by John Masters
‘Ah, Fiona, so ye’ve come again. Ye’re a bad gairrl.’ She dabbed her eyes with a little handkerchief. He was speaking the broad Gorbals, which meant he would not be serious. He could speak perfectly good English when he chose.
She said, ‘How do you feel?’
‘No ba’ at a’, lassie, considering hoo they’ve been poking arroun’ in ma tripes.’
‘Oh Archie, do be serious … When will they let you out?’
‘Two weeks,’ he said.
‘And then what? Six weeks convalescence?’
‘I’ll make it four. Then …’
‘Ask for a job at the Depot, darling.’ Her voice was low but urgent. Perhaps the man in the bed behind her could hear. She no longer cared. ‘I’m dying without you. Stay in Hedlington. They can’t send you out again.’
‘They can, but they won’t. Because I’ll go, of my own accord.’
‘Oh Archie, I love you, I love you, and you’re being so cruel …’
He said slowly, ‘I must go back to Quentin, Fiona. You don’t know that man. He’s stupid …’
‘Yes, yes!’
‘Narrow-minded …’
‘Oh yes!’
‘Obstinate, ignorant, insensitive …’
‘Of course! That’s why I …’
‘But … he’s a man to be loved. He’s stupid, but he understands. He’s narrow-minded, obstinate, ignorant, and insensitive only to what doesn’t affect those he loves … the men of his battalion. And you.’
She dried her eyes. She was a McLeod and must not disgrace herself before these wounded officers, perhaps one of them a clansman who would expect a sterner pride of her.
She said, ‘If he is killed, will you marry me?’
Archie searched for words for a long time, then said, ‘Fiona, I could not. You could come to my bed sometimes, with the models and the lady clients – though at this moment I feel so weak I can’t believe I’ll ever be able to pleasure a woman again … but you’ll have but one husband. Quentin Rowland, of the Weald Light Infantry.’
She got up to go, stooping to kiss Archie on the cheek. He was a painter, an artist, after all; and he would change his mind when he felt strong again, and could enjoy her body, and paint her flesh as he had so often in the glorious years before 1914. She had six or seven weeks. She could make him stay, secure in her flesh, in her love.
Commander Tom Rowland, on the bridge of the old cruiser moored in the stream below Chatham, listened to the increasing drone of aircraft engines, and watched as the searching pencils of light from the shore-based searchlights leaped up into the sky, wheeled, circled, dipped, wavered. A silvery gleam appeared, caught like a metal moth. The guns barked in the night, and high up there little dark clouds blossomed under the full moon. It was light enough to see them now … four … seven, eight Gothas.
There was nothing more to be done. He had ordered ‘Action Stations’ two minutes ago and the skeleton crew now manning the old ship were all closed up, guns manned … except that they could not be pointed high enough to hit an aeroplane. As aircraft became faster and their bombing methods more accurate it would be necessary to give all ships’ guns a high-angle capacity … and some method of holding their aim on such fast-moving targets.
Giant spouts of water sprang up out of the river, bursts of orange flame sprouted like orange cabbages in the town to the south. The cruiser’s own searchlights had one of the raiders caught and were holding it. A flurry of black smoke bursts almost hid it, then suddenly the silver streak became an incandescent glow, now diving down the sky, trailing a scarf of fire … to fall into the sea half a mile to the north. A ragged cheer swept the bridge and upper deck. The sound of engines receded, the searchlights went suddenly dark, the fires on land grew larger. He could probably pipe the hands to stand down from action stations, but he’d wait for five more minutes. It would be a pity, having volunteered for dangerous duty, to be sunk at anchor in the estuary.
The ‘dangerous duty’, he had been advised in great secrecy, was a raid to block the channels by which German U-boats left their home ports on the Belgian coast, on their way to attack the British sea lanes. That meant sinking blockships at Ostend, and Zeebrugge, at least, under the noses of the German coastal artillery. No definite date had yet been set for the raids, but they would probably be in April. The part his ship, HMS Orestes, would play had not yet been worked out, for detailed planning had only just started.
April … three months away; and after that, he’d be out of this uniform … or, if in it, dead. If he survived, he’d be back in his flat, living with Charlie Bennett, his friend, servant, and lover; and Arthur Gavilan would be teaching him the art and craft of fashion design; and … To his surprise, his acknowledgment of his homosexuality had made life easier for him on board ship. Half a dozen young sailors had joined his crew who, in earlier days, would have filled him with desire, and simultaneous shame, and self-despisal. Now, he was secure; he admired their graceful virility, their youthful beauty – but they were not for him.
Five minutes gone. He turned to the officer of the watch and said, ‘Stand the hands down from action stations.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’
The boatswains’ pipes twittered, while Tom took a turn along the bridge and back again. February 2nd … young Merritt had gone back to France, Stella not yet found. Poor devil … poor Stella, caught in the grasp of a demon she certainly did not understand, and perhaps no other human being did, either.
Daily Telegraph, Friday, February 8, 1918
TRANSPORT SUNK OFF THE COAST OF IRELAND
AMERICANS ON BOARD
2,191 SAVED – 206 LOST
Yesterday afternoon the Secretary of the Admiralty issued the following:
The Anchor Liner Tuscania, Captain J. L. Henderson, was torpedoed at night on Feb. 5, off the Irish coast whilst carrying U.S. Troops. The following are the approximate number of saved:
U.S. Military
Crew
Officers……………78
Officers……………18
Men…………….1935
Men………………125
Passengers………….3
Not specified……….32
Total number on board…………………2397
Total number saved…………………….2191
Late last night Reuter’s Agency announced that, according to information received in authoritative quarters, the Tuscania was torpedoed at 6.20 p.m. at a point ten miles from the coast. No other vessel of the convoy was hit. The details already to hand show that discipline was magnificent, and the character of the rescue work which was done by British vessels that rushed to the scene can be judged by the relatively small loss of life.
GRAPHIC STORIES
From Our Own Correspondent, A North of Ireland Port, Thursday. The Tuscania arrived off the North of Ireland coast on Tuesday afternoon. The voyage up to that had been without event, and the first sign of danger came at a quarter of six, when preparations were being made for supper. Two torpedoes were fired. The first missed the liner, passing a short distance from the stern. The second struck the ship full amidships, wrecking the engine-room and going near to No. 1 boiler. The dynamo …
Garrod, the old maid, came in and said, ‘Lord Walstone is here, sir. He asks if he may see you.’
‘A bit early,’ Cate grumbled, folding away the paper. ‘But show him in.’
A few moments later Garrod returned and stood beside the door of the breakfast room, announcing formally, ‘Lord Walstone, sir.’
Cate stood up as Walstone strode heavily in. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Coffee, tea?’
‘Tea please … There, thanks … An’ lots of milk and sugar.’ Garrod left the room and Walstone said, ‘Sorry to disturb you this early but I ’ave to go to London, and, well, it’s this … We’ve heard that your daughter’s missing, Miss Stella that was … run away, like.’
The beady little eyes were fixed on Cate’s. Cate felt a surge of anger
rise in him: what concern was Stella’s tragedy to this jumped-up barrow boy with the boughten title? He said coldly, ‘That is true.’
Bill Hoggin, Lord Walstone, said quickly, ‘I ain’t just sticking my nose into your business, Cate. I want to help … Look, you’ve hoffered a reward. Two thou? Make it five. I’ll put up half … Get the boy’s father to put up five and make it ten. He’s a Yankee banker, ain’t he? Advertise more. Let everyone know.’
Cate said slowly, ‘You are very generous, Lord Walstone. We have been trying to keep the unhappy business to ourselves, but …’
‘T’won’t do,’ Walstone said forcefully. ‘Shout it from the housetops. Later, they’ll all forget … they forget everything.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. And … I’m most grateful.’
‘Don’t give it a second thought … One other thing – we moved into the Park yesterday and the Swanwicks moved out. Swanwick told me that the gamekeepers are no more use than a woman to a eunuch. You know Probyn Gorse well? Known him all your life, eh?’
‘That’s true,’ Cate said cautiously. What had Probyn been up to now?
Walstone said, ‘He’s poaching my pheasants. The keepers can no more stop him than they can fart a barn door down, but they swear it’s him. So … d’ye think he’d take a job as gamekeeper, for me?’
Cate stared as Walstone slurped noisily from his tea cup. Probyn Gorse, gamekeeper? Set a thief to catch a thief, certainly, but … He shook his head. ‘It sounds a good idea, Lord Walstone, but I’m afraid Probyn is too set in his ways.’
‘All right, then. Is he superstitious, believes in witches and ghosts and all that hooha?’
‘Very much so. He’s a real countryman in that way – as in all others.’
Lord Walstone finished his tea and stood up. ‘Good! D’ye have any old photographs of his father or mother? I hear they lived here too?’
‘Oh yes, and his grandparents, though they died when I was very small … Yes, I have some groups at the village fete and a wedding or two, showing Probyn’s mother, certainly.’
‘Could I see them?’
‘Certainly.’ Cate got up and led the way to his library and music room. Why on earth did Walstone want to see photos of Probyn’s mother – in her grave these thirty years? He found the heavy old album, thumbed through the stiff pages and the sepia photographs. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘That’s Mrs Gorse. What was her name? … Lucy.’ He stared at the old photo over Walstone’s shoulder, remembering Lucy Gorse as she had been in her fifties: quite tall, a long stern face, grey hair in a bun, often a shawl over her head, blue eyes, full bosom …
‘Mind if I borrow this album for a day or two. Cate?’ Lord Walstone asked.
Cate hesitated. Should he ask Walstone what he was proposing to do with it? But Walstone answered the question before it had been spoken – ‘I want Probyn Gorse as my gamekeeper at the Park. I’m going to show him it’s a lot better life than poaching.’ He laid a finger alongside his nose and winked.
Five minutes later, his visitor departed in his chauffeured Rolls-Royce, carrying the album; Cate returned to his library and stared a moment at the gilt-tooled rows of the philosophers, he pulled one down and opened it at the title page. The author’s seal was inscribed:
Que scais-je?
Good old Montaigne! Even his motto expressed Cate’s present feeling perfectly.
Chapter 2
The Western Front: Wednesday, February 13, 1918
Lieutenant-Colonel Quentin Rowland, having refilled his pipe and got it drawing well, opened another letter. It was a cold day with a bitter wind from the north-east, but the men were in good billets, either in village houses or outlying barns well-stacked with straw. A few high cirrus clouds marked the sky’s pale blue expanse from horizon to horizon over the rolling downland of the Somme. If one looked out of the upper back windows of the house that held his battalion headquarters you could see Amiens cathedral a few miles to the east … but the room he was now in, the battalion office and orderly room, was on the ground floor and faced west – towards the front line, six miles off.
He puffed contentedly. In the house next door someone was playing haunting Irish airs on a mouth organ. That must be Father Caffin, the battalion’s padre. The battalion was going up the line tomorrow night. Meantime, nearly thirty-six hours more of peace, and calm. Time to read letters, and write them; time to give the men one more close order parade. Light Infantry drill demanded alertness, quick clean movements; the men were getting slovenly at it. If they didn’t have pride in their drill, how could they hope to beat the Germans? He’d have to take the drill parade himself. Woodruff was a good adjutant, considering he was only a wartime officer, and not a gentleman either – his father ran the garage in Walstone; it had once been a livery stable, of course … but he couldn’t be expected to take a drill parade as a Regular adjutant would; he didn’t have the standards. So, at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, it would really come down to himself, Kellaway, and Bolton, the new RSM, trying to beat six hundred and thirty officers and men into shape in sixty minutes. It ought to be more than six hundred and thirty, but the battalion was chronically under strength. Bloody Staff! They allotted you a stretch of line to hold as though you were up to full War Establishment, when they knew perfectly well that you were two hundred men short …
This letter was from Virginia, his daughter; she thought she was pregnant … she was sure of it. So in eight months or so Battery Sergeant-Major Robinson would be a father; and he himself, and the Leeds corporation dustman, would be grandfathers. It didn’t seem to matter as much now as it would have before the war. But what about after the war? Then how would all these topsy-turvy situations and attitudes turn out?
The last letter, and he had deliberately kept it to last when he had seen the handwriting on the envelope, was from Archie Campbell. He opened it and read carefully: Archie had had a final operation in January, and had just been moved to a Convalescent Hospital in Dartford. Well, that wasn’t far from Hedlington, so Fiona could go and see him often … Fiona had visited him three or four times while he had been in Charing Cross Hospital … Fiona had never mentioned that in her own letter to him – the only one in several weeks … Archie wrote that he just needed time and exercise to get his strength back, and was planning to come out again about the middle of March. The colonel would understand that when he did, he’d be put in a general pool of officers; therefore would he, the colonel, please pull every string possible to see that he was posted back to the 1st Wealds … if the colonel wanted him back, that is? Do I want him back? Quentin thought. By God, I do! He’d been miserably lonely without him. In the strains and crises of the front line, mutual trust had bridged the gap between Glasgow slum boy turned painter, and rich man’s son become Regular officer of the old army, and between lieutenant and lieutenant-colonel. Most of all … Quentin winced, but it was true, and truth was all … they had shared Fiona; he as her husband, Archie as her lover. The discovery of that sharing, poured out by Archie in a dugout under bombardment, when it seemed that neither would live through the night, was the strongest memory in Quentin’s life. Now Archie was with Fiona, or could be whenever he or she chose. He had sworn he would not return to the old love, but could he keep his promise? Would it not be best if he did? Fiona loved Archie, and despised him, her husband. But Archie was coming back to the battalion. So, let fate decide. He’d make Archie promise to marry her if he himself was killed and Archie wasn’t. If it came the other way about, then he’d somehow find ways of making Fiona understand how much he loved her; and they’d share the memory of Archie, at least. And if they both went … poor Fiona.
There was a knock at the door and the adjutant, 2nd, Lieutenant Woodruff, entered, saluting. ‘Orders for the move up, sir. We’re relieving the 3rd Grenadiers in front of Albert.’
‘Guards?’ Quentin said. ‘We’ll have to see that all boots are thoroughly well polished, and clothing and equipment perfect. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain or snow
.’
Woodruff said cheerfully, ‘Perhaps it would be better if it did, sir, then they couldn’t look down their noses at us if our turnout isn’t quite perfect.’
‘That’s a defeatist attitude,’ Quentin snapped. ‘Rain or snow, it’ll fall on them too, and we’re going to look as good as they do – better! Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Woodruff said. He didn’t look very crestfallen, Quentin observed; these wartime officers didn’t take dress and drill and Regimental custom seriously enough. But those things were the cement that held the battalion together in hard times. He said, ‘Archie Campbell hopes to rejoin us about the middle of March. If we can get him back, I’ll reappoint him as adjutant. You will take over as Intelligence Officer.’
‘Very good, sir,’ Woodruff said. ‘I hope I’ve been satisfactory.’
‘Oh quite,’ Quentin said, ‘for a non-Regular, very good. But Archie, well …’ He ended gruffly, ‘An adjutant is a personal staff officer and Archie suited me. I’m not easy to get on with, but he manages it … What news from your family?’
‘All well, sir. My father’s hired a new mechanic – Ben Hotchkiss, who lost a lung at Jutland. But he’s a smart fellow. Dad has three cars for hire now, and he’s put in an extra petrol pump … Sir, when Archie Campbell comes back, can I have a few days leave as soon as I’ve handed over to him? I want to get married.’
‘Married? Good heavens, I didn’t know …
‘Well, I’m thirty-one, sir, and me and Addie Morris were walking out for two years before I joined up, and now she says it’s about time we got spliced, and Dad and Mum say the same, so …’