On the Brink of Tears

by Peter Rimmer

  “I’m too bloody old for this,” he yelled out in excitement, adrenaline pumping up his brain, the speedometer hovering at three hundred miles an hour. “Bloody thing’s stuffed,” he said looking at his instruments before pulling back on the stick, sending the Supermarine prototype back up at the patch of blue sky between the white summer clouds, forcing the metal airframe to try and break apart. To add to the pain, Harry barrel rolled the plane and sent it down and up again. In the middle of this loop Harry fired the twin Vickers machine guns, spitting fire at the clouds and the heavens from the aircraft’s wings.

  For twenty minutes, Harry tested every part of the new plane before pulling back on the speed and making a perfect three-point landing on the field. He taxied the aircraft to the hangars at the other end of the Surrey field where all the VIPs were waiting. By the time Harry climbed out and dropped to the ground he had the same excitement pumping through his body that he had felt the first time he flew solo in 1915.

  “We need four guns in each wing, and as for the speedometer, it can’t be working properly. Damn thing registered three hundred miles an hour. Surely that can’t be right, can it? If we have enough of them we can defend the island against anything. Thirty squadrons of Spitfires flown by well-trained pilots will stop the entire German air force. They have nothing like this, according to our intelligence, nothing on the drawing board. We can win a war with this machine. However hard I tried to rip them off, the wings took the pressure. Let the other test pilots have a go and see what they say, but that’s my opinion. Pilot training, that’s our next problem. Next time I’m bringing down my nephew to let a youngster fly the plane. Taught him to fly in Rhodesia when he was a kid. He’s a good pilot and a damn good cricketer. Pilots, we need pilots. The Ministry of Munitions can lay out workshops to build as many aircraft as we want. It’s the pilots. Like the last war. You can build a new aircraft in three weeks. A pilot with three weeks’ training will make a sitting duck for the Germans whatever aircraft they are flying. You can tell Air Vice Marshal Tedder and Mr Churchill from me; this aircraft flies. Not even the Americans have anything to compare, let alone the Japanese. The Japanese aircraft fighting in China are ten years behind this plane. Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have to drive up to London. There’s a cricket match I have no intention of missing.”

  Tinus was out for a duck before his Uncle Harry reached the Oval where Oxford University were playing the Surrey Second Eleven in a three-day match during the week; the game was to finish on the Wednesday to give the main county side time to prepare for their match against Yorkshire due to start on the Friday. Harry found Tinus in the players’ pavilion having looked at the scoreboard soon after arriving on his motorcycle from Redhill. He was still wearing his flying coat. Tinus was wearing a white sweater with its Oxford dark blue V. Harry gave his nephew a sympathetic smile. Tinus was sitting alone in a deckchair, his pads still on. The rest of his team had left him alone.

  “You on the motorcycle? A long way for nothing. Second ball. The swing caught the edge and straight to the wicket keeper.”

  “There’s always the second innings.”

  “Andre’s arriving from Cape Town tomorrow. Jumped the first boat to England. Luckily the boat didn’t arrive on time. They’ll never put me in the team again. Isn’t that a new RAF flying coat? What have you been up to, Uncle harry? There was a rumour in the University Air Squadron about you test flying.”

  “No. Borrowed this from a grounded pilot working in my office. Chap landed a bomber with its wheels up. My old jacket fell apart.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Walls have ears, Tinus.”

  “I’m sorry. Have you recovered from your party? I thought Fleur and Celia splendid, despite the sour looks from the Honourable Barnaby St Clair.”

  “The party was weeks ago. Never again.”

  “Some party.”

  “I have some things to do at the office now you aren’t batting. Keep in touch. I’ll try and make it for your second innings.”

  “It’s late for you to arrive on a Monday if you haven’t been to the office.”

  “I had some things to do.”

  “I bet you did.”

  “Why’s Andre Cloete coming to England?”

  “He’s bored, Uncle Harry. Being bored at our age is a sin. He tried teaching History at a school for two terms. Coaching rugby and cricket. Not enough to keep him occupied. If you ask me he missed Fleur. My debut for Oxford was just his excuse but never mind. I have a lot more friends at Oxford but none like Andre. Do you know he’s still frightened of heights and flying an aeroplane despite being a good pilot?”

  “Why doesn’t he join the RAF? They have a good rugby and cricket team. With an Oxford degree and the University Air Squadron they’ll make him a pilot officer straight away. He doesn’t have to go to Cranwell to get a commission.”

  “Are you recruiting for the Air Force?”

  “He won’t be bored in the RAF and the new blue uniforms look splendid.”

  “He’s a South African.”

  “Still part of the Commonwealth.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Better luck next time, Tinus. Merlin phoned me the other day. Letter from Genevieve. Film’s going fine though Robert and Freya got bored and went to their cottage outside Denver, wherever that is. Robert writes in his letter that a book’s finished when they put it in a cover. He’s not interested in the film which bears no resemblance to the book. He’s writing a new one. Don’t know how he does it... Do you know, I feel ten years younger.”

  “Not surprised in that flying coat… Sounds like one of the chaps has scored a four. Better go and watch from the balcony and stop moping.”

  “Have you heard from Genevieve?”

  “Not a word. Should I?”

  “The way you look at each other I should think so.”

  “She thinks I’m a kid. Thanks for coming, Uncle Harry. I really appreciate your support.”

  As they parted company to go their separate ways, both were thinking of Tinus’s dead father, the ghost that always stood over them.

  Andre Cloete realised he had fallen off the pedestal the day he left Oxford University and caught the boat back to his home in South Africa. His boyhood friends from Bishops had gone their separate ways to make a living in life, the need to support themselves more important than hero-worshipping the school captain of cricket. A Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford received more applause at the start than the finish, getting a Blue for cricket and rugby was just another team to play for on the journey through life.

  For the first time to Andre’s recollection he found money more important to people than sporting or academic achievement. By becoming a school master at Rondebosch Boys’ High he was no longer important, no longer the man to look up to for boys to try and emulate. He was Cloete the history teacher who made them practise cricket after school when most of them would have preferred to go home or sit around with their friends doing nothing. Cricket coaching other than for the dedicated few was boring. Talking to girls was much more fun. None of them ever wanted to be the history teacher or even pay a visit once they had left school.

  When the letter came from Tinus Oosthuizen announcing his selection for the Oxford first eleven, Andre jumped at the chance to go back to his place of glory. In England, at the Oval match against the Surrey Second Eleven, Andre would be remembered as the man who scored a century against Cambridge. He would be a part of the camaraderie. He would have like-minded friends to talk to about cricket and rugby, rowing on the Cherwell, or their good old days at school when they strode the world head and shoulders above the rest of them, school prefects, school captains of cricket, winners of scholarships to the most prestigious university on earth.

  If he could get back to England to watch the cricket, Andre knew he would be among friends, not the History master who bored his pupils and left them yawning in his face, looking longingly out of the window. Looking at their watches to
see when the period would be over and they could escape from the boring man standing with his back to the blackboard covered in chalked names, dates and places they would all much prefer to forget.

  Resigning his post two days before the end of term, Andre booked his third class passage on the first liner out of Cape Town for England, not one protest from the senior masters at the school. He had been a teacher for two terms. It was over. There had to be something more for him, he told himself sadly. Something, hopefully, that made him a little money, more to live in than a square box of a room, even the chance of dating a girl like Fleur who once he had thought just a little beneath him.

  By the time he reached England, the third class section of the ship all he could afford now he was a man no longer supported by his father, Andre knew he was made of the same old stuff as the rest of them; just flesh and bones. When he reached the pavilion in plenty of time to watch Tinus go out to bat for the second time he was a chastened man, no longer expecting the world to give him a living or to listen in awe to his every word. No one had even mentioned his century the previous year; there were new heroes to clap.

  ‘I’m history,’ he breathed to himself, feeling that much better for understanding where he now stood in the world.

  Then he concentrated on his old friend playing cricket, letting the rest of his life take care of itself.

  “Andre! My goodness. Am I too late? Is he out yet? Tinus said you were coming over. Second ball in the first innings. Not quite that magnificent century of yours against Cambridge last year.”

  “He’s taking guard, Mr Brigandshaw.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The cheapest hotel. Father isn’t financing this one.”

  “Come and stay at Hastings Court. I’ve got an idea for you. Why don’t you join the RAF? They’re looking for pilots. Are you still frightened of flying?”

  “I throw up every time before I go up.”

  “Tinus is coming down after the match. Just like old times.”

  “Wonderful. I don’t have any plans.”

  With the innings progressing out in the middle, both of them watching Tinus from the balcony of the players’ pavilion, old friend and uncle respectively, Andre’s worst nightmare of farming sheep began to recede from his mind as the idea of joining the British air force took hold, something he imagined his many Boer relations back home would consider treason. Going over to the enemy, spitting in the faces of his ancestors who had fought two wars against the British to retain their identity and freedom as a nation of Afrikaners, as nationalist as any German who believed in Hitler’s National Socialist Party that was restoring the pride of the German people after their humiliation at the hands of the French and British. He could hear his pro-German great-uncle Koos ranting and raving.

  “Ten generations of Cloetes on Venterskraal and you join up with the rooineks. You are a disgrace to your people who have struggled so long against all the odds to maintain our place in Africa. You have shamed us, Andre.”

  Smiling to himself as he played through his mind the Afrikaans words of his Uncle Koos, Andre politely clapped with the rest as Tinus cover-drove the ball to the boundary completing his fifty. Tinus acknowledged the players’ pavilion by raising his bat as the umpire signalled the four, while the Surrey fielder stepped over the boundary rope to retrieve the ball and throw it back to the wicket keeper. Next to him Harry Brigandshaw, smiling broadly, stood up and added his clapping to the polite applause. Around the ground a sprinkling of Oxford supporters were watching the cricket. Just before the tea break Tinus went out to a good catch in the slips.

  “That’s it for me, Andre. I told them at the Air Ministry where they have me back again that I’d only watch Nephew bat. Tell Tinus I was here. Do you still have your Morgan?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then Tinus can bring you down tomorrow. I won’t ask what you’ve been doing since coming down from Oxford as I know. Teaching apathetic teenagers history must be a pain in the arse. I like farming but it isn’t for everyone. The bush with all its wild animals around Elephant Walk is what I love most of all. The Karoo is beautiful but flat. You can count the springbok from a mile away and that takes away the excitement. My father started his life in Africa as a big-game hunter with Tinus’s grandfather. I can’t shoot the animals myself except for the pot but I love to watch them when they come out of the trees. When the lions stand up from the long grass to show themselves not ten yards in front of you having hopefully had their lunch.”

  “I have too many siblings to allow us all to farm successfully, even if I wanted to farm. There are twelve of us in the family. My mistake was not taking a worthwhile degree instead of only thinking about sport, which all comes to an end sooner than I expected. An economics degree like Tinus has will get him a good job in industry anywhere in the world.”

  “The RAF can be a career. Not the best paying but a happy lifestyle with many friends.”

  “Is there going to be a war?”

  “Probably, why you’ll easily get into the Air Force. Do you want me to ask around? Find out what you have to do? If there’s a war your generation will be fighting anyway, like my generation in the last war that killed my brother and brought me from Rhodesia to England looking for revenge. There’s great danger, Andre. Think about it carefully. You are a Boer who owes England nothing.”

  “What else can I do with my life?”

  “That’s for you to decide… Well played, Tinus. Look who’s here all the way from Africa. I’ve suggested you bring Andre with you to Hastings Court after the game finishes tomorrow.”

  With a twinkle in his eye, Harry watched the two old friends shake hands formally.

  When Andre turned round to say goodbye and thank him for the invitation Harry was on his way out of the door.

  “I got a duck in the first innings. Second ball.”

  “So your uncle was telling me.”

  “It’s almost tea time. Let’s go and find ourselves a cup of tea so you can fill me in on everything. How long are you staying in England?”

  “Probably forever if your uncle has his way.”

  “Trying to persuade you to join the RAF? You’ll have some fun again. The RAF have quite a good cricket side. Are you still throwing up before you fly?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Concentrates the mind.”

  “Is there going to be a war?”

  “According to William Smythe it’s a certainty. He does a weekly current affairs spot on the BBC Empire Service, ‘Smythe in America’, ‘Smythe in Moscow’, ‘Smythe in Poland’. He’s taken to the airwaves like a duck to water. He says if we don’t get the Americans behind us from the start, Hitler will take it as a weakness and do what he likes. The common opinion in America according to Smythe is that Europe should take care of its own problems. That German, Italian and Spanish nationalism, now called fascism, is nothing to do with America. That America is made up of more German, Italians and Spanish than British despite the English language most of them now speak. Did you have any lunch? I’m staying at the Williams Hotel again tonight. You’d better bunk in my room just like old times. Jolly good to see you, old chap.”

  “Likewise, Tinus.”

  “They’ll have some cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.”

  “I’m surprised the English haven’t starved themselves to death.”

  “So am I. At least we will get fed properly by Uncle Harry. From what I gather on the grapevine they’ve made him a test pilot but he won’t say a word. Why he’s back at the Air Ministry.”

  “Isn’t Smythe the chap who’s sweet on Genevieve?”

  “I don’t know. Is he? Have you heard from Fleur?”

  “Have you heard from Genevieve?”

  “Only in a roundabout way. She’s making a new film in America.”

  “The three musketeers. Do you remember that time we all went rowing on the Cherwell?”

  “It was on the Thames. We were south of Oxford.�
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  “I suppose it was the Thames. You’d better write and tell her you’re playing for Oxford. One day you’re going to marry her.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s famous. I’m just another chap up at Oxford. Why don’t we go round and see Fleur tonight? She and Celia are still in the same flat. She’ll love to see you. They have a band now that plays the nightclubs. They’re very good and making lots of money.”

  “What does Barnaby St Clair say about that?”

  “He’s right out of the picture.”

  “About time. She was far too young to waste herself on an old man.”

  “Tell that to Uncle Barnaby. The one he’s got right now hasn’t turned twenty-one.”

  “How does he do it?”

  “He’s rich. How was the trip? Any pretty girls?”

  “Pretty girls are not interested in impecunious ex-history teachers who once played cricket, a game most of them have never heard of let alone seen.”

  “That explains Uncle Barnaby’s success; he buys them one way or another… Uncle Harry has a German man and his wife staying at Hastings Court this weekend. Out of the blue the chap invited himself over from Germany. Uncle Harry shot him down in the war and then saved his life. A bit bizarre if you ask me, making a friend of a man who was doing his best to kill you. Big landowner in Germany. I met him first when he came to Elephant Walk on his honeymoon. If I’m not wrong his wife’s name was Bergit. That was years ago. I was something like four years old. Remember more from what my mother said about them afterwards. When Uncle Harry told me about the visit on the phone he sounded puzzled as to why Klaus von Lieberman wanted to pay a visit to England now. Uncle Harry said it was all very well being friends, but if their countries were going to war with each other again they would have split loyalties to each other, despite what Klaus might personally think of Hitler’s politics and methods to achieve them. That when push came to shove von Lieberman was firstly a German and secondly a friend. Uncle Harry told me twice on the phone not to talk about his work at the Air Ministry. Sounds to me as if he doesn’t trust his friend.