Authors: Alan Judd
‘Had enough of the mess tonight?’ said Patrick.
‘I just – well, yeah, I guess so.’
‘Too much for everyone, sometime or other. We all need some escape.’
‘Except the Dodger. Seems to suit him.’
‘Horses for courses. Some escape by immersion, diving deeper, never thinking about it. Others like you and me have to come up
for air now and again, sit on the bank, take a few breaths.’
‘I didn’t realise you did.’
‘That’s the thing about being in, you don’t notice those who climb out. Talking of banks, sitting on,
how’s your fishing going? Any luck?’
Frank soon found himself talking about the colonel and Vanessa. It was an unexpected relief.
‘Enigmatic,’ said Patrick.
‘She is, yes. I don’t get what’s going on. Something is, but I just don’t get it.’
‘I meant him, your colonel. Sounds as if he knows more than he’s letting on, keeping something back.’
‘Maybe, maybe.’ Frank hadn’t thought much about the colonel. ‘Maybe they’re both spies, trying to get information out of me.’
Patrick laughed. ‘Pretty disappointing Mata Hari, leaving you alone with her father.’
Frank was in bed before the British Bulldog players returned. They were noisy enough but too bruised and tired to be rowdy and
there were no pranks or high jinks. The hut fairly swiftly settled down and soon the only sounds that came to his ears, as
he lay awake wondering again whether he would die a virgin, were those of sleeping men and the distant rumble of the three-tonners.
It was a week before he called again on the colonel, a week of low cloud, rain, poor visibility and inconclusive but dangerous daily missions. They did sweeps over northern France,
giving the airfields a wide berth but concentrating on railway goods yards and military sites. In order to see, they
were forced beneath the clouds, which meant they could report that German anti-aircraft defences were increasingly concentrated and effective. They lost
another pilot – Alun, from Wales – and had several planes seriously damaged. The Luftwaffe made few appearances but Patrick and Frank
shot up a long goods train of camouflaged tanks and guns outside Abbeville. Its three anti-aircraft platforms were taken by surprise because their approach was so low and fast, shielded by a road bridge which they almost clipped. The arthritic old engine,
belching great gouts of smoke out of all proportion to its size, exploded gratifyingly.
‘Pity the crew were French,’ said Patrick afterwards. ‘If only they’d seen us coming they might have had time to jump off.’
During the following two nights Frank awoke sweating and shaking after dreaming of the red brick parapet of the road bridge leaping at him and filling his screen.
On the Sunday, after they had been stood down for the day, Frank had time to fish again. It was another day of low cloud and drizzle which never quite
qualified as rain nor ever quite stopped but was silently, insistently dampening, as if the very air were breeding rain. The airfield windsock hung
wet and limp.
‘Like a flaccid cock after a party,’ said the Dodger.
Roddy’s bike was still round the back of the hut where Frank had left
it. The saddle was warped enough to hold water. He rubbed it down, tied his rod to the crossbar, slung his kitbag
over his shoulder and set off along the airfield slip-road. Once through the barriers he had at first to follow the lane used by the convoy.
It was clear now and he pedalled in a silence broken only by the regular tick of the Sturmey Archer in top gear
until two Army one-tonners, Humber signals trucks bristling with aerials, drenched him by passing within
inches of his handlebars as he rode through a large puddle. He heard someone laugh.
He returned to the spot where the colonel had found him. The long grass soaked his trousers but he
didn’t mind once he was standing beneath the willows, hanging lower now because of the rain. The green solitude
soaked into him, the river was opaque and the only sounds were dripping leaves and the hiss of rain on water. The cattle were
nowhere to be seen. He cast and re-cast, giving himself over to the gentle mesmerism of the river with its ever-widening and ever-fading raindrop rings.
The trout surprised him when it took his fly. There was a spirited struggle after that first and always thrilling
tug on the line, but not a long one and he soon had it flapping on the grass at his feet. He despatched it with his priest, then
knelt in the wet grass and held it with both hands. It was no larger than the others but big enough
for his purpose. He wrapped it in dock leaves and laid it carefully in the bottom of his kitbag, then washed his hands of its clear slime. It would
have been better to have two but he didn’t want to delay.
This time he cycled up the drive, leaning his bike against the shed as before. The black car in the shed was, he now saw, a Bentley. Also as before, there was no swift response to
his pull on the stiff iron bell-pull. He pulled again, provoking a muffled bark from within, and waited hopefully for the sounds of high heels on the parquet floor. There were no sounds but after a few seconds the door opened
abruptly.
Vanessa’s smile switched on immediately. ‘Frank, what a nice surprise.’ She looked at the dead fish he was holding,
wrapped in dock leaves. ‘What have you got there? Just the one today?’
‘’Fraid so. Just thought I’d leave it with you.’ He noticed she had flat-soled shoes this time, with tweed skirt, blouse and
cardigan.
‘That’ll never do. You must taste your own catch. The colonel will be delighted. Come in.’ She stood back, looking
him up and down. ‘Lord, how wet you are. Did you have to jump into the river after it?’
‘I guess it’s wetter than it looks out there.’
‘Always wetter on a bike, anyway, isn’t it? Let me have your cap and jacket. I’ll put them by the stove. Give me the fish first.’
‘My shoes are soaking. Shall I—?’
‘They’re all right, just wipe them. Come through to the kitchen.’
She took the trout and led him across the hall and through a door behind the stairs. The kitchen was large and high. Everything in it
looked old and well-worn but it was tidy. There was a large black range at one end and a scrubbed deal table with odd chairs in the middle. A floor-to-ceiling
dresser, full of crockery, occupied half of one wall. Tinker, the blind spaniel, got up slowly from the rug before the range and resumed his devoted sniffing of Frank’s trousers. She carried the
trout into the scullery at one side, saying over her shoulder, ‘Put your things on the rack above the oven. Not on it – it’s too hot.’
Although she looked little more than his own age, she still made him feel a generation younger. He lowered the
rack and draped his battledress jacket on it, hanging his cap on the end. At least he knew his blue RAF-issue shirt was clean.
She slit and sluiced the trout with brisk efficiency in the shallow stone sink. ‘Your trousers look pretty well soaked too but I suppose
you’d better keep them on.’ This time her smile showed her crooked and overlapping eye-teeth. But at least they
were clean and there were plenty of them, unlike the girl in Paddington.
He smiled back. ‘I guess so.’
‘You see that bell on the window ledge? If you open the door and step outside and ring it a couple of times
he’ll probably hear it. He’s a bit deaf, so give it a vigorous shake.’
It was an old hand-bell, the sort used by teachers in the junior school playground back home. He stepped out onto the long wide lawn, bordered at the end by shrubbery and
six tall elms and at the sides by high brick walls. At the bottom there were a couple of sheds and a greenhouse with rain
running off it. He stood on the brick path and rang the bell vigorously. Rooks started up from the elms, cawing, and a small bird darted from the bush near his
feet. The ringing faded, leaving only the rain.
‘I should come back in if I were you,’ she called. ‘He’s probably in the potting shed. He’ll come in a minute. Unless you like standing in the rain.’
He came back into the kitchen. ‘I didn’t mean to impose myself on you for dinner.’ It was unconvincing even to his own
ears.
She paused at the sink, holding the gutted fish. ‘Of course you must stay. The colonel will be delighted. We see little enough company now as it
is.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Unless we’re too boring for you?’
It was the reassurance he sought but he couldn’t resist continuing. ‘No, no, really, it’s just that – well, one trout
isn’t much to go round and I don’t want to eat into your rations. Especially as I can eat all I like back at base.’
‘So long as you don’t mind trout with rabbit. We get lots of rabbits and masses of stuff from the garden. There’s a large vegetable garden beyond the
wall. Too much, in fact, especially since Matthew, our gardener, was called up. Have to do it all ourselves now. Though quite what Matthew contributes to the defence
of the realm it’s hard to imagine. He was the slowest worker I’ve ever seen and much
too nice to kill anyone.’ She laughed as she washed her hands. ‘Why don’t you go down and fetch him? He should have heard but he doesn’t always and he often dithers.
Take that coat.’
She nodded at an old brown raincoat hanging from the kitchen door. He noticed her teeth again and wondered whether he would ever be able not to notice them. In Canada people’s
teeth were whiter and straighter.
He draped the coat over his shoulders. ‘My father’s a bit deaf, too. My stepfather, that is.’
She smiled again as she came towards him, drying her hands. ‘Oh, he’s not my father. And he’s not that deaf, either. Not very. It’s more that
if he’s concentrating on something he doesn’t seem to notice anything else.’
‘I thought it was strange that you called your father the colonel. A bit formal. Thought it must be an English custom.’ He
paused to give her the chance to say what their relation was but she hung up the towel and took
three plates from the wooden rack over the sink.
‘Tell him I’m pouring drinks before dinner. That’ll bring him running.’
The greenhouse was long and very full, built as a lean-to against the wall. Beyond it was a black wooden shed with a single window and an open
door through which Frank could smell the colonel’s pipe smoke, sweet and heavy in the saturated air. The colonel was seated on a high stool at a bench, wearing thick brown corduroys and a shapeless old tweed jacket, his blunt fingers pressing the earth around a plant in a large
pot. His pipe – a straight one this time – was held between his teeth. His face looked redder and
more wrinkled than Frank remembered, his blue eyes more rheumy. He looked up at Frank without surprise.
‘Ah. Welcome back. All in one piece?’
‘Guess so, sir.’ Frank tried briefly and not very hard to imagine the colonel and Vanessa making love. He didn’t like to picture it. But if she wasn’t his daughter,
what else could she be? A niece? An orphaned goddaughter? Some sort of paid help?
The colonel pushed more soil into the pot. ‘Any luck today?’
‘One, not very big. I didn’t intend to invite myself to dinner but Vanessa—’
‘Of course you must, of course. You don’t need to bring anything, anyway.’
‘It’ll go with the rabbit, she says.’
‘No shortage of rabbits around here.’ He took his time, breathing loudly through his nose as he pressed compost in with a small trowel.
The rain drummed on the shed roof. ‘Been busy?’
‘Here and there, nothing major. Poor flying weather. Vanessa’s just pouring drinks before dinner.’
‘Suppose you have to go low, don’t you, under this cloud? Forces you into the flak. Very unpleasant.’
‘Livens things up a bit, that’s for sure.’
The colonel eased himself off the stool, wiping his hands on his corduroys. ‘Couldn’t lift it down for me, could you? Put
it with the others outside the door. Damned heavy when they’re full, these big ones, and my shoulder’s been playing
up.’
It was heavier than Frank anticipated but he managed to place it alongside four or five others without humiliation. ‘What is it?’
‘Box. Pretty hardy but needs a good start.’
An idea came to Frank. ‘Vanessa says you’ve lost your gardener?’
‘Matthew? Yes. Agreeable young chap. Old village family. Steady enough worker as long as you’re around to keep an eye on him. Sort of chap
whose Army report would read, “Works well under supervision.” Don’t know how he’ll do in the regiment.’ He took
his pipe from his mouth. ‘I served with his father, who was gassed at Ypres. Survived the war but
his lungs were no good and he died about ten years ago.’
They dined in the kitchen on casseroled rabbit and vegetables, preceded by the
neatly-divided trout as an hors d’oeuvre. They had a bottle of claret with the rabbit. ‘Unpardonable
extravagance in wartime,’ said the colonel as he poured. ‘Vanessa disapproves, of course, but she can’t argue when there’s a guest, can
you, my dear?’ His blue eyes twinkled faintly. ‘Got the habit in France during the last show. Unable to drop it, no matter how hard I try. May as well drink what’s left of the cellar before a bomb lands on
it. Another lesson from the last show.’
Vanessa smiled at the colonel and raised her eyebrows at Frank.
‘Are you still in touch with anyone from your old regiment?’ asked Frank.
‘One or two. Only fifteen of the originals who volunteered in 1914 came back. Out of eight hundred. Some have died since then, of course, like Matthew’s father. I was already in the
Territorials and got drafted into the eighth battalion early on so I count as an original.’
‘I guess you had it worse than we do, all that hand-to-hand fighting.’
The colonel chewed slowly. ‘Not necessarily. Your war ain’t over yet, remember. When it is, go back through your
squadron records and see what your casualty rate was. You may be unpleasantly surprised.’
‘So long as I’m around to do it.’
‘I’m sure you will be.’ Vanessa took his empty plate and put it noisily on hers. The colonel hurried to finish
his. When Frank made to get up to help she waved him down. ‘Don’t, this is my job. No cheese today,
I’m afraid, but there is tea or coffee. What passes for coffee, anyway.’