Pastoral (32 page)

In the machine, peering through the starred windscreen into the starlit blackness of the night, Marshall sat singing softly to himself. He had tied a piece of cod line round the right-hand side of the half-wheel and taken it down to his thigh, so that the weight of his leg helped to ease the strain
upon his wrists. Beside him and below, the hatch was open from which his crew had jumped; he could not reach to close it and a great blast of cold air came sweeping in around him and out through the window at his side. He did not mind. This rush of cold air was the very substance of the night, the quiet, deep blue serenity sifted with a thousand stars.

He was happy, sitting there in the machine. He had found the Kingslake lake, or thought he had; once or twice in the deep blackness of the woods he had seen starlight reflected upon water. Rough bearings from the beacon at Nottingdene and the beacon at Gonsall indicated he was somewhere near his fishing. It made the serenity complete for him to be there.

Presently, very soon, he would return to Hartley Magna to put down. Either you got away with these things or you didn’t; it didn’t seem to mean much either way. He had been very near to death in Germany only three hours before; he now had a sporting chance of life at Hartley, and he only felt relief. Whatever happened, he would be on his own runway, tended by his friends, with everybody working to help him. And Gervase would be there.

He sat there staring forward at the stars, and singing quietly to himself.

In the control office Gervase sat down at her little table, and tried to work upon her signal log. There was nothing to do now for the next few minutes, and she must not fuss about, because that put people off. She sat there staring at her own handwriting, listening to the low repetition of the song from the loud-speaker. Whatever anybody else might be feeling, she knew that Flight Lieutenant Marshall was happy, and she was glad for him, and comforted herself. And, sitting there, she knew that she was always glad when he was happy, and she was always miserable when he was worried; it was like that between them, and would be, whatever they might do or say. He had been right, she felt, and she had been quite wrong; there was something wonderful for them if they gave themselves a chance. Within the next few minutes, Peter might be killed in putting down at that colossal speed upon the runway. If he was not killed, she would find herself married to him very soon. It wasn’t fair to keep him hanging round now that she had made her mind up, nor did she want to hang around herself.

On the loud-speaker the song broke off, and the background noise diminished. “Robert calling Zebra, Robert calling Zebra. I am approaching from the west and dropping off some height, approaching from the west and losing height. If you are ready for me, please, put on all lights. Robert calling Zebra.”

Dobbie nodded to the control officer, who spoke into his telephone. Outside the Chance lights blazed out from the lee boundaries of the aerodrome, so that everything was as bright as day. The control officer told Gervase to get the speaker to full volume, and went out on to the balcony with Dobbie, propping the light trap doors open behind them. Gervase went to the balcony door and stood in the doorway looking out, ready to get back to her signallers immediately.

“Okay Zebra, Robert calling Zebra, thank you for lights. I am now south of you, now south of you, and turning to come in, turning to come in.”

On the balcony they stood tense. On the grass beside the office Gervase saw a little group of men in flying kit; she recognised Pat Johnson, and Davy, and Lines, and Sergeant Pilot Nutter, amongst others. There was nothing they could do to help, but they could not stay away. They were standing motionless, straining their eyes into the sky beyond the blinding lights.

From the lit office behind Gervase the loud-speaker said: “Robert calling Zebra. I am now coming in to land, coming in to land, bringing her in at about a hundred and eighty. Here we go. Robert calling Zebra. Here we go.”

Staring straight into the searchlights, Gervase could not see a thing beyond the middle of the aerodrome. She could see the two crash wagons at the intersection of the runways, one on each side of the main runway, facing each other, ready to spring to the crash the instant the machine came to rest. Each truck was crowded with men hanging on to it, and some of these were ghostly in white-cowled asbestos overalls. A hundred yards behind the near crash wagon was the ambulance, its medical crew by it, staring at the sky.

Suddenly everybody exclaimed, and everybody saw the aircraft. It was about thirty feet up over the runway’s end. Its under-carriage was retracted and no flaps were down; its tail was high, both engines going hard, and it was moving very fast. Gervase had time to note that one wing seemed little better than a stub beyond the engine, and time to see a spurt
of white fumes from each engine. For an instant she thought miserably that it was on fire. Beside her she heard Dobbie say quietly: “Good man. He’s remembered his Graviners,” and realised that the pilot had set off fire extinguishers.

Then, quite deliberately, the aircraft flew on to the ground. A great shower of sparks flew up behind it from the runway. It held its course for three or four seconds, its tail high above the wing, unnatural and terrifying. Then it fell over sideways, still travelling at an enormous speed. The stub of the port wing touched ground and the tail dropped low; the undamaged starboard wing rose up vertically till the whole plan of the aircraft was presented to them, the body high above the ground. The port tail plane spun free up in the air behind, and the whole aircraft pirouetted round upon the broken wing, still travelling at an immense speed down the runway. It hung vertically on edge for an instant, the undamaged wing pointing to the sky. Then it fell back with a great crash on to the runway, right side up, and slid tail-first to rest two hundred yards beyond the crash wagons.

The control officer turned to the Wing Commander. “Right side up,” he cried. “He should have got away with it.”

Dobbie nodded. “I was afraid it was going on its back.”

They stood for a moment, watching the crash wagons spurt up to the wreck, watching the men leap off and get to work. A cloud of smoke and dust masked what was going on, but there was no fire. Dobbie turned away. “I’m going out there in my Jeep,” he said. “Get the lights out as soon as the ambulance is away.”

In the control office he passed the Section Officer. “You can go off duty now,” he said. “There’ll be no more in your line to-night.” He hesitated. “You’ll get the news you want up at the hospital,” he said. “I should get up there.”

Gervase wanted to say: “Thank you, sir,” but the words would not come. She just looked at him dumbly and nodded, and he glanced at her, and went on out to his Jeep, and jumped into it, and drove it straight out over the rough grass towards the wreck.

Gervase put on her coat and cap, told the W.A.A.F. sergeant to carry on, and went out of the office. At the road intersection with the runway she ran into a group of pilots still in flying-suits; their eyes, used to the darkness, could recognise her, though she could not distinguish them. Pat Johnson said: “We’re just hanging round till someone comes up to
tell us what happened.”

She moved towards him; he was someone friendly, that she knew well. “Winco told me to go up to the hospital. He said I’d find out there.”

“Not a bad idea.”

They turned, and walked together in the starlit night; as they went the ambulance spun past them smoothly and quietly; they could not see who was in it. It took them ten minutes to reach the hospital; as they got there, the ambulance was moving off again. At the door they found an orderly and asked him about it.

“Rear-gunner,” he said. “Taking him straight into hospital at Oxford. The M.O. said not to take him off the stretcher here or anything—just take him right along to Oxford.”

Johnson asked: “Did the pilot come up with the ambulance?”

“Aye, he’s inside with the M.O. Got his face cut about a bit, but that’s all.”

It was odd, Gervase thought, that whenever good news came she wanted to be sick.

“Born to be hanged,” said Mr. Johnson cheerfully. “You can’t dodge Fate.”

They stood in the corridor outside the surgery for a time, waiting for something to happen. Presently the door opened and the medical officer came out. “Hullo,” he said, “Are you waiting for Marshall?”

“Just like to know what sort of a state he’s in,” said Johnson.

“He’s all right. He wants to sleep in his own bed. If you like, you can take him over and put him to bed. I’ll be along in about a quarter of an hour with some tablets for him. My truck’s outside; you can take him in that.”

They went into the surgery, and Gervase saw Marshall sitting in a chair grinning at her; he had white strapping and lint over the right side of his forehead and his eyebrow. She said shyly: “Hullo, Peter. How are you feeling?”

He said: “I’m fine, only I can’t use my hands.” His hands were lying on his knees, palm upwards; as they looked, the finger-tips twitched very slightly. “Look, I’m trying to bend them. Isn’t that bloody funny?”

“That all you can do?” asked Mr. Johnson, interested.

“That’s all.”

“It’s going to make a lot of difference to the beer situation in the mess,” said Mr. Johnson thoughtfully. “The medical
officer says we’ve got to take you and put you to bed.”

Marshall looked up at Gervase. “That doesn’t sound quite nice,” he said smiling.

“It’s not,” she said. “We’ll kick Pat out as soon as he’s helped you upstairs.”

Their eyes met and they laughed.

Gervase slept late next day. She had not got to bed till about half-past five, when it was full grey dawn. She had been hungry, not unnaturally, and had visited the kitchen of the mess at about five o’clock with Pat Johnson; they had discovered some lukewarm cocoa and three dozen plates of bread and butter cut ready for breakfast, and they had eaten themselves full. She slept till noon, and only got up then because she was hungry again and if she got up she would be in time to have some lunch.

She got into the ante-room just before the medical officer, a Flight Lieutenant called Proctor. Davy asked the question before she could. “How’s our nightingale?”

“Asleep. He won’t wake up just yet. Don’t any of you go and wake him; I want him to have a good long sleep.”

Pat Johnson said: “What’s wrong with his hands?”

“Nothing functional. Last night it was just nervous reaction. He’ll probably be all right when he wakes up.”

Lines said: “That’s what you told us about Tommy Broadhead. It took him four months.”

“That’s right,” the surgeon said easily. “I have to shoot a line to keep up your morale.”

There were matters that were tacitly avoided in the mess, and nervous trouble was one of them. Gervase changed the subject by asking: “How is Sergeant Phillips?”

“I rang up this morning, but it’s too early to say much. They think they’ll save his legs.”

“Marshall will want to know about that as soon as he wakes,” said Gervase.

“Yes—of course. I’ll ring up again about tea time.”

They went in to lunch. Gervase sat long in the ante-room afterwards, drowsily looking at the
Illustrated London News
.
She roused at about half-past three and went out, thinking to walk round the aerodrome. But in the hall she met the medical officer coming down from the bedrooms, and she stopped to speak to him.

“Is Flight Lieutenant Marshall awake yet?”

He shook his head. “He’s sleeping more lightly.” He looked at her thoughtfully, thinking of the fish that this Section Officer had brought home with his patient only a few days before. “You’re a great friend of his, aren’t you?”

There was nobody else within hearing; it was the middle of the afternoon and the mess was deserted. She said: “Yes.”

“Are you going to marry him, or anything like that?”

“He asked me to some time ago,” she said. She knew this to be a purely medical enquiry. “I think we’ll be announcing it pretty soon.”

He nodded. “I thought so. Would you like to take him up a cup of tea in an hour’s time, and wake him up?”

“All right.”

“I think that might be a good thing.” He hesitated, and then said: “If he has any difficulty with his hands, do what you can to make him use them. But don’t let him get worried or panicky about it if they aren’t quite right at first. He may have to have some leave.”

She met his eyes. “He couldn’t use them at all last night. We had to do everything for him.”

“I know. See if you can get him to use them. I always think it’s a great pity to have to start electrical treatment, or massage, excepting in the last resort. I’ve known that start a hospital psychosis before now. Just see if you can make him use them naturally.”

“All right. Ought he to get up?”