‘Too many people are hiding behind other people’s efforts. Whenever I have the chance, I turf them out.’
Stephen gave him a wondering look. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘I’ll give you two examples: my fitter and my batman. They’re both young and fit for air crew: I suggested to both of them that they should show some guts and volunteer. They’ve both banged in applications and been recommended. I’m sure they’ll pass the selection board, or I wouldn’t have had a go at them. My fitter wants to be a pilot and my batman wants to be an air gunner.’
‘Want to?’ Again Stephen looked faintly worried.
'‘Yes: when I’d pointed out to them why they should. I can’t understand anyone of military age not having the self-respect to try to join the R.A.F. as air crew, or go into the infantry or tanks or even the artillery, or go to sea with the Navy, as soon as the war started. I mean, what kind of chap is willing to let other people risk life and limb on his behalf? How will anyone have an easy conscience after the war if he hasn’t really fought in it? I feel the same about conscripts. Most of them go willingly enough when they’re called up, and there are plenty of them fighting in the desert now: but it’s not the same as going of one’s own free will. I told them even women… girls… arc doing things in this war that should put them to shame unless they pull their fingers out… Oh! Sorry, Mummy… Aunty… I mean unless they wake up and make a decent effort.’
‘I’m absolutely with you,’ Christopher said.
Their father - who had changed out of uniform - looked at his brother-in-law. Denis Hallowes, the quiet banker - an inspector now and a lieutenant in the Home Guard - from whom Roger had inherited many physical and intrinsic characteristics, wore an ironical and speculative expression.
Stephen Fenton said ‘You both seem to have become rather fierce and intolerant.’
‘I daresay Roger feels the same way,’ said Denis, addressing his two nephews. ‘In the last war, conscription was brought in rather late. There was a iremendous rush of volunteers. And there weren’t enough rifles or uniforms to equip all the recruits during the first year. I don’t remember us feeling as bitter about the men who didn’t volunteer as you seem to. I think we just despised them, we didn’t detest them. Certainly not in my regiment, anyway. And there was no prejudice against the conscripts, that I ever saw, when they did come out to France.’
‘It’s the same this time,’ Christopher said. ‘We’re a very tolerant nation. But I loathe and despise the types who stay at home or grab at cushy jobs if they do join, or who wait to be called up, not because of anything that I’m doing, but because of what I’ve seen happen to a lot of good types who didn’t hang back.’
James caught his eye and, with a brief frown, made a negative gesture. It was tactless of Christopher to blight the party’s expansive mood by referring to the casualties which were never absent from the thoughts of their parents or Roger’s.
‘It’s just as well not to let ideas like that bother one.’ Stephen looked in turn at his sons, thinking that it was probably a lot healthier not to be restrained by the invisible bonds of conformity and to let one’s feelings rip. But he did not feel that he ought to encourage extreme attitudes which would bring them more mental anguish than the very fact of what they were both doing in this war already imposed on them. ‘It’s understandable that you should have that kind of prejudice, but I’m not sure that it’s necessarily wise to involve others. It could be, James, that your fitter and your batman will make a damned bad pilot and air gunner. If so, they could be a danger to the people they fly with. Perhaps they would be best left alone where they are.’
‘I still think I did them a good turn, Dad.’
Stephen recognised the stubborn Fenton look on James’s face. He knew it only too well. It had nearly cost him his life more than once in his own war. And perhaps without it James wouldn’t be in command of a fighter squadron or have a Distinguished Flying Cross and bar at the age of twenty-two, or something over twenty kills on his record. Perhaps he himself would not have survived from 1914 to 1918.
*
It was quiet that night. Stephen and Sheila Fenton slept all the year round with a bedroom window open, in the Spartan tradition of the British middle and upper classes. They had been inured to the cold by a decade in bleak dormitories from the age of seven or eight. Despite their considerable knowledge of France and liking for its people, if asked to sum up the French in a few words neither would have hesitated: ‘They’re scared to death of draughts and fresh air, never open a railway compartment window even on the hottest day.’ As far as their kind of British were concerned, this was the great divide between the two nations.
They lay in the dark, subconsciously listening for die sound of aero engines, bombs, gunfire or an air raid siren. The sounds carried far, borne on the winds that blew from the Channel. There was none tonight except a faint drone.
Sheila reached for her husband’s hand and held it lightly.
‘One of ours,’ he murmured. They both recognised the unsynchronised fluctuating note of German Jumo and B.M.W. engines.
‘I know. I’ve been thinking about the boys.’
‘I know you have. So have I.’
‘You used to look the same when you came on leave from the Front.’
She remembered the lines that had come from years of vigilance, responsibility and weariness. She had seen them reproduced on James’s face.
‘Christopher looks much better. Life must have been a bit easier for him up there.’
‘He doesn’t look as tired and strained as he did, but there’s something worrying him.’
‘I expect he’s anxious about how he’ll do on his Beaufighter course.’
‘But James says he’s a very good pilot.’
‘I’m sure he is, but he’s too sensible to take anything for granted.’
‘He must have been having an easier time up in Scotland to be looking so well. But James worries me. He’s changed so much and he looks so… so careworn.’ Sheila hesitated. ‘And he sounds so… fierce… and… well, bigoted.’
‘None of us is proof against the demands of other people. No amount of cunning - which James certainly hasn’t in his nature; nor Christopher - or intelligence or battle experience can provide total protection against that. Anyone in James’s position is under constant pressure from above and below. And he’s young for it. He has to satisfy his wing commander and group captain and the Air Officer Commanding. He has to take care of his pilots.’
Stephen did not add that their son had also to be ceaselessly vigilant in order to stay alive.
‘And Nicole. I’m sure he’s serious about her, Stephen. Do you think she’s gone back to France on some secret job? It’s the only explanation I can think of for their being out of touch. They’re so fond of each other; not to put it any more strongly.’
‘You could be right.’
Stephen regarded Nicole much as he regarded Roger, with avuncular affection and interest. He did not like to think of her exposed to Nazi brutality. But he was more concerned with the effect of her activities on James; supposing Sheila were right: and he shared her suspicion, although he would not say so. There was virtue in deceit, he told himself; sometimes, and ibis was an occasion for it. He grieved that there was a point beyond which a parent could not share a child’s burden, however close their intimacy. The passing of the years did not weaken mutual love, but it increased the children’s self-sufficiency.
He had seen James change and develop in two years from an independent, self-assured boy blessed with the fiery gift of leadership, into a tough man; an uncompromising, battle-hardened leader. James was one of those on whose example, and, more important, judgment, victory increasingly depended. He was one of those who exerted the greatest influence on others. If the war had made him in some ways callous, if it had nurtured the ruthlessness without which nobody could lead others - Christ, in his own fashion, was ruthless - that did not diminish his stature. Singlen
ess of purpose, which was to some extent a euphemism for ruthless determination, had a special value in the eyes of any high command. It also dazzled those who were led.
Stephen Fenton could only hope that his elder son had not been endowed with too much of it.
*
When the telephone rang the following morning, James happened to be the nearest and answered it. As soon as it rang, his first thought was that he was being urgently recalled to camp.
‘Hayling one-two-three-four, Squadron Leader Fenton.’
There was no immediate response. After a few seconds a voice, French-accented and hesitant, said ‘Hello. Who is speaking, please?’
Oh, God! Was this some awful news about Nicole? Had she left instructions for his parents to be informed in the event of her reported capture or death? It was more likely that she would do so than leave instructions for him to be informed: for all she knew, he might have been killed or shot down and taken prisoner the very day after she last saw him. ‘Squadron Leader Fenton.’
Another pause, another two or three seconds, then, with a note of wonder, ‘James?’
‘James Fenton, yes.’
The unpractised English gave way to excited French.
‘James! It is Henri… Henri Girard.’
‘Henri? But this is unbelievable… a wonderful surprise. Can you tell me where you are?’
‘In London. I arrived here last week. What are you doing at home? Are you all right, my dear James? And your parents? And Christopher? What is he doing?’ ‘Everyone is well. Christopher and I are on leave: I have to return tomorrow evening, but Christopher has another seven days. He is flying too. Can you come and see us?’
‘There is nothing I would like better… except… ‘ The exultant excitement faded from Henri’s voice and he sounded sad and grim. ‘Except to go home.’
‘Have you had any news from your parents?’
‘Not for nearly six months. They said they were all right.’
‘Did they say anything about Nicole?’
‘Only that she is all right. I don’t know where she is: not at home with them, anyway.’
‘Hold on a moment, Henri, I want to have a word with my mother.’ Sheila had appeared from the kitchen where she and Daisy, the maid, had been in discussion over rations and what to cook for lunch and dinner. James put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Mummy, it’s Henri.’
‘Henri Girard?’ He nodded. ‘Oh, what a relief!’ ‘He’s in London. Could we put him up for a night or two?’
‘Of course. Tell him to come right away.’
James was uncertain whether his mother was relieved because the telephone call was not to recall him, or by Henri’s arrival in England.
‘Hello, Henri. There’s a train from Waterloo at five past twelve.’ He looked at the grandfather clock in the hall, next to the telephone table. ‘In fifty minutes. We’ll meet you at Havant station. It’s due in at one-twenty.’ His own M.G. was at camp, but Christopher’s old Talbot Fifteen was at hand. How long can you stay?’
‘May I stay tonight?’
‘Of course. As long as you wish.’
‘I must come back to London tomorrow: there is much to arrange.’
Christopher was on the drive in front of the house, tinkering with his car, which had been standing on blocks in a corner of a local garage while he was in Scotland. James went out to tell him about Henri’s call. They went indoors, where their mother joined them.
James said ‘Either he was being discreet on the telephone, or he doesn’t know that Nicole escaped from France fifteen months ago. My guess is that he doesn’t know. He’s going to want to see her.’
Christopher said flatly ‘And she’s not here. She’s in France.’
‘I told you not to jump to conclusions.’
‘Surely, if she’s in England, they’ll let her own brother get in touch with her? And see her?’ said Sheila.
‘We’ll have to break it to him that she’s here, but we haven’t been able to contact her for more than three months.’
Christopher grinned. ‘You'll have to break it to him old boy.’
‘Is that jalopy of yours capable of getting us to Havant and back?’
‘If you’re going to be so grumpy, you can stay behind.’
James put his arm around his mother and propelled her gently towards the door. ‘Back to the kitchen, Mummy: I want to say something to your younger son that isn’t fit for a lady’s ears.’
Sheila went off, laughing. Last night’s shadows had been lifted; although she knew it was only a temporary surcease. For the moment, they were not two war-tired young men with wary eyes and fast, highly-strung reactions, burdened with their diverse fears and responsibilities. They were her boys again, wrangling amicably; home, not from the war but from school, and the sun shone on a land of peace and plenty. It was in fact a fine sunny crisp autumn day and a walk along the seafront before the boys went off to fetch Henri would do them all good. No use putting it off until after lunch, when Henri would have arrived: the French didn’t think much of brisk walks in the autumn sunshine; or at any other time. She was humming ‘The White Cliffs Of Dover’ when she rejoined Daisy in the pantry.
Lieutenant Henri Girard was a year older than James and a regular officer in the French Navy. They had not met since the summer of 1937. James’s first thought was that Henri showed no signs of the ravages of war. Life must have been comfortable in Algiers. He looked well fed and bronzed but his eyes betrayed the same underlying unhappiness and anxiety that he had seen in other Frenchmen and the other exiles, Poles, Czechs and Norwegians, with whom he had served.
Stephen Fenton had declared that he would be home at two-o’clock, to make the most of having both his sons there. Sheila had telephoned to tell him about their surprising visitor. They sat around the log fire in the drawing-room grate, listening to Henri.
‘I was fortunate. At first, I admit, I did not know what was the right thing to do. The Vichy Government were legally my masters. I had taken an oath, when I joined the Navy, that I would serve my country faithfully: that meant its legal Government. Then, after France signed an armistice with Germany and your fleet shelled our ships in port at Oran, it did not make matters any easier for my conscience. I happened to be at Algiers, but many of my friends died in Oran.
‘As time went on I realised that my real duty lay in fighting the Boches: because a victory for England would liberate my country. If Germany won, the Nazis would be our overlords for ever. But how to reach England? The shortest route, of course, was from Tangier to Gibraltar: but that was too closely watched. From Algiers I had been transferred to Oran and it was very tempting to try to cross the Straits and reach Gibraltar. I was coming to the conclusion that if I wanted to get away I had no alternative but to try the crossing, when I was moved to Casablanca. Actually that is a little closer to Gibraltar, but instead of a dash across the Mediterannean it meant sailing along the Atlantic coast. By then I was very depressed and frustrated. We had several ships at Dakar. There were vacancies, caused by death and illnesses. I knew one or two people in the right places at Naval Headquarters, and I managed to arrange a transfer to a cruiser at Dakar. Once in Senegal, I was next door to a British protectorate, Gambia. I was able to cross the border and reach the capital, Bathurst. Your authorities there were very good: they put me on a flying boat to Freetown, Sierra Leone. So there I was, in a British Crown Colony.
‘Of course there was a lot of security rigmarole to go through once I arrived there, but eventually I was put on a ship in a convoy returning from South Africa to England. So here I am. I reported to the Free French Naval Headquarters a week ago, but I did not dare to get in touch with you until they were thoroughly satisfied with by bona fides. And now I hope to join a French destroyer and go out and sink some U-boats.’
‘Well done indeed, Henri.’ Stephen looked at his sons and his meaning was clear. He had seen James’s mouth tighten and a frown appear when Henri confessed his doubts about where
his duty lay.
James said ‘You can hardly blame us for sinking your ships at Oran: Petain and Admiral Darlan would have handed them over to Germany.’
‘I don't blame you: that is why I am here. But you’re wrong: even a collaborationist Government would never have been able to compel our Navy to fight on the side of the Boches. We would have scuttled every vessel afloat and blown up every one in dry dock rather than do that.’ Henri’s expression and tone were as hard as James’s.
Stephen intervened. ‘You’ve been through an agonising experience, Henri. I admire you; we all do. You took a very courageous decision.’
‘I kept thinking about my parents and sister in France under Nazi brutality, and it became plain that the only way to liberate them is by taking an active part in the defeat of Germany. It was a simple enough decision, really. The logical one.’
The others all looked expectantly at James. There was a silence of the kind which inept writers describe as ‘pregnant’, a peculiarly fatuous use of the adjective. Henri sensed that the moment was ominous and also stared at him; he hoped, with encouragement.
James looked straight back at him. ‘There is one thing about which you need not worry, Henri: Nicole came to England in August last year.’
Tears came into Henri’s eyes and he blinked, an expression of delight appeared on his face. Tears trickled down his cheeks, but he was smiling broadly and his voice was almost steady.
‘She’s here? My God! That is the most wonderful news that I have had since the day France surrendered. Where is she? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’
‘I couldn’t tell you on the telephone, Henri. And we’ve been waiting for an appropriate moment to give you the news: we wanted to hear all your news first, my friend. And let me say that I agree with my father: it must have been damnably difficult for you and… well, we’re proud of you.’
The Daedalus Quartet Box Set Page 43