by Peter Rimmer
And there they were the survivors with their red taps, their new ranks, and an influx of American bourbon to drink to a now certain victory. Jack's arm had healed and left no outward scars. It was only when the Americans looked into their eyes they saw the thousand-yard stares. And then they looked away again. The Americans had yet to fight the war.
The strangest thing had happened to Jack Merryweather. The moment they had taken him out of the trenches and the danger was gone, he was bored again. The job had been done and now he was back to waffling, being social, telling the Americans it wasn't that bad after all. Telling them what they wanted to hear. He had gone from reality to the old ways of an educated man. Saying the right thing. Playing down any idea of hardship. Never mentioning the real friends he had made and lost. What people thought was the real world, Jack now knew to be one long pretence. All the years of polite talk lay ahead of him and it made him want to scream.
Merlin St Clair had sold every one of his Vickers-Armstrong shares a week before the Americans came into the war. He had managed the impossible. Buying at the bottom and selling at the top of the market. The machine gun he had orchestrated so effectively to kill Germans had made him rich. One hundred and twelve thousand pounds sterling. Enough to never work again in his life. Lloyd's of London could kiss his arse. Cornell, Brooke and Bradley could kiss his jolly old derrière. Someone had to be a winner in a war. He would buy his father the best herd of cows money could buy. He would set the builders onto repairing Purbeck Manor. Then he would sail around the world as slowly as possible and thank God every day that he was still alive. Then, and only then would he think what to do with the rest of his life. He was rich. For the first time in more than a century, a St Clair was stinking rich.
Glen Hamilton could not see one good reason why his fellow Americans had come into the war. If the Europeans want to bury themselves in mass graves it had nothing to do with America. He had no idea why they all went to war in the first place, and he doubted if any of the troops, dead or alive, had any idea either. His editor in Denver had said something about the balance of power. Germany building a navy to challenge the British. Treaties of alliance: an attack on one country would be considered an attack on all the Allies. So the whole of Europe had fallen into the same pit in a matter of days. Which was fine for the Europeans if that was what they wanted but it still had nothing to do with his America.
"Well go and get the story and try not to get yourself killed." Matt Vogel was editor of the Colorado Telegraph and what he said was law. They could argue but what he said in the end was law. So Glen had sulked.
"You want the real reason Glen Hamilton? The real, real reason why we are going to kill a whole bunch of American young boys that I hope very much won't include you? Money. It's the money. If the British and French don't win the war we don't get our money back. Fact is, if the Royal Navy had not been there to stop us, we might have shipped the war material to Germany and Austria. Then they would have owed us money and we'd have gone in there to fight the British and French. Every war in history has been about money. Whatever they say about right and wrong and going to war with God on our side. They're talking shit. Never been no damn difference since man came out of the primal slime. After this war if we get our money we'll be the richest damn nation on earth. We didn't bleed none up to now. And that was smart. They'll put you in the army. In uniform. A captain. So off you go and get the money Captain Hamilton. That's where our interests lie."
"It can't be that poor."
"Oh yes it can."
He was a journalist attached to British Military Headquarters, where his job was to interview the British liaison officers who had been pulled out of the front line to tell the Americans how to fight a trench war. It was Harry Brigandshaw's thousand-yard stare that first gave him the shivers.
"You don't talk like the other officers. Are you Australian?"
"No, a Rhodesian."
"Where's that?"
"A little jewel of a country in south-central Africa. I'm a farmer. My brother was killed so I came over. Revenge sounded good six thousand miles away."
"You did all right, sir."
"But they didn't, Captain. Every man I killed could just as easily been my friend. And none of this Sir business in the mess. Chances are we're the same age. Both colonials but you won't admit to it. All the product of mother England, who was a product of mother Germany, if you include Saxony, who was a product of I don't know where. Or like my friend over there, Merlin St Clair, a product of mother Normandy which is now a province of France… You must have a lot of factories in America. I flew over the product. If the Germans could see what you've sent they'd give up now."
"But they won't."
"No. Not yet. Now it's pride. Desperation. Hatred… And please don't try and interview me for your newspaper. I don't want to talk about it."
"How did you survive?"
"My father was a white hunter. One of the best. He talked to me when I was alone in the air. He is dead, you see. Killed by an elephant."
"Can you talk about Africa? The bush, I think you call it."
"Anytime."
"Do you still hunt?"
"Only for food. And once for revenge. I have a friend at home who believed in revenge. The British hanged his father for going out with the Boers. His father was a Boer but lived in the British Cape. We sowed the seeds of hatred, as we are all doing so well right now."
"I'd like to visit Africa."
"Maybe you shall. After the war."
"Can I visit with you?"
"Everyone is welcome at Elephant Walk."
"What's Elephant Walk?"
"My farm."
"What squadron were you in?"
"I said no interviews, Mister?"
"Glen Hamilton. Denver. Colorado."
"How'd you do? Now, will you excuse me?"
"You knew Colonel Braithwaite." Glen Hamilton knew perfectly well Harry was 33 Squadron.
"He was a great pilot. An officer and a gentleman. Sadly missed."
"He's alive. They've got him in an asylum. Did you know?"
"Colonel Braithwaite was shot down by ground fire. Rifle fire to be exact. He was dead at the controls when the aircraft crashed. His plane was positively identified by a British corporal who had more than once identified the individual markings of the CO of 33 Squadron. I had hoped he would have been awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously. It is the only decoration we have that can be awarded to a dead man."
"You were at Oxford with him."
"Yes. That's common knowledge. Why he had me posted to 33 Squadron."
"And you knew his fiancée who died as a nurse in the same German advance."
"Sara was a lovely girl. I'll buy you a drink in the mess if you stop trying to give me an interview. You are trying to make a story out of nothing. Why ask me my squadron when you knew perfectly well."
"You were there when he shot her."
"Where are you trying to go, Mr Hamilton?"
"I'll have that drink… Research. Not for my newspaper. Every journalist is a frustrated novelist. The policeman talked in a pub. Said he had a good idea for a book he was going to write after the war and because he can't write he told me. The truth is always crazier than fiction."
"I'll ask you one thing now. Keep your mouth shut. When the war's over come to Elephant Walk. Men and women do things in war they would not do otherwise. Quite frankly, Mervyn was as mad as a hatter. But a great pilot, who trained many other great pilots. If your personal greed for sensation writes such a story you are as sick as Mervyn Braithwaite."
"I'm sorry."
"Good. And British policemen don't write books. Or think about writing them. There is an Official Secrets Act… Now the drink. And there is Merlin. Fighting a war from a forty-bedroom French château is absurd," Harry said looking around at the luxury. "And there is Jack Merryweather."
"You British all seem to know each other."
&nb
sp; "The ruling class, I'm afraid, are a small brotherhood. My grandfather is a baronet from the days of William the Conqueror. As is Merlin's father, though his father is a baron. His eldest brother and heir to the barony was killed in action yesterday. His sister Lucinda's fiancé was killed. His sister Genevieve's father-in-law and husband were killed by the same shell. They were both in the same regiment… This great château with all its finery and regimental silver, its fine wines from old cellars. Its permanent dance of good manners. All this is the product of the upper classes, who have ruled England and the Empire for a thousand years. This last pirouette in such fine surroundings is the end of them, for better or for worse. Probably some good will come out of it. I don't know. But please Glen Hamilton, let our skeletons rest in their cupboards in peace."
"What are you going to do after the war?"
"I'm going home. To peace. To solitude. To the sound of the bush. To the most wonderful place in the world to live. Africa… Merlin, come and meet an American. He'll want to interview you but say no."
The next day Merlin went forward with an American major as far as the reserve lines. They were shelled the day after and the major asked to be taken back to the château. After that no one asked to go out to the front before he was sent. They sat at tables explaining everything to do with war. How to set up a machine-gun. How to draw the lines of fire. The only thing Merlin could not teach them was how to stay alive.
Three weeks later the major was killed in the first American offensive on that part of the front. By then Merlin could not remember his face. There had been so many of them, so eager to learn.
The one permanent American was Glen Hamilton, the American newspaperman from Denver, Colorado. Harry had avoided him after that first drink. Then his leave came up at the same time as Merlin's and they arranged to go to Purbeck Manor together. By then the Allies were advancing right across the Western Front. Like the Battle of Waterloo, when the Prussians had come to help the British at the end of the battle, the American intervention was too much for the Germans. The irony was not lost on Harry.
Merlin was going to be home for Christmas. Glen Hamilton had been away from America for six months. The Colorado Telegraph wanted him to go to London to interview senior British generals at the War Office. Merlin asked him down to Purbeck Manor for Christmas. Merlin wanted Glen to read the book just finished by his brother Robert. The family wanted an opinion from a professional before the manuscript was sent to a publisher, to save any embarrassment. Had it not been for the small boy born to Penelope, he would have been heir to the barony. In her letter, his mother had written that everyone except Barnaby would be home for Christmas. The sergeant married to his sister had been badly gassed and was out of the war. Merlin wondered if he was going to get back his ten pounds. Not that it mattered any more. With luck, Harry would propose to Lucinda, and one of the girls would have a life and fully functional husband. Barnaby was now in Syria with General Allenby.
Glen Hamilton had never intended to write a novel. And war stories sent back with hundreds of other American journalists were not going to get noticed. Not going to make him famous. He was a journalist who wanted a story no one else had, not a reporter of state news that was forgotten in twenty-four hours. Some in Denver called him a snooper but he never cared what other people said.
Matt Vogel would have called it luck but it wasn't. He had been in London before the American army began pouring into Europe writing back potboilers for the Colorado Telegraph when he had the idea to write about the people who had fought the war so far and not the places and battles and tally up the dead. He wanted to put faces to the battles and the mangled remains strewn across France and Flanders, so he started asking questions. Going to the pubs the British so often frequented. Buying drinks. Looking for smashed up men who had a story to tell which was mostly all of them. He told the men he bought them drinks because of what he was doing. Looking for a character. Someone larger-than-life.
The sergeant mechanic was drunk, and like all drunks talked too much and regretted what he said in the morning. He had seen Colonel Braithwaite leave his Sopwith Camel on the edge of the airfield and take the motorcycle. All the squadrons were in disarray and scattering in front of the German advance. When he read later his colonel was killed in his own aircraft he knew it was a lie. He also knew the CO was as mad as a March hare, along with everyone else at 33 Squadron. But the madman was good at keeping his young pilots alive and that was all that mattered in a war. That, and killing the enemy. The next day he regretted his indiscretion and hoped the American with the flush wallet was equally drunk. The sergeant had forgotten that night at the beginning, the American had said he was a journalist.
The American had got him reminiscing about the squadron. He was drunk by then and said with that drunken fondness that the CO was mad.
"How do you mean, mad?" Glen had asked. He was completely sober but acting drunk.
"The other pilots said when he killed he yelled at the top of his voice the same words over and over again."
"What were the words?"
"'I'm not a wet fish. And you're dead.' Don't know what the word fish was about but the last bit was clear. We had a ground attack one day on the airfield. The CO was the only one to turn his plane at the end of the airfield to face the three German triplanes. Cool as a cucumber, our CO shot from still on the ground. The one Fritz died on impact, the second came out alive. The CO ran at him with his service revolver yelling the same words. Even I heard that day. If it wasn't for Captain Brigandshaw who tackled the CO it would have been murder. Saw Captain Brigandshaw pick up the fallen pistol and put it in his pocket. I was looking out of one of the temporary hangars. They got Fritz off the station the same day, back to Blighty to go in the 'cage'. The CO saved my life that day. Those three planes flying straight at me with their guns firing. The one broke off and got away. The CO shot the other two out of the sky. The officers' mess was going to be next. More important to kill the pilots than smash up their aircraft on the ground. You can build a new aeroplane but you can't build a new pilot so quickly. Those Germans knew just what they were doing."
"What happened to the CO?"
"That's the funny thing. The War Office said he was shot down by rifle fire. They recognised his squadron and personal markings. But he wasn't. He scarpered on a motorcycle. Ran away. Then months later I was back on a week's leave and having a pint in the pub on the Bayswater Road with a couple of squadron mates, and we was talking about the squadron and one of us mentioned Captain Brigandshaw too loud, and one of the locals came over. Said there'd been a murder on the Bayswater Road. The bloke was one of the crowd that had gathered. There was a dead girl on the steps and a man in flying gear on the ground with a crutch pressed into his throat. The local heard the copper take the names. One of 'em was Brigandshaw and the man the copper arrested was Braithwaite. A few days after I'd seen the CO leave his aircraft and the girl was killed, the colonel was reported killed in action."
Knowing when to stop when he was onto a good thing, Glen Hamilton bought the sergeant another drink and left.
Finding the police officer in the Holland Park police station who took down statements was easy. He confirmed Harry Brigandshaw and Lucinda St Clair had seen the girl killed. Gave him the name of the dead girl. Then told him to go to the War Office to find out what happened to Mr Braithwaite. The policeman was quite open, even talkative. The War Office was not. They said they knew nothing about a murder on Bayswater Road.
"They should have done," said the friendly policeman on Glen's second visit. "When the army took the poor sod away from the station he was still yelling, 'I'm not a wet fish. And you're dead.' Bloody bonkers. The army was welcome to him. And there's more to it, I would think. The dead girl was engaged to Braithwaite and she had visited Brigandshaw in Africa. All in the statements. The dead girl had called Brigandshaw in a panic. The army told us to drop the case. We do what we are told."
Glen Hamilton's delib
erate lie to Harry Brigandshaw about the hearsay of the policeman was to keep up the charade of writing a novel. The invitation to Purbeck Manor was a bonus. He would ask Merlin's sister out of the blue what she knew about the killing of Sara Wentworth. Once he found out where they had hidden the flying ace, he would break the whole gory story right across the world. He would be syndicated. He would be famous. And to hell with the British and their upper class. The sheer bloody cheek of Harry Brigandshaw, to call him a colonel made him want to spit. He was an American… He had his story. To hell with them. The fact he was accepting hospitality for Christmas under false pretences never crossed his mind. Or the fact that he was going to fall in love with Lucinda St Clair.
For Granny Forrester there was nothing to celebrate except Christmas. She had helped to tuck sprigs of holly behind the old pictures that littered the house. Most were dark faces of the ancient dead, nameless and sometimes crashing down from the old walls, to be put back with a renewed screw or another length of picture wire. They were found in the mornings, fallen on the stairs, or ready to be trodden on down the dark damp corridor, waiting for help. Some were grime covered pictures of life long dead. Fox hunts with splashes of red coats. Men with feathered hats and old guns. Landscapes. Seascapes. Horses. Dogs. And no one knew the painters' names or cleaned away the grime of centuries. She had the feeling they were all about to take their last bow, finally swept away by war and poverty. Not that any of it mattered. When the old died, a picture here or there made no difference to their death. Memories faded like the pictures.