WW III wi-1

by Ian Slater

  “Oh, quite, quite. Quite all right, Fred.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Harris.”

  Brentwood Lifted the last of his Guiness and savored it as it went down. “I like that,” he said.

  “I think, old man, she was saying you were rather bourgeois.”

  “Straitlaced,” cut in the barman, his hand rocking from side to side. “You know—’long the straight and narrow. No ‘anky-panky.”

  “Well,” said Harris, “I have to spend a penny. Then I ‘m off, I’m afraid. I’ll take you to the station.”

  “Going to the loo,” explained the barman as Harris made off, a little unsteadily, through the gray-blue haze of cigarette smoke, something you saw much more often these days since the war had begun.

  “Straitlaced, eh?” Brentwood said to the barman.

  “Yeah. ‘Cor, my dad. ‘E loved Crosby. Bit of a crooner himself. Always hummin’ round the ‘ouse. Then I’d be on listenin’ to the Who. Drive me mum nuts. Battle royal over that, I can tell you.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Brentwood — it was like listening to a new code.

  When Harris returned, they walked out into the chilly night air. They could see the searchlights all around London, in constant crisscrossing, interplaying patterns, reaching thousands of feet and reflecting off the stratus.

  “Do no good at all, I’m told,” said Harris, looking up at them. “Is that true?”

  “More or less,” agreed Robert, a cold, bracing breeze coming up from the Embankment. “It’s a war of invisible beams,” he explained to Harris. “But I guess searchlights give comfort to a lot of folks. Something you can see.”

  Harris had hailed a cab for Waterloo Station, its headlights two yellow slits. “What you think our chances are? Look here— I don’t want to pry — classified stuff or anything like that.”

  “I don’t know,” said Brentwood. “Far as I can tell, the experts don’t know either.”

  They got into the back of the taxi.

  “How long do you think it will last?” pressed Harris.

  “ Longer than anyone expected.”

  “That’s rather grim.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long silence until they entered Waterloo and Robert Brentwood alighted, turning to pay the cabbie. Harris waved the money away.

  “All right,” said Brentwood. “You can put off some of the people some of the time, but you can’t put off all of the people all of the time.” And with that he handed the bookshop manager the liter of Old Espagnol that he’d been hiding under his coat.

  Harris was agape.

  “Thanks for everything, Mr. Harris. I really appreciate—”

  Harris cut in, “I’m — really, this is quite — wonderful.”

  “Between allies,” said Brentwood, smiling.

  “Allies indeed.” Harris put out his hand. He made to say something, hesitated, then dared to go on anyway. “Captain, you might be right. It might last longer than any of us imagined, but if you’ll accept a piece of advice—”

  “Certainly.”

  Harris lowered his head. “That gal — any port in a storm, old boy.” Then he sat back in the cab, chuckling, shaking his head. “Any port — my God, Captain — don’t you tell anyone I told you that. So banal, they’d have me thrown out of the club.”

  “I won’t,” said Brentwood. “Good-bye.”

  “Ta-ta.”

  * * *

  When he got to Oxshott, a wind had come up, the oaks and big elms around the station blowing hard, a smell so fresh and clean that despite the distant thudding of antiaircraft guns and the orange scratches against the sky that were the surface-to-air missiles along the coast from East Anglia down, Robert had the sense that he had been to this place before. But not being a superstitious man, and trained in the cold logic of launch mode attack, he decided that it must be the invigorating force of the wind that had cleared the Guiness, heightened his senses, giving him the feeling of déjà vu.

  The Spence house, however, looked familiar, too, like the one his parents had in New Jersey — double-storied, semimodern brick. All the lights were out, but flower beds were dimly visible beneath the high silver moon, a dog barking from somewhere behind the house, and a run of big bushes, possibly rhododendrons, giving the whole garden a casually ordered appearance. He rang the bell, realizing that he’d planned this operation badly. But there had been no hotel rooms left in Oxshott, so it was either this or back to the train station to wait until 4:00 a.m. A light came on, then another.

  When the front door opened, he saw a woman, her hair in curlers, long, padded dressing gown held tightly by her hand at the throat. He guessed it was the dead boy’s mother. He took off his cap. “Mrs. Spence?”

  “No, is there something—”

  “I’m Captain Brentwood, ma’am. U.S. Navy. Robert Brentwood. My sister is a nurse — she was William’s nurse and she wrote me with—”

  “Oh — oh.” He heard the door chain rattling. “Oh, do come in. Ah — oh, please come in.” She switched on the kitchen and living room lights. She switched them off again, explaining quickly, “I haven’t drawn the blackout drapes.”

  “What’s—Rosemary!” A man in his sixties, tousled head of sparse brown hair, in a tartan nightrobe, was coming down from the upstairs bedroom, peering shortsightedly.

  “Oh, Father. This is Captain Brentwood. Nurse Brentwood’s brother. He’s—”

  Richard Spence tightened the belt on his robe and put out his hand. “How kind of you. My goodness, where have you come from at this hour?”

  “London, sir. I ‘m afraid I left it a bit late, and when I reached Oxshott, there were no bed-and-breakfast places, hotels, or anything else. I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “Bother? No bother. Rose, get Mother quickly.” He turned back to Brentwood, tying his robe tighter about his thin frame. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, sir. That’d be nice.”

  Robert Brentwood decided there and then not to tell them about the damaged tape in his kit. If they asked, he’d say it never arrived. It would be heartbreak for them.

  When Mrs. Spence came down slowly, a short, frail lady with soft white hair, she looked dazed.

  Richard Spence said softly, “My wife’s been on medication, Captain. Ever since—”

  “Of course, sir. I understand.” Robert Brentwood rose to his feet to greet Mrs. Spence.

  Richard Spence left the room hurriedly. The American’s manners, his thoughtfulness in coming this far, all the way from Scotland, to bring something of their son’s last hours in a foreign place, filled Richard Spence with such gratitude, he had to excuse himself in order to regain his composure. When he reappeared, he was in command of the situation. “I hope you’ll be staying.”

  “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, sir. A bed for the night would be more than—”

  “Tonight? When are you due back?”

  “Ten days, sir.”

  “Of course he must stay,” put in Anne Spence, the hot, steaming tea Rosemary had made reviving her. “William’s room.”

  There was a quick glance between Rosemary and her father. It was the first time Anne Spence had even considered the idea of anyone entering William’s room.

  “Perhaps,” said Rosemary, who Robert now saw had taken off her scarf and hair rollers, her hair warm and golden, “perhaps the captain has other plans, Mother. I’m sure he has friends.”

  “No, I don’t.” He had said it without thinking. Why, he couldn’t fathom. First law of defense — never betray your most vulnerable angle of attack. It was Rosemary — her eyes. She was not especially beautiful, but there was a kindness, devoid of any cunning, and in that moment he remembered Lana’s injuction about giving love. He had been trained for split-second decisions; his kind of war did not permit anything else. A second lost was a ship lost.

  He wanted to stay. The house, astonishingly to him, did not have a different smell from his own home; perhaps it was a spice, somethin
g as mundane as a rug cleaner his mother had used with the same odor, or perhaps he’d been at sea so long, he could no longer tell the difference in ambience between one house and another. Whatever the reason, he felt he was in a home he knew and understood. Here there was loyalty and affection. And there was love.

  “I’d like to stay,” he said.

  “Bravo!” said Richard Spence, brightening. “You hungry?”

  Brentwood thought about it for a moment. “Why, yes, sir, I believe I am.” They all laughed. Even Mrs. Spence showed the trace of a smile.

  “Now then, what do you Americans like?” asked Richard. “Wish Georgina was here.” He looked over at Brentwood. “She’s our younger daughter. Up at LSE — London School of Economics. Political Science—”

  “What on earth has that got to do with what Americans eat?” asked the frail-looking Mrs. Spence.

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” replied Richard, rolling up the sleeves of his robe so they wouldn’t touch the element. “Well, Georgina thinks she knows everything, I suppose. That’s why.”

  “Americans like hamburgers,” said Mrs. Spence.

  “Eggs,” said Richard. “What’s that expression? Easy up?”

  “Easy over, Daddy,” said Rosemary, chuckling. She shook her head at Robert. “Don’t mind us,” she said. “I expect we’re bombarding you awfully. Perhaps you hate eggs?”

  “No, ma’am, I love them.” Brentwood also knew that eggs were the least-rationed of foods — much easier to get than meat.

  “You see?” cut in Richard happily. “I told you, Rose. How about a Welsh rarebit?”

  “Sounds fine,” said Brentwood.

  “Oh,” said Rosemary, “how rude we are.” She walked over and took Robert’s cap. “Call me Rose,” she said quietly, and Robert Brentwood did something he normally never did. He looked at her fingers. No rings.

  As Anne Spence and her husband busied themselves in the kitchen, Mrs. Spence giving quiet directions, Richard assuring her he knew exactly what to do, Rosemary took Robert Brentwood into the dining room. “Now,” she said, “you must tell me all about yourself.”

  “I’d rather know all about you.”

  “I’m a schoolteacher.”

  “Shakespeare,” he said.

  She brightened, “How — oh,” she said, “William, I expect.”

  “Yes, my sister told me. He talked quite a lot about you— and the family.”

  “Yes. We miss him very much.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Can I ask you about your work?” Rosemary asked. “I mean, they won’t put me in prison or anything?”

  “No,” he laughed. “Ask away.”

  “This is going to sound awfully silly, but I’ve never understood why people always say how dreadful it must be on submarines. I mean, I know they’re rather crowded, or at least I imagine they are. Even the latest ones, but from the looks of them, I think I should feel much more claustrophobic on the Tube.”

  “The Tube?”

  “The underground,” she said, smiling. It was an easy smile, utterly devoid of any pretense. Their banter about the sub and everything else they discussed came as easily to them as if they were old friends — the kind whom one hasn’t seen for twenty years or more and yet whose conversation is taken up as if space and time had never existed. He couldn’t remember when he had felt more relaxed in the company of anyone outside his family. The house, like that of his parents, was neat but not obsessively so, comfortable but not ostentatiously indulgent. And though he knew nothing much about art, the paintings he saw gave him special pleasure; one in particular, La Gare du Nord, had such vibrant colors that at times it seemed to fill the Spences’ living room with a sense of life and light. The whole house seemed warm, and Robert felt that ironically it was the death of their youngest that, like the death of a crewman aboard a ship, drew the others closer together. And with Rosemary he felt he had to be honest, even confessing to her that he’d never read much Shakespeare.

  “Most people haven’t,” she said, laughing. “Not really read him. And those who do always try to make him so dramatic— and all those flourishes. His language is really very quick. Alive. You know, ‘the quick and the dead.’ “

  Robert shook his head. “Afraid you’ve lost me there.”

  She paused. They looked at each other. “I don’t think so,” she said, and they both knew that it was beginning.

  “Will you go away soon?” she asked quietly.

  “We’ll be casting off in ten days.”

  “I meant how long will you stay here?”

  “As long as I possibly can.”

  “Good,” she said. Her father was coming into the dining room with the tray. “I noticed you have a biography of Bing Crosby with you,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “One of my favorites, too.”

  Robert Brentwood was about to say that he’d bought it for Richard Spence, but it would be a lie — oh, a harmless one, but there was something about this whole family, something good that made him want to speak only the truth. Ten days might be all that they had. “I’d be happy for you to read it while I’m here—”

  “Oh, no, I don’t want to—”

  “No, sir. Please. I don’t think I’ll be doing much reading. I’d like to do a bit of walking. Stretch my legs for a change.”

  “Rose?” Richard Spence said, looking over his cup of steaming Darjeeling. “You’re the trail person. Over to the Downs, down to Martin, then over—”

  “Yes, yes,” said his wife, “but first, where did you put the toast?”

  By the time they’d finished the impromptu meal, it was near 3:30 as Richard and Anne retired, Rosemary showing Robert William’s room. It was a neat room — in what Robert thought was a very navy way — small writing desk and chair, a bed, a clean, uncluttered Victorian dresser with minor, and a picture of a young seaman — winter uniform.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said.

  Robert Brentwood was tired, but he could not sleep for thinking of her. It was already quite clear to him that they’d be married, but he decided not to rush it. He’d ask her father tomorrow.

  * * *

  In the morning, a Saturday, Robert was surprised to discover, they all enjoyed a late brunch, and afterward, newspapers all round in the sun room. Being the guest, Robert got to take his pick, and while a scantily clad chorus girl under the screaming headline “DOING HER BIT FOR THE WAR EFFORT” caught his eye, he played safe and took the Sunday Telegraph. It was a mixed read, for on the one hand, it was clear that the tide had turned in Korea, the NKA in disarray, editorials understanding the American desire to push as far as the Yalu but cautioning against it as part of any long-range solution to the upheavals on the Asian front.

  “Who is this awful Freeman man?” asked Rosemary.

  “The American general,” said Richard. “There’s talk of them sending him over to Europe. Jolly good thing, too.” He looked over at Robert. “Sorry, Captain Brentwood—”

  “Call me Robert, please.”

  “Yes, certainly. Well, Robert, you must forgive Rosemary’s disapproval of this Freeman chap.”

  “Oh, it’s not that I disapprove, Daddy,” said Rose. “I’ve no doubt he’s a very good soldier, but he says such awful things about them.”

  “That’s because they’re awful people,” said Richard. “They blatantly attack South Korea and then expect…”

  Mrs. Spence excused herself from the table and they tried to steer conversation in other directions, but inevitably it seemed to come back to the war simply because it was worldwide and day by day was affecting more and more people, the Telegraph reporting, for example, how so many of the Russian minority groups, from the Georgians to the Estonians to the Mongols, were demanding greater independence from Russian domination and how the Russian tanks had quickly put down any such aspirations, which solved nothing but merely postponed the inevitable bloodshed. And in China the “Martyrs of 1989” were c
ommemorated by students in a silent vigil in Tiananmen Square, watched from a ring of olive-green tanks by steel-helmeted troops of the People’s Liberation Army.

  “That’s why,” said Richard, “things have quieted down a bit in Western Europe for the moment. The Bolshies want to make sure their backyard’s secure before they move into France.”

  “You think they will?” asked Robert.

  Richard Spence was stirring the tea bag in the pot and squeezing it on the side, something he would never have done were it not for the rationing that was getting more severe all the time. “Attack France? It’s inevitable. I’m no strategist, but if you chaps keep doing your job and more of those convoys get through, Ivan’s going to have to do something.”

  Robert nodded. “The French ports.”

  “Exactly. I’m afraid what we’re seeing here, in Europe right now, is a lull before the next storm.” It was when Mrs. Spence reentered the room and Richard quickly turned over the war news pages that showed the map of Europe with the three great Russian prongs deep into Germany that he came across the advertisement that had been running for several days and which, like so many, in his opinion, made absolutely no sense. He pounced on it as a diversionary tactic to shift his wife’s attention away from all the battlefront news. “Here’s this madman again.”

  Rosemary leaned over to Robert. “This is Daddy’s favorite hobbyhorse. Be warned.”

  Richard Spence was reading it aloud: “It is vital to the national defense that you surrender immediately all your portable hair dryers to the following address…”

  “What’s it mean?” laughed Robert.

  “It means,” said Richard Spence, “that some damned old fool called Dr. Guy Knowlton is allowed to indulge his eccentricity despite the fact that this country is in a state of national crisis. They’re always going on about shortages, paper especially, and here they go allowing…”

  “It is a private ad, Daddy,” said Rosemary. “Not the government’s.”

  Mrs. Spence excused herself from the table again.

  “Sorry, Mother…”

  * * *

  Robert forgot all about the man and the portable hair dryers and everything else about the war as he and Rosemary walked, hand in hand, across the Downs, cycled through the tree-arched byways around Martin, and fell more deeply in love.