Glory Boys (20 page)

‘Of course. You too. Lord, I should say we had plenty of reason to tread carefully.’

‘And you won’t … you won’t …?’ She trailed off.

‘Won’t what?’

‘Look, this probably sounds mean, but I can’t quite stop remembering that you work for Powell Lambert. I don’t know if the whole organisation is rotten or just part of it. But, whatever happens, whatever we find – you won’t join its rottenness, will you? You’d never do that?’

Willard jutted his chin and looked hurt. ‘Gosh, Ros, I hope you don’t really need to ask. I mean, there’s your Arthur Martin to think of, not to mention my Charlie Hughes. I mean, he was a silly little man really, but you can’t just go sticking people in prison because they don’t understand how a fellow ought to behave. I mean, there are things one has to stand and fight for.’

‘Oh, Willard! I do so love a man who can’t act!’

Her statement burst out before she’d realised what she’d said. But Willard was immediately affronted. He jerked backwards, chin and nose up, his voice high and sniffy.

‘What? You know, I wasn’t at all bad, actually. Rather good, in fact. Put me in front of a camera, with costume and lights and everything…’

Rosalind, contrite and apologetic, came and knelt in front of him, putting her long bare arms around his neck. ‘I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean anything. I bet you acted a dream. I think the studio was crazy to let you go.’

She didn’t let go. Her arms continued to hold his neck. He remembered that when he’d touched her cheek, she had held his hand there instead of letting it go. He moved forwards to kiss her, but a slight movement of her head deflected him from her lips to her cheek. She had lovely skin. Soft. That lovely peachy-gold colour that comes naturally to only a few. Her tiny blonde hairs formed a portable soft-focus effect. But she had deflected him. That was the point.

She leaned back and they smiled like nothing had happened. And there it was again. That doubt. That uncertainty. Was he a friend, almost close enough to pet her? Or was he just a colleague? The sort of man you could patronise, as long as you made up with a kiss?

Willard didn’t know, but he didn’t stay thinking about it for long. His eyes fell on the stack of documents. He already knew what to do next. A thrill of excitement and fear wormed in his belly.

42

Abe’s ordeal continued for another forty-nine hours. He was kept short of sleep, food and water. He was knocked around, yelled at, interrogated, threatened.

And he was utterly unused to it. People sometimes thought that, because he was the great war hero, he must be a tough guy. But toughness, physical toughness, played little part in flying. Among army pursuit pilots, the death rate had been horrific: greater even than the death rate on the ground. But though the danger had been extreme, life itself had been cushy. The accommodation had been firstrate, the meals excellent, sleep plentiful, duties unburdensome, leave easily obtained. Although Abe was no lover of luxury, he appreciated comfort. He had never had any reason to become accustomed to pain. For those forty-nine hours and the eight hours that had preceded them, that changed. When he was kicked, he felt it. When he was hit, it hurt.

But through it all, he said nothing. And then, at ten-forty on Monday morning, everything changed.

A cop came into Abe’s cell. ‘OK, buster, you made bail. Jesus, you look a wreck.’

That was an understatement. Abe’s lips were cut, bruised and swollen. One of his eyes had mushroomed black and purple. There was dried blood in his hair. His legs, arms, neck and body were fused into one solid ache. He was swaying with tiredness and his mouth had turned to gum. He was so far gone, he wouldn’t have made it upstairs, if it hadn’t been for the cop helping.

In the lobby of the police station, a man in a dark suit and red shirt jiggled impatiently. Abe recognised him as one of the goons who had accompanied Mason the night of their first visit to the hangar. The man saw Abe and whistled.

‘Jeez! They sure messed you up. Here, I got your things. It’s OK to go. I got a car.’

The goon carried Abe back to the airfield and dropped him there.

‘You want anything? You’re looking pretty rough, you know.’

‘I’m OK. Thanks.’

‘Don’t thank me, thank the boss.’ The goon climbed back into his car. ‘You sure you’re OK?’

Abe nodded. The goon left. Abe entered the hangar.

Poll stood, her wings looming huge in the semi-darkness. The familiar smells of oil and airplane dope, dust and sunshine closed over Abe like a warm bath.

‘Hey, old girl,’ he murmured, running his hands down her fuselage.

Poll said nothing, but her solid presence was reassurance in itself. While he’d been downtown having his kidneys rearranged, he’d been worried about her. He needn’t have done. She was fine. The cops had thrown Abe’s tools around a bit, messed up his workbenches, but a couple of hours should get the place tidy. The only real damage was the hole kicked in Poll’s tail end, plus a few of Abe’s precious castings had broken in their journey from wooden shelf to concrete floor.

Outside the hangar, Abe checked out his little construction site. That was fine too. Abe had his walls up to four feet now. Wooden frames marked out the future position of doors and windows. The cops could have smashed things if they’d wanted, but they hadn’t. The hangar was OK. Poll was OK. The little cement rectangle which might one day become a home, that was OK too.

But he didn’t feel OK. He felt awful.

He sat down on his camp bed, feeling far older than his age. He was beaten-up, on his own, lonely. He thought of all kinds of things he shouldn’t have thought of. He thought of the little red-headed kid, Brad Lundmark. He thought of Gibson Hennessey, the old fox of Independence. He thought about his mother and father, growing old together on their Kentucky farm. And he thought about Pen, the woman flier he hadn’t had the balls to say ‘hi’ to.

The thoughts gathered into a solid, darkening gloom. Mostly, when he felt low, he got up and did something. He’d tinker with Poll, or sharpen tools, or get out some of his books on airplane engineering, all of them heavy with math that made his head ache. But he wasn’t up to any of that now. His body stiffened as he sat, until even small movements caused him pain.

He forced himself up, tried to stretch a little, this way and that, but each movement caused a wound to open or a bruise to shriek. Gingerly, he made his way over to the workshop sink. He drank a quart of water, then tried to wash. The water pipe must have been contaminated by seawater, because the tap ran salty and sharp. The cuts on his face, scalp and body hissed angrily as he tried to clean up. He washed anyway, scrubbing at himself with a cold, masochistic fury. He normally liked to dry off after washing, but the towel was on the floor over on the far side of the hangar where the cops had been throwing things around. It felt too far to go and get it. Instead, he crept back to his camp bed, fell into it, and dragged the blanket halfway up his torso. He was asleep within fifteen seconds.

The sleep didn’t last as long as it should have done. A sense of hopelessness and a huge, empty feeling that was probably loneliness forced him out of sleep. The acute pains in his body were better, but the overall ache, the solid, dark bruise of him, was worse. He drank more, used the can, found some stale bread and a packet of biscuits and ate.

He was just about to root around in the debris on the floor for something more to eat, when he heard the sound of a car outside and Mason’s cheerfully thuggish face appeared in the doorway. He stepped through, and looked around at the mess. ‘Jesus!’ he said. He picked his way through the litter until he was near enough to see Abe up close. ‘Holy shit!’

Abe pointed to the kettle. ‘Coffee?’

‘Uh-huh. If there’s more whisky than coffee in it.’

‘No whisky. The cops cleared me out.’

‘Yeah. They’re probably down on the beach flogging it right now.’ Mason looked disgusted.

Abe made coffee, economising on every movement.

‘They hurt you bad?’

Abe gestured at his face. ‘What you see.’

Mason stared as though he were a connoisseur of grievous bodily harm, which maybe, Abe reflected, he was. ‘I expect you’re not too pretty with your shirt off either.’

‘Not so pretty.’

Mason lifted Abe’s shirt, stared for a moment, then dropped it again without comment.

‘They let you sleep?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘Food and drink?’

‘It wasn’t a holiday camp. But thanks for springing me. I was just about done enjoying myself.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Mason took his coffee and stirred it solemnly. ‘You know, we generally have good relations with our cousins in the police force. We don’t usually have a problem.’

‘I’ve noticed.’

‘Someone somewhere forgot to make a payment. Our mistake. We’re a big organisation, and sometimes things go wrong. This was the cops’ way of reminding us not to forget them twice.’

‘Next time maybe they could send a postcard.’

‘We’ve let them know we’re not too happy. There are ways of doing things and as far as we’re concerned they broke the rules.’

‘Great.’

‘But that’s not the main point. Not as far as your connection with us is concerned.’

‘Oh?’

‘We know you didn’t say anything. Not a squeak. The whole time you were in there. I appreciate that kind of loyalty.’

‘Maybe I just don’t like helping folks who are swinging a boot into my kidneys.’

‘Maybe. Or maybe you’re just a stubborn-assed son-of-a-Kentucky-mule. You weren’t very friendly with me the first time I met you.’

Abe tried a grin, but all he achieved was to shift the yellow and purple blotches around his face a little.

‘A little while back, you talked about buying up some second-hand piece of flying junk. A D-something.’

‘A DH-4. A de Havilland. Good plane.’

‘You still keen?’

Abe nodded.

‘We could work something out maybe. Kind of a thank you.’ Mason drummed with his spoon on the wooden packing case they were using as a table. ‘You don’t spend a lot, do you?’

‘My parents’ farm had pretty much fallen into the hands of the bank. I’m still digging them clear. That’s part of it.’

‘And the other part?’

‘Is none of your business.’

Mason shook his head. ‘You are my business.’

Abe held the other man’s gaze for a second or two, then answered. ‘I’m not a big spending type. I’ll make my money. When I’ve got enough, I’ll quit.’

‘Enough for what?’

‘That’s none of your business, Mason.’

The two men locked gazes. Abe’s eyes never flickered, but some intuition made Mason look around to the shelves containing Abe’s castings of aircraft parts. Mason stared as though to find the answer there, then gave up. He dropped his eyes.

‘Maybe you’re right. I spend too much time with lowlife. When I meet a straight guy, I don’t know what to do with him. OK. A question.’

‘Sure.’

‘Suppose I told you we’d buy you a plane. Nice modern machine. Big carrying capacity. Reliable. Everything nice.’

‘I’d say great.’

‘You’d carry more booze for us. Because you’re carrying more, your pay goes up.’

Abe nodded.

‘But one other thing. We’d like it if the plane could run up the coast every now and then.’

Abe nodded, slower this time.

‘The way I figure it, you’d get a good view from a plane. You’d see plenty.’

Abe nodded again, even slower. ‘People forget,’ he said, his voice a little mushy from the bruising. ‘People forget that during the war, the only reason for having planes was observation. Our bombing raids were virtually useless. Attacks on ground troops looked impressive, but had no real military value. What mattered was observation. We wanted to get over their lines so we could report back to our guys. They tried to do the same with us. The only reason we even had pursuit aircraft was because we wanted to stop them looking at us, they wanted to stop us looking at them. But it all started with observation. That was the only thing that ever mattered.’

Mason, who had been picking his teeth with a matchstick, put it away and grinned. ‘I like you. I always knew you’d be a good guy to know.’

Abe relapsed into silence, reached for his cold coffee.

‘Boats,’ said Mason. ‘The Coastguard have been picking up a few of our boats recently. Don’t know how, but somebody’s been tipping them off. You get that with a big outfit. Somebody doesn’t like the pay they’re getting, they try to supplement it. It’s not right, but it’s how it is. Anyhow, we’ve lost three entire consignments, plus the boats, plus we’ve got a few of our men in federal courts. We’ll be able to spring them, but it’ll cost us.’

‘Boats are easy. Nothing easier than looking out for boats.’

‘Really? Good. You need an observer with you or…?’

‘I fly alone.’

‘So what type of plane?’

‘You’re asking me to choose?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘New or second-hand?’

‘Whatever. The best. Doesn’t have to be the biggest, just the best. Let me know.’ Mason stood up. ‘I ought to let you sleep, I guess.’

Abe looked at his watch and nodded. ‘Yeah, we got to leave in eight hours. And she can’t leave with that hole in her tail.’

‘We?’

‘Poll. Me and Poll.’

Mason stared. ‘You’re flying? Tomorrow? Have you seen how you look?’

Abe shrugged. ‘It’s not a beauty pageant, Mason. I’ve got the mails to fly.’

Mason paused for a moment with real concern visible on his face, then he laughed and shook his head. He stuck a cigarette in his mouth, ready to light when he left the hangar. ‘Sleep well, Captain.’

‘I plan to.’

‘And let me know. The best, OK? Just let me know.’

Abe nodded and sat on his bed as Mason left. Poll could be patched with a tight cotton bandage. A proper repair would take longer, but she could fly with just the patch.

But he wasn’t thinking about that, or whether he was sane to contemplate flying in a few hours’ time, or about any of the messages of complaint that his various body parts were now submitting. Instead he thought about that huge and empty loneliness that had forced him awake. He felt now as though he’d always been lonely; that his whole life had been a version of escape; that he’d achieved nothing that had ever meant anything.