The Bright Blue Sky

by Max Hennessy

  “I’ll come,” Taggart said quickly.

  “How’ll you get back?” Dicken asked. “You’ll have to turn.”

  Vickery grinned, still elated with excitement and champagne. “I can always land in a field, swing her around and take off again. I might even have a go at banking. After all, we turned south to the coast road from Wick. A bit, anyway.”

  “How about me getting home?” Dicken asked Taggart. “You promised.”

  “I’ll be back, kid, never fear.”

  Vickery fished in his pocket. “You can always say you’re part of a record,” he pointed out. “Forty miles with a passenger.” He took out a sovereign and offered it. “Your fees for your services. Everybody else gets paid. So why not you?”

  Dicken eyed the coin for a moment. It was a fortune to him, but his mind was still full of the excitement of the flight, of sitting above the earth watching the fields slide past beneath them and the immense emptiness of the bright blue sky above.

  “I’d rather,” he blurted out, “that you taught me to drive an airplane.”

  Vickery eyed him for a moment then he smiled and slapped his shoulder. “Done,” he said. “We’ll start next weekend. That’s a promise.”

  He climbed into his seat with Taggart beside him and the engine was started up. Taxiing to the other end of the field, Taggart jumped down, swung the tail around and climbed back again. They heard the engine note rise and Green grinned. “That’s not a G,” he said. “It’s a high C. The champagne’s talking.”

  The machine began to roll forward, moving faster and faster. By this time everybody was laughing and pointing and nobody but Dicken, who by this time was the only sober one among them, noticed the ragged sound that had appeared in the engine.

  The machine lurched toward them, the wings quivering, the wheels rattling, the engine buzzing and whining, looking like a mobile clothes line on washing day.

  “Get her off,” Green said casually. “You’ll run out of field.”

  But the wind had dropped and Vickery was getting no help. Slowly the wheels came off the grass and everybody cheered, but the machine wasn’t rising well and the ragged sound was growing more marked.

  “Get her up!” Green shouted, suddenly alarmed, and all the soldiers started to shout with him. “Get her up!”

  The machine seemed disinclined to lift and Vickery did what he’d done as they’d left Wick. He dipped the nose to gain extra speed then lifted sharply over the river. The machine soared, the engine screaming as if in terror, but then suddenly there were two loud bangs and a silence that seemed immense.

  The machine was just rising into a climbing turn as it ran out of speed and, as the nose dropped, everybody started to scramble up the bank. Dicken was in the lead and reached the top just in time to see the airplane flop down at the river’s edge. Mud and water flew in all directions and a man who had been fishing started up and began to run.

  The white canvas wings crumpled and a great cloud of steam went up as the hot engine vanished below the water, then slowly the machine turned over on to its back and began to sink.

  Three

  “Broke both legs,” Dicken said. “The pill-roller says he’ll be on his back for six months. Taggart got concussion so there was nobody to drive me home and I had to take the train. I cycled as fast as I could.”

  Zoë Toshack smiled. “Well, it wasn’t fast enough,” she said. “She went with Arthur Diplock.”

  Dicken scowled. The frantic cycle ride from Willys Green had left his collar like a dishrag around his neck. Even had he arrived in time, he could hardly imagine Annys wanting to dance with him.

  “I thought Vickery wanted me especially,” he said bitterly. “But he sent Taggart for Arthur Diplock and Diplock suggested me. He gave Taggart half a sovereign not to be available to drive me home.”

  Zoë smiled. “Well, it won’t matter much now, anyway,” she said. “There won’t be any more dances for a bit. There’s going to be a war.”

  “We’re not involved.”

  “Oh, yes, we are. Germany’s gone into Belgium and it seems we have a treaty with them that nobody’s noticed up to now. The government’s sent an ultimatum that they’ve got to remove their troops or we shall come in against them. It expires at midnight.”

  “They’ll back down,” Dicken said. “They’re bound to. Nobody would go to war with the British Empire.” He paused, his mind elsewhere. “I don’t see why she couldn’t have waited a bit,” he said. “She couldn’t have thought it very important.”

  Zoë smiled. “Tell you what: Take me instead.”

  “You’re not old enough.”

  “I’m sixteen! I can do the turkey trot and the bunny hug and the valeta and the waltz. That ought to be enough for anybody.”

  Dicken was tempted. It would give him the chance to get near to Annys and put things right.

  “All right,” he said. “Had we better ask your mother?”

  “She’ll never know,” Zoë said calmly. “She’s gone to see Grandma to tell her about the war. When she comes home and finds I’m not around, she’ll assume I’ve gone to bed.” She studied Dicken’s crimson face and soiled collar. “You’d better have a bit of a wash, though,” she went on. “You stink like a polecat after all that sweating. I’ll give you some of Annys’ scent – it’ll take away the smell – and I’ll give your collar a run over with the iron.”

  He was sitting in the garden when she appeared. She had pinned her hair up and put on makeup and he was startled at the transformation.

  “Zoë,” he said. “You’re pretty!”

  “’Course I’m pretty,” she said. “But nobody ever notices me, because Annys is so beautiful, so I never bother. Besides there are other things more important than sitting in front of a mirror putting stuff on your face.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Motor cars. I love motor cars.” She grinned at him. “Dicken, if ever you learn to drive an airplane, will you teach me?”

  “You? A girl?”

  “Why not? Women are driving motors. Soon they’ll start driving airplanes.” She studied him. “You know, you’re not bad yourself.”

  “Not bad at what?”

  “Not bad to look at. Got the tickets?”

  They arrived between dances, with the band silent and everybody standing around talking. There were one or two uniforms, one man embarrassed in the dress jacket of the local Yeomanry, an affair of blue decorated with gold lace.

  “He looks like a Hungarian admiral,” Zoë whispered.

  As the band started again, she grabbed Dicken’s hand. “Come on!” she said.

  To his surprise, she was a good dancer, light in his arms and disconcertingly attractive with her face close to his. Her skin, when looked at closely, was as good as her sister’s and, he realised now, her hair wasn’t mousy as he’d thought, but had reddish tints in it that set off the brilliant cat-like green of her eyes. He felt better and even began to enjoy himself.

  As they swept around, he found himself face to face with Annys. She was in the arms of Diplock and was staring furiously. As the dance finished, she came toward them, brushing past the other couples to stand in front of her sister, her eyes blazing. She didn’t appear to notice Dicken.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  Zoë gestured at Dicken. “He brought me.”

  “You don’t dance!”

  “That’s what you think. The only reason I didn’t go to dances was that nobody ever asked me. Well, finally somebody did.”

  Annys seemed rendered almost speechless by Zoë’s cheek. “Whatever will Mother say?”

  “Oh, fiddlesticks to Mother,” Zoë retorted. “She doesn’t know, and if you don’t tell her she never will. I’ve left the pantry window open.”

  Getting now
here with her sister, Annys turned on Dicken. “What do you mean by bringing Zoë?”

  “I came to see you,” he explained.

  “Oh, thanks,” Zoë said sarcastically.

  “I wanted to talk,” Dicken went on. “To explain. It wasn’t my fault. I got caught up with Vickery.”

  “He’s broken both legs,” Zoë put in. “He tried to turn.”

  “It was very nearly me,” Dicken said earnestly, hoping a little sympathy might emerge. “Only the fact that I wanted to come here to see you stopped me going up again with him.”

  “I’m not interested,” Annys said, staring down her nose at him. “I was waiting for you.”

  “Well,” Dicken said angrily, gesturing at Diplock, “it didn’t take you very long to change your mind and come with him. Did he pay you, too, like he paid Taggart not to bring me back?”

  Diplock opened his mouth and Dicken was just wondering whether he’d be thrown out, arrested, or merely ignored if he hit him, when Annys sniffed, grabbed Diplock’s arm, whirled him around and dragged him away.

  “And that,” Zoë said cheerfully, “puts you in your place.”

  The band had started again and, green with envy, Dicken saw Diplock put his arm around Annys and lead her on to the floor. Zoë studied them calmly.

  “Shall we dance?” she asked blandly. “It seems to be a waltz this time and waltzes are dreamy.”

  As they circled together, she deliberately clung tighter to Dicken than he felt was proper for her age. But she didn’t seem to care that people were looking and even went so far as to put her cheek against his. It was disconcerting and made him miss his step.

  “Ooops,” she said. “Attack of nerves?”

  “People are looking.”

  “Who cares?”

  She was unexpectedly exciting, he found, and he began to wonder why he’d never noticed her before. Throwing herself heart and soul into enjoying herself, she cavorted around in the two-step in a way that drew startled glances and made him faintly embarrassed. But she was so indifferent to opinion he found it infectious and began to do the same.

  It was after eleven-thirty when they began to walk home. Annys had already left in Diplock’s father’s car.

  “That,” Zoë said, “seems to be that. I suppose any moment now we’ll be at war with Germany. Wasn’t the ultimatum supposed to expire at midnight?”

  “I don’t suppose they’ll have apologised or withdrawn their troops,” Dicken agreed. “Vickery thought they’d use airplanes. He even thought they’d buy his.”

  She put her arm through his and clung to him. “What was it like?” she asked. “Flying from Southampton to Shoreham. Forty miles! Nobody’s ever flown that far before, have they?”

  “Not many.”

  “They could use airplanes to see where the Germans were, couldn’t they? Just imagine. Twenty miles into enemy territory, find out where they are, then back with the information.”

  “Providing,” Dicken said, “that they could turn.”

  She giggled and they started laughing. It became infectious and they clung to each other. Then abruptly, his face close to Zoë’s, Dicken stopped. She went on for a moment or two longer, then she stopped also. She studied him seriously.

  “You can kiss me if you like,” she said. “I’ve often thought it might be nice.”

  He wasn’t very expert and their noses got in the way.

  “You’re not very good at it, are you?” she said. “I’ll show you.” She put her arms around him. “Tilt your head that way and I’ll tilt mine this. Then you don’t bonk conks.”

  “Where did you learn all this?” he asked as they came up for air.

  “Where does any girl learn things like this? At school. It’s all you ever talk about. Let’s have another go.”

  This time she seemed more expert than ever and Dicken felt his blood beginning to rise. She took his hand from her waist and placed it on her breast, then clutching him fiercely and pressing her body against his, kissed him again.

  As she released him, he backed away. “Steady on,” he said.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Surely the intrepid birdman hasn’t got the wind up?”

  “I’m not an intrepid birdman. I was just a passenger. I might have been, mind. Vickery promised to teach me but I suppose that’s gone the same way as his hopes of building for the government.”

  She led him through the trees to the end of the garden. The night was warm and they sat in the summer house staring at the stars. She nodded at the house where a light burned.

  “Mother’s home,” she said. “I expect she thinks I’m safely in bed. Annys had permission to stay out till midnight so I expect she’s clutching Arthur Diplock in the back of his father’s motor car to make up for the fact that Dick Quinney didn’t come up to scratch.”

  “I tried.”

  “Who’s Annys anyway? There’s always me.”

  Dicken grinned. “You’re all right.”

  “I’m more than all right, Dicky boy. I’m going to be a liberated woman when I’m twenty-one. I’m not going to sit behind the table dispensing cups of tea and cucumber sandwiches. I’m not going to have a horde of kids clinging to my skirt, saying ‘Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir,’ to some man who thinks simply because he can grow a moustache he has the right to be the lord and master. I’m going to run my own life. I’m a bit liberated already, as a matter of fact.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  They clutched each other again and when Dicken emerged he felt he’d been through a whirlwind.

  “I think I ought to go in now,” Zoë said. “You’ll have to give me a bunk-up to the pantry window.”

  He allowed her to scramble on his back then took hold of her leg to push her up.

  “Steady on,” she giggled. “Not there!”

  “Sorry.”

  She giggled again. “I don’t mind really. It’s quite enjoyable.”

  She sat on the window sill, reaching behind her to move things inside the pantry. Then she turned and looked at him.

  “If there is a war,” she whispered, “what will you do?”

  Dicken shrugged. “What can I do? I’m not a soldier. I’m not even old enough to join the army, and I expect it’ll all be over by the time I am. They were saying at the dance that it’ll be finished by Christmas. Perhaps I could go to sea. I’m a qualified operator.”

  “Annys says Arthur Diplock’s going to join the cavalry. If you ever get to be a pilot you could fly low and frighten his horse. He might fall off.”

  “If I did go to sea, would you write to me?”

  She gave a little laugh. “The poor homesick sailor wanting news of England from his sweetheart?”

  He flushed. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Isn’t that what every warrior wants? To have the little woman waiting patiently at home while he goes roistering among the maidens in foreign parts.”

  “I’ve never roistered.”

  “You will the minute you put on uniform. It goes with the job. Still, I’ll write to you, but not just to hold your hand when you’re lonely, and not with love and kisses. I told you, I’m going to be a liberated woman when I’m twenty-one and I’ve got my eye on more than that.”

  He had enjoyed the evening and she seemed to be introducing a sour note. “I think I’ll join up,” he said. “I could give a false age.”

  But when he tried, the recruiting sergeant stared at him coldly. “Run away and play, sonny,” he said. “It’s men we want.”

  Furious and disappointed – he’d been so certain they’d accept him he’d even gone to church to pray that his mother would understand – Dicken took a train to Southampton and tried the offices of the Cunard steamship line. At first they seemed interested and sent him alon
g the corridor to see the superintendent of wireless telegraphy. He listened to what Dicken had to say but when he admitted he had only a second class qualification, he seemed to lose interest.

  “We need operators all right,” he admitted. “But we want good ones. Get your first class certificate then we’ll think again. Besides, with a first class ticket you’ll earn a lot more money.”

  It seemed to make sense and the fear that the war would be over before he could get into it seemed to be coming to nothing, anyway. The newspapers were filled with a great new scheme thought up by Lord Kitchener, the Minister of War, in which he proposed to call for a hundred thousand men, and huge pictures of Kitchener himself appeared on the hoardings, complete with bullhorn moustache and pointing finger – “YOUR KING AND COUNTRY NEED YOU.” It drew a few men from the factories and the fields but nobody else. It certainly didn’t seem to concern Dicken because he wasn’t of the class that normally became officers yet he also felt he wasn’t of the class that normally filled the ranks. Up to that moment soldiers had been regarded without much affection only as a necessary evil who, though they added colour to public occasions, also filled the streets on Saturday nights with drunken brawling.

  Suddenly, however, things became different. The newspapers were calling them “steel-true” and “true-blue”, and printing the choruses of the songs they sang alongside the adverts for Wright’s Coal Tar soap, which was claimed to be “a soldier’s soap”, used by all ranks from private to general. British troops had come into action and were acquitting themselves well but, thanks to the over-enthusiasm of journalists who had been nowhere near the fighting and gave the impression they were half-way to Berlin, the news of a retreat came as a shock. Around some obscure little town in Belgium called Mons, British soldiers were dying in hundreds, and shattered remnants of famous regiments were struggling among a vast flood of refugees to reach safety. Exhausted men stumbled behind army wagons pulled by jaded horses into small Belgian villages, and even the churches were full of their wounded. The British Ex-peditionary Force had not been broken but it had suffered terribly.