In the Wet (30 page)

“Do you think I might tell that to Harry Ferguson—verbally? There’s something about giving twice if you give quickly.”

She smiled. “It’s in all the Latin textbooks.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t tell him if you’re seeing him again, but he’s probably got a good idea of it already.”

“He speaks to Canberra almost every day,” the pilot said. “He could probably fix up a little thing like that up on the telephone.”

They finished their meal and sat smoking over their coffee. “My father came up yesterday,” she said presently. “He spent the night in the flat with me, on a camp bed in the sitting room. He doesn’t very often come to London, but I can’t get down to Oxford this week end—I’m on duty. He wanted to hear all about our trip.”

“Has he gone back now?” David asked.

She nodded. “He went back this morning.”

“I’d like to meet him some time.”

“I want you to,” she said. “I wanted him to stay tonight and come and dine with us here, but he had to get back—he’s got tutorials or something.” She paused. “He talked for a long time last night before we went to bed. He’d got some very interesting things to say.”

“What about?”

“Just everything,” she replied vaguely. “About this miserable crisis. About England. He thinks the people of this country are getting better and better.”

The pilot wrinkled his brows in perplexity. “Better?”

She nodded. “He said that all the duds were going, and they’d been going for a long time now.” She stirred her coffee thoughtfully. “Of course, Daddy’s sixty-three and he can remember quite a long time back. He fought in the second war, in the Royal Armoured Corps. He was talking a lot last night about the things he saw when he was a young man. About the sort of people who got out of France and Holland when they were invaded, and the sort who stayed behind.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “He said that when a country was invaded by the enemy, the first to go were the very intelligent and patriotic and adventurous people, who left because they were resolved to go on fighting with the Allies, fighting from a better ground. But after that, he said, the refugees consisted of the timid people, and the selfish people, and the people who put moneymaking first; people who would never fight for their own country or for anything else. Daddy hasn’t got a lot of use for refugees. He said that after those had gone, France was a better place. The people who stayed on under the Germans were good, steady people mostly, people who weren’t going to be kicked out of their country by any invader, people with guts and commonsense.” She paused. “He said that that’s what’s been happening in England for the last twenty years. All the timid people and the selfish people have been getting out.”

The pilot glanced at her, interested. “That’s quite a new one to me. Did he mean that the average of the British people was sort of worse twenty years ago than it is now?”

“That’s what he said,” she replied. “He said he notices it in the young men coming up to college. They’re better types now than they were thirty years ago, when he went back to Oxford after the second war. They’ve got more character. They think for themselves more—they don’t take anything for granted, like they used to. That’s what he said.”

“I wonder if that’s true?” the pilot remarked.

“I think it’s probably right,” the girl said slowly. “Daddy’s no fool, and he rubs shoulders with a lot of first class people up at Oxford. And it fits in, too. Adversity makes people better sometimes, makes them cleverer and tougher. It might happen with a country, just the same.”

“Do you think that’s got anything to do with all this fuss about the multiple vote?” he asked.

“I think it has,” she said. “I think Iorwerth Jones is running into difficulties he didn’t quite expect.”

F
OR the next few days David saw little of Rosemary. He went with his crew to Hatfield and fetched Tare back to White Waltham, and with Frank Cox began the business of obtaining British civil instrument landing certificates to enable them to use London Airport in emergency. They went together to the Air Ministry and were received by a bland civil servant of medium grade, who suggested that the requirements of the regulations would be met if the Australians and the Canadians abandoned their Service ranks during their employment in the Queen’s Flight and requalified as civilian pilots for all grades of licence, a proceeding which would have taken all their time for about six weeks. Dewar and David said that this seemed rather unnecessary, and the official said that he was sorry, but that he was bound by the rules of his department. David and Dewar went away and put the matter in the hands of their High Commissioners.

A few days later, quite abruptly, they were summoned to the Ministry again. This time they were received by a much higher official, the Second Secretary. He greeted them very genially, and said that he was glad that the matter of their licences had been adjusted. Upon his desk he had a set of civil licences already made out for all the members of the
Australian and Canadian crews; first class master pilot’s licences for Wing Commander Dewar and Wing Commander Anderson, and a sheaf of civil pilot’s, radio operator’s, and engineer’s licences for all the other crew members. The officers gathered up this mass of paper, somewhat dazed, and retired with it to the Royal Aero club.

“Bit of a change of tone,” said David. “What’s done that?”

“God knows,” said Dewar. “I asked Frank, but he went all cagey. I think they’ve got the wind up over something.” There was a pause, and then the Canadian said, “Did he tell you I’m for Ottawa again?”

“No. When are you going?”

“Tomorrow night. I’m taking Charles over—with all his family.”

David stared at him. “How long is he going for?”

“You can search me. I’m taking off at eight o’clock tomorrow night, with the Prince and Princess, three children, valet, maid, secretary and three quarters of a ton of luggage. After that I’m waiting there for orders.”

“Nothing about that: in the papers, is there?”

“Not yet. Keep it under your hat.”

“Of course.”

That was on December the 10th. David turned up next evening with Ryder to see Sugar leave and to assist if necessary. There was no hitch; the Prince of Wales arrived with his family and suite in three cars and got out on the dark, windy tarmac by the aeroplane, and got into it quickly. The door was shut, the inboard engines started, and Sugar moved towards the runway. Frank Cox and David stood watching the tail light as it dwindled in the sky upon the way to Canada, and then turned to the warmth and brightness of the office.

In the office Frank Cox turned to him, and said, “Your turn next, Nigger.”

David asked, “Is anything laid on?”

“More or less. The Havants are going to Kenya, to Nyeri.”

“When?”

“Friday or Saturday. No date has been fixed yet. Probably Saturday, I should think.”

David nodded. “We’ll be ready. Are we staying out there, or coming straight back here?”

“Coming straight back,” the Group Captain said. “There may be another job quite soon after that.”

The pilot laughed. “One’s enough to worry about at a time. This Nyeri trip. There’s a strip at a place called Nanyuki that they use, isn’t there?”

“That’s right.” They turned to the files, and Cox pulled out the chart and details for Nanyuki. “Have you been there?”

David shook his head. “No.” He studied the runway details, the altitude, and the surrounding terrain. “We’ll be all right to put down there in daylight,” he said. “We’ll be flying light by the time we get there—seven or eight hours. I wouldn’t try it for the first time in bad weather, or at night. Nairobi’s the alternative, I suppose.”

They spent a quarter of an hour studying the route. “Well, that’s all right,” the pilot said at last. “Take off at seven in the morning. If that’s too early for them, then it’s a night landing at Nairobi. In that case they’d better stay the night there, and go on next day by car.”

Frank Cox jotted down the figures on the back of an envelope. “They could leave here late at night, and make a night flight,” he said. “Take off at eleven and arrive at nine in the morning. That might be better for them—let the children sleep all night.”

“All the family going?”

The Group Captain nodded.

The pilot eyed him, smiling a little. “First the Prince and all his family, and then Princess Anne and all hers. Looks like a general evacuation.”

“It may do,” said Frank Cox. “But that’s nothing to do with us.”

“No. Well, that’s the dope, sir. We can do it day or night, whichever they prefer. I’d like a day’s notice, because of the food.”

“I’ll let you know in good time,” said the Group Captain.

“The boys were asking about Christmas leave,” said David. “They’ve most of them got relations in this country.”

Cox shook his head. “There’ll be no Christmas leave for your crew, Nigger,” he said. “At least, I don’t think so. I think you may be off upon another job.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not important,” said the pilot. “They’d rather be working than just sitting around. Where’s that one to?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t think they’ve made up their minds.”

It was announced next morning in the Press that the Prince and Princess of Wales had left with their family to spend the Christmas holidays at the Royal Residence at Gatineau, where little George and Alice would have their first ski-ing lesson.
The Times
, in an editorial, commented upon the happy effect on Commonwealth relations of these domestic movements of the Royal Family from country to country. No mention, however, was made of the forthcoming visit of the Princess Royal and the Duke of Havant to Kenya.

That day, Thursday, David rang up Rosemary at the
Palace and suggested they should dine together. “I’ll be going away soon,” he said. “What about tonight?”

She said, “It’s just a question of getting off, Nigger … Things have been busy recently. I didn’t get back to the flat till after ten o’clock last night.”

“My word,” he said. “You must be very tired.”

“I’m all right.” There was a pause. “I don’t like to say we’d dine at Mario’s—the place in Shepherd’s Market—in case I can’t get there.”

“What’ld you do by yourself?” he asked.

“Oh—I’d just cook up something in the flat and go to bed.”

“I can cook,” he said. “I do want to see you, because of what’s going on. Would you think it out of order if I came up with some tins of things and waited for you in the flat, and cooked you something there? I won’t stay very long.”

“Oh David!” she said. “That’s a good idea. I wouldn’t have to worry about being late then. Can you really cook?”

“Too right I can,” he said. “How will I get into the flat?”

She told him about the caretaker in the basement who had a key. “I’ll ring her up and tell her it’s all right to let you in,” she said. “I’ll try and be back by seven, but I don’t know if I’ll make it. Don’t go reading all my love letters.”

“Of course I shall,” he said. “It’s not often a bloke gets a chance like this.”

He drove up to London in the late afternoon with a small suitcase full of tins that he had brought back from Australia in the Ceres, paid a supplementary visit to Fortnum and Mason’s, and went to the flat. The caretaker let him in and he put down the suitcase on the table, and looked around with pleasure, carefully studying her pictures and her books. A quarter of an hour later he woke up and took his jacket off, and began to investigate the resources of the little
kitchenette. He unpacked his case and planned the meal, and then he found the cutlery and cloth and laid the table. He deviated from the path of rectitude then to peep rather shyly into her bedroom, but he did not go beyond the door and closed it again, feeling guilty.

When she came hurrying back to the flat she found the table laid and the fire lit, and a glass of sherry ready poured out for her with a plate of caviar on biscuits beside it. She was cold and weary as she came in from the street, and there were these good things, and a delicious smell from the kitchenette, and Nigger Anderson, big and dark and cheerful and comforting. “Oh Nigger,” she said, “how simply wonderful! What’s that you’ve got cooking?”

“Casserole of pheasant,” he said. “Are you very tired?”

“Not now,” she said. “I never smelt anything so good.”

“It’s the wine,” he said. “Australian wine. I always put a good dollop of wine into a casserole. It covers up a lot of the deficiencies.”

“And caviar!” She went into the bedroom and threw off her coat; in a few minutes she came back to him, her eyes shining. “You can’t think what it means to come back to a warm room, and a meal all ready made!”

He handed her her sherry and took his own tomato juice. Together they nibbled the caviar biscuits. “Very busy today?” he asked. He studied her as she sat opposite him; there were fine lines of fatigue around her eyes and her mouth.

“A bit,” she said. “Let’s not talk about it just yet, Nigger. Not till I’m warmed up.”

He nodded. “It’s different to the Canberra Hotel,” he said. “It was just comfortably warm then, to my way of thinking.”

She nodded. “It was lovely there. It’s so difficult to realise that it was only ten days ago, and that it’s all there
still, the same flowers even, on the same stalks in the garden.” She stared at the glowing radiants of the fire. “I love England,” she said thoughtfully. “But I’m beginning to realise that there are other places one could get to love as well.”

“England in spring is just a fairyland,” he said. “I’ll give you that. But anyone can have it at this time of year, so far as I’m concerned.”

She laughed, and sipped her sherry. “Where did you get the sherry from, Nigger?” she asked. “It’s not mine, is it?”

He shook his head. “It’s a South Australian wine—quite a cheap one. Do you like it?”

“I think it’s very good. I suppose you brought a lot of stuff back in the aeroplane, hidden away somewhere?”

He laughed. “I should think we had half a ton of food on board, between the lot of us. Food and drink. I told each member of the crew that he could bring a hundred pounds—weight, that is.”