A Fragile Peace

  ‘Poor man! Sue, you’re impossible! When are you going to settle down?’

  The laughter had gone from the blue eyes. ‘While this stinkin’ war’s on, never,’ she had said, flatly and unexpectedly. ‘We don’t all have your guts, you know, love.’

  ‘Guts?’

  ‘What else do you think it was that gave you those months with Buzz? I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing. The minute I feel my temperature rising I run a mile.’

  ‘You mean – you think you can actually stop yourself from – from loving someone? From –’ her own problem in mind, Allie had struggled for the right word, ‘well, from – wanting them?’

  ‘Of course you damn well can. Take my word for it.’ Sue had grinned mischievously. ‘You just have to work at it a bit. With a bit of help from a friend…’

  A plume of steam in the distance signalled the approach of the London train. People reached for luggage, moved to the edge of the platform expectantly. A slightly built young man in RAF uniform almost tripped over Allie’s feet, apologized with a smile. She smiled back, stood up, swung her battered bag onto her shoulder. He had reminded her – as everything lately seemed to remind her – not of Buzz, but of Tom Robinson. His face, enigmatic, mocking, infuriating, was as clear in her mind as if he had been sitting beside her. She wished she could subscribe to Sue’s belief that a violent attraction such as had so unexpectedly materialized from apparent antagonism that night in the flat could be easily dismissed. It’s easy enough, she found herself thinking now, to run away – as long as your desires turn up in a box, neatly ribboned and labelled, so you know what to run from…

  Libby, as blithely blind as ever she had been, had invited Squadron Leader Tom Robinson to dinner tonight.

  * * *

  He was, beneath a veneer of good manners, in the worst mood she had ever known him to be. Even Libby noticed it.

  ‘Really, Tom, you are being most terribly tiresome. We haven’t seen you for weeks, and here you are like a bear with a sore head! It isn’t very entertaining of you.’ Her voice was light but, as so often lately, there were lines of strain around her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Tom looked tired. And more: there was a kind of tension in him that bespoke an obstinately held control over intolerably stretched nerves. Allie picked at her unappetizing meal. The evening had turned out, if possible, to be even worse than she had expected. She had hardly been able to bring herself to look at him, while for his part it seemed to her that she might just as well not have been in the room.

  ‘So I should hope,’ Libby said, not in the least mollified. ‘I can’t offer you coffee, I’m afraid, and I strongly suspect that the brandy isn’t brandy, but it’s drinkable…’

  Tom stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t stay. I have to be back for a briefing tonight. There’s a truck coming through in half an hour. I’ve arranged a pick-up.’ He bent to kiss Libby’s cheek. ‘Thank you for the meal. I know how hard it is.’ The light eyes flicked to Allie. His face was impassive. ‘Good night.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  As the front door closed behind him, Libby pulled a face. ‘My God. The day the war gets to Tom Robinson we’re really in trouble.’

  Allie ran her finger round the rim of her empty water glass. ‘I don’t think it’s the war. It’s this squadron leader thing. He hates it. The responsibility.’

  ‘Could be.’ Her sister regarded her for a moment. ‘And what in hell’s name’s wrong with you?’ she enquired pleasantly. ‘You hardly said a word all evening.’

  ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘We’re all tired. Toss you for the washing up.’

  ‘With your double-headed penny?’

  ‘Of course. What else?’

  ‘Heads,’ Allie said.

  * * *

  A fortnight later, having survived all the hazards that the Germans had provided for her, Myra slipped on a flight of steps and broke her ankle. Predictably, she did not make a good patient, and equally predictably, since she absolutely refused to give up her own personal crusade against Hitler, both Allie and Libby found themselves, despite their own commitments, unceremoniously roped in to substitute for her. So it was that in a London cheered enormously by Allied victories in North Africa, Allie found herself serving tea, sorting clothes and handing out advice as if she had nothing else to do with her spare time – which, in fact, she had to admit was precisely the case. There was, however, one very great advantage to the situation; her mother’s car, because of her WVS work, was plentifully supplied with petrol, and on some occasions – when she was able by a slight stretching of credibility to combine her own work for Jordan Industries with deliveries, collections or other errands for the Voluntary Service – she experienced the almost forgotten luxury of driving along roads almost empty but for public-service vehicles and army convoys, instead of fighting for a seat on an overcrowded and uncomfortable train.

  One Sunday afternoon she was packing her small case for just such a trip when the telephone rang.

  ‘Hello, Pudding? Richard. Got a small favour to ask.’

  ‘Of course. What is it?’

  ‘Mother tells me you’re motoring down Tonbridge way later on this afternoon?’

  ‘That’s right. I’ve a meeting tomorrow.’

  ‘Do me a favour, love, and drop a couple of hangovers off at Biggin Hill on the way? We’ve had Tom and one of his mates up here for the weekend. They really hung one on last night – a bit fragile today. I thought – well, door to door’s one up on hitching a ride in a jeep.’

  ‘Well – I—’

  ‘Come on, Pud. Robbie’s got to be back by nine, and you must be going right past the place?’

  He was right. She could invent no reasonable excuse. She had not seen Tom in more than a month; the prudent half of her did not want to see him now. ‘Of course. Can they be ready in half an hour?’

  She heard the smile in her brother’s voice. ‘As ready as they’ll ever be.’

  Half an hour later, she saw what he meant. Tom, though as always impeccably neat and tidy, still somehow managed to look as if he had been up all night every night for a week, and his young friend, Flight Lieutenant Robbie Gower, winced each time he moved his tousled fair head.

  ‘Off you go.’ Celia, her hand as always lightly upon her husband’s arm, smiled at them both, cheerfully unsympathetic. ‘I’m sure Allie will avoid the potholes if you ask her very nicely.’ She looked well and happy, her red hair grown longer and softer, her smile ready. Allie, acknowledging the near-miracle she had worked upon Richard, no longer felt any resentment towards her. It seemed to her sometimes that the events, so long ago at peacetime Ashdown, that had come between them were part of another lifetime. She and Celia were, if not actually bosom friends, at least much more than the wary antagonists they had been a couple of years before.

  Robbie, two buttons of his uniform jacket undone and his tie slightly askew, brightened up considerably at the sight of Allie. ‘I say! Are you our chauffeur? Jolly sight better-looking than the old man’s, I must say –’ he blushed a little ‘– if you don’t mind my saying so?’ He looked a boy, fresh-faced and fair.

  She smiled. ‘I don’t mind. In you get.’

  With an eager agility that belied the fragile pallor of his fair skin and the bruises of over-indulgence beneath his eyes, he scrambled into the front passenger seat. Allie, her smile still commendably in place, looked at Tom. He was spruce and composed, and only his eyes and the line of his mouth betrayed him. She had not realized until that moment how very much she had wanted to see him.

  ‘You’re sure we aren’t taking you out of your way?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m going right past the door.’

  ‘You don’t have to go right to the camp – you can drop us off outside the village, if you’d prefer. Rob’s family have a cottage there – we use it when we’re off duty.’

  ‘Fine.’ She wat
ched him as he opened the back door of the little Austin and slid into the back seat, then turned to kiss Richard goodbye. He smiled at the soft touch of her lips. ‘Take care.’

  ‘I will.’

  Robbie, his state of health apparently miraculously improved by female company, talked almost non-stop. Boyish and ebullient, he told her his life history and that of his family, discussed flying tactics and the finer points of the Austin with about equal enthusiasm and demanded nothing but the odd, smiling word in return. Released from the necessity of real comment, even, unkindly perhaps, the necessity of listening, Allie studied Tom in the driving mirror. He sat very still, his head turned to the window, taking no part in the conversation, apparently absorbed in the panorama of London’s wrecked streets. After a while she saw his eyelids droop, his head loll, watched as he snapped awake, a spasm of irritation on his face. Three times it happened before, finally, he gave in, settled himself against the leather upholstery, and slept, the sharp-boned face relaxed at last.

  She waited a good ten minutes before asking, quietly and abruptly, ‘You know Tom well?’

  Robbie, caught almost in mid-sentence, looked a little surprised. ‘Pretty well, yes.’

  ‘You’re in his squadron?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You’re just – friends?’

  His boy’s face lit. ‘I should say so. You know – I reckon Tom to be the finest flyer I’ve ever known. Or ever likely to for that matter.’

  ‘You know the men of his squadron?’ She knew it was unforgivable to quiz him so; knew it and did not care.

  ‘Most of them, yes.’

  ‘Do they find him as – easy to get along with, would you say?’ She kept her voice light.

  He paused, caught. ‘I – er—’

  ‘Most of them call me the “Flying Razor Blade”. Behind my back, of course.’ The voice from the back seat was mild. ‘Does that answer your question?’

  She felt the warmth of embarrassment rise in her face. She did not answer, concentrated on the road ahead. Robbie cleared his throat and held his tongue for a full three minutes before starting again. When Allie brought herself to glance in the mirror, Tom, apparently, was fast asleep once more.

  It was gone seven o’clock and they were nearing their destination when they found themselves tailing an army convoy. Ten frustrating minutes later, with no warning, two Junkers found them.

  The first Allie knew of the attack was the quick lift of Tom’s head, his hand hard on her shoulder. ‘Stop the car!’

  A second after he had detected it, she too heard the high-pitched scream of a dive-bombing plane.

  ‘Into the ditch!’

  She flung open the car door and took a flying leap into the ditch by the side of the road. From the camouflaged lorries and trucks uniformed men tumbled, swearing and shouting, diving for cover. Someone yelled unintelligible orders. A machine-gun ripped, tearing the air, and the wild shock waves of an explosion laid Allie bruisingly flat as the enemy aircraft roared overhead, low enough for the pilot to be seen clearly in his perspex cockpit. Bullets ricocheted, screaming.

  ‘Keep down!’ Tom yelled in her ear, entirely unnecessarily, and laid an arm like a steel bar across her shoulders.

  The crack of rifle fire echoed up and down the country road.

  ‘Look out! ’Ere comes the other bugger!’

  Allie felt the pressure of Tom’s arm ease as he lifted his head to look for the threat.

  ‘Get yer ’ead down, Brylcreme, or it’ll get shot off,’ said a voice, not without some grim enjoyment. It was a byword in the other services that flyers hated to be on the receiving end of an air attack.

  Allie, from the corner of her eye, saw Tom’s quick grin, then he was on top of her, his body shielding hers as the second raider howled in, spitting death. Somewhere not far away someone screamed horribly. Unable to move, her cheek pressed painfully into the coarse grass and stony mud in the bottom of the ditch, she squeezed her eyes shut.

  Another explosion, and another. Someone was swearing, very inventively, in a steady monotone. Orders were shouted, there were more rifle shots, and again the bedlam of a machine-gun. Her face hurt badly and she could hardly breathe. She found herself thinking that, for a man as slight as he was, Tom seemed to weigh a ton. As slight as he was; in her mind’s eye she saw suddenly the breadth and length of his exposed back. Oh God – please God – she struggled to free herself.

  ‘Keep still, dammit!’

  Another run and it was over. ‘The Seventh Cavalry’s arrived,’ commented a soldier, laconically, one sardonic eye on Tom’s uniform, ‘an’ not before time, as per.’

  The Junkers had lifted and turned, pursued by a small formation of Hurricanes. As they watched, in the distance the little fighters overhauled their slower prey and streaked into the attack. Tom meticulously brushed himself down. Allie, not to be outdone in coolness, glanced down ready to do the same.

  ‘Lord!’ she said, appalled. Her pale green dress was filthy, her stockings torn, and one shoe was gone.

  A little way along the road, brusque orders were given and a sagging, bloody bundle was lifted from the ditch. The lane was cratered in both directions. Figures rose sheepishly from the hedge-sheltered ditches on either side of the road. Allie watched in awful fascination a blood-soaked apparition that rose and staggered just yards from her. ‘Bastards!’ it said. ‘Bastards! Bastards!’ She turned away.

  ‘Back in the car,’ Tom said gently, proffering her missing shoe. ‘The army’s got everything under control. We’re just in the way.’

  ‘Pretty decent bit of flying that.’ Robbie was leaning against the Austin’s bonnet. He looked very pale indeed; Allie wondered if he had been sick. ‘Our boys got one of them though, did you see?’

  ‘Excuse me, miss.’ Allie turned to find a young army officer at her elbow. ‘Are you all right?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, thank you.’ She was astonished at the normality of her voice.

  ‘How long before we can move on, Captain?’

  The young man turned at Tom’s question, shrugged. ‘Half an hour or so, I’d guess. Give or take a few minutes. We’ve some holes to fill in first.’

  It was, in the event, closer to an hour and a half. Robbie, now recovered, fumed.

  ‘Don’t be daft, man.’ Tom, apparently relaxed, leaned back, his eyes closed. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it.’

  ‘Damn it – I’m due back at nine. I could have bloody walked it in the time—’

  ‘This way, miss.’ A lanky private had appeared by the driver’s window. ‘We’ve patched it up OK. Captain says, would you like to go ahead?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Allie nosed the little car past the camouflaged lorries, aware of the interested stares of their occupants. ‘I’ll drop you at the gates of the camp if you like,’ she said, soothingly, to Robbie, who sat bolt upright beside her. ‘We’ll get you there in time, don’t worry.’

  ‘That’d be jolly decent of you. Thanks.’

  She dropped him at the gate. ‘Where to now?’

  Tom had moved into the vacated front seat. ‘Well, I was going to offer to walk from here – the cottage isn’t far – but I’d guess that you’d like to tidy yourself up and perhaps change before you go on?’

  ‘I would, rather.’

  ‘Straight ahead, then, and the lane on the left. The cottage is about a mile on.’

  They drove in silence until, on Tom’s instructions, she pulled up outside a small house set back behind a high hedge. The June evening had cooled considerably, though thanks to the government’s manipulation of the clocks, the sun had not yet set. A light, chill breeze whispered through the stirring, shaded woodland on the rise of land beyond the cottage. Tom let them both in, pointed her in the direction of a latched door, handed her her small suitcase. ‘Bedroom’s in there. There’s a small sink. I think you’ll find everything you need. I can offer you NAAFI beer or burnt acorn coffee. Any preference?’

  ‘The coffee, please.�
�

  He grinned. ‘You may live to regret that. Ready in five minutes.’

  Which was more than she was. Finally, in despair, she gave up the unequal struggle with a face that still bore unmistakable signs of its unexpected confrontation with a ditch bottom, and joined him in the small sitting room that overlooked the garden. It was shadowed and dappled with late-evening sunshine. Tom had taken off his jacket, loosened his tie and shirt collar and was sitting in a deep, comfortable armchair, a glass of beer in one hand, the other perfectly still on the arm of his chair. She stood for a moment watching the profile that was etched sharply against the dying light. Sensing her presence, he turned and, ignoring her quick gesture of protest, stood up politely. She moved to the chair opposite his and sat down, her scratched cheek turned away from him. Self-consciously she smoothed the material of her skirt, cursing the necessity of travelling with only one pair of stockings. Her businesslike white shirt and plain dark skirt – intended for wear at the meeting the next day – felt both unflattering and out of place. He sat down again, smiling.

  ‘Your coffee…’

  She sipped, and almost choked. He laughed aloud. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you. God only knows where Robbie found it. It’s foul. Here –’ he held out a glass ‘– the beer’s marginally better.’

  It was. She sipped it, thankfully.

  ‘Face hurt much?’

  She shrugged. ‘A bit.’

  He watched her, smiling, then unexpectedly lifted his glass to her. ‘Congratulations.’ His voice was quiet.

  ‘On?’

  ‘Bravery under fire.’

  ‘I was scared stiff actually,’ she said honestly. ‘I just didn’t have time to show it.’

  ‘I guess many a hero’s said the same.’