Our Yanks (15 page)

He grunted. ‘Well, good of you to ask us. Not often we go out to dinner these days. Quite a novelty.'

‘Is your daughter well?'

‘Far as I know. They keep her pretty busy in the WRNS but she'll be home on leave at some point, I dare say.'

She had met Anthea Mapperton once: a brusque and unappealing girl in her early thirties. She had never met the son who had been captured by the Japanese, but the village always spoke very well of him. The brigadier himself never mentioned him; the word was that he had been devastated by the news. Imagining how she would feel if it were Alex, she felt desperately sorry for him and his wife. ‘I've seated you at one end of the table, this evening, Brigadier. I do hope you don't mind acting host for me, as it were. It's awkward for my mother-in-law and myself – two women on their own.' She could see that he was rather pleased to have been cast in the role – which was just what she'd intended. Cunningly, she had put him even more under an obligation to be civil.

‘Glad to oblige, Lady Beauchamp.'

As they conversed about the recent cold spell and the shocking shortage of fuel, she kept an ear open for the sound of the front-door knocker.

‘People have been stealing coal from the station goods yard, apparently,' the brigadier was saying. ‘Don't know what the country's coming to when that sort of thing starts happening.'

‘Would you excuse me, I think I heard our other guests arriving.'

Doris had opened the door to two American officers, who were standing in the hall. One of them she recognized as Major Peters whom she had met at the Welcome Party. After a slight hesitation, the other said, ‘Good evening, ma'am. I'm Colonel Schrader. My apologies for being a little late.'

She smiled at him as she shook his hand. ‘I'm Erika Beauchamp. Delighted to meet you, Colonel.' The new group commander was nothing like the old one. This one was shorter, darker and without the film-star good looks. Much more Humphrey Bogart than Clark Gable. There was a strip of Elastoplast across his right temple and a bruise across his cheekbone.

‘I believe you know Major Peters, our group adjutant.'

She shook hands again. ‘Good evening, Major. So nice to see you.' She showed them into the drawing room and saw the disgust registering on Brigadier Mapperton's face, and Mrs Mapperton putting a restraining hand on his arm. The introductions were made all round, beginning with Miriam who received the Americans from her fireside throne in the manner of Queen Elizabeth acknowledging a delegation from some upstart and far-flung land. The brigadier was forced to bark some sort of civil remark. The rest of them, as she had hoped, took great pains to be friendly and Mrs Graham led the conversation at once into the relatively safe realms of the weather. ‘Miserable winter we've had so far, Colonel. I hope you're not finding our climate too trying.'

‘Not at all,' he replied. ‘Where I come from our winters are far more severe. Over here, our only concern is if the weather affects our ability to fly operationally. That's what counts.'

‘And has it?'

‘If it's possible to go, we go,' he answered obliquely. ‘We've got a long way to catch up with what you British have been doing.'

‘You rather look as though you've been in the wars yourself, Colonel,' Dr Graham said.

‘I ran into some trouble on a mission the other day. Needed a couple of stitches, that's all.'

‘I didn't realize until we heard the unfortunate news about Colonel McLaren that your station commanding officers actually went on operational sorties.'

‘That's right, doctor. Same as the rest of the pilots. That's the way we do it.'

‘You must be a very busy man.'

‘Well, it's a real pleasure for me to take the evening off, and to get the chance to meet some of the people of King's Thorpe. It's a privilege for us Americans to be here in this beautiful part of England. I'm only sorry that we've had to disturb the peace.'

He was saying all the right things. Miriam was inclining her head graciously and even Brigadier Mapperton was looking a shade less like a ferocious bulldog.

‘You can't help that, Colonel Schrader,' Mrs Graham said. ‘You've got a job to do. Whenever one of your planes goes over I say to myself: that's the sound of freedom.'

Miss Skinner, unfamiliar in black silk instead of her tweeds, was talking to Major Peters and, by the look of it, that conversation was going equally well. After a while she came over. ‘Colonel Schrader, I've been asking Major Peters if somebody from your Group could come to the village school and give our children an informal talk. Tell us about yourselves and about your country. They've been taught something about the history and geography of the United States, of course, but I'm sure that there are a lot of questions they'd like to ask that have nothing to do with textbooks.'

‘That's a good idea, Miss Skinner. We'll fix it for you right away.'

She eyed him shrewdly. ‘Thank you, Colonel. It's high time we all understood each other better, don't you agree?'

‘I certainly do. And I'd like to hear about anything my men do or say that the people of King's Thorpe don't appreciate.'

Miss Skinner turned to Brigadier Mapperton. ‘Did you hear that, Brigadier? Now's your opportunity to speak your mind.'

‘Huh. Well, your confounded lorries, for a start . . . the way they go racketing through the village. Damned dangerous for the children and old people, never mind the noise they make and all the mud they leave.'

I'm sorry to hear that, Brigadier. I'll see something's done about it. We'll take a look at whether we can route the trucks round the village instead.'

‘While you're about it, you might remind your chaps that we drive on the
left
-hand side of the road here. And stop them hanging about on street corners, making a confounded nuisance of themselves.'

Miss Skinner said briskly, ‘Come now, Brigadier, we must be fair. There's nowhere really for them to go – except the pubs and only when they're open.'

‘Damned nuisance there, too. Rows and fights all the time. Look at that one at the Black Bull.'

‘I heard that was because Fred had been overcharging the Americans disgracefully for months and they finally found out about it. I can't say I blame them for being rather annoyed. It's been happening in other pubs, too.'

The brigadier grunted. ‘Huh. Didn't know about that. Can't have that happening, of course. I'll have a word with Harry. Get him to put a stop to it.'

‘Our village bobby,' Miss Skinner explained to the group commander. ‘Between us, we might manage to make some progress in improving Anglo-American relations, Colonel.'

He smiled at the schoolteacher. ‘I sure hope so, ma'am. And I'd appreciate it if I could be kept informed of any other complaints you people have.'

Miss Skinner looked amused. ‘Brigadier Mapperton will be more than glad to do that. Won't you, Brigadier?'

The dinner passed off without any incidents. The brigadier, seated at the opposite end of the table to Erika, had Miss Skinner on his left to keep him under control and Mrs Graham on his right, acting as a buffer between him and Major Peters. Erika realized, though, that the silver-haired group adjutant, with his smoothly deferential manner, was capable of handling several Brigadier Mappertons. She had placed the group commander on her right with her mother-in-law on his other side and he, too, seemed to have no trouble in dealing with Miriam's occasional barbs. ‘Yes, my grandparents came from Germany,' she heard him saying, in answer to the pointed question. ‘I don't have any problem with that, Lady Beauchamp. We're fighting a regime.' He had even pronounced Beauchamp correctly.

The celery soup was rather watery and tasteless but the hens' sacrifice had not been in vain and the Brown Betty pudding was quite eatable. The wine was excellent and she was tickled to hear Colonel Schrader remarking on it appreciatively to her mother-in-law.

Towards the end of the dinner, he said to her, ‘I want to thank you for inviting Major Peters and myself here tonight. It's given us a chance to try and smooth things over a little.'

‘I think you may have drawn Brigadier Mapperton's fangs – and that's not easy.'

He smiled. ‘I meant what I said. We need to know of any complaints so we have a chance to do something about them.'

He was probably only somewhere in his early thirties, she thought – not much more than her own age. It seemed terribly young to be in charge of all those men; to have all that huge responsibility. And to have to fly in combat as well.

‘You must have much more important things to think about than local grumbles, Colonel.'

‘We need to get along, Lady Beauchamp. We figure that's important if we're going to do a good job fighting this war together.'

‘Miss Skinner pointed out earlier that your men have nowhere to go in the village – except the pubs. The WVS are opening a canteen in the old Methodist chapel—'

‘WVS?'

‘Women's Voluntary Service. It's made up of women like myself who are not in the Services or doing war work in factories. We try to do our bit in all sorts of other practical ways. Actually, we come round your base with a mobile canteen.'

‘Yes, I know about that.'

‘This canteen we're opening in the village is for all Service people – whatever nationality or branch. We'll be open every evening and Sunday afternoons, serving snacks – tea and coffee, sandwiches, buns, cakes, that sort of thing. It'll be somewhere for the men to sit out of the weather. Not very exciting but if your men would like to use it, they'd be very welcome.'

‘They'd appreciate that. I'll see that word gets around. This is a beautiful house you have here, ma'am.'

‘I don't actually have it. It belonged to my husband, Richard, but he was killed in France in 1940 so it's passed to our son, Alexander. Or will do, when he's grown-up.'

‘Where is he?'

‘Upstairs in bed – asleep, I hope. He's only seven.'

‘I have a daughter exactly the same age.'

‘And where's she?'

‘Back home in St Louis, Missouri. With my wife, Jan. I haven't seen them in months. By the time I get back, I guess Kathy won't even know me.' His eyes were an unusual steel grey, she noticed. German eyes? Miriam's hotch-potch nation. She was a hotch-potch herself with looks that were far more Hungarian than English. Another thing that Miriam had held against her until Alex had been born in the unmistakable image of Richard. The American went on, ‘There's something else you could help me with, Lady Beauchamp. If you wouldn't mind.'

‘Fire away.'

‘We're planning to invite people from King's Thorpe to a kind of get-together party at the Officers' Club. We can't ask everybody – there's just not the room. Would you be able to let Major Peters have a list of all those you think would feel they
ought
to be on it – if you understand me?'

She nodded. ‘Yes, I understand you. I haven't lived in the village very long myself, so I'm not the one to advise you, Colonel, but I know just who could. My mother-in-law will know exactly who you should ask.'

When the guests had left, she told Miriam about Colonel Schrader's request.

‘I suppose he wants to include all the jumped-up tradespeople who will take offence if they're left out.'

‘He wants to smooth feathers, not ruffle them more – that's all.'

‘Everybody's somebody in the United States, so I understand.
Anything
goes. Did you notice the extraordinary way they ate? Cutting everything up with the knife and then eating with the fork upside down, like a shovel?'

‘That's the way Americans eat. I thought their manners were impeccable.'

A shrug. ‘They weren't as bad as I'd feared, I grant you that, but then I don't suppose they're typical.'

‘Will you do that list?'

Another shrug. ‘I'll see.'

But Erika knew that she would and that, secretly, Miriam was delighted to have been asked.

‘How do you reckon we made out, Major? Think we charmed them enough?'

‘I think it went pretty well, sir.'

Schrader leant back against the seat. He wasn't sure that he cared. All he wanted to do was roll into bed and get some sleep. Eight solid, unbroken hours of sleep. He knew there wasn't a chance of it. The evening had been a goddam effort and probably a wasted one. Sure, some of the inhabitants were willing to be friendly, but the rest probably hated Yanks – period. Nothing would change them. His driver swung the car round under the railroad bridge and then turned off to go up the hill towards the base. ‘And what a house! You don't get to be in a beautiful old place like that too often. I was frozen to death, but what the hell.'

‘I guess they're well used to the cold.'

‘Must be. Old Lady B sure was a battleaxe. Glad you warned me about her. She took some charming.'

‘I thought you might find her a bit tricky. The brigadier too.'

‘He's real unhappy with us. I figure we'll be getting more complaints than ever now that I've opened the floodgates.'

‘As a matter of fact, I thought that was kind of smart of you, sir.'

‘Think I drew his fangs? That's what the young one said. She was no battleaxe, Major.'

‘I told you she was very pleasant, sir.'

‘Yeah.' He smiled faintly. ‘You sure got that one right.'

The flowers arrived the next day: a large bouquet of red and white mophead chrysanthemums. Pinned to them was a note of thanks from Colonel Schrader. Where on earth, in the middle of Northamptonshire, in January, in a wartime England of unheated greenhouses, had he managed to get them? Even Miriam's acid tongue was silenced. With the flowers came a box of Whitman's Sampler American chocolates for Miriam and another box addressed to Sir Alexander Beauchamp. Inside it, Hershey chocolate bars, Baby Ruth candy and some things called Life Savers.