Complete Works of Nevil Shute

by Nevil Shute

  She moved towards him; he was someone friendly, that she knew well. ‘Winco told me to go up to the hospital. He said I’d find out there.’

  ‘Not a bad idea.’

  They turned, and walked together in the starlit night; as they went the ambulance spun past them smoothly and quietly; they could not see who was in it. It took them ten minutes to reach the hospital; as they got there, the ambulance was moving off again. At the door they found an orderly and asked him about it.

  ‘Rear-gunner,’ he said. ‘Taking him straight into hospital at Oxford. The MO said not to take him off the stretcher here or anything — just take him right along to Oxford.’

  Johnson asked: ‘Did the pilot come up with the ambulance?’

  ‘Aye, he’s inside with the MO. Got his face cut about a bit, but that’s all.’

  It was odd, Gervase thought, that whenever good news came she wanted to be sick.

  ‘Born to be hanged,’ said Mr Johnson cheerfully. ‘You can’t dodge Fate.’

  They stood in the corridor outside the surgery for a time, waiting for something to happen. Presently the door opened and the medical officer came out. ‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘Are you waiting for Marshall?’

  ‘Just like to know what sort of a state he’s in,’ said Johnson.

  ‘He’s all right. He wants to sleep in his own bed. If you like, you can take him over and put him to bed. I’ll be along in about a quarter of an hour with some tablets for him. My truck’s outside; you can take him in that.’

  They went into the surgery, and Gervase saw Marshall sitting in a chair grinning at her; he had white strapping and lint over the right side of his forehead and his eyebrow. She said shyly: ‘Hullo, Peter. How are you feeling?’

  He said: ‘I’m fine, only I can’t use my hands.’ His hands were lying on his knees, palm upwards; as they looked, the fingertips twitched very slightly. ‘Look, I’m trying to bend them. Isn’t that bloody funny?’

  ‘That all you can do?’ asked Mr Johnson, interested.

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘It’s going to make a lot of difference to the beer situation in the mess,’ said Mr Johnson thoughtfully. ‘The medical officer says we’ve got to take you and put you to bed.’

  Marshall looked up at Gervase. ‘That doesn’t sound quite nice,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘It’s not,’ she said. ‘We’ll kick Pat out as soon as he’s helped you upstairs.’

  Their eyes met and they laughed.

  Chapter Nine

  IN THE WHITE-FLOWERED hawthorn brake,

  Love, be merry for my sake;

  Twine the blossoms in my hair,

  Kiss me where I am most fair —

  Kiss me, love, for who knoweth

  What thing cometh after death?

  WILLIAM MORRIS

  Gervase slept late next day. She had not got to bed till about half past five, when it was full grey dawn. She had been hungry, not unnaturally, and had visited the kitchen of the mess at about five o’clock with Pat Johnson; they had discovered some lukewarm cocoa and three dozen plates of bread and butter cut ready for breakfast, and they had eaten themselves full. She slept till noon, and only got up then because she was hungry again and if she got up she would be in time to have some lunch.

  She got into the ante-room just before the medical officer, a Flight Lieutenant called Proctor. Davy asked the question before she could. ‘How’s our nightingale?’

  ‘Asleep. He won’t wake up just yet. Don’t any of you go and wake him; I want him to have a good long sleep.’

  Pat Johnson said: ‘What’s wrong with his hands?’

  ‘Nothing functional. Last night it was just nervous reaction. He’ll probably be all right when he wakes up.’

  Lines said: ‘That’s what you told us about Tommy Broadhead. It took him four months.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the surgeon said easily. ‘I have to shoot a line to keep up your morale.’

  There were matters that were tacitly avoided in the mess, and nervous trouble was one of them. Gervase changed the subject by asking: ‘How is Sergeant Phillips?’

  ‘I rang up this morning, but it’s too early to say much. They think they’ll save his legs.’

  ‘Marshall will want to know about that as soon as he wakes,’ said Gervase.

  ‘Yes — of course. I’ll ring up again about tea time.’

  They went in to lunch. Gervase sat long in the ante-room afterwards, drowsily looking at the Illustrated London News.

  She roused at about half past three and went out, thinking to walk round the aerodrome. But in the hall she met the medical officer coming down from the bedrooms, and she stopped to speak to him.

  ‘Is Flight Lieutenant Marshall awake yet?’

  He shook his head. ‘He’s sleeping more lightly.’ He looked at her thoughtfully, thinking of the fish that this Section Officer had brought home with his patient only a few days before. ‘You’re a great friend of his, aren’t you?’

  There was nobody else within hearing; it was the middle of the afternoon and the mess was deserted. She said: ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to marry him, or anything like that?’

  ‘He asked me to some time ago,’ she said. She knew this to be a purely medical enquiry. ‘I think we’ll be announcing it pretty soon.’

  He nodded. ‘I thought so. Would you like to take him up a cup of tea in an hour’s time, and wake him up?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I think that might be a good thing.’ He hesitated, and then said: ‘If he has any difficulty with his hands, do what you can to make him use them. But don’t let him get worried or panicky about it if they aren’t quite right at first. He may have to have some leave.’

  She met his eyes. ‘He couldn’t use them at all last night. We had to do everything for him.’

  ‘I know. See if you can get him to use them. I always think it’s a great pity to have to start electrical treatment, or massage, excepting in the last resort. I’ve known that start a hospital psychosis before now. Just see if you can make him use them naturally.’

  ‘All right. Ought he to get up?’

  ‘Give me a ring if he wants to, and I’ll slip over from the surgery and see him. Otherwise he’s just as well in bed.’

  She went out for a little walk along the ring runway; out in the middle of the aerodrome there were still trucks and cranes disposing of the scrap duralumin that had been R for Robert, and towing it to the knackers’ yard right over on the far side by the hedge. She did not get so far as that, but turned back to the mess, and took two cups of tea furtively from the dining-room, and slipped away with them upstairs to the bedroom floor, where no WAAF officer would dream of going normally if she valued her commission.

  She opened the door carefully, with two cups of tea in her hand. Marshall was awake in bed; he turned his head as she came in. ‘I say,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a stinking row if anybody catches you in here, Gervase.’

  She said: ‘I brought you up a cup of tea, Peter.’

  ‘Thanks awfully. Put it down, and come and give me a kiss, and then nip out quietly. I’m going to get up. I’ll see you downstairs.’

  He looked very like a little boy, she felt, lying there in bed and worrying about her. She put the cups down carefully upon the chest of drawers. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘This wasn’t my idea. The MO said I was to bring you up a cup of tea and wake you up.’

  ‘Did he? Damn decent of him. How long do you think it would take to wake me up?’

  ‘About as long as it takes me to drink this cup of tea.’ She sat down on the edge of his bed. ‘How are you feeling, Peter? How’s your head?’

  He struggled up into a sitting attitude. ‘My head’s all right. But I can’t do anything with my hands.’ He sounded worried and incredulous. ‘Look — they just won’t work.’

  The fingertips flexed very slightly. She took one of his hands in her own, and stroked it. ‘Feel that?’

  ‘Sort
of. It feels all kind of numb inside.’

  She bent impulsively and kissed the back of his hand. He put the other hand up and stroked her hair clumsily, and they were silent for a minute or two. Presently she drew back. ‘You’ll have to take it easy for a bit,’ she said. ‘You said your wrists were tired, over the R/T.’

  ‘Did I? Were you listening in?’

  She nodded. ‘You said your wrists were tired quite early on, and that was a long time before you landed.’

  ‘So they were,’ he said. ‘She was frightfully heavy to hold. I was afraid they weren’t going to last out, and that I wouldn’t be able to hold the wheel any longer.’

  She massaged his wrist gently. ‘It’ll come back as soon as the muscles are rested,’ she said. ‘It’s a sort of sprain.’ She got up and fetched the tea over, and put both cups on the floor beside the bed. ‘I’ll hold the cup for you while you drink.’

  He said: ‘Do you know how Phillips is getting on?’

  She told him what she knew, and she gave him his tea in little sips, holding the cup for him. And presently she said: ‘I’ve been thinking about things, Peter — about us. Do you still want to marry me?’

  He put out his hand and stroked her arm clumsily to the elbow. ‘I want that frightfully,’ he said. ‘But only if it’s going to be as good for you as it would be for me.’

  She said: ‘If we didn’t get married, I don’t think I’d ever be happy again.’

  A shade of apprehension came into his eyes. ‘You’re really sure, Gervase? I mean, this isn’t because you think it was a good show, what I did last night?’

  She shook her head. ‘It was a good show, Peter, and I’m frightfully proud. But it was before that, when you didn’t send “Mission completed”, that I knew. You see — I thought you were dead, Peter, and you wouldn’t come back at all. That’s when I knew what I really felt about you, and what it would mean, sort of going on alone.’

  Medical officer or no, if the Queen WAAF had happened to look into Bedroom 16 in the next few minutes, Gervase would have been out of the Service within half an hour. But she didn’t, and presently they broke away and sat quiet for a minute, looking at each other.

  Marshall said: ‘Got any ideas about when?’

  She said: ‘Let’s have it soon, Peter. You’ve only got two more ops to do, and then you’ll be sent away. If we’re going to be married, I’d like to be married before you go.’

  He said: ‘We ought to meet each other’s people. Mine won’t worry, but I’d like to keep them sweet.’

  She said: ‘It’s the same with me. But we could get a week’s leave, and go and see them both.’

  He nodded. ‘It takes about three weeks to get married, anyway, unless you pay out about forty quid for a special licence.’

  ‘We’re not going to do that,’ she said. ‘We’ll be glad of forty quid when the peace comes.’

  They talked until the lapse of time scared them. Gervase gathered up the cups. ‘I’ll go down and ring the MO and he’ll come and tell you if you can get up,’ she said.

  He smiled at her. ‘It’ll be rotten if I get transferred away as soon as we’re married,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to get a shift, too.’

  Gervase said vaguely: ‘I expect I could do that.’

  She went out, walking in a dream. Because of that, she did not go with caution. In the hall, at the foot of the stairs, she ran into Flight Officer Stevens, and Mrs Stevens was in one of her more difficult moods.

  She stared at Gervase, and at the tea cups in her hands. ‘Have you been up on the bedroom floor?’ she demanded.

  Gervase started, and flushed. ‘I took Flight Lieutenant Marshall up a cup of tea,’ she said.

  ‘In his bedroom?’

  Her tone angered the girl. ‘In his bedroom,’ she replied. ‘What’s more, he was in bed.’

  The Flight Officer stared at her. ‘You know perfectly well that that’s against the rules,’ she said. ‘You could be cashiered for that.’

  The girl said angrily: ‘Do you mean you think I’ve been doing something wrong?’

  Her anger spread to the Flight Officer. ‘I mean I’m going to report you to the Adjutant for insubordination and indiscipline,’ she said. ‘You’d better get back to your quarters now.’

  Gervase flushed scarlet. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘report me. I’m engaged to Peter Marshall, and we’re going to be married very soon, so I want to get out of the WAAFs so that we can be together. I was going to do the usual. If you get me chucked out for misconduct it’ll save me a lot of trouble.’

  The grey-haired Flight Officer looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re not officially engaged,’ she said.

  ‘I am,’ said Gervase hotly. ‘I wasn’t when I went upstairs, but I am now. I don’t know if that makes a difference in the rules — whether an engaged officer may go and see her fiancé in bed after a crash, and what happens to an officer who’s not engaged when she goes up and is when she comes down. But anyway, the MO told me to take him a cup of tea.’

  ‘He did? He shouldn’t have told you to do anything of the sort. You shouldn’t have gone.’

  Gervase said angrily: ‘I don’t agree with you. If you feel you’ve got to report me, go ahead and do it, and let’s have a bit of fun.’

  She marched off, carrying her cups. The Flight Officer went off to find the Adjutant.

  Gervase was still very angry when Marshall came downstairs three-quarters of an hour later, escorted by the young MO. Gervase met them in the hall. ‘He says I can go out a bit,’ said Marshall. ‘I want to go and see what’s left of Robert.’

  Proctor said: ‘You’d better go in my truck. Don’t go and get tired. I’ll expect to see you back here in an hour.’

  He walked out with them to the truck; Gervase got into the driving seat and they drove off towards the runway. The medical officer turned and went to the Headquarters office, and went in to Wing Commander Dobbie. The CO was talking to the Adjutant; they looked up as the MO poked his head around the door.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Proctor. ‘Could I have a word when you’re free?’

  ‘Is this about Marshall?’

  The medical officer said: ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on in,’ said Dobbie. ‘Let’s have your story.’

  Faintly surprised, the Surgeon Flight Lieutenant said: ‘There’s no story, sir. His head is quite all right — just one deep scar that will need dressing every day. His hands are semi-paralysed, but that’s only nervous strain, together with muscular fatigue; it’ll go off in a short time. I was going to suggest you send him home on leave for a few days. He lives quite close to an RAF hospital, and he can have his scar dressed there.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Dobbie. ‘You don’t want to take him into hospital?’

  ‘Not if I can help it. I don’t like hospital with these slight nervous troubles.’ He hesitated. ‘He’s just got himself engaged,’ he said. ‘If Section Officer Robertson wants leave at the same time I’d think it was a very good thing for him.’

  Dobbie laughed, and turned to Chesterton. ‘He’s the nigger in the wood pile.’ He turned back to the surgeon, still laughing. ‘Did you send Section Officer Robertson up to Marshall with a cup of tea?’ he said.

  The surgeon looked surprised. ‘Yes, I did. Why?’

  ‘You started something. Old Mother Stevens has just been in to report her for indiscipline — to wit, visiting an officer in his bedroom.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ said the surgeon irritably.

  Dobbie turned more serious. ‘All very well,’ he said, ‘but we can’t slur over it like that. The WAAFs are very strict about these things, you know.’

  Proctor said: ‘I’m strict about my job as well, sir. I do my duty by the air crews to the best of my ability. I told that girl to go and wake him up because I thought it would be helpful to that pilot. I’m sorry if I acted thoughtlessly about the WAAFs, but I still think it was the right thing to do.’

  ‘I don’t doubt you in t
he least,’ said Dobbie. ‘The only thing I’m worried about is, what to do with Flight Officer Stevens and her moan.’

  Chesterton leaned forward. ‘Send both of them off on leave for a week,’ he said, ‘and stall Mother Stevens. I’ll see her this evening and tell her all the circumstances, and see if I can calm her down. She’s all right if you take her the right way.’

  Dobbie nodded. ‘I’ll come into the mess and take a glass of sherry off them before dinner,’ he said. ‘That’ll put it all on an official basis for the WAAFs.’

  In the truck, halted by the side of the ring runway, Gervase was telling Peter all about it. ‘It was awful,’ she said. ‘I think I’m going to get into a frightful row, but the MO told me to take tea up to you.’

  ‘It’s crackers,’ said the pilot. ‘They can’t possibly do anything to you for that.’

  Gervase said timidly: ‘Would you like to sort of tell people in the mess this evening, Peter? It might spike their guns a bit.’

  He drew her to him clumsily in the truck and kissed her, regardless of an interested AC2 approaching in the middle distance. ‘Suits me,’ he said. ‘It makes it harder for you to get out of it.’

  Presently, feeling some slight stir of Service decency and aerodrome behaviour, they disentangled and drove on round the runway. In the warm sunlight of the summer afternoon they got out of the truck and walked over the grass to the remains of what had once been R for Robert. The fuselage was broken by the crash and shattered by cannon fire; the turret was crushed and stained with blood. ‘Proctor said Sergeant Phillips is going on all right,’ said Marshall. ‘He’s been asking about me. I’d like to drive into Oxford tomorrow and see him, if they’ll let me.’

  They walked forward to the broken cockpit. The wheel was still intact, a piece of cod line hanging from the right-hand side. For the rest, it was just smelly, bent, and tangled wreckage waiting to be carted to some dump to lie and rot.

  ‘Poor old Robert,’ said the pilot thoughtfully. ‘I did a lot of hours in her.’ They got into the truck and went back to the hospital.