“When you were in Italy?”
“Indirectly. We’re old friends.”
“How very odd. I thought all his friends were pansies.”
“Not at all. Nothing of the sort, I assure you. In fact,” de Souza added with an air of mystification, “I shouldn’t be surprised if half this bus load weren’t friends of Ralph Brompton’s one way or another.”
As he said this an unmilitary-looking man, in a beret and great-coat, turned round in the seat in front of them and scowled at de Souza, who said in a voice of parody: “Hullo, Gilpin. Did you see any good shows in town?”
Gilpin grunted and turned back, and then de Souza in fact began to talk about the theater.
The welcome at their destination was cordial and efficiently organized.
Guy went up. De Souza remained below. As Guy returned he paused on the stairs, hearing his own name mentioned. De Souza and Gilpin were in conversation in what they took to be privacy; Gilpin was plainly rebuking de Souza, who with uncharacteristic humility was attempting to exculpate himself.
“Crouchback’s all right.”
“That’s as may be. You had no call to bring up Brompton’s name. You’ve got to watch out who you talk to. You can’t trust anyone.”
“Oh, I’ve known old Crouchback since 1939. We joined the Halberdiers on the same day.”
“Yes, and Franco plays a nice game of golf I’ve been told. What’s the name ‘Halberdiers’ got to do with it? I reckon you’ve been picking up a little too much Eighth Army esprit de bloody corps.”
The two moved to the ante-room, and Guy, puzzled, followed them after a minute.
That evening Captain Fremantle addressed them:
“I am the staff-captain. My name is Fremantle. The commandant wishes you to feel free to come to me with any difficulties…” He read the standing orders, explained the arrangements of messing and security.
The chief instructor followed him giving them the program of the course; five days’ instruction and physical training; then the qualifying five jumps from an aeroplane at times to be determined by the conditions of the weather. He gave them some encouraging figures about the rarity of fatalities. “Every now and then you get a ‘Roman candle.’ Then you’ve had it. We’ve had a few cases of men fouling their ropes and making a bad landing. On the whole it’s a lot safer than steeple-chasing.”
Guy and de Souza shared a room. When they were alone Guy asked: “Frank, who’s Gilpin?”
“Gilpin? Chap in the Education Corps. I think he’s a school teacher in civil life. A bit earnest.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“The same as the rest of us, I expect. He wants a change.”
“How do you come to know him?”
“I know all sorts, uncle.”
“One of Sir Ralph’s set?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t suppose so. Would you?”
*
For two days the squad “limbered up.” The P.T. instructor showed a solicitude for Guy’s age which he did not at all resent.
“Take it easy. Don’t do too much at first, sir. Anyone can see you’ve been at an office desk. Stop the moment you feel you’ve had enough. We take them all sizes and shapes here. Why last month we had a man so heavy he had to use two parachutes.”
On the third day they jumped off a six foot height and rolled on the grass when they landed. On the fourth day they jumped from ten foot and in the afternoon were sent up a scaffolding higher than the house from which in parachute harness they jumped at the end of a cable which, sprung and weighted, set them gently on their feet at the end of the drop. Here they were sharply scrutinized by the chief instructor for symptoms of hesitation in taking the plunge.
“You’ll be all right, Crouchback,” he said. “Rather slow off the mark, Gilpin.”
During these days Guy experienced a mild stiffness and was massaged by a sergeant specially retained for this service. There was no night-flying from the adjoining aerodrome. Guy slept excellently and enjoyed a sense of physical well-being. It did not irk him as it irked others of the squad, that they were confined to the grounds.
Early on de Souza showed curiosity about the head of their little school. “The commandant, does he exist? Has anyone seen him? It’s like one of those ancient oriental states where the viziers bring messages from an invisible priest-king.”
Later he said: “I’ve seen food going up the back stairs. He’s shut up somewhere on the top story.”
“Perhaps he’s a drunk.”
“More than likely. I came home in a ship where the O.C. Troops was a raging dipsomaniac, locked in his cabin for the entire voyage.”
Later he reported: “It can’t be drink. I’ve seen the plates coming down empty. Chap with the horrors can’t eat. At least our O.C. Troops didn’t.”
“I expect it’s the warder’s dinner.”
“That’s what it is. He’s either drunk or insane and he has to have a man sitting with him night and day to see he doesn’t commit suicide.”
Later he said to a group in the ante-room: “There’s nothing wrong with the commandant. He’s being held prisoner. There’s been a palace plot and his staff are selling the rations on the black market. Or do you think the whole place has been taken over by the Gestapo? Where could parachutists most safely land? At a parachute training base. They shot everyone except the commandant. They have to keep him to sign the bumf. Meanwhile they get particulars of all our agents. There’s that instructor who’s always fooling about with a camera. Says he’s making ‘action studies’ to correct faulty positions in jumping. Of course what he’s really doing is making records of us all. They’ll be micro-filmed and sent out via Portugal. Then the Gestapo will have a complete portrait gallery and they can pick us up as soon as we show our faces. We ought to organize a rescue party.” Gilpin snorted with contempt at this fantasy and left the room. “An earnest fellow,” said de Souza, with, Guy thought he could detect, an infinitesimal nuance of bravado, “just as I told you. What’s more he’s windy about tomorrow’s jump.”
“So am I.”
“So am I,” said others of the group.
“I don’t believe you are, Guy,” said de Souza.
“Oh yes,” said Guy untruthfully, “I’m windy as hell.”
Part of the apparatus erected on the front lawn was the fuselage of an aeroplane. It was fitted with metal seats along the sides; an aperture had been cut in the floor; it was a replica of the machine from which they would jump and on the final afternoon of training they were drilled there by the “dispatching officer.”
He gave the warning order: “Coming into target area,” removed the cover from the manhole. “First pair ready.”
Two of the squad sat opposite one another with legs dangling. “No. 1. Jump.” His arm came down.
The first man precipitated himself on the grass and No. 3 took his place. “No. 2 jump.” And so on, again and again throughout the afternoon until they moved briskly and thoughtlessly. “You don’t have to think of anything. Just watch my hand. The parachute has a slip rope and opens automatically. Once you’re out all you have to think about is keeping your legs together and rolling lightly when you land.”
But there was an air of apprehension in the ante-room that evening. De Souza worked his joke about the “mystery man” in command for all it was worth.
“I saw a ‘face at the window,’ ” he reported. “A huge, horrible, pallid face. It stared straight down at me and then disappeared. Obviously seized by the guards. It was the face of a man totally abandoned to despair. I daresay they keep him under drugs.”
Gilpin said: “What’s this about ‘Roman candles’?”
“When the parachute doesn’t open and you fall plumb straight.”
“How does that happen?”
“Faulty packing, I believe.”
“And the packing is left to a lot of girls. You’d only need one fascist agent on the assembly line and she could kill hundreds of men—thousands probably.
There would be no way of catching her and her ‘Roman candles.’ Why are they called ‘Roman candles,’ anyway, if it isn’t a fascist trick? I’m as ready as the next man to take a reasonable risk. I don’t like the idea of trusting my life to some girl in a packing station—so-called refugees perhaps—Polish and Ukrainian agents as likely as not.”
“You are windy, aren’t you, Gilpin?”
“I’m calculating the risk, that’s all.”
One of the younger “clients” said: “If these buggers think they’re going to get me to jump out of an aeroplane sober, they’d better think again.”
De Souza said: “Of course, it’s perfectly possible that the commandant is the head of the organization. They won’t let him appear because he can’t speak English—only Ukrainian. But he comes out at night and repacks the parachutes so that they won’t open. It takes hours, of course, so he has to sleep all day.”
But the joke was wearing thin.
“For Christ’s sake,” said Gilpin in admonition, and they all fell silent. De Souza saw he had lost the sympathy of his audience.
“Uncle,” he said that night, “I believe you and I are the only ones who aren’t windy and I’m not so sure about myself.”
When all the lights were out, Ludovic emerged from his retreat and stumbled to the edge of the dark trees, breathed for a few minutes the scent of sodden leaves, which carried no fond memories for him, and then returned to his room to write: Those who take too keen an interest in the outside world, may one day find themselves locked outside their own gates.
It was not an entirely original pensée. He had come on it and vaguely remembered it, in an undergraduate magazine that Sir Ralph had received and left among his litter. It seemed to him apt.
*
Next morning was almost windless; there was a pale suggestion of sunshine; jolly jumping weather.
“If it stays like this,” said the chief instructor as though offering a special, unexpected treat, “we may be able to get in a night drop at the end of the course.”
He went early to the dropping-ground, a barren heath some miles distant, to see that it was suitably marked and to set up the loud-speaker apparatus through which he admonished his pupils as they fell towards him. The squad drove to the aerodrome, where their arrival seemed unexpected.
“It’s always like this,” said the dispatching officer. “They’ve nothing else to do except lay on a flight for us, but at the last minute there’s always difficulties.”
The dozen soldiers sat in the Nissen hut loud with jazz where a flying officer regarded them incuriously over the Daily Mirror. Presently he strolled out.
“Isn’t there any way of turning off that music?” asked Guy. A knob was found. There was a brief respite of silence, then a blue-gray arm appeared from behind a door, manipulated the machine, and the music was resumed in even greater volume.
After half an hour the dispatching officer returned. He was accompanied by the young man who had studied the Daily Mirror.
“I’ve ironed that out,” he said. “All set?”
The flying officer wore some additions to his costume. “The crate’s really in for overhaul,” he said, “but I daresay we can make it.”
They all trooped across the runway and put on their parachute harness and the dispatching officer examined it cursorily. They climbed aboard. The rip-cords were clipped to a steel bar above the trap. There was very little light in the fuselage. Guy sat next to Gilpin, who was the man before him, No. 7 to his No. 8 in the order they had rehearsed. “I wish they’d get on with it,” he said, but further conversation was obviated by the roar of the engines. Gilpin looked queasy.
It was one of the objects of the exercise to accustom the squad to flying conditions. They were not taken direct to the dropping-area but in a long circle, wheeling over the sea and then coming inshore again. Very little could be seen from the portholes. The harness was more uncomfortable than it had seemed on the ground. They sat bowed and cramped, in twilight, noise, and the smell of petrol. At length the dispatching officer and his sergeant opened the manhole. “Coming into the target area,” he warned. “First pair ready.”
De Souza was No. 1. He slipped out cleanly at the fall of the hand and No. 3 took his place.
“Wait for it,” said the dispatching officer. There was an interval of a minute between each drop as the machine banked and returned to its target. Soon Gilpin and Guy sat face to face. The landscape below turned vertiginously. “Don’t look down. Watch my hand,” said the dispatching officer. Gilpin did not raise his eyes to the signal. The dispatching officer gave the command: “No. 7. Jump.”
But Gilpin sat rigid, feet dangling over the abyss, hands gripping the edge, gazing down. The dispatching officer said nothing until the machine had completed its steep little circle; then to Guy: “You next. No. 8. Jump.”
Guy jumped. For a second, as the rush of air hit him, he lost consciousness. Then he came to himself, his senses purged of the noise and smell and throb of the machine. The hazy November sun enveloped him in golden light. His solitude was absolute.
He experienced rapture, something as near as his earth-bound soul could reach to a foretaste of paradise, locum refrigerii, lucis et pacis. The aeroplane seemed as far distant as will, at the moment of death, the spinning earth. As though he had cast the constraining bonds of flesh and muscle and nerve, he found himself floating free; the harness that had so irked him in the narrow, dusky, resounding carriage now almost imperceptibly supported him. He was a free spirit in an element as fresh as on the day of its creation.
All too soon the moment of ecstasy ceased. He was not suspended motionless; he was falling fast. An amplified voice from below exhorted him: “You’re swinging. Steady yourself with the ropes. Keep your legs together.” At one moment he had the whole wide sky as his province; at the next the ground sprang to meet him as though he were being thrown by a horse. As his boots touched, he rolled as he had been taught. He felt a heavy blow on the knee as though he had landed on a stone. He lay in the sedge, dazed and breathless; then, as he had been taught, disengaged his harness. He attempted to stand, suffered a sharp pain in his knee and toppled once more to the ground. One of the instructors approached. “That was all right. No. 7. Oh, it’s you, Crouchback. Anything wrong?”
“I think I’ve hurt my knee,” said Guy.
It was the same knee he had twisted on guest night at the Halberdier barracks.
“Well, sit quiet till the jump’s over. Then we’ll attend to you.”
Again and again the aeroplane swooped overhead filling the sky with parachutes. Finally Gilpin landed quite near him, his qualms subdued. The sturdy, unmilitary figure joined him, infused with an unfamiliar jauntiness.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said.
“Highly enjoyable, up to a point,” said Guy.
“I missed my cue the first time,” said Gilpin. “Don’t know how it happened. I was like that square-bashing. Never got the trick of ‘instinctive, unquestioning obedience to orders,’ I suppose.”
Guy wanted to ask whether he had been “assisted” through the manhole. He refrained and, since Gilpin was the last of the squad, there was never anyone to know except the readers of his confidential report.
“I expect we shall do another jump this afternoon,” said Gilpin. “I feel quite ready for one now.”
“I’m damned if I do,” said Guy.
*
That evening Captain Fremantle reported to Ludovic: “One casualty, sir. Crouchback.”
“Crouchback?” said Ludovic vaguely as though the name was new to him. “Crouchback?”
“One of the Halberdiers, sir. We thought he was a bit old for the job.”
“Yes,” said Ludovic. “One of those accidents with, how do you describe them—‘Roman candles’?”
“Oh, no. Nothing as bad as that. Just a sprain, I think.” Ludovic dissembled his chagrin at this news. “We’ve sent him over to the R.A.F. hospital for an X-ray. T
hey’ll probably keep him there for a bit. Will you be going over to see him?”
“No, I can’t manage that, I’m afraid. I have a lot of work on hand. Telephone and find the result of the X-ray. Perhaps later you or one of the instructors might visit him and see that he is comfortable.”
Captain Fremantle knew exactly how much work Ludovic had on hand. The former commandant had always made a point of visiting injured “clients”; even, on rare occasions, attending their funerals.
“Very good, sir,” said Captain Fremantle.
“Oh, and, by the way, you might tell the mess-corporal I shall be dining down tonight.”
*
There was a mood of exuberance, almost of exultation, in the ante-room that evening. The eleven surviving members of the squad had made their second jump in weather of undisturbed tranquility. They had overcome all their terrors of the air and were confident of finishing the course with honor. Some sprawled at their ease in the armchairs and sofas; some stood close together laughing loud and long. Even Gilpin was not entirely aloof from the general conviviality. He said: “I don’t mind admitting now I didn’t quite like the look of it the first time,” and accepted a glass of bottled beer from the dispatching officer who had that morning ignominiously bundled him into space and stepped firmly on his fingers as he clutched the edge of the manhole in vain resistance to the force of the slipstream.
Into this jolly company Ludovic entered like the angel of death. No one had believed the literal detail of de Souza’s fantasies but their repetition and enlargement had created an aura of mystery and dread about the commandant who lurked overhead and was seen and heard by none, which Ludovic’s appearance did nothing to dispel.
He overtopped the largest man in the room by some inches. There was at that time a well-marked contrast in appearance between the happy soldiers destined for the battlefield and those who endangered their digestions and sanity at office telephones. Standing before and above those lean and flushed young men, Ludovic’s soft bulk and pallor suggested not so much the desk as the tomb. Complete silence fell. “Present me,” Ludovic said, “to these gentlemen.”