Landfall (29 page)

Captain Burnaby raised his head. “As a matter of form, sir, the Court of Enquiry ought to be recalled to reconsider its findings. That’s a small matter; I should think they’d run through it in half an hour. But I think it ought to be done.”

The Commander-in-Chief said: “I shouldn’t waste much effort over that. It affects nothing now.”

Burnaby persisted: “They censured the pilot in their findings, sir. I think that should be rectified with as little delay as possible.”

The Admiral said: “I had forgotten that. All right, see my secretary and get them recalled. You’d better get that done at once; we owe a lot to that young man.”

Commander Foster laughed out genially. “First of all he gets a strip torn off for sinking
Caranx
, when what he really did was to save our bacon for us. Then we go and blow him up in Burnaby’s experiments.”

Burnaby said: “That’s another matter altogether. We might consider that as well, sir, if you like.”

Admiral Blackett said: “Just as you like. He seems to have deserved well of us on two counts.”

Rutherford said: “How’s he getting on, by the way?”

“Quite well,” said Burnaby. “He’ll be flying again in six months.”

The Admiral leaned back in his chair. “For the submarine he deserves a mention in despatches. That’s clearly in our sphere. Is everyone agreed on that?”

They nodded their agreement.

“For the experimental work, I take it that we owe him a good deal. That is so, isn’t it?”

Burnaby said: “That is correct, sir. The R.Q. apparatus will be ready for service in a month from now. That’s very largely the result of the risks he took. I think he should get something for that, too.”

The Admiral said: “Haven’t the Air Force got a
special decoration for that sort of thing? It stays in my mind that they’ve got something of the sort.”

There was a doubtful silence. Foster said: “Is that the Air Force Cross?”

The Commander-in-Chief said: “I believe you’re right. Pass me that Whitaker’s Almanack from the desk.”

He turned the pages. “That’s the one,” he said at last. “‘For acts of courage or devotion to duty when flying, although not in active operations against the enemy.’” He paused. “That seems to cover it.”

Commander Foster said: “Well, that’s a matter for the Air Force, isn’t it? It’s their decoration.”

Captain Burnaby raised his head and stared at him arrogantly, the grim, iron-grey brows knitted together in a frown, the jaw firmly set.

“I don’t agree with you at all,” he said. “This was a naval trial. The Air Force supplied the pilot and the aeroplane, but apart from that they had nothing whatever to do with it. The matter of a decoration is entirely in our hands. It would be most improper for the Air Ministry to put him forward for anything except upon our recommendation.”

He turned to the Admiral. “I quite agree that he should have the Air Force Cross,” he said. “I suggest we make a recommendation in those terms to the Air Ministry.”

D
USK
fell upon the convoy, making westward from the land. There were nine ships in all, guarded by destroyers ahead and astern. They steamed in long zigzags at about fifteen knots, heading out into the Atlantic.

Flight-Lieutenant Chambers, A.F.C., stood by the rail with his wife. He leaned upon his stick, because he could not walk without it yet. It would be some months before he would be fit to fly again: in the meantime he had been posted to Trenton, Ontario, as a ground instructor.

In the six months since he had sunk his submarine he had changed a good deal. He was thinner and he had lost a good deal of his fresh complexion, replaced by a brown tan gained from lying out in his long chair at the convalescent home. He bore himself with greater confidence.

Mona, too, was changed. In her, the alteration was less physical than verbal. When it had become inevitable that she must marry Jerry she had left the snack-bar and had entered on a concentrated course of study. Her general education did not worry her: her native wit told her that she would get by as an officer’s wife if she took pains with her appearance and her speech. It was the latter that she had concentrated on.

Madame Tremayne had been her stand-by, Professor of Elocution, Public Speaking, and Deportment. Madame Tremayne, whose real name was Susan Bigsworth, lived in undistinguished style in Fratton and charged two shillings for each individual lesson. Her chief clients were young women who aspired to be mannequins; Mona had known about her for some
time. She taught Mona a correct form of English that would have given her away more surely than her mother tongue. From her Mona learned to abandon the phrase “you didn’t ought to do that” and to say carefully “you should not do that”. It was some time before she acquired familiarity with “you oughtn’t to do that”.

They had been married for a week. In the swift movement of the war so much had happened in that week that their marriage had not occupied their thoughts a very great deal. They had anticipated a long period of sick leave which they had planned to spend in Cornwall on their honeymoon: instead of that they had received upon their wedding-day a posting to Canada. After the first shock they had welcomed it. When all their life demanded readjustment a further change meant little to them. They had their clothes and a few suitcases; they had no other ties to bind them to one place. They sold the little sports car with regret for fifteen pounds, parked the wireless set and the half-built caravel with Jerry’s mother, packed the rabbit-lamp among Mona’s stockings and sailed. They were inured to change. Buckwheat cakes and maple syrup for breakfast on the liner were just another thing.

Mona said: “Can you see the land still, Jerry? I can’t, now.”

“I think we’ve seen the last of it,” he said.

She drew a little closer to him. “How long shall we be away in Canada, do you think?”

In the uncertainty of war he could not answer that.

“For all I know, we may stay there for ever.” He smiled down at her. “Would you mind a lot if it turned out like that?”

She looked up at him. “I don’t mind,” she said. “When you start fresh, like getting married, I don’t know that it makes a lot of difference if you change your place as well.”

He nodded. It was nearly dark astern: there would be no more to be seen. In many ways he felt the transition more than she did. To her the move to a less formal country was in itself desirable; there would be less tendency to criticise her when she slipped in the word “like” unwarily, or referred to “something of that”. Chambers had deeper roots in England than she had.

“We shan’t see any more now,” he said quietly. They turned and went below.

So let them pass, small people of no great significance, caught up and swept together like dead leaves in the great whirlwind of the war. Wars come, and all the world is shattered by their blast. But through it all young people meet and marry; life goes on, though temples rock and the tall buildings start and crumble in the dust of their destruction.