Flight From Honour

16

The next morning, the weather had changed its mind about it being autumn. The sun rose into a near-cloudless and windless sky and before the dew had dried, O’Gilroy made his first solo flight.

For brief periods over the last five days he had sat beside an instructor as they floated soggily around the aerodrome in a training machine with the honest but unlovely name of ‘Boxkite’. Set alongside the modern Sopwiths, Avros and Andrew Sherring’s Oriole, it looked like the work of a Chinese scaffolding company, but it flew. And the cage of struts and wires protected the novice from his own mistakes or the ground – which amounted to the same thing. In this, he had notched up just over two hours of flight.

That might not seem much, but others had solo’d with less. And the truth, which O’Gilroy wasn’t entirely ready to face, was that there wasn’t much to learn because aeroplanes couldn’t actually do much. They took off, turned, and landed; the rest was engine handling and navigation. It was only now that men like Pegoud were discovering what aeroplanes might really be made to do.

And now O’Gilroy was teetering on the edge of the nest. He could stop there, quit, walk away. But that thought lasted only long enough to remind him that he was here by choice. Then he checked the oil glass, which showed a proper one-drip-per-second, and eased the air lever forward a fraction, followed by the petrol lever. The engine – behind him in a Boxkite – whirred a little more urgently, the revs climbed past 1,100 and the machine ambled forward. There was no speedometer – ‘airspeed indicator’ they called it on more modern types – so he had to guess, to feel, when it wanted to fly. And nothing to tell if he was keeping straight, except an absurd thread of red wool tied to a strut and streaming back in the wind. Did that wind feel fast enough now? It felt quite different from when he had an instructor beside him. Perhaps a second or two more, like . . . now. He pulled gently on the wheel and the Boxkite did nothing. And then flew.

It lasted – intentionally – only seconds, just a straight-line “hop” of maybe three hundred yards from start to stop. But it also lasted an age, in which he had time to think that if he left the engine levers as they were he could climb and fly on beyond sight until his petrol ran out. Time to feel utter loneliness because no way in the world could anyone reach out a hand to help if he forgot what to do next. And time for his perverse mind deliberately to forget, to feel a total stranger in a contraption from another world where there was no grass beneath his feet, no scent of pines in the breeze, nothing familiar at all . . .

And still time for his body to remember before his mind did, so that he had pushed the foot-bar to straighten the thread of wool, eased back the petrol, then air, then pressed the “blip” switch to interrupt the ignition, felt and heard the wheels rumble back onto the ground, his ground, his world. He wondered if he would ever experience a flight so long.

Half an hour and three more hops later, he climbed down and lit a cigarette. His hands shook a little, but they hadn’t when it mattered, and that was as important as his instructor saying: “That was pretty good, you’re getting the hang of it. Next time you can do a couple of turns. Just one or two points to bear in mind . . .”

O’Gilroy looked back at the clumsy, unlikely contrivance that had, nevertheless, flown. No – that he had made fly. There was grass underfoot and a pine scent in the air, but the sky was part of that world, too. His world, now his sky.

* * *

The temperature climbed towards the seventies, promising a bad-tempered day under the attic roof of Whitehall Court. The stenographers went about shaking at the necks of their blouses when they thought nobody was looking, and Lieutenant J turned up late and disguised, he said, as a plumber’s mate. This involved a cool collarless shirt and no jacket. Dagner calmly sent him around the building knocking on doors and asking if they had reported a plumbing problem – then surprised Ranklin by erupting into laughter.

“That’s more like it. I want them trying to put one over on us. If they can do that, perhaps they can do it to others.”

“As long as we don’t get one of them coming in saying he’s disguised as an artist’s model.” But the others hadn’t got J’s flair. He came from a very aristocratic background and in him, that was an advantage. Being totally confident of who he was left him more time than most for studying others, and he had got the humble superiority of a skilled artisan exactly right.

Dagner insisted they arrive at the Carlton well ahead of the time Ranklin thought was politely early. But this was typical of Dagner’s manner generally, and – Ranklin recalled – most Indian society. Out there, they clung to the manners and slang of twenty years ago, convinced that England had Gone To The Dogs and was gripped by fads and fashions that Ranklin had noticed, if at all, as mere ripples.

They ordered tea and Dagner insisted that a fresh pot be brought the moment Mrs Finn arrived. The tables were spaced for privacy even without the potted-palm jungle waving around them in the blast of fans that countered the unseasonable warmth.

Dagner said abruptly: “Am I right in thinking that the contract for Mr Sherring’s aeroplane has been agreed?”

“I think it gets signed tomorrow. Mrs Finn’s been handling the financial end.”

“I believe she understands money.” But Dagner said it without any implications; perhaps wives running an Indian household were also expected to understand money – though not in freight-car lots, as Corinna herself might have put it.

“And,” Ranklin said sombrely, “I presume the Senator now goes home to start his sabotage strike in Trieste.”

Dagner wore a smile of curiosity. “Are you concerned that he won’t be able to do it – or that he will, and it’ll get out of hand?”

“Getting out of hand.”

“Oh, I think Europe can absorb a little local squabbling.”

“Less than a year ago, I was tramping around the Greek mountains with a brigade of French 75’s.”

“But that was only a local war,” Dagner pointed out. “Though I know no war seems local when you’re fighting it. The Great Powers, led by ourselves, kept it so – and imposed a peace.”

“It brewed up again within weeks.”

“And again it was stopped from spreading. Perhaps you were too close to see how remarkable that was: after all these centuries, Europe realised it had the power to stop wars as well as start them. The Pax Britannica became a Pax Europa. I doubt we’ll ever stop local wars any more than we’ll stop crime. But a mature society can contain crime, not be destroyed by it.”

Ranklin was hunched over his teacup, brooding back to the winter roads of Greece. But the memory was useless; the front line taught you nothing about diplomacy and Big Causes. You were too concerned about where the next shell would land.

He sighed. “Perhaps. I still feel there’s a risk . . . Here she comes: we might ask her, she travels more than I do.”

Corinna had felt untypically self-conscious about meeting Ranklin’s new boss – of whom she’d only just heard anyway. She guessed that her suitability was on trial, which gave her the choice of being infuriated by their gall, or meekly going along with it for Ranklin’s sake. So she got privately furious in a speech which almost melted her dressing-table mirror, then put on a demure tea gown of pastel silk (she liked stronger colours) and a stupid little flowerpot hat (with her height, she preferred wide hats). She already had such clothes because she sometimes had to be demure as the daughter of Reynard Sherring. But this wasn’t helping any million-dollar deal, this was being demure as herself. Grrr.

At least the Carlton itself was familiar ground since she dropped in once or twice a week to see what other Americans were in town. The war scares of that summer had brought quite a turnover, sending some rushing home, bringing others rushing across to sniff the air for themselves. So she didn’t feel out of place, only out of sorts. But having gone so far, she warned herself, for God’s sake remember to behave as well. And as Ranklin and what must be Dagner rose to meet her, she switched on her smile.

The new man was tall – few men were much taller than herself – dark-eyed and with the hawk profile the English liked in their public men and heroes. His manner was somehow both shy and self-assured, as old-fashioned as his suit was brand new.

“Delighted to meet you, Major Dagner.” And hastening to reassure him: “Matt’s told me so little about you.” She realised that was wrong, got flustered, and made it worse with: “And of course he hasn’t told me what you do.”

She looked longingly at her cup of tea but daren’t touch it. It would rattle like dice.

Dagner’s polite smile was undisturbed. “Just potter about the War Office shuffling papers, along with Captain Ranklin. He’s been showing me the ropes.”

“Oh, yes. You’re, ah-” Was she even supposed to know he’d come from India? “-new to London. Are you settling down okay? I’m sorry – I don’t even know if you’re married?”

Damn, Ranklin thought, I should have warned her that his wife’s dead. But Dagner said calmly. “Yes, but my wife’s still on her way home. My posting was rather sudden: they shot me off on the first boat and left her to pack up our kit. The Army’s a very primitive society: we still let the women do all the work.”

Corinna laughed rather too loudly; Ranklin sat expressionless, but nobody seemed to notice. Then he thought: Of course, he must have married again, seven years is quite long enough. So he smiled too late, but luckily nobody noticed that, either. Corinna picked up her cup with a steady hand, sipped, and said: “So you’ve been with the Army in India. I remember now that Matt said.”

“I hope he didn’t say quite that. I belong to the Indian Army, the army raised there. The Army in India is just regular British units posted out there for a few years at a time. I believe Captain Ranklin – Matt – himself had a posting there.”

“All those Indian soldiers look terribly grand in the pictures.” She knew she was babbling, but now had to go on. “Was that what attracted you? – when you were younger, of course.”

“I just joined my Army, Mrs Finn – as Captain Ranklin did his. My family’s been in India for four generations. My great-grandfather fought at Mysore. But he reckoned Wellesley wouldn’t need his help tackling Napoleon so stayed out there. And as for it being grand, I’m afraid the British Army looks on us as poor relations. We’re even expected to live on our pay – the ultimate insult. So we don’t get the young sprigs of aristocracy, not in garrisons six weeks’ voyage from Piccadilly.”

“Do you miss them that much?”

“Somehow,” Dagner smiled, “we stumble on without. They’re prepared to accept our hospitality on attachment when some-thing’s happening, as it usually is in India, but they aren’t too keen on us cropping up in London to renew the acquaintance.”

Feeling quite at home now, Corinna frowned at Ranklin. “Did you behave like that?”

Before he could answer, Dagner said: “No, I absolve Gunners: they despise everybody quite indiscriminately. They see themselves as an oblique aristocracy quite on their own.”

“Not aristocracy,” Ranklin said. “Gods.”

She laughed freely, then said: “Yet for all that, you still talk of ‘coming home’. Which do you think of as home? – England or India?”

Dagner sat back to think, throwing one long leg over the other. He still wears boots, she noted, well made and beautifully polished, but not shoes. And although he was nowhere near old enough, she placed him in her father’s generation with its solid, dated manners and values. Of course, her father was really a buccaneer – but surely Dagner must also be one, in his own world.

He was saying: “D’you know? – it isn’t easy to say. Perhaps it should be the same thing, but it isn’t. When I’m here, I’m always startled at how seldom people think of India, compared with how much India thinks of England. And I confess that makes me feel a bit of a stranger. And, as it were, as one stranger to another, may I ask a question? Captain Ranklin and I were talking about war, a European war-”

“D’you ever talk about anything else?”

“Ah, that was almost the question. I understand that you travel widely: is it the same throughout Europe?”

“War talk? Yes.”

“But do people really believe it could happen?”

“Sure they do.”

Dagner shook his head in genuine puzzlement. “But with all the changes, new inventions-”

“Like the new battleships and submarines and Matt’s guns and putting machine-guns on airplanes?”

“Quite, although I was thinking more of things like the telephone, faster travel, that are bringing the nations closer together. And must help trade. Europe’s grown so rich. Yes, you still see poverty – but nothing like what you see in India. A Continental war – it seems almost a luxury, an absurd extravagance . . . if that doesn’t sound too ridiculous.”

She smiled sympathetically. “No, you may have hit on something there. Maybe these people think they can afford a war along with everything else. They could even feel they’ve already paid for it, with the new battleships and all, so now they’re owed the glory. I don’t know about that. But one thing’s for sure, they don’t think a war’s going to be long and costly, so economic arguments just don’t work a damn.”

“But those can’t be the opinions of political and industrial leaders.”

“I don’t talk to people on street corners,” she said crisply.

“Of course not, I do apologise . . . but it seemed as if you were suggesting that some people might actually want such a war.”

She glanced at Ranklin, who was no help, and then felt: he asked me, and this matters too much for tact. “Yes, I think some people do: they think it’ll ‘clear the air’ somehow.”

He clearly didn’t believe her so, being Corinna, she doggedly went ahead and made it worse: “Europeans think we Americans don’t know anything about war. But we did have one – before my time, but there’re still survivors of it stumping around on one leg. D’you know how big the US Army – North and South together – was when it started? Just about fifteen thousand men. Four years later our war had killed six hundred thousand of them. So we think it’s a little funny the Europeans think we don’t know about war.”

The figures startled Ranklin, but Corinna didn’t get figures wrong. And his startlement proved her point: European armies did dismiss that war as “merely civil” and got on with studying the campaigns of the properly international Franco-Prussian one.

Dagner showed no reaction at all. An oyster doesn’t slam shut. But although he was still smiling politely, it was clear to both of them that he was back in his shell, not at home to any more opinions.

“Alas, I hear the call of unshuffled papers – so will you forgive me if . . . ?” He stood up.

In perfect control, Corinna flashed her widest smile and extended her hand. “Delighted to have met you, Major.”

When Dagner had gone, she let out her breath like – rather too much like – a surfacing whale, and said: “How’d I do? I felt so stupidly nervous . . .”

“That was my fault.” He wasn’t sure what was, but it seemed a safe thing to say.

“He didn’t believe us, though.” She mused. “Was that because I was a woman – or an American?”

“You did rather ram that in.”

She grinned wickedly, then turned serious. “But in his job, he should be a better listener. And people living under a volcano ought to know it’s there. You could have trouble with that man.”

So Ranklin found himself defending Dagner out of loyalty. “He’s been a long time out in India. It gives you a great impression that Britain, and Europe, are wonderfully efficient and sensible. Out there, believe me, you feel you’re floating in a great river, no point in swimming against it and nothing you can do to speed it up or change anything. Give him time, he’ll learn.”

“If you’ve got time. Maybe his wife’ll help, when she gets here. He needs someone to talk to. D’you know anything about her?”

“Er . . . no. Except she must be his second wife. His first died in India. So an old friend of his said.”

“Was he doing the same sort of work in India?” Now Dagner was no longer a State Secret, Corinna wasn’t holding back.

Ranklin tried a diversionary answer. “Out there, he’s quite a hero – I mean an overt one. He was on Younghusband’s expedition to Tibet and picked up a DSO.”

“Whatever all that means.”

“In 1904, they routed the whole Tibetan Army, fought their way through to Lhasa, the first white men to reach the Forbidden City.”

“Yes? And what did that achieve?”

He tried to think back. According to Army gossip, policy had changed so that London’s politicians censured Younghusband, disowned the expedition and ultimately forced Curzon to resign as Viceroy (Curzon again: had they refought the Younghusband campaign over dinner at the Tower?). You quickly learnt not to expect rewards – except medals, which cost nobody anything – and also that if you were to go on believing in Britain, you had to stop believing its politicians. And some, already with experience of the secret world, might conclude it was best to decide for yourself what was right for your country.

Was that, for one man, what Younghusband’s expedition had achieved?

“Difficult to say,” he mumbled.