there was no microphone, and the crowd did not stop indifferently chattering. The lines of spectators had grown three deep on the pavements and there were others standing in shop windows and gazing down from the upper rooms of offices.

  Then from the distance, from the upper part of the hill, came the surprising sound of bells – happily tinkling bells, as if fairies, not soldiers, were marching. ‘Great,’ breathed Jeffries with pleasure. ‘We’ve got a Jingling Johnny.’

  The people on the platform turned expectantly, the faces of the crowd looked that way, the children’s flags drooped as they craned their heads and stepped out into the road to see. The distant tinkling became jangling.

  Miller, who had never seen a Jingling Johnny, nor even heard of it, peered up the hill with the rest. The British brigadier whispered to the bishop: ‘Trust the Yanks to do something different.’

  Down the ancient, stone street came the parade. From the platform they could hear the swelling voices of the watchers and the clapping of their hands as the soldiers marched, and before them the loud and undulating ringing of the bells. Then they came into sight.

  In the front, a dozen paces ahead of the first rank of soldiers, pranced a tall, bulging black man festooned with bells which rang to the rolling movements of his body. He sounded more bells with his hands and legs. He bore a pole on which was a silver cone and the shape of a crescent moon; horse tails hung from it, and more bells and other jingling devices.
The man knew how to play it and he played it with his entire body, wriggling and swinging and pirouetting in the street. Every movement sounded the bells. He had bells on his fingers and bells on his toes. His knees bent and he jumped and he rang. He leaped jangling into the air and in the next movement squatted down almost to the level of the street. He went dancing and jingling from one pavement to the other. ‘Beautiful,’ Miller heard Jeffries say to himself. ‘Just beautiful.’

  The townspeople clapped and shouted, the children cheered, old men grinned and round countrywomen jogged to the music. Miller saw tears running down Jeffries’s face. At last he was proud.

  Behind the Jingling Johnny came the American soldiers, not marching like a conquering army with weapons, firm boots and rigid arms, but almost sliding along. Their uniforms were sleek and smart, their faces set, and above their faces caps all fixed at the same angle. There were five hundred unarmed soldiers, marching to the music of the echoing bells, and at their centre the banner bearer carrying Old Glory, its Stars and Stripes glinting in the Dorset morning.

  ‘Sir, I never did see anything like that. It made me good and proud to be an American,’ said Harcourt as he drove the car from the town.

  ‘It sure was something,’ agreed Miller. ‘That guy with the bells …’

  ‘Johnny Jingle,’ said Harcourt. ‘It was better than a whole band, sir, better than a band.’

  ‘That commanding officer wanted to demonstrate to everybody, mostly the British, that we could put on a show,’ said Miller. ‘Any day those soldiers are going to have to put on another.’

  ‘They going straight to France, you think, sir?’

  ‘They’ll be there before too long.’

  ‘There’ll still be plenty of war left,’ said the young black man pensively as he drove. ‘Soon, sir, I guess we’ll be going our ways.’ He paused. ‘Are we going direct back to London?’

  ‘No, not direct. I don’t have to be in Suffolk until noon tomorrow. On our way is a town called Reading – it’s pronounced Redding – and I’d like to call in there tonight.’

  ‘Sure, sir, I know Reading,’ said the driver. ‘I went there. On the train. They got a Baptist church and I went for a whole Sunday. They’re friendly people and we had a fine time, a picnic, except it rained and we had to go in a hall. They invited me back anytime.’

  ‘This could be the time,’ said Miller. ‘I’ll be there a couple of hours, maybe three, visiting a friend. Could you go and see your church people?’

  ‘Sure could,’ said Harcourt. ‘I’d be very happy with that, sir. Maybe it will be the last chance.’

  He went into the theatre for the final fifteen minutes of the play. The Seagull was not getting big audiences in Reading. Kathleen, as before, was slim and aloof and deeply intense. There was a profound sense of failure, in love and in life.

  ‘It’s a moody last act,’ Kathleen smiled when she saw him. They did not say where they were going but just walked a little apart down the empty street. It had been raining and the pavements glowed dimly in the blackout. ‘I’ve heard people sobbing in the stalls,’ she said. ‘One woman walked out, staggering almost and crying her eyes out. Mr Chekov did not intend to cheer anybody up.’

  She linked her coated arm through his. ‘Are we just going to wander about the town like this?’ she asked. ‘Or would you rather come to my house?’

  ‘You have a house?’

  ‘It’s been lent to me. A small terrace by the station. They used to be houses for railwaymen. I only moved in on Saturday but if the play doesn’t fold I’ll be there for a couple of weeks. How about you? Are you going anywhere very soon?’

  Miller nodded. ‘In a few hours.’

  He felt her sag. ‘It’s that close, is it?’

  ‘It won’t be long. I’ll need to leave tonight at some time.’

  She sighed. ‘Acting doesn’t help with real life,’ she said. ‘The war seems strangely remote when you’re up on that stage in the lights, and even when you get off it you don’t return to reality. I imagine you must have seen a lot more drama than me.’

  ‘I think I have,’ he said. ‘Recently.’

  She took her keys from her handbag as they approached a terrace of low-roofed brick cottages. ‘Oddly enough they belong to the theatre,’ she said. ‘It goes with the job.’

  She opened the door. Inside was a long curtain, the texture of a blanket, and she pushed it aside so they could enter a tight passage and then pulled it over the door again before switching on the light. A central ceiling lamp cast a doleful shadow over elderly wall-paper. There was a picture, a vague mountain view, on one of the walls. It was askew and she righted it as she passed.

  ‘The decor is from the railwayman’s time, I imagine,’ she said as she went beyond a second door. She put down another light switch. ‘Also the furnishings.’ She swept her hand around the tight, low-ceilinged room. ‘Railwaymen must have been very small,’ she said.

  She moved against him and they kissed deeply, almost wrestling into each other’s bodies. Their arms held each other hungrily. Then she eased herself up so that she was sitting on the sturdy table with its worn covering. She opened her legs and pulled him to her. ‘I’m sorry for what happened,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. I drink too much. Some men were killed, you said.’

  ‘A lot,’ he confirmed. ‘And they were only practising. Most of them drowned during a landing exercise.’ He wanted to tell her. He was weary of keeping secrets.

  Kathleen whispered: ‘How terrible.’

  ‘Certainly was. More than seven hundred.’

  She put her slim hands to her mouth. ‘Oh, my God.’

  ‘Sure. Just rehearsals. Just think what the real thing could be like.’

  ‘And you’ll be there.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he said. ‘But removed from it.’ He pointed at the ceiling.

  ‘In a plane,’ she said. She moved against him again as though needing to get rid of the image. ‘I can’t talk about it any more,’ she said.

  ‘Nor me,’ said Miller. He was sniffing against her face, taking in the smell of the woman in her. She said: ‘I have some supper for us. And some wine. Would you like to go to bed first?’

  ‘You know I would.’

  She smiled as if in relief and they held each other again. Then she slid from the table and her slim fingers took his hand. Saying nothing, she moved towards the passage and they went domestically up the straight narrow staircase. ‘There’s no light on the landing.’ For some reason she was whispering again. ‘They probably thought it was excessive.’ There were two shabby bedroom doors, both closed. She opened the second one. ‘The posh room,’ she said.

  The bed occupied most of the space, a big lumpy bed, patterned with shadows when she turned on the light of a bare bulb. ‘I can’t gaze up at that,’ she said firmly. She pushed the switch off and leaning over an untidy dressing-table, opened the curtains at the bay window which took up most of the front wall. The pale light of midnight filtered into the confined room.

  Kathleen took a stride to a picture on the wall to one side of the bed. ‘This old chap with whiskers,’ she said. ‘He’s not going to watch.’ She unhooked it and put it on the floor facing the wall, and then went close to Miller again. ‘Undress me,’ she said quietly. ‘You know I like that. Take all my clothes from me.’

  He did as she asked, taking her garments one by one. She held out her hand to take each item and placed them on a single chair at the side of the bed. She was still wearing her skirt and her small exposed breasts pointed eagerly. He rubbed them gently, working the nipples between his fingers. She said: ‘That’s a novel one.’ Her hands began to undo his buttons, on his tunic first, then on his trousers. In a few moments they stood naked against each other. Almost miraculously a ghostly touch of moonbeam came into the room. ‘Limelight,’ she murmured. Then: ‘Come to the bed. I mustn’t scandalise the neighbours.’

  She pulled away an old patchwork counterpane and folded back the sheet. ‘I
always bring my own bedlinen,’ she explained conversationally. ‘I don’t mind anything else but I must have that.’

  She seemed even more frail than last time. Her hip-bones were hard. But her intensity was full and sensual. He had a passing image of her on the stage that night, tight and edgy, full of hopelessness. Now her lovemaking was hard but not happy. It was as though it was something she had to have, to eat up. He felt clumsy and simple when he was with her. Perhaps that is how he was. Clumsy and simple.

  She worked at it, drawing him into her, moving her hips and thighs to pull him in further, deeper. She came to her climax, her mouth open in a silent scream as if she had come unexpectedly. She held his upper arms with hands like narrow iron bands, biting his chest and then panting and opening her mouth to suck in breath as he ended. They fell against each other and lay spent. ‘Wherever you’re going,’ she whispered, ‘wherever it is. Try and come back.’

  Then the strangest thing happened.

  Kathleen said: ‘I will get a glass of wine,’ and she put on a flimsy robe and went from the room. She returned with two flutes of white wine and they sat together in the bed drinking and looking out at the indifferent moonlight over the slates of the town. Then she said: ‘I want to show you something.’

  She put down the wineglass as she rose, opened the bottom drawer of the dressing-table and returned to the bed. ‘Do you see this?’ she said.

  It was a ring. Even in the dim room he could see it was exceptional, a large diamond and ruby that caught even the poor light from the window. ‘I wish you could see it properly,’ she said. ‘It’s so beautiful. It’s worth thousands of pounds.’

  ‘Should you be leaving it in a drawer in a strange house?’

  She gave a croaky laugh. ‘You are such a practical person. If somebody stole it, then it would be only justice. That’s how I got it.’

  His glass was almost to his lips. He paused, then drank the remainder of the wine. ‘How?’ he asked flatly. ‘Is this one of your stories, Kathleen, one of the fantasies you make up, that you told me about?’