Too Late the Morrow

by Richard Townshend, Bickers

  ‘I’m sure, after the effort you have made to reach this country, your naval Staff will be amenable to any request.’

  ‘I have a friend or two who can help. And now tell me, James, how was Nicole when you last saw her?’

  ‘More beautiful than ever. And she never for a moment doubted that you would find your way here and join the fight as soon as you had the chance.’

  James, like his father, recognised the value of an occasional deviation from strict truth.

  So, it seemed, did Christopher, who added ‘We all did’, and sounded convincing.

  Chapter Five

  Roger was relieved by Kate’s request for a posting. With her connections, and in view of her bereavement, she had no trouble in obtaining one.

  ‘I have to get away from here,’ she had told him when he said goodnight to her after their last outing together.

  Two days later she went on leave again, pending posting. She did not forget her manners. She made a point of bidding him goodbye and even gave him a peck on the cheek: and a wry smile as she shook him by the hand and said ‘‘You’ve been very good for me, Roger. You’re a very good person. God bless you.’

  Her words provoked two reflections. Roger was confused by the rigidity of his way of thinking. He thought it odd that an adulteress should so readily invoke the Almighty; taking it for granted that she would have little regard for Him: and then he reminded himself of Mary Magdalen. After that, it occurred to him that she, in fact, had been very good for him. She had restored his confidence and self esteem by the generosity with which she had given him her affection and her body. She had been the greatest help in diverting his mind from the dark thoughts which had given rise to his persistent nightmares.

  After his irritating and frustrating relationship with Daphne, and the shock of finding out that the seemingly passionate and amorous Agnes had only been making use of him as the instrument who might release her from her own torment, Kate’s honesty and unselfishness had given him happiness and been a mental and physical balm.

  With her departure he regretted his precipitate application for a return to operations. When he looked ahead to what it meant, he told himself he was a damn fool. This war was obviously going to drag on for years yet and there was no need to rush into action again. There was nothing dishonourable or cowardly in allowing one’s future to take its own course. His turn would have come around eventually for a return to the fighting. And he had already done more than his share, much more than most people.

  The sensible ones waited for their duty to be thrust upon them, they stayed in civvy street until they were called up: everybody young enough to go to war would have to go when his age group was summoned. True, nobody was ordered to fly, and if he had been hauled into the Air Force he would have felt ashamed to stay on the ground. He would have volunteered for air crew. But he could just as well have done that later as sooner. After all, when he had joined the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve on leaving school, it had not been because he anticipated a war and was determined to be heroic. He had joined as an antidote for the boredom of being a bank clerk and because the allowance the V.R. paid was a welcome increment to the pittance he drew from his employers.

  On the day that Kate departed, Roger sought out Flight Sergeant Devonshire.

  ‘Hello Roger. Fancy seeing you.’ Devonshire gave him a faintly suspicious, rather sickly smirk. ‘You look brassed off. Wassamatter?’

  ‘I am brassed off, Creamy. I feel like going out and getting thoroughly pissed. Will you come out with me tonight and have a good dinner and a real skinful?’

  Devonshire sounded astonished. ‘Yeah, sure. Something gone wrong?’

  Roger did not feel like answering that question. ‘You’ll be my guest. And don’t argue.’

  ‘Thass awright. I ain’t skint.’

  ‘I didn’t think you were. Dammit, can’t a fellow invite an old friend out without a lot of bloody argy-bargy?’

  ‘All right, all right. Keep yer’air on. Thank you.’ There was no one around to see, so Creamy Devonshire snatched his forage cap off - he wore it tilted so sharply that only his right ear prevented it falling off - put his hand on his heart and swept Roger a bow. ‘Thank you very much.’Appy to accept your kind invitation… sir.’

  Roger grinned. ‘Silly ass. I’ll meet you at the main gate at six.’

  ‘Suits me.’ Devonshire was walking away when he stopped and turned. ‘’Ere. If you’re going to have a skinful, who’s going to drive? I don’t want to end up in a ditch or wrapped round a telegraph pole.’

  ‘Don’t worry: we’ll both drive. I’ll work the pedals and the gears and you can steer.’

  Devonshire laughed and went on his way whistling ‘In The Mood’.

  *

  That conversation had taken place at 10 a.m. Twelve hours and eight pints later, after dining solidly on black market steak - another benefit of Roger’s friendship with Kate: inevitably, she knew a small restaurant whose proprietor was never short of illicit meat - and splitting a bottle of somewhat disreputable Burgundy, Creamy Devonshire took a long draw at his cigarette and, with a certain slurring of consonants, delivered a verdict.

  ‘’Course it’s not like being on a squadron, but I reckon I can put up with another few months of this. I reckon we’ve earned’aving it cushy. Gimme a year of this and I won’t bind about going back on ops.’

  Roger, who was having some difficulty in focusing, addressed both - slightly overlapping - images of Devonshire which seemed to shift before his eyes.

  ‘Won’t be a year for me, ol’ boy. I’ve asked to go back on ops now.’

  Devonshire screwed up his eyes, leaned forward and cupped his left hand behind his ear.

  ‘Wassat? Could ha’ sworn I heard you say you’d asked to go back on ops now.’

  ‘Tha’s right, Creamy, tha’s what I’ve done.’

  ‘You crafty bleeder, Rodge… you rotten so-and-so… thought you was me pal… go an’ ask… don’ say a bloody word to yer old mate, do yer?’

  ‘Sorry, ol’ boy… very sorry. No offence… no reason why you shouldn’t stay on rest.’

  ‘Rest? Fine bleedin’ rest this is. Gawd, some of these sprog pilots… I wouldn’t trust’em with a bike… how many prangs have we had since we been’ere? Twelve?’

  ‘Fourteen… ‘ Roger looked glum. ‘And no survivors.’

  ‘’Ere, I’m coming with you. I’ll put in me application tomorrer.’ Devonshire leaned further forward and narrowed his eyes again, under the delusion that it made him look shrewd. ‘It’s that popsie, innit? That W.A.A.F. officer.’

  ‘Nothing to do with it.’ Roger’s consonants were no better articulated than Devonshire’s. ‘A.S.O. Lingham happens to be posted and I happen to have dec-d-decided to go back on ops. No c-c-con-connection at all.’

  ‘Listen. I’ve had two bloody good pilots in this war: Flight Lieutenant Pike an’ you. I’m not taking a chance on having to fly with some sprog when I go back on a squadron. I’m going to apply to be posted with you.’

  ‘Ginger Pike… bloody good type. Wonder what happened to him?’

  ‘Must have been put in the bag, or we’d have heard something by now. But I can’t see ’im letting himself get caught, somehow.’

  Roger was amused by the reverence in which Devonshire still held their old captain. He had already been Flying Officer Pike’s wireless operator-air gunner when Roger, then a sergeant, joined them as second pilot and observer on the outbreak of war. In those days, Pike had always been ‘Flying Officer’ or ‘Mister’ to Devonshire. Later, Pike had been wounded and Roger had been made an aircraft captain. Devonshire had stayed with him. Six months later, Pike, promoted to flight lieutenant, had had to form a new crew. And Devonshire still referred to him by his rank, to this day. Ginger Pike had been shot down over Holland. The squadron knew he had not been killed, but it was not known whether he had been taken prisoner or managed to evade the enemy.

  ‘My money’s on Ginger Pike,’ Rog
er said. ‘If Jerry has put him in the bag, you can bet Ginger will tunnel his way out.’

  ‘We was a good crew, the three of us.’

  ‘Don’t get maudlin. Have another drink and cheer up.’

  The landlord rang a bell and called ‘Time, gentlemen, please.’

  ‘Saved by the bell.’ Devonshire belched. ‘I couldn’t have sunk another pint.’

  Roger stood up and swayed. ‘Come on. Let’s see if we can drive the car back to camp between us.’

  Outside, in the almost impenetrable blackness of a starless night of low overcast, Devonshire halted and gripped Roger’s arm.

  ‘You weren’t pulling me leg, were you, Rodge?’ ‘No.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Devonshire sighed theatrically. ‘’Itler,’ere we come… again. I don’t want to go back on Blenheims, though. No more bloody daylights, eh, Rodge? No more low-levels. Night bombing from twenty thousand feet from now on. What about it?’ ‘Absolutely. And the biggest aeroplane Bomber Command have got… but I don’t know… the bigger they are, the easier to hit.’

  ‘The bigger they are, the better they stand up to being hit.’

  ‘True… true… we’ll get ourselves a Halifax for our next tour, Creamy.’

  Tipsy though he was, Roger’s brain was not too clouded to calculate that converting to a four-engined type and then going to a Halifax O.T.U. and assembling and training a crew would occupy several months. He need not prepare to die quite yet.

  *

  For nearly four months Squadron Leader Prior, the station chaplain - ‘Matthew’ to his flock - had been casting disappointed and reproving looks at Roger. He glared and looked baleful whenever he saw Roger and Kate together. Sometimes Roger would look up from reading a newspaper or magazine in the ante-room, to find Prior’s protuberant, watery grey eyes regarding him with sorrow and admonishment.

  The trouble was that the chaplain at Roger’s last station had told the R.A.F. chaplain who visited him in hospital that he was a regular attender at Sunday Matins. The latter had passed the word along to Prior. Prior had been all agog at the prospect of his regular congregation being swollen by a pilot with a D.F.C. and D.F.M. What an example! No suspicion of lack of manliness could be attached to going to church if a brave and decorated officer like that were ready to go every Sunday.

  But Roger’s interest in religion had faded when he slipped out of Daphne Palmer’s grasp. He had started going simply to be able to see her and sit next to her, in his infatuation. The services had had some effect on him. He had found it difficult to pray, but there was a reassuring sense of continuity about the ritual and the centuries-old language of the Bible and the Book Of Common Prayer. He had a good baritone voice and had enjoyed singing the hymns and psalms. Perhaps, above all, it had made his family seem closer. He knew that, at the same time as he, every Sunday, they were sharing in the same observance.

  His weeks in hospital had produced several changes in Roger and so had his affair with Kate.

  But Kate was safely out of the way, and while Roger leaned against the mess bar with a pint pot in his hand, hoping that a hair of the dog would help to rid him of his hangover after his night out with Creamy Devonshire, the chaplain, always a trier, breezed up: and smiled at him for the first time since Roger had snubbed his friendly overtures on the day of his arrival.

  ‘Well, Roger. How are things?’

  The chaplain was tall, stout and florid. He had rowed in the Keble boat when up at Oxford. At his obscure public school somewhere in the depths of Wiltshire he had been what passed for a heavyweight boxer among similar establishments in that and the adjacent counties, against which he competed; and a bustling forward in the First XV. Muscular Christianity was his line. For two pins, he often declared, he would have torn off his dog collar and become airborne so that he could give Hitler a piece of what-for himself. Alas, in his middle forties, age precluded this.

  He was well aware that, on account of his appearance, he was known behind his back as ‘Prior Tuck’, and this flattered him. Nothing wrong with being a good trencherman and enjoying a convivial drink: all good things came from the Lord.

  ‘As a matter of fact, Padre, I’m feeling a trifle grim. Rather tied one on last night with my old jeep.’

  ‘Your Wop-A.G.? Creamy Devonshire.’

  ‘You know him?’ Creamy had never mentioned the fact.

  ‘I know everyone on the station.’ Prior laughed. ‘Including the R.Cs andO.Ds.’

  Roman Catholics and Other Denominations had their own visiting chaplains. Prior was implying that he was not above doing a spot of poaching.

  ‘Good type, Creamy.’ It was an automatic and typical R.A.F. response.

  ‘Yes. And how have your researches into Quakery - if I may call it that; note I don’t say ‘quackery’ -and Buddhism been going?’ Prior stopped and chuckled and Roger allowed him a rueful grin to admit that he had scored a point. He had rudely told Prior, on that first day, not to count on him as a church-goer; that he was contemplating becoming a Quaker or Buddhist. Prior scored again, but with no malice. ‘I would hardly have thought you have had any time to spare for spiritual research.’ He chuckled again.

  Wily old devil thinks that because I’m at a loose end, now that Kate’s gone, he can put the fluence on me, Roger was thinking.

  ‘I’ve rejected them both, Padre.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Tell you what I wanted to have a word with you about, Roger. I hear you’re a singer.’ Roger looked startled. ‘I’m forming a choir for the next camp concert. Nothing at all to do with the station church, I assure you. We need everyone we can find who has any sort of a singing voice and any experience.’

  ‘I’m not a singer, Padre. I was in the choir at school… chapel choir, that is, not a concert choir.’

  ‘I’m told on the best authority that you made yourself heard very noticeably at Baxton.’

  Evidently the Baxton chaplain had been the source. ‘I suppose I have a loud voice, then.’

  ‘And a good one, from all I hear. How about it, Roger? Will you help us out? We need a baritone. It won’t be too much of a bore for you, I promise. You might even enjoy it. We’re going to sing some jolly good songs. Perhaps you’d like to suggest a favourite one which we could add to the programme? We’d all be very grateful.’

  ‘I’d like to, Padre.’ I’m a lying hound, Roger accused himself. ‘But I’m expecting a posting any day. I wouldn’t want to practise with the choir and then let you down at the last minute.’

  ‘Plenty of time, Roger. The concert is two weeks from today. Your posting won’t be through before then.’

  It was interesting that the chaplain obviously knew about his application already. Prior knowledge: mentally, Roger made the pun with a twinge of annoyance.

  He went to choir practice that evening after an early dinner preceded by only two half-pints of bitter. He went with an ill grace. He would rather sit in the anteroom and read Geoffrey Household’s absorbing new novel, ‘Rogue Male’. But it would be difficult to concentrate on it while his mind was still in a ferment over Kate. He had known that their liaison could only be temporary, but he had hoped that it would continue after he left Blythewold. He had hoped, in fact, that it would continue until her husband returned from North Africa; and, in moments of optimism, perhaps even afterwards. Nonetheless, he had fallen in love with her. It was the first time he had fallen in love with any woman. For Daphne he had felt affection which developed into love, but he had never felt the heady, all-consuming lust for her, combined with tenderness and affection, which Kate had aroused.

  The rehearsal was held in a brick building, camouflaged in green and brown, which housed the education section and to which a piano had been taken. The pianist was a cynical-looking corporal clerk who had played in a dance band during the evenings and been a grocer’s roundsman and shop assistant by day, before the war. Three other officers accompanied Roger and the padre from the mess. There were about twenty airmen and W.A.A.F. awaiting the
m, all of whom the Rev. Prior addressed jovially by their first names.

  Roger was surprised to find, after half an hour, that he was glad he had come. Matthew Prior had a fine bass and one of the airmen, an L.A.C. Capucitti, a throbbing tenor which evidently stirred the W.A.A.F. deeply. One of the girls had a powerful contralto, with which she had launched herself on a professional operatic career, and another used to sing soprano in louring musical comedies.

  Prior had a shrewd idea of their audience’s taste and the programme was a medley which would have made a professional cringe. It included ‘Ciri-biri-bim’. ‘The Stein Song’, ‘I’ll Walk Alone’, ‘Oh, Sweet Mystery Of Life’, ‘The White Cliffs Of Dover’, ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’, ‘The Anvil Chorus’ and selections from ‘The Mikado’; among others.

  It was evident that the choir would contribute half the material for the entire concert. James could see that he was going to be busy. It was only then that he realised that Prior had inveigled him into a commitment which would occupy two hours of his time every evening for the next fortnight. He wondered, while he undressed for bed that night, why he was not resenting it.

  One of the W.A.A.F. was a blonde flight sergeant in the Administrative section who blatantly made eyes at Roger all evening. She managed to stumble against him when they all left the hut, and clutch him for support. He felt too numb to take any interest in her. She embarrassed him. Every evening thereafter he took care lo leave choir practice in Prior’s company and to avoid her eyes during practice.

  On Sunday morning he was deep in The Observer when one of the other officers in the choir crossed the ant-room to speak to him.