by Nevil Shute
‘What did you get them on?’
‘Butcher and Peter Ross.’
They talked fishing for a while with the young men round them, then Dobbie went off to the billiard-table to play snooker with whomever he could find. He was pleased, although he knew that he would get no fishing in the way he had suggested. On the next operation he would fly to Germany with some diffident, enthusiastic, and unsafe young man, who would be impressed and honoured at having the Wing Commander in the aircraft with him, and who would be steadied by the experience. He saw no point in flying with a good pilot.
Later that evening he stood with Chesterton in the canteen watching the dance. The atmosphere was noticeably lighter than it had been a few days before; the crews were more spontaneous, there was more healthy noise, more laughter. Chesterton said presently: ‘See Marshall?’
Dobbie nodded. ‘They were out all day together, fishing.’
The Squadron Leader said: ‘And now they’re dancing all night.’ He laughed. ‘More trouble. You’ll have to find another signals officer.’
The Wing Commander said: ‘I don’t mind about that. He can get every section officer in camp in trouble for all I care. The camp’s a different place with that chap in it.’
Chapter Eight
DEAR! OF ALL happy in the hour, most blest
He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
And heard our word, ‘Who is so safe as we?’
We have found safety with all things undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.
We have built a house that is not for Time’s throwing.
We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
Secretly armed against all death’s endeavour;
Safe though all safety’s lost; safe where men fall;
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.
RUPERT BROOKE, 1915
Gunnar Franck did not get many letters, and the ones he got were seldom from old ladies. He had great difficulty in deciphering the words of the letter that he found waiting for him when he returned from leave, and more difficulty still with the meaning. It read:
Kingslake Hall,
Oxon.
Mrs Carter-Hayes presents her compliments to Sergeant Pilot Franck and would be pleased if he would care to use her lake for fishing. Miss Robertson can make the arrangements.
He turned it over and over, his big red face wrinkled in perplexity. He understood that it was about fishing, and that was all he did understand. He took it to Sergeant Phillips to interpret, only to find that the rear-gunner had received one just like it.
‘I dunno,’ said Phillips. He scratched his head. ‘The only Miss Robertson I know of is that Section Officer of the Cap’s. Do you know any other?’
Gunnar said: ‘One of the girls in the airmen’s mess is Robertson.’
‘You mean the fat one with a face like a cow? She’s Mrs Roberts.’ He paused. ‘I dunno any other Robertson but that Section Officer.’
Gunnar folded up the letter and put it in his wallet. ‘I will ask her. She is a nice young lady, and she will say if I am wrong.’
‘It must be her.’ There was a pause, and then the rear-gunner said slowly: ‘Come to think, we was talking about fishing just before I went on leave. I wonder if the Cap’s had one like this?’
‘Do you think that the Section Officer is now friends with the Cap?’
‘I dunno — looks rather like it. If so, we’ll all be a bloody sight safer.’
They laughed together, and later in the day Gunnar Franck went into the signals office diffidently. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘I have here a letter that I do not understand. I think perhaps it is to do with you?’
Gervase took the note and glanced at it. ‘That’s right, Gunnar,’ she said. She explained to him the arrangement she had made about the fishing. ‘Flight Lieutenant Marshall knows where all the things are kept — he can show you. We went out there yesterday and got five lovely ones.’
He took back the letter. ‘It is ver’ kind of this old lady,’ he said. He hesitated. ‘You are friends now with the Cap?’ he enquired, grinning.
She laughed. ‘Yes, we’re friends again for the time being.’
The Dane said: ‘He is ver’ good man. Over a year I have been flying with him, and I know.’
There was a little pause. ‘Thank you, Gunnar,’ Gervase said at last. ‘I know that, but it’s nice to be told.’
He had to wait for his introduction to fly-fishing, because next day they flew to Whitsand to collect R for Robert, now repaired and in flying condition with a new wing and a new port engine and propeller. They flew up as passengers in S for Sammy, piloted by Flight Lieutenant Johnson, taking off with the first light of dawn and arriving in time for breakfast in the mess. They did a flight test of Robert in the forenoon and found it satisfactory, and flew back in company with Sammy after lunch.
Before taking off they received a final word of advice. ‘Don’t go and stick the wrong course on the compass this time, laddie,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘There’s no future in that.’ But he laughs longest who laughs last; Mr Johnson, exercising his rear-gunner at the navigator’s table, made a deviation on the way home due to the reciprocal of wind, and landed back at Hartley twenty minutes after Robert.
At the dispersal point the ground crew received Robert critically, unwilling to believe that a good job could have been carried out upon a Wellington at any Lancaster station. The air crew gathered with the ground crew to examine the repair; the machine was flying left wing down, the port engine was running rich, and the rear turret and the D/F set were still unserviceable. ‘We’ll have a crack at her tomorrow morning,’ said the pilot. ‘If we can clear off the port engine and the ailerons with a flight test, we can go fishing in the afternoon while the armourers get busy with the turret.’
He turned to his crew. ‘We’ve got some trout-fishing offered to us,’ he said. ‘Rods and all thrown in.’
Sergeant Phillips said: ‘We all got letters about it, Cap. Where is it, anyway?’
‘Out by Chipping Hinton. I’ll show you, if you’re interested.’
The rear-gunner rubbed his chin. ‘I never fished with fly. I’d not know how.’
Sergeant Cobbett said unexpectedly: ‘I have. I’ll put you in the way of it.’
They turned to him in surprise. ‘Where did you pick that up, Flight?’
He said: ‘My mother’s people got a farm in Wales. I got a rod and all back home.’
Sergeant Phillips said, still doubtful: ‘Maybe I’ll bring some gentles, anyway.’
‘Okay,’ said Marshall. He was no purist, and they weren’t his fish.
He took them out next afternoon; Gervase was on duty and could not come. He caught one fish and saw Gunnar Franck catch another, but his mind was not upon the job, and presently he left them to ride back to Hartley for tea in the mess, where he would find Gervase.
In the evening light he took her for a walk around the country lanes; with no more than a fortnight of their month left to go, they deemed a day wasted if they did not meet. As they went they talked about the work. ‘We’re all ready to go again now,’ said Marshall. ‘They passed the turret out this afternoon. That was the last thing.’
Gervase said: ‘I believe the station has been given a week’s rest — if so, that’s up tomorrow night. Charwick and Wittington were out on Saturday, and again last night.’ She glanced up at him. ‘How are you feeling now, Peter?’
He glanced down at her. ‘I feel fine,’ he said. ‘I’d rather like to do another one.’
They turned aside presently behind a spinney and exchanged a token of mutual goodwill; presently they came out again a little dishevelled and sat upon a stile and smoked a cigarette together before turning bac
k to camp. They were sitting on the stile when the crew found them, Gunnar and Phillips and Cobbett all riding back to camp upon their bicycles from Kingslake House.
Marshall slipped down from the stile and stopped them; the sergeants got off and Gervase came up to them. ‘Do any good?’ asked Marshall.
Sergeant Cobbett said: ‘We got seven beauties — the one Gunnar caught while you was there and then six others. They come on fine just after you left, sir.’
They gathered round, examining the fish and talking about flies. Phillips had caught one on a gentle and had then been shamed by Gunnar Franck to the use of fly, and had caught another on a Butcher. Cobbett, who was unexpectedly expert, had caught four; Gunnar had caught one.
‘Pity old Leech wasn’t with us,’ said the gunner. ‘He wouldn’t half have had some fun.’
‘He’ll be back before long,’ said Marshall. ‘He’s leaving hospital and going off on leave tomorrow.’
‘It won’t seem right,’ said Phillips, ‘going with a stranger in the crew.’
That day was Wednesday. They did their next operation upon Friday night to Cassel, loaded with incendiaries. It went without incident in R for Robert; the long hours of watchful peering through the darkness from the pilot’s seat passed pleasantly enough for Marshall because he had arranged to take Gervase to the pictures the following afternoon to see a film with Dorothy Lamour in it, and he liked Dorothy Lamour, and he liked Gervase better, and altogether it was something to look forward to while swinging his head mechanically from side to side, looking for trouble, from the port engine, over the twin pencils of the forward guns, to the starboard. They landed back a little before dawn, and he slept quietly and happily and well till lunch-time.
Gervase did not do so well. She spent the night in the control office, a night of secret worry and anxiety until the ‘Mission completed’ signal came from Robert. For the next two and a half hours she went through her duties mechanically, still anxious, till the machines began to arrive back, and there was the little light that was in Robert winking in the sky over to the south-west, signalling for permission to land. She went out to the balcony and watched the aircraft land and taxi to dispersal, then she went back to her work sick with relief. She did not see any of them that night. A couple of hours later she went to bed, but she had been too strained and anxious for the last few hours to sleep very well. This operation made fifty-six. There were only four more to be done before he would be safe.
They went fishing on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday night the Wing went in full strength to Dortmund, losing two machines by collision over the target. Marshall by that time was at the top of his form; he felt that he had got the whole job buttoned up, that his crew were behind him better than ever before. He was sleeping well and eating well. Gervase was sleeping poorly and was too anxious to be happy. Fifty-seven. Only three more to go.
The evenings were growing long by that time; it was early May. By agreement they slept on into the afternoon the day after Dortmund, and met after a large meal of tea and fried eggs at five o’clock, to go fishing for the evening rise. They had packets of sandwiches with them; they did not propose to get back before dark.
They got to Kingslake at about six o’clock and fished for a couple of hours and caught three fish. Then they sat down by the water’s edge to eat their sandwiches, waiting for the rise of fish that the book told them would come with the last half-hour of daylight.
Marshall glanced up at the house. ‘What’s she like?’ he asked, nodding at it.
Gervase said: ‘She’s nice, Peter. Very outspoken, but quite nice all the same. I promised her I’d take you up and introduce you one day.’ She did not say in what circumstances.
The pilot said: ‘I’d like to do that. It’s been bloody good of her to let us have this fishing. It’s made a lot of difference to the boys.’
‘I was talking to Gunnar yesterday,’ said Gervase. ‘He told me he’s been up to have tea with her twice.’
‘Gunnar has? How did he work that?’
‘The first time he went up to say “Thank you” for them all when they were fishing here, and she gave him some tea. The second time she saw him from the window and sent her old maid down to ask him if he’d like to take tea with her.’ Gervase paused. ‘I dare say they’d hit it off together pretty well,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘They’ve probably got a good deal in common.’
Marshall stared at her. ‘What have they got in common?’
She said: ‘They’re both lonely, aren’t they? I know she is.’
The pilot considered for a minute. ‘I suppose you’re right. I suppose he is lonely.’
‘He never goes out with a girl, does he?’
‘He does just now and then,’ said Marshall. ‘Not often with the same one. I think he’s got a girl of his own back in Denmark.’
Gervase said: ‘Poor old Gunnar . . .’
‘Poor old Gunnar my foot,’ said Marshall. ‘If she’s in Denmark and he’s here, he can’t have a scene with her. If she was here he’d be in anguish all the time, not knowing if she was going to marry him or shoot him down again.’
He met her eyes and they smiled together. ‘Are you in anguish all the time, Peter?’ she asked.
He did not answer for a moment. He was looking at the soft line of her throat where it passed below her collar. ‘I’d like to know as soon as you can tell me,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not in anguish, because you’ve given me a square deal, and that’s all I wanted. If you decide that you’d be miserable if you married me, I shan’t agree with you. I shall be frightfully sorry, and I’ll want to go away, but I shan’t cut my throat.’
She stared out over the lake. ‘I wouldn’t be miserable,’ she said slowly. ‘I think you’d be nice to me.’
He took her hand and slid his own hand up her arm to the elbow. ‘You wouldn’t like to decide now, would you?’ he said huskily.
She looked at him gravely. ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want to be a beast, Peter, but I want my month. There’s only ten more days to go.’ She sensed the disappointment in his touch. ‘If I had to give you an answer now, it would be yes, I think. But I don’t want to give you an answer now.’
‘All right,’ he said gently.
She turned to him. ‘Being married is for all your life, and you must be quite sure. I didn’t want to marry anyone till I was much older — and it hurries things so much to marry when you’re in the WAAFs.’ He did not understand her, but he did not interrupt. ‘I wouldn’t want to marry you unless we could be together like a proper married couple, Peter.’
He smiled at her. ‘Ten days more?’
She nodded. ‘Only ten days, Peter.’
They sat together in silence and warm contact as the shadows lengthened; fish began rising in the lake, but their rods lay unheeded on the bank. They did not fish again. They sat on for an hour, deeply in love. Presently they disentangled and got up and took the rods back to the gun-room. In the warm twilight they rode back to Hartley, almost silent, infinitely happy.
Two days later the aerodrome was closed as usual before an operation; at the briefing in the evening the target was disclosed as Hamburg. Marshall and Gunnar Franck had been to Hamburg several times before; they had the outline of the town and the dock area well in mind already. It was familiar to them as a town is familiar that one has passed by in a train on several occasions, but never stopped in; they knew the lay-out of the streets and squares and railway stations well enough, though they had never set foot in the place, nor ever would.
They had as wireless operator that night a Corporal Forbes, a dark lad from Chester; he was painstaking and thorough, and he was deferential to their experience. He was not interested in catching fish, and that weighed against him slightly, but he was only there as a temporary measure till Leech returned to them.
Robert was scheduled to take off at 10.34, by which time it would be very nearly dark. The crew met in the crew-room at about a quarter to ten, and
began dressing for the night’s work. Marshall was happy; for him everything seemed to be moving in the right direction. He had seen Gervase at lunch time in the mess and talked to her for a little; he had not seen her since. He had slept quietly and well for a great part of the afternoon, resting with an easy mind.
Gervase had also rested nominally. She had lain down on her bed with the blind drawn, but she had hardly slept at all. Her duty that night was in the control office on the aerodrome, supervising the signallers and keeping track of the machines as the reports came in, marking them up upon the blackboard for the duty control officer to see, searching the country by telephone for the missing. She would see R for Robert taking off, she would wait hours for the ‘Mission completed’ signal made over the target, and she would wait again. All her work now seemed to be composed of waiting and anxiety and fear. Over her loomed the shadow of disaster, terrifying, monstrous, and incredible. She slept very little.
In Robert the crew were in good spirits as they started up the engines and settled into their places. The moon, a thin crescent, was dying in the west; the night promised to be clear and starry most of the way. They began upon their normal routine of testing the equipment of the aircraft and running up the engines. Once Marshall left his seat and thrust his way down the fuselage, clumsy in his flying-suit and harness and Mae West, to the new wireless operator. He grinned at the corporal. ‘All okeydoke?’
The boy smiled back at him. ‘Everything quite all right, sir.’
‘Got your card?’ The pilot went through the routine with him shortly, and saw that he had spare valves and aerial properly stowed, and talked to him for a minute or two. In the end he said: ‘Okay. We’ll be moving off pretty soon now,’ and went back to his seat and made ready for flight.
He waved the chocks away at 10.25 and moved his hand on the throttles; Robert stirred and moved forward, and turned on to the ring road, falling into line behind the other aircraft moving to the runway to take off. At the marshalling point they waited on the ring road, watching Sergeant Pilot Ferguson in A for Apple move away and go spinning down the track in the dim light, then they moved forward and turned into wind.