Heart of War (34 page)

Farmer Handle hurried off. His wife and a couple of Women's Land Army girls stood watching, the girls shielding their faces with their hands. Police Constable Whiteside was there, one massive hand on each adopted child's shoulder.

Stella said, ‘On my way home from cubbing … How did it get started?'

Susan gasped, ‘Oh, Mr Whiteside, I can't believe that the children …'

Sally and Tim broke in together, ‘We done nothing, Mummy! We was playing with matches. We didn't mean no harm!' They burst into tears together, as at a signal. Susan hated them in that instant, for their ability to cry on command; for their total inability to feel what, in others, made one cry.

The constable said heavily, ‘They done it, m'm. They swear they was just playing with matches … but Mr Handle says the flames were going strong in four different places when he first saw it …'

She looked, and saw, and went slowly to Mr Handle. She said miserably, ‘I'm sorry, Mr Handle … We'll pay for any damage.'

Handle was normally a kindly man; but he'd lost a son on the Somme, with the 60th Rifles, and he faced her with stony eyes – ‘Better send them young devils back where they belong – the streets, or the gaol.'

Volunteer Naomi Rowland peered into the slanting rain through her goggles, her gloved hands tight on the wheel. She felt exhausted and strained. Her period had ended the day before yesterday, and it had dragged her down … and she had had to drive to remoter Norfolk with Colonel
Venable and some man, a foreigner, whom the War Office didn't want anyone to see … and the Humber had broken down on the way out yesterday; and she hadn't slept well in the little attic room they had allotted to her at the Hall – some sort of very secret Intelligence organization occupied it – where they had dropped off the foreigner; and she'd eaten – poorly – with the Women's Legion girls who ran the kitchen; and now she and the colonel were on their way back to London.

‘You're doing well, Volunteer Rowland,' the colonel said. He was sitting beside her on the front seat, wrapped up, like her, in greatcoat, cap, goggles and big gloves, the rain driving against them. She hadn't asked him to sit in front: it embarrassed her. A lot of things about No. 3 Group embarrassed her. She had a suspicion that their Deputy Superintendent, the woman in charge of the Group, regarded them as a pool of pretty, young things, to be lent out to important generals and staff officers. She had once stumbled on another Volunteer being kissed in the music room, behind the piano; so heaven knew what else might be going on.

‘Do please relax, my dear,' the colonel said. ‘It's a terrible night. The road's muddy. It's three hours at least to London, and it's almost dark … but we're alive, and well. Somewhere along the road I will stand you to as good a dinner as we can find. I shall sit at another table, and send you notes, about the wine, perhaps? Any idea where we are?'

‘Just passed Stratton Strawless, sir. We'll be in Norwich in twenty minutes.'

She heard a sharp, crackling, metallic sound from under the car. A moment later there was a quick rattling, flailing between car and road. The engine lost all power and the car ground to a standstill. She sat a moment at the wheel, tears coming into her eyes. Why her? Why this, tonight?

The colonel said, ‘That sounded bad.'

‘I've heard that noise before,' she said despondently. She climbed out and down and, lying on her back, torch in hand, pushed herself under the car … no mistake. She pushed herself out again and brushed down her greatcoat, now sodden and stained with mud. ‘Universal joint gone, sir,' she said.

‘At half past seven on an October night, outside Stratton Strawless, Norfolk … and within half a mile, if I recall aright, of Nash's grave.

‘Which Nash?' she asked, standing in the rain beside the car. The colonel was mad. She found herself giggling.

He sounded baffled in the dark of the car, ‘Ah, there you have me. Nash, the architect? Nash, the dandy? Nash, the satirist? There's a telephone at the grave too.' He climbed slowly down from the car, turning up the collar of his greatcoat, pulling his red banded hat well down on his head. She began to laugh.

He said, ‘The telephone's not strictly at the grave, Volunteer Rowland, but at an excellent pub next to it. I have more than once enjoyed a stirrup cup at the Swan with Two Necks, which as you doubtless know is a corruption of

‘The Swan with Two Nicks,' she cried, ‘because the Vintners' Company marks swans belonging to them with a nick on either side of the beak. Swans with no nicks belong to the King. I've forgotten who owns swans with one nick.'

‘So have I,' he said. He stepped close, enfolded her in his arms, bent his head slightly and put his lips to hers.

She stood frozen, the rain dripping off the peak of his cap onto her nose. His lips were warm. She realized that for years she had been suffering from a nameless yearning, a longing to share, to give – what? The night she had spent in Rachel Cowan's arms at Girton had not abated it, or told her what it was, only what it was not. She relaxed her own lips, raised her arms, clasped them round his neck, pressed closer, forming her body against the length of his. They kissed ardently for a long time, then he stood back.

‘Come, my dear. Give me your bag.'

‘I can carry it. It's very light. Just my nightie, toothbrush…'

They ate together, at a small table set up by the fire in the inn's small dining room, waited on by the innkeeper's fat and rosy-cheeked wife, who clearly suspected some intrigue; but they had taken separate rooms, and he behaved with perfect courtesy during the meal … a half bottle of burgundy with the veal cutlet, a brandy for him afterward, talk by the fire …

‘Why did you leave Girton, my dear?'

‘It felt … stifling,' she said eagerly. He really wanted to know her, not just … ‘The war made it worse, because men were going out doing such exciting things.'

‘What do you propose to do with yourself when this war is over? Have you thought?'

‘I've thought,' she said slowly, ‘but I haven't come to any conclusions. I'd like to run a business, I think, once I'd learned something about it.'

‘You don't think you'll marry, settle down in the country, and grow children and roses?'

She said, ‘I suppose it might happen, but I certainly don't feel like that now … Why did you … do what you did, just now?'

‘Naomi, I don't think you realize how very attractive a young woman you are … intimidating to a very young man, perhaps, with your height, and rather stern manner … but to me, irresistible! You have character, brains, intelligence, courage … I can't fault you, except that you're only what, twenty?'

‘Twenty-one.'

‘… which will obviously correct itself soon. I've desired you since the first day I saw you. We have things we can give each other … you – that's obvious. It takes years off me, makes the world young and rosy, just to be with you … me – well, I think you have reached womanhood without knowing exactly what it is, in your body.'

She nodded, muttering, ‘How did you know? Is it so obvious?'

‘As obvious to me as the fact that you've recently had a period, and it's dragged you down.'

She blushed a little; but was glad he had said it. Pretence was falling away; that was what she had always asked of men, and so far not found.

‘I offer you experience, Naomi … an affectionate hand, a guide in the paths of love.'

She looked up – ‘I'm a virgin.'

He nodded. ‘Shall we go upstairs, my dear?'

There, soon, it was very much as she had hoped it would be, but had feared it would be otherwise, that she or the man – it was her husband, in the imagining – would act wrongly, carelessly, coldly, mechanically.

She awoke in his arms in the dawn light, warm, tired, proud. He had done it. She was his woman. She turned to him, bit his ear and whispered, ‘Rodney, I love you … I always have, secretly. I must have. I feel like a goddess … and you've done it. I love you.'

‘Don't say it,' he muttered, ‘don't say it.'

Johnny Merrit folded the cutting carefully away into the envelope already addressed to his father, and returned to the letter he was writing:

The enclosed cutting is a symptom of a very serious disease in Britain – and a warning to us. It is from British common law that we have inherited the principle that every man is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty. Yet the Railway Company have fired the men while their appeal is pending. The only risk the Company would run by keeping them on the payroll now is that they will lose the men's pay and benefits if they lose their appeal. But how much is this, against the loss they are now suffering? And what a good impression it would have made on the rank and file of the men? And the union leaders would hardly have dared in that case to come out openly and say they are taking this action to save the jobs of convicted thieves. This is all a fine example of the narrow-mindedness of British management.

The other side of the picture is that the British unions will not only do all they can to protect their members against unjust or unfair management practices – they will also protect them, if they can possibly find a way to do so, against the laws of the land – from conscription, from punishment for theft and even murder. They have always been powerful here, and in spite of their publicly expressed fears, the war is giving them much increased power. I am convinced that a time will soon come when they will openly challenge the Government, by defying some law, constitutionally passed, by mass action. I never thought I would be writing this, but I urge you and the board of Fairfax, Gottlieb to give very careful consideration before enlarging operations in this country after the war, as I know is being discussed.

There are many reasons for labour's attitude here, mostly going back a long way – as everything does in this country. But one big reason is, I believe, the British class system, which locks the British working man into a certain place in society. He can not hope to become president of his
company, let alone of his country; his children cannot hope, except in very few cases, to go to college and become doctors, lawyers, professional men. Our unions making, say, Pullman cars, take the attitude that every one of their members should be able to ride in one; a British union in the same position would take the attitude that if their members can not ride in Pullmans, no one ought to be able to.

All this makes for an extraordinarily stable society, especially in the rural areas where the problems and attitudes are really quite different; but it is something I am finding it harder and harder to handle. Once I intended to join the R.F.C. or any other British outfit. I know now it wouldn't work, for me. Guy and Laurence and Mr Cate belong in the system – it's theirs – and if anyone can make it work, they can. So, when I can finally get away to the war, it will be in and for the Army of the good old U.S. of A. …

Stella sends her love and says that …

Johnny Merritt worked steadily through the pile of papers that filled the IN tray on his desk, muttering frequently under his breath. His father had told him that the businessman's worst enemy was not his competitors, but the government, always poking its nose in where it was not wanted, always demanding information which would at once be filed and forgotten. The British were just as bad – worse perhaps and with less excuse, for here there was a war on. What he ought to be doing was studying Ginger's new design for the folding wing of the Mark II Leopard. It had considerable differences from the modified Handley Page designs he had brought with him; and Johnny was not quite sure whether the differences added up to a net plus, or not. It would be a little lighter, certainly, and use fewer bolts; but probably less strong, and that was a risk which could not be accepted. One or two Leopards losing their wings in flight would finish off the company, let alone the unfortunate aircrews in them at the time. It was a matter of accurately assessing and precisely measuring the stresses and strains on the materials employed – Betty's job; and she was good at it.

He picked up a WarOffice memo to all manufacturers of aircraft: Subject – surface of rudder pedals … to be made of, or covered by, some non-slip material, either …