“I’m afraid Henry Hall got the chop on a Circus two days ago, James.”
“Oh, God! sir. I’m sorry. I’ll come straight back. Tiny Ross will need a hand... or have we got a new C.O., sir?”
“That’s the point, James. Ross has been promoted and posted to command... I won’t mention the squadron number on an open line. He can’t leave until you get back. Air Ministry have promoted you as well, with effect from tomorrow. You’ve got the squadron. Congratulations.”
For a moment James was benumbed.
“Th-thank you, sir. I’ll come back at once.”
“No need for that. But I’d be glad to see you here for a drink at around six-o’clock.”
“Yes, sir. And, by the way, my father sends his regards.”
There was silence. When Runcey spoke there was a distinct note of pleasure in his voice.
“Not Stephen Fenton, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good God! He was my flight commander... took me on my first patrol over the Boche lines... what a pleasant surprise. He’s not there, is he?”
“I’m afraid he’s at office, sir.”
“Well, by God, this is amazing. Give him my regards, will you, and tell him I’ll give him a call this evening. And James... I’m damn pleased you’ve got your scraper ring and the squadron.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll see you in the mess at six.”
And how is Mummy going to take the news that we’ve lost two squadron commanders in ten days? And what will it do to Nicole?
Twenty-four hours later he was taking off at the head of his squadron to follow Tug Wilson, with the two other Dallingfield squadrons in company, on a wing sweep over France.
SIX
Roger had to report to a hospital in Southampton to have the plaster taken off his leg. He found he could hobble fairly well with the aid of a stick. A local R.A.F. medical board gave him a further week’s leave and prescribed physiotherapy and remedial exercises. He was able to drive his car and petrol coupons were forthcoming for the daily journeys.
His mind was as much on the visit he planned to Sister Agnes Yerby as on the result of his next medical examination. When he was passed fit he was given a final seven days’ leave to exercise his leg by walking, and told to report to the R.A.F. Medical Centre in London. He telephoned Agnes, whom he had called twice during his spell at home.
“Well, Roger, and how’s the leg now?”
“Almost as good as new. I was thinking of breaking my journey in Kings Lynn on my way to my new posting. Are you free on Thursday evening?”
“I can arrange to be.”
“Then shall I call for you at about six?”
“I’ll look forward to it. D’you want me to book you a room?”
“I thought of ringing the mess secretary at Bircham to see if I can scrounge a room for the night.”
Her deep, rather hoarse chuckle reached him down the line.
“Oh, I don’t think I’d do that, my dear. I think you’ll find it much pleasanter at The Greyhound. I’ll book it for you. And don’t bother to pick me up. I’ll meet you there: at seven.”
When he left London his leg felt perfectly at ease. There had been no discomfort after the drive from Southampton. He set off for Kings Lynn feeling as though he were about to start a holiday, rather than end one. He knew that he had Agnes Yerby to thank for this state of well-being. Had the word been in circulation outside the medical and psychiatric professions in 1941, he would have recognised it as euphoria.
There was an enhanced euphoric anticipation at the thought that he would be flying again in a day or two. It was a fine spring day and he recalled his long drive from Southampton to Baxton to join his squadron on the day before Britain declared war. That brought Ginger Pike - and Jorkins - to mind, but not even his sorrow at what had befallen them could dampen his mood.
When he signed the visitors’ book at The Greyhound his hand nearly froze. The entry immediately before his read “Miss Agnes Yerby.” He noticed that she was in room No 6. The landlord’s wife handed him his key with a smile. “You’re in Number Seven, Flying Officer Hallowes.”
His astonishment soon changed to a whirling expectancy. He paused outside her door, tempted to knock, to say he had arrived already and they could meet in five minutes if she wished. When he went into his room he saw that there was a communicating door. He stood near it for a moment and thought he could hear her moving about. He felt a tingling down his spine, his leg was as if it had never been wounded, tomorrow or the next day he would be at the controls of an aeroplane again. Life was wonderful.
At a quarter to seven he was in the residents’ lounge with a whisky - residents received certain favours - pretending to read an evening paper. Punctually at seven-o’clock she joined him.
She took both his hands and kissed him on the mouth. If she had attracted him in uniform, she put his mind in turmoil in her smart frock, sheer silk stockings and high-heeled patent leather court shoes. He had never seen her wearing lipstick before, or with her nails enamelled to match it.
“You look beautiful, Agnes.”
He had never called her that before, either. Had only discovered her name a few days before leaving hospital.
“Well, don’t look so surprised, Roger. You look very handsome. You’ve put back the weight you lost. It suits you.”
He felt rather gauche. All he wanted to do was to goggle at her. Well, not quite all... he wanted to get his hands on her, too... and not only his hands.
“Tell me about your leave. Have you been crutching after all the girls?”
“Couldn’t move fast enough, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sure you didn’t need to. I’m sure they came flocking round you: a handsome young pilot with two decorations.”
“I’ve hardly spoken to a girl, actually.”
“I didn’t have speaking much in mind.”
“I’ve had a very quiet time.”
“Then you’ll have lots of energy, Roger.” Her hand slid along his thigh under the table and he felt his gorge rise; not only his gorge.
She drank her whisky quickly and he rose - with some stiffness that had nothing to do with his leg – to fetch two more.
“Would you like to go to a flick, Agnes?”
She studied him closely with a faintly mocking smile.
“I don’t think so, thank you. Let’s take our time over dinner. There’s dancing here on Thursdays, in a room at the side of the pub. If you feel energetic, we could look in.”
“I’m easy.”
She smiled. “I hope you mean that literally.”
The whiskies were the usual miserly optic measures and the landlord, eyeing Roger’s medal ribbons, made no demur when he diffidently asked for two more. “Make ‘em doubles, if you like, sir, seeing as it’s you.”
“Well,” exclaimed Agnes, “are you trying to make me drunk before you have your wicked way with me, young man?”
Roger wished she wouldn’t preface everything with “Well” and he wished she wouldn’t make any reference to the disparity in their ages. What, he asked himself, prompted by the whisky, was ten years between friends?
At dinner, with a wicked gleam in her eye, she asked “Have you heard at all from... what was her name... Corporal...?”
“Daphne Palmer. No.” He was curt. He had not mentioned the letter he had received from Daphne while in hospital. It was no business of hers.
“I’m surprised.” The wicked look was undimmed.
Roger had had a few words with the landlord about his cellar, from which a respectable bottle of Château Gloria St. Julien appeared.
“You know about wines.” Agnes looked a trifle surprised and much impressed.
“It’s only a Cru Bourgeois, but even that is saying quite a lot for a Medoc.”
“I’m sure it is,” she murmured, looking at him with the air of a farmer assessing a stock bull.
After dinner there was Armagnac, again prised from the store cupboard in
recognition of Roger’s emblems of gallantry.
Agnes was amused. “If you’d come in here with your leg still in plaster, the meal would have been on the house.”
They went into the dance where a sweating eight-man band was pounding out “Stardust”, and tried to find enough room to move. The floor was packed and they were jostled on all sides. The band moved on to “These Foolish Things” and the only pleasure Roger derived from the whole experiment was holding Agnes. She was pliant and sinuous, her abdomen was in such close contact with his that he was reminded of the definition of dancing as a navel engagement without semen; and he wasn’t so sure about the latter part if this kept on much longer. He was in a ferment.
“Well, that’s enough, don’t you think?” Agnes led him from the floor with her fingers entwined in his. He was reminded for the first time of the authority she exercised in her ward.
“Would you like a nightcap?”
“I think it’s time we went up.”
Matter-of-factly, when they reached her door, she said “I’ve got the key to the communicating door. I’ll unlock it, but give me ten minutes.” The passage was empty, she put her arms about his neck and kissed him. “Ten minutes.”
He let himself into his own room, lit the gas fire and stood in front of it to take off his uniform and put on a dressing gown. He did not think it was an occasion for pyjamas.
When he knocked on her door he could not hear her reply, so he opened it tentatively. She had also lit the fire: it provided half the muted illumination in the room. For the rest, she had draped a pair of pink silk French knickers over the bedside lamp. She was lying naked on the patterned eiderdown, her skin glowing rosy and creamy in the dim lighting.
“Take that damn thing off and come here.”
He was startled by the gruffness of her tone. He shed the dressing gown and went to lie beside her. She took hold of him fiercely and almost drove the breath from his astonished lungs. It was like a wrestling match, he told himself. He felt overwhelmed and when he tried to take the initiative from her she gasped “Wait.” And again, each time he moved to begin to bring the matter to a conclusion, it was “Wait”; until he became exasperated, and, thinking that she wanted to be forced, he pressed home. She lay inert, unresponsive, her mouth heatedly returning his kisses, her body arid and taking no share in his frenzy or his delight.
He lay at her side in silence for a while, then raised himself on one elbow and bent over her.
“I’m sorry, Agnes. It must have been my fault. What went wrong?”
She fondled him. She was very gentle. With one hand she smoothed his hair with almost maternal solicitude.
“It’s not your fault, Roger. It’ll be all right... in a while... you’ll see.”
“But what was I doing wrong? Tell me what it is you like and I’ll...”
She kissed him. “Nothing, Roger. It’ll be all right this time.”
But it wasn’t. Or the time after. She gave a display of passion when she kissed him, but her body was like a log.
It was after the third time that he felt her tears on his cheek and heard her sob.
“What’s the matter, Agnes?”
She wept, turning her face from him. Then she thrust out of bed and went to wash her face in the corner basin. She came back and sat on the edge of the bed, pushing him back when he tried to sit up.
“I’m sorry, Roger. It wasn’t fair. You’re much too nice... but it was because you were so sweet... because I fancied you so much... or thought I did... that I tried... I thought this time it would work.”
“I don’t understand.”
She turned her head away. “Roger, my dear, the fact is that I don’t awfully like men. It’s never worked for me with a man. I haven’t tried with a man for years... five... six... maybe seven years.”
“Oh, my God! Agnes, you poor... I’m sorry...”
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. I wish it did work. I love men’s company. But that way, I’m afraid it’s only other women who work for me... girls.”
He forced a smile. “What a waste.”
“I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humour over this. You don’t hate me, do you?”
“Of course not.” He forced the smile once more. “Actually I’m flattered that you thought I might...”
“You don’t despise me?”
“Of course I don’t. I’ve got nothing against...” He shied from the word. “Except that when they’re as attractive as you are, they’re a sad loss to us males.”
Her smile was as artificial as his. “Aren’t you the sophisticated one!”
In the morning he was up at seven and sitting down to breakfast half an hour later. When he left his room to go and bathe her door was ajar, and he saw her key already hanging on the board behind the reception desk when he passed on his way into the dining-room. He was glad that he had been spared a farewell. She must have been up and away by about six. Thinking back, he recalled a couple of coquettish little blonde nurses on the ward who used to hang around Agnes constantly. He wished her well with them.
Driving north, he ruminated on his love life and decided that he could not truthfully claim to have one: a sex life more accurately described it; and that had hardly provided much retrospective pleasure so far. He catalogued it. A rapacious married woman who had seduced him at the age of nineteen and enthralled him in a weekend escapade which still make him blink when he thought about it. A voracious holidaying girl a year later, who had also made the running and given him a breathless fortnight. Two West End harlots who had been nothing more than an outlet for his accumulated frustrations at Daphne’s coy evasiveness. Then bossy Daphne, with whom he had been infatuated for a year and half and who was probably frigid as well as inhibited by religious scruples and the morality of her upbringing. And now a pervert who had turned to him as a means of escaping from her own bondage rather than because she had genuinely succumbed to his virile allure.
Surely he deserved better than that? He should have his opportunities during the coming few months, with the strain of operations removed and nothing to worry about. His relationship with Daphne had been instructive. He was even grateful to Agnes Yerby for what she had contributed to the experience of women which had been thrust upon him, rather than achieved, during his twenty-three years.
He arrived at Blythewold in time to complete his booking-in procedure by teatime. A large, florid figure with squadron leader’s rings on his cuffs and a clerical collar was lurking in the vicinity of the mess secretary’s office. Roger could not ignore the beaming smile or the plump hand which was held out in greeting.
“You must be Roger Hallowes. I’ve been looking forward to welcoming you to my congregation: rather a scanty one, I fear. From everything I’ve heard about you, old chap, I know I can rely on you to swell the numbers.”
“Don’t count on me, Padre.”
“Flying programme permitting, of course.”
“I didn’t mean that. I’ve had a lot of time to think, lately and I’ve been doing a lot of reading.”
The chaplain’s eyes held a perplexed look. His jocund smile had turned to concern. “If there’s anything you’d like to talk about...”
“I’m undecided between Islam, Buddhism and the Quakers. Becoming a Muslim entails rather unpleasant surgery, so it’ll have to be the Buddhists or the Society of Friends, I suppose. I’m still mulling it over.”
The chaplain began to look apoplectic and Roger politely excused himself, thinking that if he had learned nothing else from Daphne and Agnes he had acquired the ability to think quickly in a personal emergency just as he had been trained to do in an aerial one.
*
Devonshire had arrived on the station two weeks ago. After an early dinner in mess, Roger met him at the Guard Room and they walked to a nearby pub.
“Leg one hundred per cent now, Roger?”
“Not a twinge. I’m looking forward to going up tomorrow; it’s been a long time. I haven’t
been on the ground for so long since I joined the V.R. five years ago.”
“The Wingco’ll take you up for dual himself, I reckon.”
“Oh yes, I expect to be checked out.”
“Yeah... in one of the Wimpeys, I expect. They’re all we’ve got with dual control. He can be a bit of a pig, the Wingco. You haven’t flown a Wellington before, have you?”
“No.”
“You’ll be all right. They’re nice aircraft. I wouldn’t mind going to a Wimpey squadron when we go back on ops.”
“I wonder how long that will be.”
“Six months to a year, they say.”
Roger felt a dull pain in his leg and, without warning, his knee stiffened. He stopped and rubbed his shin, flexed his knee.
“What’s the matter, Roger?”
“It’s nothing. Probably a touch of cramp from too much driving.”
He limped for a few paces, then the discomfort went and he regained his normal pace.
“Tell me more about the Wingco.”
“Garland? They reckon he L.M.F’ed more people when he was a squadron commander than all the other C.Os in Bomber Command put together.”
Lack of moral fibre was the official term for cowardice and Roger thought back to the pilots on his own squadron who had failed to take off on a sortie or turned back with unserviceable intercom, a faulty magneto, low oil pressure or a defect in the hydraulic system when the stress of operations had exhausted their store of courage.
“That’s one thing he can’t do to anyone here.”
“No. But he believes in getting them back on ops as soon as he can. They say some chaps haven’t been too keen, and he’s threatened to L.M.F. them if they didn’t volunteer for a posting back to a squadron when he reckons they’ve been here long enough.”
“That’s fair enough. Instructing isn’t meant to be an endless rest cure.”
“Yeah, but he’s chucked some of ‘em out after four months.”
“Perhaps they were lousy instructors.”
“Anyway, it’s not like being on a squadron. You know, not the same spirit. I won’t mind going back.”
Roger made no comment. They had reached the pub, it was crowded and they had to shove their way to the bar. His leg was throbbing. He recalled his last two operations and the long cold hours in the dinghy. Instructing may not be a permanent refuge but it was going to be a welcome respite.
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