by John Masters
Harry Rowland lay dying in the high narrow bed in the cottage, his youngest son at his bedside. A wind blew down off Dartmoor and the trees in the wood behind the village thrashed against the cloudy sky, but it was not raining. That would come later, as the seagulls flew inland from the winter storm gathering in the Channel, and waddled up and down the furrows of the new-ploughed fields.
The telegrams had gone out, but so far only Tom had come. His father was propped up in the bed, his face ashen grey, breathing with difficulty, both hands lying limp, bony yellowish outside the coverlet. Tom reached out his hand, and took one of his father’s, warming it with his own. Harry’s eyes opened and he turned his head a fraction, looking at Tom as though seeing him for the first time. He said, ‘I should have gone years ago … before the war. I … we weren’t the right people. We didn’t understand … too much change … too much new …’ His voice trailed away.
Tom said, ‘Don’t talk, Daddy. Rest. I’ll be here if you want me.’
The old man continued obstinately, ‘We … like dodoes … relics from another time … our world gone, but we didn’t notice … should have died in 1914 … better for everybody if … young generals, young ministers …’
‘We couldn’t have won without you,’ Tom said, seeing that his father’s mind could not release the idea. ‘You represented … stood for … all that we were fighting for – ideals of decency … duty … the way an Englishman ought to live his life … treat people …’
The old man’s eyes closed slowly. There had been an old lady, Tom thought; some old flame of the Governor’s youth, whom he’d met again when he retired here. She’d been here earlier, but then she’d left.
The old man’s eyes opened again – ‘Where are your wife and children, Tom? Downstairs?’
Tom said, ‘I have not married, Daddy.’ He braced himself – ‘I never will. I live with another man. I cannot live with women … or love them, as a man should. I have tried, but I cannot.’ An immense load seemed to rise from his chest and float, almost visible, out through the window rattling in its ancient frame.
His father said, ‘Are you happy, my boy?’
‘Yes, sir. At last.’
‘Good …’
Tom heard footsteps on the stairs and turned his head. The door opened and his sister Alice limped in, her artificial leg creaking. He saw that she was pregnant, about five or six months. He was becoming quite expert, seeing so many of the Gavilan clients in that condition, coming to gaze hungrily at creations they would not be able to wear for some months. Behind Alice was his eldest brother Richard, looking drawn and tight-mouthed … worried about the strikes that were crippling his factories, of course … Quentin was in India; John dead of the influenza; Margaret killed in Ireland. The rest were here. He wondered if the Governor would notice Alice’s condition, and ask how her husband was. But it was Richard kneeling beside the bed now; and his father’s voice becoming feebler, a croak … They were all kneeling, Alice holding one hand, Tom on the other side, the other. An hour later Harry Rowland died, in the village where he had been born, a few days less than seventy-seven years before.
Ethel Fagioletti poured more tea for one of the four women sitting round the little front room of the sergeant’s married quarters, and said, ‘The colonel wants to make Niccolo a CSM, but I told him, don’t take it if you can help it.’
‘Why did you say that, Mrs Fagioletti?’ one of the women asked. ‘It’ll be more pay.’
‘We could all do with that,’ Ethel said. ‘But Niccolo’s thirty-three, and if he gets CSM now, he can’t stay there for ever, can he? But he wouldn’t succeed Mr Bolton as Regimental, because he’d be too junior. But when the next Regimental retires, then Niccolo would either have to take it, or go out himself. And he’d only be forty by then. That’s no time for a man to put himself on the shelf … No, he ought to wait for four or five years before he takes CSM.’
‘I wish I could think clear, like you, Mrs Fagioletti,’ another woman said in a strong cockney accent. ‘You’re a tower of strength to yer ’usband, we all knows that.’
Ethel had never got over the surprise, and pleasure, of finding that other women looked up to her. Of course, it was partly due to the way their husbands looked up to Sergeant Fagioletti, MM; but some of it must be her own doing, and that thought gave her strength and wisdom to help them, if she could; and the more they came, the more she found that, digging within her own common sense and her experience, she could.
A woman with an Irish accent said, ‘They’re asking my Paddy to go to Netheravon as an instructor. Do you think he should go?’
‘Will there be quarters for you?’
‘Oh aye, that there will, but … what’ll happen when he comes back to the battalion? The officers will have forgotten him.’
Ethel said, ‘He may not come back to the battalion, Mrs Geoghegan. It depends where there’s a vacancy for a machine-gun sergeant. It might be the 2nd battalion in India … And then you’d be out there, on the strength, for six years.’
‘Glory be! I never thought I’d see India, when Paddy enlisted in 1915, and us only a year married … You look a mite pale, Mrs Fagioletti. Shall we be leaving you to rest?’
Ethel blushed, looked down, and said in a small voice, ‘I think I’m pregnant.’
‘Glory be!’ the Irishwoman cried. ‘Then your prayers to the Holy Virgin have been answered!’
Ethel nodded, saying, ‘Yes, and the doctor thinks it will be twins.’ She wondered whether it was the prayers that had at last succeeded; or Probyn’s Woman’s potions and strange instructions; or just Niccolo’s powerful thing, plunging in and out of her. She blushed again at the thought – ‘More tea?’ she asked.
‘Why, thank you, Mrs Fagioletti, I don’t mind if I do … My Frank’s not good at figures. He says they’ll never make him CSM or even CQMS, unless he learns better arithmetic. But how can he do it?’
Ethel said, ‘There’s courses you can apply for, that come by post. You can learn anything, really, if you want to. Niccolo’s going to start two of them, next year, soon as Christmas is over … so’s he can write better, and arithmetic. Because he knows enough for CSM now, but not for Regimental … and after he’s finished as Regimental … if he gets it’ – she touched the tabletop religiously – ‘they may offer him Quartermaster, and then he’ll have to have a lot more than he does now, especially with him being born an Eyetalian.’
‘Cor!’ the cockney woman cried. ‘Niccolo, in the officers’ mess!’
‘I don’t know why not,’ Ethel said a little stiffly. ‘It’s just a matter of working hard, and making himself fit for it.’
‘Of course,’ the woman said hurriedly. ‘Of course, Mrs Fagioletti.’
‘And,’ Ethel said, ‘his brother-in-law is a lord.’
Stephen Merritt, sitting across the desk from Richard Rowland, said, ‘I was sorry to read of your father’s death, Richard.’
Richard said briefly, ‘He was happy to go. He felt that England – the world – had changed too much for him to enjoy any more. And he was very tired.’ He waited. Stephen had not crossed the Atlantic and spent a week in London and in Hedlington just to commiserate with him about the Governor.
Stephen said, ‘I’ve been making enquiries about the situation here, Richard. Would you agree that we have two quite separate problems – first that there are bad relations between labour and management in both plants – and second, that it is very hard to sell big aeroplanes in the present state of world politics and economy. The truck business is doing better, but it is also facing rapidly increasing competition, and some nationalist hostility … strange, because HAC uses American engines, too, but with the aeroplanes that doesn’t seem to matter.’
Richard said, ‘I agree. Those are the problems. And they’re not connected.’
‘Well, let’s take the second first. I have been told that there will be a market for aeroplanes designed to be flown off warships, special ships called aircraft carrier
s. The British Navy has to modernise. They’re not going to get rid of battleships, but they must realise – they already have – the potential of aircraft carriers. I have checked this out …’
‘That’s Betty’s idea,’ Richard said.
‘She isn’t the only one sharing it,’ Stephen said. ‘In any event I have checked it out as carefully as I can with the Admiralty, and with the Prime Minister. As you know, we have had relations with Mr Lloyd George dating back to before the war when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. What would be your thought if I were to propose that we turn our attention purely to aircraft to co-operate with the navy? The British Navy – though I presume we would be able to sell our machines to Britain’s allies, such as the French and Italians, and other nations … certainly if the British buy them others will be strongly tempted to do so, to keep up.’
Richard waited, choosing his words. Betty had come to him with this idea, in a well-reasoned paper, the day after she rejoined the HAC. He had talked it over with Keble-Palmer, who had agreed that he could design such aircraft as well as anyone; but there were the problems of any new design – draughting, re-tooling, testing, modifications. A lot of capital would be required, and at the end, perhaps failure to get any, or enough orders.
He said as much to Stephen Merritt. Stephen said, ‘All that you say is true. But we have not sold any more Buffaloes. And frankly, Handley Page has got the inside track in that field. I propose to recommend to the board that we convert as suggested at HAC, and drop all other projects.’ He went on without waiting for Richard to make any comment. Richard thought, too, that he detected a slight hardening of the voice, an augmentation of the flat Down East twang. ‘Now to labour relations … I have spoken to Mr Drummond, General Secretary of the Union of Skilled Engineers. He made it clear to me that the union has been and is ready to accept most of your conditions, if you would agree to the principle of a closed shop. They say they will go a very long way to save the jobs here.’
‘It’s a matter of principle for me, too,’ Richard said stiffly. ‘Once we give an inch, they’ll be telling us whom we must hire, whom we can’t sack, even for absence, disobedience, insubordination … theft!’
Stephen said, ‘When I told him – Drummond – that we might be going to close the JMC, he became very agitated, and made still more concessions. We could have a closed shop at the HAC, with all the benefits of it, and almost none of the disadvantages. The union is willing to hamstring itself, to guarantee those HAC jobs for its members.’
‘But …’ Richard began, ‘you have not mentioned closing the JMC before.’
‘No, but I have decided we must. It has made money. The shareholders of Fairfax, Gottlieb have done well from our investments in it. But now we ought to get a manager in, in Overfeld’s place – but it’s not worth it. We have looked at the graph curves of competition, marketability, available purchasing power … and now is the time to get out. I have contacted several people who are anxious to buy the plant as it stands. But I did not tell Drummond that … because of course the new owners will continue to employ as many, or more, union men as we would … I said at the beginning that we had two main problems, Richard. Actually, we feel we have three. The third is you. You have made this union problem a personal vendetta … Oh, I know about Bert Gorse and his past history with you, but you should never have let it become, and stay, personal … We have to end this strike. We have to get out of the motor truck business. We have to see that Hedlington Aircraft is not plagued by strikes in the future. To achieve these ends, we are removing you from your post as Managing Director of both companies.’
Richard said at last, ‘The Governor was saying … his last words, nearly … that he was a leftover, didn’t understand or like the world as it has become … I feel the same. I’m sorry I lost the fight.’
‘It was a fight that you couldn’t win.’
‘Beaten by Bert Gorse!’
‘Not him – changing climate. You’ve been like a man refusing to take off a heavy overcoat as the season changes … Things may come back your way, but not in our lifetimes … We propose to have Keble-Palmer manage the HAC. Betty will be made a director.’ He stood up – ‘May I use the telephone?’
Richard indicated it. Stephen picked it up and said, ‘Trunks,’ with a Museum number in London. After a time he said, ‘Mr Drummond? Merritt here. Mr Rowland has resigned … Good. Thank you.’ He turned to Richard – ‘The strike at HAC will be over as soon as he can get through to Bert Gorse.’
‘What concessions did you get for my head?’ Richard said bitterly.
‘Enough,’ Stephen said shortly. ‘Richard, you are a businessman. Millions of our bank’s money are involved. What other decision was ever possible, in the circumstances?’
‘You’re right,’ Richard said at last. ‘Well, I’ll clean out my desk and think what I am going to do next. Something I can do by myself, without any damned union looking over my shoulder, that’s certain.’
‘Teach a course in business financing at some university,’ Stephen said. ‘That’s been your forte, all along. Or get a job with one of the big banks, advising them on the same subject. David Toledano would welcome your advice, I’m sure. These companies here would have been in difficulties long ago if you weren’t a genius in that field. Pass it on.’
Deal with figures, Richard thought; but keep away from men, especially working men.
It was almost dark when she came down the road, a shopping basket heavy on her left arm, a shawl over her head. Fletcher was waiting for her, ready, the lust urgent in his loins. She glanced back over her shoulder – the road was empty – and ducked through the gap in the hedge and into his arms. Her shopping bag was down, his overcoat spread, she was biting his ear, struggling to pull her skirt up, her drawers down, off, moaning. They’d met here long ago, in the first months of the war. Now she was married, to a farm labourer, and lived in the little cottage a mile up the road, towards Beighton.
He slid into her. She’d been thinking of this meeting too, for she was slippery and wet and eager. They coupled with frantic urgency, her buttocks lifting and banging against the ground and its carpet of dead leaves with his every fierce, powerful thrust. His tongue was half-way down her throat, the ecstasy coming … coming. She screamed, deep in her throat, the sound suffocated by his tongue, his mouth, his weight on her.
They lay still at last, her breathing coming in rasping groans, his gradually steadying. He rolled off her, staring up into the laced leafless boughs high above, against the clouds sailing over in the last of the steely light. She dressed, picked up her shopping basket, and leaned against him whispering, ‘Oh, Fletcher … Fletcher … when?’
He said, ‘Don’t know … We’ve bought the Cottage in Beighton, and will move in in a couple of days … I could come down, though. ’Tain’t far.’
‘Can’t shop again till Thursday. No more money.’
‘Thursday then … same time?’
‘Rain or shine. Fletcher, what’s come over me? We used to do it, but it was never like this … I mean, I liked it then, I wanted it … but now, my drawers are soaked all day long, thinking of last time, or next time. What’s become of me?’
Fletcher kissed her. No man could answer that question. She slipped back through the hedge and walked on the way she had been going, without looking back. They had been in the copse perhaps five minutes. Fletcher set off for his grandfather’s cottage.
When he came in Probyn’s Woman was over the stove. He thought, she must spend three-quarters of every waking hour there, in that position. She said, ‘Brush the leaves off your coat, afore she comes home, Fletcher.’
Fletcher swore; and took off his coat and did as he was bid. He’d forgotten … always used to remember, as a young fellow, when it didn’t matter; now it did, and he was getting careless.
His grandfather, sitting in a chair by the stove, looked up from a rabbit snare he was making, and said, ‘Who is it?’
‘Molly Page,’ the
Woman said. ‘Molly Fitch, that was … She’s going to find out about it, you know.’
Fletcher said nothing. Why didn’t they mind their own fucking business? But then why had he started the affair again, three weeks ago, meeting Molly by chance on the road, in the dusk, and barely a word said, just falling into the wood, to fuck away like dogs in heat? He hadn’t seen or thought of her in, what, three, four years before that. And he could always have Susan Makepeace, the Honourable Susan Makepeace, the rich London girl, whenever he wanted …
The Woman said, ‘She isn’t enough for you?’
‘Don’t be daft, Woman,’ Probyn said. He understands, Fletcher thought; she doesn’t, because she’s a woman. The thing grabbed you by the balls and your prick ached, and the woman was looking at you, and you had to do it, like a bull had to when the cow came to him. That was what made him a bull.
He said, ‘I dunno, I wish … oh, fuck it!’
The Woman said, ‘How’d you like it if she did the same … with that tall fellow with the red head, who came down here sometimes.’
‘Ginger Keble-Palmer,’ Fletcher said. ‘He’s been in love with her for years. Still is … Yes, she’s having an affair. With aeroplanes. Making them. Designing them. She has to do it. Doesn’t mean she don’t love me. I could stop her, but I wouldn’t have her then. She’d be something different … like other women. So I don’t. Molly won’t last long …’
‘Then it’ll be another one,’ the Woman said.
‘Maybe. Probably. Like, she’ll be falling for another aeroplane … but she comes back to me every night.’
The door opened and his wife Betty came in, very smart in a simple woollen dress and half-length black coat and furtrimmed hat. She went at once to Fletcher and kissed him. Then she kissed Probyn on the top of his head and smiled at the Woman, saying, ‘Anything I can do at the stove? It’s a nice change after the drawing board.’
