“Pat Johnson says,” he remarked, “that all maidens are mutts or they wouldn’t be maidens.”
“I didn’t come here to listen to what Pat Johnson says.”
“No. But I’ve told you what I think. I think we ought to try it for a bit and see how we get on.”
“You mean, try going about and doing things together?”
He nodded. “See how we get on.”
“I don’t want to keep you dangling on a string, Peter.”
He said gently: “I wish to God you’d stop worrying about me. I like a dangle now and then. I’ll drop off if I get fed-up with it—you see.”
There was a little pause. At last she said: “My way hasn’t panned out quite so well. If you really want it, Peter, we’ll try yours for a bit. But you do realise I’m not in love with you?”
He grinned. “I wouldn’t know about a thing like that. Pat Johnson says you are.”
She checked an angry impulse to say what she thought of Mr. Johnson. “Well, I say I’m not.”
“All right, you’re not. Have another bun.”
“No, thanks.”
They sat in awkward silence for a minute or two, each wondering what to say next; the tension mounted till it grew unbearable.
At last he said: “Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you’ll try it my way for a month we’ll know by then whether there’s anything in it for us, or not. I won’t bother you longer than that if it’s not going to work, Gervase. But if we chuck it then, I think I really had better go away. We don’t want this all over again.”
She smiled faintly. “I agree with that.”
He said: “You want me to come back to Hartley because of the dear old war, which you think can’t get on without me. I want to come back to Hartley because I want to be with you, to see you, and to hear you talk.”
He paused. She did not speak.
“When I come back,” he said, “I’ll try and work things so that if I have a leave after the month my crew will settle down with someone else and be as good with him as they have been with me. I’ll try and work it so that there’s a first-class chap to take them over when I go. But if we find it doesn’t work out, and we have to chuck it, I shall want to go.”
She said: “All right, Peter.” She was growing exhausted by the tension of their scene; she was shocked at the depth of feeling she had roused, the things that she had done to this young man. She was a factor in his life, whether she liked it or not; her whim could turn the entire current of his work. She was unhappily aware of the responsibility of an attractive woman, for the first time in her life.
Marshall sat up briskly and bit into a doughnut. “Okay,” he said. “Now we’ve got to work fast.” He glanced at her, and poured her out another cup of tea; she took it from him mechanically. “Will you come to the pictures with me?”
“Now?”
“Now. We’ve only got a month.”
She smiled. “What’s on?”
“I don’t know. We’ll walk round and see.”
“All right.”
“Will you come up to Town and do a show with me on Saturday, and go on to the Savoy and dance?”
She sipped her tea; it was then Tuesday. “I suppose I could put in for week-end leave,” she said. “I’d have to stay with Aunt Ethel at Hampstead.”
“If you’re going to put in for week-end leave,” he said, “you could get off on Friday night and come up to London, and we could do something on Saturday morning.”
“I’m not going to work as hard as that,” she said. “I’ll come up on Saturday morning and have lunch with you.”
“All right. But don’t think you aren’t going to work hard. When I get home I’m going to write you a nice letter—you’ll get it on Thursday morning. Will you answer it?”
She protested: “But, Peter, I shall be seeing you on Saturday.”
“I’m thinking about Friday, when I’m going to get an answer to my letter in the morning post—if you’ve written it. Will you?”
She hesitated. She had promised to try it for a month in his way and she felt that she must stick to her promise, but she had not visualised all this. “All right,” she said at last. “Don’t make the pace too hot.”
He glanced down at her, suddenly compunctuous. “Would you like to be let off that one?” he asked gently.
“No—I’ll answer it.” She put down her cup of tea.
He grinned at her. “Okay. Let’s put a sock in the emotion now and get on to the pictures. Want to powder your nose?”
She said: “Er—yes, perhaps I’d better.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you downstairs at the cash desk.”
They walked out presently into the crowded street; in the throng of people on the pavements he took her arm and piloted her through the crowd. In the warm darkness of the Regal, in the middle of the Gaumont News, hand crept experimentally into hand; it was dark, Gervase reflected, and nobody could see. In any case, everybody else seemed to be doing it. His hand pleased her; it was firm, but gentle, and warm, and comforting.
The afternoon had tired her; she was new to that sort of strain. She lay back in her seat leaning a little towards him, letting him caress her hand. She was content with the decision they had made, content to let things rip for a month. At the end of that time there might be more trouble for them, but that would not be her fault. She could do no more to help him than to do what he wanted; if in the end trouble came to them, well, trouble came to everybody in the world.
He took her to the George restaurant for dinner, before putting her upon the bus to go back to Hartley. Over the meal they talked about the arrangements for their week-end; they decided that it would be nice to go and see “Arsenic and Old Lace.” She said: “You’d like me to bring a dance frock, Peter?”
He nodded. “I’ve never seen you out of uniform.”
She said: “All right, I’ll bring one up. That means you’ll have to let me go back to Hampstead to change, during the afternoon.” She was not quite sure in her own mind that this dance frock was a very good idea. The fire, she thought, was hot enough already without fanning it; she felt no urge to drag out feminine allure. The severe, business-like lines of uniform gave her confidence. But if he was taking her to the Savoy to dance, she couldn’t go in uniform as if it was a N.A.A.F.I. dance. Dance frock it would have to be—the pastel blue one with the silver slippers.
They sat for a time over coffee; then they left the restaurant. In the black streets he took her arm and piloted her to the bus station in the market; they stopped by a wall in the darkness to say good-bye.
She said: “Are you happier about things now, Peter?”
He was holding both her hands. “Of course I am,” he said. “Are you?”
She said slowly: “I know you’re going to be frightfully nice to me, Peter, and that we’ll have a lovely month. But I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you terribly when it’s all over.”
“We’ll worry about that when the time comes. In the meantime we’ll have the lovely month.”
She wondered if he was going to kiss her; she would have let him if he had demanded it. But he was put off by her last words and did not press that one, and presently they said good night, and he put her in the bus.
Gervase travelled back to Hartley tired to death, but not unhappy. She felt queerly that things were on the right track now, that she had managed to undo some of the damage she had done. She was quite sure in her reason that a mass of trouble lay ahead of them that they would run into sooner or later; she was too tired to bother about that. She went to bed immediately she got back to the station, and slept for ten hours solidly in a deep, dreamless slumber.
Marshall went down to the railway station, walking upon air. He waited an hour and three-quarters for a train to London, arriving at Paddington a little after three in the morning. At four-thirty he got into an empty train for Northwood, and walked into his father’s house at half-past five, as the grey dawn was just beginning to show above
the trees. He went to bed and drifted off to sleep, utterly content.
That morning Wing Commander Dobbie got an answer to the letter he had written to Corporal Leech in hospital. It ran:
R.A.F. Emergency Hospital, Yorks.
Dear sir,
I got your letter it was very nice to get it and it was very nice that you found time to write. Thank you. I do not want anything because it is very nice here and they say I shall only be a fortnight and then out. I am hastening to write to tell you that I would not like to change my crew please because we all get on all right together and it is very nice. I like being with Mr. Marshall although he can be sharp sometimes but we don’t mind that. Please try and keep a place for me back in that crew.
I hope you are quite well.
Yrs. obediently,
ALBERT LEECH.
Wing Commander Dobbie glanced this over thoughtfully; it did not help him in his problem. Still holding it in his hand he went through into the next office. He said to Chesterton: “You might come in when you’re free.”
The Adjutant came in a few minutes later and found Dobbie sitting at his desk, the letter still in his hand. Dobbie said:
“Shut the door behind you. Have a chair.” And when that was done he said: “I say, what am I going to do about Marshall’s crew—R for Robert?”
The older man said: “They’re all fighting, aren’t they?”
“Not exactly,” said the Wing Commander. “There’s some friction, but it all seems to come from Marshall. He’s riding them too hard, but at the same time he’s got slack and casual himself. You know.”
“Is that why they went roaring off to Whitsand?”
The Wing Commander nodded. “Marshall set the wrong course on the compass, and his navigator was afraid to go and check it. He’s been pretty rough with them. He’s got a good navigator, too—that Dane.”
“Gunnar Franck—the one who was a sergeant pilot?”
“That’s the one.”
The older man said: “You’ll have to split them up. Once they start quarrelling like that they hardly ever get back as a team again. It’s too bad to let them go on?”
“I think it is. Well, look at last time.”
Chesterton took out a cigarette, tapped it upon his thumbnail, and lit up. “It’s a great pity,” he said slowly. “A great pity to break up a crew like that.”
“What’s more,” said Dobbie dryly, “it’s not so easy. I had them all in one by one before they went on leave and asked them if they’d like a change. They all said that they wanted to stay where they were.”
“They did?”
“Every one of them—Gunnar Franck and all. Even the radio-operator that got shot up wants to stay in that crew.” He flipped the letter across to Chesterton.
The Squadron Leader read it carefully. “What’s behind it?” he enquired at last.
“I don’t think anything’s behind it. I think they just like him.”
“But still you don’t think they can go on?”
“No, I don’t,” said Dobbie. “If we let it slide I think they’ll all be killed in some damn silly way. I think we’ve got to do something.”
The Squadron Leader read the letter through again. “What’s the matter with Marshall?” he enquired. “I always thought him quite a pleasant chap.”
“He is,” said Dobbie. “I like Marshall. It’s the usual, of course. He got mixed up with a young woman and she gave him a bump.”
“Somebody on the station?”
“Yes.”
“Who is it—do you know?”
“Section Officer Robertson.”
“Oh.” The old Squadron Leader sat turning the letter idly over in his hand. It was tricky when W.A.A.F. officers were involved. He had had similar episodes once or twice before and it was always troublesome; it meant dealing with very senior W.A.A.F.s whose point of view was alien to him. He never understood their mental processes in such matters; they were kind where he would have been stern, brutal where he would have been lenient. Queer people to deal with; when you started anything with them you never quite knew what would happen.
“She’s all right, isn’t she?” he said at last.
“I think so,” said Dobbie. “I think it’s all quite above board. The rear-gunner says she shot him down. I suppose that means he wanted to marry her.”
Chesterton nodded. “I should think that’s it. They’re the marrying sort—both of them.”
“If that’s the way of it,” said Dobbie irritably, “why the hell doesn’t she marry him?”
“She’s very young,” said Chesterton. He had two daughters himself, both older than this girl, and neither was married.
“The great adventure on this station isn’t bombing Germany,” said Dobbie bitterly. “They don’t think anything of that. Falling in love is the big business here.”
“What else do you expect, considering the age we take them in?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, what are we going to do about Marshall?”
Experience was here to help them; it was not the first time that they had had similar incidents at Hartley Magna. “You’ll have to shift one or other of them,” said Chesterton. “The sooner the better. If what you say is right, Marshall will never settle down. You’d better get the girl shifted.”
“Return her to store, and get another one?”
“That’s it. She can go back to Group.”
“I suppose that’s the right thing to do,” said Dobbie doubtfully.
“I think it is,” said Chesterton. “Look at it from Marshall’s point of view. He wants to marry this girl. She’s not having any. But yet they’ve got to rub shoulders in the mess every day in front of all the rest of us. It’s not fair on any man, that—especially a vigorous man like Marshall. I’m not surprised he’s getting bad-tempered. I should be.”
Dobbie said: “I’m rather surprised he hasn’t asked for a transfer.”
“That’s the old business of the moth and the candle. But he will ask for a transfer. That’ll be the next thing. If you want to keep him here, you’d better shift the girl.”
Dobbie picked up Corporal Leech’s letter from the desk and glanced it over again. “I’d like to have a crack at keeping him,” he said. “I believe this crew might get on to its feet again. They all want to stay with him—every one of them. If we shift the girl he may settle down. I think it’s worth trying. But it’s bad luck on the girl.”
“She’ll be all right,” said Chesterton. “She’ll be just as well off as signals officer at Wittington or Charwick as she is here. She’ll be doing the same job.”
He paused. “I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll slip over and see that Wing Officer at Group—Mrs. Harding—and fix it up. I’ll tell her we’ve got nothing against the girl.”
“You can tell her a bit more than that,” said Dobbie. “The girl’s good at her job. She’s intelligent, and she’s quick, and she’s hardworking. The only thing we’ve got against her is that she doesn’t want to marry one of my pilots, who I don’t want married anyway.”
“I’ll tell Mrs. Harding all that,” said Chesterton. “I think she’ll understand. They’re very good, you know.”
Dobbie lit a cigarette, and blew out a long cloud of smoke. He sat silent for a minute, deep in thought. “I don’t like it,” he said uneasily at last. “You never know how they’ll take these things. She’s a good girl, and they’ve been very discreet. She may get a bad mark against her if we send her back to store over a thing like this. And if we crack her up and tell the Queen W.A.A.F. what a wizard girl she is, she’ll get a worse one.”
Chesterton smiled. “Well,” he said, “we don’t want to pile it on too thick. You’d better stay out of this and let me handle it. You’re too young. The Queen W.A.A.F. will think that my grey hairs make me pretty safe.”
“She doesn’t know you,” said the Wing Commander.
There was a silence in the office for a minute. In the end Dobbie sat up briskly. “I’m sorry,”
he said incisively, “but I don’t like that way of handling it a bit. We’ve got to shift the girl, but I think she ought to ask for a transfer herself. She can go to her Wing Officer and ask to be moved to Charwick or Wittington. If they ask her why, she can say that she’s been bothered by one of the officers here, which happens to be true.”
“I see your point,” the Squadron Leader said thoughtfully. “That couldn’t possibly make any trouble. And we can back her up in that, and say that we think she’s behaved very well.”
Wing Commander Dobbie pushed back his chair. “Well, that’s the way we’ll take it,” he said. “You have a talk with her and get her to put in to be transferred. Make it effective before Marshall comes back off leave, if you can.”
“Me have a talk with her?” said the Squadron Leader, in dismay.
Dobbie laughed. “It’s your job,” he said. “It’s administration. Besides you’ve got daughters as old as Robertson, or older.”
“I know I have,” said Chesterton. “But I never muck about in things like this—I let them go their own way. What am I to say to Robertson?”
The Wing Commander said: “Just tell her the truth. Tell her that Vickers don’t put much armour on the Wimpies because of the weight. Tell her that the crews who go and come without incident have secret armour. Tell her that the crews that come back safely are the crews without personal troubles, who sleep sound at nights and have fun in the daytime.” He paused, considering his long experience.
“The secret armour of a quiet mind,” he said. “Tell her about that.”
“You tell her,” said Chesterton hopefully. “You know the lines.”
“I’m too young,” said the Wing Commander. “You just said so. You wanted to handle this. Well, go ahead and do it.”
“All right.” The Squadron Leader thought for a moment. “She’s just put in for week-end leave,” he said. “I think I’ll wait till Friday and put it to her just before she goes. Then she can get in touch with her Wing Officer next week.”
“Do it any time you like,” said Dobbie, “so long as she’s off the station before Marshall comes back.”
Chesterton went back into his office thoughtfully. If there was one job that he thoroughly disliked and dreaded it was anything to do with the disciplining of W.A.A.F. officers. He got very little practice at it, for one thing; they had their own organisation and seldom came before him in that way. Only once before during four years of total war had he been compelled to ask a young woman questions about her behaviour; on that occasion it had been a nice point which of them had been more frightened.