Heart of War (50 page)

His eye fell on the name John Rowland in the paper and he started. He was looking at the Letters to the Editor. This one read:

Sir: We have now been at war for twenty-eight months. We have lost two hundred and twenty thousand of our young men, killed. Another one million have suffered wounds. The same is true in differing proportions and numbers, of France, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Turkey, and every other warring nation. Yet what has been achieved? Nothing. The question must now be asked, what do we hope to achieve? The dead – and those yet to be sacrificed – demand to know what they died, or will die, for. In the name of common sense, let all thinking men call upon all governments, including our own, to make a clear and unequivocal statement of their war aims.

Yours etc

John Rowland

High Staining, Walstone, Kent.

Guy put the paper down thoughtfully. Someone had helped Uncle John write that. It was too forceful and direct for him, words did not come that easily to him. The letter made sense, yet he was surprised that the
Telegraph
had published it, for it was saying slow, stop, let's search our minds and find what we really want out of this war, and what the other fellow really wants, then perhaps we can work out a compromise. But the war was going full blast, full steam ahead now, and would not be stopped.

He'd like to go to the theatre again, but not in uniform… He
couldn't face that again. He looked at the list of shows … The Bing Boys Are Here, The Happy Day … pantomimes –
Charley's Aunt, The Thief of Baghdad, Jack and the Beanstalk … The Merry Widow, The Second Mrs Tanqueray, The Boy
; a revue,
Stand Up and Sing
with Miss Evelyn Laye, Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn, and Florinda … Florinda! That settled it. He'd go tonight … but dash it, tonight he'd promised to dine with Naomi at her Group's big house in Belgravia. It would have to be tomorrow, after he'd come back from Hedlington.

Guy sat in the draughting office of the Hedlington Aircraft Company, his feet on the edge of a table, a huge sheet of thick drawing paper spread on his lap. His R.F.C. side cap hung on a hook behind the door. Beyond the window, its panes streaming with rain, the airfield was a dull green grey, marked with deep brown ruts where aeroplanes had been landing and taking off until the field controller closed it to prevent more such damage to the surface.

Guy glanced up from the diagram and siad, ‘Have you worked out the stress on each wheel of the landing gear?'

Betty Merritt, standing behind him, said, ‘2.376 tons – when she's standing still.'

‘The landing stress would be much more than that … depending how softly the pilot can put her down.'

Ginger Keble-Palmer said earnestly, ‘I know. One day we're going to have some sort of hard, permanent runways for heavy bombers … but these're going to fly from Norfolk and Lincoln, where it's usually dry.'

Betty said, ‘Aircraft are getting heavier all the time. The Handley Page 0/100 is 13,974 pounds, just a little more than our Lion. I agree with you about hard runways, because the R.F.C.'s not going to accept that their machines can't fly because of
anything
– nor will the ordinary Army generals accept it. They must be able to fly by night, and in all weathers. That means better instruments, but it also means permanent hard runways!'

‘They'll be a long time coming,' Ginger said. ‘Think of the expense!'

Guy returned his attention to the designs. What he was looking at was the first conception of the idea, which would one day, after a thousand hours more work in this draughting office, and then in the machine tool shops and the wood
shaping shops, become a four-engined bomber, designed to fly non-stop from East Anglia to Berlin and back, with a payload of 7,500 pounds of bombs.

Betty said, ‘I went to Cricklewood, and Handley Page confirm that they have a plan for a four-engined bomber, too. They're no farther forward with it than we are with this. What
are
we going to call it? Handley Page will use some austere set of numbers, but … us?'

‘Elephant?' Ginger suggested.

Guy said, ‘We already have one … everyone's nicknamed the Martinsyde G. 100 the “Elephant,” because it's so big for a single seater. What about Buffalo? They're big, strong animals.'

‘That would be nice,' Betty exclaimed. ‘We love the buffalo in America.'

‘That is a bison,' Guy said. ‘You Americans can't tell one bird or beast from another. Johnny used to talk to me about robins, which turned out to be thrushes with orange breasts … and lions, which turned out to be pumas. Now buffaloes …'

‘Oh, Guy!' she exclaimed in exasperation, ‘one day you'll go to America and they'll take you down a peg or two.'

Guy said, ‘I'll look forward to it … Four machine guns is pretty good. But I think you're badly going to need another in the tail … here.' He put his finger on the tail assembly. ‘Can you extend the fuselage say four feet behind the stabilizers? And put in a little cockpit, with twin machine guns on a Scarffing, so that the gunner can take on enemy attacking from straight astern – that's where they'll come from, mostly, you know. It'll do awful things to the centre of gravity, but perhaps that could be worked out.'

Ginger said, ‘I wonder. Extra structure, two guns, with ammunition and mountings and a gunner, puts up the weight by at least 500 pounds, and we're already up to twelve and a half tons, 29,900 pounds. The centre of gravity will be moved aft, the wrong way.'

‘Then instead of lengthening the fuselage, could you move the stabilizer and fins four feet forward? That wouldn't add so much to the structure weight … the only extra would be the cockpit seat, gun ring, and the guns … and the gunner. He's going to be very lonely out there, but I do think it would make a great improvement to the fighting power of the machine.'

Ginger said, ‘It changes a lot of the aerodynamics, and you'd still have some C of G problem. We must work it out. We might get away with one gun. We have time. We'll get all we can out of the Leopard and Lion series … then we'll show the War Office the design for the Buffalo.'

Betty said, ‘And Handley Page will show them the design for their VG/1700/X.'

Guy rolled up the paper and handed it to Ginger. Ginger said, ‘I've got to go out for a few minutes. Back soon.'

Guy stood up, stretching, and turned to Betty. ‘Johnny still working as hard as ever?'

‘Yes. Between you and me I think he leaves Stella alone too much. She doesn't look well – very listless, yawny.'

Guy shot a look at her but said nothing. He said, ‘Family all right?'

‘Yes. My Aunt Isabel comes down to spend a weekend at Walstone Manor at least twice a month. It makes me very sad.' Guy nodded; that problem did not need explanation. ‘My father's well, he writes. He's still hoping Mr Wilson can keep us out of the war. I hoped the opposite until this summer. But I don't know how we could take something like the battles this year.'

Guy nodded again. He could still see in his mind's eye the abomination of desolation that was the infantry's front – the slimy slopes of earth, the seas of mud and urine and excreta in which men waded and wallowed, and slept – the look in their eyes.

‘And you?' he asked. ‘How many pursuiters have you got now?'

She did not laugh or turn off the joke with another. She said slowly, ‘I think I'm falling in love, Guy.'

He said, as seriously, ‘That's good, isn't it?'

She said, ‘Johnny told me so much about you before I came over that I expected to fall for you … You won't approve … It's Fletcher Gorse. A member of your British lower classes.'

Guy said, ‘Poets are
hors classe
. And I've, er, had close personal relations with his sister.'

‘Guy! How long ago was this? Wasn't everyone terribly shocked?'

‘Ten years. And as to shock, it mostly happened while I was spending some of my hols at the Manor. Mrs Cate never noticed what I did or who I went out with.'

Betty laughed. ‘Well, Fletcher's a private in the Wealds, in Hedlington – under a false name. It's too complicated to go into, but he's here, and I see him most Sundays, when he can get a few hours' leave. He's eager to get to France.'

‘So Probyn told me.'

Betty said, ‘He's a
great
poet! I've read some of his work, and it's good, it really is …'

‘I'm sure it is,' Guy said, patting her on the shoulder. ‘And I wish you both all the luck in the world – especially him … I'm seeing Florinda tonight. She's the star of
Stand Up and Sing.'

Betty stared, open-mouthed. Then she said, ‘She's not the star. Evelyn Laye is.'

‘Ah well.' Guy put his cap on the side of his head. The right eye was like blue ice in his head, the left brown, warm and melting – ‘Let the generals clasp the stars to their bosoms, we subalterns have to content ourselves with the ladies of the chorus, or thereabouts.'

He saluted Betty formally, then blew her a kiss and went out.

Guy sat in the back of the pit stalls, wearing an imperfectly fitting tweed suit of Uncle Tom's. Outside the theatre, as he was queueing up to buy his ticket, gorgeous young women in silks and furs had sniffed as they passed, because he wasn't in evening dress; and beautiful young men in khaki or navy blue had glowered, because he wasn't in uniform. Some girls were still giving out white feathers and he half hoped one such would pick on him tonight … but nothing happened. A sort of pariah, he imagined himself surrounded by an invisible aura of disapproval and scorn. It was better than the fawn and gloat. He determined to enjoy the show. He glanced at his neighbours – both men, both tall and thin: the one on his right was a civilian, of about twenty-five, very pale, with spots of high colour on his cheeks: he looked ill. The one on his left was a captain of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, the black flash of his regiment conspicuous on the back of his tunic, below the collar: he was about thirty, and he had an M.C.

Stand Up and Sing
began. It was not very good, its moronic scenario interrupted at frequent intervals by songs, dances, and performances by the whole chorus. But it was pleasant enough except when they became patriotic, and sang about
the beastly Huns, the Kaiser
they
were going to hang,
their
boys in the trenches, and such; then Guy's throat constricted, for the difference between this – this scent of perfume and cigar smoke, these petty lusts, over-drinking, over-eating – and what he had seen on the uplands of the Somme, brought him near to vomiting.

The Welch Fusilier captain muttered angrily, ‘Blighters!'

Guy said, ‘I beg your pardon?'

The captain glanced at him and whispered, ‘Look at them! The house is crammed, tier upon tier … grinning and cackling at the show … while those prancing harlots shrill the chorus … listen!'

We're sure the Kaiser loves our dear old tanks!

‘I'd like to see a tank come down the stalls,' the captain said viciously, ‘lurching to
Home Sweet Home
, perhaps … then there'd be no more jokes in music halls to mock the riddled corpses round Mametz, Fricourt, Bapaume.'

Guy's other neighbour, who could not have helped overhearing, leaned across and muttered, ‘Great! I wish I could express what I feel half as well.'

The Fusilier said, ‘I thought you must have been out there. Gassed?'

The other whispered, ‘Yes. Ypres. January. 60th … invalid out, in October. Left lung napoo, t'other not so good.'

‘Lucky you,' the Fusilier said; then the man behind them made a ssshing noise and the lady beyond the gassed man rattled her programme angrily, and the three were silent.

At the interval they went out together and found the bar. They ordered drinks and introduced themselves – ‘Sassoon,' the captain said. ‘Came up to town from Clitherland to see a show. Can't imagine what led me to pick this one.'

‘Bentley,' the gassed man said.

‘Rowland,' Guy said, ‘R.F.C.'

Sassoon said, ‘Wise man, not to wear uniform.' He turned to Bentley – ‘Damn good regiment, the 60th.'

Bentley laughed and said, ‘Yes, but I'm not in good odour with them, I fear.'

Sassoon raised an eyebrow. Bentley said, ‘I think the war ought to be stopped. I think it's being continued for personal, petty, and political reasons that are no longer valid, when you
consider the appalling slaughter over there. They can't accuse me of cowardice – I got an M.C. at Loos … so they say my mind has been affected. I don't mean just the chaps I used to know in the 60th – I mean my father, family, everyone …'

‘I have an uncle who agrees with you,' Guy said.

Sassoon said, ‘And I'm not sure I don't agree with you myself … but the war will go on …'

The bells rang for the end of the interval; and they returned to their seats.

Guy felt depressed. Everyone in the theatre except him, and perhaps Sassoon, seemed to be having a good time, but he was not. Why stay? At the second interval he muttered goodbyes to Bentley and Sassoon, and went up the aisle, heading for the cloakroom, to get his overcoat – Uncle Tom's. The rain had stopped while he was in the train up from Hedlington, and it wasn't a bad night. One of the women who ushered patrons into their seats caught up with him at the top of the aisle, and said breathlessly, ‘Are you Guy Rowland?'

He said yes, and she handed him a note she'd kept tucked into the deep cleavage of her abbreviated dress. ‘From Florinda, sir,' she said.

Guy opened the note – ‘Saw you coming back from the bar after the first interval, from the wings. Come and see me after the show – F.'

He stood a moment, thinking, while people pushed past him, none too politely. Then he gave the usher a half crown and went back to his seat.