It seemed typical – the bigger the mouth, the less the action.
“Could be a problem, Henry, having a new squadron on the field and sharing the mess with our lads.”
“Won’t be, Thomas. At least a half of them will be our sort – foreigners come into Britain as refugees or as volunteers. Some of the flyers were twin-engine men or ground-attack specialists in Spain and others flew light bombers in their own air forces. Got more Polish Jews, it seems, no longer welcome in their own force, and a number of Czechs who have got out ahead of the Germans. Various odds and sods as well – not quite as white as they might be but not too obviously black and well able to fly. Word is that Bomber Command has hundreds of them in their aircrew, though they ain’t saying too much about them – hell of a lot of lads nicknamed Snowy or Darkie or Curly, so it seems.”
Thomas had the typical Australian’s acceptance of the virtues of the white race, was a little surprised to hear such a thing.
“Out of the ordinary, Henry, but if the buggers can fly, nothing else counts.”
“So say I, Thomas, as long as they pay their way at the bar.”
“Quite right, too. What’s the progress on controllers, Henry?”
“They are coming. So’s Christmas, but hopefully the controllers will get here first.”
Thomas took a week’s leave in June, content that his Flight was more than competent. The Control system was working and might well be useful, he thought. His father had told him many times that the majority of his patrols had been a waste of time, for failing to find any opposition in the skies. If the controllers could ‘vector’ them onto trade, then they would have a far more effective system working for them.
Noah had contacted him and strongly suggested that he should be in Holt for the last week of June, without giving any specific reason, and he had taken the days off as ordered. It was too long away to keep the Anson to his own use and he motored up in the early hours of his first day, making use of the summer sun which rose before four o’clock.
He reached the Lodge in mid-morning, greeted with some delight by Grace.
“I was seventeen yesterday, Thomas, but we have delayed the celebrations until tomorrow. Father is due to fly in from Eastleigh at any time now in his official runabout. You can be part of the welcome now you are here in time.”
She wrapped an arm round his waist, believing that at seventeen, she was old enough for such public displays. Her mother showed no signs of objecting though her brother scowled. Her elder sister was not yet home, having completed her Final exams on the previous day and no doubt still very tired.
A biplane came in sight, a Moth, Thomas saw, but a variant new to him.
“The Luxury Moth, Thomas. Main difference is a far larger baggage compartment – which may well have been needed today.”
He was none the wiser until he saw that Noah was the pilot and had a passenger with him.
“Up from Eastleigh, you say, little lady? Nearest field to Southampton docks – and a familiar figure aboard!”
The Moth taxied across to the barn and the two climbed out, removing flying helmets, the passenger coming immediately across to Thomas, hand outstretched.
“Couldn’t keep away from the chance of another war, Father? You’re looking well!”
“As are you, my son.”
Tommy glanced at Grace, raised an eyebrow.
“Grace Arkwright, Noah’s youngest, and, shall we say, a very close friend of mine, Father, and hopefully to become more?”
“What an excellent idea, Thomas! You need someone to calm you down. I hear you did very well in Spain – a job that needed doing even if unsuccessful. Good experience for the next one. I am glad to meet you, my dear, and very happy to think I may see much more of you over the years.”
Tommy turned then to Lucy and to Tom.
“It’s good to be back. Might be a chance to do something useful again.”
Lucy took the cue.
“Do you intend to join again, Tommy?”
“If they will take me at my age.”
Noah grinned.
“I happened to raise the question last week, Tommy. Entirely theoretically, of course. Squadron leader, for the duration, is immediately available. Bomber Command will welcome you with open arms, as will Coastal Command. Fighter Command will take you as a controller, which is a flight lieutenant’s position, but not to fly. My advice would be Coastal Command – lots of big Sunderland flying boats to have fun with already, and they’ll be replacing all the Ansons at the soonest opportunity; looking at American four-engine jobs. Plenty of work along the Channel and they’ll probably wake up to the need for anti-submarine patrols before too long. Bowhill is taking them on – a very capable man and without too many axes to grind.”
“Not Bomber Command?”
“Harris is determined to bomb Germany. He’ll wipe out half the civilian population if he has his way. Very pious about economic warfare, destroying their industrial base, but to my mind it’s more about killing their workers. As for Army cooperation – forget it! He has better things to do with his bombers than support the brown jobs!”
“Always said it was a mistake to create the RAF, Noah. Should have remained as the Flying Corps, under Army command. Best use for aircraft is the way we showed at the end of ’18. Tanks and planes going in together to clear the way for the infantry to take the ground. We won the campaign in ’18 doing that.”
Noah agreed, pointing out that it was an unpopular point of view.
“Fighters make headlines, Tommy. Fighter-bombers are very proletarian – no headlines in them.”
They wandered inside, arguing loudly, Thomas following with a quiet grin.
“Never seen the Old Man so alive, little lady. Good for him, coming back to the RAF. Coastal Command will bring him back to life again.”
“Will he go there, do you think?”
“Of course – no way he’d refuse Noah’s advice.”
They lunched and dined and spent the afternoon and evening drinking a little too much and planning for the next few days.
“London in the morning, Tommy. Get you signed-up and all that and into Gieves for your uniforms. The Press boys will want us together in uniform on Monday – photographs and silly interviews – come back from Australia to your country’s call, all the normal bullshit. Bowhill will see you afterwards, organising postings. Coastal Command’s the Cinderella at the moment so he’ll want you to be visible, putting a known face up. He’ll have any number of suggestions for you. Will you come down to Town, Grace? The two Moths together to Hendon and pick up a car there. You too, obviously, Thomas. Go by air rather than train, do you agree, Lucy?”
His wife was restraining herself, visibly.
“Actually, I would like to come as well, Noah. We could do some shopping, Grace and Thomas and I, while you and Tommy deal with the Ministry and Gieves. Would you like to come, Tom?”
Tom thought he would quite like to join the party, if he would not be in the way.
“The six o’clock express out of Norwich, Noah?”
“An excellent idea, Lucy. I should have thought of it myself. We’ll forget taking the planes”
She did not make the obvious rejoinder. Tom said nothing more, crushed by the appearance of yet another hero in his own home, this one elderly in his eyes but making Tom feel even more insignificant than normal.
The trek to the station was a nuisance, Norfolk roads such that an hour had to be set aside for the short motor journey. Tommy naturally sat next to Noah in his front seat while Lucy and Tom occupied the spacious rear of the big Humber. Thomas and Grace followed behind in the Riley, the pairing now entirely normal to all of the family except Tom who definitely disapproved of his little sister having a man friend – he could not accept Thomas as anything more.
They filled a first-class compartment very conveniently, Noah attracting looks of approval in his much-decorated uniform.
“Be different down in London, Tommy. Up here
, it’s all for the fighting man but you get a few pacifists in Town – far fewer this year than last, though.”
“Pity. They’ve got the right idea. War is a bad thing – they’re right to oppose it until the last.”
Tom had not expected to hear those words.
“What should the pacifist do at the last, sir?”
“Accept defeat. Remember that we are thought to live in a democracy and go with the majority. Not to fight, necessarily – train in nursing or ambulance work is one possibility. Take up a useful occupation is another – farming or something akin. There are jobs that a brave and honest man can take on – become a fireman, there’s a job that will require guts when the bombs start falling. At the end of the war, the pacifist will be listened to if he can show that he spoke from courage, and he will be needed then if we are not to have a Parliament of bastards as we did in ’19!”
Lucy and Noah agreed; honest men would be needed after the war if the mistakes of the last peace were to be avoided.
A steward poked his head into the compartment and invited them to breakfast in the dining-car. They followed him and were fed and provided with coffee of a far better quality than most of London’s hotels would provide. They returned to their compartment in contented mood. Once in London the party split up, the older men to military business, the other four to Foyles first and then to Harrods, expecting to meet Tommy and Noah for a late lunch there.
In Foyles Bookstore they naturally drifted apart along the shelves. Thomas found himself next to Lucy, saw Grace to be at a distance.
“Would you object if I bought Grace a ring this morning, Lucy?”
“Not at all, Thomas. Noah and I both expected you to on this leave. Have you asked her yet?”
“No. Taken a lot for granted, really, Lucy. It has just seemed so obvious that we would marry, since about five minutes after I met her. Excuse me a minute while I remedy that lack.”
The staff of Foyles raised eyebrows at Grace’s enthusiastic acceptance of Thomas’ proposal – certain things were not done in the Aeronautical aisle, it seemed. Tom scowled in the background.
“Where do we go to buy a ring, Lucy?”
“Harrods or Rundell and Bridge – Harrods is as simple as any as we are going there in any case.”
“An engagement ring, sir? Certainly – in modern taste or a simple traditional diamond brilliant?”
Thomas had no suggestion; Grace wanted something very traditional, she did not like art deco and nouveau even less. They peered at the trays placed before them, the assistant – a man well into his forties - carefully selecting at a price appropriate to a lower ranking RAF officer.
“Perhaps something a little larger? I was thinking around the two thousand mark, perhaps?”
The assistant blinked, responded rapidly with larger trays with fewer rings upon them, each gleaming in the powerful lights around the counter. Grace’s eyes were drawn to a rock surrounded by smaller stones, set in red Welsh gold.
“That is closer to two thousand five hundred, sir.”
“No worries. What is the procedure for sizing the ring?”
“We have our own workshop, sir. If we may just measure madam’s finger… It will take some four days, sir. Our own carrier will deliver to your address. On Saturday, that will be.”
“Excellent, I shall still be on leave on Saturday. Flight Lieutenant Thomas Stark, care of Air Commodore Sir Noah Arkwright, the Lodge, Holt, Norfolk. My cheque, drawn on Barclays, Piccadilly branch.”
“Stark, sir, and Arkwright… The names are familiar, of course, sir.”
“My father, who has just returned from Australia and is joining again.”
“As one might expect, sir. One suspects his presence may be very welcome in the next years.”
They nodded and parted, Thomas to seek handkerchiefs in Tom’s company while mother and daughter headed determinedly towards female apparel.
“How they manage to wear all the clothes they buy is beyond me, Thomas!”
“It is outside the understanding of any mere man, Tom. Coffee?”
“Please. I don’t want to seem nosey, Thomas, but you are a bit cavalier with the money, are you not?”
“My father inherited heavily from a black sheep brother, a war profiteer. I don’t know the whole story, but my mother invested very wisely while he was at the Front and he has carried on in business since. He is at least ten times a millionaire now. I shall be splitting equally with my big sister, of course – she is the business brain of our generation. She will make more than the Old Man has managed. When I inherit my half, I shall put the bulk of our cash in her hands to look after for me. Very able woman, my sister!”
Tom was partly pleased for his sister to discover that she was marrying into millions; he was a little upset that he was to inherit a comparatively few thousands from his own father. The bulk of their money was in his mother’s name and was tied up in some way so it would fall to her daughters. He would have to work for his living, he knew.
“Should I go back to Oxford in September, Thomas? Ought I to join up instead?”
“Not if you are a true pacifist, Tom. Find a service of some sorts to join – or go into nursing. You could join the Royal Army Medical Corps, if you wished.”
It transpired that Tom was not quite so dedicated to pacifism as to wish to be known as a non-combatant.
“No. If I go in, it will be to fight. One of the special short courses at Sandhurst – I have looked them up. I could be with a battalion in three months. We had a Cadet Corps at school so I know the basics.”
“The griff is that there will be war within three months, Tom. Go soon, before you can be conscripted.”
It made sense to be a volunteer, to stand out from the unenthusiastic.
“You still seem doubtful, Thomas.”
“You are intelligent – out of place in the Army. Better to use your brain. Talk to your father, or mine… Thinking on it, do nothing for a day or two, Tom. I heard news last year of a wartime colleague of my father’s – an intelligence officer who is still in the trade. Strings exist to be pulled, Tom.”
The families reunited over lunch.
“You remember Nancy, Old Man?”
“Well. Have you heard of him then?”
“When I got in from Spain. The little man who talked to me was working for him. Big man in the trade – counter-espionage, I presume.”
Noah intervened to say that he could make contact if Tommy wished – he knew a man who knew several men in the trade.
That was the way such contacts were made, Thomas knew.
“Tom is thinking about becoming a subaltern. Waste of a brain – army officers ain’t in the business of thinking. Nancy’s occupation might suit him far better.”
“More of a life expectancy, too, Thomas. Good suggestion. Right, what shall we do this afternoon?”
Lucy suggested they might celebrate their daughter’s engagement. Noah thought that to be an excellent suggestion.
“She is old enough now to drive a car, Noah. I cannot understand why she could get a flying licence while she was too young to drive!”
“Ah, yes, well, in fact, you might say there’s a very slightly false age on her pilot’s licence, my dear. It was easier that way.”
“You are irresponsible, Noah Arkwright!”
“Yes, but I have kept bad company since I was a young man. It’s not my fault.”
She shook her head.
“What do you wish to drive, Grace?”
“An MG, please. Just a little one. A ‘T’.”
“We can find a garage now and put an order in. You will need to get a licence, of course. Put in for a test in Norwich tomorrow. I don’t know how long you would have to wait – no doubt they’ll tell you.”
Thomas was happy to play his part.
“I can drive you in tomorrow. We’ll buy learner plates in Norwich and you can drive back to Holt.”
Conversation turned to the RAF. Tommy announced that he
was in and would be posted to Sunderlands because of his multi-engine experience. He had come to like big planes since flying them so much in recent years.
“Don’t know where yet. Probably Calshot, down in Southampton Water, but it might be in Northern Ireland for the Atlantic patrols, unless I get stuck up in bloody Scapa Flow! Should be able to avoid that – far too obscure and distant. Funny in Gieves – they made a play of discovering my measurements from their records and then had to show a little embarrassed that I ain’t quite the same size and shape as I was twenty years ago!”
Tommy did not mention the entertainment offered as they sought out the correct medal ribbons for his Tsarist decoration. Gieves could supply everything and would not admit defeat. He did not doubt that the uniforms he picked up on Friday would be correct in every particular.
“Got to be here for fittings on Thursday and to discuss a few matters with Bowhill – something of a stern old gentleman, that one! Sixty, if he’s a day! I want to catch up with a few people as well, so I’ll come down on Wednesday and stay till Monday, Noah. See you then for the fun and games with the newspaper people. Probably get my posting then. Need to have a word with the bank, Thomas – do you want to come with me?”
They arranged to meet at Liverpool Street station for the early evening train to Norwich, the others to have the privilege of taking Grace to the nearest MG dealer.
“Bright little girl, your Grace, Thomas. Is she a good pilot?”
“Very. She could manage in a Hurricane, Old Man.”
“Thought so. She’s got the look about her eyes. Can always tell one of the good ones. What’s the Hurricane like?”
“Slow; old-fashioned now; under-gunned – bloody rifle-calibre machine guns! Turns hard, can match a 109 below five thousand feet. Solid gun-platform. She’ll do for bombers. Give her a bigger engine and she’d make a bloody good ground-attack machine. A mix of fifty-calibre machine guns and twenty mil cannon and a pair of two hundred and fifty pounders slung underneath – she’d play hell with tanks and their supporting troops. Good for bashing trains and lorry convoys as well.”
The Gathering Clouds (Innocent No More Series, Book 1) Page 13