Our Yanks (26 page)

‘No, I won't promise you that.' She stared at him, seeing him very clearly for the first time and wondering how she could ever have imagined that she loved him.

‘Why the hell not? You're engaged to me.'

She dragged the ring off her finger and held it out. ‘Not any more, Clive. I should never have agreed to marry you. It was a big mistake – for both of us – and I'm sorry.'

He looked stunned and then snatched the ring out of her hand. ‘You know, my parents always said I could have done much better than you. All that funny business with your mother, and your pathetic old father . . . It seems they were quite right about it in the end, doesn't it? You're no better than any of the other tarts in the village who've been playing around while their men were away fighting.'

‘Get out, Clive.
Get out
!'

‘Don't worry, I'm going. I don't want any Yank-soiled goods.'

He slammed the front door behind him. She stood quite still in the hallway, her hands clenched at her sides. In the distance the school bell started ringing.

The rector could feel the whole village hall shaking. He had retreated to a corner to watch the wild cavortings that were, apparently, the modern American way of dancing, and hoped to heaven that the floor would stand up to it. By comparison, the party at the Officers' Club had been a sedate affair; this was very different. He stared, flabbergasted, as the Americans threw their partners around. He'd never seen anything like it in all his life. And the girls didn't seem to mind. On the contrary, they had picked up the dance steps and were enjoying themselves enormously. The band was at the other end of the room, up on the stage, but the players might as well have been within inches as far as his ears were concerned. The noise was deafening – trumpets and saxophones blasting away, drums and cymbals thudding and clashing. Conversation would have been impossible, though, clearly, the dancers wanted only to dance. He watched their faces as they spun by and, just for a moment, he envied them their youth and their capacity for sheer joy.

More than four hundred had turned up and paid their two-shilling entrance fee – King's Thorpe villagers, people from neighbouring villages and even further afield, and a lot of Americans from the air base. The evening was undoubtedly a great success. Sylvia, he thought, would have found it all wonderful fun, for once. He searched among the maelstrom for Agnes but couldn't see her. She was probably helping with the refreshments in the kitchen, which was a pity; he would have liked to see her dancing with one of the Americans and enjoying herself. With Lieutenant Mochetti, perhaps. Her broken engagement had upset her a lot, he could tell that. Personally, he had been hugely relieved, though he had not actually said so, of course, or shown it. He had tried hard but never succeeded in liking Clive Hobbs, and he had never believed that he would make Agnes happy. Unhappiness in marriage was the last thing on earth that he would have wished for her. He looked round for the lieutenant but couldn't see him, either, which was odd, since it was he who had helped to make the whole evening possible.

At last the music finished and he stopped a passing American officer. ‘Do you happen to know if Lieutenant Mochetti will be here tonight?'

‘He couldn't make it, sir. Overdue from a mission.'

‘I hope that doesn't mean bad news?'

‘Couldn't say exactly, sir. That's all I know.'

‘I see. Well, thank you.'

He made his way towards the kitchen. Through the hatchway he could see Agnes busy pouring out the Coca-Cola provided by the Americans. He hesitated. It would be better not to tell her about Ed Mochetti now; it could wait until later. Instead, he went outside the hall for a breath of air and stood for a while looking up at the few stars showing in a cloudy night sky. It was cold for late May: the weather very unsettled and unseasonable, not that that was so unusual. He could hear the drone of RAF heavy bombers to the east. There had been a great deal of activity lately, from both the RAF and the American Air Force. They must be bombing Germany relentlessly, by night and by day. Preparing the ground, he supposed, for the Allied invasion that was rumoured to be happening within weeks – but surely not until the weather had improved?

The band had started up again but this time the music was much quieter: rather a pleasant tune that one could slow-foxtrot to. He listened to it, remembering how he and Sylvia had sometimes danced together when they were first married – not that he had ever been very accomplished. One of the many ways in which he must have disappointed her and let her down.

The moon appeared for a moment before vanishing again behind a dark cloud. He wondered what had happened to Lieutenant Mochetti and offered up a silent prayer for his safe return.

‘Can we talk, Sally?'

‘What about?'

‘Things. We can't talk in here. Come outside with me.'

‘I promised Rick I'd dance with him next.'

‘Tough luck on him.' Chester put his hand on her arm firmly. ‘Just for a moment.'

She shrugged. ‘Oh, all right then.'

The night air was cold after the stuffy heat of the village hall and she shivered. Chester took off his jacket and put it round her shoulders.

‘There's someone standing over there,' she said warily.

‘Just some old guy. He's gone in now. It's OK.'

‘Well, what did you want, then?'

‘I want to talk about us, Sal. You know how I feel about you and I want to know how you feel about me.'

‘I like you a lot, Chester.'

‘Is that all?'

‘An awful lot, then.'

He could hardly see her in the dark, let alone her expression; her voice told him nothing. He said steadily, ‘After what happened, I thought things had got kind of serious between us.'

‘Well, it just happened, didn't it?'

‘Like I said before, I'm real sorry about it.'

‘I don't know why you're sorry.'

‘You know what I mean. I sure didn't plan to go that far. It's only ever happened once with me before – some girl I met after I'd gotten drafted. She was nothing to me, but you are, Sally. And I want to know how things stand.'

‘I told you, I like you an awful lot.'

‘Yeah, but you still look at other guys, and you still dance with them.'

‘I love dancing, that's why. There's no harm in it.'

‘I want for us to get married one day.'

‘Married?'

‘Sure. Why not? Wouldn't you like that?'

‘I don't know . . . not yet, anyway. I don't know you well enough.'

‘I'd say you knew me pretty damn well. And I know you.'

She giggled suddenly and he took a hold of her and kissed her and she kissed him back, sweet as anything. ‘So, what about it, Sally?'

‘What about what?' She shivered again. ‘It's freezing out here, Chester.'

She was playing games with him, he realized that, and he was getting nowhere. ‘OK, I guess we'd better go in.'

He leaned against the wall in the village hall, smoking a cigarette and watching her dancing with Rick and then a string of other guys. Trouble was, he liked her a heck of a lot more than an awful lot: he loved her.

Brigadier Mapperton had taken refuge in the garden. Cicily had another of those damned knitting circles going on in the drawing room and the house was full of women. The only place he could get any peace was outside, as far away from them as possible, which meant at the bottom of the garden. He stumped down to the far end and looked at the vegetable plot. Cooper was an idle old bugger if he didn't keep him up to the mark, always complaining about his rheumatism and the make-do-and-mend tools. All excuses, of course. Gardeners were always finding them. If it wasn't the weather it was the pests or the birds, or anything they could think of. He went up and down the rows, inspecting potatoes, carrots and peas as though they were troops on parade, stopping to glare ferociously at the broad beans. Damn things had got some sort of blackfly. Why hadn't that idiot Cooper sprayed them? He'd probably give him some cock-and-bull story about not being able to get the insecticide stuff when the truth was he was too damned lazy to bother. He strode on to the runner beans, the leeks, the onions and the marrows. All well there, and the peaches were coming along on the wall though they could do with some decent weather. Bloody awful June so far.

He looked at his watch. The knitting circle wouldn't be over for another hour or more. They'd be sitting there like those women at the French guillotine, needles clicking like castanets. If he showed his face anywhere near the place they'd catch sight of him and he'd have to go in and be polite. He unbolted the door in the garden wall and went down to the brook. After all the rain, it was running deep and muddy, making a rushing sound instead of the usual quiet babbling over the stones. He walked along the banks by the willows towards the old water mill. When he was a boy he'd seen it working and villagers taking their gleaning to be ground at harvest time. He could remember the thunder of the machinery, the thrash and splash of the great wheel, the clouds of dust, the sacks of corn and the sacks of flour, tied at the corners like pigs' ears.

Things weren't what they used to be in the village, he thought morosely. It was all vanishing. There'd been a windmill, too, at the top of East Street until it had burned down, and in the old days there had been a thriving wood-turning industry with the turners making bowls and eggcups and spoons and rolling pins and butter pats in their cottages and back gardens. All gone now. Before the war, in the Twenties and Thirties, there'd been a damn good cricket team and a drama club. They'd put on plays and concerts in the village hall: good, sound, old-fashioned things like Gilbert and Sullivan and
The Quaker Girl
. None of this modern rubbish. He'd taken the odd chorus part himself. The Great War had started the rot, of course: things were never the same by the time that was over and now this war was going to change it all a whole lot more. Bloody Huns! They'd got a lot to answer for. Thrashed them in 1918. Rubbed their faces in it. And twenty years later, he was damned if they hadn't gone and done it again. Infernal cheek!

He skirted the old millpond, now part silted up, and the decaying mill house, rejoining the bank further along the brook. His temper wasn't all it used to be either, he had to admit that. He got a bit shirty sometimes, and often he regretted it. The Huns were partly to blame for that too. His frustration gnawed at him like a rat. Drove him mad. D-Day plus six and here he was stuck with knitting circles and the ARP while other men were in Normandy fighting the enemy: getting to real grips with them at last. Damned tough situation over there. Machine-gun fire rattling away, snipers everywhere, juggernaut tanks, entrenched artillery, bombardment overhead . . . He knew something of the Normandy terrain. High hedges and deep, narrow lanes. Good defensive cover for the enemy and damned difficult for the Allies. They'd need officers capable of resolute leadership. Chaps like he'd been himself, once. You had to throw caution to the winds. Advance boldly; lead your men into the attack; knock out the enemy at all costs.

The brigadier stopped and stood staring fixedly at the brook, yet not seeing it. Instead he was somewhere in Normandy, leading his men on, storming into a French village, routing Huns who fled before him. The lines from
Henry V
came into his head:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here
. He shook his head and walked on. That's what he was: accursed. Dammit, even the
Yanks
were there. Last time he'd gone into Peterborough, there wasn't one to be seen. He'd known their air force could do their stuff but he wouldn't have given a thank-you for any of the army of GIs he'd seen slouching and slopping around the towns for months on end. Useless lot of no-good buggers, he'd reckoned. If
The Times
was to be believed though, and he rarely doubted it, they were doing a pretty decent job over there. Fighting and dying like real soldiers. He had to take back some of the things he'd thought and said about them. Give credit where credit was due; that was only right.

Fighters were taking off from the American base yet again. He could see them climbing fast in the distance. Still covering the D-Day convoys and the landings, of course. They would have been right up there with the first assault wave, fending off the Luftwaffe, escorting the Yank bombers while they pounded the enemy fortifications behind the beaches, going for the shore batteries, protecting Allied bridgeheads, shooting up enemy convoys. And the RAF night-fighters took over after dark. Damned useful to have those chaps around when you were down on the ground in the thick of it. Pity they hadn't had them like that in the first show.

He looked at his watch again and sighed. Give it another half-hour and it would be safe to go back. He squared his shoulders and strode on.

‘You can come if you don't ask stupid questions all the time.'

‘Course I won't, Tom. Cross my heart.'

Of course he would: Alfie always did. But it was his birthday and, much as he'd like to have left him behind, Tom relented.

‘All right, then.'

‘Where are we going?'

That was the first one already. ‘Up to the airfield. To a special place I've found where you can watch the fighters taking off. They go right over your head, close as anything.'

‘Will we see Ed?'

‘Dunno.'

‘He's all right, though, isn't he?'

‘Far as I know.'

‘Bound to be, with the rabbit's foot.'

The rabbit's foot had looked after Ed when he'd come down in the sea. He'd been floating about in the dinghy for hours and then a lifeboat had found him and brought him back safely. Tom was glad he'd only heard about it afterwards on one of his visits to the radio shack. The Yanks wouldn't let him go out to the flight line any more. It was too busy and too dangerous now, they said. Ever since the Invasion the squadrons were going on missions to France all the time and he hadn't seen Ed for nearly two weeks, or any of the other pilots. That was when he'd found this special secret place – a deep hollow in the ground several yards inside the perimeter fence at the very far end of the main runway. Nobody could see him when he lay down in it but he could see the pilots in their cockpits as they took off and climbed right over his head, and he could see the markings so he knew exactly whose plane it was: Ed's or Ben's or Chuck's or Randy's or Zell's or Don's . . .