Come the Hour (13 page)

‘I’ll be all right Mum,’ he said. ‘I’ll only be training.’ He kissed her cheek and got into the train. ‘I’ll see you soon.’ The train pulled away, out of the station. The next time I see him, she thought, he’ll be in uniform.

She and Tessa drove home and Tessa made some tea. ‘I feel so useless, Mum,’ she said. ‘Girls will be doing all kinds of things and I’ll be doing nothing – just going on as if nothing has happened.’

‘Life has to go on,’ Amy said. ‘The war won’t last for ever. Your job is to qualify. You’ll be of use then.’

‘Well, I can help a bit in the vacations,’ Tessa said. ‘I can be a volunteer firewatcher at a hospital or something. It was in the paper.’

Amy sighed. ‘Yes, darling.’

Charlie arrived at St Leonards on Sea to join the Wing. They were to be housed, apparently, in one of the hotels. He got a taxi from the station and joined the group of young men trooping into the hotel: all pilots, he supposed. He wondered how many of them wanted to fly fighters. Competition.

They were given their rooms, and a pep talk and their schedules. There was to be no flying for a few weeks. A groan ran round the room. They were to be introduced into the service as pilot officers, drilling, lectures, and endless PE with a tough-looking gentleman who was a very successful British boxer. No nonsense there then.

He met some of the other pilots in the lounge. ‘No flying,’ one of them said gloomily. He was tall and fair-haired with eyelids that drooped over an expression of sardonic amusement.

Charlie introduced himself. ‘Charlie Fielding,’ he said.

‘Tim Crighton.’ They shook hands. ‘Perhaps they’ll let us out after dinner, and we can find a pub.’

‘A nice thought,’ Charlie said, ‘but it isn’t going to happen – not until the weekend anyway.’

They met again after dinner. ‘We can get a beer here,’ Tim said. ‘What’ll you have?’

‘Half a pint,’ Charlie said. Tim ordered it, and a pint for himself.

‘Well, here we are then,’ Tim said. ‘How did you get into this racket?’

‘I learnt to fly at Cambridge – in the air squadron,’ Charlie said. ‘Then I joined the volunteer reserve.’

‘Same here,’ Tim said, ‘at Oxford.’

‘Did you get your degree?’ Charlie asked. ‘I left early.’

‘I’m nineteen,’ Tim said. ‘So no.’

‘What were you reading?’

Tim grinned. ‘God knows. I’ve forgotten. Have another?’

‘No thanks,’ Charlie said, ‘it’ll keep me awake.’

‘I don’t know what all this is for,’ Tim said. ‘Square bashing and knees bend. Sounds like a waste of time to me. We should be flying.’

‘Get us fit, I expect,’ Charlie said. ‘And what they said – introduce us to service life, discipline, and all that.’

‘If you’ve been to a public school you know all about that,’ Tim said. ‘Mine was a shocker. I nearly got thrown out. Ill-disciplined behaviour.’

Charlie thought of Arthur. ‘A lot of the chaps haven’t been to public school,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think they need to be taught anything about self-discipline. They have to have it in buckets to get anywhere.’

‘Thank God for that then,’ Tim said. ‘It isn’t going to be that sort of war – me Chief, you Indian. Everybody’s going to be in it. The Germans aren’t going to care where you went to school when they shoot you down.’

Charlie wasn’t sure whether he was joking. He preferred not to think about being shot down. ‘What do you want to fly?’ he said.

‘Fighters,’ Tim said. ‘I’m too much of a coward to fly bombers.’

Charlie laughed. ‘Me too. Spits, I hope.’

Charlie phoned home and Amy answered. He sounded very cheerful, she thought. ‘I’m here for four weeks,’ he said. ‘I’ll be
square-bashing
, doing endless PE, and learning how to behave like a gentleman in the mess. And tomorrow I shall be getting kitted out with uniform and a regulation haircut. You won’t recognize me with no hair. No flying. Still, it’s not for long. I’ll see you soon.’

They did PE every day. ‘I feel as I’ve been beaten up,’ Tim said. ‘That boxer’s a sadist. It’s worse than school.’

‘Hardly,’ Charlie said. ‘He’s trying to get you as fit as he is.’

Tim sighed. ‘He’ll never succeed.’

They did endless parades on the promenade, and attended lectures about officers’ administrative duties, and one from a short, grim, unsmiling doctor, about venereal disease.

‘What a dreary old sod,’ Tim said. ‘I shouldn’t think he’s ever had the opportunity.’

Charlie grinned. ‘I’ve already been through all that with my father. He’s a doctor.’

‘You listen to your daddy then,’ Tim said. ‘This uniform‘ll be a girl-magnet, especially when we get our wings. We’ll be beating them off.’

Charlie laughed. ‘I’d be too exhausted at the moment. And after that I don’t suppose we’ll have the time. That’s if the Germans ever come. They seem to be taking their time.’

‘Oh they’ll come,’ Tim said. ‘They’ll come.’

They waited for their selection: bombers or fighters, or army support or instructors. ‘I wonder how they choose?’ Charlie said.

‘It’s all in the mind.’ Tim said. ‘They have secret psychological tests that you don’t even know you’re taking. It’s a kind of voodoo.’

Charlie laughed. ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed, then.’

On Saturday night they went out to a pub in the town. It seemed to be full of uniforms and girls and the noise was deafening. They managed to get a table in the corner and Tim struggled to the bar and came back with two pints of bitter. ‘Just what I said, Charlie, girls everywhere.’

‘Go on then,’ Charlie said, ‘magnetize one.’

Tim gazed round the room, his eyes narrowed. ‘She looks nice,’ he said. ‘That girl over there – the blonde.’

‘Go on then,’ Charlie said. ‘Do your stuff.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Go and talk to her,’ Charlie said.

‘I can’t do that.’ Tim blushed faintly. ‘We haven’t been introduced.’

Charlie laughed. ‘Tim,’ he said, ‘you’re all talk.’

Tim lit a cigarette. ‘Not about everything,’ he said. ‘We’ll see.’

They were even more impatient when they heard that RAF pilots
had shot down several German bombers attacking naval vessels at Rosyth. ‘And here we are,’ Tim said. ‘Playing soldiers.’

At the end of the month they were given their assignments. Charlie and Tim had a beer afterwards to celebrate.

‘Fighters then,’ Tim said. ‘Maybe we’ll get to the same squadron, so I won’t bid you goodbye.’ They were sent home again to wait.

Mrs Brooks took Sara to see the headmistress at the village school. The headmistress seemed flurried and distracted. ‘I expect you’ll be coming here, Sara,’ she said, ‘until we get ourselves sorted out. I don’t know how we’re going to cope with all these extra children.’

‘I was at a grammar school,’ Sara said. ‘I have to go to a grammar school. I need to do science and Latin. I was doing them before.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ the headmistress said. ‘We certainly don’t have those facilities here, or the staff.’

‘What about the local grammar school?’ Mrs Brooks said. ‘Can’t she go there?’

‘Well, I can speak to them,’ the headmistress said, ‘but I expect they’ll be in the same boat. They’ll have a lot of extra children. You’ll have to come here for the time being, Sara.’

Sara couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t all stop, just like that. They couldn’t take it all away from her. Her mother said she would come at the weekend to bring her some more clothes. I’m not staying here, she thought. I don’t care what happens. She’ll have to take me home.

She went to school for the rest of the week, but cried when she came home the first day. Mrs Brooks was concerned. ‘What is it, dear?’ she said. ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing,’ Sara said. ‘But I can’t go there, to that school. I’ve done all that before. It’s a waste of time. I want to go home.’

Nora came on Saturday. Mrs Brooks gave her a cup of tea and then left her alone with Sara.

Sara burst into tears. ‘I can’t stay here, Mum,’ she said. ‘It’s a baby school and there’s no room at the grammar. I might as well be dead.’

Nora almost lost her temper, torn between Sara’s tears and the prospect of her actually being dead if the Germans bombed London.
She put her arms around Sara, trying to be calm. ‘What can I do, Sara?’ she said. ‘Nearly all the children have left. How would I feel if anything happened to you?’

‘I don’t care,’ Sara sobbed. ‘I want to come home. My school’s still going.’

Nora sighed. ‘I’ll speak to your dad,’ she said. ‘See what he thinks.’

‘He’ll do what you say,’ Sara sobbed. ‘He isn’t going to be there, is he?’

Three weeks went by. ‘Is there a war on or not?’ Charlie said. ‘What am I supposed to do at home? I’ll have forgotten how to fly anything at this rate.’ His impatience, he knew, was largely apprehension. He wanted to know how he would react, how he would take it. Staying at home thinking about it wasn’t helping.

He went to visit Tessa at Cambridge.

‘You look nice in your uniform, Charlie,’ she said. ‘They’ve had some RAF pilots staying at Clare, doing training, marching about and trying to make dates with the girls.’

‘What are you up to?’ Charlie said.

‘Thorax and abdo this term,’ she said. ‘It’s an odd feeling, holding someone’s heart in your hand, if you think about it.’

‘Don’t think about it,’ Charlie said. He found that he didn’t want to talk about anything dead, even to Tessa. Death was something that he preferred not to think about. It was something that happened to other people, something to joke about – ‘going for a Burton’ they called it. It wasn’t going to happen to him. How could it? He was so full of life, there was so much to do, so much going on. ‘It’s just part of your training – that’s all.’

‘We’re digging up the college gardens to grow vegetables, and we’re all doing fire-watching.’

‘Surely they won’t bomb Cambridge?’ Charlie said. ‘Surely they’re not complete vandals?’

‘Who knows?’ Tessa said. ‘We’re fire-watching anyway, and we’ve got stirrup pumps and long shovels for incendiaries. It’s all a bit strange. The place is half-empty. Lots of the boys are going, just like you, Charlie.’

The weeks wore on. The attacks from the air didn’t come. Nothing happened. Life seemed to have a strange transparent skin of normality, while underneath wild and horrible things were happening. The British Expeditionary Force left for France, the battle ship,
Royal Oak
was sunk at Scapa Flow, the war at sea was destroying and killing.

In December Mrs Parks gave in her notice. ‘I’ll be going to my daughter’s at Christmas,’ she said, ‘and I’m afraid I won’t be coming back. I’m sorry, Doctor.’

‘It’s all right, Edith,’ Amy said. ‘I understand. Keep in touch with us, won’t you?’

Charlie got his posting to an advanced training school. Amy drove him to the station.

‘Don’t come to the platform, Mum,’ he said, ‘and don’t worry. I’ll be all right. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be flying again.’ She watched him go, knowing that he was going into his own world, where she couldn’t follow, that desperate world that she could never forget.

It grew colder and colder; the coldest winter anyone could remember ‘Thank God we’re not getting raids,’ Amy said. ‘We’d freeze to death in the cellar.’ The Thames froze over for the first time for fifty years. Upstream people were skating on the river, enjoying themselves.

Still there were no air raids, but the war at sea went on, the U-boats attacking shipping, and the German captain of the Graf Spee scuttled his boat and blew his brains out in Montevideo.

It’s happening again, Amy thought, the very weather reflecting the anguish that was rising from the world. It was as if the earth was retreating into itself, withdrawing its warmth and beauty, as it had among the cold and the teeming torrential rains of the war in France. She had an extraordinary sense that the earth itself was a living thing, and was turning away its face in horror and shame at what was to come.

A
lmost the first person Charlie saw was Tim.

Tim grinned at him under his sleepy eyelids. ‘Where have you been? I got here yesterday. Come on, I’ll help you with your kit. Then we can have a respectable cup of tea.’

Charlie found his room. ‘What are we flying?’ he asked. ‘Do you know?’

Tim put his thumbs up. ‘Harvards. We are creeping closer to fighters at a snail’s pace. You wouldn’t think there was a war on, would you?’

‘We’ve got four squadrons in France,’ Charlie said, ‘and that seems to be about it. God knows when we’ll get a shot at them.’

‘Charlie,’ Tim said, with exaggerated care, ‘young Charlie. Your hour will come soon enough. Don’t be impatient.’

‘We need to get going,’ Charlie said. ‘I was in Berlin the summer before last. They’re armed to the teeth and trained up to the eyeballs.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Tim said. ‘It won’t do them any good. I’d love to have seen their faces when that half-baked Oxford crew sauntered in and beat their muscle-men in Herr Goering’s pet boat race. What a laugh. We all thought it was hilarious.’

Charlie smiled. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.’

Tim’s grin faded. He looked out of the window at the airfield, at the parked machines, at the snow-dusted fields and woods beyond. ‘Winning that boat race wasn’t easy, Charlie,’ he said. ‘I knew some of the crew. They just wouldn’t be beaten, that’s all.’

‘We’ll be beaten if they don’t get on with training,’ Charlie said. ‘This is just the calm before the storm.’

‘The calm of too much snow at the moment,’ Tim said. ‘We’re
starting with lectures. They’ll talk us to death. The Germans won’t have to bother.’

They started the next morning with lectures on the Harvard, fully aerobatic, retractable undercarriage, Pratt & Whitney engine, speed 156 knots, range 740 miles. ‘I’m blinded with science,’ Tim said. Lectures continued, on radar and operating with ground control, lectures on formation flying, lectures on aerobatic manoeuvres. And then one day the skies cleared.

Tim was among the first to fly. Charlie watched him take off with his instructor and disappear into the distance. Eventually he reappeared, doing a very reasonable landing.

They met in the mess. ‘How was it?’ Charlie asked. ‘Any tips?’

‘Brilliant,’ Tim said. ‘Spins like a bastard, especially to the right, so watch it. I expect your instructor will drop you into that one.’

Later, Charlie took off on his first flight, eager and intense. They climbed to 4,000 feet.

‘Do a spin to the right,’ his instructor said.

Spins like a bastard, Charlie thought. It did indeed. Stick forward, he said to himself, full opposite rudder. He came out of the spin with some relief. He was sweating slightly, but his instructor seemed unperturbed. ‘Now spin to the left,’ he said. Good job I don’t get airsick, Charlie thought.

They flew every day, spins, rolls, stall turns, loops. In battle, whenever that might be, they must not fly straight and level for more than a few seconds. Otherwise they would easily be picked off by a hungry 109. All I want now, Charlie thought, is a Hurricane or a Spitfire. A real fighter.

They spent two weeks at a practice camp, air firing at a drogue pulled by a Wellington bomber, learning to allow for the bomber’s deflection. Tim seemed to be rather better at it than most. ‘It’s just like clay-pigeon shooting,’ he said. ‘You have to allow for the target’s speed.’

Charlie sighed. ‘I never did any shooting. I expect I’ll get the hang of it in the end.’

‘It’s daft,’ Tim said. ‘As if the German bombers are just going to trundle along and wait for us to come and shoot them down. And what
if they’ve got fighter escorts? They’re not just going to let us wipe them out, are they?’

‘Their fighters can’t come all the way from Germany and get back,’ Charlie said. ‘They wouldn’t have any time to play with us as well. They’d run out of fuel.’

Tim gave a short laugh. ‘Who says they’ll be coming from Germany?’

‘You’re a bit pessimistic, aren’t you?’

‘Realistic,’ Tim said. ‘Things aren’t going too well in France, are they? We’re not exactly forcing them to stay in Germany, and the French aren’t doing much.’

Charlie didn’t think too much about it. He was happy, throwing his Harvard around the sky and bringing it safely home again. He’d like to get a crack at the Luftwaffe, though. Sometimes he thought about Kurt. Was he doing the same thing? Flying? He hoped not. Better if he was in the army or the navy. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, fighting Kurt.

They took, and passed, their Wings Exam. They spent half an hour sewing the wings on to their uniforms, and then went to the pub to celebrate.

‘Well, we got there,’ Tim said. ‘I wonder when we’re going to do our stuff?’

‘We’ll be off to an operational squadron soon,’ Charlie said. ‘Perhaps we’ll get to France.’

Tim shrugged. ‘If it’s still there.’

‘Ever the optimist.’ Charlie took a mouthful of beer. ‘What makes you think it won’t be?’

‘We haven’t got enough men there,’ Tim said, ‘and we’ve got to transport everything by sea and there are a few U-boats about.’ He drained his beer. ‘I’ll get another round.’

Charlie looked about him at the crowded bar, RAF personnel mostly. It was weird, he thought, this waiting. What were they doing in Germany? Planning to invade Britain? Planning to take over the world?

Tim came back with two pints. ‘I was in Paris last summer,’ he said. ‘There was a funny atmosphere. It was as if they didn’t even want to talk about what was going on – a kind of paralysis of mind. I expect
they were so peed off about what happened to France in the last lot that they just couldn’t face even thinking about it. They lost fourteen hundred thousand men – dead. Poor blighters. I’m glad I’m not French. If you ask me we should get all our fighters out of there. We’re going to need them here.’

‘We can’t just abandon them,’ Charlie said.

‘No?’ Tim said. ‘Who knows? But they might have to abandon us.’

‘Well, let’s not worry about it,’ Charlie said. ‘We’ve got our wings. We’ll be flying fighters soon.’

The next day was fine – a beautiful spring day. Charlie walked out on to the airfield. Good flying weather, he thought, for us and for them. No sign of them, though.

One of the fitters was standing by the hangars. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Sir. Look at this.’

Charlie followed his pointing finger. An aircraft was coming in, flying very fast and very low.

‘What is it?’ Charlie said.

‘I think it’s one of ours – British – not this squadron, though. I think it’s a Hawker Hart.’

Charlie shaded his eyes with his hand. ‘What the hell’s he doing?’

‘Beating up the airfield,’ Jenkins said, ‘by the look of it.’

‘Strictly not allowed,’ Charlie said. ‘He’ll get hell from the station commander. That’s if he lands here.’

‘He’s coming on, sir. He’s cutting it a bit fine, isn’t he?’

The plane roared towards them. ‘Pull up,’ Charlie said out loud. ‘Pull up man. Climb!’

Half the station personnel seemed to be out now, watching. The plane crossed the perimeter. The pilot seemed to be making an effort to pull up and climb away. The nose rose a little and seemed to shudder, and then the plane stalled. It plunged down. One wing ploughed into the ground, the plane flipped over, and cartwheeled, hurtling over the grass, tearing and screeching. The fire engines and the ambulance roared and streaked across the airfield. It was too late – all too late. The plane exploded, fragments hurled into the air. Charlie and Jenkins both ducked, though the plane was too far away now for them to be hit. Then it burst into flames.

‘Oh God,’ Charlie said. He watched the fitter, his hands trembling, take a roll-up out of his top pocket and put it in his mouth, without lighting it, his face as white as paper. He felt his stomach clench and churn. He tried to blank out his mind, tried not to think about how the man must have died. His stomach churned again and he felt sweat breaking out on his face. He made it to the latrines before he threw up. He rinsed his face in cold water, leaning over the washbasin. That’s the first time, he thought, the very first time he had seen someone die. It wasn’t the war, it was an accident. It could have happened at any time, but it was terrible to watch. Whatever had happened, the poor blighter had bought it. But they won’t get me, he thought. They won’t get me.

That night in the mess they conducted a strange little ceremony. Charlie played the can-can music on the piano and the pilots linked arms and danced, la-la-ing to the music, kicking up their legs. Then they drank a great deal of beer, making a solemn toast to the dead pilot.

‘What’ll we do this weekend?’ Tim said. ‘We’ve got forty-eight hours. We could go up to town and do a show or go to the pictures. Greta Garbo’s on in
Ninotchka
, we could go to the Windmill and see the girls. Or we could just get drunk.’

Charlie laughed. ‘No thanks. I thought I’d go to Cambridge and see my sister. She’s a student there.’

‘Oh,’ Tim said. ‘You didn’t tell me she was a bluestocking.’

‘She’s hardly that,’ Charlie said. ‘She’s a medical student.’

‘My God,’ Tim said. ‘A brain! She sounds terrifying.’

‘She’s all right,’ Charlie said. ‘Takes after my mother. She’s a doctor too.’

‘I’m frightened of her as well then.’ Tim put on a pathetic face. ‘Can I come too? I don’t want to kick my heels here on my own.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Charlie said, ‘but don’t you want to go home?’

Tim shook his head. ‘My parents are divorced. My father’s in Ireland with his new wife and my mother’s in Scotland with her new husband. I don’t fancy either of them much.’

‘OK,’ Charlie said, ‘I’ll look up the trains.’

‘No need.’ Tim took a car key out of his pocket and dangled it in the air. ‘I managed to get some petrol. We’ll go in the Morgan. I’ve never
actually been to Cambridge, would you believe? My family all went to the Other Place.’

They set off on Saturday morning. The countryside seemed to be struggling to recover from the bitter winter, the trees still stark in the pale sunshine.

‘March already,’ Tim said, ‘and we haven’t had a crack at the bastards yet.’

‘Don’t say too much to my sister,’ Charlie said. ‘Don’t say anything about the accident. She doesn’t need to know about that.’ The aircraft flew into his mind – too fast, too low, too late. He was doing his best to forget it. He didn’t want his family to know. Tessa was acquainted with death, he thought. She had held someone’s dead heart in her hand. But she had not seen what he had seen. Death she had seen, but she had not seen dying.

‘All right,’ Tim said. ‘I wouldn’t have, anyway.’

Cambridge, Charlie thought, with a pang of affection, was unchanged, apart from the scattering of uniforms. He had heard that they were taking out the fine old stained-glass windows from King’s College chapel, for storage in a safe place – safe from bombs. Surely not. Not here? History stood in bricks and stone, lining the narrow streets. He felt his old feelings of the deep and serene contentment that seemed to reach down through the soles of his feet into the very earth – a feeling of belonging. There was only one other place that gave him this feeling. It came to him when he stood on the perimeter of an airfield in the bright early morning, or when the sun was going down, and watched the aircraft taking off, or coming into land. It was contentment. It was home.

‘It’s a lovely town,’ Tim said. ‘The colleges are in front of your face, not mixed up with everything like they are in Oxford. I hope the bloody Germans leave it alone.’

They booked rooms at the Blue Boar, and Charlie went to find Tessa and ask her to lunch.

He brought her back to the Blue Boar. Tim was waiting in the lounge and stood up as they came in. Charlie introduced them. Tim looked his normal inscrutable self, but he was surprised to see that Tessa had produced a very faint blush. Odd, he thought. He had never seen her do that before.

They went in to lunch. ‘Rather a restricted menu,’ Charlie said. ‘They can’t get much exotic food in restaurants now, even in London.’

‘Well, it’s fairer,’ Tessa said, ‘with the rationing and everything. Otherwise the well-off could just eat in restaurants all the time and wouldn’t feel the difference. Hardly democratic.’

‘She’s a socialist,’ Charlie said.

‘We all are now, aren’t we?’ Tim said. ‘All for one and one for all.’

Charlie watched them with amusement and surprise. For once Tim seemed to have been struck dumb – or as dumb as he ever got. He seemed to spend his time looking at Tessa, and hurriedly looking away when he caught her eye. And Tessa seemed completely out of character. She was almost flirting.

What’s going on here, he thought? It hadn’t occurred to him that Tim might be attracted to Tessa, though that wasn’t really surprising. She was fairly nice-looking. But he’d never seen Tessa show any interest before. She had always shrugged it off, so set on her career.

After lunch they walked Tessa back to her college – she said she had some work to do – but they arranged to take her to dinner.

Charlie showed Tim around the town, his own college and King’s chapel. Then they walked by the river along the Backs in the pale sunshine.

Tim was still unusually quiet. ‘Charlie?’ he said eventually, ‘has Tessa got anyone? I mean a boyfriend?’

‘Not that I know of,’ Charlie said. ‘Fancy yourself?’

Tim smiled. ‘I don’t know. She’s very nice. Would you mind?’

‘No,’ Charlie said, ‘as long as you’re decent with her. Not do anything to hurt her, I mean.’ He grinned. ‘Otherwise I’ll shoot you down.’

Tim laughed. ‘If I did that, I’d let you. Would you mind if I came back to see her on my own sometime?’

‘Not at all,’ Charlie said. ‘If she doesn’t want you to she’ll tell you. She’s very direct. She doesn’t mess about.’

‘God, it’s cold.’ Dan downed his tea and put on his overcoat. ‘I’ve been thinking, Amy, maybe we should put an Anderson shelter in the garden. Mr Hodge and I could dig the pit. They’re supposed to resist a
lot of blast. If the house was flattened we might be trapped in the basement. That wouldn’t be very nice.’