Page 59 of The Gathering Storm

BOOK TWOMOVING ON

These were the woods the river and sea

Where a boy

In the listening

Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy

To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.

And the mystery

Sang alive

Still in the water and singingbirds.

Dylan Thomas: ‘Poem in October’

CHAPTER NINE

The car that had collected him at Southampton station deposited Jack before the plain brick façade of an office building. It was a hot day, but a little breeze ruffled his hair, bringing the flat, oily smell up from Southampton Water and the distant sound of gulls. He knew that smell and that sound of old. They brought back sharply poignant memories: he had started out here, in Southampton, as a young engineer, designing motor-boats for Rankin Marine – back in the days when powered flight was still a hope for the future. And now just look! Around him were the workshops, hangars, and the big tin shed of the drawing office of Supermarine, since 1928 a subsidiary of Vickers-Armstrong, and aeroplanes were everywhere. He remembered his first ever flight, the first time he had left the surface of the earth, in a Farman biplane – something that today would look hopelessly frail and rickety – and had known he had found his vocation …

He was about to go looking for someone when a familiar figure came hurrying out, his broad, pleasant face wreathed with smiles, his thick fair hair escaping from the morning discipline of oil and responding like Jack’s to the teasing fingers of the breeze.

‘Mutt! By all that’s wonderful, Mutt Summers!’ Jack said, allowing his hand to be engulfed by a big paw. Joseph ‘Mutt’ Summers had got his nickname during the war. When they scrambled he would always urinate on the rear wheel of his ’bus before climbing into the cockpit. It was a sensible precaution, given that a full bladder could prove fatal in a crash, but his fellow fliers had joked that he was marking his territory, like a dog. He was a Yorkshireman, like Jack, coming originally from Hull, but younger than him.

‘It’s good to see you, old man,’ Summers said, grinning like a dog.

‘Not so much of the “old”, if you please,’ Jack said. ‘Chief test pilot, eh? Now, remember, you’re not supposed to leave the cockpit until you’ve landed.’

Summers laughed. He had been testing an aeroplane one time when it went into a spin, and, unable to stop it, he had tried to bail out. He had actually climbed out onto the mid section when it stopped spinning and went into a dive. With only two thousand feet to go, he had stretched out his leg and pushed the stick with his foot, and was able to level the flight and climb back into the cockpit. ‘Never forget that, will you?’ he said. ‘I was damned lucky that day.’

‘Pilots have to be lucky,’ Jack said. ‘If you’re not lucky you’re—’ The last word was ‘dead’, but he stopped short of saying it. ‘I was damned sorry to hear about Reggie Mitchell,’ he said soberly. Mitchell, the chief designer, had died only the week before. Jack had met him many times during his days working on seaplanes for the Schneider Trophy. He’d had a reputation as a difficult man, but all his team had loved him.

‘It was a rotten thing,’ Summers said. ‘The old trouble, you know – it came back. He went on working until a few months ago. Went to Vienna for some new treatment, but no go. Payn’s taken over as chief designer.’

‘“Agony” Payn?’

‘The very same. Large as life and twice as ugly. He’s waiting for us in the shed. Wants to pick your brains.’

‘Well, I was hoping someone would let me know why I was summoned here,’ Jack said, falling in alongside Summers. ‘What is it – the Type 300?’

Summers grinned. ‘Trust you to sniff it out.’

‘I like to keep on top of things,’ Jack said. The air ministry had issued specifications for a new fighter plane to several manufacturers in 1931, and with Supermarine keen to widen its range from flying boats, Mitchell had taken up the challenge with the Type 224, an open-cockpit, gull-winged monoplane with a fixed undercarriage and a Rolls-Royce Goshawk engine. It had been unsatisfactory in many ways, and he had started modifying it, until the Type 300 hardly resembled it, with a closed cockpit, oxygen apparatus, a retractable undercarriage, shorter and thinner wings, and a much more powerful Merlin engine. ‘Haven’t they called it the Spitfire?’

Summers smiled. ‘Mitchell thought it was a damned silly name but, then, aren’t they all?’

‘Have you flown it?’

‘Took it up for the first time back in March, at Eastleigh – showing it off for the air min. They were so impressed they ordered three hundred and ten of ’em. Of course, we’re still modifying it. Lots to do.’

‘You sound worried,’ Jack said.

‘Oh, not really. I mean, you know yourself, you keep on ironing out the wrinkles, even after they’ve gone into production.’

‘So what is it, then?’

‘Well, Sir Robert McLean – you know, the big boss at Vickers? – he got rather carried away by enthusiasm and guaranteed the air min delivery of five ’buses a week, starting fifteen months from the date of the first order. And since the order was put in on the third of June, that means we’re supposed to roll the first ones out by next September.’

‘That’s a tough one,’ Jack said.

Mutt leaned closer, and became confidential. ‘Just don’t see how it can be done. We’ve only just started fitting out the works for the production. And apart from anything else, we simply don’t have the physical space here. This one order is more than double the total number of aircraft we’ve built in twenty years together.’

‘New premises?’ Jack hazarded.

‘There’ll have to be,’ Summers said. ‘I think they’re looking at some empty space further up the river. But for now,’ he went on, pausing with his hand on the door of the design shed, ‘we have to concentrate on the modifications. Reggie was never shy of picking other people’s brains, and Agony doesn’t suffer from any false pride, so he suggested we got you here to have a look at the retractable undercarriage, seeing as it was you who designed the bally thing in the first place. Are you game?’

‘All in a good cause,’ Jack said. ‘When the balloon goes up, I want us to have the best there is. What’s she like to fly?’

‘Oh, she’s a honey!’ Summers said enthusiastically. ‘Fast, light, manoeuvrable – the Germans won’t have anything like it. You know how you test for handling by throwing the ’bus into a flick-roll? Well, you can get two and a half flick-rolls out of her!’

‘Impressive.’

‘She’s a bit too sensitive in the rudder, but we’ll sort that out.’

‘God, I’d love to take her up!’

‘We might be able to arrange that.’

‘Really?’ Jack exclaimed.

‘If you can fly a Camel with Archie rattling your ears, you can fly anything. Come on in and talk to Agony and Joe Smith. Jeff Quill and George Pickering are here too – I leave a lot of the test flights to them these days. We’re planning to show her off at Hendon on the twenty-seventh – Sir Robert wants to convince the air min we know what we’re doing …’

Later, Jack telephoned Helen to say that he’d be staying on for a couple of days. ‘There’s a lot to work out, and they assure me I can be a real help,’ he apologised.

‘Don’t pretend,’ Helen said, laughing. ‘You want to stay. Wild horses wouldn’t drag you away.’

‘Well …’ he admitted.

‘Have you got oil under your fingernails yet?’

‘No. I’ve been all day in the design shed. We’re just heading off for a beer and to find me some lodgings – probably at the Cricketer’s. I wonder how much it’s changed.’

‘Are you wallowing in nostalgia, my love? Revisiting your salad days, before you knew me?’

‘I can’t imagine not knowing you. Simply doesn’t make any sense. Look here, why don’t you come down at the weekend? You’ve nothing on, have you?’

‘The diary is clear. I’ll come on one condition—’

‘That you get to see the Spitfire? She is beautiful – and very different.’

‘Can you get me in?’

‘With your record? I’m sure I can. Did I mention “Agony” Payn is in charge of the design shed now?’

‘There’s a certain note in your voice, Jack Compton,’ Helen said suspiciously. ‘What are you not telling me?’

‘They said I might be able to take her up. There’s an adjustment needed to the rudder, and I said—’

‘Jack!’

‘It’s quite safe. I wouldn’t do any fancy tricks – for one thing, I couldn’t afford to pay for her if I ditched her.’

‘I’m definitely coming,’ Helen said. ‘If only to pick up the pieces.’

Emma and Kit were summoned to the Fort for the 19th of July, and were pleased to discover that, as well as Fruity and Baba Metcalfe and Eddie and Sarah, Oliver and Verena were guests.

‘It certainly helps to have one’s own friends here,’ Emma said.

‘We were caught off guard,’ Oliver said, ‘without a viable excuse.’

‘Don’t be naughty,’ Verena rebuked him. ‘Of course we had to come, to show our support, after that shocking incident on Thursday.’

The King and the Duke of York had been returning from a review of the Brigade of Guards in Hyde Park.

‘I was part of the escort,’ Eddie recounted, ‘but in the second row, and I didn’t see much. Jack Aird was right behind the King, and he told me all. The band was leading the way, then the King and Bertie York, then us, and the Brigade marching behind. Just as we came out from under Admiralty Arch, one of the spectators brought out a revolver and pointed it straight at the King.’

‘Oh, my goodness! Did he fire it?’ Emma asked.

‘No, because a woman screamed, and one of the police horses was startled and swung its rump round, and apparently knocked the gun out of his hand. It got kicked away under the horse’s hoofs, and three bobbies grabbed the man and hauled him away. Whether he would have fired, we shall never know.’

‘Who was this man, have they said?’

‘I spoke to Sir Philip Game on the telephone yesterday,’ Oliver began.

‘You really do know everyone, don’t you?’ Kit grinned.

‘Ah, well, he’s something of a movie fan. He has a particular crush on Mary Maguire, and thought I might be able to arrange for him to meet her when she comes over.’

‘Who is Mary Maguire?’ Sarah asked.

‘She’s an Australian film actress. You know Sir Philip was governor general of Australia until last year? He saw her over there in something called Heritage and was struck all-of-a-heap by her nubile dewiness. She’s just starred in a film called The Flying Doctor, which is a joint British-Australian production so it will be coming here next year, and the rumour is that she’ll be coming too.’

‘But how do you know her?’ Kit asked.

‘I don’t, but The Flying Doctor is being released by Gaumont, and I know Mark Ostrer of Gaumont – removed a little mole for him last year – so I dare say I can arrange something through him for Sir Philip when the time comes.’

‘And how does he know? No, never mind.’ Kit interrupted himself this time. ‘We shall never get to the point this way. What did Sir Philip say about the thwarted assassin?’

‘That’s he’s an alcoholic Irishman with a police record and a history of mad antics. He claims he’s working for the Nazi government and was ordered to kill the King, but Sir Philip says that’s nonsense.’

They had the story over again from the King himself when everyone gathered for drinks before luncheon.

‘You were terribly brave, sir, carrying on as if nothing had happened,’ Wally prompted him, when he had got to the policeman’s horse’s rump.

‘Oddly enough,’ he said, ‘I don’t remember feeling afraid. I remember seeing something black go flying through the air, and wondering quite calmly to myself whether it was a bomb. I’d have dismounted and got hold of the gun to keep it from anyone else, but my overalls are so tight I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to mount again.’

‘They caught the madman, at any rate,’ Wally said. ‘A Communist, or a Fascist – one of the two. London seems to be full of radicals these days.’

‘It’s lucky that I wasn’t hurt,’ the King went on, ‘because I have a busy week ahead. Buckingham Palace garden parties, then off to France to dedicate the Canadian war memorial at Vimy Ridge. We’d hoped to have a few days on the Riviera after that, but apparently the South of France is a hotbed of Communism, and they’re afraid there might be an attempt on my life.’ He gave a brave little laugh. ‘Another attempt, I should say.’

* * *

After luncheon, the Kents and the Mountbattens called in. It was a hot day, and the King and Wally had decided on a party by the swimming-pool, but the newcomers had not brought bathing-things, and seemed happier to distance themselves from the noisy group at the water and sit sedately in the shade to talk. The discussion at first was about the situation in Spain, where an insurgent army under a General Franco had marched on Madrid to overturn the Communist government that had been elected in February. News was that the Spanish government had armed the factory workers, and so far the insurgents were being held at bay. But it was plain that it was not all going to be over quickly.

‘I’ve heard that the Germans are supplying arms to Franco,’ Louis Mountbatten said. ‘If the Russians do the same for the Republican side, we may have a dress rehearsal of the coming European war.’

‘We’re surely not going to get involved,’ Oliver said.

‘We and the French have agreed to keep out of it,’ said Mountbatten. ‘But these things have a habit of spreading. Any group with a grudge takes it as encouragement to do likewise.’

By the pool, the King was much more interested in discussing his upcoming holiday. ‘I’ve chartered the Nahlin from Lady Yule for the whole of August, and we’re going to cruise the Mediterranean. But I really am annoyed with the Foreign Office. We were going to join the ship at Venice, but Eden insists we mustn’t have any contact with Italy because it would embarrass the government. So we shall have to start from Yugoslavia. Such nonsense! These ridiculous sanctions against Italy will do nothing but drive Mussolini into the arms of Hitler. I’ve told Eden as much more than once. The FO simply doesn’t understand foreign affairs. I have relatives all over Europe. I can accomplish more through family connections than ministers ever can. I shall call on Crown Prince Paul, of course. And see what I can do in Greece and Turkey.’

Eddie rolled his eyes at Kit. One intervention by the King could lead to weeks of untangling for the Foreign Secretary.

At a little distance, under an umbrella, Wally was talking to Emma in a low voice about the divorce. ‘It’s definitely going ahead,’ she said. ‘Ernest is booked into the Hôtel de Paris in Bray on Tuesday, with someone called Buttercup Kennedy.’

‘That surely can’t be her real name?’ Emma protested.

‘It could be if she’s an actress – and by actress, I mean dance-hall floozy. But I suspect it’s an alias,’ she lowered her voice even further, ‘for that snake-in-the-grass Mary Raffray.’

‘Surely she wouldn’t put herself through that?’ Emma said.

‘She’d do anything to get Ernest. At any rate, once it’s done I’m to send him a letter saying that I cannot overlook his behaviour, and he’ll move out of Bryanston Court to the Guards’ Club.’

She looked gloomy and discontented, and Emma said, ‘I suppose none of this is pleasant for you.’

Wally shook herself. ‘At least I know I’m making a difference to David. He said to me the other day that he’s quite enjoying the kinging, and he never thought he would. I’m just trying not to think too far ahead.’

‘You’ve got the cruise to come.’

‘Yes, it will be good to get away from the Bertie York faction for a bit, though I don’t relish being shut up on a tiny yacht day after day with David not having anything to do. There’s only so much einem-meinem talk I can stand, and David playing itsy-bitsy-spider up my arm. I sometimes wish—’

She stopped. ‘Yes?’ Emma prompted.

‘Oh, nothing,’ she said.

Emma thought she had been going to say something about wishing she and Ernest had never met David. Exciting though the association with the Prince of Wales had been, now he was King it was all too complicated.

Emma remembered that Kit had seen Ernest in the Aldwych the week before. Kit had been to see Fred Astaire in Rise and Shine at the Theatre Royal – Emma had been otherwise engaged – and had bumped into him, walking along twirling his rolled umbrella, a slightly wilted flower in his buttonhole, his hat tipped back on his head.

‘He looked as though he hadn’t a care in the world,’ Kit had told Emma later that evening. ‘Between you and me, darling, I don’t believe he’s really all that heartbroken over Wally. I suspect he’s decided that it’s all working out for the best.’

Emma didn’t tell Wally any of that.

James woke thinking he had cried out, though as the sleep fog cleared he realised it could only have been a grunt at most. He had been dreaming about Tata again – the dream in which he saw her walking into danger and tried to run to her, but was unable to move.

It was still early, but he was too wide awake now to go back to sleep. He got up, washed his face and hands in the cold water in his basin, dressed and went downstairs.

The dogs were not in the Great Hall, so he knew someone was before him – most likely Polly. He headed for the small dining room, where indeed he found her addressing a bowl of porridge, with the entire pack gazing at her adoringly. There was a restorative smell of coffee on the air. She looked up and said, ‘You’re early. Help yourself to coffee.’ Then she noticed his face. ‘You look tired. What’s up?’

‘I was dreaming again,’ he said, slumping into the chair nearest her and receiving Helmy’s chin on his knee. He caressed his ears automatically.

‘The same one – about Tata?’

‘I can’t get away from the idea that it was my fault.’

Polly poured him some coffee. ‘I remember Papa once said that people always feel guilty when someone close to them dies. Doesn’t mean they were.’ He gave her a look that said she wasn’t helping. ‘Ring the bell if you want some breakfast. I’m going out for a ride while it’s cool – it’s going to be hot later. D’you want to come with me?’

At that moment Barlow came in, followed by William, both carrying trays. Somehow the butler had known James was down. Barlow always knew everything. William put the hot dishes under the covers and lit the heaters, while Barlow placed the toast rack and the fresh coffee-pot on the table, and laid a small stack of post beside Polly’s place and one envelope beside James’s.

When they had gone, Polly got up to get herself eggs and bacon. ‘Oh, mushrooms!’ she exclaimed. ‘Someone must have been out early. I expect one of the milkers dropped them off on their way in.’ Turning with her plate, she saw her brother still sitting in the same attitude of dejection, his mouth a grim line of endurance. She wished she could help him. She knew that iron feeling. The helplessness was the worst thing: you could not make it not to have happened; you could not escape it.

‘Have some breakfast,’ she said gently. ‘Food really does make things seem better.’

He gave her a grim sort of smile. ‘Nice try, Pol.’

She sat down and reached for the toast. ‘Read your letter, anyway,’ she said.

He picked up the envelope, and recognised Charlie’s handwriting on the typically heavy, expensive paper. Urging him to come back, he supposed. The man had no tact, no understanding of what he was feeling. In his mind, in one of those vivid flashes, he saw Tata laughing, her eyes bright, her loosened hair a living thing around her face.

‘Do I see a foreign stamp?’ Polly went on. ‘Don’t forget to save it for Alec. Oh, do open it, James! You can’t read it through the envelope.’

So he opened it. Inside was a single sheet with Charlie’s forceful-spiky writing, and a slender, printed booklet. The letter said: Sometimes poetry helps. Come back to us soon. We both miss you. The kindness of the simple words moved James, and he felt a prickling behind his eyes, almost as if he might cry – but he never had yet. Men didn’t.

On the cover of the booklet it said: ‘Black Marigolds, translated from the Sanskrit by E. Powys Mathers’.

He opened it, and saw two or three pages of close-printed text. A glance told him it was some explanation about the origins of the text. Too boring to read. What was Charlie thinking? Unpronounceable names exasperated him. He leafed past it all, and found beyond, in larger, better-spaced print, the verses of a long poem. He was about to close the thing and throw it down, when some words caught his eye.

Even now

When all my heavy heart is broken up

I seem to see my prison walls breaking

And then a light, and in that light a girl

Her fingers busied about her hair, her cool white arms

Faint rosy at the elbows, raised in the sunlight …

He heard himself make a sound that was between a gulp and a sob. The words might have been written specifically for him. He began to read, almost greedily, turning back and forward, snatching at random as though he could find her again.

Even now

I love long black eyes that caress like silk,

Ever and ever sad and laughing eyes,

Whose lids make such sweet shadow when they close

It seems another beautiful look of hers.

I love a fresh mouth, ah, a scented mouth,

And curving hair, subtle as a smoke,

And light fingers, and laughter of green gems.

Words caught his mind like shards of glittering glass, beautiful and painful.

… the essence of her beauty spilled

Down on my days so that it fades not,

Fails not, subtle and fresh, in perfuming

That day, and the days, and this the latest day.

And:

I call to mind her weariness in the morning,

Close lying in my arms and tiredly smiling

At my disjointed prayer for her small sake.

And at last:

Even now

I know that I have savoured the hot taste of life

Lifting green cups and gold at the great feast.

Just for a small and a forgotten time

I have had full in my eyes from off my girl

The whitest pouring of eternal light …

He couldn’t read any more. He couldn’t see the words. Faintly, in the distance, he heard Polly speaking. He thought of what Charlie had written: Sometimes poetry helps. Was it help, this awful pain in his throat and chest? He put his hands up to his face, and felt wetness. Helmy was trying to climb onto his lap, distressed. He pushed him down, dragged in a convulsive breath, and then he really was crying. He put his head down on his arms on the table. It hurt to cry, it was ugly and difficult, but he felt something in him loosen. He heard Polly get up, felt her hand on his shoulder, and he turned roughly to put his arms round her waist and cry into the comfort of her stomach.

* * *

The Messenger was not a monolith like the Bugle or the Clarion, but though smaller, it had a good reputation as a go-ahead paper with its finger on the pulse. It aimed to be on top of every breaking story, but devoted fewer pages to the daily doings of the Houses of Parliament and the ton.

‘If you start with us,’ said the news editor, Bill Dickins, who interviewed Basil, ‘you can look forward to progressing through the company. We like to give a good grounding and encourage talent and ambition. You’ll be expected to muck in wherever you’re needed at first, while you learn the trade. We’re not like the Clarion, where you get shunted into a department and stay there until you’re sixty-five. News in the modern world is fast-moving, and we need flexible thinkers who can react quickly and get the job done.’

It was, Basil could tell, a set speech, but he liked it. It suggested to him that it was the kind of place where no-one would necessarily know where anyone else was – perfect for him to disappear when the fancy took him.

‘You edited the school newspaper, I understand?’ Dickins went on. ‘Good experience. And you had a short time at the Bugle. Why did you leave?’

Basil had anticipated that question. ‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘it was like what you said about the Clarion. I found it rather – um—’

‘Stiff? Hidebound?’ Dickins offered helpfully.

‘Yes, sir. Exactly.’

‘Well, I think we can take you, Compton,’ Dickins said. ‘A month’s trial, with no notice on either side, then if we’re happy, we’ll offer you a permanent job. We’ll start you off as a runner in the news room, so you can get the flavour of what we do.’

Basil smiled. A runner’s life suited him perfectly. They send you to fetch something, or look something up, and you can take as long as you like. And no-one passing you anywhere in the building ever questions what you’re doing if you’re carrying a file or a piece of paper.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Basil, and shook the hand that was offered.

‘I’m happy for you, Basil,’ Aunt Molly said. ‘We’ll miss you, but I dare say the faster pace will suit you better. When do you start?’

‘On Monday.’

‘That gives you a few days to find yourself lodgings. You shouldn’t have any difficulty. There are plenty of rooms to let in Bloomsbury and Holborn.’

Having told her I wanted to stand on my own two feet, Basil thought, I can hardly complain if she takes me at my word. But such lodgings as he could afford on Messenger pay would be modest indeed. He had a spasm of missing Gloria, and the golden days when he’d lived in Ryder Street and dined at the Ritz. He wondered why he had been such a fool as to lose her. He could have kicked himself.

All the same, he couldn’t deny that he felt a queasy sort of excitement at the thought of being really on his own at last.

‘I hope you’re going to settle down this time, and stick to it,’ Helen said. ‘You can’t keep changing jobs. People will think you’re unreliable.’

‘The Messenger is a much better fit for me than the Bugle,’ Basil said. ‘It’s a young newspaper, with fresh ideas.’

Helen didn’t look quite convinced, but she said, ‘Tell me about these lodgings of yours. Are they respectable?’

‘It’s in Mecklenburgh Square. A shabby old house, but clean. My room’s on the third floor. It has a bed, a chair, a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers. And there’s a gas ring in the hearth where I can heat soup.’

‘Aren’t your meals included?’ Helen said.

‘Yes, but Mrs Morgan’s very strict about punctuality. If you don’t sit down on the dot, you get nothing, and as a reporter, you can’t always be sure when you’ll be home. The other lodgers all seem respectable. One’s a law student.’

‘Oh, yes, it’s not far from the Law Courts, is it?’ Jack said. He turned to Helen. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about his domestic arrangements, darling. I can’t imagine Basil ever going hungry. And it will do him good to have to fend for himself. We can’t afford to have a nation of soft young people, with another war coming.’

‘Oh, Dad! There’s not going to be a war,’ Basil said.

‘Why do you think we’re putting all this effort into developing new aeroplanes?’ Jack said. ‘But it won’t be like last time. This will be a specialist war.’

‘You mean people like me won’t have to fight?’ Basil said.

‘Of course you’ll fight, but you’ll be properly trained. And if you want to serve in a good unit, you’ll need to get in early. Michael’s all set in the navy, but you, Basil, why don’t you join the RAF? You ought to get yourself in at the ground floor, so that by the time the war starts you’ll have some seniority.’

‘I can’t believe it’ll ever come to war,’ Basil said. This thing was getting to be a bit of an obsession with the old man. ‘Nobody wants one. Anyway, I could be a war journalist, couldn’t I? Someone has to bring the news back from the Front.’

Helen intervened: ‘We haven’t seen you since Richard’s wedding. How was it?’

‘Short,’ said Basil.

The hot weather had ripened the wheat, and the first fields were ready for cutting. The day was perfect, sunny and settled, the sky cornflower blue with a few high, large clouds like piles of whipped cream. The lime trees were in blossom, and the hedges were full of wild roses and honeysuckle, so they rode through a tunnel of scent.

A robin in the top of one of the hedges sang a sharp-edged challenge as the horses passed by, to Zephyr’s leisurely thub-dub and the rapid counterpoint of fat little Mr Pickles as she hurried to keep up. (Alec had been very young when he named her, the complexities of equine gender beyond him.) Her coat, in bold markings of cocoa and cream, was glossy over her summer roundness, and her bright eyes peered out from under her thick, coarse forelock, looking for mischief. Polly noted that Alec was growing again. His legs used to stick out at comical right-angles, but now they hung down a decent amount, despite the pony’s barrel sides. It wouldn’t be long before he’d need something bigger. It would cause a pang to get rid of Mr Pickles, though. She ought to be a family pony, introducing a stream of children to the art of equitation. But Alec was six now. Polly wondered if he would ever have a brother or sister.

They found James up at Har Piece, an odd-shaped field at the far side of White House Farm. ‘“Har” means parish boundary,’ she explained to Alec.

He wasn’t listening. He had seen James at the far side of the field, jacket off, shirt-sleeves rolled, helping the stookers. ‘There’s Uncle!’ he cried, and dashed off.

Polly handed Zephyr to one of the men and went to join John Burton, who was talking to Seb Bellerby, the White House tenant. ‘How is Joan?’ she asked at once. She asked nearly every day, now Mrs Burton was nearing delivery.

‘She can’t get comfortable in this hot weather, not even to sleep,’ Burton said. ‘I never realised what hell we men put you women through.’

‘Ah, well, it will all be worth it when she holds her son in her arms,’ Polly said. She looked at Alec, who had caught up with James and was bouncing on the spot as he chattered, while James looked down at him indulgently. ‘I hope he doesn’t get in anyone’s way.’

‘Those scythes are very sharp,’ Burton agreed.

‘I mean I don’t want him hampering the workers,’ Polly said. ‘The scythe-men are too skilled to cut anyone by accident.’

‘It’s fascinating to watch the wheat being cut that way,’ Burton said, ‘but I was just saying to Seb here, it would be more efficient to use a machine. Lord Lambert has a reaper-binder that cuts the wheat and binds it into sheaves.’

‘I wouldn’t mind one of them,’ Seb said. ‘Course, we do have a plain reaper that we use on the other fields, but this ’un is too small.’

‘Lord Lambert’s reaper-binder is drawn by a tractor,’ Burton said.

‘Horrible noisy thing!’ said Polly.

‘Well, you could have a horse-drawn reaper-binder,’ Burton said. ‘But it’s not as efficient. A tractor does a field four times faster.’

‘Horses compact the soil less,’ Polly countered. ‘And they make lovely manure for fertiliser. All a tractor makes is stinking fumes. Besides, you can’t put all these people out of work.’ She waved a hand at the men and women following the scythe-men, binding and stooking – and the little girls following them, gleaning into their aprons. The boys were too busy chasing mice and rabbits, wielding catapults and boasting about their prowess.

‘But what happens when the scythe-men get too old to work?’ Burton said.

‘There’ll be new young ones,’ Polly said.

‘Young men don’t want to learn reaping. They don’t want to work on the land. They want to work in a nice clean office or factory, and come home at five thirty to a nice clean modern house and a nice little wife. And at the weekend they want to go to the cinema, or a football match, or go for a spin in their nice little car and look at the countryside that someone else is tending.’ Burton shook his head. ‘We’re becoming a nation of watchers instead of doers.’

‘That’s right,’ Seb said, as if struck by the thought. ‘My ma used to play the piano of an evening, and my dad played the fiddle, and us kids’d all stand round and sing. Now folk listen to the wireless or play the gramophone.’

‘The war broke the mould,’ Burton said. ‘A generation left the land to fight. And the next generation has different interests. The old ways have to go.’ He cocked an eyebrow at Polly. ‘You know that. And you’ve always been keen to modernise the estate.’

‘This field is too small to be cut by machine,’ Polly said, rather than say she liked to watch the scythe-men and would be sorry to see the tradition die.

‘We ought to grub up the hedges and make the fields bigger,’ Burton said.

Polly thought of the roses and the honeysuckle and the robin’s song. ‘We won’t be doing that,’ she said firmly.

Seb laughed. ‘You looked just like your father then, Miss Polly. He was a fine master and a genial man, but his word was law, and that was all about it.’

‘I’m just doing my duty and warning you,’ Burton said, without rancour. ‘The time may come when you’ll have to embrace machinery because you can’t get any workers.’

‘They’ve started digging the footings in North Field,’ said Polly. ‘Once they’ve built the council estate, there’ll be a whole new pool of labour to draw from. They live on my land, what more natural than to work on it?’

Burton was about to say they already had jobs and would be no more likely to want farm work than anyone else, but conversation had to stop as an aeroplane grumbled overhead. A two-seater bi-plane, it was, flying low. Goggles flashed as the two inside looked down, then away.

‘That’s the other thing,’ Burton said, as the noise faded. ‘What if it comes to another war?’

The thought of Erich scorched across her mind. She remembered one day, during the war, when she had come upon him mending a dry-stone wall, remembered his care and skill and his sure hands – the hands that had so lately caressed her. She felt the sick, falling-away sensation of missing him, longing for him; and the hateful hopelessness of not being able to change the way things were.

‘If the men go off to fight,’ Burton was saying, ‘what will you do for labour then?’

Polly pulled herself back from the brink. ‘Land girls,’ she said briskly. ‘Like last time. But maybe there won’t be another war,’ she added, as James and Alec joined them.

‘I bet there will be,’ Alec piped up. ‘I’d like to go and fight. Bam-bam-bam.’ He hoisted an imaginary rifle to his shoulder and shot several enemy soldiers who had been creeping up on them.

‘If we have to fight Germany again—’ Seb began.

But James interrupted him. ‘You’ve got the wrong enemy. Russia is by far the greater threat. I’ve been to Russia. I’ve seen for myself what the Reds are like. We have to throw in with the Germans to stop them.’

Burton said, ‘It’s not even twenty years since the Armistice. Memories of what the Germans did are fresh and raw.’

James overrode him. ‘We can’t ignore the situation. Communism spreads like a poison. Look at Spain, look at France. The Reds won’t be satisfied until the whole world is enslaved by them. And the Germans are the only nation with the military strength to beat them. We have to have them on our side.’

Now Seb spoke. ‘Begging your pardon, Mr Morland, but the Huns killed all three of my brothers, and Matt Walton over at Huntsham, and I don’t know how many more. You only got to look at all the names on the War Memorial. And what I hear is they’re making guns and bombs as fast as they can. Well, if the Germans start up again, we have to finish with them, once and for all, wipe them off the face of the earth. And I’ll be ready. Any German that sets foot on my land, I’ll shoot him like a dog. Begging your pardon, Miss Polly,’ he added with an apologetic glance at Alec, who was listening with his mouth open. And he touched his forelock to her and walked off.

Polly watched Seb’s retreating figure, and thought How right Erich was. They would never have accepted him. A weight settled in her as, finally, she accepted the truth. Some mad, stubborn and unrepentant part of her that had kept hoping turned its face to the wall and died. It was the end. She would never see him again.

James was saying, in an exasperated voice, ‘You see? This is just the sort of blinkered attitude we have to deal with. When the red flag goes up over Buckingham Palace, they’ll realise too late I was right.’

Alec stared at him intently, catching up. ‘I’ll fight the Reds, Uncle. And the Germans, too. I’ll fight them both.’

James pulled himself together, ruffled Alec’s hair and said, ‘I don’t suppose there’ll be any fighting of anybody. The diplomats’ll talk everybody out of it.’

Alec didn’t know what diplomats were, but he looked disappointed.