Noose (16 page)

‘Women?'

‘I don't say they're sadistic. Not all. There's Mother Theresa and Mary Magdalene. But most women long to be prized, and causing hurt to a man proves to the dears they have status and power. Did you give her some silence? Wise. Panic in them follows. They're so changeable. I'll tell my wife. She'll be pleased. Not surprised.'

After the passing-out parade there was a drinks and snacks party in the Mess for newly commissioned officers, their visitors and camp staff. Postings were listed on a board outside the Mess. At the start of proceedings, Ian had received the Sword from an air-vice-marshal, here to preside at the cavalcade. Ian led the march past. He reckoned he did the difficult salute with his Sword reasonably all right, and kept his stride moderate so short-arses behind could stay in step.

In the Mess now, Ray Bain came over to talk to Lucy and Ian, Lucy tall, composed, hard-headed, at ease with everyone, and closer to being beautiful than at any time Ian could remember. Of course, he realized he might value her looks more now because he'd almost lost her. The Adjutant and his wife probably had things blandly wrong. There were
not
plenty of fish in the sea, not like Lucy, anyway. He'd been able to give her the big ignoral treatment only by accident: Bain had sat on her letter for a week. Ian didn't think he could have stayed unresponding if the get-lost letter hadn't got lost like that, or held up. Didn't Hardy build half his plot in
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
on a letter that failed to get to someone on time? If Lucy's letter had reached him the day after posting, he would have felt he had to argue, even plead, by return – although the rational side of him might consider her right, and there seemed too many difficulties in their love life.

He introduced Lucy and Bain to each other. Her attendance here would show him she must have changed her mind about ditching Ian. He wouldn't know, though, whether she'd heard the letter was promulgated in Korean English on the wheels-up warning system to Whites, Greens and the umpire, and from them to who knew where? As Ian had said to the Adjutant, he hadn't told her. And he hadn't told Bain he hadn't. Let him guess.

Emily and Frank Stanton were together on the other side of the room. Chatting to guests. She didn't come over, but silently mouthed ‘Congrats!' as between conspirators. She gave a discreet, low-level thumbs-up. He had won.
She
had won?

‘Didn't Ian and the Sword make a grand sight out there?' Bain asked. ‘As if they were made for each other.' He did a quick all-elbows imitation of the Sword carrying posture at the march past. ‘If I may say so, Lucy, I believe the thought of you inspired him to greater efforts, motivated him, for the whole time we've been here, and so he pipped me into second place. But no hard feelings. Or only a few! Wonderful to meet you at last. He constantly spoke of you throughout the course to anyone who'd listen and some who wouldn't. When a few of us went out on the town he'd invariably stay behind, saying, No thanks, lads, he'd rather remain in camp. We guessed he wanted to write to you, or read over again letters you'd sent to him. I'd see one in his pigeon hole next to mine – B and C, you know, Bain, Charteris – woman's handwriting on the envelope, and I'd know Ian would be so pleased and happy. I felt some envy, I can tell you.' Bain had obviously decided Lucy was ignorant of the snowscape broadcast. So he could fantasize; so he could spout his lies with a benevolent, constructive, lovey-dovey intent.

‘What's your posting, Ray?' Ian asked.

‘Attached to K-4 as starters.'

‘K-4? What and where is that?' Lucy asked.

‘An airfield,' Bain replied. ‘Mainly Yank. Well, the war's mainly Yank, on our side. I report there, if we and the Americans are still holding it, which I'm warned is not at all certain, then get sent where most needed.'

‘An airfield in Korea?' Lucy asked.

‘Yes, it's Korea, isn't it, Ray? Airfields are K-coded there,' Ian replied.

‘North Korean ground troops target our fields,' Bain said.

‘Not a picnic,' Ian replied.

‘Why do you say that?' Lucy asked.

‘Someone here mentioned it,' Bain said.

‘And mentioned it,' Ian said.

‘But what does it mean?' Lucy asked.

‘Not a picnic,' Ian said.

‘Oh, do stop stiff-upper-lipping, will you?' Lucy said.

‘Yes, it does make sipping the drinks difficult,' Bain said.

A couple of months later Ian heard from an Air Ministry officer visiting the OCTU that Bain was back in Britain short of both legs from above the knee. There had been a night battle for an airfield and its control tower. ‘One of the K spots out there, you know. Bain and his unit held on. This was quite a little victory in its own way,' the Ministry air commodore said. ‘I wouldn't be surprised if he got recognition. I gather he did well when he was here.'

‘Well, yes.'

‘Came out second in his intake.'

‘Yes,' Ian said.

‘They sent him to somewhere offering a real challenge. He was considered up to it. That must have made him proud and fulfilled. And so he went to K-4, and then to an even tougher spot. He's a credit to the training here. Know him, did you?'

‘My intake. A different course.'

‘Ah, so the fact you're here on the staff … Did you beat him into second place?'

‘It was touch and go.'

‘These things are always chancy. And do you get on all right with the top people here – Group Captain Stanton? His wife, Emily? An impressive woman. Some unspecified government work. Very unspecified, yes?'

‘I believe so.'

‘Formidable couple. She's a strength to him. He produces the goods, such as Bain.'

And, as the Air Ministry bigwig had guessed, Bain did get recognition. Ian took a phone call from him. Male voices clattered and boomed behind Bain's. It sounded as though he might be in a big common room with several other wounded men and a couple of three-sided telephone booths. Charteris found he didn't want to visualize it too fully. ‘Guess what – they're giving me a gong,' Ray Bain said, ‘so show some due respect, would you, please?'

‘Great, Ray.'

‘Distinguished Service Order.'

‘That's high. Brilliant, Ray.'

‘Yes, brilliant. There are one or two others here who are getting similar.'

‘Great, Ray.'

‘Yes, great. Do you know what I'd like?'

‘What's that?'

‘I'd really like it if you could be at the Palace for the presentation. It's going to be quite a do, I hear. I should think they'd give you a day's leave for that kind of thing, wouldn't they – hero alumnis of the outfit? We're entitled to invite parents, spouse and children, or a couple of friends in lieu. I haven't got a spouse or children, so you could come, in lieu. Perhaps bring Lucy? You see, Ian, I have the feeling that you're really very much part of it.'

He tried again not to visualize Bain in a wheelchair making the call from the get-together room. What would those nice girls in the town make of him now? Ian wondered how he could be ‘very much part of it'. Or no, he didn't wonder; he had an idea why Bain could see him as ‘very much part of it'. This wasn't an idea that Ian felt all right about. He hadn't felt all right about it since he first heard what had happened to Bain. ‘That's very kind of you to ask me, Ray,' he said. ‘I'll see if Lucy can make it. In any case, I'd be honoured to come.' He let rip with some falsity. He wanted the grotesqueness confirmed: ‘But I don't understand what you mean when you say I was part of it.'

‘Very much part of it,' Bain said. ‘But for you, I might not have been sent out there and given the chance to filch a medal. If things had gone the other way, I'd have been an OCTU instructor with no hope of combat, except maybe umpiring night attack exercises, which we both know a bit about! I'm not running down the instructors there, but it's a limited scene, a rather academic and abstract scene, isn't it, Ian? Suppose I'd been there, Sword-proud and stay-at-home,
you
might have gone to shovel up decorations in K country, instead.'

‘I doubt the last bit.' God, Ian felt dazed, sickeningly troubled. What was the flavour of this conversation? Could it possibly be taken straight or did enough irony, rancour and bitterness lie in the words to sink the fleet? Were there bad and crippling wounds behind them? Did Ray Bain have in mind that letter on fine notepaper lifted as a ploy from Ian's pigeon hole? There'd been no sender's address or letterhead, but it had come in an unstamped envelope, because E, the writer, must live in quarters on the camp. An E, domiciled on the station, equipped with classy notepaper and most likely, from the letter's style, a woman. Ray had made guesses: congratulated Ian on his correspondent. The note promised to do whatever E could for Ian, as if he were very special to her.

And Ian
was
very special to her, though not in the way Ray probably thought of it. Did the ‘whatever she could do for Ian' include fixing the Sword of Honour by biased, repentant pillow talks with E's husband, the unit's commanding officer, so ensuring Ian Charteris a staff place here at a hearteningly safe distance from K dangers and the absence of picnics, where DSOs could be won and lives or half legs lost?

‘That deep midwinter attack and defence exercise we had,' Bain said. ‘Almost an absolute model for a scrap I was in out there – though without those control tower elements in poor taste, of course. This is what I mean when I say you were part of the real action, and a factor in my luck at finding situations where I might shine.'

‘Where are you now, Ray?' It would presumably be some hospital or recuperation centre, perhaps full of shattered veterans in wheelchairs or worse, some setting the loss of a limb, or limbs, against a gong award and calculating whether on the whole they were in credit.

‘I'll get the Palace people to send you the invitation then,' Bain replied. ‘It will be really great to see you and introduce you to my parents. Naturally, I've told them plenty about you. How's Lucy?'

‘She's fine. Everything's fine there.'

‘Great.'

Ian had received another letter on excellent-quality notepaper from Emily Stanton. He was a commissioned mentor member of the camp retinue now and the letter didn't go into a pigeon hole but was brought to him in his room. She wrote: ‘Of course you'll remember an officer cadet who was in training at the same time as you, called Raymond Bain – red hair, pushy, runner-up in the Sword list. Well, Frank has it on the grapevine that he's to be presented with the Distinguished Service Order for bravery in Korea. Isn't this wonderful news in so many ways? I can almost forgive him for that disgraceful trick he pulled during the mock attack, when he loud-speakered those messages from me and your girlfriend. Yes, almost. The word was bound to get around, wasn't it? Frank and I will be going to the award ceremony in Buck House. It's a special invitation from Royalty to mark the good work done here by Frank and his team, as so magnificently exemplified by Bain. We'll certainly pass him your best wishes and congratulations. E.'

She'd most probably discover soon from her husband that Ian had asked for leave to attend as well. No mention of injuries again. Off and on Ian allowed himself to think that maybe the air commodore had this huge detail wrong: but much more off than on. You wouldn't get to his rank if you made mistakes of that size. Perhaps not to talk about wounds was ingrained practice, a way of hanging on to good morale. Focus on the positive: in this case, Ray's DSO.

T
he air commodore hadn't made a mistake. From a back row of the audience chairs in the high, cream and gold ballroom at Buckingham Palace, Ian watched as Ray Bain's name was called and he went forward in his wheelchair and stopped in front of the Queen. Lucy hadn't been able to come: newspaper duties. The Queen bent to talk to Ray briefly and seemed to laugh at something he said. Did he mention how he'd paraded not so long ago with fixed bayonets to mark her accession? Then an attendant handed her the medal and she pinned it on his tunic. Decorous applause. Bain wheeled expertly away. He learned fast at most things. Another name was called. An army sergeant marched the few steps and received his medal. He looked undamaged.

A reception in a side room followed the ceremony. Double mirrored doors caught the light from chandeliers and gave the notion of extra spaciousness where there was already bags of space.
Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set.
Waitresses in black and white costume moved about among the crowd offering drinks and small nibbles. Bain's parents, the Stantons and Ian grouped around the wheelchair. Bain did the introductions.

Stanton said: ‘You seemed to get on nicely with Her Majesty, Ray.'

‘She's remarkably well up on the fighting out there, sir,' Bain said. ‘In fact, most Palace people seem to be. Before the ceremony, one of her aides asked me if I'd been anywhere near the Scottish Black Watch contingent of the Commonwealth Brigade. I said yes, they weren't far away. He follows up with did I know the area called the Hook, a ridge in very inhospitable, hilly country? I said I'd heard of the Hook, but because my job was airfield protection I worked mainly on the flat, such as there was of it. He had a little giggle about that.'

Oh, God, the pleasant, informed conversation around this warrior's indispensable chariot.

Emily announced, ‘Previously, a DSO was reserved for officers in the higher ranks. Obviously the top brass consider your achievements knock a hole in that snobbish tradition, Ray. Good. Very good indeed. And I'd say, judging by the enthusiastic way she behaved, the Queen approves, too.' She spoke with what seemed to Ian a lively mixture of warmth and authority. She had taken over the occasion. First there'd been the Queen, then Emily. Yes, both had obviously decided to ignore the injuries and concentrate on the positives. Leaders did concentrate on the positives – that's how they got to be leaders. They led. It was as though Emily recognized and knew well the customs of the military game and would normally excel at applying them, but also acknowledged there would come times when these customs should be set aside, and if necessary flung aside. Ray Bain's gallantry flung them aside. He'd been only a Flying Officer – equivalent of an army lieutenant – but had earned the DSO. Emily approved, and seemed to feel her endorsement important.