God! We must have made a hell of a noise. He listened for sounds of men running in jackboots and the clinking of metal.
A distant voice called, “What goes on?”
“Nothing ... a poacher ... I’m bringing him in.”
“Stay there ... don’t leave your post, fool. I’ll send a man to fetch him.”
A real poacher would have had some questions to answer for prowling round a military post.
Harry took off as fast as he could, looking for other gunpits and hoping he would not trip again. To his relief, his guide reappeared from the darkness.
*
Templer had lost several pounds in weight, worrying about his son. Alice had become taciturn and wan. They both lost hours of sleep every night and had poor appetites. Each spared the other’s feelings as much as possible by keeping their common worry unspoken; but by evening, they could no longer maintain their stoicism.
Templer stood at a window of the drawing-room, looking out across his park. They would not need lights and the blackout for another half-hour. It was a time when his spirits were always at their lowest. He took a sip from the brandy glass in his hand.
“I wonder how far he’s managed to come. Perhaps he’s reached the Channel coast by now.”
“Are you absolutely sure that we’d have heard by now if he had been taken prisoner, dear?”
“As far as one can be.”
“Perhaps he’s dead.”
Neither of them had uttered this never-absent thought as yet. Templer turned quickly, in deep concern.
“No, darling. No! Don’t ever imagine that. All the best evidence is that Harry baled out.”
“He might have been wounded. He might have died of wounds since then.”
“It’s not like you to be morbid, darling.”
“I feel blue today because it’s exactly a month since he went missing.”
“Don’t I know it! My first thought when I wake is how many days have passed since the boy was shot down.”
“Come and sit by me, Lionel. I’m so unhappy ... and frightened.”
“Frightened? You? That’s something I’ve never known, my dear.”
Templer crossed the room to sit on the side of her chair and put an arm across her shoulders.
“I feel just as I used to feel about you in the last war, when you were in France.”
“You never showed it, when I came on leave.”
“Which was seldom. No, I was determined never to let you see how terrified and sad I was when you were away. I feel the same about Harry.”
“Naturally. What you need is a change. Go and spend a few days in London; see some shows, buy clothes ...”
She gave a wry little laugh. “Clothes! I can’t spare many clothing coupons just now. Besides, I don’t want to leave you. Let’s both go up for a few days.”
He kissed the top of her head.
“Do you good to have a break from me. Besides, I can’t leave the farm just now. You’ve got plenty of girl friends; go and stay with one of them, or ask one to come up from the country and join you at the Savoy.”
She was quiet for a moment, fondling his hand. He had not made love to her for over a fortnight: they were both too listless. They had never gone so long without it in their lives, except when the exigencies of the Service had separated them.
If I go to London, she thought, and spoil myself with a perm and a new hair-do, and a pedicure, a manicure, massage ... some daring new undies and a super new nightie ... if I see some musical comedies and come back cheered up, sexy and with something new to talk about ...
“All right, darling, I think I will. If you’re sure you’ll be all right for a few days.”
“I shall miss you, but I’ll be able to get on with some things I’ve been putting off. I promised to give a series of lectures to the Air Training Corps; the Area Commander of the Home Guard asked me to give a talk to each of the companies around here; the Air Raid Precautions people want me to take on some job for them. You see, darling, you’ll be helping the war effort by taking a spot of holiday.”
On the night before she left for London, to stay with a cousin in St. John’s Wood, and to meet an old friend, the wife of Colin Bentinck, who was now at Air Ministry as an air vice marshal — they were living in Bayswater — Alice took extra care with her preparations for bed. She used some of her hoarded bath salts and dabbed scent behind her ears and on her breasts. She put on her flimsiest nightie.
She spoke to her husband as she came into their bedroom direct from her bath. She had nothing particular to say; it was only to draw his attention.
He put down the book he was reading. Her scent reached him. He closed the book and put it on the bedside table. He pulled back the bedclothes on her side and moved towards it.
“Come in darling. And take that damn garment off before you do.” He began to remove his pyjamas and throw them out of the bed.
She stood smiling down at him.
“I’d rather you took it off for me, darling.”
Twenty minutes later, relaxed in his arms, she said softly, “Sure you don’t mind my leaving you?”
“I’m going to mind like hell, now you’ve reminded me what I’ve been missing ... how I’ve been neglecting you. But it will make me look forward all the more to your return.”
“Then we’d better have an encore, darling, just to impress that on your mind ...”
*
On a night in July 1940, with the Battle of Britain just begun and air fights over south-eastern England every day, London was, as usual, thronged with pleasure-seekers.
Air Vice Marshal Bentinck had given himself an extra few hours off duty to escort his wife, one of her closest friends and wife of one of his oldest, Alice Templer, and Alice’s middle-aged widowed cousin, to the theatre and dinner.
They enjoyed Herbert Farjeon’s witty review, Sweet And Low; and their smoked salmon, venison and sherry trifle at the Savoy Grill. The women were arranging a morning’s shopping for the following day.
“We’ll meet at Harvey Nicholls,” Alice said, “we’ll go to Harrods afterwards, and Fortnum’s. I’ll stand lunch at the Ritz.”
“Wizard,” said Molly Bentinck; who was always free with the latest junior officers’ slang and catch phrases: as she had been pretty free with junior officers, in the statutory period of boredom with marriage; but, having had her fling, was rigidly respectable now; and no longer the toothsome piece she had been, anyway. A pilot officer or flying officer who was badly missing his mother might have turned to her; but not for the kind of comfort he once would have sought.
On the way back to the house in St. John’s Wood, Alice and her cousin heard an air raid siren; but the All Clear sounded before they arrived at their destination.
The taxi driver, even on a summer’s evening swaddled in three layers of outer garments and engaged in a long search for change, reassured the ladies.
“Don’t mean nuffink, them sye-reens. It’s always one of ours or some Jerry lost ‘is way and more scared of gettin’ shot dahn than anyfink. All Jerry wants to do is find out where ‘e is an’ beat it.”
Alice lay awake for a short while, mentally reminiscing about her pleasant evening and contemplating the morrow’s shopping and luncheon, with pleasure. She heard the air raid warning screech across North London, but, remembering the taxi driver’s words, smiled in the blacked-out room and fell asleep.
6.
Templer was drunk when the station commander at Massingham telephoned him at lunch-time on a fine sunny July day. He had been drunk by lunch-time every day for the past three weeks.
Group Captain Hobdey and Templer had served as flight lieutenants together immediately after the war. Even had Hobdey not known Templer, this was a momentous occasion that would have deserved his personal announcement.
“Is that you Lionel?”
The slurred voice, the hiccup, the sound of the telephone being dropped and picked up, did not consort with his recollection of Templer.<
br />
“Templer here ... who’s that?”
“Hobdey, at Massingham.”
“Hobdey? Ivo Hobdey?”
“That’s right, Lionel. Are you all right, old boy?”
“What d’you mean, am I all right?” Templer’s tone was truculent.
Hobdey cast a troubled look at Harry, who was seated on the other side of the desk. Sounds tight, he thought. Can’t be; not Templer.
“I think it’s a bad line ...”
“Nothing wrong with the line ... can hear you perfectly well ... Strength Ten, and all that ... what can I do for you?”
“I’ve got the news you’ve been waiting for.”
“What news? All news is bad, these days, Hobdey, old boy.”
Sounds as tight as a coot. Should I let this boy speak to his father if he’s three sheets in the wind? Harry was regarding him curiously. Mentally, Hobdey shrugged.
“I’ve got someone here who’ll change your mind. Hold on.”
Hobdey handed the telephone to Harry.
“It’s Harry, Father. Are you all right? How’s Mother?”
Hobdey saw Harry turn white, his hand shake, his mouth work soundlessly for a moment. Then he heard him say, quietly, almost as though he were choking, “I’ll be home in a couple of hours.”
Harry handed the telephone back and Hobdey put it to his ear, but Templer had rung off.
“What’s wrong, Templer?”
“My mother, sir. A bomb fell on her cousin’s house in London ... my mother was staying there.”
Hobdey looked shaken. “I’m sorry. How bad is it?”
“I don’t know ... my father didn’t say ... he hung up after he’d told me that she was there when the house was hit.”
“I’ll get someone to fly you to White Waltham in a Magister straight away. I’ll tell the Adj to arrange for transport from there to take you home: it’s only a few miles, isn’t it?”
“About twenty-five, actually, sir. Very good of you.” Harry hesitated. “Actually, sir, it wouldn’t be any problem landing and taking-off a Maggie in our park.”
Hobdey, a man of swift decision and action on occasion, who had been awarded an Air Force Cross for his work as a test pilot, said, “It might not be quite as easy as you think. I’d better take you myself. I could do with an hour or two away from this ruddy desk.”
*
Food, a cold shower and lots of black coffee had restored Templer to some degree of sobriety and coherence.
He supervised the making of a bonfire whose smoke would indicate the wind direction for Hobdey’s landing. He was sitting on a shooting stick, waiting for the first sound of the Magister’s approach, long before it was due.
Hobdey left the engine running while he and his passenger climbed out and Harry removed his suitcase.
“Sorry to hear about your wife, Lionel.”
“Thank you, Ivo. Good of you to do this for us.” Templer offered no information. “I daresay you want to get back straight away.”
Hobdey and Harry exchanged a long, doubtful look.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Don’t worry about me. You’ve got a station to run.” The bitterness of deprivation in Templer’s voice burned like vitriol.
“I’ll be on my way, then. See you in a couple of weeks, Harry. Telephone me if there’s anything I can do.” Such as organising a couple of toughs to bring a strait jacket here and put your father away.
When the aeroplane was out of sight, Harry linked an arm with his father’s.
“Mother?”
“She was killed.” Templer freed himself. “You look well, considering what you must have been through. You must tell me all about it.”
“You don’t look at all well, Father. Have you seen your doctor lately?”
“Came to offer condolences. Wanted to examine me. Told him to buzz off.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes. It was a long walk to the house.
Without preliminary, Templer said, “Nothing left to bury, you know. No funeral. Now you’re home, we’ll hold a memorial service. And I’m having a commemorative plaque put up in the church.”
“What about the girls? Why aren’t they here?”
“Now that Elizabeth has qualified, she’s desperately busy. She wants to join the R.A.M.C. She came home for a week, when your mother was killed, but that was all the leave she could get. Margaret came down for the Long Vac just after you were shot down. She was so blazingly angry about it, that she went straight off and joined the Waaf. Says she’ll go back to finish her degree when this show’s over. She was home for a week’s compassionate leave at the same time as Elizabeth. She was still doing her basic training then.”
“Where is she now?”
“At Bawdsey, learning to be a fighter plotter.”
“If she’d stayed up and taken her degree, she’d have been certain of her commission.”
The universities had reduced degree courses from three years to two, on the outbreak of war.
“Both your sisters are very fond of you, my boy. You should take it as a compliment that she did what she did.”
“I do. I’ll telephone them both straight away.”
Mrs Meyer was standing on the steps outside the front door, all smiles. She was small, desiccated and hardy. Her nose was a conspicuous emblem of her race, her black eyes were shrewd but full of kindness, her hands were forever busy: tidying — any object slightly out of place was anathema — arranging flowers, sewing, knitting, crocheting, cooking.
“Mister Harry!” She embraced him and kissed him on both cheeks. He was instantly reminded of the last woman who had done so: Ursula, in farewell. Was all well with her and Bruno?
“Hello, Mrs Meyer. How are you?”
Tears welled into her eyes. “Sad ... so very sad, Mr Harry ... heartbroken ... but I am overjoyed to see you safe and well. You are well?” She studied him with anxiety.
“Yes, thank you. I have been very lucky. It’s a sad homecoming, nonetheless.”
“Tea is waiting for you: cucumber sandwiches, fruit cake and home-made bread with home-made strawberry jam and farm butter.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t much appetite, but I’ll do my best.” The news of his mother’s death had robbed him of any desire for food.
Templer left them and went into the drawing-room. Harry carried his case upstairs. Mrs Meyer followed him. When they were out of earshot, she said, “I am very worried about the Group Captain.”
“He doesn’t look well. I’ve never seen him so haggard and thin.”
Mrs Meyer whispered, as though fearful of being overheard; although they were on the floor above the drawing-room and two solid oak doors were closed between them and Templer.
“Mr Harry ... he has been drinking. Forgive me for saying so, but ...” she shrugged. “He is totally grief-stricken. Miss Elizabeth was so worried that she made me promise to telephone every day. She telephoned Dr Bradley and he has been twice, but your father was quite rude to him and sent him packing. Miss Margaret, the same: I have to telephone her every day.” She paused, her eyes searching Harry’s face for encouragement. “I do not like to say this, but he is drunk by lunch time and although he sobers up during the afternoon, he is never sober after dinner.”
“I’m here for two weeks. I should be able to help him.”
“I’m sure you can, Mr Harry. You are the apple of his eye. But two weeks is a short time when two people loved as he and your mother loved each other.”
“He must be lost without her.”
“And his hatred for the Germans ...” She raised her hands in a way that was the universal gesture of distressed Jewry, from Jerusalem to Whitechapel, Antwerp to New York. “Oi vay! It frightens me sometimes. There are moments when he looks at me with his eyes blank, and I feel he is seeing me as a German, because of my mother tongue, and not as an Austrian or a Jew. I can feel a blaze of hatred ...”
Harry put an arm about her. “Nonsense, Mrs Meyer dear
. He could never hate you. But I am worried about what you say. His hatred for the Germans has always been an obsession. It could be very dangerous now. It could turn his brain. I’ll have a word with Dr Bradley; and with Elizabeth.”
“Poor boy: you have been through enough, without coming home to all this ... such grief. You must have had a terrible time, eh?”
“I wish I could tell you about it: but it will have to wait until after the war: security ... you understand.”
“Yes, of course.”
“But one thing I will tell you: without help, I could never have got away. I was helped by two of the bravest, most generous, kindest, finest people I have ever known. Germans!”
“Heiliges Gott! You don’t say so? Jewish people?”
“Alas, no. I don’t think there is even one Jew left free in Germany now. But I can tell you no more.”
“It is enough. I can draw my own conclusions. There must be many good Germans who mean no harm to the Jews or to the British; or the French, the Dutch, the Belgians. People who hate Hitler and Nazism. It gives me hope.” She smiled and kissed him impulsively on the cheek, raising herself on tiptoe to do so. “Now come and have your tea and start the work of repairing the damage to your poor father’s mind and spirit.”
Harry found his father at an open window, gazing at the sky. He did not turn when he heard Harry enter.
Harry crossed the room, to his side.
“What is it, Father?”
There were dissolving condensation trails in the sky.
“Con trails. I was listening, but I couldn’t hear them: sometimes there’s a dogfight, even here. It’s not only over Kent and Sussex and the Thames estuary that the air battles are going on. A Spitfire boy shot down a Heinkel two days ago and I watched him do it. It came down five miles away. Unfortunately.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“Because I’d have liked to get my hands on the bastards in it.” Templer spoke as though in a trance. There was a vacant expression in his eyes when he turned to glance briefly at his son.
Harry felt a chilly shudder run though him.
War Wounds Page 11