Heart of War (69 page)

And assemble the engine again – again!

‘And again!' Bunny Fuller screamed. He jumped onto the
top of the rickety table where magazines and newspapers were stacked and waved his champagne glass – ‘All together! And more feeling in that repeat, chaps! The poor bugger's dying there,
dying!
Let's see some tears! Start again!'

A young aviator lay dying
,

And as 'neath the wreckage he lay

… Piano, con brio, lento … he laaaaay!

Guy swallowed, giggled, drank, and sang again. Under the plaster the scar on his right cheekbone was raw and red, and the hole was not healed in his ear. Apparently the phosphorus on the tracer bullet that hit him had cauterized the wound, helping to prevent gangrene; but the bullet had cut a branch of the right mandibular facial muscle, which would leave him with a permanent slight droop to the right side of his mouth. General Trenchard had visited the ward, and said, ‘As they're going to let you out, you'll be in time for a joint celebration in your mess tonight – Major Sugden's second bar to his D.S.O. … and your first. and you've been promoted to captain, at Major Sugden's request. Congratulations.' The tall man had smiled, a small frosty smile, and left.

And now here he was, the Butcher no more, but Guy, good old Guy, wearing the three stars of a captain. They were chairing the Major round the room on their shoulders, bellowing
For he's a jolly good fellow
… for the fourth time. Old Sulphuric could hold his drink … they'd all been at it since seven, and here it was near four a.m., and getting light … Dawn Patrol being taken by 56 today.

‘Let's debag Bunny! Off with his bags!' the cry arose. Bunny Fuller jumped down from the table top and raced round the room pulling over chairs behind him as he went. The pack followed, giving tongue like foxhounds. Tiny Entwhistle had his hunting horn out, and was blowing the ‘Gone awaaaaay.' Major Sugden subsided into an armchair, where a grinning mess waiter brought him a glass of brandy and soda … Crashes and shrieks from the grass outside the mess hut – Bunny's voice raised, ‘You rotters … my best bags! Four quid gone down the drain … oh, ouch … aah!' The hunting horn blared the kill. ‘Break 'im and eat 'im,' Tiny brayed.

The hounds trooped back, bearing Bunny Fuller's torn trousers aloft like a fox's brush. Bunny himself was carried in slung by several men like a dead deer, his shirt tails flapping.

A roar of sound boomed across the grass and a Very light, fired at close range, shattered one window pane, flashed through the room and broke a pane opposite on its way out, where it bounced on the grass, exploded, and lit up the whole area with lurid red light. It was quickly followed by another, this one green.

The young men of Three Threes hurled themselves to the floor – ‘It's the bloody Bristols,' shouted Jimmy Brentward from the floor. ‘Come to break up our party!'

‘They've got one of their own,' another yelled. ‘Mainwaring's V.C. ! Up and at 'em!'

They all jumped to their feet, hurling glasses behind, onto the floor, at the wall, anywhere, and burst out through windows and doors to join in combat with the officers of one of the Bristol Fighter squadrons.

‘Sic 'em, sic 'em!' Major Sugden shouted. A fist ploughed past Guy's ear, tearing off the plaster. His wound reopened, spurting blood. ‘Up the Three Threes !' he yelled and hurled himself onto the heaving pile of bodies on the grass.

Five minutes later he struggled out, panting, in the strengthening light of dawn, clutching a piece of kilt material … No one in Three Threes wore the kilt, so he'd got an enemy's, at least. From the far end of the field a bugle blew the Stand-to. The distant hum of aircraft engines increased to a roar. The pile of bodies gradually untangled. A man cried in an aggrieved voice, ‘Some cad's been bloody well bleeding on me! Look at my shirt!'

Twelve S.E. 5 As appeared in the west, and swooped down on the field in a single V. The celebrants staggered about and waved and shouted as the squadron leader of the dawn patrol raised a gloved hand fifty feet above them, then gunned his engine and at the head of his squadron climbed away toward the front line, Germany and the east.

Cate pondered a moment. What
would
be the effect of the war on the relationship between the sexes when the present revolution had run its course? Miss Anderson had not, perhaps, stressed enough that soon the advance in mechanical aids to labour would bring all but a very, very few tasks
within a woman's strength. Nor had she mentioned that when the war was over, and men were again available for work in the factories and farms, employers would give them preference because they would be much less likely to leave because of marriage, child bearing and raising, moving to another city with a husband, and in many cases, looking after aged parents. He was also not quite sure how many men would appreciate women who had the self-confidence to say, ‘I can do your work just as well as you' … with the corollary, perhaps, that the man could start to mop and sweep and cook while the woman earned half or more of the family wages. Women had, of course, given orders to men for centuries. Lady Swanwick didn't have to send for the earl when she wanted to tell Chapman something: but it had usually been in a domestic setting. If women stayed in industry, they would not be content to be permanently allotted the bottom rungs. They would demand to be able to climb, and reach the top, like men … It would not be easy for men to accept that; and generally, the lower the class, the less it would be accepted. He himself occasionally cooked a meal, when he felt like it and Mrs Abell would let him; he had even washed dishes with Tillie when the staff was depleted by flu; but he knew that Frank Cawthon had never done either in his life … and that was true of nearly every man in the village.

Meanwhile, he had a problem, to do with a woman, that was quite traditional, and much harder to solve. His life was empty without Isabel Kramer as his partner in it. He did his duty, but that wasn't enough. He must try again to see what legal recourse might be possibly open to him. He'd telephone Ogle … no, better write to him, setting out the circumstances of the case in detail; and ask Ogle to seek Counsel's advice – the best available. Could he afford Marshall Hall? Or Hewart? Probably not – but he'd get one or other of them, just the same.

Colonel Rodney Venable awoke to the bed shaking and heaving, the pictures rattling on the wall, an indescribable tremor in the air. Beside him Naomi Rowland gasped, ‘Wha', what's that?' Then they were both bolt upright, holding the edges of the bed.

‘Gothas … or Zeppelins,' Venable said. ‘But I didn't hear a siren or guns.'

‘It felt like a big explosion very deep, or an earthquake.'

They went back to sleep after a while, but Venable kept waking up and finally near four got up and lit the gas mantle. The strong white light illumined Naomi's soft young face, the strong eyebrows, the direct eyes, just opened and looking at him. She looked away. He knelt beside the bed, on her side, ‘Do you know how beautiful you look … sleep still in your eyes, your shoulders bare?'

She said nothing and he climbed into the bed beside her, putting his arm round her, his hand cupping one breast inside the cotton nightdress. He whispered, ‘Do you know how much I love you, my dearest Naomi?'

The soft weight of her breast in his hand worked its inevitable magic and his penis rose, stiffening and growing. He pulled up her nightdress and slid his other hand up the inside of her thigh, gently among the curly hairs, toward the parting of her sex… it would be pouting, slippery soft for his entry: but it was not. She was nearly dry, the lips pursed. She was lying on her back, legs almost together. He began to caress her clitoris with his finger, whispering endearments into her ear, stroking a nipple. It would not stand up to his touch, to his plea.

‘Don't be frightened, Naomi,' he muttered. ‘I have the rubber things this time … and you did have your period, didn't you?'

She nodded. Sexually nothing was happening to her or in her. The tried and true was not working: she was not softening, nor swelling, nor parting, nor becoming wet. He said, ‘God, I love you. When the war's over we'll run away… to America … I have plenty of money. I know Frances will give me a divorce.

‘No!' she said suddenly, forcefully.

‘But darling, I don't love Frances any more. I can only think of you.'

He tried to part her sexual lips but they remained closed and though he could just touch the inner fold of them, dry.

She said, ‘It's no good, Rodney. It's over.'

He paused, shocked. ‘Naomi, you can't … Is it another man?' She was so much younger than he; it must be some dashing handsome subaltern with an M.C., and wound stripes.

She said, ‘There's no one else. I feel ashamed of myself, that's all, skulking in dirty little hotels in back streets, or houses like this … or rooms belonging to heaven knows who – some friend of yours? And your wife … She's been so nice to me whenever I've had to pick you up or drop you back at your house … And what we had, is gone. You must have noticed.'

She said it as a statement, and Venable acknowledged that she was right. For two or three months her body had not responded as that of a young woman in love, or at least possessed by sexual passion, should respond. Their lovemaking had been uncomfortable at best, almost painful at worst … tepid flesh, dry lips, anxious striving – where before there had been a liquid melting together.

Her voice was softer – ‘You've done so much for me, Rodney, taught me what love is … at any rate what sex is, and ought to be … how tender a man can be, at the same time as being so strong … wines, foods, the best in life … But there's never been love, has there, really – except from me, at first? I was infatuated, then.'

Venable said slowly, ‘There is now – from me … With me, it's been just the opposite from you. At first, you were only another young woman to conquer, to possess, to teach, to mould a little perhaps …'

She interrupted softly, ‘That first night, in Norfolk, I said “I love you” and you said “Don't say it” … You were right, but I really believed it then.'

He said, ‘Well, now I've been caught in my own net. I'm hopelessly in love with you.'

She slipped out of bed and for a moment stood, the gracious curves sliding into one another, from light to dark, from smooth to rough, from out thrusting to inward sloping. Then she began to pull on her clothes, speaking from time to time: ‘I'm sorry, Rodney … there's nothing … I must go to France … I have already applied to transfer to the F.A.N.Y. … I have to get away from you … I hope you will understand … Until I'm free of you, I'll never find real love.'

‘You won't find it in the F.A.N.Y.,' he said; then with a touch of the sardonic humour that made him so wonderful a companion – ‘Unless you choose the Sapphic mode.'

She said earnestly, ‘No. I tried that once. At Girton, another woman was in love with me, and we spent one night together. It wasn't … right … What time is it?'

He looked at his wrist watch – ‘A few minutes past six.'

She turned off the gas light and opened the curtains, revealing the early morning light strong on the row of houses in the mean street west of Paddington. She said, ‘I'll catch the first train I can to Hedlington, and spend the rest of my leave at High Staining … Goodbye, Rodney.'

She picked up her overnight bag, looked in the stained mirror to adjust her hat, and tucked away a few stray strands of hair. He came forward, hands out. She backed away – ‘I'm sorry, Rodney, I can't. It must end … here, now.'

‘Goodbye, then,' he said. ‘And God be with you, whatever you do, wherever you go.'

The door closed behind her. Venable sat down on the bed in his pyjamas, looking out at the hard day.

The door opened without a knock and two men came in, both wearing plain clothes. He recognized one as Brigadier General Attwell, head of the Counter-Intelligence Section in the Directorate of Military Intelligence; the other he did not know. The general said, ‘Morning, Rodney … been interrogating a suspect? Guarding some valuable contact from Hun counter-agents?'