over to the photograph of Brenda Marshall, standing by the Moth in her white overall with her smile and her short, curly hair. I disliked this woman very much, her attitude, her cynicism, her whole way of looking at things. I didn’t like any part of her, and she was keeping me out of bed. ‘He’s over sixty years old,’ I said. ‘If he likes to keep photographs of women who’ve been kind to him all through his life, that’s nothing to do with us. We’ve no right to be in this house anyway, but I’ve got to use it because I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll have to ask you to go away now, and leave me to it.’
She asked, ‘Can I use your telephone to call a taxi?’
I glanced out of the window; momentarily the rain had stopped, but the clouds were still scudding low before a high wind. ‘It’s not raining now,’ I said. ‘You can walk it into town in ten minutes.’
She flushed angrily. ‘All right, I’ll go and leave you to sleep. When you wake up you’d better think of going back to the mainland. I don’t suppose any of the doctors here will want to fly with you.’
I showed her out, and she marched up the road picking her way between the puddles, an arrogant, slightly absurd middle-aged woman in a blue suit and high-heeled, black patent leather shoes, most unsuitable for country walking. I went back into the sitting room and poured myself another whisky from Johnnie Pascoe’s bottle with a hand that shook with irritable anger. I sat down in his chair before the fire and lit a cigarette, to cool off for a few minutes before I went to bed. I knew I wouldn’t sleep if I went to bed as angry as I was just then.
That was a bad, spiteful woman, and I mustn’t let her get under my skin. Be objective, recognise her for what she was, and then the barbs would cease to rankle. To tell a pilot of my age and experience that his flying was unsafe, that doctors didn’t want to fly with him – that was a shrewd one, the stabof a woman in the habit of hurting. The worst of it was that it was very nearly true. I had stretched things to the limit of safety that morning, and perhaps a little bit beyond. Surely one had a right to do that when a man’s life depended on it? Surely one had a right to call up all one’s capital of skill? If I was prepared to take a chance myself, surely I had a right to make the doctor take it with me? He hadn’t seemed to mind about it at the time.
I took another drink and blew out a long cloud of smoke. In spite of my efforts I had achieved nothing, nothing at all. All I had done had been to lose the doctor’s suitcase with all his instruments in it. God only knew when he would get that back. To take my mind off my own troubles I got up and moved around the room. I set his barometer, and then I went on looking at the pictures. There were other photographs of Johnnie Pascoe in the First World War that I had not examined. There was an informal group of about a dozen pilots standing in a meadow in summer weather, probably on the edge of an aerodrome because a quaint, old-fashioned Nissen hut with a boarded end showed in the background. All the men were very young, and all of them were in Army uniforms. Three of them wore the R.F.C. tunic, double-breasted. One seemed to be an American, for he wore a single-breasted khaki tunic buttoned close up round the neck and the wings upon his chest were the unswept wings of the American Army. The rest of them wore normal British Army tunics with wings, and these wore khaki collars and ties; three of them wore Sam Browne belts, and one was wearing riding breeches and puttees. Scrawled on the bottom of the photograph were the words, ST. OMER 1918, in white ink that had faded to yellow.
I looked at it closely, and decided that Johnnie Pascoe was standing on the right, one of the pilots in an R.F.C. tunic. He had something round his neck that flopped down in a light streak on one shoulder, and I puzzled over this aspectof his uniform for a few
She asked, ‘Can I use your telephone to call a taxi?’
I glanced out of the window; momentarily the rain had stopped, but the clouds were still scudding low before a high wind. ‘It’s not raining now,’ I said. ‘You can walk it into town in ten minutes.’
She flushed angrily. ‘All right, I’ll go and leave you to sleep. When you wake up you’d better think of going back to the mainland. I don’t suppose any of the doctors here will want to fly with you.’
I showed her out, and she marched up the road picking her way between the puddles, an arrogant, slightly absurd middle-aged woman in a blue suit and high-heeled, black patent leather shoes, most unsuitable for country walking. I went back into the sitting room and poured myself another whisky from Johnnie Pascoe’s bottle with a hand that shook with irritable anger. I sat down in his chair before the fire and lit a cigarette, to cool off for a few minutes before I went to bed. I knew I wouldn’t sleep if I went to bed as angry as I was just then.
That was a bad, spiteful woman, and I mustn’t let her get under my skin. Be objective, recognise her for what she was, and then the barbs would cease to rankle. To tell a pilot of my age and experience that his flying was unsafe, that doctors didn’t want to fly with him – that was a shrewd one, the stabof a woman in the habit of hurting. The worst of it was that it was very nearly true. I had stretched things to the limit of safety that morning, and perhaps a little bit beyond. Surely one had a right to do that when a man’s life depended on it? Surely one had a right to call up all one’s capital of skill? If I was prepared to take a chance myself, surely I had a right to make the doctor take it with me? He hadn’t seemed to mind about it at the time.
I took another drink and blew out a long cloud of smoke. In spite of my efforts I had achieved nothing, nothing at all. All I had done had been to lose the doctor’s suitcase with all his instruments in it. God only knew when he would get that back. To take my mind off my own troubles I got up and moved around the room. I set his barometer, and then I went on looking at the pictures. There were other photographs of Johnnie Pascoe in the First World War that I had not examined. There was an informal group of about a dozen pilots standing in a meadow in summer weather, probably on the edge of an aerodrome because a quaint, old-fashioned Nissen hut with a boarded end showed in the background. All the men were very young, and all of them were in Army uniforms. Three of them wore the R.F.C. tunic, double-breasted. One seemed to be an American, for he wore a single-breasted khaki tunic buttoned close up round the neck and the wings upon his chest were the unswept wings of the American Army. The rest of them wore normal British Army tunics with wings, and these wore khaki collars and ties; three of them wore Sam Browne belts, and one was wearing riding breeches and puttees. Scrawled on the bottom of the photograph were the words, ST. OMER 1918, in white ink that had faded to yellow.
I looked at it closely, and decided that Johnnie Pascoe was standing on the right, one of the pilots in an R.F.C. tunic. He had something round his neck that flopped down in a light streak on one shoulder, and I puzzled over this aspectof his uniform for a few
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