Dance of the Years (38 page)

There had been plenty to occupy them; Phœbe had still had her stage career to absorb her, while James Edwin had made great advances in his own work.

At McBride's he had been doing very interesting things in these years, secret things, rather terrible some of them, to meet War Office requirements.

In his dream James ‘remembered' that the part of himself which
was still alive on earth had been thrilled and exalted by the idea of the tank, for he had felt that here was a war-horse which need never be afraid. The rest of James Edwin had been fascinated too; the Raven in him had been stimulated and made inventive, the Castor had seen how it could be done, and only the little Jinny in him was revolted and afraid.

As well as the pleasure of his work, James Edwin had had other preoccupations. This had been the period of the great friends. In his dream James paused in his recollecting, as the first chill of the approaching winter crept up to meet him.

He saw James Edwin for what he had become, a man who put his faith in People. James himself had put his faith in princes and they had betrayed him. James Edwin who was, after all, mainly only James himself modified by those princes, had gone one step forward in the same direction. James Edwin had put his faith in Friends. In the beginning it had been all right; there had been great days at McBride's.

'Tieff had been there. James Edwin had known 'Tieff since his school days, and their careers had run side by side. He was British born of Russian parents, brilliant, interested only in machinery, and capable of extremes of gaiety and depression. As James saw him now in this annihilating vision, he saw there was much of Samuel in his sophistication, of Edwin Castor in his sharp mind, and a little, too, of Jed of all people in a vein of simple reasonableness underlying the rest. Yet, of course, he was no kin to any of these, which appeared strange to James, who even then would not face one of the simplest and most terrible of the facts governing mankind.

Micky had been the second of James Edwin's friends, and the third of a brilliant company. James Edwin had been drawn to him the moment old man McBride had brought him along. He had been so frivolous, so extraordinarily light-hearted and amusing, his gaiety had appealed irresistably to the James in James Edwin while the inconsequence of his chatter had made even the Castor in him laugh.

In his dream James was reminded most forcibly of Toole when he thought of Micky, but there was something different in him, something which he had not met anywhere before.

Together the three young men had worked under old McBride, had fostered great hopes, and had been rewarded. It had been a most glorious experience. As James saw it, that year had been for James Edwin a taste not so much of Heaven as of the earth; earth made right. The three had created together and their creations had succeeded. As a team they had appeared invincible; conditions conspired to help them and their precious machine grew naturally. Snags
were overcome, early trials were promising. Triumph had not even been spoiled by ease, and the pain of creation had been sharp and fruition all the sweeter.

James Edwin had exerted himself to his fullest extent. He had grown in power, and he had been so happy that people catching sight of him suddenly had been inclined to laugh. That had been the High Summer of life and it had lasted only a little while.

In his dream James ‘remembered' that James Edwin's winter had begun when Phœbe went away. Her chance had come and it had seemed wrong not to snatch at it. The new world had offered her such promise, the Hollywood offer had been so good and character actresses had been stars before. James Edwin had put forward no objection, although the James in him had been secretly outraged; the Castor in James Edwin had remonstrated with the rebellious James and had cited the fashion of the day, and pointed out to James that he had no right to keep an equal unfulfilled. The Castor in James Edwin had asked the James in him who the hell he thought he was. So Phœbe had gone, and after a while her letters had betrayed a brittle quality which had made James Edwin, who was tied to his machines, wonder unhappily what they were doing to her, and how much she had changed. He knew that she was missing him just as he missed her, and had realized that this missing was by no means purely sentimental, but a thing far more fundamental. All the same, he had been a man of his time, so there had been nothing he could have done about it.

After Phœbe's departure, the cold had set in, and there had come the beginning of the trouble over the machine. James saw in his dream that there had been hurry and delay at the same time; there had been changes in the specification, improvisations and arguments, as extraordinary information had come creeping through concerning enemy development. Then there had been more hurry, more delay, more changes. And all the time a curious dilatory attitude in the nation, and reflected in its rulers. McBride had grown an old man in six months. James Edwin had been taxed to the utmost, 'Tieff had become sulky and morose, and there had been a subtle change in Micky.

In James's dream the period appeared in patchy retrospect, emotionally vivid, factually incomplete. As James saw it this had been a time of endless and contradictory conferences with worried authorities incapable of understanding matters, which to experts were elementary. Gradually James Edwin's baby (McBride had christened it ‘The Bride' and saw nothing incongruous in that) had been altered and weakened, plastered with excrescences, and patched and deformed so that a new atmosphere altogether had come into the workshop.
The strain had been continuous; more hurry, more delay, more bombshells from the authorities, more and more mucking about.

In his dream James saw the Munich Crisis, but he saw it purely emotionally as it had affected James Edwin. He ‘remembered' James Edwin's panic, born of the knowledge of complete unreadiness, and followed by sudden revulsion from the very purpose of the thing he had made.

That nightmare had passed. James saw it go as he dreamed in his chair in the garden. James Edwin had got down to work again.

In his dream James saw him during the following year; he saw how the muddle in the workshop had grown, how the hurry had been stepped up to panic speed, and how the delays had appeared monstrous obstacles in the path.
The Bride Light Infantry Tank
, still in an experimental stage when it should have been in full production ceased to grow naturally, and became a hybrid affair. All the pleasure went out of the work. 'Tieff had writhed under the constant pinpricks and had nagged James Edwin, who had put his head down and had worked on with the patience of desperation.

Micky had been his saviour at that time. Of them all he alone had seemed little affected; James Edwin had leaned on him and confided in him and his affection for him had grown.

When the crash had come in the September, the Bride had been nowhere near ready for her groom of fire. James ‘remembered' James Edwin fighting against the premonition of failure. James ‘remembered' James Edwin struggling and putting his faith firmly in individual man; man's sense, man's decency, man's strength and the might of his machines.

The first blow under the heart had come suddenly, and it was the first real thrust at the vitals of James Edwin's structure.

As the first shock of comprehension that the Sword of Damocles had fallen at last and that war was inevitable had come to him, in that moment, Micky had disappeared. He went like a shadow, like a bright day when night falls. There was nothing of him left but regret; one morning he was there as usual, gay as usual, inspiriting, comforting, full of plans and interest, and the next he was gone, his flat empty, all his papers burned.

Dreaming in the sunlight of a quieter day, James ‘remembered' James Edwin's reactions to the official enquiry which had slowly forced the truth upon him. In the end the facts had convinced him, but he had accepted them with the reluctance with which an iron bar bends slowly back beneath an overwhelming weight. He had leaned away from the truth, but it had sought him out and made him recognize
it. There was no doubt about it: Micky, his mission over, had gone back to the enemy government by which he had been employed. James saw no details, only James Edwin's pain. He saw his dying hope, his shame, his anger, and above and around them all, his helpless sense of loss.

At that time 'Tieff had been very good to him. He was a man of lesser passions and his blessed sensibleness had comforted the Castor in James; for the James in James Edwin there had been no comfort at all until Phœbe came back.

In the meantime,
The Bride
had gone into production just as she was, improperly tested, part finished and all her secrets known to the enemy. In those unbreaking days old man McBride had collected 'Tieff and James Edward and together they had begun again.

Propped up in the bright morning air on the lawn of the nineteenth-century Farthing Hall, James stirred slightly, and Boxer, who had been watching him apprehensively from an upstairs window, decided with relief that he was still asleep and dreaming. Far off in that other present, James was still pursuing that part of himself which must go on living and finding out and mixing and digesting and getting sound or going down.

In his dream it was a few minutes before noon, which he had come to consider a vital hour. He was beginning to follow with his living mind why James Edwin was so near the end of his resistance. The events, or rather the emotional reactions to the events, rushed through his mind like blending colours on a screen.

The second of the McBride tanks, which was called the
Cross Eight
, had been conceived in chaos, and had grown with maddening slowness. From the beginning it had been designed for France, and from the beginning it had been predestined to be used in North Africa. The requirements changed every two days. By the time it had been needed in thousands, when the enemy had turned the Maginot, its engine was at any rate designed.

At least twenty-five of the
Bride
had been shipped with other now more famous British tanks to France, and 'Tieff had gone out with them to see where their worst faults lay in action. Old McBride had refused to part with James Edwin, so 'Tieff had gone alone, and his friend had stayed behind, and sweated on the fifty-seventh alteration in the requirements of the
Cross Eight
. This had been in April, and James in his dream ‘remembered' James Edwin's state of mind during the next six weeks as the news of the retreat came through, and he realized with so many more of his countrymen that the France they believed in had died of wounds long ago.

That, as James ‘remembered' it, had been the period of James
Edwin's first despair; that had been the first time when he had been aware of a fundamental weakness in himself and his beliefs, but the James in James Edwin had got him by again, and had played its reserve card and had developed cussedness.

Suddenly it had come again, a second blow under the heart.

'Tieff had been brought back from Dunkirk with the rest of them, but they had not let James Edwin see him for a long time, and when at last he did get permission to visit him, the nurse did her best to warn him.

In his dream James saw that James Edwin had come out from that interview with his friend in a new state altogether. He had been still himself, still obstinately determined to get by somehow, but beneath that there had been born an apathy, as if the personal and private part of himself had fainted if it was not dead. 'Tieff had looked all right when James Edwin saw him; physically, they said, he was better than he had been for years, and he could talk. But the words had not been his words.

'Tieff had not known James Edwin as he stood at the bedside, and had been afraid of him. The nurse told James Edwin that after the dive-bombing 'Tieff had been afraid of almost anything. James Edwin who knew 'Tieff, and loved him and leaned upon him, and who felt that without him he was alone, had done a little more than his best. His greatest quality, which was patience, an adult variation of James's own determination, had been asserted to its utmost. He had sought painfully for any sign of the man he loved within the febrile chatter, and he had continued his search every day until they took pity on him and explained.

The discovery which James Edwin had made very slowly during those long, sultry days was that the personality and not only the brain was mortal, and must die for a while. That discovery shook his faith in the individual and left him without belief.

In his dream, James looked for escape. He saw no point in going on, and he ‘remembered' James Edwin had felt the same. There had been no sense in being alive. In his dream James saw with interest that it had been the Jinny in him who had hoped when there was no hope, and had endured when endurance had come to an end.

James Edwin had had his relief. The miracle which comes to those who wait had come to him, and Phœbe, moved by something neither he nor she had known to lie beneath her gaiety, had thrown up everything and braved the seas, and come home without his asking her.

With Phœbe, James Edwin's comfort and completeness had returned in greater part. All the while his work had gone on. The delays
were less frequent, but the margin of time was even shorter, and the requirements changed again as the Desert became the chief battlefield. Old McBride had wept when the
Cross Eight
went into full production without sufficient trials.

At this time James Edwin had lived his life in Phœbe, and the James in him had been suddenly comforted and given new life, new promise altogether, when she grew slowly heavy with his child. Then the raids had begun, and she had been brave and he had been a coward on her account. As James saw it in his dream this period had proved the most terrible of all for James Edwin. A presentiment of disaster had dogged him sleeping and waking. It had clouded his mind and dried up his body; it had made him impossible to live with: it had destroyed even his apathy; and at last from that padded cell he had stepped out beyond into the fearful country of the vivid light.