Authors: Alan Judd
The man nodded.
‘You know it?’ If he did, he would be the first Frank had met in England.
‘Heard of it.’ He tamped and relit his pipe. ‘You need to drop your fly nearer the bank. They get
in underneath it.’
Frank doubted that. The water there was shallower and faster, with less food, but it was politic to show willing. He didn’t need to
re-cast but simply lifted the fly out and dropped it in nearer the bank where the current was rapid, too rapid for any fish to linger. He was beginning to resent the owner’s interest. He wanted to be alone, to
float like the dry fly he did not have, unburdened by conversation, his mind drifting on silence.
‘Closer in, as close to the bank as you can get it. The water’s slower there.’
Frank obediently flicked the fly out and dropped it farther upstream, inches from the bank, the tip of his rod just brushing the
grass. Another ten or twenty minutes and, with luck, the man would get bored and go away. When the fish bit he
was almost too slow with his strike. It was a brown trout, less than a pound, but spirited enough to put up a fight.
‘Give it to me.’ The man held out his hand as Frank landed it. He extracted the fly and handed the slippery, wriggling thing to its owner who
despatched it with a crisp knock on the head with the bowl of his pipe. ‘Same place again. Bound to be another.’
Within less than five minutes there was a pair lying on the grass between them, silvered and stippled, as streamlined as a Spitfire’s fuselage. After a few more
minutes of silence the man pocketed his pipe and got stiffly to his feet. He picked up the fish and wrapped them in dock leaves.
‘Come and eat them. About seven. They’ll be nicely done then, with spinach and potatoes from the garden. Nothing special.’
‘Well, that’s kind of you, sir.’ Frank normally gave anything he caught to the mess cook, with whom he secretly ate it in the kitchen.
It would be a treat to eat out. ‘Where do I come?’
‘Carry on over the bridge and down the lane for about half a mile. Take the first right
towards the village – no signposts now, of course, but there’s a large oak on the corner. Then it’s the first house you come to,
just before the church, set back from the road, behind some trees. Called the Manor but the sign’s
not easy to see.’
Frank fished for another forty-five minutes, with no result. The sun was touching the tops of the elms as he packed up and walked through
the munching cattle to his bike. There was no need to warn the mess he wouldn’t be there for dinner
– they never knew how many or how few they might have to cater for – and there was no particular time by which he had to be back, so long as he was ready
for ops first thing in the morning. The prospect of different people and a different conversation cheered him.
The lane narrowed after the bridge, funnelling through burgeoning cow parsley and a copse filled with the scent of wild garlic. At the
turning to the village the upright of the finger-post had been left in place, with just the arms removed. He didn’t
know which village it was and, indeed, never reached it because the manor and church came first. The house was hidden by trees and great cumulus banks of rhododendrons but was indicated by faded white lettering on a crumbling brick gate pillar.
He surprised himself by feeling he ought to dismount at the gate, untucking his trousers from his
socks. He pushed the bike up the rough drive, suspecting that if there had been a sign saying ‘Tradesmen’s Entrance’
he might have taken it. Ironic, he thought, given that his family’s farm in Canada was no doubt a considerable multiple in size of whatever the English gentleman owned.
It was a modest manor of old red brick and gabled in the Dutch style. There was a half-circle of lawn, intersected by the drive, and a wide front
door at the top of three steps. The white paint on the doors and windows was fading and peeling and the brickwork needed pointing. An
open lopsided wooden shed to one side showed the back of a large black car which looked as if it hadn’t moved for a long time. Petrol
rationing was tight for civilians, he remembered.
He leant the bike against the shed and mounted the steps. There was a rusting iron bell-pull in the wall but no knocker. The bell felt as if it
hadn’t been pulled for a long time and made a sound like a distant gong.
Nothing happened. After a minute or so he pulled again and had just let go when the door was opened by a young woman. She was older
than him, he guessed, but still in her twenties. Her shaped dark hair just touched her shoulders. She was dressed as if to go out, in high heels, a tight black
skirt and white blouse.
For a moment neither spoke. Frank realised he didn’t even know the old guy’s name.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t – my name’s—’
‘You must be the trout man.’ Her smile was wide and quick. ‘The man who’s going to share them, I
mean. He told me about you. Please come in.’
They were in a large panelled hall with a staircase leading off. In the middle was a round table on which books, magazines, newspapers and
letters were arranged in neat piles. An old spaniel ambled over to Frank and began sniffing his trousers.
‘Don’t mind Tinker, he’s blind.’
‘I don’t mind, I like dogs. I’m Frank, by the way, Frank Foucham. I’m over here with the RAF.’ He felt he was speaking
too fast.
‘I gathered.’ Her smile switched on and off again as they shook hands. ‘I’m Vanessa. I’ll tell the colonel you’re
here.’
She disappeared through one of the doors opening off the hall, her glossy high heels sounding decisive on the parquet floor. High heels and
stockings, hard to get over here now, he thought. She must be going out but where, with whom? And where was ‘out’ if you lived here
– surely not the church or the village pub? And how did you get to ‘out’, wherever it was, in heels like that? You sure as hell wouldn’t walk. Perhaps you got picked up in somebody’s car, somebody with
access to rationed petrol. Or the black market. He remained staring at the door she had closed. When she
spoke it made him feel she was a generation older than him; she had one of those very clear, cut-glass English voices that sounded as if they were
putting you down even when they weren’t, the sort that Patrick had probably grown up with. Yet she couldn’t be
much older than him.
Tinker continued his devoted sniffing of Frank’s trousers. He was a Springer, liver and white, obviously old and pretty overweight.
From somewhere within a clock struck the half-hour. The hall smelt of furniture polish and looked clean and well-kept, unlike
the outside of the house.
Another door opened and the old man appeared, minus his deerstalker. As he walked towards Frank, holding out his hand, his
resemblance to Tinker was striking. ‘Ovenden, Kenneth Ovenden.’
Frank introduced himself. The colonel kept hold of his hand. ‘Foucham. How do you spell it?’
Frank spelt it.
‘You were christened Frank, not Francis?’
‘Always Frank, sir, never Francis.’
The colonel nodded and let go of his hand.
‘And I understand you’re Colonel Ovenden? Is that right, sir?’
‘Lieutenant-colonel. One is always promoted in the vernacular. Last show, though, so nothing for you to worry about now. Call me Kenneth.’
For the rest of their short acquaintance, Frank never did. It was not a conscious decision, more an unconscious
acknowledgement, recognition of an identity the colonel needed to survive.
The colonel indicated the door he had just used. ‘We’ll go straight in, if you don’t mind. They’re done, the trout. You didn’t get any more?’
The dining room was also panelled but painted a faded cream. There was a polished dining table with ten or twelve ornate but rickety old
chairs, also polished. Above the marble fireplace was the portrait of a woman on a garden seat with a book on her lap. Her green eyes were
smiling, focused beyond the painter, and her auburn hair was pinned up in a bun from which one or two strands escaped.
Her legs were crossed and her long dark skirt revealed shoes that might have been ankle-length boots. She wore a light
shawl over her cream blouse and around her neck a fine gold chain and pendant. There was tension between the formal arrangement of the painting and its
execution, the tones, colours and lines of the latter suggesting a life beyond the canvas that the conventional arrangement denied.
The table was laid at the fireplace end, for two. The colonel gestured to Frank to sit and took a bottle from the sideboard. ‘Little low on wine but I think this should go nicely with river trout. I had hoped my cellar
would last the war but now I’m not so sure.’
The cutlery was engraved, the water was in a silver jug and there were clean white napkins in silver rings. Frank had briefly assumed that Vanessa
would join them but, of course, she must be going out.
The colonel poured for them both. ‘What do you fly?’
They were not far into the subject when the other door opened and Vanessa entered with two plates of trout, new potatoes and spinach, her skirt and blouse
protected by an unmarked white apron.
‘They’ve shrunk a bit in the cooking, I’m afraid, but a change from rations, and the potatoes and
spinach are from the garden. We’ve got tons of both.’
‘Change from stodgy mess food, too,’ said Frank. ‘They’ll be just fine, I’m sure.’ They did indeed seem sadly diminished but they looked good and the smell was tantalising. He raised his glass.
‘I’m very grateful. It’s kind of you to feed a stray airman. Especially one that was caught poaching from you. Thank you.’
The colonel raised his glass in acknowledgement but his watery blue eyes were on Vanessa, who had turned to the door. ‘Are you
sure?’ he asked.
She nodded and smiled.
‘Hope you have a good evening,’ ventured Frank.
‘Thank you. And you.’ She closed the door.
The dinner was full of flavour but Frank had to slow his eating in order not to finish too long before the colonel, who chewed
very thoroughly. His questions about the qualities of British and German planes showed surprising knowledge, though he stopped just short of making Frank feel
he was being pumped for information he shouldn’t give.
‘I gather this latest Focke-Wulf 190 will out-perform even the Spitfire XIV,’ the colonel said.
‘In outright speed, yes, but the Spit will out-turn it.’ Frank accepted more wine. ‘We’re about equal in a scrap but
you’re right, a well-flown 190 is pretty formidable.’
‘How about the Americans – Mustangs, Lightnings, Thunderbolts, that sort of thing?’
‘Can’t touch it.’
‘And this new one of ours, the Tempest. Any good?’
‘I’ve never flown one. Never seen one.’ Frank hadn’t realised that anyone outside the RAF knew of its existence. Patrick had had a test
flight and rated it highly.
‘Pretty good, I’m told, but hard to handle.’
‘That’s what I heard. You meet a lot of fliers around here, sir?’
The colonel nodded. ‘They come and go.’
When eventually he had finished, which was a while before he ceased to masticate, the colonel pointed to the sideboard. ‘No pudding, I’m afraid, but there’s cheese, if you like cheddar.’
It was a hunk of cheddar such as Frank hadn’t seen since reaching England, even in the RAF which, like the other
services, was better supplied than the population at large. ‘I guess rationing hits you less in the country than in the
towns?’
‘It does, yes, and we take full advantage of it, I fear.’ The colonel’s large mottled hand
trembled as he cut himself a piece. It reminded Frank of his own hands, which were fine now. ‘No real shortage
of eggs, milk or vegetables, in season. Red meat harder to come by, of course, but we eat the chickens when they go off lay and there are no end of rabbits, fortunately. I’ve taken to potting the odd squirrel, too. Ever had squirrel?’
‘Can’t say I have, sir, no.’
‘Only the greys, one of our less desirable American imports. Quite good, bit stringy. Like cat, I imagine. Think we need another bottle,
don’t you?’ Bending slowly, he took one from the cupboard beneath the sideboard. ‘Would you mind doing the honours? My hands. Arthritis,
I suppose.’
When they were seated he looked at Frank as if he had said something remarkable. ‘Foucham. Unusual name. Tell me about your family, where it came
from.’
Frank described the farm, his mother’s English descent, his stepfather’s Scottish origins. ‘Foucham
is my real father’s name. My mother remarried after the last war. My brothers and sisters are all called
McCluskey.’
‘Remember your father?’
‘Never saw him. He was killed near the end of the war. I was conceived before he left.’
‘What was he in?’
Frank shook his head. ‘It’s bad of me. I should know. I’ve been told.’
‘Any idea where?’
‘I must ask my mother. Like I said, I did know. He was English, he was from England, I do know that.’ He sensed he was
disappointing the colonel. ‘How about your own war, sir? What were you in?’
‘My war?’ The colonel shook his head. ‘Same as most people’s. Local regiment, Royal West Kents
– either them or the Buffs in this part of the world – eighth battalion, a Kitchener battalion. We did the usual things in the usual places, Loos, the Somme, Ypres, Amiens. I was
lucky. But you, what brought you all the way from Canada to the RAF? Why not the RCAF?’
Frank recounted his early love for all things mechanical, the special glamour of mechanical things that flew, the growing number
of airstrips in Canada – they had one on their farm – and the friend of his stepfather’s who
would take them lake-hopping in his seaplane. Then university to study aeronautical engineering, getting his flying licence, the hours he accumulated landing more often on water than on land, finally running
into some of the RAF pilots sent to train in the safety of Canada. Hearing from them about the air war in Europe and the shortage of pilots in Britain made
him determined to get here. He met the senior RAF officer but nothing happened for what seemed an age until, quite suddenly, he was told that it was all fixed, with
a berth booked on a convoy ship taking some of the pilots back across the Atlantic. Then he had to break the news to his parents.