Tears of Autumn, The

by Wiltshire, David

  ‘Well done, my boy. We knew you would do it.’

  Which was more than he had thought at one point. His sister gave him a peck on the cheek as well, and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Rosemary’s a good friend. You behave yourself, now – no messing her around.’

  He didn’t really know what she meant, but he went bright red all the same and snorted: ‘Of course, sis. What do you take me for?’

  His sister shook her head.

  ‘A man, Jack – at last.’

  He went with them to the car, a large Austin Fourteen. His father was driving, mother seated beside him, the two girls in the back, their faces framed by their hats inside the darker interior of the car.

  They all waved and he did his best to concentrate on everyone, but really, he only had eyes for Rosemary.

  As the RAF personnel guided the cars out of the field he stood there, just able to see the corner of her hat through the small back window. Suddenly the brim moved, and he caught a fleeting glimpse of her face. It thrilled him no end – she had looked back.

  A couple of his fellow students were passing by. One of them, a bit of a toff who had been at Harrow and Oxford before joining the Air Force said: ‘Nice looker, Banks. Too tall for you, though.’ It hit a raw nerve.

  He swung around, fists bunching up. ‘Careful, De Vere, you might find yourself on the deck.’

  Despite being six foot two the flash of apprehension in De Vere’s eyes was very satisfying.

  All the same, Jack was upset. It was true that Rosemary was the same height as his sister, and could look him in the eye, and would be taller with high heels. He cheered up. She didn’t seem to care. De Vere drawled again.

  ‘Steady old boy – no offence meant.’

  Jack grinned, feeling better.

  ‘None taken – old boy.’

  Later that night they all got hopelessly drunk on a mixture of champagne, gin and whisky and played British Bulldog inside the mess. Alot of furniture got broken, and Jack ruefully contemplated the thought that his mess bill could be pretty steep, he might even have to ask his father for a loan.

  ‘Biff’

  He suddenly came to as a woman shook his arm. ‘Biff.’

  He looked at her blankly for a moment and then realized it was the wife of his friend who had been the town’s mayor when he had been the chairman of the local bench.

  ‘Biff, we should start going upstairs for the lunch.’ She helped him to his feet and they made their way slowly to the lift that took them up to the dining room. Not everybody was invited to the lunch, so they had been asked, as always, to make their way discreetly and to be in place by 12.45. When they entered the room there were lots of round tables with bright white cloths and place settings, with flowers decorating the centre of each table.

  Slowly the room filled up, many people coming over to say hello to him.

  The judges and their wives gathered around one table, the judges dressed now in their ordinary suits. Eventually the high sheriff and his wife took their positions, and it was announced that the bishop would say grace.

  After that they all sat down and immediately the noise in the room rose.

  As white wine was poured into his glass it caught the sun.…

  He drew the Singer sports car on to the gravelled drive of the large house, past the fountain, where the sun was glinting on the bubbling water. Several other cars were parked around the house. He pulled on the handbrake, turned off the engine and jumped out without opening the door, collecting his racket and bag from the back seat. He was dressed in his white flannels, with his striped cricket blazer and cravat.

  The big front door was shut, but he could hear laughter and the sound of balls being whacked coming from around the side of the house.

  He made his way along the stone path. Disappointed, he had had no idea it was going to be such a big do: there were at least thirty-five people sitting or standing outside the pavilion situated beyond two grass courts. Another court lay to the side.

  Aimlessly and a little deflated he mingled with the crowd, watching two mixed doubles matches going on, until a voice called out:

  ‘Biff – over here.’

  He turned, and there she was, wearing a brilliant white tennis skirt, quite short, at least compared to those of the ladies who played with his mother, and a top with straps made of metal figures of eight, leaving her shoulders bare.

  Her blonde hair was held back off her face by a bandeau. If anything she looked better than before: something he wouldn’t have thought possible.

  He made his way towards her, irritated that she was surrounded by three young bucks.

  ‘Hello there, sorry I’m late.’

  She smiled, and his heart soared.

  ‘Better late than never. Have you met my brother?’

  He dragged his attention from her to one of the men, feeling better and a little ashamed of himself. He held out his hand. ‘No, I’m Jack Banks.’

  She chipped in, grinning, ‘But they call him Biff.’

  Her brother shook his hand, and chuckled.

  ‘How do you do – Biff. I’m John Peacock. These are a couple of friends of mine.’

  He shook hands with them as they introduced themselves.

  His jealousy came back again as he saw Rosemary looking admiringly at one of them, called Robert, who was telling the crowd about his time in Australia. Eventually he butted in rather awkwardly.

  ‘I’ve brought my racket.’

  He waved it around like some schoolboy, realizing he was being rather gauche.

  They all looked at him for a moment, then the men exchanged sly grins as Rosemary said with a throaty chuckle: ‘Keen aren’t we? All right come on Biff, let’s see how good you are.’

  Miserably he trailed after her as she made her way to the third court. What a fool he was making of himself.

  Two people had just finished having a knock-up. They stopped and talked to her as he waited like an idiot.

  Then she turned to him and said: ‘I’ll take the other end.’ With that she skipped off. Surreptitiously, he couldn’t take his eyes off her flapping skirt and slim legs.

  They knocked the ball sedately back and forth for a while.

  She moved freely, reaching his shots with ease, her backhand particularly accurate.

  When the ball hit the net and dropped back on his side for the fourth time she said: ‘Shall we have a game?’

  He picked up the ball.

  ‘If you like, though I’m not sure I’m going to give you much of a run for your money.’

  ‘You serve first,’ she ordered. He dutifully took up his position on the baseline, bouncing the ball several times before throwing it up and whacking it – straight into the net. Rosemary, who had been standing ready to receive, straightened up and relaxed, bouncing up and down on her toes before resuming her stance.

  This time he didn’t hit the ball with anything like the strength of the first, and it sailed over the net – to be seized on by Rosemary who slammed it straight back up the court. He ruefully made for the opposite corner.

  She beat him in the end 6-3 6-4, running up to the net with her hand held out.

  ‘Thank you – and thank you for really trying.’

  He took it, finding it slim and cool, but she had quite hard skin on her palm and fingers. It was something she was aware of, perhaps embarrassed by, as she said quickly: ‘Comes from riding – I take care of my own horses.’ She pulled off the bandeau that she had put on to hold her hair off her face and eyes.

  ‘Come on, let’s get some Pimms.’

  He walked beside her.

  ‘What did you mean – thank you for really trying?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just some young men think it’s ungallant to beat a woman.’

  He pulled a wry face.

  ‘I wouldn’t think they could do that very often with you.’

  She smiled at him as they found the towels and put their rackets into their wooden presses to keep them from
bending out of shape.

  ‘You have no idea how they think it’s going to make them more attractive to me. I like you because you did your damned best, and with a bit of coaching you would easily overpower me.’

  Her use of ‘overpower’ left him reeling at the thought.

  ‘Here we are.’ They paused by a waitress bearing a silver salver, and took tall glasses of Pimms with an extra mint-leaf decorating the edge.

  Rosemary took hers out and threw it casually away.

  ‘Cheers.’

  He responded.

  ‘Now, let’s go and sit over there, and you can tell me more about your flying. It sounds very exciting.’

  As they made their way to a white wrought-iron seat set deeper into the rhododendrons he couldn’t believe his luck.

  They were observed by her brother and a couple of friends, one of whom said: ‘Rosemary seems to have taken a shine to him.’

  John nodded, and shook his head in mock horror.

  ‘He won’t stand a chance if she likes him.’

  And like him she did.

  As Biff, at first stumbling and trying to be as modest as possible as he explained about flying, and then got more and more excited, she quietly observed him: his face, his movements, the gesture of his strong-looking hands. Her mind was elsewhere as she pretended to understand about how wonderful it was to be soaring in and out of clouds as the fields and trees and hills of England passed by far below.

  In reality, she was thinking of his hands on her, of that mouth, strong, slightly cruel-looking, pressed against her own.

  ‘So, I’m going to be flying Hawker Harts now. I should get a squadron posting soon – when the training finally comes to an end.’

  She came back from her flight of fancy with a rush. ‘Oh, really?’

  Biff had a vague awareness that perhaps she had not been wholly listening. If he was disappointed he soon cheered up as she said: ‘Biff, perhaps I could come and visit you some time – at your airfield?’

  He felt almost giddy with excitement. She was wanting to see him again.

  ‘Yes – yes, I’d like that very much. We do have open days, there is one coming in a couple of weeks’ time.’

  ‘Oh good. Will you be flying?’

  He swallowed, knowing he more than likely wouldn’t be, at least not solo or anything. If they did a mass formation flypast, that would be the best he could hope for. He tried to sound nonchalant. ‘It’s possible – we don’t know the programme yet.’

  The programme yet.…

  ‘Biff, have you seen the menu.’

  His female dining companion on his right held the card out for him. ‘It’s got one of your favourites – lamb chops.’ He laughed with her. It was well known that Biff liked good plain English cooking – and mutton was his favourite: the stew.

  The first course was served, salmon, and conversation around the table grew. He was careful, wary of bones: his eyesight was getting poorer every year.

  ‘Biff, what do you do with yourself these days?’

  She was trying to be nice, he knew, but today was a rare treat, and he didn’t want to be reminded how routine his world had become.

  ‘Oh, nothing much. Get on my buggy most mornings, do some shopping, have a coffee,’ his eyes twinkled, ‘sometimes even a gin and tonic in the Horse and Groom.’

  But in reality there were some days when he dreaded getting out of bed. She was gone, his pal, his lover for over sixty years, only the occasional visits by his son and daughter had any meaning in his life now.

  His daughter had brought him today; she was over on a table of young ones – he gave a grunt: they were all in their forties and fifties with families of their own, but they knew each other from schooldays.

  ‘Oh, you naughty boy you.’

  Biff did his best to suppress a wince. God almighty, what was it about getting old that everyone had to patronize you? Then he relented. She was trying to be convivial, and quite honestly was probably finding it hard going sitting beside an old man. They had nothing in common – how could they have? She was no older than his daughter. He was a bit of a dinosaur now, having grown up, experienced a terrible war and been a mature man, all in an age that had radically different values from today.

  He smiled, and started to say something, but was dimly aware of the woman frowning.

  He was strapped into the cockpit of the Hart, the powerful Rolls Royce Kestrel engine at a fast tick-over to prevent the plugs oiling, the whole airframe throbbing and rumbling. Everywhere he looked were the now familiar wires, gauges, copper pipes and brass fittings, but they didn’t offer any comfort today. He was on his final check ride. For a brief moment his eyes dropped to the spade-shaped joystick, and the gun-firing button that said ‘Safe’ and ‘Fire’.

  How this flight went could well decide which way his career went in the service. He dragged his mind back to the job in hand. The engine sounded throaty and harsh. The vibration was now considerable and the reduction gear of the hefty twin-bladed airscrew clanked and rattled.

  Biff brought his goggles down over his eyes, took a deep breath, and waved the chocks away to taxi out.

  When he gently eased the throttle open it felt as if the engine was going to tear itself out of the frame. The biplane was solid, fast and powerful, with a long nose with a pointed spinner – a different animal from the other training aircraft he had flown. In fact, it wasn’t just a training aircraft, it was also in service with front-line squadrons, of which only a few had been equipped with the new Hurricanes, even fewer with the Spitfire.

  On the grass runway, marked out with lights, he opened the throttle wide and released the brakes.

  His shoulders were forced hard back against the metal bucket seat, and he felt as if his cheeks were being dragged back towards his ears. The slipstream blasted the open cockpit as the wheels thumped and thudded over the grass until suddenly it ceased.

  He was airborne.

  He went through his routine, knowing he was being observed not only from the ground, but by Squadron Leader Forster, aloft and patrolling the skies to one side of the field where he was not permitted to fly.

  He’d been at it for twenty minutes when the engine started to miss. Only seconds later it failed completely.

  Automatically he went through the forced landing routine that had been drummed into him, and brought the Hart in over a hedge and landed, bouncing somewhat roughly in a field of cows – who stampeded away to the other end.

  Biff undid his harness and climbed out on to the wing, tearing his goggles and helmet off in disgust as the squadron leader’s aircraft swooped low overhead.

  Chapter Two

  ‘How did it go?’

  It was Rosemary, running out to him as he drove the Singer into her drive and up to the house.

  He smiled bleakly, and told her what had happened.

  She frowned. ‘Well, that wasn’t your fault, was it – and you did everything correctly, is that right? The aeroplane is not damaged is it?’

  Glumly he agreed.

  ‘Come on.’ She put her arm through his. ‘Come and have a drink.’

  He’d been going with Rosemary now for several months. She had come to their open day; but unfortunately he hadn’t flown that day, but he had since then buzzed the house a couple of times, risking censure, and she had been present when he had at last taken part in a formation flypast on a visit to a famous air show. He knew they were getting closer when she drove all the way to Hendon in London, where he had landed and was able to meet her in the enclosure for tea. After that they had gone out together regularly to the cinema and picnics and garden parties.

  And they had kissed and canoodled.

  She had hinted several times of how close they had become, and he knew she was expecting him to pop the question soon – something he would have thought inconceivable six months previously. Overjoyed as he was, he wanted to be sure of his place in the Air Force, to finish his training and eventually be in a front-line squadron.
It seemed the sensible thing to do before he declared himself.

  And now he had gone and messed everything up.

  Her father was sitting in his brown leather armchair, smoking his favourite tobacco, Three Nuns, in his brier pipe, and with the Daily Telegraph on his lap.

  ‘Hello Biff, how are you?’

  ‘Fine sir – really.’

  ‘Good, good. Rosemary taking care of you?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  She was already at the drinks cabinet, fixing Biff a large gin, squirting in tonic from the net-cladded Schweppes siphon.

  Her father was dressed in his favourite blue cardigan with elbow patches, his feet in old felt slippers. He folded the Telegraph back to its front page and then in half again, tapping the paper with a knuckle.

  ‘Seen the headline?’

  Biff came over and looked down at it.

  ‘Herr Hitler again?’

  ‘Yes, the Sudetenland Germans are starting to clamour for self-government, and Hitler is making noises about incorporation into the Greater Reich.’

  Biff sniffed. ‘Not satisfied with Austria then?’ He was referring to the Anschluss in March and then the making of Austria into a state of the Third Reich the following month.

  Rosemary handed him his gin and tonic.

  ‘Daddy?’

  Her father looked at his watch, then shrugged.

  ‘Why not.’

  To Biff he said: ‘What’s the talk in your mess?’

  ‘How do you mean, sir?’

  ‘Do they – your senior officers – do they expect war with Germany?’

  Biff looked into the sparkling drink in the tumbler he held in both hands. ‘Well, I suppose there is a growing realization that we should be better prepared – just in case. We are woefully under strength after the savage cuts of the last few years. Ever since Lord Swinton resigned as Secretary of State for Air they have been very worried.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Her father shook his head slowly. ‘I pray it never comes. I don’t know if the youth of this country are up to it.…’