Tears of Autumn, The (3 page)

He smiled, and started to say something, but was dimly aware of the woman frowning.

He was strapped into the cockpit of the Hart, the powerful Rolls Royce Kestrel engine at a fast tick-over to prevent the plugs oiling, the whole airframe throbbing and rumbling. Everywhere he looked were the now familiar wires, gauges, copper pipes and brass fittings, but they didn’t offer any comfort today. He was on his final check ride. For a brief moment his eyes dropped to the spade-shaped joystick, and the gun-firing button that said ‘Safe’ and ‘Fire’.

How this flight went could well decide which way his career went in the service. He dragged his mind back to the job in hand. The engine sounded throaty and harsh. The vibration was now considerable and the reduction gear of the hefty twin-bladed airscrew clanked and rattled.

Biff brought his goggles down over his eyes, took a deep breath, and waved the chocks away to taxi out.

When he gently eased the throttle open it felt as if the engine was going to tear itself out of the frame. The biplane was solid, fast and powerful, with a long nose with a pointed spinner – a different animal from the other training aircraft he had flown. In fact, it wasn’t just a training aircraft, it was also in service with front-line squadrons, of which only a few had been equipped with the new Hurricanes, even fewer with the Spitfire.

On the grass runway, marked out with lights, he opened the throttle wide and released the brakes.

His shoulders were forced hard back against the metal bucket seat, and he felt as if his cheeks were being dragged back towards his ears. The slipstream blasted the open cockpit as the wheels thumped and thudded over the grass until suddenly it ceased.

He was airborne.

He went through his routine, knowing he was being observed not only from the ground, but by Squadron Leader Forster, aloft and patrolling the skies to one side of the field where he was not permitted to fly.

He’d been at it for twenty minutes when the engine started to miss. Only seconds later it failed completely.

Automatically he went through the forced landing routine that had been drummed into him, and brought the Hart in over a hedge and landed, bouncing somewhat roughly in a field of cows – who stampeded away to the other end.

Biff undid his harness and climbed out on to the wing, tearing his goggles and helmet off in disgust as the squadron leader’s aircraft swooped low overhead.

‘How did it go?’

It was Rosemary, running out to him as he drove the Singer into her drive and up to the house.

He smiled bleakly, and told her what had happened.

She frowned. ‘Well, that wasn’t your fault, was it – and you did everything correctly, is that right? The aeroplane is not damaged is it?’

Glumly he agreed.

‘Come on.’ She put her arm through his. ‘Come and have a drink.’

He’d been going with Rosemary now for several months. She had come to their open day; but unfortunately he hadn’t flown that day, but he had since then buzzed the house a couple of times, risking censure, and she had been present when he had at last taken part in a formation flypast on a visit to a famous air show. He knew they were getting closer when she drove all the way to Hendon in London, where he had landed and was able to meet her in the enclosure for tea. After that they had gone out together regularly to the cinema and picnics and garden parties.

And they had
kissed
and canoodled.

She had hinted several times of how close they had become, and he knew she was expecting him to pop the question soon – something he would have thought inconceivable six months previously. Overjoyed as he was, he wanted to be sure of his
place in the Air Force, to finish his training and eventually be in a front-line squadron. It seemed the sensible thing to do before he declared himself.

And now he had gone and messed everything up.

Her father was sitting in his brown leather armchair, smoking his favourite tobacco, Three Nuns, in his brier pipe, and with the
Daily Telegraph
on his lap.

‘Hello Biff, how are you?’

‘Fine sir – really.’

‘Good, good. Rosemary taking care of you?’

‘Yes, Father.’

She was already at the drinks cabinet, fixing Biff a large gin, squirting in tonic from the net-cladded Schweppes siphon.

Her father was dressed in his favourite blue cardigan with elbow patches, his feet in old felt slippers. He folded the
Telegraph
back to its front page and then in half again, tapping the paper with a knuckle.

‘Seen the headline?’

Biff came over and looked down at it.

‘Herr Hitler again?’

‘Yes, the Sudetenland Germans are starting to clamour for self-government, and Hitler is making noises about incorporation into the Greater Reich.’

Biff sniffed. ‘Not satisfied with Austria then?’ He was referring to the
Anschluss
in March and then the making of Austria into a state of the Third Reich the following month.

Rosemary handed him his gin and tonic.

‘Daddy?’

Her father looked at his watch, then shrugged.

‘Why not.’

To Biff he said: ‘What’s the talk in your mess?’

‘How do you mean, sir?’

‘Do they – your senior officers – do they expect war with Germany?’

Biff looked into the sparkling drink in the tumbler he held in
both hands. ‘Well, I suppose there is a growing realization that we should be better prepared – just in case. We are woefully under strength after the savage cuts of the last few years. Ever since Lord Swinton resigned as Secretary of State for Air they have been very worried.’

‘Hmm.’ Her father shook his head slowly. ‘I pray it never comes. I don’t know if the youth of this country are up to it.…’

Suddenly realizing what he had implied he added hurriedly: ‘No offence, Biff. I don’t mean the likes of you regulars, I just don’t think the ordinary young of today have the same spirit, the same sense of nationhood and Empire that we had. We lost the best of our generation.’

Biff knew that Rosemary’s father had served as an infantry officer from the Somme to Passchendaele before he had stopped his ‘Blighty one’.

‘Surely, that’s being a bit hard, isn’t it?’

Her father didn’t answer, and fortunately her mother came into the room just then.

‘Biff, how lovely to see you. Have you just arrived?’

He liked her mother very much.

‘Yes, Mrs Peacock.’

‘I’ll have one of those.’ She nodded at his drink as she flopped into a chair opposite her husband, having given him a peck on the top of his head.

‘Now, what are you two boys talking about?’

Her father shot a glance at Biff, then said ‘Just current affairs, darling. Politics.’

‘Oh, not the prospect of a bloody war again, Frank.’

Mr Peacock grinned sheepishly at Biff.

‘That’s what comes of being married to the same woman for thirty-odd years.’

He got the results, and his posting, a week later. Biff had hoped for a fighter squadron. After they had kissed he faced Rosemary in the bar of the tennis club where they’d arranged to meet.

‘I’m going to Blenheims.’

‘Oh.’ She didn’t really know what to say. ‘That’s all right – yes?’

Biff grimaced. ‘I had my heart set on a Hurricane or Spitfire squadron – who doesn’t, but Blenheims are fast enough. They are two-engined fighter-bombers.’

Rosemary sniffed. ‘Sounds jolly good to me. When do you go?’

‘I’ve got three weeks’ leave, then it’s back here for a day, then I’ll be off.’

Rosemary couldn’t conceal her disappointment.

‘Oh, I shan’t see you, then, for weeks?’

Glumly he shook his head. If anybody had told him previously that, when he had eventually finished his training and was about to join a squadron, he would be down in the mouth, he wouldn’t have believed it. But he did have one answer to their problem.

He drew in a deep breath, and steeled himself for what he had worried about all day – all week in fact.

‘There’s a solution.’

Rosemary was sitting on a bar stool. She looked up at him, puzzled, then with a dawning expectancy as he continued to gaze helplessly at her.

‘Yes?’

Biff swallowed, audibly.

‘We could … Well …’

With growing excitement she nearly said it for him, but bit her tongue; after all, he was the
man
, he
had
to do it.… Well, she would give him another twenty seconds.

At last Biff managed:

‘Will you marry me?’

‘Oh, Biff.’ She fell off the stool into his arms and gave him a whopping kiss. ‘Of course I will, you big idiot.’

‘You will?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s great.’

For a moment there was a silence, both of them stunned with what had just happened. It was broken at last by Biff apologizing: ‘I haven’t got a ring.’

Her eyes twinkled.

‘Well you can jolly well get one tomorrow morning, you’re free now. Is that right?’

He started to feel dizzy.

‘Right.’

They went straight home to her parents. It was asking a lot, but they had already decided that they were going to tie the knot as quickly as they could after the banns had been read – that meant three weeks minimum, then as soon as the Air Force would let him have leave – he would find out when, and apply as soon as he arrived on the squadron.

Her mother was knitting, sitting with the standard lamp behind her armchair, turned on even though it was daylight.

Through the french window they could see her father on the terrace.

Mrs Peacock looked up and spoke, without stopping the clicking needles.

‘Oh, hello dears, would you like some tea?’

‘No mother. One of Daddy’s champagnes.’

This time the needles did stop.

The lamb was excellent. His appetite was still good, at least, when the food was good. He put his knife and fork together and took a sip of wine.

‘Gosh, you were hungry.’

He smiled resignedly. People didn’t expect men of his age to clean their plate. On top of that they now lived in a wasteful society. More good food was thrown away than ever before. Somehow, if there was another war – one that threatened these shores, he doubted whether the modern generation would be able to cope. Not like in their day.

Then he thought of what Mr Peacock had said to him all those years ago, about his generation.

He grinned to himself. What goes around comes around.

He was behaving just like Rosemary’s father had. But the smile faded at the memory.…

The room was now a hubbub of voices, as people moved around the tables talking to friends in other parts of the room. Half the diners at his table were gone, but a man slipped into the empty chair beside him.

‘Hello, Biff, it’s good to see you again.’

It was a friend of his daughter.

She had attended one of the girls-only schools in town, but he had been part of the crowd from the boys’ school. Socially they had all mixed together. He was married now to a daughter of a friend, but at one time he had been always in their house. He might have been a son-in-law.…

He stirred himself, turning in his chair.

‘Peter, didn’t see you earlier.’

The man sat down sideways on the next chair, elbow on the table.

‘No, I wasn’t at the church service, or reception. Had to work for my sins.’

Peter was now a surgeon who, after all his training up in town and jobs around the country, had got a consultancy locally.

‘Called away, I’m afraid. Jill hasn’t forgiven me yet.’

They both grinned. Jill, his wife, was a very strong-willed lady who had probably demanded that there must have been somebody else at ‘that bloody place’ who could do the job.

‘Anyway, how are you keeping?’

Biff pulled a funny face.

‘At my age – brilliant.’

Peter chuckled, then glanced around.

‘I hear your daughter is here.’

Biff nodded. ‘Yes, she’s over on table eleven – go over and say hello.’

‘I will, I will.’

He suspected that Peter still had a soft spot for her, and he was not surprised. Even though he said it himself, his daughter was a good-looking girl, just like her mother;
very
like her mother. 

He could hardly hear Peter as his memories crowded in.

There were a couple of days to go before they got married. Rosemary had persuaded him to get on a horse, not his thing at all, and they had just ridden at a walking pace down a lane. Rosemary didn’t dismount as she opened a gate into a field and he eased his horse cautiously through, conscious of all the wide open space suddenly before him. She was just closing it again when out of the corner of his eye he saw the huge maroon locomotive lumbering right beside them, hissing steam as it cruised slowly past, held by a signal to proceed with caution.

His steed must have seen and heard the ‘monster’ too, for in a flash he was cantering, ears back and flicking, nearly keeping abreast with the engine. Hanging on for dear life, Biff found himself the object of scores of white faces at the windows of the Carlisle-bound express as it slowly overhauled them.

‘Wooh, slow down, you bugger.’ He pulled on the reins with all his strength, just hearing Rosemary’s voice in the distance screaming: ‘Keep your heels down,’ before the horse stopped dead and he was flying in a completely unaccustomed way.

It all came to an abrupt end as his body hit the ground, flat, and all the air in him came out of every orifice in his body.

By the time Rosemary caught up, dismounting at the run to kneel beside him, the last coach of the now accelerating express, hauled by the
Princess Margaret Rose
was receding out of sight under a bridge.

‘Biff – Biff darling, are you all right?’

She was desperately worried.

For the first few seconds he wondered whether he was paralysed for life, unable to move a muscle. Then his lungs started up
again and he moved a foot. She stroked his forehead.

‘I’m so sorry, darling, I forgot about the railway. My fault, I suppose. I always race the trains. Darling?’

Biff eased himself into an upright position, raised one eyebrow.

‘You mean the horse was only doing what you trained it to do?’

‘Well, yes, but—’

She gave a little scream as Biff pulled her down over his lap and started to spank the seat of her tightly fitting jodphurs.

‘Biff – Biff – stop!’

But when he rolled her over again her face was flushed, eyes hooded.

‘Ooh, you’re so strong and masterful – just like Errol Flynn.’

With that she flung her arm up around his neck and drew his mouth hard down on to hers.

As they carried on kissing the horses stood nearby quietly grazing, only a drifting layer of smoke marked the passage of the train.

‘Are you sure about this honeymoon?’

They were gathered in the drawing room, dressed for dinner. Mr Peacock still stuck to the older ways, which were beginning to change in some trendy new quarters.

It was her mother who spoke, anxious because they had booked their honeymoon in Sorrento, Italy. There and Capri were favourite areas for honeymooners, and Rosemary had set her heart on it. Biff had enquired of his CO and been told that there was no objection.

But in the last few days the Sudetanland question had started to become a crisis again. On 12 September the year before Adolph Hitler had demanded self-determination for the German-speaking area.

Mr Peacock did indeed look serious.

That very day, 23 September, the wireless had informed them
that the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, was flying to Munich to see Herr Hitler. He’d made one trip on the fifteenth already.

He shook his head. ‘No use denying it’s serious, but you should both be all right in Italy, even though they are allies of the Germans. Mussolini says he wants peace, and is willing to help. I believe he suggested the talks to Herr Hitler.’

Her father went on, obviously trying to reassure himself more than them. ‘I’ve had assurances from the embassy in Rome that in such an unlikely event—’

Mrs Peacock broke in sharply. ‘You didn’t say – have you been on to your brother?’

Rosemary’s father looked uncomfortable. He had indeed spoken to Charles, who worked in the Foreign Office.

‘Well, I wouldn’t be doing my job as a father if I didn’t look after my daughter right up to the moment she becomes another man’s responsibility.’

‘Daddy, you’re a darling.’ Rosemary, in a full length loosely fitting lilac satin dress with a pale voile overskirt, went up on her toes and kissed his cheek.