by Nevil Shute
Gervase thought, that was that. It was just as Ellison had told her; she might have saved her journey. But the old lady’s case was reasonable according to her standards; Gervase felt that she might talk all night, and do no good.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know it was like that. This crew need fishing very badly, and I thought perhaps this might be an opportunity.’
The old lady said: ‘My dear, you keep on talking about a crew, and I don’t know in the least what you mean. Is it the crew of a ship?’
Gervase said patiently: ‘No, it’s the crew of an aeroplane. We call the men who go in the bombers the crew. There are five in these aeroplanes.’
‘Five men?’
‘Yes.’
‘And do they fly the bomber over the Ruhr, and drop the bombs? Are those the men you call the crew?’
‘Yes.’
‘They must be very brave men to fly all that way over Germany at night.’
The thought was a new one to Gervase. She had been so intimately associated with them that she had never seen them in that light. ‘I think they are,’ she said slowly. ‘I think they’re very brave men.’
‘And this bomber crew that you say are all at sixes and sevens. What do you mean by that?’
Gervase said: ‘It’s a frightful strain on them, going out like that night after night.’ The door opened quietly behind her, and the old maid pushed in a rubber-tyred trolley with a silver teapot, delicate china, cake and bread and butter; she arranged this quietly between them as they talked. ‘Each night, some of them don’t come back; they just get — killed. But some of them go on, night after night and month after month. And the crews who do that are usually all great friends who know each other very well, because then they get to work together as a team.’
The old lady nodded. ‘My son always says that a good polo team is best made up of friends,’ she said. ‘That is what you mean?’
Gervase knew nothing about polo whatsoever, but she thought it safe to say: ‘That’s it.’
‘Well? What’s all this got to do with fishing? Do you take sugar with your tea?’
‘Please.’ She thought for a moment, and then said: ‘They all used to go fishing together until the coarse-fishing season ended in March. It was their one big interest, and they all did it. Then when the season ended they hadn’t got anything to do, and they began sort of snapping at each other. It’s a frightful strain.’ She paused. ‘And then they began to make mistakes, and last time they were very nearly killed.’
The old lady gazed at her quizzically. ‘And so you thought if they could come and fish my lake they might get together again.’
Gervase turned to her, surprised at so much understanding. ‘That’s exactly what I did think.’
‘Who are these men? Has the crew got a captain?’
The girl nodded. ‘Flight Lieutenant Marshall. All the rest are sergeants, except the wireless operator, who is a corporal.’
‘But do you mean to tell me that they all go out fishing together? The officer with the sergeants and the corporal?’
‘Yes.’
‘How very odd,’ said the old lady shortly.
There was a pause while she poured out tea with a very shaky hand, and gave the girl a slice of bread and butter. Gervase noticed that she took only very weak tea without milk or sugar herself, and a thin wafer biscuit.
‘And which one is it that you are in love with?’
Gervase very nearly dropped her cup. This was worse than Pat Johnson. ‘I’m not in love with any of them,’ she said warmly.
‘Well, which one is in love with you?’
Gervase was silent for a moment. She did not want to tell lies to this unpleasantly direct old lady; moreover, she was by no means sure that she would get away with it if she tried. ‘Peter Marshall,’ she said weakly.
‘He is the officer — the captain?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to marry him?’
‘I don’t know.’ This was terrible.
‘Well, make up your mind quickly and don’t keep him waiting too long. You can’t afford to dilly and dally in times like these.’
Deep down in her heart Gervase felt that it had been worth riding fourteen miles upon her bicycle to hear that said. But she was suddenly inarticulate and filled her mouth with bread and butter to avoid having to reply, colouring a little.
Very slowly and painfully the old lady raised herself from her chair and reached for an ebony stick. ‘My son thinks very highly of the Air Force,’ she said. ‘I am going to show you a letter that arrived from him only last week, the last letter we have had.’
She moved very slowly across the room to a walnut escretoire, selected a key from a bunch that she took from a pocket at her girdle, and unlocked a drawer. From the same pocket she extracted a spectacle-case, and put them on. She picked a letter from the drawer, took it from the field service envelope, and stood reading it. ‘This is the one,’ she said slowly, ‘all about a carpet. Such a funny word to use.’
She moved back to her chair before the fire and sat down again. She examined the three pages of the letter carefully, selected the middle page, and handed it to Gervase. ‘That is the part, I think,’ she said. ‘Read that, child.’
Gervase took the sheet. It was written unevenly in black Italian ink, as if by a hand unused to writing recently, forced to use as desk the tail-board of a truck or a petrol-can. It said:
‘The Air Force have been magnificent all through. We should never have got through the wadis except for their help. They laid what Tedder calls a carpet for us; all day, over and over again they came down to ground level ahead of us, shooting up everything they saw resisting the advance, and bombing all the anti-tank positions. It was magnificent, but it was very costly to them because the Germans have plenty of light flack. Over and over again in the last few days we have found crashed Hurricanes and Kittihawks in our advance, scores of them, some with the body of the pilot still in the seat. The Germans are resisting desperately; if we get through to Tunis it will be because of what these Air Force boys are doing to prepare the ground ahead of us and their self-sacrifice.’
Gervase handed back the letter gravely. ‘Thank you for showing me,’ she said.
The old lady took the sheet and placed it in the envelope with the others and laid it carefully upon the table at her side. ‘I am sure if my son were here he would want to help you,’ she said gently. ‘If fishing in the lake will really be some good to your crew, I do not think he would want me to refuse it. After all, the lake can always be re-stocked when you have taken all the fish out of it.’
Gervase said: ‘That’s terribly kind of you, Mrs Carter-Hayes. We’d pay for the re-stocking.’
The old lady sat up. ‘Mind you, I am not going to have the whole Air Force tramping through my garden and upsetting everything. Write down the names of these men, the crew, and I will write a little note to invite them.’ She passed a pad and pencil to Gervase.
The girl wrote down all the names and the addresses; the old lady took the sheet and studied it. ‘Sergeant Pilot Franck,’ she said. ‘What an odd name. Is he English?’
Gervase said: ‘He’s a young Dane. A medical student before the war. He is the navigator — the most senior of them, next to Flight Lieutenant Marshall.’
‘How odd.’
There was a short silence; Gervase began to think about going. But presently the thin old lady said:
‘Have all these sergeants and corporals got rods for fly-fishing?’
Gervase said: ‘I don’t suppose so, because they’re only used to coarse fishing. But don’t worry about that — they’ll get them fast enough. They aren’t badly paid.’
‘Somebody was telling me that it is very difficult to buy fishing tackle of any sort now. Are you going to fish with them?’
Gervase smiled. ‘I’ve only tried once or twice, and then the line was always getting caught up. I’d like to try again, if I might.’
/> The old lady reached slowly for her stick and struggled to her feet. ‘Let us go and see in the gun-room,’ she said. ‘I know there are several rods there.’
She moved very slowly from the room out into the hall; Gervase following behind her step by step. She moved down the passage to a closed door, which she unlocked with a key from her reticule. They went forward into a little room, dim with a drawn blind; the old lady moved forward to the window and snapped the blind up, flooding the room with light. Gervase looked around.
On one side of the room were drawers and cupboards, covered with a thin film of dust. In the middle was a deal kitchen table. On the other side of the room there was a small iron fireplace, flanked on the one side by a glass case containing half a dozen guns, on the other side by a row of hooks from which eight or ten rods in their fabric bags hung suspended. The old lady moved over to these and began handling them.
‘This is a trout rod,’ she said slowly, ‘and this one. This — no, this must be a spinning rod, and those two are for salmon. This is another trout rod, I think.’ She laid the trout rods one by one upon the table. ‘And the reels and the lines used to be in this drawer. Here they are.’
Gervase said: ‘It’s awfully good of you to take so much trouble, Mrs Carter-Hayes.’
‘If your friends have any difficulty in buying their own tackle they may borrow any of these things, my dear. Only they must keep them here and not take them away.’
‘Of course,’ said Gervase. ‘Are you sure your son won’t mind them being used?’
‘Oh no — these are the rods he keeps here for his friends to use when they come and stay.’ She bent painfully and opened a cupboard and pulled out a little leather case about four feet long and opened it upon the table. Inside upon a bed of red fabric there was a beautiful little rod with its reel. ‘This is the rod my son always uses,’ she said. ‘If you want to fish yourself you may use this one. It’s very light. But I would rather that nobody else used it, except you.’ She took up the butt joint in her gnarled old hand. ‘I used to fish with a little rod like this,’ she said, ‘when I was a girl your age. A great many years ago.’
Gervase said: ‘Are you sure your son won’t mind me using it?’
‘Oh no. It will do it good to be used.’
She turned to the drawers and began opening them one by one. ‘There are a lot of flies here somewhere, I know,’ she said ‘Not those — those are salmon flies. I think these must be the ones — oh yes, and here are the casts.’ She turned to Gervase. ‘Everything is here in these drawers,’ she said. ‘You may use anything you like. I will tell Dale, and she will let your friends in here when they come, and then they can go and fish as often as they like.’
She moved from the room out into the passage. ‘Now I am going to turn you out,’ she said. ‘At my age one gets tired very soon. Thank you for coming to see me, my dear.’
Gervase said: ‘It’s terribly kind of you to do all this for us, Mrs Carter-Hayes.’
‘Not at all. If you decide to marry that young man, bring him in for me to have a look at.’
Gervase laughed awkwardly, and left, and rode back to Hartley very pleased with herself. She went first to her office at Headquarters; on her table there was a message scribbled on a message pad asking her to ring up Mr Ellison.
She sat down and called his number. He said: ‘Oh, look, Miss Robertson. I’ve been hearing a bit more about that Kingslake House. I wouldn’t go out there, if I were you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Leave it a bit. You know I said there was a son who was a brigadier in the Army? Well, he’s been killed out in Tunisia. The old lady only got the news yesterday.’
Chapter Seven
AND IT’S BUY a bunch of violets for the lady
(It’s lilac time in London; it’s lilac time in London!)
Buy a bunch of violets for the lady
While the sky burns blue above:
On the other side the street you’ll find it shady
(It’s lilac time in London; it’s lilac time in London!)
But buy a bunch of violets for the lady,
And tell her she’s your own true love.
ALFRED NOYES
Squadron Leader Chesterton went into the Wing Commander’s office. ‘I’ve been talking to that girl Robertson,’ he said.
‘Put the hard word to her?’
‘It’s not quite so easy as we thought. She’s much more mixed up in the Robert business than I knew.’
‘Mixed up in it?’
‘That’s right. She says that crew will be all right from now on, because she’s got them some fishing.’
Dobbie stared at the older man. ‘That’s a new one,’ he said slowly. ‘Let’s have the gen on that.’
Chesterton told him briefly what he had heard from Gervase; in the end he laughed a little ruefully. ‘So after that I piped down and let her go off on her weekend,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d want to think about it a bit more.’
‘You didn’t tell her that we wanted her to ask to be shifted away?’
‘No, I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if it was still a good idea.’
Dobbie sat for a moment deep in thought. Whoever ran an air station successfully in time of war inevitably became an amateur psychologist; the Wing Commander was very well aware of the power of occupations and hobbies to keep his young men happy. It was perfectly true that Marshall and all his crew were keen fishermen; if this girl had got them fishing in the neighbourhood it might well be a real factor in the revival of their efficiency, which he ought not to disregard.
‘I suppose the girl’s right in on this?’ he asked. ‘No girl, no fishing?’
‘Well, she’s the one who’s raced around and got it for them.’
There was a silence in the office. Dobbie sat staring out of the window at the wide reaches of the aerodrome, thoughtful. ‘She’s got us foxed,’ he said at last. ‘If we push her back to Group they’ll lose this fishing, and they’ll all get bloody-minded about that.’
‘I think she’s got us foxed all right,’ said Chesterton. ‘If you’re going to try this fishing scheme of hers, you’ll have to let her stay.’
The Wing Commander lit a cigarette. ‘Where is this trout-fishing?’ he asked. ‘If I let her get away with this, I’m going to have a smack at her trout.’
‘Chipping Hinton,’ said the Adjutant. ‘But look, what about Marshall? What are you going to do about him?’
‘If she stays here she’s got to play fair with Marshall,’ said Dobbie. ‘I’m not going to have him mooning round the mess like a sick cow.’
‘That’s probably what’s in the wind,’ said Chesterton. ‘She’s probably made up her mind she wants to marry him. That’s why she’s taken so much trouble about this fishing.’
The Wing Commander sat up suddenly. ‘If she’s going to marry him, I wish to hell she’d get on with it,’ he said irritably. ‘I’m fed-up with her. If young women would just stop and think before they shoot the boy friend down, we’d have a lot more pilots.’
The old Squadron Leader nodded. ‘Girls have to be very wise these days,’ he said.
‘So do Commanding Officers,’ said Dobbie. ‘I’m going to get a job as Aunt Ethel in Betty’s Weekly when the war’s over.’
There was a pregnant silence.
‘What are you going to do, then?’ asked the Adjutant. ‘Let things take their course a bit?’
‘I know what I’d like to do,’ said Dobbie viciously. ‘I’d take them both and lock them up together in a bedroom for a week, and feed them rations through the ventilator. I’m fed-up with this damned nonsense.’
‘I’m afraid we might have trouble with the Queen WAAF if we did that.’
‘Pity.’
In the end they decided to do nothing at all.
Gervase travelled up to London next morning, and got to Paddington before lunch. Marshall was waiting at the barrier to meet her; she greeted him rather shyly as he took her case.
&nb
sp; ‘Hullo, Peter.’
‘Hullo, Gervase. I got your letter. Look, what would you like to do? Would you like to go and have lunch at the Zoo?’
Her face lit up. ‘Oh, that’d be fun!’ She had been apprehensive about this weekend, fearing that she was going to have to spend most of it fending off passion. This suggestion of the Zoo put matters on a different plane; if there was passion in the offing, at any rate there was a bit of fun attached to it.
‘Okay. Look, shall we park your bag in the cloak-room and pick it up later on?’
She agreed, and they left her suitcase, and secured a taxi with some difficulty. It was bright and sunny and warm; the top of the taxi was down and they drove through the streets to Regent’s Park sitting fairly close together, but not touching. By the time they got there they were very happy.
They lunched in the restaurant by a window looking out over the gardens, Gervase a little thoughtful. She had to tell Marshall some time during the afternoon about the fishing; now that the time had come she was unsure, afraid that he would be angry with her for having meddled in his trouble with his crew. The more she thought of it the more difficult it seemed; constraint descended on them as the meal went on, and one or two long silences came which neither quite knew how to deal with.
It was a relief when the meal was over and they could get out to the animals. The elephant house did not seem to Gervase to be very suitable for finesse, nor did the atmosphere of the lion house engender confidences. The monkey house was fun but quite unsuitable for her purpose, and though the reptile house was quiet and dim, it was a little sinister. But then he took her into the Aquarium, and she took courage from the fish. This was the place, she thought, if anywhere.
In the semi-darkness they paused by a green translucent window of trout. Gervase felt that she would never get a better opening than this; she turned to Marshall. ‘I’ve got something to tell you about trout, Peter.’
He glanced down and met her eyes, and thought again how lovely she was. ‘About trout?’
She hesitated for a moment. ‘I was talking to Sergeant Phillips the other night,’ she said. ‘He told me how bored he’d been when the fishing season stopped, and Gunnar Franck and Leech, too, hanging about the camp with nothing to do. And I remembered where we saw the trout that day in Kingslake Woods, and I went and asked the old lady in the house if she would mind if your crew went and fished for them.’