The Crew

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘You shouldn’t have, Mr Stonor . . . you’ve been kind enough already.’

  ‘Wait till you see what it is. You mightn’t be so pleased.’ The old man was carrying a sack in one hand and set it down inside the front garden gate.

  Dorothy jumped back as it moved. ‘What on earth is it?’

  Instead of answering, he tipped the sack upside down, shaking it by its corners. With an indignant squawking and a flapping of wings, a brown hen fell out onto the brick path. Feathers drifted about.

  ‘They don’t want her no more at the farm . . . only fit for the pot, see. Gettin’ on, so she don’t lay so much. Still, she’s a few eggs left in her yet, so I said as how you might like her. You can cook her later on. Make you and the lad a good supper.’

  She stared at the hen, who had started to peck about at the path’s edge. It was a scrawny old thing, with bedraggled feathers and a tatty-looking comb. ‘I don’t really want her either.’

  ‘Don’t fret. I’ll take her back.’ The old man swung the hen up by her legs and the wings flapped frantically again.

  ‘Will they – will she go in the pot?’

  He nodded. ‘Bit tough, I reckon, but she’ll stew up all right.’ The wings beat the air wildly, upside-down, as though the hen had heard and understood. ‘Poor old girl, been pecked at by the rest. Hens’re like that . . . nasty ways sometimes. All take against one. I’ve seen one pecked to death. She’ll be well out of it.’ He picked up the sack and started to stuff the hen back inside.

  ‘Oh, no, don’t do that, Mr Stonor. I’ll keep her.’ What was she saying? She didn’t want her in the least. ‘Only I don’t know how to look after her.’

  ‘Nothin’ to it. I’ll fetch you a bit of corn to feed her now’n again, an’ you can mash up any old scraps you can spare – stale bread crusts, vegetable peelins . . .’

  ‘But where would she live?’

  ‘I’ll bring some wire netting and that lad of yours c’n make a run, else she’ll be layin’ any old place an’ scratchin’ up your plants. You could make a house for her out’f an apple box or two. She won’t need much. Somewhere to lay an’ be safe at night.’

  ‘There are some wooden boxes in the shed.’

  ‘There you are, then. Easy.’ He was still holding on to the hen’s legs who was hanging limply now, wings quiet, as though resigned to her fate.

  ‘Would you put her down, Mr Stonor? She couldn’t be very comfortable like that.’

  He chuckled and let the hen go. ‘Don’t do to have too tender a heart, Mrs Banks. Not where farm animals’re concerned. If she don’t lay for you, you tell me an’ I’ll wring her neck so’s you can make a meal of her. No point keepin’ her otherwise.’

  They both watched the hen fluffing out her red-brown feathers. She stalked away from them up the path towards the cottage door, pecking here and there at the bricks as she went.

  ‘What kind is she?’

  ‘Rhode Island Red. Nice lookin’ birds when they’re in their prime. She’s past hers.’

  The hen was heading straight for the open door and presently disappeared inside. Mr Stonor gave another chuckle.

  ‘Bit of a character that one . . . bit cheeky.’

  ‘Charlie won’t be here again for a day or two,’ she said. ‘What’ll I do with her till we can get a run made?’

  ‘Let her range free in the daytime – she won’t do too much harm. You’d best shut her up in the shed at night, though, or the foxes’ll get her.’

  ‘Won’t she wander off?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not if you feed her. Not that one. She’ll know she’s lucky. Be in clover here, she will.’

  ‘Has she got a name?’

  He looked even more amused. ‘Bless you, no . . . there’s thirty or more at the farm. No time to give ’em all names. You can give her one, if you want, though. Call her anythin’ you like. She’s yours now.’

  He went away with the empty sack, and Dorothy hurried into the cottage where she found the hen pecking round the floor under the table. ‘You can’t stay in here,’ she told her. ‘You’ll have to go outside.’

  The hen took no notice whatsoever, so in the end Dorothy had to shoo her out, chasing her round and round the table and out of the doorway down the path. She stopped by the gate and started scratching away again and pecking about, making herself quite at home. From time to time, she looked at Dorothy sideways out of one eye. The name came from out of nowhere: Marigold. That’s what she’d call her. Marigold.

  Peter wasn’t in his usual place at the bar of The White Hind. Catherine found a seat in a corner where she could wait, and got out her cigarettes.

  ‘Light?’ The American skipper was standing over her, Zippo at the ready.

  ‘Thank you.’ She leaned towards the flame, wondering why he was suddenly being so friendly. She’d had the distinct impression that he couldn’t stand her.

  ‘I’d like to apologize.’

  God, she hadn’t expected that.

  ‘I was pretty rude to you at de-briefing last time. I’m sorry.’

  He had been, but she hadn’t blamed him. ‘That’s perfectly all right. You were very tired. It was quite understandable.’

  ‘No excuse, though. You’re only doing your job.’

  ‘We both are. But yours happens to be a great deal tougher than mine.’ She smiled up at him wryly. ‘It’s easy for me. All I have to do is sit there and ask a whole lot of questions and write down the answers. It must be very irritating for crews when they’ve just been through hell and need to sleep. I think I’d probably blow my top myself sometimes.’

  He looked down at her for a moment. ‘I guess I got you figured all wrong.’

  Out of curiosity, she might have asked what he meant exactly but at that moment she saw Peter come in. She stood up. ‘Excuse me, I’m meeting someone and he’s just arrived.’

  ‘Sure.’ He moved back to let her pass and she made her way through the crush to Peter’s side.

  He stared at her suspiciously. ‘What were you doing talking to that Yank?’

  ‘He wanted to apologize.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Nothing really. He thought he’d been rude to me at a de-briefing.’

  ‘Bloody Yanks . . . I wish they’d stay in their own bloody Air Force.’

  He was in a dark mood, and she knew that the evening was spoiled before it had begun.

  ‘Can I ask a favour, Jock?’

  ‘Aye, Charlie – so long as it’s not money you’re after, because I’m skint.’

  ‘Nothing like that,’ Charlie said hastily. ‘I wondered if you’d take a look at an old bike my mum’s been lent. The chain keeps coming off. I thought you might be able to fix it.’

  ‘I’ll have a go. Should be able to manage something. When did you want me to?’

  ‘Well, today, if that’s OK, as we’re on stand-down. She’s on the early shift at her work this week so she’ll be back by now. I thought I’d go over and see her this afternoon.’

  Jock put down his book and got up. ‘No time like the present, then. I’ll fetch some tools.’

  Harry had listened to the exchange from where he was sitting on his bed at the end of the hut. He was trying to sew on a button that had come off one of his shirts, but the thread had got all knotted up. The button was hanging away from the cloth instead of tight in like it ought to be. He stabbed at it again, pricked his finger badly and chucked the shirt down in disgust. No good getting blood all over it. He sucked at the finger. It was hot and stuffy in the hut and he could do with a breath of air. Maybe he could give Jock a hand with the bike? It would be something to do and he could have another go at the button later on. Start all over again.

  He caught up with Jock and Charlie as they were setting off on their bikes, and the three of them rode out of the station gates and round the boundary road to the far side of the drome. It was the first time he’d seen Charlie’s mum’s cottage. Bit run-down, he thought. Could do with a lick of paint round t
he windows and on the front door, but then so could most places these days. You couldn’t get the paint, so that was that. There were some tiles missing from the roof, too, and a broken gutter that needed mending before the wet did some serious damage. The garden was in good order, though. That must be her work; the owners wouldn’t have bothered, judging by all the rest.

  Charlie had hopped off his bike and leaned it against the front hedge. He and Jock followed suit and they went up the pathway to the blue door. There was a chicken scratching around in the flower bed. It stopped to look at them and then went on with its scratching and its pecking.

  The door opened and a young woman appeared. Her face broke into a smile as she saw Charlie and she put out her arms and gave him a hug. This couldn’t be the mother, it must be a sister that he didn’t know about. To Harry, all mothers were presumed to be something like his own who’d been old and grey for as long as he could remember. He hung back behind Jock, and to his astonishment heard Charlie call her ‘Mum’. She didn’t look anything like old enough – scarcely more than a girl herself, dressed in a cotton frock with her bare arms tanned by the sun. He waited while Charlie introduced Jock, still uncertain that he’d heard right.

  ‘And this is Harry, Mum.’

  No, there’d been no mistake. He stepped forward. Her hand felt small and cool in his sweaty palm and he wished he’d wiped his own first. She was even littler than Charlie – only up to his chest, so that he found himself looking down into her upturned face. He went on staring at her while Charlie was asking about the chicken and his mother was explaining that someone had given it to her.

  ‘He brought me some wire netting and posts as well this morning, Charlie. I was wondering if you could put up a run to keep her in? Would it be a lot of trouble?’

  ‘Nay, we could do that easy,’ he heard himself saying quickly. ‘Just show us where you want it.’

  While Jock went to see to the bike, he and Charlie took their battledress jackets off, turned up their sleeves and got going on the chicken run in a corner of the back garden. They were unrolling the netting when she came over and asked shyly if they could make a house for the hen, too, out of some old wooden boxes. He assured her that that wouldn’t be any trouble either, though he wasn’t quite sure how it could be done; he only knew that somehow he would do it.

  She showed him the apple boxes in the garden shed and he found a rusty saw, a hammer, some wire and an old tobacco tin full of odd nails and screws. He’d never made anything like a henhouse before but in the end he managed a pretty good job. He made a guillotine door for the front which slid up and down between two runners, and fashioned a good strong catch for it out of wire and two pieces of wood. He knew chickens had to be shut up at night or foxes would get them and that foxes were cunning devils who could open things if they weren’t secure.

  When he’d finished the house, he set it down at the end of the run, propped up on some bricks to keep out the damp, and, as a finishing touch, he made a little gangplank for the hen to walk up.

  Charlie’s mother came out of the cottage and admired everything. He showed her how to pull the door up and down and how to fasten it safely.

  ‘I think it’s wonderful,’ she told him. ‘I don’t know how you managed it. Thank you ever so much, Harry.’ She fetched some straw to put inside the henhouse, which made it look all nice and cosy.

  He and Charlie had made a gate in the wire-netting run and he held it open while she went to get the hen. She had a spot of bother making it go into the run, though, and in the end the four of them had to chase it all round the garden and herd it in through the open gap. He shut the gate quickly and the hen strutted up and down looking for a way out, none too pleased with her new home. He’d left the guillotine door open and presently she went close by the little house and stopped, head on one side. He held his breath. Somehow it was very important to him that she should like the house he’d built. After a moment she stalked on and his heart sank. And then, quite suddenly, she stopped and turned back to take another look. He watched as she paused again with her head cocked and one scaly foot lifted. She put the foot down on the bottom of the gangplank, hesitated some more and then started upwards. As she went inside he let out his breath in relief. The others had been laughing because she’d looked so comical; now he could laugh too.

  ‘I’ve called her Marigold,’ Charlie’s mother said, standing beside him in the warm sunshine. ‘Silly isn’t it?’

  He thought she looked even younger when she laughed. Like a girl. ‘I think it’s a grand name,’ he said. ‘It suits her.’

  ‘She hasn’t even laid a single egg yet – at least I haven’t found one.’

  ‘She will,’ he told her. ‘For you.’

  They had a cup of tea and some home-made biscuits in the cottage. The inside was a lot better than he’d expected, but he could see that was because of her. Everything was clean and bright, and there were little homely touches – flowers put round in jam jars, a pretty cloth on the table, the smell of fresh baking.

  As she poured the tea, she asked Jock what he did in the crew. It was funny to see Jock, usually so curt, explaining it all to her nicely so’s she could understand. He felt a bit left out, though, until she turned to him and asked what he did.

  ‘I’m the wireless operator,’ he told her. But when he talked about fixes and codes and signal strengths it sounded right dull compared with Jock. The fact was that he was jack-of-all-trades in the aircraft, not just the W/Op. He was look-out in the astrodome and in charge of the Very pistol and knowing the colours of the day. He was the one who had to check for hang-ups in the bomb bay and inspect the flare chute to make sure the photo-flash had gone all right, and the one who had to remember to switch on the Identification Friend or Foe going out and coming home to show they weren’t Jerries, and to wind out and wind in the trailing aerial by hand, which meant crawling on his stomach to reach it. He was supposed to understand the intercom system and how the navigator’s equipment worked and to help him with the Gee fixes. And it was his job to look after the bloody carrier pigeon. On top of all that, they expected him to be able to give first aid.

  He’d like to have told her about all that, and about how hard he had to concentrate to hear the signals with all the engine noise and the interference and the static, and how his station was called the sweatshop because it was the hottest place in the Lane, right beside the warm air outlet, and how everyone else always wanted the heat turned full on, so he always roasted. And how he’d done six weeks at gunnery school as well as his wireless op training, so he was a gunner too, not just a knob twiddler. He didn’t tell her any of this, though. Instead he went on drinking his tea in silence while the others talked.

  Jock had finished work on the bike and Charlie’s mother rode it up and down the road to make sure the chain was working properly. Then Jock adjusted the saddle height and the handlebars so that they were more comfortable for her. Harry watched, wishing there was something else he could do to help. Before they left, he asked her if there was.

  She hesitated. ‘Well, there is one thing . . . but you’ve already done so much.’

  ‘I meant what I said, Mrs Banks.’ He waited hopefully.

  ‘Well, the wireless here doesn’t work,’ she said at last. ‘But I don’t suppose anything can be done with it. It’s just that it’d be nice having something to listen to in the evenings . . . and maybe with you being what you are, you might know what’s wrong.’

  ‘I’ll take a look,’ he told her, ‘but I’m not a wireless mechanic. That’s a different thing.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She blushed. ‘How stupid of me!’

  He cursed his own stupidity. ‘Why don’t I take it with me? If I can’t make it work I can get one of our lads to see to it. I’ll bring it back soon as it’s done.’

  It was a heavy old thing, all dark brown varnish and brass trim. He had to walk all the way back to the station, balancing it on the handlebars of his bike while Jock and Charlie zoom
ed on ahead. But he didn’t mind a scrap.

  Stew had cadged a lift with Piers into Lincoln, though he got the feeling Piers wasn’t that keen on taking him. Probably had some sheila lined up and didn’t want him around. Fair enough. He’d make himself scarce once they got into town. He wondered what she was like. Some snooty English rose, most likely. He couldn’t see Piers with anything else. Personally, he couldn’t stand the type, though he’d heard some of them weren’t half so goody-goody as they pretended, not once you got past the thorns. Only he didn’t have the patience.

  ‘Drop me off at The Angel, would you, old boy? If it’s on your jolly old way.’

  ‘Actually, I’m going there myself.’

  Are you now, Stew thought. Maybe I’ll get a squint at her.

  They drove into the city through the old gateway. It slayed Stew to think that the Romans would have gone under the very same arch in their chariots, or whatever they nipped about in. He looked up at the cathedral as they went past. He usually got a bird’s-eye view of it, the other way round, looking down through the bomb aimer’s window.

  Piers said casually – too bloody casually, ‘I thought I’d have some dinner there.’

  ‘Frightfully good idea, old chap.’

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t like to join me?’

  Now that was a surprise. Three’s a bloody crowd. Perhaps he’d got the whole thing wrong, after all. ‘Can’t afford it, sport.’

  Piers went a bit red round the gills. ‘I could lend you some money.’

  Stew hesitated. He wouldn’t have said no to a free meal but it went against the grain with him to borrow. Never did unless he was in a real jam. Besides, Piers had probably only offered because he was too polite to tell him to piss off. No, he’d nip into the hotel and find out about the room, then he’d toddle on down to The Saracen’s Head for a couple of beers.

  He shook his head. ‘Thanks all the same. I’m only going in to ask about their rooms – for someone I know.’ No point explaining Doreen to Piers.

  They parked the car and went through the squeaky revolving door into the hotel foyer. Piers went off to the dining-room and Stew sauntered over to the reception desk. He could hear the typewriter clattering away and see through the glass door into the inner office. The same girl was sitting at the desk, pounding at the keys. She went on typing without looking round, so he picked up the brass bell on the counter and shook it. No response. No sign that she’d heard or noticed and yet he had a feeling she knew damn well that he was there. He picked up the bell again and rang it louder and longer. She stopped typing then and came out to the desk, but she didn’t hurry or look like she was overjoyed to see him. He kept his cap on.