The Gathering Clouds (Innocent No More Series, Book 1)

by Andrew Wareham

The tailor noted him to be rich.

  Two hours later he had written a cheque for one hundred pounds, to establish his account, and was waiting in a cab while the young man loaded a number of bags and boxes aboard. The driver told the youth to get a move on – he was causing his betters inconvenience. The cabbie made it clear that he was one of those being inconvenienced.

  “Dorchester, guv?”

  “Please, mate.”

  “I’ll kick a porter when we get there, guv.”

  The taxi pottered off and came to an almost immediate crawl in the heavy traffic.

  “What do you reckon about a war, guv?”

  “Bound to come. Too late to avoid it now. Good idea to settle Hitler’s hash for him.”

  “Right you are, guv. We ought to ‘ave done the job proper in ’18. Got Jerry on the run and let ‘im off with the Armistice. Ought to have bashed ‘im back over the Rhine and done the job right. Bloody politicians let us down!”

  “That’s what politicians exist for, mate!”

  “Yeah, too bloody right, like you Aussies say.”

  They pulled up outside the hotel and the driver whistled to a pair of porters.

  “One and a crack, guv. Eighteen pence, to you.”

  “Half a crown, driver.”

  “Thanks, guv. Don’t get killed when the war comes!”

  It was midday already, Thomas noted – two full hours lost to the tailor. He went upstairs to change, came back in a more acceptable suit, decided to take a lunch while he was in the building.

  “Note from Air Commodore Arkwright’s office, sir.”

  Noah invited himself to dinner for seven o’clock if convenient. His wife was in London for a few days and would join them.

  Thomas took paper and pen and wrote a brief confirmation of his pleasure to see the pair again, gave it to the desk to send off by one of their pages.

  He sat down to a light luncheon, a bowl of soup accompanied by fresh bread and followed by coffee, of a better quality than room service’s offerings.

  London was unknown territory to him. He enquired of a bookshop and was put in a cab to Foyles where he spent two much happier hours and came out with books he wanted to read as well as one he was told he should become familiar with.

  Brave New World was apparently essential reading for every thinking man; Thomas doubted that included him but could not refuse the earnest young lady at the tills.

  “You have a range of left-wing books - are you a Socialist, sir?”

  “No. I’ve just come back from Spain. I saw too much of Socialists there – they don’t make good company when you’re trying to a fight a war. Better than the Fascists, as goes without saying, but I don’t think I’d give you tuppence for any sort of ‘ist’. To my mind we need fewer believers and more thinkers in the world, miss.”

  “Were you International Brigade, sir?”

  The hero worship was waiting to leap out at him.

  “No. I was a pilot, mainly flying against the Italians, which is why I came back, I expect. The German Air Force flew better planes.”

  “Will you join the RAF to fight them again?”

  “If they will take me. I may have to go back to Australia to join up there. We’ll be fighting the Japs soon enough, so it won’t be a bad idea.”

  “I am sure you will do well, whichever you fight for, sir. Come back and see us in uniform, if you can!”

  He smiled and disengaged. She was five years his senior and not his type, although she would have made a very easy conquest. Not his habit, chasing after casual contacts who probably could not look after themselves. He preferred wide-awake and mature women, of his age or older or a little younger - age was not so important, but the naïve were not fair game.

  A taxi again, with a silent driver, which was a pleasant change, and then a couple of hours before he dressed for dinner, white tie an essential if he was to meet a senior officer and his lady in public. The coat fit well enough – it was as good as he cared about in clothing.

  Rather to his surprise, Noah was in uniform, his ribbons a massive block on his breast, led by the scarlet of the VC. He had thought it to be the case that officers showed themselves in civilian dress in peacetime.

  “Thomas, how are you? You remember Lucy, of course.”

  “Of course, sir, my lady.”

  “Yes, they gave me the knighthood last year, Thomas. How is your father?”

  “Not seen him for nearly two years, sir, but I think he is well. His last letter told me to watch out for the Hun in the sun.”

  “A twelvemonth, perhaps, before we’ll all be doing that, Thomas. We have been ordered to show the flag in public, to wear our uniforms. All officers to set an example of service, don’t you know. They don’t bloody well change, any of the politicians. You’ve been in Spain, I gather. Flew out just yesterday?”

  “Pinched a DC2 and came out in the middle of the night from Barcelona with some other pilots and their girls and a few odd foreigners.”

  “Americans, I gather. If they’re interested, it may be possible to work a flanker, Thomas, and get them aboard.”

  “Me, too, sir? I want to stay in England and fly here – it’s where the action will start. Thing is though, sir, if I go back to Australia, I can be in as a Flying Officer and make Flight Lieutenant within a few days.”

  Noah smiled beatifically.

  “Can’t get you in as an officer, Thomas.”

  They waited as their orders were taken.

  “Don’t go for the steak, sir. Ancient horse and overdone!”

  The waiter said nothing to such provocation. The sommelier scowled.

  Ten minutes and conversation resumed.

  “Not as an officer, sir? You do not seem terribly upset by that fact.”

  “No. The rule is inflexible – all officers must enter Cranwell as cadets and learn to fly there and be assessed for their suitability as fighter or bomber or transport pilots. That done, they are made Flying Officers. If they are not fliers, they go to ground staff as Pilot Officers. One of our more logical sets of titles. How may hours have you got in, Thomas?”

  “Single engine - biplane and monoplane together - about five thousand, sir. Multi-engine, must be in excess of two thousand, and that includes a few hours on a big flying-boat.”

  “Cranwell would not be ideal for you. I think you might be too exciting for a Moth.”

  Soup arrived, boringly.

  “So, sir?”

  “So you are given entry as a sergeant pilot, having spent a day at Hendon and shown that you can fly. The formality completed, you are commissioned from the ranks as Pilot Officer and made acting-Flight Lieutenant. Posted to a squadron, six months should see you confirmed in the rank and acting as a squadron leader. Fighters, for you?”

  “Yes, please, sir. I had a Super Mosca - the Fascists called them Ratas - for my last two hundred hours. I flew a Chato before that. Took down six Italians with the little Mosca, and a Me 109. Well gunned, of course. Two machine guns on the cowling but a pair of twenty mil cannon in the wings that actually did the work.”

  “Well done. A dozen all told, they tell me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. We can get them confirmed – Spain’s on our doorstep and we know just about everything that’s happening there. Do you no harm at all to arrive in a squadron with a dozen confirmed kills on your papers. The same for the Americans, if they want to come in.”

  “Some of them have got more than me, sir, and they won’t take well to amateurs who have never flown to war telling them how to do the job. I understand that the RAF gives some very good air shows, sir.”

  Noah could hear his own words of twenty years previously. He winced as he agreed.

  “The theorists are having a field day, Thomas. They say the only way to shoot down modern bombers is to mass the squadron, all firing together at four hundred yards, to the command of the squadron leader.”

  “For your second joke, sir?”

  Lucy coughed a
nd tried not to laugh.

  “What is your opinion, Thomas?”

  “Do like the Germans do, sir. Flights of four in loose finger formation, closing to fifty yards to open fire, aiming short bursts into the cockpit, pulling out at twenty feet. You still use popguns in the RAF, do you not, sir?”

  “Rifle calibre machine guns, eight of them to the Hurricane and Spitfire. Four for the Gladiator and the Defiant.”

  “Waste of time, sir. Two twenty mil cannon, though four would be better. If not, six of fifty calibre machine guns. Better still would be a pair of thirty-seven or forty mil cannon. Trigger them to fire in bursts of eight rounds. Metal-bodied planes are almost untouchable with thirty calibre guns.”

  Noah nodded.

  “I’ve said that, more than once. There’s a committee considering the question. It meets for an hour once a fortnight. Enough of shop talk! What are you planning to do for the next couple of weeks? It will take a fortnight to get things set up for you.”

  Thomas swallowed his mouthful of a reasonably well-cooked Beef Wellington and said that he had hardly made any plans.

  “I ought to go down to Hampshire, to the Moncurs, I think, sir. I believe my grandmother is still alive.”

  Lucy agreed that she was, but not in the best of health.

  “Her memory’s gone, poor soul! She talks to your mother, often. And to her son, who died in ’15. She ignores her remaining daughter. It might be as well for you not to disturb her.”

  “I’ll take your advice, ma’am. My sister was thinking of coming across to England for a couple of months. Not a great deal of point to doing so now.”

  “Very little, not with a war in the offing. How is she?”

  “Well, I would imagine. I gather from my father’s letter that she is running one of the airlines, possibly both. I know she was busy setting up a small-arms factory down Newcastle way in New South Wales. It will be on top line by now, and turning out a profit, I’ll bet. She has my mother’s drive and intelligence and the Old Man’s charm – she does well in business. More than that, I don’t know. She wanted to run the firms, while I was into flying and we drifted apart. I don’t know about a man – it would need be one hell of a bloke to stand at her side.”

  Lucy laughed, said she must send her a letter one day.

  “What of Tommy, Thomas?”

  “Still lost, ma’am. He’s young enough still to start a second family – I wish he would. I don’t think he’s so much as looked at a woman since mother died. Kind; courteous; trying his very best to be a good father – I could not ask for a finer parent. One day, I hope, he might come alive again, but I doubt it. He’s done well in business, because he thought he owed it to Monkey to be a success.”

  She was close to tears.

  “The war had ended and he wanted to go home, and there was suddenly no home to go to. Another broken man. There are so many!”

  The world was full of them, Thomas agreed. The Great War was still taking its casualties.

  “What of your family, ma’am?”

  “Our daughter, Lucinda, is a little younger than you and has not a care in the world; she is studying medicine and will succeed, because she does not fail in anything. She may make a good doctor, but I fear she will be too overbearing, knowing far better than her patients. Tom is in his second year at Oxford. What he will do with himself afterwards is beyond me. In fact, he will go to war, as he must, which may well shake him up. Grace is sixteen and very grave and serious-minded. She flies, by the way, the only one of them to do so. My sister lives in the South of France – the touch of gas she picked up in the war makes a warm climate easier for her. She has, I believe, worked her way through three husbands now, each richer than the one before; there are a couple of children, but I have never seen them. They are French.”

  “And worse than that one cannot say, ma’am!”

  “Precisely, Thomas!”

  Conversation was interrupted by the waiter.

  “Where were we? Family, that’s it. My surviving brothers survive; Noah’s brother does not – he fell under a train ten years ago. He was wounded and the arm never healed properly and he had operation after operation and we think he finally gave up. So many have.”

  “Truly a lost generation, ma’am. One sees much the same in Australia. My father is still in contact with his Australian friends. Blue is involved with the airways and Drongo has become a politician – naturally enough, it seems.”

  They retired to the lounge and talked for another hour. Thomas saw a dozen or more of officers in uniform passing through, all Army; he noticed them to spot the medal ribbons on Noah’s chest and stiffen in response. There was much to be said for a Cross, it seemed.

  “There will be a letter in ten or so days from now, Thomas. It will instruct you to report to Hendon, taking logbooks with you. You will be there for a whole day, two if rain interferes with flying. Are you familiar with the Tiger Moth?”

  “Owned a Gypsy Moth for a couple of years, sir. They are similar, I think.”

  “You won’t have flown a Gladiator – they’ll probably try you in that as well.”

  “I flew the Polikarpov biplane, the Chato, for a few months in Spain. No use against the German fighters but I managed to annoy some Italians in it.”

  “Good enough – they are not dissimilar. What of the Maggie?”

  “The Magister? No, but the Moscas are low wing monoplanes. They should do.”

  “So they ought. Don’t be too cocky, but don’t let the instructors tread on you!”

  Easily said, but it might be difficult, Thomas thought. All he had heard of the military said that NCO instructors tended to be arrogant and ignorant – they knew what they knew and nothing else at all. They were intolerant of those who came from outside their sphere of knowledge.

  A week as a tourist – he had never seen London and found parts of it interesting. He enjoyed the Tower – to an Australian, which was how he thought of himself, there was a lot to be said for a thousand years of history. He patronised the theatre, and was bored – he was not, he suspected, high-brow in his entertainments.

  There was dancing at the Dorchester on most evenings. He avoided it. It would have been possible to make any number of casual acquaintances, but he had no desire to do so. The fashionable youth of London seemed very youthful and he felt rather old. It was amusing to watch the passage of the butterflies through the lounge, with their loud chatter and frenetic laughter, all desiring nothing more than to show that they were having a jolly good time. He wished them luck.

  He sat over a very few beers and tried to make sense of Spain - and could not do so. The fighting had been ferocious and futile, further impoverishing a backward country and achieving nothing for the Spanish themselves. He endeavoured as well to discover what the experience had done to him and did not much like the conclusions he came to. A brash youth when he had entered the war, full of enthusiasm for life, and now he really did not care too much whether he lived or died and was concerned even less for other people. The Fascism of Germany and Italy had to be stopped, by the gun because they would heed nothing else. He could find no love for the so-called democracies, but he despised the totalitarian states. He was not at all sure he liked the hard, unforgiving man he had become.

  On the fourteenth day since landing in England, a Monday, he presented himself at Hendon as instructed in the letter hand-delivered on the previous Friday. He had his logbooks with him and nothing else; the letter had said the RAF would provide him with full flying gear.

  It was a bright, sunny but cold morning, ideal for flying.

  His taxi dropped him off at the gatehouse where a sergeant signed him in.

  “Mr Thomas Stark, to see Flight Lieutenant Cripps for 0900 hours, sir. Please follow the aircraftman, sir.”

  The depot was busy – classes of trainees parading to start their days and gangs of workmen constructing barracks, classrooms and offices – all the signs of a belated expansion of the RAF. Mr Cripps occupied a
n office in a rundown brick block a hundred yards from the gatehouse, cold and noisy, its windows looking out towards the hangars. Cripps himself was an old man, long in the force, promoted from sergeant a couple of years before. He had joined in 1914 and had seen everything from the desks he had manned over the years.

  “Mr Thomas Stark. Good morning to you, sir. First things first, sir. There are sets of overalls and boots in the corner, organised by size. Get yourself dressed, sir. If you go to a squadron you will get the full sergeant’s uniforms, of course, and your Sidcot flying suit. For today, overalls, badges of rank all removed. Of obvious origin, sir. Their original owners do not need them any more. We still get a few accidents in training.”

  He had to roll the trousers’ legs up, his chest being excessive, or his legs too short, depending on the point of view. He found boots to his size.

  “As long as you don’t go on parade, sir, it won’t be noticed. Procedure, sir. I shall lead you to see Sergeant Green, who is an instructor. He will take you up in dual control machines, sir. He has instructions to give you a free hand to fly the aircraft. I would like you to sign these forms, sir.”

  The printed sheets released the RAF from any responsibility for any accident or happenstance that might befall him during the day.

  “Have you your logbooks, sir?”

  Thomas handed over the leather attaché case. Cripps glanced at the cover of the oldest, raised an eyebrow at the round schoolboy hand that had penned the name on the cover.

  “1928, sir?”

  “Just before my eleventh birthday. My father thought lessons would be a good present.”

  “I must take totals from these books, sir. I might have a busy day!”

  “I was a very good little boy, Mr Cripps. Inside back page has a total of hours for each make. They don’t all cover a full year - I ran out of space and had to start new in some cases.”

  “I shall make up the figures for an official logbook, Mr Stark – if such needs be issued to you. Let me take you down to the hangar.”

  Sergeant Green was not pleased to have to shepherd a civilian for the day. His previous course had finished in the preceding week and he had expected to take leave for a fortnight. He did not approve of the interference with his plans. As a senior man with twelve years in, he expected his own wishes to be considered by his officers.