Pastoral (22 page)

“They did?”

“Every one of them—Gunnar Franck and all. Even the radio-operator that got shot up wants to stay in that crew.” He flipped the letter across to Chesterton.

The Squadron Leader read it carefully. “What’s behind it?” he enquired at last.

“I don’t think anything’s behind it. I think they just like him.”

“But still you don’t think they can go on?”

“No, I don’t,” said Dobbie. “If we let it slide I think they’ll all be killed in some damn silly way. I think we’ve got to do something.”

The Squadron Leader read the letter through again. “What’s the matter with Marshall?” he enquired. “I always thought him quite a pleasant chap.”

“He is,” said Dobbie. “I like Marshall. It’s the usual, of course. He got mixed up with a young woman and she gave him a bump.”

“Somebody on the station?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it—do you know?”

“Section Officer Robertson.”

“Oh.” The old Squadron Leader sat turning the letter idly over in his hand. It was tricky when W.A.A.F. officers were involved. He had had similar episodes once or twice before and it was always troublesome; it meant dealing with very senior W.A.A.F.s whose point of view was alien to him. He never understood their mental processes in such matters; they were kind where he would have been stern, brutal where he would have been lenient. Queer people to deal with; when you started anything with them you never quite knew what would happen.

“She’s all right, isn’t she?” he said at last.

“I think so,” said Dobbie. “I think it’s all quite above board. The rear-gunner says she shot him down. I suppose that means he wanted to marry her.”

Chesterton nodded. “I should think that’s it. They’re the marrying sort—both of them.”

“If that’s the way of it,” said Dobbie irritably, “why the hell doesn’t she marry him?”

“She’s very young,” said Chesterton. He had two daughters himself, both older than this girl, and neither was married.

“The great adventure on this station isn’t bombing Germany,” said Dobbie bitterly. “They don’t think anything of that. Falling in love is the big business here.”

“What else do you expect, considering the age we take them in?”

“I don’t know. Anyway, what are we going to do about Marshall?”

Experience was here to help them; it was not the first time that they had had similar incidents at Hartley Magna. “You’ll have to shift one or other of them,” said Chesterton. “The sooner the better. If what you say is right, Marshall will never settle down. You’d better get the girl shifted.”

“Return her to store, and get another one?”

“That’s it. She can go back to Group.”

“I suppose that’s the right thing to do,” said Dobbie doubtfully.

“I think it is,” said Chesterton. “Look at it from Marshall’s point of view. He wants to marry this girl. She’s not having any. But yet they’ve got to rub shoulders in the mess every day in front of all the rest of us. It’s not fair on any man, that—especially a vigorous man like Marshall. I’m not surprised he’s getting bad-tempered. I should be.”

Dobbie said: “I’m rather surprised he hasn’t asked for a transfer.”

“That’s the old business of the moth and the candle. But he will ask for a transfer. That’ll be the next thing. If you want to keep him here, you’d better shift the girl.”

Dobbie picked up Corporal Leech’s letter from the desk and glanced it over again. “I’d like to have a crack at keeping him,” he said. “I believe this crew might get on to its feet again. They all want to stay with him—every one of them. If we shift the girl he may settle down. I think it’s worth trying. But it’s bad luck on the girl.”

“She’ll be all right,” said Chesterton. “She’ll be just as well off as signals officer at Wittington or Charwick as she is here. She’ll be doing the same job.”

He paused. “I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll slip over and see that Wing Officer at Group—Mrs. Harding—and fix it up. I’ll tell her we’ve got nothing against the girl.”

“You can tell her a bit more than that,” said Dobbie. “The girl’s good at her job. She’s intelligent, and she’s quick, and she’s hardworking. The only thing we’ve got against her is that she doesn’t want to marry one of my pilots, who I don’t want married anyway.”

“I’ll tell Mrs. Harding all that,” said Chesterton. “I think she’ll understand. They’re very good, you know.”

Dobbie lit a cigarette, and blew out a long cloud of smoke. He sat silent for a minute, deep in thought. “I don’t like it,”
he said uneasily at last. “You never know how they’ll take these things. She’s a good girl, and they’ve been very discreet. She may get a bad mark against her if we send her back to store over a thing like this. And if we crack her up and tell the Queen W.A.A.F. what a wizard girl she is, she’ll get a worse one.”

Chesterton smiled. “Well,” he said, “we don’t want to pile it on too thick. You’d better stay out of this and let me handle it. You’re too young. The Queen W.A.A.F. will think that my grey hairs make me pretty safe.”

“She doesn’t know you,” said the Wing Commander.

There was a silence in the office for a minute. In the end Dobbie sat up briskly. “I’m sorry,” he said incisively, “but I don’t like that way of handling it a bit. We’ve got to shift the girl, but I think she ought to ask for a transfer herself. She can go to her Wing Officer and ask to be moved to Charwick or Wittington. If they ask her why, she can say that she’s been bothered by one of the officers here, which happens to be true.”

“I see your point,” the Squadron Leader said thoughtfully. “That couldn’t possibly make any trouble. And we can back her up in that, and say that we think she’s behaved very well.”

Wing Commander Dobbie pushed back his chair. “Well, that’s the way we’ll take it,” he said. “You have a talk with her and get her to put in to be transferred. Make it effective before Marshall comes back off leave, if you can.”

“Me have a talk with her?” said the Squadron Leader, in dismay.

Dobbie laughed. “It’s your job,” he said. “It’s administration. Besides you’ve got daughters as old as Robertson, or older.”

“I know I have,” said Chesterton. “But I never muck about in things like this—I let them go their own way. What am I to say to Robertson?”

The Wing Commander said: “Just tell her the truth. Tell her that Vickers don’t put much armour on the Wimpies because of the weight. Tell her that the crews who go and come without incident have secret armour. Tell her that the crews that come back safely are the crews without personal troubles, who sleep sound at nights and have fun in the daytime.” He paused, considering his long experience.

“The secret armour of a quiet mind,” he said. “Tell her about that.”

“You tell her,” said Chesterton hopefully. “You know the lines.”

“I’m too young,” said the Wing Commander. “You just said so. You wanted to handle this. Well, go ahead and do it.”

“All right.” The Squadron Leader thought for a moment. “She’s just put in for week-end leave,” he said. “I think I’ll wait till Friday and put it to her just before she goes. Then she can get in touch with her Wing Officer next week.”

“Do it any time you like,” said Dobbie, “so long as she’s off the station before Marshall comes back.”

Chesterton went back into his office thoughtfully. If there was one job that he thoroughly disliked and dreaded it was anything to do with the disciplining of W.A.A.F. officers. He got very little practice at it, for one thing; they had their own organisation and seldom came before him in that way. Only once before during four years of total war had he been compelled to ask a young woman questions about her behaviour; on that occasion it had been a nice point which of them had been more frightened.

He brooded over his problem for the next two days, rehearsing various openings, considering all the angles. When Friday came he was still unprepared, but set himself grimly to his task. He went up to Gervase in the ante-room before lunch. “Come along to my office this afternoon, will you?” he said. “I’ve got one or two things to talk over. About three?”

Gervase said: “Yes, sir,” and wondered what signals had to do with Chesterton, and whether something frightful had happened over one of her girls. She presented herself at his office at three o’clock with some misgivings. He greeted her with forced heartiness, made her sit down, and gave her a cigarette.

He plunged straight into the matter without beating about the bush; it was better, he thought, to get it over quickly. “We’ve had a long talk about one of the crews,” he said, “Wing Commander Dobbie and I. We’re a bit worried about R for Robert. They used to be a very good, reliable crew. But last time they went out they got lost and landed up at Whitsand, just like a pack of boys straight in from the training school.”

Gervase sat motionless, her heart right up in the middle of her throat. This wasn’t something frightful about one of her girls. This was something frightful about herself.

The Squadron Leader went on: “When a crew goes off
colour in that way, Wing Commander Dobbie always tries to find out what’s the matter, so that we can put it right if possible. In this case we found that there had been some friction, and there didn’t seem to be much reason for it. The crew all seem to like their captain, Flight Lieutenant Marshall.”

Gervase raised her eyes. “I think they do,” she said. “I was talking to the rear-gunner about it the other night.”

Chesterton smiled; the way seemed easier. “I thought perhaps you might be able to help us,” he said. “I don’t really know what this trouble is about, but, so far as I can see, the captain is to blame for most of it.” He paused, expectantly.

A man of fifty is seldom a match for a young girl. He had talked too much and too slowly, and thereby made a tactical mistake. He had given Gervase ample time to recover her self-possession after the first shock of realising that she herself was on the carpet. Now she was ready to parry any thrust.

She smiled at him with innocent candour. “It is funny, isn’t it?” she said. “We were all talking about it in our mess the other night. We couldn’t understand why such an experienced crew should start making mistakes. But then I met the rear-gunner and heard all about it. I don’t think you need worry about them now. I think they’ll be all right when they go out next time.”

There was a momentary pause. “What makes you think that?” he asked gravely.

She said: “I’ve got them some fishing.”

The old Squadron Leader blinked in surprise, trying to focus his mind upon this new aspect of the matter. “I beg your pardon?” he enquired.

Gervase looked up at him in starry-eyed innocence. “The rear-gunner told me,” she said. “You see, they’re all such keen fishermen in that crew, and they used to do it all together. But after the coarse-fishing season ended in the middle of March things started to go wrong, and they got on each other’s nerves a bit, because they were all so bored with having nothing to do. I know it sounds silly, sir, but that’s what he said.”

She paused. “So I got permission for them to go fishing in a lake near here. It’s nothing to do with me, of course, but I thought it might help. I hope I’ve not done wrong.”

“But if the fishing season is over, how can they go fishing?” he asked in perplexity. It sounded to him to be a fishy sort of story altogether.

Gervase smiled tolerantly at him. “Trout-fishing starts in March, when the coarse-fishing ends,” she said. “I got them some trout-fishing.”

Chesterton thought of the flat country around Hartley, and the slow, muddy streams. “I didn’t know there was any round here,” he said. “Tell me, how did you get hold of it?”

She had lain awake in bed for half an hour on the Wednesday morning, after a long night’s sleep. She lay staring at the ceiling in a dream, thinking of Peter Marshall and of the warm pressure of his hand on hers, thinking of all the problems of their relationship, thinking with scared delight of the week-end which was going to plunge her deeper into trouble. From that she came to think about the crew and Sergeant Phillips, and their fishing, and his phrase: “It’s weary when you don’t know what to do.”

And suddenly she thought: “This is ridiculous.” Trout-fishing at that time of year was in full swing, and there were trout in Kingslake Woods; she had seen them herself and poked at them with a stick. She had no idea who they belonged to, but that she could find out. Fired with the enthusiasm of youth she got up and had a bath.

She rang up Mr. Ellison at the tractor depot in the middle of the morning. She said: “This is Section Officer Robertson speaking, from the aerodrome. Do you remember me, Mr. Ellison? I came to your pigeon-shoot with Wing Commander Dobbie in the Jeep.”

He said: “I remember. Miss Robertson, is it?”

“That’s right. Mr. Ellison, you know everybody round here. Who lives in Kingslake House, over by Chipping Hinton?”

“Blowed if I know. I could find out for you.”

“Could you? I want to know this morning, if I can.” She hesitated. “I’ll tell you what it’s about. There’s a lake there, with a lot of trout in it. Some of us were wondering if the owner of the house would let us go fishing there.”

“I get you,” he said. “Give you a ring back in half an hour.”

She went on with her work; he came through on the telephone later in the morning. “About those trout you want to fish,” he said. “You haven’t got a hope. Nobody’s allowed near them.”

She said: “Who does the house belong to?”

“Well, there’s a Brigadier Carter-Hayes, who lives there with his mother, Mrs. Carter-Hayes. They’re county people, all frightfully toffee-nosed and Poona. Brigadier Carter-Hayes is away, out somewhere in the Middle East. There’s only the old lady there now, and she won’t let anybody near those fish. Seems like they’re a sacred trust she’s keeping for him.”

It did not sound too promising. “She must be pretty old if she’s got a son who’s a brigadier,” said Gervase.

“Getting on for eighty. Runs the house with three maids, all over sixty. The tweeny is a child of sixty-three.”