Page 139 of The Gathering Storm

Helen said, very quietly, ‘Oh, no.’

‘He said this war will be a war of the air. Ground forces are all very well, but they get bogged down, and they’re vulnerable. It’s important to be agile and quick. The nation with the best air force will win.’

‘There’s a lot more to it than that,’ Bertie began.

But Thomas turned a passionate face to his parents. ‘I’ve volunteered. I was going to tell you last night but – well – things got away from me. You know, with all the chatting and kissing and everything.’

‘You’ve volunteered?’ Jessie said. ‘You have to have permission, you know. You’re not twenty-one yet.’

‘I know, but you’ll say yes, I know you will.’ He stared at them earnestly, then appealed to Helen and Jack, ‘You know how important this is. Every man has to do his duty. And I want to fly.’

Helen met Jessie’s eyes. ‘When the war comes, there’ll be conscription. He’ll be called up, and probably offered his choice. It may be better to learn now, without pressure, if he’s going to go anyway.’

‘Perhaps there won’t be a war.’

‘Then he’ll have a nice, gentlemanly profession for a few years, and do something else. Jack flew passenger runs to France.’

‘That was still flying,’ Jessie said accusingly. ‘I know how anxious you used to get.’

‘I’ll be twenty-one next June,’ Thomas said, watching the ball pass from one to another. ‘But I’d sooner go now, with your blessing.’

Bertie spoke. Perhaps a little more of age had settled into his face. ‘If we can’t stop you – and it seems we can’t – then we have to be proud of you. You have my blessing. I can’t speak for your mother.’

Jessie remembered all the years of being parted from Bertie, believing she would never be able to be with him. And the anguish of conscience when she gave herself to him and conceived; and the pain of separation from her family while she carried Thomas and gave birth to him. Parents did not have favourite children, but Thomas had been so hard-won, the child she never thought she’d have, and Bertie, having lost his son by his first wife to a German bomb, adored him. To lose him would be a crippling blow. But she looked at her handsome boy, and read the eagerness in his beautiful eyes, and knew that there was nothing she could do. As Helen said, he would go anyway. At least this way she kept his heart.

‘Of course you have my blessing,’ she said, and her reward was his joyful smile. She had to say something else, to turn the attention from her, because she didn’t want to cry. ‘What is the training like? Where do you have to go?’

Thomas was happy to expound. ‘The officer told us all about that. First you have to do a two-month course at an Elementary Training School – there’s one at Brough, near Hull, so they might send me there, and I’d be able to come home at weekends. That’s a civilian school. They teach you aviation theory, and you log fifty-five hours of flying, about half of it solo. Then you go to Flying Training School and that’s a six-month course. That’s service-run. You have to log ninety hours, two thirds of it solo, and you learn about night flying, and formation, flying on instruments, and navigation and gunnery. And then you get your wings, and you go for specialist training, either fighters or bombers. It’s very thorough, Mum.’

‘Much more so than in my day,’ Jack said. ‘We didn’t get anything like that amount of preparation. We had boys coming out to France with only twelve hours solo.’

Helen didn’t say, And most of them died. ‘Aeroplanes are much more complicated now. Anyone could fly those old balsa-wood kites – they practically flew themselves.’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear that you’ll get so much practice,’ Jessie said. ‘And you’ll look very handsome in your blue uniform. Air force blue.’

‘Do you remember, when the RAF was first formed, and we were all in our khakis,’ Jack said, ‘because nobody knew what colour the new uniforms would be, and there wasn’t any material anyway?’

Helen laughed. ‘And then the War Office got a whole lot of bolts of spare cloth from Russia—’

‘—which had been made for the Semenovski Guard. It was a brilliant sky blue, and we all said we’d desert if they made us wear it!’

So the moment was lightened.

Bibi and Mimi were settling down, no longer started at every sound. They were still solemn, as was to be expected, but they were learning words quickly, and seemed to trust Alec. He gradually showed them round the house, and introduced them to its inmates. The dogs were a great help – the children were always more relaxed when they were present. The good food was putting roses in their cheeks; and Polly took some of their clothes to Makepeace’s for the size and bought them several ready-made new outfits, which clearly pleased them.

When they had begun to trust her, she took them to the stables, and was pleased to see that they were not afraid of horses. With a mixture of fractured English, gestures, and Alec’s help, Mimi told her there had been a greengrocer back home who had come round with his pony and cart and always stopped outside their building; and Tante had let them go down and stroke the pony, and the greengrocer had given them broken bits of carrot to give it, and how soft its mouth had been.

‘When the snow’s gone,’ Polly said, ‘I’ll teach you to ride.’

When she understood what that meant, Mimi’s face lit. ‘Dank you!’ she cried. ‘Dank you!’

Polly got a long letter from Lennie just before Christmas, telling her about Rose’s intended marriage.

The wedding will be at the end of January, and promises to be a grand affair. Van is very well liked, and Rose is becoming quite the star – and of course the studio won’t miss a chance of all that good publicity. So I feel I have to stay for it. I hope you understand. But I know I can entrust Rose to Van, that he will keep her safe, so I shall be able to leave her without worrying. I can use the time before the wedding to get things done, and feel sure of being ready to leave by mid-February. I can sail on the 15th and be with you on the 21st. I leave it entirely up to you to choose the wedding day.

Polly decided on the 11th of March, for no better reason than that the previous Saturday was the 4th of March and she didn’t like the sound of it. It gave her two months to plan everything, which she thought would be enough.

Christmas was a good distraction for the two little refugees, who might have been expected to be very unhappy at being so far from home. But the bringing in of the Yule log was exciting, and then the erecting of the enormous tree in the Great Hall had their eyes popping. They were thrilled to help decorate it, and when Bibi was given the star to put on the top, which involved being held out over the gallery railing by a footman, he giggled with delight. Mrs Starling invited the three children into the kitchen to make and decorate spiced gingerbreads in the shapes of trees and snowmen and holly leaves. And to keep them busy, Polly sent them out to help collect holly, ivy and mistletoe to decorate the hall.