Too Late the Morrow

by Richard Townshend, Bickers

  Uncertainty was an added strain that he could do without. He had seen many men break down under the kind of load that he, and the others who had been flying on operations since the very beginning, endured. It was true that for the pilots of Fighter Command the early months had been mostly boredom. But even boredom, when it entailed being constantly on the alert while you patrolled a convoy, and when it further entailed being mistakenly shot at by your own naval and military anti-aircraft gunners from time to time, imposed worry and tension.

  There had been no boredom about the six weeks the squadron had spent in France after the Germans invaded Holland and Belgium; or about the four months of the Battle of Britain. Those days stayed in his memory as a medley of fatigue and terror, a succession of a hundred-and-one different ways of being killed or maimed and of seeing it happen to your friends, of fears and anxieties which had literally driven some of his fellow pilots out of their minds or to barely credible acts of panic-stricken cowardice or insane bravery.

  About himself, he believed that such experiences had strengthened rather than weakened him. But in honesty he recalled how his temper, like most other people’s, had frayed eventually and how evident this had become from the frequently irritated, rude and nervous exchanges on the radio when the stress of combat began to wear one down.

  He had noticed the same phenomenon as the frequency and the risks of operating over enemy territory increased. In the spring of this year, the first fighter sweeps and Circuses, the first Rhubarbs, when pairs or fours of fighters went scouring France in bad weather looking for targets to attack, had been a welcome diversion after the comparative stagnation of the winter. Now, they were stretching pilots’ nerves. He had heard some bad-tempered messages between them on the radio that very morning. No doubt sailors crammed into pitching and tossing destroyers and corvettes on Atlantic convoys, with U-boats and long-range enemy bombers constantly harassing them, did not live perpetually in perfect harmony. No doubt the infantrymen retreating from France last summer, or slogging it out now in Egypt and Libya, lost their tempers with one another when they had been in action day after day and night after night.

  The strain on Fighter Command was mounting as the summer advanced. Added stress caused by uncertainty over Nicole was going to test his resilience more than he might be able to sustain. And then what would happen? He owed it to the squadron to keep his emotional balance. He wished she hadn’t taken that decision.

  There were all the signs of a hectic evening brewing in the mess when he came in with Tug Wilson and the two other squadron C.Os from a long discussion of that morning’s Circus in Wilson’s office. All the reports were in, the camera gun film had been developed, reconnaissance photographs interpreted. The operation had been a success.

  The Me 109s had outnumbered the Spitfires and Blenheims. But although the R.A.F. had lost eleven lighters, not including James’s own, their pilots either killed or taken prisoner after landing in France, and two Blenheims, they had destroyed twenty-seven of the enemy and damaged half as many again; of which some could be rated as probably destroyed.

  The wing had suffered only six casualties: two dead and four wounded, James’s squadron had come through without loss except for the youngster who had coolly announced that he had ‘had it’. A dozen of the wing’s aircraft had been damaged, four of James’s among them. Both enemy aerodromes had been well bombed and buildings and aircraft wrecked or badly damaged.

  Despite the loss during the past fifteen months of many friends whom James had known much better than the cheerful athletic boy who had been shot down in flames that morning, he felt the bitterness that he had always felt. Memory held some events and people clear and others, however hard he strove to recall them, were vague, sometimes a blank. He supposed it was one of Nature’s defences against excessive grief to darken or obliterate in this erratic way. He was feeling this death all the more because there had been so few on the squadron for the past several months. And, he told himself, because he was frustrated and disturbed about Nicole. It had heightened all his emotional reactions.

  For his two Polish pilots the operation had plainly been of immense satisfaction. Flying Officers Zbigniew (‘Big’) Uwodzicielski and Tadeusz (‘Tad’) Brzk had each claimed a kill and a probable. When he came into mess that evening before dinner they were polishing their jointly owned old maroon Morris Oxford saloon and singing; Polish love songs, he presumed. They had a prescriptive manner of celebrating or seeking consolation. The portents indicated that two young W.A.A.F. or perhaps a pair of local girls who had come under the spell of their blandishments were about to experience a gratifying evening. There were fresh roses in the conical vase on the dashboard.

  James paused. ‘Coming out to The Three Horseshoes after dinner?’

  ‘We bring girl,’ Big said.

  ‘After, thrash in mess,’ said Tad.

  ‘We take girl to dinner at White Hart.’

  ‘Eat, drink, poke, thrash.’ Tad’s English was rudimentary, but he put his intentions succintly.

  ‘Save some energy for high cockalorum.’

  The squadron prided itself on its prowess at this robust game, to which the Poles had taken with zest.

  ‘We practise in car with girl first.’ There was a gleam in Big’s eyes.

  ‘That’s a different kind of cockalorum, old boy. But your English is coming on!’

  James disapproved of, and discouraged, the pressing persuasiveness with which they pursued the youngest of the W.A.A.F. He was sure there was rough play if the girls resisted them. The senior W.A.A.F. officer, the Queen Bee, had confided to him after a third large glass of sherry that she would like to see them both castrated as the only way of protecting her gals. But he thought of Nicole and envied them at that moment.

  He was in the bar, surrounded by his pilots, the squadron Medical, Intelligence and Engineering officers, when Higgs, who was on duty that evening, appeared.

  ‘Telephone, sir.’

  His parents? He had spoken to them only yesterday. Christopher? Unlikely. Their cousin, Roger Hallowes, resting after wounds and a tour on Blenheims, an instructor at a bomber operational training unit in Yorkshire? But Roger had called him only last week. His aunt or uncle, about Roger? Improbable. Some girl friend whom he had abandoned since he began sleeping with Nicole?

  ‘Hello, James Fenton.’

  ‘James cheri.’

  ‘Nicole! I can’t believe it. Where are you, darling?’ ‘In London. I have three days’ leave.’

  ‘Can you dome down here? I can’t get away.’

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll book a room. Same train as before?’

  ‘If I can come earlier, I will.’

  ‘Does this mean a change of plans?’

  ‘No, James.’

  ‘All right. It’s an unexpected bonus, anyway.’

  They talked a little longer. It had been, James reflected as he rejoined the throng in the bar, a subdued and insubstantial conversation. They were both conscious not only of security but also of one another’s perplexities and the hidden implications in their conventional and cautious words. They held secrets in common as well as their love and they each held their own secrets besides. It was often difficult to reconcile the three and experience did not make it any easier. Experience had not so far resolved the demands of love and duty when they conflicted, or clarified where selfishness entered. He was always trying to achieve this consonance and he believed that Nicole was: not, he hoped, in vain.

  *

  It was some hours before he could have Nicole to himself. She was popular with the squadron, who surrounded them in The White Hart where she had taken a room, and Tug Wilson and his wife Smokey (nobody knew why; she didn’t smoke: perhaps it referred to the colour of her eyes) were friends of a year’s standing. Big and Tad, both equipped with better French than English, danced (almost literally; they certainly pranced) attendance, beaming and chattering like chimpanzees; which Tad, anyway, resembled
. Ben MacRae hailed from Montreal and spoke French with slashing and sometimes hilarious fluency and a Quebecquois accent.

  Snug in the four-poster with the dim light of a bedside lamp giving Nicole’s skin an ivory glow - her natural milk-white pigment made aureate by lifelong summers spent on the beach at her seaside home, but faded this year - and her dark hair a rippling sheen, they lay in close embrace when their initial ardour was spent.

  ‘What made them change their minds and let you out?’

  Until this moment he had shied away from mentioning her work. Nor had she questioned him about his.

  ‘It’s not a prison, you know.’

  ‘Top secret… high security… it amounts to the same thing.’

  ‘I pointed out to them that if they cannot trust me to be discreet, they should not have accepted me for such duties in the first place.’

  ‘Unassailable French logic.’

  ‘Precisely. As I was dealing with French people, principally, it worked.’

  ‘And glad I am.’

  She laughed. He had been breathtakingly ardent. ‘Ça c’est eévident, mon cheri.’

  ‘You’ll be going soon, then.’

  He felt her shrug in his arms. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘I wish I knew more about it. I wish I could be there in some way… near you as far as possible.’

  ‘You could always volunteer for special duties and see what happens… but that is all I can hint to you … perhaps it is too much already. You are a fighter pilot, and no other kind of flying would satisfy you. Forget about it. I told you, when I go it will not be for long.’ ‘Don’t tell me you are being given all this training lor one operation. You’ll be back… but then you’ll be off again.’

  She did not reply.

  ‘Is there no way in which you can send me even a short, coded message?’

  ‘No, James.’

  ‘Have you any more news of your parents or Henri?’

  ‘None.’

  She was trembling. Before he could continue his inquisition she whispered ‘Don’t let’s talk about it’ and made sure he didn’t by kissing him long and hard. The description applied not only to the kiss.

  He woke during the night, disturbed by her restlessness. She was murmuring to herself and while he lay still and silent beside her she broke into a frightened whimper which was followed by a galvanic jerk of her body which brought her awake too. The unaccustomed feather bed must have communicated its strangeness to her while she was still dazed, for she twisted and then, finding herself trapped by his arms, gave a startled little cry.

  ‘It’s all right, darling. Nothing to be frightened of.’

  ‘Oh, James! I’m so glad you’re here.’

  She turned towards him and lay down again, facedown, athwart his chest, her breasts pressed against him.

  ‘Bad dream?’

  ‘Not about me; about you.’

  He did not believe her. Everything he knew about her told him that she had not spoken the truth. She was scared of what lay ahead of her and there was nothing he could do about it. In a certain facet of their characters they were two of a kind. Christopher was another. There were many more like them and it was only in a war that they found full expression. There was a driving force in their natures which prevented them from stopping when others would have pulled back. It was an urge beyond the realms of normal reason.

  But he said ‘There’s nothing to worry about over me. I know what I’m doing, I fly with my eyes open.

  You’re taking a plunge into the dark, into all manner of unknown quantities… ‘

  ‘Don’t.’ She clung to him. ‘Don’t talk about it. I asked you not to.’

  He could feel and hear her crying gently. He let her weep while he mustered his thoughts, which had been scattered by torpor and the shock of the manner in which they had both wakened. It was two or three minutes before he said anything.

  ‘Nicole, listen. We will marry some day, won’t we?’

  Her head on his shoulder nodded. She sniffled and he felt her groping under the pillows for her handkerchief.

  ‘Yes… yes, of course we will.’

  ‘Then why not now? Marry me, resign from I’Armee de l’Air and stay with me. We can live off camp, wherever I’m posted.’

  She kissed him with warmth which he recognised was generated as much by desperation as by love or passion.

  ‘I can’t. You know I can’t.’

  ‘“I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more.”’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just a quotation from a piece of poetry of which most people know that one line and nothing more; not even who wrote it.’

  ‘It is a perceptive statement. Yes, it does express what I mean. In English you say ‘first things first’ and that applies too. First I will do my duty, and then I will stay with you for ever.’

  ‘Your last word?’ he said it lightly.

  She reflected his tone, although he knew it was an effort.

  ‘My last word. Besides, I am a Frenchwoman and therefore practical as well as logical: suppose you are posted overseas? I couldn’t go with you. What would I do? Apply to have my commission back so that I could do the most useful work I can? Even if it would not be the most useful… which I can do if I go now.’

  ‘You win. I had better resign myself to a lifetime of polemic defeats against your inexorable logic and practicality.’ In English it would have sounded stilted. In French it fell quite naturally on the ear. ‘Are you a good cook?’

  The natural resilience they both had in abundance had triumphed over her grim dream and its aftermath, whatever it had truly been about. She chuckled.

  ‘As good as you are a lover, I hope.’

  ‘You’re not bad in that direction yourself. More practice and you’ll soon be perfect.’

  ‘You have the advantage of me, Mon Commandant. I lack your wide experience. I was but an innocent virgin, sir, until you had your way with me.’ She added in English ‘As you bloody well know,’ and lightly bit his ear.

  *

  They had two nights together before he had to put her on the train for London: and whatever undisclosed destination beyond would ultimately carry her out of his reach and into dangers of a kind which it made him feel cold and palsied to think about.

  So he thought about other things, and what went through his mind as he drove back to camp replaced the happiness with which he was always filled when he was with Nicole by the anger that had been burning in him three days ago after the wing’s last Circus.

  He had used his Austin Ten staff car to drive her: calling it an official journey because she was a French Air Force officer, saving his own petrol. He parked it at the side of the crew room hut. Big Uwodzicielski was standing at a window, watching for him.

  ‘C.O. not look happy. Is good weather for Rhubarb. We ask him.’

  ‘Is that what you two have been nattering about?’

  MacRae had wondered about Big and Tad’s animated discussion. He had concluded it must be about girls. Now, it seemed, he had misjudged them.

  ‘Tad and I see very good target when we fly Circus last time.’

  Tad nodded vigorously. ‘Is very good.’

  ‘What’s so good about it?’

  ‘Is big. Make very big eksplozja.’

  ‘`Explosion?’

  ‘Tak… yes. Also make much… subjekcja… ‘Tad looked at his compatriot.

  ‘In-con-ven-i-ence,’ Big said rather grandly, proud at knowing the word.

  ‘What is it?’

  Big winked. ‘Wait and see. We tell Boss first.’ He felt pretty good about ‘Boss’, too.

  ‘You’re right, he doesn’t look pleased.’ MacRae had joined Big at the window. ‘And he’s not coming straight here.’

  They watched James walk towards his aircraft. A/Cl Millington, his fitter, put down a wrench and saluted.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  There was no one else in the blast pen. James’s rigger had don
e his immediate jobs and gone to have a smoke. The armourer had done his and so had the radio mechanic.

  ‘‘Morning, Millington. A word.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Happy in your work?’ It was a well-worn Service catch phrase. But there was something about James’s demeanour which suggested to Millington that he was not merely being cordial.

  ‘Yes, sir, thank you.’

  ‘You’d be happier flying a Spitfire, wouldn’t you?’ Millington blinked and looked puzzled. ‘Hadn’t thought about it, sir.’

  ‘Where did you go to school, Millington?’ Millington named an ancient and respected public school in Yorkshire.

  ‘Damn good school. I hear you chucked it rather prematurely?’

  ‘Ran away when I was sixteen, sir.’

  ‘Adventurous chap.’

  Millington ventured a grin. ‘Wanted to join the French Foreign Legion, sir. My housemaster twigged and telephoned my father. He caught up with me in Paris: the Legion gives people twenty-four hours to make up their minds before they let them sign on, sir. I was under-age anyway. I said I was eighteen, but I don’t think they believed me.’

  ‘Lucky for you. What then?’

  ‘Fed up with school, sir. I joined the Mob.’ ‘Apprentice?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You were too young to fly then, but you’re not now. How old are you?’

  ‘Nineteen, sir.’

  ‘School Cert?’

  ‘Matric, actually, sir.’

  ‘An academic! You went to a good rugger school. You look like a scrum half.’

  ‘I am, sir. I was a Second Fifteen cap and on the apprentice school team, sir.’

  ‘I’ll recommend you for air crew. Pilot training if you’re lucky: but you could be an observer or air gunner if you don’t make the grade as a pilot.’

  Millington looked disconcerted. He was silent for a moment.

  ‘I’ve had a long training for my trade, sir… I’m doing a useful job… ‘

  ‘There are women doing jobs that demand more guts than being a fitter, Millington.’