Praying That We Meet Again, page 21
“Mr Griffin?”
“I don’t know how to fly, sir. If you teach me, then I shall learn how to do the job. I have served with a lot of sporting gentlemen in nearly six months in Flanders. Second lieutenants came out nearly every week, to replace the previous week’s dead. I suppose one in ten lived, sir, mainly because they learned the rules, very quickly. I don’t think this war has any place for sporting amateurs, sir. The need is for working men. Professionals only.”
Lepper smiled, having heard exactly what he had hoped for.
“That is my opinion, Mr Griffin. Come, gentlemen. Let us go out to the hangars and introduce ourselves to the aeroplanes and to the mechanics who keep them in flying condition. We as pilots demand much of our planes. The mechanics allow the planes to give all we ask for. Always be very polite to your mechanics. You need them!”
“Shorthorns, gentlemen. Slow, stable and forgiving. They will often allow you to correct a mistake. They are simple machines and easy to learn on. Occasionally, men survive from crashing one. Take a look at the machine, gentlemen.”
A biplane, essentially open to the elements, a great mass of wires crossing each other and apparently holding the bits together. A pusher engine with a tall propellor. Two seats, one of them with a very few controls to its front. An empennage with a pair of rudders to the rear.
“Simple enough, is it not, gentlemen?”
They nodded, cautiously, even Crosbie remaining silent.
“Watch, out on the field.”
There was a background noise of engines which they had taken little notice of, too bound up in their instructor’s words. They turned to look out across the expanse of paddock, saw a Shorthorn turning at the end of the field, pointing almost directly towards them.
“Landing into the wind, gentlemen. Vital to do so. Take off and land into the wind, thus giving your wings a grip on the air. Nose down now, not too steeply. Throttle back. A smooth line down onto the grass… There we go. A successful landing. Why is it successful, Mr Crosbie?”
“Because the aeroplane is down, sir, and still under control and being brought in here to the hangar?”
“Exactly. The rule is simple. Any landing is successful that ends with the pilot stepping down in one piece.”
“That is not a very high standard to maintain, sir.”
“High enough, Mr Crosbie. I know a young pilot, flying since he was fourteen, years behind him, who has said to me that as he takes off, he says to himself, ‘you are a dead man’. Then he spends the rest of the flight proving that he is wrong.”
Peter gained the impression that Crosbie was starting to wonder if he had chosen the right regiment. From the grin on Lepper’s face, he was thinking the same.
“Tell me gentlemen, do any of you possess wings?”
None of them had.
“Good! Flying is therefore unnatural to you. Mankind is not designed to fly. Consequently we need machines to get us up into the air and, hopefully, back down again. Machines have no brains. They cannot think. We can. We use those brains to control the aeroplanes, to make them take us into the air and then bring us down again. The rule is simple, gentlemen. Use your brains! Put them to work. Learn and think. The minute you stop thinking in the air is the minute you start dying. Please note – it is a two-man plane. When you start dying, you start killing me!”
Chapter Thirteen
“Changed our minds, Mr Redwood. Can’t send you to New York. There is, as you sensibly pointed out, too great a chance of bumping into your brother, or into someone acquainted with the pair of you. So, you will not cross the Atlantic on this occasion. We do have to take you out of Switzerland, however. We want you in a convenient neutral country, close to our working area. The north of Italy is the answer for the while. Turin will do for the next couple of months. After that, we shall see. Probably Spain, though it might be sensible to send you off to Stockholm.”
Henry Redwood did not particularly mind where he ended up, provided he was housed in comfort with a modicum of female company and the occasional club or something like to go out to. He was enjoying his war and had no wish to fall out with his employers.
“You take me where you want me, sir. I will have no hesitation in performing the tasks you set me, sir.”
His minder agreed he was a model employee.
“We are looking in fact at a job in Switzerland, Mr Redwood. The fellow in question has only recently shown himself to be opposed to us. Undercover and became careless. Thing is, he is a family man. Might have to knock off inconvenient witnesses in the house.”
Henry supposed that to mean wife and children. He was not entirely certain he would wish to do that. He ventured to say as much.
“Oh, no! No, you mistake me there, Henry! No children in the house. Wife, certainly, and a manservant and one or two maids is the problem.”
“Could be untidy, sir. Five of them perhaps – not easy to do that without them taking the alarm and running off all over the place.”
“No great difficulty. It’s a farmhouse. Out in the country. Nowhere for them to run to.”
“Oh, well and good, sir. Take a second pistol with me, so as to avoid a reload.”
His minder agreed that was sensible before leaving, sending Henry out to the car waiting for him.
“There he goes now, sir.”
Henry’s anonymous manager had been joined by a far more senior officer from London, the second in command of the Department.
“Cold blooded and absolutely ruthless, you say?”
“Not entirely. He was a little concerned that I might be instructing him to kill children. Wife and servants do not worry him at all.”
“Well, I suppose that is something… He is a most unpleasant character, as you have told us. What do we do with him when the war ends, assuming that it does?”
“Continue to use him, sir. Send him into Ireland?”
“No. It will be possible to come to some sort of compromise with the Irish. But not if we have butchered half of their leadership. We may well need him to keep the French in line, of course. I do not know what will result at war’s end, but I doubt we shall enter into a Promised Land of peace and harmony. His sort will be useful still. Keep him out of England, for Christ’s sake! Send him off to Canada, perhaps, easily available to work in the States if need arises, which it probably will. We cannot retire him, that’s for sure.”
“A bullet instead of a pension, sir?”
“No. Too valuable to simply put him down like a mad dog. How many men do you know who can simply kill without thought or conscience?”
“Never met one before, sir.”
“Nor me. He is insane, obviously, missing the lump of his brain that makes the rest of us human beings. What do we do if he ever decides to marry?”
Minder laughed.
“Marry? Him? Why buy a book when you can go to the library? He would not understand the concept of marriage, unless he was presented with a millionairess in need of a husband. He is not like any ordinary young man, sir.”
“Thank God for that. The thought of him as a father appals me. Look after him. Use him. Pay him highly. I will make discreet contact with the other departments – we meet at intervals now, needing to coordinate wartime activities – and suggest that we have a cold killing man if they wish to pay for his services. I shall make clear that he is a mercenary sort and we need subventions to keep him happy. I suspect they may be relieved to have such a service available.”
Henry was a little surprised to find his services required every three or four weeks, but he was paid a substantial bonus for each completed task and was happy to inspect his bank account, still held in Geneva, safely away from the taxman.
“Corporal Redwood, to the office, please.”
“Coming, Boss.”
“Take a seat, Corporal. We are to expand FANY, opening a second ambulance depot. There will be four ambulances initially, with your own garage. Yourself in command as a lieutenant, in the first instance. There are discussions in London, relating to the possibility of FANY extending its services to a greater part of Flanders, providing ambulances to the BEF as well as the Belgians. That will not happen while Sir John French retains the command, but he is unlikely to survive this year. General Haig will probably succeed him and will be willing to accept women drivers.”
“Will I be able to drive still, Boss?”
“Not the whole of every day, obviously, but for a good half of your time. Much will depend on the efficiency of the administration you create.”
“What of the sergeant major, Boss?”
“She will continue to work to me here. She is getting married, which is rather pleasing. It will make a reply to so many of the damned men in London who say that any woman who wishes to do our work must be a dyke!”
Augusta was taken aback by the overt admission of the habitual abuse they were all aware of. They tended to ignore the comments, suspecting they were true for some few of their people. Wiser far not to know if that was the case.
“I shall like to be an officer, I suspect, Boss. I do not doubt my father will be pleased.”
She was tired, knew she had lost weight, was happy in herself. The work was like nothing she had ever imagined but she was doing as much as any man in this war. A motor haulage firm after the war, perhaps. She was to be her own woman, possibly with a husband, if she could find a man of character to stand at her side. If not? She would make a life for herself. She saluted and strode out of the office, running through the first steps of organising her own depot, knowing exactly which inefficiencies she had spotted at the base and just how she would do better. The war had been the making of her life as a free person. She was inclined to revel in the liberty it had granted her.
“Victoria… Where did you go yesterday afternoon? You said to Mama that you were to visit the Hewitt family, on the outskirts of the village, but I saw Monica Hewitt this morning and she did not mention having seen you at all recently.”
Henrietta Redwood was amazed when her sister turned on her and accused her of being a spy and poking her nose in where it was not wanted. She gained the distinct impression that her sister wished to keep her whereabouts a secret. She wondered why. It mattered little to Henrietta. She wandered off to her room to sit with a book and regret how their lives had changed due to this wicked war. She hoped it might end soon so that their lives could return to normal.
Victoria left the house by a rear door, through the kitchen gardens and out of the park by a wicket gate. There was a clump of woodland there which hid pedestrians on the back lane from sight of the house. A quarter of a mile took her to the old Lodge Cottage, recently rented by Commander Thompson, a naval man on wound leave, injured aboard HMS Bacchante and recovering slowly. He was an experienced man in his thirties and had regained his fitness in certain aspects. Victoria was tucked up in his warm bed within ten minutes, continuing the education he had commenced the previous week. She was an apt pupil.
“What if I should fall with child, Sebastian?”
“I know a doctor in London. He will make all right. Nothing to concern yourself there, my dear.”
She was content with his reassurance. All would work out for the best, she did not doubt. For the while she had other things on her mind.
Sir George Redwood sat at his desk, appending his signature to a pair of documents that finalised the biggest loan his bank had ever negotiated. It had been a complicated deal to arrange, involving banks in Switzerland and the United States, but it had resulted in some two hundred millions of pounds in foreign exchange coming into government hands. The rate of interest had been high, but that could be dealt with in later years, the loan inevitably renegotiated in time of peace. For the while, it had committed the greatest financial institutions on either side of the Atlantic to a loan that could only ever be repaid if England won the war. It absolutely guaranteed that the Swiss and American governments would be placed under the greatest pressure never to come to an accommodation with Germany. The money men were committed to an English victory and it would be a rare government that withstood the political clout they could bring to bear.
He could do little to win the war, he reflected, but he had just done a hell of a lot to prevent it being lost. He signalled to his secretary.
“Mr Lloyd George’s telephone, if you please.”
Two minutes and he was speaking to the man himself.
“The loan is completed, Chancellor. The funds in American dollars and Swiss francs will be placed to our accounts this day.”
Lloyd George made his acknowledgement of the service done by Redwood’s Bank.
“My people will contact yours later this day, Sir George. For the while, my personal thanks, sir. Your loan will be turned into munitions and foodstuffs within a matter of a very few weeks. You have performed a great service for your country.”
Sir George also knew he had shored up the Asquith government, ensuring that the war would not fail and that hunger would not stalk the streets of England. He had no doubt that the political favour was much the more important in Downing Street.
He was made Baron Redwood, for services to the Crown, that afternoon. It was implied that further endeavours must result in an earldom; higher rank than that was probably impossible, bearing in mind his lack of family. He was content as it stood, however. He sent a telegram to his eldest son.
George Redwood was greeted by the wire when he entered his Wall Street office. He proceeded instantly to ring his prospective father-in-law.
“I say, sir, just come over the wire. My father has achieved his barony already. He has every hope of an earldom eventually!”
The congratulations flowed. George was an even more valuable catch. A certain English lordship was a matrimonial prize of the highest order.
George settled to the papers on his desk, supremely content. It was an excellent war for his family!
“Is all well, Henry? Last night’s job went off as it should?”
“Untidy, sir. I made a mess of it, I am afraid. Might be we have to pull out in a hurry.”
Henry’s minder was not dismayed. He had never expected a record of one hundred per cent success. He gave quick orders to the staff of Henry’s large apartment to pack and get out, to go to the appointed fall back location, all in military style.
“What happened, old fellow?”
Henry shrugged. It had not been his fault, he believed.
“I was dropped off outside the farmhouse, all as planned, sir. The back door was unlocked and I entered, using the hand electric lantern, as instructed. Found the back stairs and mounted them. Short hallway at the top, third door, entered, one man, sound asleep, smelling of brandy, all as expected. Put a round through his head. No problems. Left the room and the hall light was turned on and some fellow in uniform started shouting at me. He was carrying a rifle of some sort. I put two rounds into him and ran downstairs and there was another one in the back kitchen. I shot him and ran outside. Got to the car and we took off like a bat out of hell. Dropped me off here half an hour ago. Thing is, don’t know if I killed either of the men in uniform.”
His minder showed sympathetic.
“No telling why they were there, either, old fellow. Might be somebody had talked and they were expecting you. No telling if it was you personally they were after or just some unknown body. Makes you a risk in Italy for the while, old chap. Better bring you clear of all danger, Henry.”
The minder took a slow step to the side, behind Henry in his armchair. He drew a small pocket pistol and put it to the back of Henry’s head, shot twice.
‘Poor fellow became a liability. Easy come…’
The body was left in the chair in the deserted apartment. No doubt there would be an investigation in time, when the rent was not paid or the neighbours noticed a smell. The minder and his people would be long out of the country by then.
The minder returned to London, to the head of his department.
“Henry made a cock of his last job. Left live men behind him, sir.”
“Damned nuisance! All tidy now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good, Christopher. I shall inform his father that the boy gave his life for his country. He will not be broken-hearted. Made the peerage only yesterday, in fact. I expect that will console him for the loss.”
“One more among the tens of thousands who have already died, sir. I am sure he will be remembered, at least until tomorrow.”
Lord Redwood invited the unknown gentleman to his office. He had come with a brief recommendation from the Chancellor’s own lips – listen to all the fellow had to say, not unimportant.
“Your son Henry, my lord. On active service with the department, as you know. Ran into trouble, night before last, and was shot in the line of duty. Fatally, I am afraid, my lord. He had performed several important tasks for the department and will be difficult to replace. He had a surprising talent for certain aspects of our work. I am sorry, my lord.”
“He died performing his duty. That is more than I had ever expected of him, sir. I had in fact always expected him to become involved in some sort of scandal, am glad I will not have to hurry him out of the country. The war has quite possibly saved my family’s reputation.”
“You are candid indeed, my lord. I will admit that we used your son’s less conventional talents for what is sometimes called ‘cloak and dagger’ work. We would not wish to say a lot more than that, my lord. Suffice it to say that he performed well for some little time and enabled the department to solve a number of difficult problems. He served his country.”
“And now he is gone, silently in the night, I presume?”
“Utterly so, my lord. There will be no funeral.”
“So be it. Am I free to inform the family of his loss?”
“One might prefer you did not yet do so, my lord. If you find it essential, that is another matter, but we would prefer no mention to be made of his work or his loss.”
“Let it be so, sir. At war’s end we shall include his name on a plaque in the parish church. No mention of him before then. He has no acquaintance in Town who will enquire after him, I believe.”
