by MARY HOCKING
`And Daphne?’
`I only met her tonight.’ He looked down at her. `I don’t think we’d have got anywhere.’ He straightened up and staggered a little; something dark glistened on his face, his jacket was torn and one arm was limp at his side.
`You can’t go like that!’ Peter protested.
`Don’t worry about me. I’m sick of this war. If I’m going to get smashed up, I’ll do it in my own way from now on. Give me ten minutes.’
In fact, it was fifteen minutes before Peter reached a house and telephoned for an ambulance. Kerren stayed with Daphne. Daphne’s glazed eyes were open and so was her mouth, her black tie lay neatly between her breasts. She looked about as interesting as something displayed in the Mac Fisheries. Kerren could not understand why she had ever thought her romantic.
Chapter Seven
`It sounds rather reprehensible,’ Kerren wrote to Dorothy, `but in fact it was quite innocent and joyous. Poor Daphne is paying heavily now, though. She is in hospital with concussion. I have mild shock, so I’m in sick bay at B camp – the only resident and spoilt! Peter comes to see me and sits holding my hand, vowing he will take care of me better in future. He told the tale well and the official view seems to be that we were more sinned against than sinning – Daphne’s friends didn’t report us, which was decent of them. The girls in the cabin have rallied round. Jessie brought me eggs from the farm, she was so proud you would have thought she had laid them herself; I shall have to visit that farm with her now. Robin brought me a book of John Pudney’s poetry’ “because I know you like that kind of thing”. I’m not quite sure that I do like it, but it was sweet of her. She told me that Hunter is very upset about me and Peter; he keeps talking about men disintegrating under the strain of war-time life, etc. Peter certainly isn’t disintegrating. But I do have my doubts about Hunter.
`Most surprising of all has been Adam. He has lent me his portable gramophone. The result is that I have made the most amazing discovery. There is a Bach record – a concerto for two violins – which I played more as a gesture to Adam than for any other reason. It starts much as usual, contained, formal, no feeling. I was lying back in bed, letting my mind wander, when quite suddenly all the musical equations sorted themselves out and there was the most wonderful slow movement. I hardly know how to describe it . . . pure, tranquil and something more. The music of happiness. I told Adam and for some reason he was not best pleased with me.’
She put the pen down and lay back for a while, thinking about Adam. His manner had been strange, almost resentful, as though she had invaded his private world. It was dusk outside; the nurse had forgotten to put the black-out up at the window and Kerren dared not switch on the light. She was glad when Naomi and Hazel arrived and gave her other problems, less intractable than Adam, to occupy her mind. When they had gone she continued her letter to Dorothy.
`There is to be a party at B camp next week to which we can invite members of other services. Robin, it seems, is bringing her new man. She has been behaving as though she had come into a fortune, with the result that everyone is expecting something sensational. I’m so afraid she will make a fool of herself; this would hurt her terribly, she is so proud. I must try to talk to her about it; but it won’t be easy because she isn’t very confiding where men are concerned.’
Time flew by after Kerren came out of sick bay and it was not until the night before the party that she had a chance to speak to Robin when they were alone together in the cabin. She tried to think of a tactful approach, decided that this wasn’t her style, and said abruptly:
`If this man is anything below C. in C. Western Approaches, I wouldn’t bother to bring him if I were you.’
Robin, who was brushing her hair, smiled at herself in the mirror. `Is that what they are saying?’
`He’ll have to be better than Claude.’
`Claude?’
Kerren nodded at the portrait of the army officer on Robin’s chest of drawers. `Jessie calls him Claude.’
`Not bad for Jessie. In fact, his name’s Clyde. And I keep the photograph there to remind me of what will happen to me if I go back to Cheltenham after the war.’
`Is he that bad?’
`It would be like captivity after you had lived free.’
`If he’s so tedious, why don’t you break with him?’
`You’ve no idea what it’s like at home without a man to go around with.’
`He’s an insurance, then? In case you do go back?’
`Perhaps.’ She was smiling again, brushing her hair with long, luxurious strokes. It was no use warning her, Kerren decided.
Peter had to fly to Renfrew the next day, so he could not come to the party. In the evening, Kerren sat in the cabin watching the others making their preparations. Robin was not there.
`She’s gone to meet her brigadier,’ Naomi said.
`Why don’t you bring Frank to the party?’ Jessie asked Beatie.
`We’re going to a dance.’
There was no one to touch Frank on the dance floor, the bellbottoms flaring out in the sensuous rhythm of the tango; off the floor he was serious and a little gauche. No partner for a party, particularly if Robin was bringing someone really spectacular.
Hazel, who was fussing everyone because her brother was coming to the party after all, accused Jessie:
`You haven’t washed yet.’
`Yes, I have.’
`Jessie, you haven’t! It’s no use putting on a clean shirt if what’s underneath isn’t clean.’
Jessie picked up her towel, flannel and soap and went out, her face streaked red across the cheeks.
`She smells,’ Hazel complained. `No wonder she never gets more than one date with a man.’
A few minutes later when Hazel, Naomi and Kerren were on their way down the cinder track they passed Jessie returning from the ablution block. She was in good spirits again and shouted after them:
`Save me a man, girls!’
Hazel shuddered and pushed Kerren along the path to the recreation room. She hoped that Michael would not be too disgusted by her companions.
`I’ve hardly ever been in here,’ Kerren said as they opened the door. The room had the feeling of a place that is seldom used and in which no one is at home. Dixie was there, talking to a tall, rangy American major. `Texan,’ Naomi hazarded. `Wide open face and pockets full of gold.’ Michael Peake had also arrived; he was standing at the far end of the room with two fellow paratroopers. Hazel made the introductions and they engaged in stilted conversation. Kerren looked at the other groups. The men were obviously uncomfortable, feeling that they were on show.
`Poor things!’ she said. `We ought to lead them once round the ring for everyone to have a good stare and then put them out to pasture.’
Michael Peake thought about this and decided that it was funny. Hazel looked warmly at Kerren. Michael Peake said, `You’re the one from Ireland.’ It was obvious that he had been led to expect eccentricity, the eyes showed that he was braced to accept it. Anxious eyes, thin taut face, a slight impediment in the speech – whatever had possessed such a man to join the paratroopers? Perhaps, again, the answer was in the eyes. There was something else there besides anxiety; a kind of strained determination, the look of a man who has answered a call. Kerren shivered and turned away: martyrs are uneasy company.
Naomi had fastened on to one of Michael’s friends. Jessie came in a few minutes later and attached herself to the other one, much to Hazel’s annoyance. She was strident in company, laughing all the time and making crude jokes at every opportunity. The men played up to her and Kerren knew that they would laugh about her on the way back.
There was no room to dance. Even so, someone put on a gramophone record and Dixie drifted into her major’s arms. One or two G.I.s started to jitterbug. The room filled up gradually, it became hot, clouded with smoke. The cover was taken off the long table at the back on which the food was set out. Kerren danced with Jessie’s paratrooper; she was as inept as ever and he e
scaped at the first opportunity. She was left alone on the fringe of the crowd, feeling desolate without Peter. Near by, Michael Peake was telling Naomi a long story about a long jump. Kerren saw Naomi’s expression suddenly harden into genuine interest as her eyes wandered over the paratrooper’s shoulder. One or two other people were looking that way. Robin had come in with her guest.
Kerren saw a man who would always stand out in a crowd, not so much because of his height, although he was nearly six foot, but because he was not of the crowd. As he and Robin strolled across to the food table he did not avoid the staring eyes, as many would have done, but looked round him with the kind of detached acknowledgement of the presence of others which Kerren had hitherto imagined was the sole prerogative of visiting royalty. People stood to one side to let them pass, just as though Robin had indeed come with the C. in C. Western Approaches instead of a plain G.I. This, Kerren thought, is Robin’s finest hour! The two stood chatting easily, selecting food as though the table had been spread for them alone. Robin was at her most effervescent, recounting amusing stories about the camp, looking at no one but him as though they existed in a world of their own and the other people were on the far side of a glass screen. The man listened, appreciating Robin’s gaiety rather than her comments, one suspected. Kerren thought they must be very much in love. Later, Robin introduced him to her.
`This is Con Hilliard. His family came from Ireland.’
`Which part?’
`That was way back.’ Although the brown eyes were not unfriendly, they gave nothing away except a determination to give nothing away. Someone asked him what part of America he came from and he answered, `Long Island’, and did not elaborate.
She danced with him once. He was easy to dance with, responsive to rhythm, effortless, no movement going to waste. Yet, in spite of his languid grace, his reactions were very quick as he steered her free of the jitterbugging couples and his body against hers was hard and compact.
`I usually fall over people when I dance with them,’ she told him.
He smiled. A kind smile, genuinely amused; but the humour was born of indifference rather than tolerance. Kerren looked at the close-cropped head, the long, broad forehead, the square jaw; the bone structure was good, hard and durable. A real descendant of the frontiersmen one might have said, if one had ignored the eyes. But the eyes looked beyond the far country to a place where no one else would be admitted.
Later, in the cabin, she said to Robin, `You once said all the Yanks around here were misunderstood husbands.’
`Well?’
`He’s no one’s husband.’
Robin was brushing her hair again; it was soft and smooth, gleaming red and gold. Kerren noticed the flush of blood in her cheeks, the brightness of her eyes, the pulse that beat in her throat. She said, `Don’t fall for him, Robin.’
Robin went on dreaming into the glass, smiling without knowing that she was smiling. Kerren said:
`He’ll be no good to you or any other woman. He’s brother to the wild goose.’
Robin brushed her hair, smiling, her eyes half-closed. She knew what Kerren meant. It was, after all, what had attracted her in the first instance when Con had come up to her as she stood outside a Smith’s bookstall in Yeovil.
`Would you be very offended if I asked you to have lunch with me?’
He had looked charming, with the deceptively boyish face and the diffident smile; but in spite of the charm she had the impression that he would not be greatly dismayed if she said `no’. She had felt the steel in him then. Later, as she sipped a sherry during the meal, she asked him:
`Was I the first girl you came across?’
`No. You were the end of a long search.’
`Why me?’
She could still see the stem of his glass, the long fingers tilting it and the shifting brown-gold lights in the wine. She remembered the little lift at the corners of his mouth as some quirk of humour moved him, and her own surprise as she realized that she was going to get an honest answer.
`You walked like Helen on the walls of Troy. Also, you looked as though you would be a pleasing companion for a day.’
It had been more, then, than just wanting a woman, any woman. But the limitation was there, frankly stated. Whenever she went out with him it would be for a day; each day would be a beginning and an end. She did not take the remark about Helen seriously.
He was the first man she had ever met whom she could not place in any known category. He was not a G.I. or a Yank, a soldier or a member of a particular class; he was not a rich man, a poor man, a worthy man or a reprobate. He was Con.
`I’ll take my chance,’ she said to Kerren as she put the brush away and climbed into her bunk. Why worry about the future? she thought: life is here and now.
Kerren was thinking about the future as she lay back in her bunk. Overhead, she heard the throb of out-going bombers, a sound which seemed to grow louder and louder every night. They must be giving them hell, she thought; perhaps this means it will be over soon. She had never thought much about the end of the war because it had seemed like thinking beyond the end of a dream. But now she had another dream: she would go to Budapest with Peter. She thought of the long summer evenings, of light filtering through the lime trees, of old stone archways deep with shadow. She thought of peace in an indestructible city of dreams.
Chapter Eight
Jessie ran along the cinder track towards Cabin 8. On the way she dropped pieces of bread and dripping which she had collected from the mess. She did not stop to pick them up, but went on, her lower lip thrust out, her breath coming fast, her face scarlet. She flung open the door of Cabin 8 and shouted:
`Invasion’s on, girls!’
Beatie paused, one leg raised, her stocking held out before her. `Not this minute, I hope?’ Naomi, still in her bunk, raised herself on one elbow and stared with sleep-ringed eyes at Jessie. `If this is a joke . . .’
`Honest. It was on the wireless. This is D day, the man said.’
`Where have we landed, then?’
`Normandy.’
There was a moment’s silence. Then Beatie stretched out her arms and shouted `Yippee!’ Kerren caught Hazel round the waist and swung her off her feet. Jessie began to sing:
` “We’re going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line . . .” ’
`Oh no!’ Robin protested. `Not that again!’
But Beatie was singing now: ` “Have you any dirty washing mother dear?” ’
Robin thought, `It will soon be over now. I can do anything, go anywhere. I can walk along Broadway with Con.’ Two of the air mechanics had picked up tin hats and were using them as cymbals; Beatie, in brassiere and roll-on, was leading a march round the stove. Robin joined in: ` “We’re going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line . . .” ’ Hazel was thinking, `Michael will go to Cambridge and next year I shall be at the May Ball,’ and Kerren thought of Peter and Budapest as she sang: ` “If the Siegfried Line’s still there”.’ A violent gush of pride overwhelmed them, they felt themselves members of one vast family. Beatie shouted, `Once again, girls! Let the boys hear it over there!’
When Kerren wheeled her bike down the cinder track, crushing the bread and dripping that Jessie had dropped, she could still hear the song, growing faint now, like an echo from the past.
She rode slowly to the met. office. The countryside looked the same, sheep and old men in the fields; but the wind was wilful and the clouds scurrying here and there were uncertain of their formation, the sun came and went and the contrast of light and shadow excited her. The met. office was crowded. Sub-Lieutenant Corder had come down although he was not on duty; he talked about tides and weather as though he had himself prepared the report for the landings. Hunter humoured him, and laughed and said he was glad he was not the poor bugger who had to do it; he became rather edgily excited as the day lengthened, like a prisoner who sees the door gradually opening for him. The only person who failed to rise to the occasion was Adam. He was ill-t
empered, wanting every conceivable pratt and prawt plotted and grumbling when the room filled up. Kerren was glad when he went off duty in the evening and was replaced by Sub-Lieutenant Staitham who did have a sense of the occasion.
Adam left his bike at the control tower and walked slowly down the path to the perimeter track. Behind the poplars the day smouldered, smoking red plumes of cloud rising into the sky, while to the east it was pale and peaceful, and the land seemed to be sinking into a complacent green slumber. He did not want to go to the wardroom, but where else could he go? As he looked at the green fields and hills he knew that life was his prison and that there was to be no escape from it.
The war was not over yet, of course; the Germans would not line the route to Berlin for the allies to ride along it in triumph. But for the first time, like the chill wind that brings the knowledge of winter, he had the feeling of the end. The blanket of war would lift; there would be time again for individual things, for the painful re-establishment of personal relationships, the coming together of lovers, the groping attempts to make contact with children to whom their fathers were strangers. He walked slowly, his shoulders hunched, drawing his body together, trying to fight back the little waves of panic that threatened because he was not sure that he could cope with the future. Then, as he turned off the perimeter track he encountered Peter Shaw. Peter jumped off his bike and waited for Adam to come up to him.
`I’ve been drafted,’ he said.
`One way and another the Germans have had a bad day,’ Adam answered.
The pilot laughed; but the laughter died quickly and an anxious little tick agitated one cheek.
`Is Kerren on duty?’ he asked.
`Yes. For another hour.’
Peter blurted out, `Should I marry her, do you think?’
`Good heavens, man! I don’t know how you feel about her.’
`It’s not that. . . .’
Peter stood leaning on the handlebars of the bike, looking out across the airfield as though trying to see something that waited in the shadow of the poplars. Looking at him, Adam thought: How old is this boy? Twenty-three at the most; yet he is already thinking that his luck has stretched a long way. Adam felt the sting of anger cauterize his own wound. He fed on the anger as he walked back to the wardroom; it kept him going throughout the evening while he told stories cynically unsuited to the occasion.