A Fragile Peace

by A Fragile Peace (retail) (epub)

  Allie began shoving the last of their rubbish into the paper carrier bag in which she had carried their picnic.

  Sue grabbed her arm. ‘Never mind about that. Run.’

  On the airfield beneath them, that command was already being obeyed. They could hear the ‘Scramble’ orders coming over the speakers; on the field the Merlin engines began to snarl one by one and then, in file, the toy planes taxied, turned, raced across the dusty grass and lifted into the air to meet the new menace that ploughed, steadily and high across the sky towards them.

  Allie and Sue scrambled back over the stile and began to run down the lane, the steep slope giving them an impetus that threatened to send them sprawling. But they were not a quarter of a mile down the hill before they knew their flight was useless. Sue stopped, panting, by the gate where they had earlier watched the damaged Spitfire land.

  ‘We’d do better to stay here. We can take to the ditch if we need to. We’d only be in the way down there. God almighty, I’ve never seen so many! There must be hundreds of them!’

  The great formations of bombers droned inexorably on, while around them Spitfires and Hurricanes dived and harried and were in their turn driven off by the enemy bombers’ fighter escorts. The air vibrated with the thunder of their passage. But this, the girls came slowly to realize, was no repetition of previous attacks. This time there was no break in formation as bombers peeled off to pound Hawkinge and Manston while others powered on to Biggin Hill, Hornchurch and the others. As the armoured, threatening cloud roared overhead, obscuring the sun and sending flashing shadows across the hillsides, the same stunning thought occurred simultaneously to both the watching girls, the same instant. They looked at each other, aghast.

  The RAF had won a respite. Their damaged airfields were safe, for the moment at least.

  The target had changed.

  The bombers were heading for London.

  Chapter Twelve

  Celia Hinton walked with brisk energy through the busy Saturday afternoon streets, her heels clipping the warm pavements decisively, her neat, uniformed figure blending with the crowds – it was the occasional civilian suit or the pretty flash of a bright summer dress that stood out and attracted the eye. Despite the sandbagged doorways and wired and shuttered windows, the early September sunshine brightened the drab wartime streets, and Celia found herself humming beneath her breath as she walked. Shoulder bag swinging, one hand holding her peaked khaki forage cap onto her red head, she dodged across the road, edged her way across the crowded pavement and turned the corner into the board- and sandbag-protected doorway of Rampton Court.

  As she approached the block, she paused and looked up at the windows of Libby’s apartment. The windows were open to the warm air and even from here she could hear music. Celia smiled to herself. Knowing the decorously conservative – not to say positively stuffy – character of most of the other inhabitants of this respectable block she could not imagine that the swinging sound of an American dance band would fall upon appreciative ears. On the contrary, Celia had a strong suspicion that the capricious, company-loving Mrs Edward Maybury’s only saving grace in the eyes of her long-suffering neighbours was her uniformed husband who was serving his country somewhere in the threatened East. And even that was likely in some cases to produce caustically raised eyebrows and acid references to the young wife’s popularity with her husband’s friends and comrades-in-arms more conveniently stationed than him. Despite her smile, Celia did not like to see Libby the centre of such gossip – even though she knew Libby did not give a fig for the opinion of what she had nicknamed ‘the broomstick brigade’.

  Within the building, despite the sandbags, fire buckets and wired windows, an atmosphere of tranquillity and luxurious respectability still reigned. It would take more than Hitler to change that. As Celia ran lightly up the flight of wide marble steps towards Libby’s flat, the door opened to reveal two laughing young men in khaki, and Libby, lovely in a crisp dress of pink and white, her shining hair swinging to shoulder length. The dance band blared behind them, echoing up and down the stairwell.

  ‘…till Tuesday, then,’ Libby was saying, ‘and don’t forget to remind Jeff. You know what – Celia!’ she finished on a dramatic little shriek. ‘How lovely! I wasn’t expecting you – I thought you were on duty all this weekend?’

  ‘I swapped with Stanton. She wants next weekend. Some buddy of hers from the other side of the world has turned up. I thought I’d just drop by. Have I picked a bad moment?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, darling. How could it be?’

  The two young officers had turned, smiling. One of them looked vaguely familiar to Celia.

  ‘Celia Hinton, isn’t it?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  He extended a square, well-kept hand. ‘Charles Philips. We met at the Robinson place a couple of years back. Before you went to America. Remember?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ She took his hand, shook it briefly. ‘Forgive me – I didn’t recognize you in uniform.’ The well-mannered pleasantries over, she made to move past him.

  He grinned a little sheepishly, and did not step aside. ‘It’s the haircut that does it.’

  Celia smiled politely. ‘I expect so.’

  Still he did not move. ‘This is Lieutenant Bembridge. Mark Bembridge.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Celia made no attempt at warmth.

  ‘Hello.’

  There was an awkward pause. Celia said nothing.

  Charles Philips glanced at her uniform and gestured at her distinctive ‘French soldier’s’ cap. ‘You’re driving, then?’ he asked with dogged disregard for the politely pointed expression of dismissal on Celia’s face. ‘The Mechanized Transport Corps is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Celia was in France,’ put in Libby, with an eye to mischief.

  ‘Oh, really?’ There was real warmth and interest in the young man’s face.

  ‘Yes.’ Celia did not elaborate.

  ‘Were you caught in the collapse?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dunkirk?’

  ‘Bordeaux actually.’

  Over the young man’s shoulder, Libby’s face was solemn, her eyes graceless. ‘We’re very proud of her,’ she said soberly. ‘She’s quite a heroine.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Celia shook her head and smiled a little, her eyes, on Libby, exasperated and promising murder.

  Libby, enjoying herself, ignored the threat. ‘Valour under fire and all that…’

  This was too much. ‘Libby!’

  Libby subsided, grinning.

  ‘It must have been jolly exciting.’ There was a truly wistful note in Charles Philips’s voice.

  Celia let out a small and admirably restrained breath. ‘You could say that, I suppose.’

  ‘Damned sight better than wiping noses and—’ He remembered his company suddenly and stopped, flushing, and extemporized hastily and ruefully, ‘…making tea for the desk-bound wallahs at the War Office.’

  For the first time Celia’s smile was, if not exactly warm, at least a little sympathetic. But before he could take advantage of the slight thaw, she had moved determinedly past him to the door.

  ‘Well…’ He moved from foot to foot, then gave up and sketched a salute that fell unhappily between jauntiness and embarrassment. ‘We’d best be off. See you Tuesday, Libby. Perhaps we’ll bump into each other again?’ This to Celia.

  ‘Oh, almost certainly.’ It was Libby again, happily mischief-making. ‘Celia’s often here. Aren’t you, darling?’ Celia’s silence apparently affected her not at all. ‘’Bye now, you two. Take care.’

  From a safe position behind the door, while Libby cheerfully waved her guests down the stairs, Celia said, mildly, ‘I’ll murder you one of these days, you know that?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be a bore, darling. It was only a bit of fun.’ Libby shut the door and kissed her friend’s cheek warmly. ‘I absolutely refuse to believe that you find the whole of the
male sex as dull as you make out. Poor Lieutenant Philips was clearly stricken. I felt I just had to give the poor boy a hand. You weren’t giving him much encouragement, were you? Drink?’

  Celia tossed her hat and bag onto a chair. ‘The man’s an empty-headed nitwit from what I remember. What have you got?’

  ‘Whisky – gin – you name it.’

  ‘I don’t know how you do it, honestly I don’t. Don’t you know there’s a war on?’

  ‘I do my level best not to.’ It was the most sincere thing Libby had said all afternoon and they both knew it. ‘Whisky? Ice?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Libby poured two drinks, lit a cigarette from the box on the table and blew pale smoke into the air. ‘You were a bit harsh, weren’t you? To the poor little lieutenant?’

  Celia shrugged. ‘When a man puts on a uniform, you know, it doesn’t work a miracle on his brain. Far from it.’ Suddenly truly irritable, she dropped into a chair and sipped her drink. ‘If I don’t want to know a man when he’s in Civvy Street, I see no reason to change my opinion just because he’s taken the King’s shilling. Or half-a-crown, or whatever it is nowadays.’

  Libby held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘All right. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t sing your praises to the next man who makes sheep’s eyes at you. Though, frankly, I don’t think a bit of fun would do you any harm.’

  ‘Thanks. But no thanks. What were they doing here anyway?’

  ‘Charles was at school with Edward.’ Libby lifted her eyes to heaven. ‘Everyone was at school with Edward. They just dropped by to—’ she lifted her glass in a small, ironic toast ‘—pay their respects.’

  Celia, half-smiling, shook her head. ‘You’re impossible.’

  ‘The war’s impossible. The world’s impossible. Why should I be different?’

  ‘Have you heard from Edward recently?’

  ‘Mm-hm.’ Libby nodded an affirmative as she sipped her drink. ‘And if you ask me, he’s having the time of his life. Gin fizz on the verandah and all that with the little yellow people waving an ostrich-feather fan to keep the handsome young captain cool. I just hope that one of those bored, passionate, Somerset Maugham planters’ wives doesn’t get her rubbery talons into him…’

  ‘Libby, you really must be careful what you say. You aren’t supposed to know where Edward is, let alone—’

  ‘Oh, stuff and bloody nonsense! It’s not as if there’s even a proper war out there! For God’s sake, don’t you start. It’s bad enough with Allie and all this childish cloak and dagger stuff. It’s positively embarrassing, and I refuse to take it seriously. And,’ she added, with no change in her tone, ‘if you tell me again that there’s a war on, then you won’t get another drink all evening, and that’s a promise.’

  ‘That’s enough threat to shut anyone up.’

  They sipped their drinks in companionably irascible silence.

  ‘Have you been home recently?’ asked Celia at last.

  ‘Lord, no. Are you joking? With all those damned planes dropping out of the sky? No fear. I’m not getting machine-gunned for anyone, thank you.’

  ‘Has the village been badly hit?’

  Libby waved an airy hand. ‘Not so’s you’d notice. The odd Messerschmitt in the churchyard, a stick or two of bombs in the village street and a blazing Spitfire or two about the place, that’s all.’

  ‘Is – are your family all right?’ Celia was very intent upon the melting ice in her glass.

  ‘They’re fine. Daddy spends quite a bit of time away, making sure that our bits of the war effort are running smoothly. It’s a shame about the profits tax,’ Libby added, pensively. ‘I guess we’d have made quite a killing if it weren’t for that – all those bits of planes and guns and things we’re turning out…’ She ignored Celia’s exasperated glance. ‘Mother, of course, is working twenty-five hours a day with the WVS.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘Mother and Daddy must be the only people in the country mad enough actually to evacuate themselves into London! Mind you, as things turned out, it was quite a sensible move. The poor little evacuees that got moved into Ashdown got moved out again p.d.q, when the Luftwaffe took a hand. Have you been to the Kensington flat?’

  Celia shook her head, still not looking up.

  ‘It’s rather nice, actually. Older than this, but comfortable. Actually belongs to Uncle Bertie, but I think he’s decided he doesn’t need his pied à terre for the duration. He ran like a rabbit the day war was declared. Suddenly developed a hankering for the hills of Wales, bless him. Poor old Ashdown’s empty at the moment. Welshy’s gone to her sister in Scotland, so the house had been closed up since the London kids left. Do you know, Browning’s planted potatoes on the tennis court? And turned the rose gardens over to carrots and onions. The world’s really gone quite mad…’

  That lifted Celia’s eye. ‘Onions?’ She made no attempt to disguise her interest.

  Libby laughed. ‘See what I mean? There was a time when a bottle of whisky could buy you a friend for life. Now it’s onions. A pound of onions’ll buy you anything!’

  ‘Nothing tastes quite the same without them.’ Celia lifted her glass and studied the room through its golden depths. ‘What an epitaph for the fallen French. We miss their onions.’

  ‘Speak for yourself. It’s their champagne I miss. Mind you, I rather like the new import of Free French officers. Very dashing. All right, all right.’ She lifted a placatory hand as Celia glanced sharply at her. ‘I’m joking. I think. There’s a couple of pounds of onions in the kitchen – remind me to let you have them before you go.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. Mother’s dropping in tomorrow. She’s bound to bring some more.’ Libby sipped her drink. ‘You know, the WVS could have been invented especially with Mother in mind. She’s evacuating people and feeding people and lecturing people on everything under the sun as if she’d been doing it all her life. Which I suppose in a way she has. And never a hair out of place, bless her.’

  The ice in Celia’s glass chinked. ‘I like your mother.’

  ‘Oh, so do I. Enormously.’ There was the slightest edge to Libby’s voice. ‘I just wish that she wouldn’t keep trying to get me involved, that’s all—’

  ‘But, Libby, you are involved!’ It was an old, stale argument between them. ‘How can you not be?’

  ‘The war isn’t my fault, is it? The only German I know is Uncle Otto. And he’s the nicest old codger you could wish to meet. And look what we’ve done to him – he has to report to the police station every day or week or something to prove he isn’t a spy! I tell you, the whole thing is madness. Why should I suffer? They’ve taken Edward from me – isn’t that enough? Pardon me if I don’t turn red, white and blue and charge into battle.’ Libby’s colour was suddenly high. ‘It’s idiotic, and it’s boring and I will not talk about it.’ She made an undisguised effort to gather her shredded temper and smiled brightly. ‘Anyway, what with Mother organizing half of London, Allie fighting the Hun single-handed on the south coast and Richard navigating his wretched bomber, who needs me? Someone’s got to keep the flag of civilized hedonism flying. One day you’ll thank me, you mark my words. They’ll probably give me a medal.’

  Celia, defeated as always, subsided. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

  Libby lit another cigarette from the stub of the one she held before crushing the latter in the ashtray. ‘Of course I am. Thank God my baby sister never took up this revolting habit. I don’t know what I’d do without her ration. Have another drink.’

  Celia surrendered her half-empty glass.

  ‘How’s that rather odd flatmate of yours?’ Libby called from the other side of the room.

  The heartbeat of silence would have been noticeable only to an ear more sensitive than Libby’s. ‘Stanton? She’s fine. And she isn’t odd.’

  Libby grinned, coming back with the drinks. ‘She’s Australian, isn’t she? That’s odd enough for anyone.’

  ‘Chauvinist.�
��

  Libby shrugged, admitting the charge. ‘Honestly, though, Cele, you have to admit that she can be a bit hard to take. I mean, she’s got no sense of humour, no conversation, no,’ she spread her hands expressively, ‘no social graces.’

  ‘She’s a damn good driver.’

  ‘So are you. It doesn’t make you a bore.’

  Celia flushed. ‘Stanton saved my life in France—’

  ‘—and we’re all wonderfully grateful to her for that.’ With unstudied affection, Libby dropped a kiss on her friend’s cheek. ‘I just wish that she’d smile occasionally, that’s all. Or answer people when they speak to her. Now, that isn’t too much to ask, is it?’

  Celia did not reply. Beyond the open windows, the sun was slanting westward, drenching the air with golden light, sheening the clumsy bulk of the barrage balloons above the park until they glowed like fairies’ wings. Libby wandered to the window. ‘It’s a lovely evening. Come and see.’

  They stood together, looking out across the sunlit park at children who ran and played and shrieked as children always had. Couples, at least one of them invariably in uniform, strolled hand in hand or sat on the grass, absorbed in each other.

  ‘Oh, Celia. I do miss Edward so dreadfully.’ The quiet, desolate words hung like tears in the air between them, unexpected raindrops in the golden evening. Libby’s voice, which had been crystal bright a moment before, sounded suddenly like a lost child’s. Celia reached and rested a light arm across her shoulders.

  ‘I miss him,’ Libby said again on a caught breath.

  ‘He’ll be back.’

  ‘I know. But – what about now? What about the days, the hours, the minutes we’re missing now? We can never get them back. We don’t know what they’re doing to us…’

  ‘There’ll be other times.’

  ‘I know, but – oh, damn!’ The lifting wail of an air-raid siren echoed faintly across the city, then another, and another. In the park people paused for a moment, heads lifted, then turned back, and the scene continued unchanged. The clear sky was peaceful and unchallenged. ‘I wish they wouldn’t do that.’