by John Masters
He ran up and delivered. Torla jumped forward and hit it clean and low. It would have gone for four, but for the net. Guy walked back … it might fire through the spinner, which would mean mounting it behind the engine: and hollowing out the crank shaft so that the bullets would pass right through the middle of the engine … that might be easier with a rotary engine than with an ordinary radial, and surely it could not be done at all with an in-line water-cooled engine?
The next ball smashed back past his foot and again would have gone for four. Guy looked at Torla, frowning. Torla said, ‘Your mind is not on your business, Guy. And we’ve had enough for today.’
He walked up the pitch and began to take off his pads, still talking. ‘You must think like a matador, Guy. All the graceful passes count for nothing against the way you kill … matar means to kill, not make pretty patterns in the sand … If you don’t think, always, of killing – the bull will kill you.’
Guy said, ‘That’s what Rhodes told me, last summer, in slightly different words. See you tomorrow, Grandy.’
He put on his faded pale blue yellow-piped blazer and walked off under the towering copper beeches towards the Path of Duty gate … He’d write to Ginger and get more details, if they had them. A machine-gun that could fire through the propeller would revolutionize air fighting. He’d have to think over what he had been studying, and look at it all in a new light.
In his room he found three letters on the table, put there by the letter fag from the day’s second post. He opened them quickly – one from Boy: he was in a military hospital near Reading. He had been wounded and gassed at Ypres, but not badly. They were going to send him home for a month’s convalescence soon, but meanwhile he’d like to spend a day or two watching cricket at Wellington, so would Guy tell him when there was a home school match that he could come and see. Reading was very close and there were lots of trains.
Guy folded the letter away, thinking there’s one thing that Boy didn’t know when he wrote: that he had been awarded the Military Cross for gallantry near St Julien, Belgium, on April 22nd and 23rd this year. It was in today’s London Gazette.
The second letter was from Johnny Merritt … progress with the factory … JMC lorries rolling out at a great rate … Stella was working hard as a VAD. The sinking of the Lusitania had really upset her, so that she was ready to go out and give white feathers to any fellow she saw who wasn’t in uniform. He didn’t know whether he could stand being neutral much longer … did Guy think the RFC would take him, as an American? Oh, and rumours kept flying round that Probyn Gorse was going to set a mantrap for Skagg the gamekeeper, or even for Lord Swanwick … Guy smiled to himself; old Probyn was keeping the pot boiling, as he’d explained he would, during their long talk these last hols …
The third letter was from the Hedlington Flying School, confirming that Mr Guy Rowland would start a pilot’s course on Monday August 2nd. The fee would be £15 for the three-weeks course, at the end of which the School guaranteed that Mr Rowland would be qualified to receive his RAC pilot’s licence. The aeronautical mechanic’s course which Mr Rowland had asked about did not exist, but the School would be glad to attach him to their own chief mechanic, under instruction, for a small fee.
Guy put the letters away in the desk drawer, and began to sketch an aircraft engine, and how it could be arranged to accept machine-gun fire through the arc of the propeller blades, without damaging them. Suppose you put studs on the propeller shaft, diametrically opposed … when the shaft revolved, the studs could strike a cam, which would be connected somehow to the machine-gun’s firing hammer …
Bert Gorse sat in his half-brother’s crowded house, one of a row in the poorest section of Hedlington, and opened a bottle of beer. He was working at the Jupiter Motor Company now, and getting good money. He’d had a hard time for a month, between the time old Harry Rowland sacked him and young Mr Richard took him on, but he’d struggled through with the help of a rabbit or two from his father, some poaching on his own account closer to Hedlington, and sneaking an egg here, a tin there, a loaf somewhere else, out of the grocers’ shops while the assistant wasn’t looking and the owner was up on a ladder helping a customer. He wasn’t a shop foreman yet, and he doubted whether he ever would be. The bosses had heard about his union activities, though they’d been kept very quiet … and that Yankee they’d brought over as works manager, Morgan, was a hard man to fool, for all his back slapping and Welsh blarney.
They were celebrating Willum’s birthday, though how could you really celebrate with so many kids screaming and yelling, and Mary always sewing, mending, and never taking even a drop? He poured the beer into a chipped glass, as Willum, across the table, followed suit. He said, ‘Here’s to the Yanks … they’re paying for this.’
Willum said anxiously, ‘You aren’t going to do any union work, are you?’
Bert laughed contemptuously. ‘Course not … yet.’
‘That’s good,’ Willum said. ‘You’ll only get into more trouble, and Mr Richard’ll give you the sack.’
Bert drank deep and wiped a little froth off his lips with the back of his hand. ‘I’ll be a good boy … in a pig’s eye, I will! When I’m ready I’m going to go for the women, see? The bosses think they’ve got us by the short hairs, ’cos they can always get more cheap labour – women. But what if the women join the union, and ask for the same wages as men, eh?’
‘The union won’t take ’em, I thought,’ Willum said, ‘’cos they say they’re … something bad.’
‘Diluting, Willum. But the union’s wrong. We’ve got to get every worker in, not just the skilled ones. It’ll take time to knock that into their fat heads down there … but I’ll do it. Then, when we’re ready … strike! Stop the machines!’
‘But then they won’t be able to make lorries for our boys in France,’ Willum said anxiously.
‘Fuck our boys in France!’ Bert said. ‘Sorry, Mary.’
Willum shook his head … ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen next, any more … you wanting to stop the new factory, that’ll be paying wages to lots of people … the Germans sending over gas, to poison our boys … thousands of people drowned in that ship, by a submarine which they couldn’t even see … no county cricket this year, or until the war’s over … When am I going to see Woolley bat again? Or Blythe bowl? … I tell you, I can’t sleep sometimes, thinking about it.’
Richard Rowland drove up to Hill House, his mind occupied with what he had seen and heard today … the six hundredth assembled JMC 30 would come out of the old building tomorrow; and the new building was up, almost ready for the instalment of its machinery. It had been decided that he should try to persuade the War Office procurement people to increase the size of the first military order for JMC 30s. He’d probably not succeed, since the soldiers would be chary of a firm they knew nothing of; but it was worth the try.
It was a lovely May evening, and Susan came out of the front door, yawning and stretching, as he stepped down, and Stafford ran up to take the car away.
‘Let’s walk a bit,’ she said, putting up her face for his kiss, then taking his arm. ‘I’ve been doing accounts all afternoon and I need some fresh air.’
The roses were coming into bloom, and drifts of bluebells, wild sown, glowed pale blue under the elms in the wood rising behind the house. The lawn was a dense green, close knit and smooth, the croquet hoops set up.
They strolled across the grass, the sun still high but without heat. Susan said, ‘Alice called, on the telephone.’
‘Anything special?’
‘They wanted to know whether we had seen about Boy’s MC in the paper. I told her we had. She just wanted to talk, I think … The Governor and Bob Stratton are working on a design for an ambulance.’
Richard stopped. ‘An ambulance? But they don’t make a chassis big enough for that.’
‘Alice was wondering about that, too, but she said they are planning a sort of rather small, special one, that would be very comfortable
, and go faster.’
‘An ambulance just for generals,’ Richard said sarcastically. He resumed his pacing, shaking his head. ‘If they go further with that, they’ll be making a big mistake, I think. But they’re getting desperate, I suppose … This is a very lovely evening, my dear. And can I smell chicken roasting?’
‘I think Mrs Baker’s just putting it in. We’re going to have to eat less meat and fats, Richard. And sugar.’
‘Oh dear, I won’t like that.’
‘You’ll have to get used to it. All of us will. The hounds make much more noise in the kennels than they used to – they’re getting hungry, too.’
‘It’s difficult to get horsemeat.’
‘The last time Quentin wrote he swore that some of the bully beef and stewed meat and potatoes they get is horsemeat. Perhaps that’s where it’s going.’
‘At prime beef prices, of course. We can thank people like Bill Hoggin for that, I imagine. Do you know what I heard today? That he’d given five thousand pounds to the mayor for distribution among all the clubs and groups which look after soldiers and sailors and their dependants – the Tipperary Clubs, Alice’s House Parties, the sewing and knitting groups, the Salvation Army … Let’s go back in now, dear. I need a bath … Oh, I saw Stella today. She was having lunch in the South Eastern with an older man. I think I’ve seen him before, and believe he’s a doctor. He was, ah, ogling her. She seemed to be basking in it.’
‘How was she looking?’
‘Very well. She’s quite recovered from whatever it was she had last month.’
‘That’s good. I wonder what it was.’
‘Some sort of flu, I suppose. There’s always a lot of it about, in the spring.’
They reached the front door and Susan said, ‘Oh, Richard, I nearly forgot … Stafford’s given his notice. He’s …’
‘… going to join the army,’ Richard finished for her. ‘It’s time he did, really. We’ll have to find a girl, and teach her the mechanics of a motor car … and how to drive it, of course.’
Naomi Rowland walked slowly on the Girton lawn, Rachel Cowan at her side. Bees droned in the flowers, the sun shone, the air was heavy with the scents of early summer. The thick grass rustled under their tennis shoes, and their skirts rustled as the rackets in their hands brushed them as they swung.
Rachel said dreamily, ‘England at its most beautiful. When you’ve been brought up in Stepney, you don’t know that such places as this exist. On days like this I sometimes wish I could stay at Girton for ever.’
Naomi swung her racket at a bee, sending it flying into the flowerbeds. She said, ‘I don’t … I feel I’m in a prison … two prisons … Girton – and then even if I escape from that, my body’s a prison, because I’m a woman … I don’t know whether I can stand this for another year.’
‘Don’t say that!’ Rachel cried, ‘what would I do here without you? You know I don’t get on with most of the other girls.’
Naomi turned moodily and walked back in the opposite direction. ‘What’s wrong here is that we can’t hear the guns. The windows ought to be rattling, and the walls shaking, the earth trembling under our feet, all the time, day and night … I’m not doing as much as Stella, even. And Girton’s getting boring … worse than home.’
She brightened, and added, ‘Except that I’ve met a pair of interesting young men … as far as any young men are interesting. At least these don’t condescend … and they’re interested in me.’
Rachel said, ‘Where on earth did you meet them?’
‘At a mixed squash at Q’s the day before yesterday. One was at Clare and now works as a scientist for an optical company here, and the other was at King’s and is now a 2nd Lieutenant of the 60th Rifles, at that Junior Officers’ Course they’re running in Jesus.’ She looked her friend up and down, and grinned mischievously. ‘Stan’s about the right height for you. He’s the scientist.’
‘Oh Naomi! He probably hates Jews.’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t … Harry’s six feet, and awfully good looking.’ She lowered her voice as though their formidable Mistress of Girton, Miss E. E. C. Jones, was lurking in the flowerbed – ‘They’re night climbers – were when they were undergraduates, and still do it … and they’re going to take me up.’
‘Whaaat?’ Rachel half screamed, her sallow face paling. ‘Naomi, you mustn’t! Think what would happen to you if you were caught!’
‘I’d get sent down from Girton,’ Naomi said, ‘and I’ve just been saying that that no longer seems a fate worse than death to me.’
‘Death!’ Rachel cried. ‘You might fall!’
‘I might … but I’ve done a lot of high climbing, on trees and cliffs, with Boy, all my life. Even after I put my hair up.’ She laughed shortly and swung the racket viciously at another bee.
It was dark in the bathroom, where Fiona lay in the bath, stretched out, her hands clasped behind her head. It was very warm in here, the water hot in the bath, and hot in the pipes of the towel rack, where half a dozen of the Savoy’s great towels hung in regal splendour, waiting to hold her in their rough embrace.
If he was going, what was there left for her? She distinctly remembered Margaret trying to make her feel differently – free her of her infatuation, was how Margaret thought of it – that time at Henley, and again a few weeks later, at a chance meeting in Hedlington. But Margaret could not understand the nature of this love that bound her to Archie any more than Alice, for example, could understand the nature of sexual passion … though Alice, through her House Parties, was learning much that was perhaps a shock to her. One of the jobs she had undertaken was to read the soldiers’ and sailors’ letters to their sweethearts and wives, many of whom could not read. The letters, ill-written, splotched, stained, were like dumb men trying to shout poetry: ‘I am well, I hope you are well. There was a big hate yesterday. I did not get hurt …’ a matter of inability to use the pen for the expression of feeling or emotion. There were other letters which, according to Alice, were blatantly sexual and blunt, using the common people’s coarsest language to express the simplest and most direct desires. She had expected Alice to be horrified; but she wasn’t. She had only said that she felt terribly sorry for them all, men and women alike: and that she was learning more about people, of all kinds, than she had learned in her thirty-five years so far.
Archie was going to leave her not because of the war, really, but because of Quentin. He did not say so directly, but he felt that he could not enjoy her body, or even her company, unless he had faced the same risks that Quentin was facing. It would be impossible to persuade him of the selfishness and stupidity of what he was going to do. But he was a genius, and her lover, he must not be allowed to sacrifice himself, perhaps unknown, among the coarse, unfeeling men whom Quentin loved, the only human beings he understood.
He had said he would be back by seven, from his walk on the Embankment. It was close to that now. The water was getting cool, and she ran in more hot. When it was full she turned off the tap, reached out to the cork-covered stool beside the bath, and picked up the open razor she had placed there. It was bone-handled, plain, but very sharp. Archie stropped it every morning after shaving with it. When she drew the blade first across her left wrist, then her right, she felt little more than a slight, sharp, short-lived stab of pain. The blood began to well out as she dropped the razor back on the stool, dripping blood on to the bath mat, and then, holding both hands under water, lay back and closed her eyes.
It seemed an hour before she heard, drowsily, as from a thousand miles away, the turning of the key in the outer door, the click of the light switch, his voice – ‘Fiona?’ There was a faint sensation of more warmth on her eyelids, as light from the bedroom flooded through into the bathroom. He called, ‘Fiona? I’m back.’ She heard his footsteps cross the carpet, his tap on the open door. ‘May I come in?’ He wasn’t usually so polite, but would just come in, joking, and scrub her back.
‘My God … Fiona!’
&n
bsp; She felt his arms under her, lifting her, and opened her eyes. The water in the bath was red, but not very – watery blood, or bloody water, not all blood, not solid or thick or dark. She was on the stool, his arm round her shoulders. He was tying a face towel round one wrist, his handkerchief round the other. They were dripping blood on to the floor. She felt faint and drowsy, and now, out of water, her wrists smarted. Otherwise she did not feel, at all.
‘I’ll call a doctor,’ he said.
She heard thumps and thuds, that sounded distant, and asked, ‘What is that … doors banging?’
‘Guns,’ he said. ‘There’s a Zeppelin raid … north London, I think … Here, I’ll carry you to bed, then I’ll telephone the reception and …’
She said, ‘I’m all right, Archie. No need for a doctor … only need you.’
‘They’ve stopped bleeding, nearly.’
He was lifting her, carrying her, laying her on the bed, pulling up the sheet, the blanket. The thudding was faint and far, but continuous. She wished he’d pull back the curtains so that she could watch the pointing fingers of the new searchlights sweeping the sky for the Zeppelin.
Archie sat on the side of the bed, his face set, the broken nose prominent. ‘Why did you do that?’
He seemed to be whispering, but without the sibilance of a whisper – his normal loved voice shrunk to a tiny volume, its resonance lost. She said, ‘I can’t live without you. I told you at dinner last night.’
He met her eye. ‘This is blackmail, wumman.’
She didn’t speak, her eyes closing from the weight of the eyelids, without any volition on her part. She felt him get up from the bed and walk about the room; and dimly heard his staccato sentences, all spoken in braw Gorbals. ‘Ah’ve loved ye, so Ah’m responsible for ye, is tha’ it? … An’ p’rraps Ah am, God help me … Christ, Ah wish Ah could meet Quentin face to face, man tae man, an’ tell him … Ah’m no’ the marrying type, ye ken tha’? … Ye’ll neverr be more than a painter’s kept wumman, ye unnerstan’?’