Heart of War (103 page)

He guided the machine to earth and taxied to his place in the squadron's line up. He switched off the engine and there was Frank Stratton, running, with the basin, climbing up on the lower wing as Guy's stomach heaved, he began to sweat and the vomit heaved up into his throat.

‘There, there, sir … it's all right,' Frank was saying, holding the basin close. ‘There … How many was it, sir?'

‘One definite,'Guy croaked, between his retches. ‘Two more, perhaps … don't know what happened … haven't asked the others yet … Any news of Mr Fuller?'

‘No, sir … but, sir, the major's been promoted and is going home to command a wing of the new bombers … and you have another M.C., sir … and the gup is that you're going to command the squadron!'

Guy climbed groggily out of the cockpit. Command the Three Threes? He could do it, if Boom Trenchard or his successor had chosen him. He'd been out, good Lord, eighteen months. He'd survived – that was quite a feat in itself. He'd studied air tactics. He could do it.

‘That makes your score fifty-four,' Frank said reverently.

‘Oh?' Guy said wearily. ‘I need some leave.'

Frank's face fell – ‘I don't think they'll give you any, sir, not if you're just taking over the squadron.'

Guy yawned, ‘What a bore … I'll go and make my report, then I'll lie down for a bit.'

‘Very good, sir. It'll take us two hours to get this fixed. They put a few bullets into you. Must have been at pretty close quarters, sir … like always.'

Guy nodded. Good man, Frank Stratton. Needed leave as much as he did – more – he was a family man. Ought to talk to him more. He said, ‘How's Victoria coming on?'

Frank's face lit up – ‘Beautiful, sir! She'll do a hundred now, more when I can replace some of the parts with lighter steel, which Dad couldn't get … but where can I run her, out here?'

Guy shook his head, ‘God knows … when you get some leave you can take her away from the war zone, where the roads haven't been shelled and bombed and ruined by lorries and guns …'

‘Oh, but sir, if I get leave I must go home,' Frank said.

Guy shrugged and waved a hand as Frank saluted, then headed for the squadron offices. Old Sulphuric would send for him later, if he had anything to say to him. At this time of day he was usually absent at Wing, getting briefed for tomorrow.

Half an hour later he entered his hut, flung himself back on the bed and closed his eyes. Sulphuric wasn't there, but the adjutant had confirmed the bar to his M.C. and hinted mysteriously at more to celebrate later. So perhaps he was going to get the squadron … Sulphuric had been a good commander, but a bit old fashioned. The Three Threes were going to fight in concert from now on. The dogfight must be changed to a concerted attack, all aircraft mutually supporting each other. Shooting must be improved … find out whether the experiments with explosive bullets had come to anything … work on a new sight that allowed better for targets crossing the front at different ranges … better aircraft recognition, and understanding exactly what each type of German aircraft could do best – and worst, where were its weak spots? And, as far as possible, the same for individual German pilots …

He yawned expansively and took out the large photo of Florinda he kept in a drawer. Lovely, smiling girl – woman. She wrote regularly, but did she feel the same about him? Girls changed their minds, everyone said.
La donna e mobile
… In his breast pocket he had a smaller photograph of her, dressed or rather almost undressed as she'd been in some
revue. She had said she loved him … always had, she said … but what now? He knew that he loved her, that was certain. He had committed himself mentally to her on that last leave – God, a year ago! But was he fit to do that? He was a killer, and should be classified as a dangerous animal, rather than as a lover. Perhaps he should content himself with such as Poitrine. He would never get close enough to farmers' daughters and young widows to do them harm. To Florinda, he would – he was … But he didn't want any more Poitrines, or other women, only this one, smiling at him from out of the silver frame, her eyes wide, her breasts curving up out of the skimpy bodice.

Holding the picture in one hand, yearning for her, he began to masturbate.

Probyn Gorse, shuffling fast along Scarrow bank in the wintry dusk, a few snow flakes flying but not really meaning it, the bells of Walstone church ringing a muffled peal of Grandsire Doubles, saw a familiar figure walking slowly toward him on the same narrow footpath – the Right Honourable the Earl of Swanwick. Swanwick was wearing a deerstalker hat, like Probyn's, and not much more respectable; and a tweed raglan overcoat with overlapping capes on the shoulders, making him look more than ever like an eighteenth-century coachman. Probyn did not break step, or look right or left. The cock pheasant was still warm in the back pocket of his capacious and untidy coat, and the folding .410 was strapped to his left leg in its case, and he was on the earl's land; but there was no escape. What must be must be.

The earl peered at him in the gloom as they approached and stopped, ‘Oh, it's Gorse … Been up to your old tricks with my pheasants, I'll be bound.'

‘Oh, no, my lord,' Probyn said. ‘Been visiting a sick friend in Taversham … I and my Woman was sorry to hear about Lord Cantley, my lord. Always treated us very nice, he did

‘And you taught him how to handle ferrets … never did him much good, though. He preferred London and those artist johnnies. Couldn't make head nor tail of half the paintings he had in his flat. Never heard of the painters, either … names like Picasso, Matisse, I never could get my tongue round – a lot of damned Frogs and Dagoes … lucky to
sell the lot last week for a thousand quid. Can't think why anyone would want to pay
that
for them.'

‘Yes, my lord,' Probyn said respectfully. ‘Well, best wishes of the season to everyone at the Park, from my Woman and me … I'd best be getting along or she'll be thinking I've been shot by mistake by your keepers, ha ha.'

‘Those bloody old fools couldn't catch a poacher if he was deaf, dumb, and blind … and they couldn't hit a haystack at ten paces with a charge of buckshot.' He stared at Probyn – ‘Tell you the truth, Gorse, I can't make head nor tail of half what's going on in England these days.'

‘No more can I, my lord,' Probyn said heartily.

‘No food for a perfectly good pack of foxhounds …'

‘Terrible, my lord!'

‘… bloody profiteer from London buying up one of Mr Cate's farms to put houses on for bloody stockbrokers….'

‘'Tain't right, my lord!'

‘… women working in the fields, the factories, on the buses, the trains, coal heaving, road mending …'

‘It's against nature, my lord!'

Swanwick again looked closely at Probyn – ‘Lady Helen's working on a hush-hush project in London, y'know. She speaks French like a Frog, and that's what it's all about … can't tell us any more.'

‘'Course not, my lord. Military secret, like.'

‘Quite … You know, Gorse, when this war's over you and I'll be the only ones who haven't changed. If I'm still here … Everything else, everybody else, will have changed, for the worse.'

‘That's right, my lord.'

The earl fumbled in the pocket of his jacket, through the slits in the side of the raglan. His hand came out with a coin. He pressed it into Probyn's hand – ‘Merry Christmas, Gorse. I'd say Happy New Year, too, but it won't be.'

‘Thank 'ee, my lord, thank 'ee.' Probyn touched his forelock. The earl acknowledged it with a nod, and walked on, shoulders hunched in the falling snow. The bells were still ringing Grandshire Doubles. The coin was a golden guinea. He can't afford that, these days, Gorse thought, but he's got to; because he's the earl. He understands, and I understand, but no one else would, soon enough.

Stella walked down High Street, hatless and coatless in the light snow. She had left her car in a side street near the South-Eastern. Heatherington's would be open, and the forged prescription in her purse would fool the old man. His eyesight was bad – and he would never think that Mrs Merritt, Stella Cate that was, would be using heroin unless a doctor had prescribed it. She was unaware of the snow, or her cold hands and ears, only of the pain in her head, the ache in her bones, the utter necessity of getting some more heroin, now.

This was the place, the chemist's shop was … closed! She stared at the door, rattled the door knob, kicked the wood panel below. In a frenzy she began to pound the door with her fists, screaming, ‘Open, open, for God's sake! Open!' Some people passed, bundled or stooped against the snow, but she was unaware of them, and they did not stop. After a few minutes she ceased her pounding and leaned on the door jamb, her head pressed against the cold, wet wood.

She'd find another chemist. It was nine o'clock on Christmas Eve, but someone had to be open, they must be! There was another chemist down near the river on Wilmot Street, half a mile north. She pushed away from Heatherington's door and hurried north on High Street, slipping and stumbling in her thin, high-heeled shoes in the wet snow. A clock struck in tones muffled by the snow … people passed … her bones throbbed in torture … she fell against someone, a man, who cried, ‘Hey, look where you're going, miss!' On … Luddon, Darby, Clarendon, Roberts, Wellington, Anglesey, Cardigan … here it was. She turned down, almost running into the dark street – narrow, leading down to the river, no lights.

The three men who had been following her for the past two hundred yards, giggling and slipping as much as she was – for they were drunk – broke into a run. In a moment the leader caught up with her, and grabbed her round the neck, pulling her to the ground and falling on top of her. They were soldiers, conscripts of the Weald Light Infantry, recently finished recruit training and under orders for France. The two on their feet were laughing and shouting, ‘Goon, Charlie … Poke it in!' The man on her was fumbling under her skirt, hiccuping, speaking thickly in her ear. ‘Lie still, ducks … I'm going to fuck you … not 'urt you …' She heaved her body up with all her strength and the man rolled off her onto his back.
She could barely see him in the dark and the falling snow, but pounced where she thought his face was, and kneeling astride him, punched him time and again, her small hard fists banging his eye, his nose, his lips. She felt hands on her shoulders, tugging, and the others dragged her to her feet. She was being pressed close to one of their chests, and his beery breath was in her face as he crowed, ‘So you don't wan' Charlie, eh? Try me,' and again a hand was pulling up her skirt, fumbling. She leaned suddenly forward and sank her teeth into the man's throat, at the Adam's apple, hanging on grimly as he gurgled, choked, gasped. The other two were tugging at her now, trying to free their comrade from the grip of her jaws. She kicked backward and caught one of them in the fork. He gasped, ‘Oh Christ, she's got me in the balls,' and fell, kneeling, groaning in agony. The man Stella had by the throat was sagging against her and her mouth was full of blood. She suddenly let go, and turned on the third, the only one now on his feet, lashing out at his face with her fists. The one with the bleeding throat croaked, ‘Let the bitch go … the rozzers are coming!'

The three of them started back up the street toward High Street, Stella on their heels, screaming abuse, pummelling them on their backs and heads. Oh, if only she had a knife, a stick … anything! They had said the police were coming; but no one was coming. The men had vanished into the snow and the dark, and she was alone in the middle of Wilmot Street … outside the chemist's she had remembered, Parkley's … it was closed.

She walked slowly on down toward the river. Her arm hurt, for she had only recently taken it out of a sling. Perhaps she had broken it again. Johnny was on his way to France at this moment; and soon he would come home, to see her. What would he find? A hollow-eyed, gaunt, drug addict, and drunkard, a woman unfaithful to her marriage vows. The baby had been Charles's, of course. Perhaps it was better dead. And herself? The river was deep enough, and cold enough at this season. And surely no one would see her, to try to rescue her.

Christopher Cate sat in his usual chair in the drawing room of Walstone Manor, close by the fire, his mind a dully aching blank. Nothing more about the S.S.
Mystic
or her
passengers. The waits were singing carols outside the front door, and the bells of the village church were ringing a peal of Grandsire Doubles. He heard both sounds, one close and clear, one distant and muffled, but they made no mark on his consciousness.

Across the fire from him his father-in-law, Harry Rowland, said, ‘There don't seem to be as many waits as there used to be … and not singing as well, either.'

Alice sat on the sofa facing the fireplace, her artificial left leg stretched straight out, her right leg a little bent. She asked, ‘Who's singing, Christopher?'

Cate started, ‘Singing? Oh, it'll be the rector and some of the boys and girls of the village … no big boys now, though.'

Alice said, ‘Could you open the curtains, Christopher, and let the waits see into the room, and the Christmas tree? And I can see them, without having to go to the front door.'

Her father said doubtfully, ‘We've never done that before, Dormouse … I mean, it's rather like showing off.'

Betty Merritt said, ‘We do it everywhere in America. Rather a nice idea,
I
think – sharing what you have, in a way inviting strangers to enjoy your tree with you.'

Cate got up, found the heavy cords and pulled back the curtains. The light streamed out on a lawn thinly sheeted with snow, untrodden. The voices of the waits wavered, then they seemed to understand, and after a few moments came into view, blinking in the light, and lined up, staring in through the glass, beginning to wave as they recognized those inside. Alice smiled, and waved her hand.