Landfall (17 page)

She realised something of all this that he was struggling to say, perhaps. In regard to classes, her knowledge was more up to date than his. She said gently:

“You don’t want to worry about Jerry. He’s all right.”

“Flying-officer, isn’t he? With a regular commission?”

“That’s right.”

“Does he make many of them ships?”

“I dunno, Dad. He’s making a caravel or something now.”

His mind drifted from the subject, as an old man’s mind is apt to do. He asked: “Did he ever put one in a bottle?”

“I dunno. I’ll ask him, if you like.”

He considered for a minute. “’Tain’t so difficult to make a ship the way he done it,” he said at last. “Not but what he made a good job of it. But putting it in a bottle—that’s what’s difficult.”

He drifted into reminiscences of ships and bottles, and the matter lapsed.

At the aerodrome that morning Wing-Commander Hewitt and Professor Legge explained in detail to the pilot what the trials were to be. “It’s quite all right,” the wing-commander said, “so long as we go at it carefully. But it’s a bit tricky, as you see.”

Flying-Officer Chambers said: “I see what has to be done, sir. But I’m afraid I don’t understand it in the least.” He turned to the professor. “I don’t see what makes the thing go off. Do you think you could explain it to me, in very simple language?”

They retired into a vacant office and sat down at a bare deal table. The professor took a pad of paper from his case. “First,” he said, “do you know how a thermionic valve works?”

“More or less.”

Legge sketched rapidly upon a sheet of paper. “Well, there’s a valve. That’s the grid.”

They worked on for two hours. At the end of that time Chambers was mentally exhausted, though he had firmly in his mind the principles of the device. He leaned back in his chair, studying the pencilled circuit diagrams.

“I see,” he said. “The milliammeter is what I’ve got to watch.”

The other nodded. “You must watch it all the time,” he said gravely. “The modulator should maintain the current at about twenty-five milliamps. If it goes higher you must throw this switch.” He laid his pencil on the paper. “That breaks the primary circuit.”

“If I don’t do that, I suppose the current will go on rising till the thing goes off.”

“Yes. You must watch it very carefully and throw your switch immediately.”

The pilot laughed. “Fun and games for everybody if I don’t,” he said.

The civilian was silent for a minute. He had lain wakeful in his bed for the last two nights in the grey dawn, tortured by a vision of what might happen if the current in the circuit were allowed to rise. And this young man now called it fun and games for everybody!

He said: “I’ve been thinking a good deal about this current rise. I had arranged with Wing-Commander Hewitt to put the switch on the instrument panel just by your hand.”

Chambers said: “That’s what the new thing on the panel is, I suppose?”

“Yes. But now I think it would be better if we send up somebody with you to watch the milliammeter and throw the switch immediately it starts to rise. In fact, I think I’ll come myself.”

The boy looked up at the professor. “I don’t see that’s necessary. It’s only just to throw the switch if it goes over twenty-five, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But you’ll have the machine to fly. This thing will want watching very carefully.”

“I’ll put the machine on to the auto pilot. I shan’t have anything to do except to watch.” He paused, and then he said: “How quickly will it go up, if it’s going?”

The professor turned to the litter of papers in his bag, picked out a sheet, and made a little calculation. “For the battleship, I should expect it to go up at the rate of ten milliamps in three seconds.”

“And it goes off at forty milliamps?”

Legge nodded.

“Well, that’s four and a half seconds. Time enough to get your hair cut.”

“Nevertheless, I think another man in the machine would be a help.”

The pilot faced him, colouring a little. He was twenty-three years old, but he had not yet quite got over blushing.

“I’m damn sure he’d be a bloody nuisance.”

There was a momentary silence. The professor said: “Well, it’s as you like.”

“There’s two things that I’d like,” said Chambers. “One’s an armoured seat in case that bloody bomb goes off under my backside. The other is a beer before lunch. Let’s go over to the mess.”

Over the beer he spoke about the armoured seat to Wing-Commander Hewitt. “I’ve got very simple tastes, sir,” he said. “Just a can of beer and a young woman to take to the pictures. My carpet slippers and my old arm-chair. But I would like the old arm-chair to be a steel forging, if we could arrange it.”

The wing-commander nodded. “Bring it right down behind the legs and up behind the head.”

“Something like that, sir.”

“About three-eighths steel plate.” The wing-commander considered for a moment. “I’ll send Martin over to the Dockyard and get them going on it right away.”

For the next two days they worked on the machine. The seat was delivered from the Dockyard in thirty-six hours: the pilot watched the men as they installed it. It was a quiet, reflective time. He spent a few hours more with the professor from Cambridge, and gained a clear impression of the unseen influences around the ship that would release the weapon if all should go well. He was interested and cheerful, looking forward to the trials.

He said once to Hewitt: “What’s the programme, sir, if this thing works all right?”

“We’re fitting up three squadrons with it. The manufacture is in progress now.”

“So all we’ve got to do now is to find out the adjustments and then we’re all ready to go?”

“That’s it. There’ll be a bit of training to be done, of course.”

The pilot was entirely satisfied. “Give Hitler a bit of a sick headache when we start on him with this,” he said, with satisfaction. “Have we got to wait till Tuesday before making a start?”

“The battleship won’t be ready till Tuesday.”

“We could start on a cruiser.”

“The battleship is the least sensitive to start on.”

The boy said: “I don’t mind starting on a cruiser, if it means we could get ahead this week.”

The wing-commander said: “I think we’ll stick to the programme.”

“All right, sir. In that case, can I take Sunday off?”

“I should think so. Get some exercise.”

“I’ll walk her till she drops.” The wing-commander laughed.

That was on Friday. He went to the snack-bar that night, picked up Mona, and took her dancing. She said:

“We’ve got to be back earlier tonight, Jerry. My dad was cross as anything when we got home at two o’clock.”

“Did he beat you?”

“Don’t talk so soft. Of course he didn’t.”

“I believe he did. You’d better show me the marks.”

“He’d beat me all right if I showed you where the marks would be, if there was any.”

He let the vicious circle drop. “I’d just as soon get home to bed in decent time myself for the next few days. About Sunday.”

“What about it?”

“Can you walk?”

“If I’ve got to.”

“You’ve got to walk on Sunday. I’ve not got enough petrol to go riding round all day.”

She laughed at him. “Who said we were going out all day on Sunday, anyway?”

“I did. I’m getting sandwiches from the mess.”

“Where are we going to?”

He considered for a minute. “I think we’ll take the car to South Harting and leave it there, and then walk up on to the Downs.”

“It’ll rain.”

“If it does you’ll get wet. That won’t hurt you.”

They went and danced again. He took her home when the place closed at midnight, kissed her soundly in the car, and drove back to Titchfield. In his bedroom he turned on the wireless and listened for a time to a station that was dedicated to Enlightenment and studied the handbook of instructions for the manufacture of the caravel. Then he got into bed and slept at once.

Sunday was fine, a windy sunny day of late February. The little car drew up outside the furniture shop at half-past ten, the hood down for the first time in several months. Mona was waiting ready in her room. She shot downstairs and out of the door into the car before there could be any questions from her father; Chambers let in the clutch and drove away with her.

In the shop her father and mother stood in the background among the furniture, looking out of the window, seeing, though themselves unseen. They saw their daughter get into the car, saw the boy greet her, watched the car move off.

Her mother said: “That’s the one what gave her the ship …”

The old warrant officer said: “He’s a proper young officer, that one. Not like some you see about.”

She said: “I’ve never known Mona go so regular with anyone, Stevie. I think she’s ever so serious about him.”

He said, a little gloomily: “It’s no use crossing her.”

“But I think he looks nice.”

“Oh, aye,” he said. “But he’s an officer. She’d never learn his ways.”

“I dunno, Stevie. Mona’s very quick.” She turned to him. “You wouldn’t mind if she come back one day
and said they wanted to be married?” She was an incorrigible optimist.

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “Not if that’s what they wanted. In the old days, if an officer married a barmaid he sent in his papers. That’s what they used to do.”

She said: “Things is different now, what with the war and everything.”

He admitted that. “But if she wanted to do that, we’d see no more of her, Ma,” he said. “Officers is officers, and the lower deck’s the lower deck.”

She was silent. The same thought had been lurking in the back of her mind.

“Give them a fair crack of the whip,” he said a little heavily. “Our ways ain’t officers’ ways, and never will be.”

The little car made its way out of the town into the country beyond. Mona asked: “Where are we going to?”

He said: “South Harting. My doctor says I’ve got to get some exercise.”

“You and your doctor! What are we going to do when we get there?”

“Leave the car at the pub and walk to Cocking over the downs.”

“How far is that?”

“About seven miles. And,” he said firmly, “seven miles back.”

She stared at him. “I can’t walk that far.”

“Let’s see your shoes.”

She drew one up for him to see beneath the instrument panel of the cramped little car: he peered down at it, and swerved violently to avoid a lorry. They were broad-toed walking shoes. “I got them for the holiday camp last year,” she said.

“They’re all right. You’ll walk fifteen miles and like it.”

“I’ve never walked so far before.”

“You walk that far every night round the floor of the Pavilion.”

“Don’t be so silly. That’s dancing.”

“I’ll borrow a mouth-organ from the pub and you can dance to Cocking, then. But that’s where you’re going.”

They came to South Harting presently, a village close beneath the down, a place of thatched cottages in one long street, a village pub with the spacious rooms of an old coaching-house, and a church that stood among elm-trees. Chambers parked the little car beside the stocks outside the church. “This,” he said, “is where we start to walk.”

He was wearing uniform, as he had to. He had put on his oldest tunic and slacks, spotted with indelible oil-stains from the aeroplanes he flew, and faded with much cleaning. He slipped his forage-cap into his hip pocket, and he was ready to walk. The girl wore a blue jumper and an old tweed skirt.

She stared at the hill above them. “You’re not going to walk up that?”

“My doctor says I’ve got to. It’s part of the treatment.”

“I think you ought to change your doctor.”

They set off up the hill.

Three hours later they dropped down a muddy lane into Cocking, another hamlet underneath the down. They had seen a herd of deer, four squirrels, and a woodpecker, and had attempted—unsuccessfully—to have a ride upon a sheep. With the muddy winding of the track over the downs and through the woods, they had walked a good deal farther than the seven miles that he had guessed: they dropped down into Cocking tired and foot-sore and hungry and thirsty and happy.

Mona asked: “Where do we go now, Jerry?”

He said: “To the pub, of course.”

They found the village inn, a modest one devoted to
the local farm labour. In the private bar they ordered beer and shandy at a table covered with linoleum, and unpacked their sandwiches, egg and sardines and ham. He had taken pains over the provision of the sandwiches, had explained to the grey-haired sergeant of the W.A.A.F. in the mess that his young lady was rather particular. She had said, in motherly fashion: “All right, Mr. Chambers, I’ll see to it that she gets what she likes.” It was by a narrow margin that she had not called him “dearie”.

The sandwiches did not satisfy them: they topped up with a plate of bread and cheese from the bar and a few chocolate biscuits.

Presently they began to walk again, more slowly this time, towards South Harting by the lanes that ran beneath the downs. They got back there by tea-time, having tarried a little while to try a pig with chocolate biscuits.

At the “Ship” in South Harting they demanded tea, and were shown into a large upstairs sitting-room that overlooked the village street. A bright fire made it cheerful. They washed in an adjoining bathroom; presently they sat down to their boiled eggs and tea and cake, refreshed and pleasantly tired.

Chambers said: “I’m not going to change my doctor, not for you or anybody else. It’s been a good day, this.”

The girl nodded, her mouth full. “I’ve liked it ever so,” she said presently. “Are your feet tired?”

“Not too bad. Are yours?”

She nodded. “I got heavy shoes on.”

“Take them off for a bit.”

She bent down and unlaced them, kicked them off and stretched her toes. “That’s better.”

He said: “You ought to do this oftener. I’ll speak to my doctor about your feet. He’ll probably say you’ve got to have a walk like this every week.”

“What about my church?”

“There’s no church like the open vault of heaven. Ruskin or Thoreau or Walt Whitman or somebody might have said that.”