She had been cool with him for weeks.
That was three summers ago and it was only by the spring of 1938 that Gwen had recovered her
amour-propre
sufficiently to return to her oils, brushes and canvases in the attic of the
Dower House. Mr Arnold may have had his own (unvoiced) opinion of his wife’s ability, but he couldn’t fault her new-found self-belief. Indeed, he had been obliged to cancel a long
anticipated holiday to the Lake District after Gwen protested that she ‘couldn’t possibly,
possibly
’ leave her work.
‘Not at such a crucial stage, Oliver. Surely you can understand. I’ve never experienced such a creative
burst
.’
Her husband reflected that one half-finished oil depicting a vase of what appeared to be drought-stricken daisies didn’t represent much of a creative burst to him, but nevertheless
dutifully wrote to the hotel near Ullswater, and bade a sad farewell to his deposit.
So Mr Arnold spent his two-week holiday taking packed lunches, prepared for him by Lucy, on lonely expeditions into the surrounding countryside while his wife laboured, or, if we are to be
honest, postured, at her easel. The house was quiet now the children were away at their studies and for the first time in years, he experienced a touch of melancholy. It did him good to get
out.
He was at his happiest up on the Weald, from where he could look down upon the smoke and haze of London to the north, and across to the shimmering hint of the sea to the south. Small powder-blue
butterflies exploded from the bushes along the footpaths in front of him as he strode along the ripple of high ground between the North and South Downs. ‘Kent’s answer to the Malvern
Hills,’ he would murmur to himself at some point during each visit. It was a knowing conceit, but it pleased him. Yet even the sunniest days were increasingly darkened by the growing threat
of war.
Invisible just below the southern horizon lay France. France, which twenty-four years ago had stood toe-to-toe with a threatening, blustering Kaiser, and now stared into the dead eyes of the
Führer.
Mr Arnold, munching his ham sandwiches on the slopes above Ashdown Forest, could scarcely believe another war might be coming. He had ended up as a major in France last time. When he’d
asked Gwen to marry him he had been on a short leave to London, and although her ‘yes, yes of course!’ had thrilled and exhilarated him, secretly he didn’t expect to survive long
enough to see his own wedding.
Even today he looked back with genuine astonishment at the fact that he’d come out of the war in one piece. He had been almost four years in the trenches, joining his regiment immediately
after leaving public school in the summer of 1914. Plans to read law at university were postponed, although Oliver and his parents were quietly confident that he would take up his place at Oxford
within a few months, certainly by the New Year. The war would be won by Christmas at the latest; everyone knew that.
By the end of 1918, Mr Arnold was the only boy from his school year’s Cadet Corps to survive the war. He had no idea why he had been spared. It certainly wasn’t through lack of
exposure to battle; he had fought in so many, and seen so many men killed directly beside him. Some had been shot, others evaporated in an instant by the blast of a shell that somehow left him
unscathed. Shellfire did that sort of thing; he’d witnessed men closest to an explosion crawl away while others further back were blown to pieces.
Now, probably too old at forty-five to fight again, his fears were for his son. At twenty, John was at the RAF Officer Training School at Cranwell in Lincolnshire. Nothing was certain, but if he
was commissioned, ultimately John could be sent on active duty. The papers said the war would be decided in the air this time. John might be one of the young men pitched into a new kind of front
line; a modern battlefield where the enemy, bad weather or bad luck would toss boys like him into gravity’s unforgiving grasp.
Mr Arnold tried to keep grotesque images of his son tumbling helplessly through the skies at bay, and confided his anxieties to no one. But as the summer days shortened, and August drifted into
September, the secret fear within him grew. Hitler’s threats against Czechoslovakia were becoming wilder and more bellicose by the day. Mr Arnold scanned the gloomy headlines in his newspaper
each morning on the train to Charing Cross. Britain and France were honour-bound to stand by what Mr Arnold’s editorials unfailingly described as ‘the plucky Czechs’.
Summer was nearly done and the woods that surrounded the Dower House began to glow with the first colours of autumn. Fires were lit again in the cottages and farmhouses that dotted the station
road. Mr Arnold, sitting behind the wheel of his big green Humber (a present from a grateful client he’d represented in a swift and decisive action), noted the wood-smoke rising from
chimneys. It was, after all, the last weekend in September. He wondered if it would also be the last weekend of peace. The Prime Minister had that very afternoon announced to a cheering House of
Commons that he was flying immediately to Munich to hold talks with the Führer, at Herr Hitler’s personal invitation, to ‘settle the Czechoslovakian Question . . . once and for
all’.
Tomorrow’s meeting in Germany, Mr Arnold reflected as he turned into the gravel drive of the Dower House, represented not much more than a last desperate throw of the dice.
Lucy let him into the hall and helped him off with his hat and coat.
‘Will it be war, sir?’ she asked politely, in the same tone of voice as if she were asking him if it might rain.
‘I very much doubt things will come to that, Lucy,’ he said. But secretly he was relieved that Diana and John were coming home for the weekend. War felt very close now, and he wanted
his children near.
‘Hitler is absolutely no different from Queen Victoria. No different
what-so-ever
.’ Diana pushed her plate away and stared defiantly at the rest of the
family.
‘Oh dear,’ murmured Gwen. ‘Not another of these tiresome arguments over lunch, please. Lucy will be serving dessert in a moment.’
Her husband shifted in his chair. ‘There’s nothing tiresome about these discussions,’ he said irritably. ‘Nothing tiresome at all, as it happens. I like to hear the
children speaking their minds. I—’
‘We’re hardly children, Daddy,’ Diana interrupted. ‘I’m at Girton learning how awful politicians are and John is at Cranwell learning how to kill people. Not
exactly the occupations of infants.’
Mr Arnold looked at her over his glasses and put down his Sunday paper, from which he had just been reading aloud, and with rising anger, to his family.
‘You may be reading politics at Cambridge, young lady, but it’s infantile to compare Adolf with Victoria. Surely you—’
‘It’s infantile
not
to! Victoria and her ghastly prime ministers and gunboats built the biggest empire the world has ever seen, and they did it with threats and brute force,
smash and grab. Remind you of anyone? Hitler may be a horrible man and his party a bunch of gangsters, but he’s only doing what we’ve been getting away with for centuries. It’s
the height of hypocrisy to say anything else. Come on, Daddy, surely you must
see
.’
‘I certainly see that you’re oversimplifying things. You can’t compare British democracy with Nazi thuggery. We built partnerships across the world. We—’
‘Oh, give it a rest, both of you.’ John pushed his plate away. ‘Dad, you know Diana doesn’t believe a word of what she’s saying. She just likes a good
row.’
‘I do
not
. Shut up, John. Anyway, Daddy and I agree on one thing – Britain and France have sold the Czechs completely down the river. It’s awful. I feel so
ashamed.’
Her father threw back his head. ‘Well, we’re in the minority, my dear. Most people,’ he waved his paper, ‘think Mr Chamberlain’s the hero of the hour; he’s
saved us from war and stood up to Hitler. Wrong, on both counts. Our PM may have said “no” to the bully for now, but he’s agreed to give him everything he wants in regular
instalments in the near future. A sell-out in easy stages. And we promised the Czechs we’d stand by them. Some promise! We’ve forced them to hand over half their country to Hitler.
You’re right, Diana. It
is
shameful.’
‘But if it stops a war . . . I mean, the PM has at least stopped that, hasn’t he, Dad?’ asked John.
‘Of course he hasn’t. Good God, John, haven’t you read any of Churchill’s articles in the papers? Hitler’s a blackmailer, and blackmailers always come back for
more. After what we gave him on Friday, he must think we’re abject worms. I’ll tell you this: there’ll be German troops in Prague by Christmas.’
Gwen, who had gone to the kitchen to see what Lucy was doing about dessert, returned in time to hear her husband’s prediction. Her shoulders dropped.
‘Let’s pray you’re wrong, Oliver,’ she said. ‘Otherwise John will have to go to war, just as you did. You can’t want that.’
‘Of course I don’t want that! Why is no one listening properly? What I’m trying to say is—’
John coughed. ‘I don’t think Dad wants war, Mum. But . . . er . . . a lot of us rather do, you know, if we’re being honest. It’s obvious Adolf’s going to have to be
stopped sooner or later. I’m training on Tiger Moths now and the chaps say that could mean qualifying for a Hurricane or even a Spitfire squadron. If Dad’s right, we might actually get
a crack at showing Hitler where he gets off.’
His parents stared at him.
‘You never mentioned this,’ said Gwen, after a pause. ‘You never said you were training to be a fighter pilot. Isn’t that awfully dangerous, Oliver?’
Mr Arnold hesitated. ‘Well, up to a point. All flying has its risks, especially in war. We just have to—’
Diana clapped her hands. ‘What fun, Johnnie! A girl I know at Girton goes out with a fighter pilot. He flies Gloucester something-or-others . . . Radiators – oh no, it’s
Gladiators. Anyway, he’s
gorgeous
and so is everyone in his squadron. You simply
must
fly fighters!’
She turned to her mother. ‘Don’t worry, Mummy. Like it says in the song: “There ain’t going to be no war, no war”. Old Adolf won’t dare attack us, or France.
Especially France. Professor Hislop told us during a lecture this week that the French have a massive army, much bigger than ours. We’ll be fine.’
She pointed at her brother. ‘When you start flying fighter planes, Johnnie, promise you’ll bring home the best-looking pilot in the squadron to stay for Christmas, and I’ll
bring home Sarah Tweed, that girl you kept making ridiculous sheep’s eyes at during the Freshers’ Ball. Agreed?’
John smiled. ‘I haven’t even got my wings yet, sis.’
‘Oh, but you will. You have my fullest confidence. Anyway, talking of old Hislop, I ought to be off. No time for pudding. Will you give me a lift to the station, Pa?’
‘Me too, please,’ said John, standing up. ‘I’m due back at camp tonight. Flying first thing in the morning.’
‘Certainly,’ said Mr Arnold, with forced cheeriness. ‘This lawyer can run a one-man taxi-rank with the best of them. No difficulty there. I’ll get the car out.’ He
turned to Diana. ‘Come on, Piglet – you open the garage for me while I start her up.’
Gwen said nothing as her children kissed her goodbye. Foreboding had risen from her throat like ash and her tongue was choked.
Diana slammed the telephone in the hall back on to its cradle so fiercely that a small crack appeared across the smooth brown Bakelite surface.
‘Mum! Oliver! Come on! Hurry!’
Muffled exclamations floated from the drawing room and a moment later Mr Arnold opened the door.
‘What on earth’s all the racket about? What’s happening?’
Diana was already halfway into her coat. ‘It’s John! He’s going to be up there in about twenty minutes. Come
on.
’
‘Up where? Calm down and tell me—’
Diana stamped her foot. ‘How
can
I, when you keep asking silly questions? Up
there!
’ She pointed at the ceiling. ‘In his thingy, his kite, his Spit, his
plane,
for heaven’s sake. You get the car out and I’ll fetch Mum.’
‘But how do you know he’s going to be up there?’ Oliver couldn’t keep up.
‘
Oh!
’ Diana stamped her foot again, ‘Damn the man, damn him to hell . . . because he
called,
didn’t he, and told me. John just telephoned from his
aerodrome. He says his squadron’s taking off on an exercise any second now and they’ll be over the Weald in twenty minutes. He says we should head for Upper Hartfield –
they’ll be passing directly overhead. Come on!’
Gwen appeared in the hall. ‘Why is everybody shouting?’
‘It’s John,’ Mr Arnold said, searching frantically through a set of drawers for his car keys. ‘He’s going to be up there in a few minutes. We need to leave right
now, if we want to see him.’
‘Up where?’ Gwen looked bemused. ‘Tell me what’s happening.’
‘How can I when you keep asking questions? Put your coat on – we’re going to see John fly his Spitfire. Now where are my blasted keys!’
Three minutes later, Mr Arnold and his wife and daughter were hurtling under leafless branches towards Upper Hartfield. Mr Arnold had parked his car there often the previous summer on his
solitary holiday excursions.
Today, the March air was cold under a summer-blue sky. Diana and Gwen craned their necks out of the windows as the car raced through the lanes.
‘I think I can see them!’ Diana screamed when the big green Humber swerved to the south and the north-west sky opened like a luminous page beyond an oak spinney. ‘There –
look, like lots of little silverfish! No,
there
, Daddy!’ as Oliver looked the wrong way.
He pulled to a juddering halt opposite the village church and leaped out, saying, ‘Quickly – there’s a clear spot behind the spinney at the back of the church. We can look from
there.’
A few moments later, the family were standing on an ancient grassy knoll; all that remained of a Crusader’s grave, anointed 800 years earlier, abandoned and all but forgotten for
centuries.