She had just started on Sir Geoffrey’s right foot when she heard the heavy clunk of the south-door latch being raised and the creak as the door swung open. Mrs Dakin or Mrs Vernon-Miller, perhaps, whose turn it was to do the flowers? Except that they generally did them on the Saturday morning. Hearing nothing more, Miss Cutteridge crawled forward on her hands and knees to peer round the edge of the choir stall. Her eyes widened. An American!
He was standing at the far end of the nave, caught in a shaft of sunlight from one of the windows, and staring up into the barrel-vaulted roof: a dark-haired young man in a brown leather jacket, khaki shirt and tie and olive trousers, a peaked cap dangling idly from his fingers. An extraordinarily casual military uniform. Undoubtedly an American.
Miss Cutteridge withdrew her head, debating the situation. She ought to speak up and ask him to shut the door before the birds got in but she felt flustered at the thought. She had never spoken to an American before and was not certain that he would understand her, or she him. If she did nothing he might go away and no action or conversation would be necessary. She retreated on her knees to Sir Geoffrey and waited hopefully, holding her breath. After a while footsteps started slowly down the nave towards the altar. In a moment he would discover her in this foolish position, on the floor clutching her dusters and the Bluebell. There was nothing for it. She rose creakily to her feet, screwed up her courage and stepped forward from behind the choir stall to confront him.
He started violently and dropped his cap. ‘Jeez . . . you scared the hell out of me, ma’am. Thought you were a ghost, or something.’
She blushed. ‘I’m so sorry. I was cleaning the brass, you see.’ She indicated Sir Geoffrey. ‘It has to be done every week or it tarnishes.’
‘Oh, sure . . .’ He bent to retrieve his cap and held out his hand with a smile. ‘The name’s Ed. Lieutenant Ed Mochetti, United States Eighth Army Air Force.’
She transferred the Bluebell to the dusters and put her free hand in his, babbling nervously. ‘Oh really? Goodness gracious. Bless my soul. How do you do?’
He was rather swarthy with dark brown eyes and black hair. Somehow she had always thought of Americans as fair and blue-eyed. And his name had sounded odd. If one overlooked the peculiar uniform, though, he was really a very handsome young man. Very handsome indeed. Her heart fluttered a little as she looked up at him. ‘I’m Miss Cutteridge. Emilia Cutteridge.’
‘Of King’s Thorpe, England?’
‘Well, yes . . . though I was actually brought up in Oundle, near here. My family lived there.’
‘I’m from New York City myself.’
‘Good heavens! Imagine that.’ She did so, with some difficulty. Skyscrapers soaring and glittering at night with millions of lights; Times Square and those dazzling neon advertisements flashing away; the Empire State Building; Broadway with all the theatres; Fifth Avenue with the wonderful shops; huge American cars, those yellow taxicabs . . . everything she had ever read or heard or seen about New York raced through her mind. It seemed simply unbelievable that somebody from there should be standing here in St Luke’s, talking to her.
He twirled his cap round and round on his index finger. ‘Just got over with my Fighter Group. We’re based up the road a little ways. Thought I’d take a look at the village. All those houses must be real old. Same as this church, I guess.’
‘Well, yes. St Luke’s was begun in the twelfth century, though of course there have been a lot of changes and additions since then. Unfortunately, the pews are only nineteenth-century.’
He grinned. ‘Where I come from that makes them pretty old.’
‘Does it really? Well, yes, I suppose it would.’
‘I’m Roman Catholic myself, but I guess this church isn’t.’
‘Oh, it was once – for several hundred years – until King Henry VIII changed everything.’
‘Yeah, the one with the six wives. I know all about him. There was a great movie with Charles Laughton.’
A movie was a film, she thought. She very seldom went to the cinema herself, though, of course, she had heard of Charles Laughton. ‘We’re Protestant now, I’m afraid. But I’m sure there would be a Roman Catholic church in one of the towns.’
‘No, that’s OK. We’ve got an RC chapel at the base and a visiting chaplain. They take care of us. This sure is a beautiful old place.’ He walked about a bit and stopped at one of the tombs in the south aisle. He read aloud, his American accent twanging in her ears.
‘“Know reader though in dust I lie,
As you are now, so once was I.
And as I am, so must you be.
Therefore prepare to follow me.”
‘Hey, this guy gives it to you straight from the shoulder. Hic jacet. What does that mean?’
‘It’s Latin for “here lies”.’
‘Well, Richard Wilbur’s been lying here since 1688. That’s quite a while.’ He went on staring down at the tomb for a moment.
She wondered what his job was. The leather jacket hid any insignia. ‘Do you fly aeroplanes?’ she asked politely.
‘Sure do. Except we’ve no planes to fly right now. Waiting for them to be delivered. Any day now and you’ll be seeing us up there, and hearing us. I guess that won’t be too popular with you folks. Us making a racket.’
They both turned at the sound of someone coming into the church. Agnes Dawe stood at the far end of the nave, caught, just as the young American had been before, in the shaft of sunlight. She was pink in the face and gasping for breath. ‘I thought my father might be here, Miss Cutteridge. I’ve been looking for him everywhere. Mr Gibbons has taken a turn for the worse. I think it’s really serious this time.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t seen him, dear. I’m so sorry. Would you like me to help look?’
‘No, it’s all right, thank you. I’ll try the Turners. He might have gone there.’
She hurried out again, closing the door carefully behind her, the latch clunking loudly into place.
‘The birds get in, you see,’ Miss Cutteridge said. ‘It’s best to shut it.’
‘What?’ The American was still standing in the aisle, staring towards the door.
‘The birds get in if you don’t shut the door. They can make an awful mess.’
‘Oh, sure. Sorry. I’ll remember another time. Who was that girl?’
‘Our rector’s daughter, Agnes Dawe.’ Perhaps she ought to have introduced him, but she hadn’t understood his rank and she’d quite forgotten his odd surname. And anyway, it had hardly been the moment. Not with poor Mr Gibbons perhaps meeting his Maker at last. ‘Well, if you don’t mind, I really should get on with the brass.’
‘Sure. I must be getting along.’
‘Are you coming to the Welcome Party?’
‘Welcome party?’
‘It’s all arranged for next Saturday afternoon. At the village hall. Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid. Just some refreshments and a little entertainment, but we hope you’ll enjoy it.’
‘I hadn’t heard about it,’ he said.
‘Your group commander is coming with a number of you.’
‘I guess it depends who he picks, then.’
‘Well, I hope you do come.’
‘I hope so too, Miss Cutteridge. It’s been good to meet you.’
She went back to Sir Geoffrey and polished him thoughtfully. The first real live American that she’d ever met. Fancy that! She’d had some difficulty understanding the way he spoke and some of the words he’d used but, all in all, she thought he had seemed perfectly civilized. Not nearly as bad as she had feared or Brigadier Mapperton had predicted. And he’d remembered her name while she’d forgotten his.
‘Refreshments and a little entertainment, that’s what the old girl said. What do you reckon that means, Ben?’
‘A lot of English old maids pouring crap tea. Stuffed shirts, blimps and fossils. No floor show.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I figured.’
‘I don’t know why th
e hell the CO had to pick on us.’
Ed Mochetti lit a cigarette. ‘I guess he wanted a couple of pilots and saw us first. She was a nice old girl.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m not interested in old girls, only young ones.’
‘Saw one of those, too. She came into the church.’
‘I haven’t seen a pretty girl over here yet.’
‘This one looked kinda interesting.’
‘Maybe she’ll be at the party. Maybe one of us’ll get lucky. I sure hope it happens soon or I’ll go nuts.’ Ben Feinstein shook his head. ‘What a country! These guys live in the Stone Age. Nothing works. The plumbing sucks. This place is a dump. Look at it.’
Mochetti looked. The lounge of the Officers’ Mess where they were sitting was housed in the old brick-and-corrugated-iron hut left behind by the RAF. It was furnished with a sorry collection of broken-down armchairs, plywood tables and some threadbare carpeting – also left behind by the British. His easy chair was missing a front castor and he had his right leg over the other arm and one foot on the floor to keep it balanced. ‘OK. It stinks. So what? Our guys’ll fix it. They’ll fix everything the way we want it.’
‘Meantime, we’re living in shit.’
‘Go take a look at the village down the road, though. Boy, is it beautiful! And real old. You know what, they’ve got seven of those bars they call pubs. I stopped by one. It was like something out of a story book.’
‘Yeah, but the beer’s lousy and there’s no Scotch. That’s what I heard.’
‘There could be some at this Welcome Party.’
‘Forget it, Ed. It’s gonna be a real yawner.’
‘If you could make some more sandwiches, Agnes dear, that would be so kind. We seem to have a long queue at the door already. Oh dear, it’s going to be rather a crowd.’ Miss Cutteridge was standing on tiptoe, peering out of the window.
There was hardly room to move in the small kitchen at the back of the village hall. The Welcome Party committee and several willing helpers had been hard at work for the past hour slicing bread and smearing it thinly with margarine and Shippam’s Wholesome Bloater Paste. The tea urn was simmering away in its corner, cups and saucers set out ready, sugar put in the small bowls, bottles of lemonade and ginger pop lined up for the children, the finished sandwich triangles arranged neatly on china plates and covered with clean tea towels. A special plate of sandwiches with extra margarine and paste had been set aside for the Americans, with a different-coloured cloth. After some discussion, it had been decided that the guests of honour should have their tea and sandwiches taken to them, while the rest would have to queue up at the hatch. It had also been agreed that nothing should be served until the Americans had arrived.
Agnes scraped out the last of the paste from one of the jars and opened another. She had spread ten more rounds when Mrs Vernon-Miller, who had somehow taken command, stuck her head and shoulders through the hatchway. ‘We’re going to open the doors now. Everyone ready? Jolly good.’ Her face was crimson beneath her WVS beret.
They filed into the hall – practically the whole village, so far as Agnes could tell from her view through the hatch. They stood about in clumps, talking and looking round. The blacksmith’s voice boomed out above the rest. ‘Where’s the bloody Yanks, then?’ Somebody else shouted back, ‘Late again.’ Miss Cutteridge peered out of the kitchen window once more. ‘Oh dear, I hope they come soon.’ Twenty more minutes passed before a loud squeal of brakes outside announced their arrival. The waiting villagers turned, as one, towards the door and suddenly fell silent.
Agnes watched as they entered the hall – twelve or so of them in a group, dressed in well-tailored uniforms with olive jackets, light-coloured trousers, and high-crowned caps with gilt badges at the front. They removed the caps and paused uncertainly, confronted by a wall of eyes. There was a moment of silence when nobody moved or spoke and then Miss Hooper at the piano launched into ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’. The Americans came to attention and saluted – an odd-looking salute with the palm downwards. When the anthem had finished the American commander in the centre of the group took a step forward towards her father, right hand extended, but with a warning rattle of the keys, Miss Hooper went straight into ‘God Save the King’ and the Americans all came back quickly to attention and saluted again. At Miss Hooper’s final, crashing chord her father advanced firmly to shake the commander’s hand.
‘Good afternoon, Colonel. We welcome you and your men to King’s Thorpe.’
‘Colonel?’ Mrs Salter whispered in Agnes’s ear. ‘But I thought they were Air Force. What funny salutes they have.’
‘Thank you, Reverend. Very good of you to invite us to this gathering. We appreciate your hospitality.’ The American group commander showed very white teeth as he smiled. He was tall, fair-haired, broad-shouldered and suntanned and his voice with its strong American accent, clearly audible to the very back of the hall, made a startling contrast to her father’s soft, English tones. Agnes studied the Americans. They looked like beings from another world, totally untouched by war. Well-dressed, well-groomed, well-fed, fit and healthy . . . and well pleased with themselves. The colonel was introducing his men, in turn, to her father, who then began village introductions. Mrs Vernon-Miller’s face reappeared with a hiss. ‘You can start serving now.’ At the clink of the teacups there was a rush for the hatchway.
‘Would you take the American sandwiches out, Agnes, dear,’ Miss Cutteridge asked. ‘Mrs Salter and I are taking their teas.’
‘Which plate is it?’
‘The one with the blue cloth over it.’
As Agnes set forth with the superior sandwiches, Miss Hooper started up again at the piano on the stage, beginning with ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. The Americans were still standing in a group with her father, the two Lady Beauchamps, Brigadier and Mrs Mapperton, Mr Reynolds, Miss Skinner, Dr and Mrs Graham and other village notables. She waited for Miss Cutteridge and Mrs Salter to finish handing out their cups of tea before she went round with her plate, starting with the colonel, whose tunic seemed covered with bits of shining brass as well as a pair of silver wings; he flashed her a smile as he took a sandwich. The next hesitated. ‘What’s in these?’
‘It’s bloater paste.’
‘What the heck’s that?’
‘It’s fish.’ He pulled a face and shook his head. She moved on to the next uniform and offered the plate.
‘You’re Miss Dawe. The rector’s daughter.’ This one smiled too and had silver wings pinned on his chest as well, but not so much brass and, unlike his commanding officer, he was dark and foreign-looking. ‘Saw you in the church the other day. I was talking with Miss Cutteridge when you came in.’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t notice you.’
‘Yeah, well I was behind a pillar and you were in a big hurry. Some guy was ill and you were looking for your father. Did you find him all right?’
‘Yes I did, thank you.’
‘Is the guy OK? The one who was ill?’
‘Yes, he’s better now. Would you like a sandwich?’
‘Sure.’ He didn’t seem interested in the filling but went on looking at her. The one standing next to him was staring too, making her feel uncomfortable. ‘The name’s Ed Mochetti. This guy here is Ben Feinstein. I’m from New York City. He’s from Los Angeles.’ It all sounded unbelievable to her. She held out the plate to the one from Los Angeles. ‘Will you have a sandwich?’
He eyed them. ‘I’ll pass, thanks all the same.’
Miss Hooper, her bird’s nest of hair disintegrating at the back, was working her way steadily through a selection from The Maid of the Mountains. ‘Excuse me.’ Agnes moved on towards the next American who turned out to be from somewhere in Texas and she had difficulty in understanding what he was saying. Another spoke behind her. ‘Say, can I have one of those, or have I been a bad boy?’
‘Sorry.’ She offered the plate hurriedly. He smiled and told her that he was from Brentwood, Tennessee, whe
rever that was.
‘Hands off, Ben. I saw her first.’
‘Tough. There’s only about three chicks here worth looking at and she’s one of them. It’s every guy for himself. What the hell’s in that thing you’re eating?’
‘Who knows?’
‘It’s probably poisoned. I wouldn’t put it past these Limeys. You see the way they keep looking at us like we’re aliens or something?’
‘I guess we are aliens to them.’
‘Well, they sure look strange to me. I reckon some of the old ones have been around for about two hundred years. They don’t smell too good either. You noticed that, Ed? I guess that’s not surprising with their lousy plumbing. God almighty, that woman’s playing tunes my great-grandmother knew. Can you believe it? I tell you, this country’s stuck in time. And take a look at that Confederate flag they’ve hung up – what the hell do they think they’re doing?’
‘You’ve got to hand it to them for trying.’ Mochetti swallowed the rest of his sandwich and drank some of the tea which tasted as though it had been made from old boots. A huddle of village girls aged about fourteen or fifteen were staring at him and when he winked at them they started to giggle. The rector’s daughter was still going round the other guys with her plate. Not much chance that she’d be coming by again. He’d make a move soon.
Ben nudged him. ‘Get a load of those kids. Kind of cute.’
‘But kind of young.’
‘Yeah, I guess we’d be breaking the law.’
The plate was empty and the girl heading towards the back of the hall. ‘See you in a while, Ben.’
‘She’s got a ring on her finger, Ed, didn’t you notice?’
‘No, I didn’t.’ He shrugged. ‘So what?’
He wove his way rapidly through the crowded room and caught her up just as she was about to disappear through a doorway. ‘Hey, could I have another of those sandwiches?’
By the way she looked at him he had the feeling it was the wrong thing to have asked. ‘I’ll go and see if there are any.’ He waited until she came out again empty-handed. ‘I’m sorry but they’ve all gone.’
Our Yanks Page 5
