Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  He was suddenly aware that more than half the spectators and boys were watching him, rather than the game. He was in full military uniform, right on the front steps of the pavilion. Quickly, he stepped down and went to an empty chair right at the back of the crowd, to make himself less conspicuous.

  Tom survived the first ball and the next, and Charles began to breathe more easily. The third spun off the outside edge of his bat and Charles groaned, but the boy in the slips dropped the catch. Off the last ball Tom drove the ball for two runs and Charles heaved a sigh of relief.

  Over the Easter holidays, father and son had become, for the first time, friends of a sort. It was a new emotion for Charles. He had been away abroad so often while Tom was young, and when he was at home on leave the boy had seemed either afraid of his father or indifferent to him, more interested in collecting worms or beetles or stealing cakes from the kitchen. Then, Tom had been Deborah’s concern. Now, at the same time as he was finding his relationship with his wife harder and more repugnant than ever, Charles had come to feel new pride in his growing son.

  That boy in white out there with the flapping oversize pads will grow into a youth and then a man and will one day inherit Glenfee, he thought. I shall never have another son. The sort of man he grows into will depend a great deal upon me.

  When two more overs had gone and Tom had scored ten runs, Charles began to relax. The headmaster came over to talk to him and Charles responded civilly. His son, he learned, had settled in well this term and, in every department except Latin, was up to scratch. Dr Duncan was chiefly interested to learn what shape the UVF was in and Charles told him, curtly, that they could now take military control of the entire province overnight if they wished. Then Tom, to his father’s vast delight, hit a four, and both men applauded.

  When the match was over Charles obtained permission to take his son out for a drive in the car for a couple of hours. The chauffeur drove them along the shores of Lough Neagh until they came to a small village where a stream joined the lake. Charles remembered from a previous visit with Deborah that there was a pub here which also sold groceries and could be induced to provide a cream tea. Father and son sat out in the garden together, watching a small brown-sailed fishing boat drift slowly in the distance.

  ‘You did well,’ Charles said. ‘Though it was a little ambitious to try to knock that spinner for six. You deserved to be caught making a cackhanded swipe like that.’

  Tom grinned. ‘It was a bit wild. But Hale and I had a bet on it. He mucked it up too.’

  ‘Hale?’

  ‘The team captain. Didn’t you see him? Big fellow, fair hair, went in number four. His brother’s in the first team at Haileybury.’

  ‘Oh. Decent sort, is he?’

  ‘I’ll say!’ For a while Charles listened as his son rattled enthusiastically on about the exploits of Hale and his other school friends, and he thought, this is a whole world the boy has which I know nothing of. Or rather, I know nothing of the particular boys. The general atmosphere of Tom’s school sounded much as his own had been.

  ‘How about you, Father?’ Tom asked. ‘Was it very dangerous landing the guns?’

  Charles smiled. The sudden intense, shy eagerness in his son’s face touched and amused him. ‘Not really, no. More a matter of careful staffwork and forward planning, you know.’

  Tom looked disappointed. ‘But didn’t the others — the government army — try to stop you?’

  ‘They didn’t know anything about it.’ Charles relented, and told the story of the phantom army of British soldiers which had marched out of Holywood Barracks and vanished into the night when they had landed the guns at Bangor. Then, seeing the spark in his son’s eyes, he told the story as carefully as he could of how the guns had been landed and where they had gone, and of how he had outfaced a British Army patrol a few days later. After that, somehow, they got on to his exploits in Egypt and the Sudan, and the day, many years ago, when he had ridden forty miles through the desert alone, in danger of being captured by hostile tribesmen at every yard. Tom demolished his scones and cake and listened, his eyes alight with romance and pride.

  I am a hero to this boy, Charles thought suddenly.

  It was not a thought that he had consciously been aware of before. It brought with it immense pleasure, and a slight, hidden fear. He did not want to think about the fear. There is no reason, he thought, why Tom should not be proud of me. Especially now that I am here at home in Ulster, fighting for something I believe to be right. If Tom believes in it, too, that makes it all so much more worthwhile.

  On the way back to St Andrews he told Tom of his own time at school when he had been in the Eton team which had beaten Harrow by three runs and of another, stranger match on the North West Frontier, which had been brought to a sudden, untimely end when the pitch was invaded by a wild band of Waziri horsemen, who rode across it at a mad gallop firing flintlock muskets at the players.

  In his dormitory Tom introduced his father to Hale, his cricket team captain. The boy shook Charles’s hand politely and accompanied them downstairs as Charles took his leave. Charles shook hands with them both on the front steps of the school and got into the back seat of the Lancia. He felt proud and happy, pleased that he had come. The open-topped car scrunched away across the gravel drive, and he turned in the seat for a final wave.

  But the boys had already turned their backs and were going into the house. Hale, the bigger boy, had slung his arm casually across Tom’s shoulders.

  An eel started to gnaw at Charles’ spine. He shivered suddenly in full sunlight, and was tempted to order his chauffeur to turn the car round, so that he could sprint back across the gravel and wrench the two boys apart. But he gripped the back of the seat and did nothing. The car carried him smoothly through the lovely countryside, away from his son.

  Surely not, he told himself. They’re both far too young, that boy Hale’s only a year older than Tom.

  But in a few short years . . . I remember a boy who looked a bit like Hale once. In my study at Eton. The one with the beautiful hips and the broken hand. If I could love other boys, then sooner or later Tom . . .

  He had not thought of Tom in this context before. But once the idea had occurred to him, it had to be faced. Charles prided himself on being a logical man, clear-thinking, direct. It was that which had led to his success as an army officer. That, combined with a less logical love of the thrill of personal danger, a delight in the daring risk.

  What would I feel if my son preferred men to women? As I do.

  The answer stunned him with its violence and finality. I will not have it! It cannot be allowed. I would ache with grief.

  Why?

  He sat back in his seat, watching a herd of cows wending their way homeward through the long evening tree shadows, and thought, it is mostly jealousy. I could not bear my son to be used like that by a man or another boy.

  What if he enjoyed it?

  He wouldn’t, at first. Be honest, Charles, he told himself, none of the boys I knew at school enjoyed it initially. They had to be trained, coerced, persuaded.

  Corrupted, the world would say.

  Charles knew, from some of the Greek and Latin poets he had read at school, that there had once been a time when sexual love between two men, soldiers even, had been acceptable. Achilles and Patroclus, perhaps. Hermes and Lysander. He had once heard it argued that such a time might, one day, come again. The point was interesting, but academic. In the real world of the British Empire homosexuality was a crime punishable with instant dismissal from military service, imprisonment, social ostracism. Not so long ago the penalty had been life imprisonment.

  Do I want that for my son?

  Of course not. No father could. If the boy grows up like me in this he will be condemned to secretive, snatched, hidden affairs, often with different men, usually brief and guilty, enlivened only by the thrill of lust and the horrible, appalling danger of discovery and instant utter ruin. Little tenderness, love, securit
y — where is the room for that, in all the fear, suspicion, danger?

  And an impotent marriage, too. I am lucky to have a son at all. Deborah was right, I suppose. I have been cold to her since I came back from Egypt and it must be hurtful to her and impossible to understand. Even if it is repugnant to me it is my duty to give her the chance to have a family. To give myself another son.

  Only . . . I wanted to be faithful to Simon.

  For once in his adult life, after so many years of rigid celibacy and occasional secret snatched encounters with strangers, Charles had believed that in Simon Fletcher he had found someone to love. A boy who was not only beautiful and discreet, but who could return tenderness and trust and love, whom he could have by his side constantly, and not be afraid of losing.

  There is no fool like an old fool, Charles told himself.

  I am nearly forty years old, there is grey hair in my moustache and my forehead is higher than it was because my hair is receding. I am still fit enough but my body is leathery and hard and scarred in places by sabres. In cold weather I limp because of the knee that was crushed when the polo pony fell on me. There is no beauty in me for the boy to admire, only my power for him to cling on to.

  As the Lancia swept into the drive at Glenfee Charles thought, what would I do if Tom found out about me and Simon?

  Would I sit down and explain it to him like a father, as I talked about cricket this afternoon?

  Or take out my revolver and shoot myself in the head?

  Simon Fletcher was furious.

  All his life people had been taking advantage of him. Usually they succeeded at first; always they failed in the end. He knew all about blackmail; he had used it half a dozen times against men who had deserted him. The power of blackmail gave him a thrill which warmed him all along his spine. It was an addiction he loved. But he had never dreamed that it would be used against himself.

  What was infuriating about it was the sense of helplessness. The sense that he was about to lose control of his own life; to become a doll, a puppet in another man’s game. To do something that meant nothing to him, and a great deal to that German, Werner von Weichsaker.

  As Simon cycled back to Glenfee along the quiet country lanes, the expression on the German’s face, and the curious ugliness of his crippled hand, obsessed him. He remembered the malicious confidence of the man; the way Werner had enjoyed teasing him by raising his voice, summoning him back when he wanted to leave. That was only the beginning. If I do what he wants now, it will only get worse. There will be more demands, more hoops to jump through.

  I won’t do it.

  He’s threatening Charles as well as me. No one else has a right to do that. He’s my lover. I should protect him.

  I will.

  Loyalty was a new emotion for Simon. It made him feel virtuous, almost saintlike. He cycled in through the gates of Glenfee in a glow of good feeling. He was less sure how practical it was.

  He saw the chauffeur polishing the Lancia in the carriage shed where it was housed, and deduced that Charles must have recently arrived home.

  What shall I do? Tell Charles? No — no point; it would just make him miserable. I’ll deal with the Kraut myself, somehow or other. For now I’ll just go in to Charles and be pleasant to him.

  The letter had arrived late in the day. Charles sat in the library, reading it. It was brief and disappointing.

  Belgrave Square

  29 April 1914

  My dear Charles,

  I was pleased and touched to receive your letter this morning. With all the difficulty and danger of landing so many guns it must have been hard for you to find time to write, but I am relieved to learn that you are safe and that it went well. Let us hope that the increased strength of your soldiers will not lead to war, but to a decent, negotiated peace.

  I had an uneventful journey over and Jonathan is well. Neither he nor I have been able to see Sarah yet and may not for a month, but I live in hope. I will write more later. In haste,

  Your wife,

  Deborah

  It was unusually short for her letters, and said nothing, really. Charles read it twice, frowned, and flung it dejectedly into the fire. She had taken three days even to write this much. Perhaps he had no right to expect more from her, but he had tried, in his own last letter, to apologise for his coldness. He remembered the words and the thought they had cost him. You will forgive me if I seemed a trifle abrupt at our last meeting. You and I are going through choppy waters at the moment but so long as we keep our chins up we shall not go under! Surely that was clear and decent enough — what more could any man have said? Women were supposed to be the experts in matters of the heart and keeping a marriage going, but she hadn’t even bothered to reply to that part of his letter. Can’t blame a chap for trying.

  ‘Good evening. Mind if I join you?’

  Charles looked up. Simon had come into the room. It was his day off, so he wore civilian clothes — white shirt, blazer, grey flannels. As always, he looked slim, lithe, graceful. Not in any way effete — Charles would not have been attracted to that — but a fit young man who had been gifted with unusual physical perfection.

  He walked to the mantelpiece and stood there, lighting a cigarette. Charles sat back in his chair, surveying him. The last scrap of Deborah’s letter turned to ash in the fire by Simon’s leg.

  When the cigarette was alight and Charles had still not spoken, Simon said: ‘Well? Did you have a good day?’

  ‘Extremely pleasant, thank you. I drove over to see my son.’

  ‘Ah.’ A little twinge of jealousy crawled like a gnat on Simon’s skin. He smiled and brushed it away. ‘And is he well? It’s the cricket season, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. He’s in the team. I saw them play.’ Charles would have liked to go on, to describe the scene, but not . . . not to Simon. It would have besmirched the memory, somehow, and anyway he had the sense that Simon’s interest in the game would be feigned. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Oh, I just went into town. Mooched about.’

  ‘See any unusual activity by the army or police?’

  ‘No.’ Simon smiled. ‘We’ve got them on the run, haven’t we?’

  ‘I hope so. We’ll see next week, I expect. When Carson cornes over.’

  Don’t remind me of that, Simon thought. But the subject had a certain fascination, after all. ‘Why then?’

  ‘Well, if they were going to make any kind of stand, that’d be the time, wouldn’t it? Try to prevent the man from parading front of his own armed troops, don’t you see? If I were Asquith I’d have Carson arrested before he left London. But I doubt the man’s got the guts.’

  ‘Probably not.’ Simon exhaled slowly, thoughtfully. ‘What’s Carson’s itinerary, exactly?’

  ‘He arrives at Lame first, then on to the Old Town Hall, Belfast, and after that Craigavon. He’ll spend one night there, and after that he’s due to spend Sunday with a friend of his - Ferris - just outside Dundonald. He gives another speech in Bangor on Monday night and leaves next morning from Belfast.’

  ‘Oh. So he’ll come near us then?’

  ‘Too true he will. I’ve been given the job of picking him up Sunday morning at Craigavon and guaranteeing his security for the rest of the day. I’ve been on to Ferris already and warned Sergeant Cullen to detail half a dozen of his best lads. We’ll need two cars, besides our own — I was going to put you on to that in the morning.’

  ‘I see,’ Simon said softly. ‘A big responsibility.’

  ‘Indeed. A great honour for our boys, as well. He must have liked what he saw of them when he was over a fortnight ago.’

  ‘Yes.’ Simon thought: I’ll tell him now. But if I do, Werner will write that article, and we’ll both be ruined. Wait, until I’ve worked out how to deal with Werner.

  He smiled at Charles and said: ‘You look tired.’

  ‘No.’ Charles said after a pause. ‘A little sad, only.’

  ‘Sad? Why is that?’ Simon strolled
over from the mantelpiece and perched on the arm of a chair a few feet from Charles. He dared not come closer. It was a rule they almost always observed, never to touch where there was the slightest risk of discovery by servants or others. Simon had a room at his disposal in the East Wing of Glenfee, where he was sleeping tonight, but only two or three times had they dared to come together there. Mostly they met in Simon’s old lodgings, which he had kept on in Belfast; once in a hotel in Donaghadee. It was a furtive, secret, terrifying business.

  Charles said: ‘Because I have made a decision which pains me.’

  Simon laughed. ‘You sound very solemn for so late at night. Was it so hard, then, with your son at the school?’

  ‘No. Not at all, it was very pleasant.’ Charles looked away from Simon, into the fire; then made up his mind and faced the boy calmly. ‘Simon, you are much younger than me; you don’t know what it is to have a son. Perhaps I haven’t known all these years, as well as I should have, but something brought it home to me today. It’s a responsibility. I can’t do just as I wish because every action of mine has an effect on Tom as well as on myself. I suppose all this sounds obvious to you, but I have not felt it so strongly before.’

  ‘Not obvious,’ Simon said coolly. ‘But very solemn. What are you trying to say?’

  Charles took a deep breath. ‘I am trying to say, Simon, what I have perhaps hinted once or twice before. That . . . it is not sensible for me to carry on a relationship with you as I have done. And I mean it this time, Simon! Please hear me out!’

  His voice rose sharply as Simon stood up and strode to the mantelpiece. He flung his cigarette into the fire and stood with his back to Charles, but Charles went on nonetheless.

  ‘It is not good for me because I cannot be a decent father if I have such a relationship — and I risk losing everything my son has any right to expect, for just a few minutes’ stolen pleasure. And it is not good for you Simon, either, if the truth be told.’

  ‘Not good for me? Oh, wonderful — how do you work that out?’