Heart of War (56 page)

‘Fine,' Johnny said.

‘How's business?'

‘The Leopard Mark II's programme's finished. The Lion is doing well, and we've just had another order – forty. But I spent all day today at the War Office trying to get someone to understand that if the R.F.C. want a heavy bomber by next year – they must make up their minds
now
. It's very hard to get even the best of them, as flyers, as leaders of the air war, to understand the factory side of it … the time involved with design, tests, re-designs, re-tests, placement of orders, tool and die cutting…'

‘Well, if you use Libertys for the Buffalo – that's what you're going to call it, you told me, didn't you? – we'll do all we can from the Embassy to help you. And that will be true even if we do get into the war ourselves. The Secretary of War had a paper prepared by the Department of the Army Signal Corps a month ago, and they came to the conclusion that until 1919 any aeroplanes we used, if we go to war, would have to be made for us by the other Allies – France and England.'

Johnny leaned forward, ‘That's really what I came about, Uncle Virgil …
Are
we getting in?'

Kramer said, ‘I wish I knew, Johnny, I wish I knew.'

Johnny said unhappily, ‘I can't stand it much longer. In 1914 I was rarin' to come over and fight for England and civilization. Dad persuaded me – sort of bamboozled and soft-soaped me – into the J.M.C., then this … and now that I know a lot more about the war than I did then, I'm not thanking God for the war. And I don't want to fight with the English. For them, maybe – we're all in the same boat there … but not
with
them. I'm an American. And, by God, the moment we declare war, I'm off. Nothing's going to stop me –
nothing!
'

‘The Signal Corps, to fly?' his uncle asked.

Johnny shook his head. ‘That's what I'd have preferred. But I had my eyes tested last month – in case. Colour blind. Oh, not serious – I can tell reds and greens apart and every other colour, until you get down to pale blues and pale greens. It'll have to be the Army – infantry or artillery, I guess.' He got up – ‘If you'll excuse me, Uncle, I have to catch a train. Stella …'

‘Of course, man … Your Aunt Isabel's going to be at Walstone Manor this weekend, you know.'

‘I didn't. I expect she'll come over to see us. She usually does.'

Virgil Kramer shook his head, ‘If she and Christopher weren't both such great people, it might be kind of funny, but it isn't … It's a tragedy – the sort of tragedy that only strikes men and women of unflinching courage, devotion to duty, and the highest moral standards … Goodnight, Johnny.'

‘Goodnight, Uncle.'

Fletcher Gorse and Betty Merrit walked the shore in silence. The pebbles, sloping down in an even bank to the sea, crunched and grated under their feet. The arch of darkness was spangled bright with stars, for the moon had not yet risen. The sea was a pale shimmer beside them, murmuring ceaselessly on the stones, limning them with a momentary white lace, that disappeared, whispered, reappeared, sighed, withdrew.

The pebbles shook and slid, the windows rattled in their sashes, the sea trembled, the earth beneath shook, all to the low, bass shudder of the guns on the Western Front.

Betty spoke in a near whisper as though someone close was eavesdropping on their privacy – ‘Do you want to go?'

‘I got to,' the young man said. It was cold, and he had not taken his greatcoat from barracks, but he did not notice. He had spent many hours out on colder nights than this, in thinner clothes waiting to snare a pheasant, or climb a drainpipe to a girl's window.

‘But do you
want
to?'

‘I got to see it, to live there, in the war.'

After a while she said, ‘You'll write wonderful poetry about it, Fletcher. What you have written already … what you read to me today, and before … is so wonderful. You are a … you're a great poet, Fletcher, like Shelley or Keats … or Whitman.'

‘I'll be greater,' he said simply, ‘if I don't get killed.'

After another five minutes, when they had nearly reached the great pier reaching out into the sea, the silhouetted bulk of armed, greatcoated, steel-helmeted sentries with fixed bayonets patrolling it now visible, he said, ‘I love you, Betty Merritt.'

She began to cry, silently. A time later he realized that she was crying, and put his arm round her tenderly, and said, ‘Don't cry, love.'

She sobbed, ‘I'm so happy.' She stopped suddenly, turned and pressed her face into his tunic. He bent his head, lifted her chin with his free hand and kissed her on the lips. Willingly her lips parted, softened, her body grew soft, pressing against him.

‘I'm not gentry,' he said.

‘It doesn't matter,' she cried. ‘I'm an American! I don't believe in that rot. All men are born free and equal!'

‘Only some of us freer and more equal than others,' he said, grinning down at her in the dark.

They turned and walked back down the shingle towards the south.

His physical presence overwhelmed her, as it always did. But, she must think, forecast … how could they live together, as man and wife, if he never read anything but poetry, knew nothing of politics, music, theatre, even games? He was really uneducated … She'd think of a snug cottage, and he … of being out under a full moon stalking birds and beasts, nearly as wild as they. The guns shuddered in her flesh, urging her on.

She whispered, ‘We should be starting back soon, Fletcher … Would you … will you … come back to my flat with me? For the night?'

He said softly, ‘Hey, woman, you must let me ask that.'

She said, ‘But you're going to France on Monday … I've been thinking of you in the flat, with me, alone, at night … for weeks, months, now …'

‘If I weren't going to France, would you ask me?' he said.

She considered, for she wanted to answer honestly. She said, ‘I don't know. I feel … oh, how do I feel, when I've never been with a man before, or wanted to? I know what my body wants, but … I was strictly brought up, Fletcher. I'd hate to hurt my father … I don't know.'

He stopped and kissed her again then, long and slow and caressingly. Two soldiers passed, bayonets sharp against the stars, the pebbles rolling down, their voices a murmur, a subdued chuckle. He gently explored her mouth with his tongue. She smelled fresh, of the sea, and of the seaweed they had been playing with earlier, and of a faint expensive
perfume in her hair. Words moved in his head, forming ideas, pictures, a translation and embodiment of his love.

He said, ‘Not to your flat, love. People would know and I don't want that – them looking at you, thinking, Fletcher Gorse fucked her.'

She winced involuntarily at the harsh word. He continued: ‘Shall we try a hotel? They'll likely have a room and I hear the hotels don't ask soldiers in uniform for their marriage lines, if they're with a woman, these days.' The rumble of the guns punctuated his light tenor voice.

She whispered, ‘It'll be my first time, Fletcher.'

He said, ‘Not mine, love. I'll guide thee … What am I saying? It'll be my first time, too … with a woman I love. So we'll have to guide each other.'

‘In a world of our own,' she whispered, ‘under the bedclothes!'

He understood her and said, ‘I'll love you, Betty, all night, and more, all day, till you know what sort of woman you are. But I can't quiet the guns, not by curtains nor window glass nor bedclothes nor nothing else.'

Johnny took the cutting, which had been sent over to his office by Betty, with an admonition to send it on to their father, and laid it down beside the letter he was working on. The sound of aircraft engines made him get up and walk to the window. Snow was beginning to fall, and a Leopard was coming in to land. This one should have no difficulty, but another Leopard was up in the air, on a compass test flight to Salisbury Plain and back: that one might have a sticky time, if this got worse.

He returned to his desk, picked up his pen, and continued the letter to his father:

A couple of months ago the country was in the throes of the parliamentary crisis. Well, of course it has long been settled, and Mr Lloyd George is firm in the saddle. He is an interesting personality, with tremendous energy, a very quick and powerful intelligence; plus strong streaks of guile and ruthlessness, which are all to the good in the present circumstances. He has already kindled a new spirit in the British, and if he continues as he has begun he will be forgiven his faults.

The war is in a period of semi-calm, which many feel is the calm before the storm. The colonel I talk to at the War Office
has got hold of the 1916 casualty figures – this is British Empire only, Western Front only – and they are appalling: 150,131 killed, 1,145,452 wounded, missing, and prisoners. (For this the King made Haig a Field Marshal!) Now consider that the French, Russians, and Germans have all had more; the Italians, Serbs, Rumanians, and Belgians equally heavy, in proportion – and 1916 begins to take shape as the year of the Apocalypse for Western civilization – all civilization, perhaps. I didn't think highly of Bertrand Russell and the other pacifists – regarded them as crackpots and traitors – but those figures make one think that they may be the only sane people on earth. However, as a practical matter it is certain that no one is in fact going to negotiate an end to the war.

In the light of the casualty figures, and the effort they represent, it is unlikely that the British will mount the first major offensive of 1917. The Germans will. It seems almost certain that we, the U.S. of A., are going to be drawn into it whether we like it or not; and it is impossible that we should come in on the German side. They have done so much against our interests, and British propaganda has been so smart in the U.S.A., that to join the Germans now is unthinkable. But Wilson might be reinforced in his own personal desire to keep us out if some catastrophe to the Allies can make their cause seem less attractive to us.

As for the German targets, the French at Verdun or the British at Ypres are the favourites. Verdun is 130 easy miles from Paris. A break-through there could be decisive – the French defeated, the British left to be dealt with at leisure.

I regard our entry into the war as long overdue, as you know. We will make no less money, as a nation – even as a business here – in fact we shall make more; but we shall be in a position to say, we have earned it, we deserve it; instead of acting rather like jackals or hyenas round a nobler beast's kill. My bet is that we shall declare war three months after the German assault starts – that is, when it has demonstrably been held. What the precise excuse or
casus belli
will be, no one can foretell; but I am positive one will be found. And, as soon as it is, I shall be entering the U.S. Army. I've sat on the sidelines long enough.

A faint drone of aircraft engines grew stronger, thick,
deadened by the snow. The snow was falling faster and visibility could be no more than three hundred yards horizontal and about two hundred feet vertically. Johnny went again to the window and stood there, watching anxiously. He could see nothing now … just the grass and some parked bicycles in a rack directly below his window. The drone grew fainter … circling round to the south, fading … Why didn't he gain altitude and fly back to the Plain? Conditions here were murderous … but perhaps he didn't have enough petrol left, had no choice … The noise grew louder, then dropped, and steadied … louder … louder … the great shape appeared a hundred yards away, eighty feet up, blue flames flickering from its exhausts. At once the pilot put the nose down, and cut his engines. The bomber glided silently down, almost vanishing into the snowstorm. Johnny waited, nerves taut … no sound … no crash, no flames … just the silent snow. He'd landed, dead stick, near the west end of the field.

Johnny drew out his handkerchief, wiped his face, and returned to his desk. He'd like to tell Dad that Stella was in great shape – but she wasn't … sleepy and yawning most of the time, grumpy the rest … uninterested in anything, even sex. He couldn't tell his father that. Instead he'd tell Dad what he thought Fairfax, Gottlieb should be prepared for, in the way of expanding war production, when the U.S.A. became a belligerent.