The Lost Years (26 page)

‘I am on leave, sir,’ said Perys, believing the captain to be making polite conversation. At the same time, he wondered why he should bother to speak to a junior officer.

‘Are you with a front-line squadron?’ the captain asked.

‘Not yet, sir. I have just completed my flying training.’

The captain nodded. ‘Then you were no doubt with a regiment before joining the RFC?’

Perys realised he was being questioned, but could not understand why.

‘No, I came directly into the RFC. Is there a reason for your questions, sir?’

‘There is. Lieutenant. I am on the staff of the Provost Marshal at the War Office, just a short distance away. I would be grateful if you would accompany me there.’

‘Accompany you . . . but why? I am escorting a young lady on an evening out. Here she is now.’

Grace came towards them, smiling. ‘I am sorry if I have kept you waiting, Perys. I am glad you found someone to talk to. Are you ready to go now?’

‘I am afraid Second Lieutenant Tremayne will need to accompany me, miss. I have a few questions to put to him.’

The fact that the provost captain knew his name confirmed to Perys that someone was deliberately causing trouble for him - and Perys had no doubt who that ‘someone’ was.

Taken aback by the captain’s words, Grace said, ‘Perys is escorting me for the evening. Why do you wish to take him away?’

‘I am afraid it is a military matter, miss. However, I will ensure you are not left stranded. I will arrange for a taxi-cab to take you wherever you wish to go.’

Perys had always looked upon Grace as an unassuming, gentle girl, somewhat overshadowed by her more positive friend, Morwenna. He was about to see her in a very different light.

Suddenly angry, she snapped at the provost captain, ‘I will not be abandoned in such a manner, Captain. Where do you intend taking Perys?’

‘To the War Office, miss, where I am stationed - ’

Grace did not allow him to finish what he was saying. ‘Then you will telephone Major General Ballard. I believe that in addition to other responsibilities, he is in charge of the army’s provost section. Tell him what you are doing - and why - and ask him to please come to collect me here, or at the War Office, because if you go there I shall certainly come too.’

The provost captain was startled. Major General Sir Giles Ballard was a senior officer at the War Office and responsible for many more important departments than the army’s provost section.

‘You are acquainted with General Ballard, Miss?’

‘He is my father.’

Grace’s statement took Perys by surprise - but it thoroughly dismayed the provost captain. A comparatively minor incident had suddenly assumed proportions which could have serious implications for his career.

Fully aware of his misgivings, Grace offered him a lifeline. ‘Do we call out my father, Captain, or will you explain what all this is about?’

The captain was a realist. If he sufficiently antagonised the daughter of Major General Ballard he could say goodbye to all hopes of advancement within the provost section.

‘Shall we take a seat over there . . . ?’ He pointed to a corner of the lounge where a number of comfortable armchairs were clustered about a small table. ‘I fear people are becoming interested in us.’

The trio moved to the corner. Perys and Grace shared a sofa, while the captain sat facing them across the table. Addressing Perys, he was the first to speak.

‘I received a telephone call informing me that a young Royal Flying Corps pilot, fresh from his training course, was here in the hotel dining- room, wearing ribbons of decorations to which he was not entitled. When I arrived you were the only RFC officer in the restaurant and by your own admission are fresh out of training, yet you are wearing the ribbon of the Military Cross - as well as two other ribbons I do not recognise.’

‘One is Russian,’ Perys explained. ‘The Medal of the Order of Saint George. The other is the Royal Humane Society Medal. Both were given to me for rescuing the captain of a Russian ship which sank off the Cornish coast last year.’

‘And the Military Cross?’

Before Perys could explain, Grace said, ‘Perys qualified as a pilot before joining the Royal Flying Corps. Because of this the officer in charge of training asked Perys to pilot him to Ypres in Belgium. While there they became involved in the rescue of Brigadier Palmer and pilot who had crashed in no-man’s land, Perys was awarded an immediate Military Cross. My father knows all about it - in fact, he is of opinion that Perys should have received an even higher award. You may check with him, if you wish.’

‘That will not be necessary, Miss Ballard. You have satisfied me that the information I have been given is erroneous. Please accept my sincere apologies. You too, Lieutenant Tremayne - indeed, I am proud to have met with you. I hope you will understand that I had to take action on the telephone call that was made to the War Office.’

‘May I ask the name of the caller?’ Perys said. Although greatly relieved that the matter had been satisfactorily settled, he was angry that it should have occurred at all.

‘It was an anonymous call,’ admitted the captain.

‘But the caller mentioned me by name?’

‘Why, yes, he did.’

Now Perys was quite certain he knew who had made the call. ‘I think you will find your anonymous caller seated at a table in the restaurant at this moment, in the company of two friends. His name is Edward Tremayne and he is a Second Lieutenant in the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry.’ The captain’s eyebrows rose and Perys added, ‘We are cousins - at least, second cousins. Shortly before the war began I gave him a bloody nose. He has never forgiven me. I noticed he was absent from the table for some minutes earlier in the evening’ it’s probable he was making a telephone call to you.’

‘Now you mention it, I thought I recognised the voice. I believe he has a junior post at the War Office. I will go and have a word with him now. The provost section does not exist to settle family feuds. Thank you both for your understanding. I trust this unfortunate incident has not spoiled your evening together.’

* * *

It was a fine night and Perys and Grace decided to walk back to the hostel at St Thomas’s Hospital, where she had a room. On the way, his anger over the incident at the hotel almost gone, Perys said, ‘You never told me your father was such a senior army officer.’

Grace smiled at him. ‘You never asked me about him. He has taken a much greater interest in you. He was almost as thrilled as I was by the award of your Military Cross. He is a great RFC enthusiast and believes you have an assured future in the service. We spoke on the telephone earlier today. He has asked me to invite you to our home in Oxfordshire as soon as you have a free weekend . . . I suppose that really means as soon as we both have a free weekend at the same time. Life is likely to be changing a great deal for both of us in the coming weeks and months.’

‘Making plans will be difficult,’ he agreed, ‘as it already is for a great many people.’

‘But we will see each other again, whenever it is possible? We will try to make it happen?’

‘Of course.’

They were in the shadows, midway between two street lights, and it seemed a natural thing for them both to come to a halt and kiss.

Grace came to him eagerly. His response matched her ardour, but it needed a conscious effort to banish thoughts of the last girl he had kissed in this manner.

It was not easy.

But Annie was to marry someone else. It was time to put the past behind him.

Chapter 41

Nine days after the evening spent with Grace, Perys arrived in France.

He had hoped to fly there from England, but other senior officers at the Central Flying School were less confident of his skills than Major Kemp had been. Perys had only just completed his advanced flying course, therefore he had to travel with other newly qualified pilots drafted to front-line squadrons - by boat and train.

It was a long journey. Perys was the only man joining Major Kemp’s squadron, and by the time he reached the nearest railway station to the airfield he was tired, hungry and not in the best of humour. It did not help to be told that transport from the airfield might take anything up to two hours to arrive.

In fact, a vehicle arrived in less than an hour, but by this time night had fallen and the railway station was in darkness, for fear of an unlikely attack by German aircraft.

Perys had to wait until mail for the squadron had been loaded into the van, before climbing inside the cab beside the driver. Impatiently, he asked, ‘How long will it take us to reach the airfield?’

‘A lot longer than it would in daylight, sir. We’ll be running on dimmed lights and the road isn’t too good . . .’

But Perys had stopped listening to what the man was saying. ‘I know that voice,’ he said. ‘It’s Martin, isn’t it? Martin from Heligan.’

‘That’s right, sir, but I’m Driver Bray now - Air Mechanic First Class.’

‘We’ll leave all that for when we’re on the airfield, Martin.’ Reaching across the cab, he shook hands with the ex-Heligan coachman. ‘I knew you were in the RFC. I was at Heligan for a short while before Christmas.’

‘I know, sir. Polly wrote and told me.’

‘Is she well, Martin, she and . . . the family?’

‘They were all fine when I last heard, sir, but I’ve been moving about a bit since I left England. I’m not sure all the mail has caught up with me.’

‘It isn’t only here there are problems with the mail,’ Perys said, ruefully. ‘I wrote a number of letters to Annie that failed to arrive.’

‘Oh, they got there in the end,’ Martin said, hoping Perys would not question him too closely. Polly mentioned it. There was some sort of misunderstanding, I believe. Annie didn’t get the letters until after you’d been and gone from Heligan. Polly said she was very upset about it.’

They had left the railway station behind now and Martin spoke without shifting his gaze from the road, barely discernible in the dim light from the shielded headlamps.

‘She never received them . . . ?’ Perys suffered a brief moment of consternation. If she had not received his letters, then perhaps . . . Then he remembered she was to marry the farmer’s son. ‘It’s probably just as well she never had my letters before I arrived. After all, I believe she’s to be married.’

In the darkness of the van’s cab, Martin’s gaze flicked momentarily from the road to the man beside him. ‘Might they have caused trouble?’

‘Possibly. I grew very fond of Annie when we were all at Heligan together.’

‘I always thought she felt the same way about you,’ Martin said.

‘Then why was mention never made of this farmer’s son she’s marrying? According to your parents a marriage between them was planned long before I came on the scene.’

‘It’s certainly what Ma and Pa would like. They’ve never made any secret of it, but it came as a surprise to me when I heard that Annie and Jimmy were going to marry. Rose - Jimmy’s sister - is Annie’s friend, her best friend, but I was never aware of anything between our Annie and Jimmy. Still, there must have been something going on, I suppose, because both Ma and Polly have written to tell me about it.’

‘When you next write to Polly will you ask her to pass on a message to Annie from me? Tell her that I hope she will be very, very happy with this Jimmy.’

‘I’ll do that. But changing the subject for a moment, there are a couple of things I’d like to say before we reach the airfield . . . sir. It might be better for both of us if you don’t let on that we know each other. The men I work with would resent it and make more of it than there is. It wouldn’t do you any good either, sir. A couple of the pilots who are officers now were once just ordinary airmen like me. They’ve been told off in no uncertain terms about being too friendly with men they once worked with.’

‘Very well, Martin, if that’s the way things are, that’s the way we’ll behave - when we’re on the airfield. When we’re on our own like this I’d like things to be the way they were during those happy days at Heligan. But you said there were a couple of things?’

‘Yes. I’m very grateful to you for suggesting that I should join the RFC. I’ve seen something of life in the trenches, up at the front. I don’t think I could survive in the way they have to. All the same, I believe I might be doing something more useful than driving a van around the countryside.’ There was another quick glance at Perys before Martin added, ‘What I’d really like to do is fly . . . perhaps not as a pilot, I don’t think I’ll ever be good enough for that, but I’m sure I could do the job of an observer. I know you won’t be able to do anything about it right away, not until you’ve settled in a bit, but there aren’t enough observers in the squadron to go round right now. Sometimes the pilots choose one of the ground crew to go up with them. If ever the occasion arises I’d be very grateful if you’d consider taking me.’

‘Of course I will, Martin, but, as you say, I’ll need to settle in a little first.’

* * *

Perys’s settling in period was much shorter than he had anticipated.

He was informed on his arrival that it was Major Kemp’s policy to give new pilots a minimum of fourteen days’ familiarisation before they were sent up on active duties. The commanding officer made this ruling in a bid to curtail the alarming loss of pilots and observers that the squadron had experienced prior to his arrival.

He decided that before a pilot became operational, he should be familiar with the area in which he operated, know the spots where German anti-aircraft guns and aircraft were at their most dangerous, and be able to find his way back to the airfield after an operation, no matter where he happened to be.

Unfortunately, Perys had only been with the squadron for two days when three pilots and two observers were seriously hurt in a vehicle smash when they were returning to the airfield after a night out in the local town. He was told he would need to be available immediately.

The squadron had been given the task of reconnaissance and aerial photography, both of which were of prime importance with a spring offensive in the offing. Aerial photography was dangerous work. While taking photographs of enemy lines it was necessary for the pilot to fly a straight and even course, in order that the photographs so obtained could later be joined together to give a full picture of the trench system of the German army. Any significant changes would be assessed by senior officers at army headquarters in a bid to guess what the Germans might be planning.