Heart of War (36 page)

‘Yes, sir. Veuve Clicquot, 1907. Half a dozen bottles and one magnum.'

‘A bottle will do – with dinner, Summers. And we'll eat in quarter of an hour from now.'

‘Very good, sir.'

They were gathered again in Johnny Merritt's office – Johnny, Richard Rowland, and Frank Stratton, with Miss Bamfylde sitting mouselike on a chair behind Johnny's shoulder, where he sat at the big desk. A watery sun shone on the airfield and the thrashing elms along the road beyond. Two Leopard Mark II bombers waited at the end of the field, engines running and propellers whirling, but only a subdued growl could be heard through the glass. The clock on the wall showed half past nine in the morning.

Johnny said, ‘The wind's pretty strong.'

Richard said, ‘For the pilot from France? I expect they've had to fly in worse weather than this over there …Are the men coming?'

‘To the meeting, yes Mr Richard,' Frank said. ‘The notices have been up all over the town, and the Town Crier was calling it yesterday afternoon … I went to a few pubs last night and saw a lot of our blokes. Nearly all of them said they were going to come. Bert Gorse and his woman were going round the pubs, too, telling men not to come, to sit tight and we'd have to give in. They'd have done better to stand them a few beers … but they don't have the ready.'

‘You bought beer for some men? Let me know how much, and we'll pay you back,' Johnny said. Frank nodded.

Richard said, ‘Well, what's your suggestion, Johnny?'

Johnny said, ‘I'm inclined to give them best. After all, they have been producing very well. Efficiency has been increasing steadily, month by month. They seem to be happy – thanks to Frank. Can Mr Franklin really increase our output?'

‘He's done it – or other members of his firm have done it,
wherever they've been employed,' Richard said. ‘I have the figures to prove it.'

‘I know,' Johnny said, ‘but is it worth it, here, now, for us?'

Richard looked at Frank – ‘Frank?'

Frank pushed his bowler to the back of his head and stroked his newly bared chin – ‘When this factory was being put up, I was in hospital. And I knew nothing about aeroplanes … nothing. Soon's Mr Richard came and asked me about being works foreman here I started reading everything I could get my hands on … I learned about aerofoils, lift, drag, chord, dihedral, stagger, elevators, fins, rudders, ailerons … how to true a fuselage, brace wire attachments, true up a main plane … I read till my eyes were ready to drop out of my head. When I got here I saw right away that the different parts of the factory weren't in the right places … not in the
best
places, one with another, for the whole work to be best done with the least waste of time and energy, if you see what I mean.'

‘We do,' Richard said. ‘Go on.'

‘I can do what Mr Franklin's supposed to do. It'll take me a month, and maybe it won't be as nicely written out on paper as Mr Franklin's would have been – but it'll be near as good, and a lot cheaper … and I think the men will stand for it – if we explain at the meeting that all we want is to turn out more aeroplanes for the R.F.C. … and raise pay a bit all round. S'pose after I've done my job we turn out twelve percent more bombers every month than we did before, with the same number of workers and machines … then we should raise everyone's pay.'

‘Twelve percent?'

‘Close to it.'

‘I think we must hold something back in a contingency fund for emergencies.'

‘I like the idea,' Johnny said.

Richard stared out of the window, watching the two Leopards take off, one after the other, into the wind. They disappeared from view and he looked back into the room – ‘All right. I'll say that … Should the pilot speak before or after me?'

‘Before, I think,' Johnny said. ‘He'll put them in a good mood – patriotic, too.'

‘That's all then. We have a few minutes and I think I'll go and get a cup of tea at the …'

‘One moment, sir,' Frank said. ‘You see I shaved off my beard?'

‘Certainly, Frank – I think it suits you.'

‘Well, that beard was because I was thinking, in my head, that I'm really still the Pioneer Sergeant of the 1st Battalion of the Regiment … that I would be again, one day. Last night I got a letter from Mr Guy, in France, and another from Mr Harry, your dad – I'm to join the R.F.C. and go to France, to Mr Guy's squadron. It's all been fixed. I meant to give you my notice today, but I can't leave you till I've done this job. Then I'll go.'

Richard said, ‘Are you sure you'll be able to stand it out there, Frank? You're not A. 1 you know, and never will be.'

‘When I think of what the lads have to put up with in the Regiment,' Frank said, ‘I can't do no less.'

Johnny said, ‘Have you told your wife? She'll take it hard, I imagine, thinking she had you safe and sound for good.'

Frank's voice trembled, ‘That's the only bad part of it. She knows … I told her this morning, when I'd shaved – she nearly jumped out of bed when I turned round from the washhand-stand and kissed her – she thought it was a stranger burst into the bedroom, with no beard, see? But it can't be helped. I must go.'

There was another long silence, then Johnny said, ‘You make me feel even more ashamed of myself than I usually do.'

Richard cut in quickly,
‘You're
doing your best for us here, doing just what you are doing … You have a job here any time you want it, Frank. Any time. Remember that.'

‘I will, sir. Thank you … Here he comes!'

They ran to the window. A biplane marked with the roundels of the Royal Flying Corps burst out of the drifting clouds at the limit of view from the window, and all of them, including Miss Bamfylde, hurried out and into the open air, heedless of the brisk chill in the wind.

‘What is it?' Richard asked as the machine flew along the far side of the field, about a thousand feet up, down wind.

Johnny stared, ‘Sopwith … Is it the new Pup?'

Frank said, ‘No, sir. It's a One and a Half-Strutter. R.F.C. two-seater. The Navy have the single-seater.'

The workers were crowding out of every shed and shop, running toward the field, lining up like a football crowd along the imaginary lines that marked the edge of the landing zone. The aeroplane's nose dipped and the machine dived toward the earth. A collective gasp went up from the crowd. The nose rose and with the engine strumming like a nest full of angry bees, the aeroplane curled over in a graceful loop, and at the top of the loop eased over into a half roll – completing the Immelmann turn and, being now pointed up wind, immediately started its descent, bumping and heaving in the gusty wind, to make a three point landing a hundred yards short of the tower and finally to blip to a standstill, the engine coughing, the propeller swinging, jerking, stopping.

The pilot eased himself out of the forward cockpit as Frank roared, ‘Jevons! Manville! Smith! Go and hold the wings down!'

The pilot jumped to earth and ran toward him, tearing off his flying helmet and goggles. It was Guy.

‘Hullo, Uncle Richard,' he shouted. ‘Hullo, Frank … Johnny.' He shook hands all round. ‘When your request reached R.F.C. headquarters out there, Boom Trenchard told my major to send me … keep it in the family, sort of … but I have to be back for lunch.'

He looked round at the crowded men and women, all cheering and clapping and smiling. He raised both hands in acknowledgement. He's just a kid, Frank thought, but there was a hard line to his jaw, and crow's feet round his mismatched eyes, and a curl to his nostril that were not those of youth. He would be a hard master to work for; but it would be worth it.

Guy said, ‘If someone will give me a cup of tea and a Bath bun – better still, a Chelsea bun – I'll be ready to tell you anything you want to know … that is, if I know it myself.'

‘They've gone back to work at Hedlington Aircraft,' Bert Gorse said disgustedly. ‘Mr Richard just gave them a ruddy carrot – ninepence a day more now, and promises of more if production goes up … Frank Stratton's going to do what that efficiency bloke was supposed to.'

‘He'll do a good job,' Rachel said, ‘and the men like him – the women, too, though he's shy of them … Guy Rowland
made a big impression on them all. The women near mobbed
him
when he left. Well, we did our best. Didn't get much help from the party, though.'

‘They're too busy trying to stop the war altogether, or at least make all the governments come out and say what they're fighting for, to bother about helping us stop a little bit of it.'

‘We'll just go on. I spoke to Cowell, in the Star & Garter this evening. Alice Rowland was there, with him.'

‘Is she sweet on him?'

‘How do I know? Looks like it … She left early and I asked him whether he would help us get the use of a school for our meetings. He said he'd try if we got some well known figures, respectable people to join … people the police will act careful of.'

Bert riffled through the pile of letters and newspaper clippings on the table – ‘Here's what he wants – Mr John Rowland of High Staining.'

Rachel looked round in astonishment – ‘Why, that's Naomi's father!'

‘Well, he's written saying he's not a socialist but he does think that a way must be found to end the war before all that we are fighting to preserve is destroyed – that's his own words.'

‘Their son Boy's been at the front since near the beginning,' Rachel said. ‘That's what's getting on his nerves.'

‘Well, it's one name for Cowell.'

‘We must get more … people who've lost a son … Look through the
Courier
for the past six months … they publish all the local casualties … Then I'll go and see the parents, at home. Say we're so sorry about their boy, and other boys, still being killed over there – for what? Won't they help us stop the slaughter?'

‘A lot of 'em still slam the door in your face,' Bert said. ‘The more they've lost the more they feel they mustn't stop till Germany's paid – been ground into dust … 'Course we're being ground into dust at the same time, but they don't think of that.'

Rachel said, ‘We must join the No-Conscription Fellowship, Bert. You know I spoke to their leader, Clifford Allen, and also Bertrand Russell, when I went up to
London, and now Russell's written that they would welcome us joining.'

Bert interrupted with morose heat, ‘What we've got to do is get some money. I'm damn near starving.'

‘How much came in in subscriptions?'

‘Ten pounds, twelve and fourpence. But we owed rent, had to pay the gas company, buy more paper and ink. There's only a quid and a tanner left.'

Rachel said, ‘We can ask the people coming to the meeting to bring money … but we'd have to tell them it's to keep us alive, not for the work. They won't like that.' She had an idea suddenly – ‘The day return fare to London's only three and fivepence. We can spare that … I'm going to go and see your niece, Florinda, and see what I can get out of her. She has millions.'

‘Garn!' Bert exclaimed. ‘Florinda won't give you anything. She's all for the war … seen the pictures of her in the papers, with Captain the Lord this, Commander the Honourable that …'

‘I'm not sure,' Rachel said. ‘It's worth trying. She doesn't want Fletcher killed, after all.'

‘Fletcher'll get shot by the bleeding narks,' Bert said.

‘
If
they find him,' Rachel said. ‘I have to go out now. I'll be back in by supper time.'

‘Hold hard, Rachel,' Bert said. ‘You remember the other day you told me I was against everything, but what was I for?'

‘I remember,' she said.

‘Well, I been thinking. I'm for the working man in a union.'

‘Not the working woman?'

‘I suppose so,' Bert said grudgingly, ‘though what the women are doing now is diluting the factories and black-legging, so the unions are not as strong as they should be.'

‘You're not for socialism?' she asked.

Bert said slowly, ‘I don't think so. I've tried, because of you. You believe in it, all that stuff, about Fabianism and parliamentary socialism … it may help, but
I
think the only important thing is to get working men – all working men – into strong unions –
then
we could stop the war tomorrow, if that's what we wanted to do, and to hell with parliament and democracy.'

She said, after a while, ‘Thank you for thinking about it, Bert … and for telling me. If we can understand each other better, we'll be happier, won't we?'

The two portly men dining in a secluded corner of the Savoy Grill tucked into their roast beef with relish. They had already demolished some real turtle soup, half a cold lobster each with mayonnaise, roast pheasant with Brussels sprouts and chestnuts, all washed down with three bottles of Mumm's champagne. The younger one, black-haired, red-faced, healthy-seeming in spite of his gluttony, pointed his fork at his companion – ‘Then that's settled, eh, Mr Bottomley? You'll accept a directorship of my company …'

‘Certainly,' the other boomed unctuously. ‘A privilege … honour …'

Hoggin continued, ‘And you'll come to our Edgware Road H.U.S.L. next week, and I'll show you around, so's you can write a piece about us in
John Bull.'

‘I will, indeed … and please call me Horatio, Bill … But I'll be just! I owe that to my public … I shall tell it as I see it.'

‘We don't want no more than that,' Hoggin said. ‘Can't ask for more, can we? Just the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.' The old fart knew the game, all right.