Fullofit - Schwarmfürher, his old DV back and now Ziggy gets gonged with the PLM! That should take care of the itchy neck. Congrats on the Blue Max!!
Lou - Enquiring minds want to know - what's Tiggy Winkle's new Pirate nickname. Drink up me hearties! Yo Ho! Lovely screenshots of the Dawn Patrol. All my early patrols are nearly full light. Did you adjust time backwards?
Raine - You set a fine trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow around London. Infinitely superior to Rula Lenska from those absurd Alberto VO5 commercials in the 70s. Glad you're enjoying. Nice pull by Vogel getting Steinmesser as his new procurement NCO. If Vogel maintains his current pace he might just be giving his new pal MVR a giddyup.
À la Recherche du Temps Perdu - Part 17 of many
20 July 1917 The International
London, England
A note from Kingsman. Slacks and breeches were ready. Final fitting for tunics which would be on the 24th.
More good news. Mr. Tracy came through with Tickets to
Chu Chin Chow for tonight. The show was the most popular in London and I’d had no luck going through normal channels.
Eliza lay close against me, head nestled in the crook of my shoulder, her arm draped across my chest, and her thigh rubbed lazily on my own.
“What do you want for your 21st Birthday?” she asked.
“My 22nd birthday, and to tell you something, Eliza.”
She put her fingers to my lips as she had that day in Corbie.
“I know, Oliver. How could I not? Isn’t it enough that I know?”
“Why, Eliza? At least tell me why.”
“No.” She put her fingers to my lips again. “Oliver, please don’t wreck this. Take things for what they are. You’re marvelous! What we have together is marvelous! With you I’m free. I can be myself. We make each other happy. Don’t ruin it. Please….”
She hugged me close.
I took her hand, kissing the base of her thumb and the inside of her wrist. I turned her hand over, examining at the length of the fingers, the long nail beds. These the hands so remarkably skilled. Fine lines down the inside of her wrist. So faint. Scars? I couldn’t be sure.
“What are you doing? That tickles,” she said, pulling her hand away.
“I never really looked at your hands before.”
“Why am not surprised, Oliver? Your focus on my person has ever been elsewhere.”
“Lovely, like the rest of you,” I said. “Have they always been so dexterous? Holding men’s hearts as they do, and giving them life?”
She ignored my entendre.
“They’ve always done what I wanted them to do,” she said in answer, “drawing, sewing, both fabric and now flesh. You would have been foolish to challenge me at jacks when I was a little girl. It wasn’t long before the other children my age refused to play. I always won.”
“If only they played Jacks in Monte Carlo,” I said.
Chu Chin Chow was a favored ticket and hard to come by. His Majesty’s Theatre was packed to bursting, mostly with troops on leave and their ladies. Featuring the great Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton the play was a take on the old Ali Baba and the 40 thieves tale. Quite violent as it turned out with the poor eponymous merchant Chu Chin Chow murdered in the first ten minutes by the evil bandit Abu Hasan, who then assumed his identity. The slave girl Zahrat gets her revenge in the end, stabbing Abu Hasan to death then eliminating all his henchmen by boiling them alive in oil! I found that last bit a trifle unsettling. In the end, lovers reunite and all ends happily.
What was provocative, to say the least, were the costumes of the chorus girls. Highly revealing would be an understatement. During the interval, I heard of a brewing row with the Lord Chamberlain himself, who now acts as the official theatre censer. Eliza found the entire situation both absurd and amusing.
Collecting two flutes of champagne, I literally bumped into an old friend from training, Tom Gleason! He is with No. 20 Squadron, at Ste. Marie Chapelle, still flying Fees! Gods protect them. I hope they get their Bristols soon. While still Lieutenant, Tom wore the white and purple ribbon of the Military Cross. We retrieved our bubbly and I introduced him to Eliza. Tom had eyes for one of the scantily clad dancers in the chorus, the hound. He was always such a smooth talker with the ladies. We arranged to meet after the show.
More dancing at Murray’s. We met Tom and his chorus lady friend Beatrice, who had a rather social Aunt in Marylebone. We repaired there for a late night after party and didn’t make in back to the International until 4 o’clock.
21 July 1917My Birthday!
I floated in a state of euphoria. Eliza lay on her side, levered up on an elbow. The early afternoon sun shining through the window reflected on Eliza’s hair as it had in the grove so long ago, lending her an aura of white gold.
“Am I your best birthday present ever?” she asked.
Not this. Not now.“Yes, absolutely.” I replied at length. “And you will be again, my dear.”
As I rolled toward her with an evil laugh, she hit me on the head with a pillow. “You’re incorrigible,” she said, then looking at me quizzically she continued, “you had to think about your answer. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
She knows“I’ve had some wonderful birthdays, Eliza. Presents too. There was my bicycle, my first rifle, then my horse Felix, how could I forget him.”
My desperate rearguard action only postponed the inevitable.
“I’m delighted that I surpass your horse Felix, and greatly relieved.” she said dramatically. “I thought for an instant it might be a woman, from your life of adventure on the high seas.”
“Who said anything about a woman? I was talking about a rifle and a horse.”
“Oh it was, wasn’t it?” Her eyes flashed and she sat up, taking the sheet with her. “Your face betrays you. Never become a spy, Oliver. You have no talent for deflection. Don’t be upset. That’s not a bad thing. Who was she, this woman who challenges my place in your thoughts?”
I must never play poker with this woman. She knows all my tells!“You’re jealous! I never thought I’d see that day.”
“I am not! I’m merely curious,” she said, with the barest trace of a huff. “Well?” she persisted, this time with raised eyebrow.
“All right, it was a woman’” I said. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Oliver, you have my complete attention. Tell me her name.”
“Mayavati was what she called herself, though I doubt that was her real name.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” she asked.
“In the Hindu pantheon, Mayavati is an incarnation of Rati-Devi, the goddess of love, carnal desire and sexual pleasure.”
“Oh, I see. She was the daughter of some wealthy merchant then? The concubine of a pirate chieftain?”
“She was… a kind of courtesan, a companion, someone far more than a mere woman of pleasure. It’s rather difficult to explain. There’s no word for it in the West. I didn’t know until afterwards. Smokey arranged things, though I have no idea how. It must have cost him two months’ pay to secure her services for the five days of our acquaintance.
Realization dawned on Eliza’s face. “That’s why you didn’t tell me about your birthday. Forgive me, Oliver,” she said. “I shouldn’t have pried. She’s the one, isn’t she, the one you thought of when I teased you in Corbie?”
“Yes.”
“And she taught you how to do that…whatever on earth
THAT was?”
“The Sitar of Arjuna? She did, and other things. I didn’t grasp it at first. The chakra combinations confused me, but she was a very patient teacher.”
Eliza dropped back down onto her elbow and sidled up to me. “Then I shall always wish her well,” she said. “I am, after all, a beneficiary of her instruction.”
“It doesn’t always work, you know,” I said. My fingers ran lightly down Eliza’s back, raising goosebumps in their passage, then lingered at the base of her spine. “The woman must be sensitive in body and receptive in spirit. Even then, it takes dedicated practice, or one risks becoming rusty.”
“We can’t have you getting rusty, Oliver.”
“No. It wouldn’t be right,” I said, and pulled her to me.
________________________________________
Early afternoon and we lay dozing.
“Oliver, these past days have been wonderful. You spoil me, shamelessly.”
“I like spoiling you,” I said.
“I know, but you must have spent a fortune. Let me do something for us. Let’s get out of London and go somewhere green, someplace where there aren’t all these men on leave to remind me of the war. I want to see countryside. I have an aunt in Aldermaston, near Newbury. We could visit her.
“Is this the meddlesome aunt?”
“No, this is the eccentric one. She’s really a second cousin but I’ve always called her Aunt Rhea.”
“So we simply telephone eccentric Aunt Rhea and say, ‘we’re on our way’ and that’s it?” I said.
“Now that you mention it, I believe I telephoned her the day we met Smokey. She was overjoyed to learn that I was in London and very curious about you.”
“At least my sudden appearance won’t come as a surprise, though I don’t imagine Aunt Rhea would approve of us sharing one of her guest rooms, or bathtubs.”
“Oliver, I adore the fact that you find me, and my body, endlessly fascinating but we can’t rut like wild animals in season this entire time,” she said.
“We can’t? Oh dear. That’s most disheartening. Wherever will I find the strength to carry on?” I said.
“My poor Young Bull,” she said. “We can always hold hands and think about General Pershing. Come on! It will be fun. If we hurry, we can catch the 3:30 from Paddington.”
Eliza had thought this thru well in advance. Why? Was Aunt Rhea an escape if things didn’t go well with us? We’d been having a grand time. What was this about?”
_______________________________
The Great Western line passed thru Reading. I wondered if Sergeant Major Mulvaney was still molding officer cadets or had returned to serve in France.
Aunt Rhea bore the name of the Titaness and possessed a figure to match. She was a substantial woman of large frame and generous proportions, who stood at least 6 feet in height. It was difficult to know for certain as she wore boots with a rather tall heel. The light cotton duster she wore belted at the waist. Greying curls sprang defiantly from under a man’s motoring hat. No fancy driving bonnet for her. Goggles she pushed up atop her head. A beaming smile radiated from a red, windburned face as she saw Eliza.
“Oh my dear Eliza!” she cried in a wandering contralto, gliding forward along the platform to envelop Eliza in a crushing embrace. “Look at you! Has it really been 4 years?! And your hair! How very modern.”
“Auntie, this is my friend Captain Oliver Winningstad, said Eliza. “Oliver, my aunt, Mrs. Tennyson.”
“A pleasure Madam,” I said, taking a hand as large as my own.
“Our famous aviator, aren't you a sight,” said Aunt Rhea, looking me up and down all the while. “You are most welcome, Captain Winningstad.”
Aunt Rhea’s voice had a musical quality, as if two people were speaking simultaneously but at slightly different pitch. Her mirthful expression led one to believe she might burst out laughing at any moment.
A white touring car awaited, complete with a winged victory atop the radiator.
“Oliver, I’d see to your cap if I were you,” said Eliza with a knowing grin.
Aunt Rhea drove like the wind and with considerable skill, taking each corner at its apex and opening the throttle as she exited the curve. The Daimler roared in response, like a wild thing finally set free after long confinement and sent us hurtling down the country roads. I couldn’t see the speedometer being otherwise engaged holding on for dear life, but if I were any judge of speed, we had to be exceeding 90 miles per hour on the straight sections. I silently prayed there wouldn’t be any livestock around the next bend. Aunt Rhea’s ample physique kept her in her seat. Eliza hooked one arm around the seat and braced the other against the passenger door. I was in the back, like an observer in a Fee sans harness. One hand for the luggage, one hand for myself.
It was better than any roller coaster. I arrived exhilarated if somewhat windblown.
Aunt Rhea pulled the Daimler to a halt in her drive.
“Here we are my dears,” she said.
Austro-Daimler 1912 Prince Henry variant. 5714cc 95 mph. World’s fastest production automobile in 1917. Ferdinand Porsche, designer. Pepperell Cottage nestled on 10 acres of mixed woods and pasture, which lay adjacent to Aldermaston Park, the vast estate of her neighbor, General Keyser. Aunt Rhea’s home was a sprawling two-story brick country house of 9 bedrooms, complete with ivy covered walls which enclosed an enormous well-tended English garden. Aunt Rhea’s children were all grown. Of her sons, the eldest served the intelligence bureau in some mysterious capacity, her second was a Commander in the Royal Navy, and her youngest was a Captain with the British Salonika Army in Greece. The three daughters, all married and living in London, served the war effort in the Capital. Rhea’s husband died before the war. She lived alone now, save for a middle-aged couple who dwelt in the groundskeepers cottage behind the vast garden; the beleaguered housekeeper, Mrs. Grimsby, and her husband Horace, who served as Gardner and sometime automobile mechanic. Eliza told me Aunt Rhea was not above soiling her hands working on her own motorcar. The cook and assistant housekeepers had taken jobs in a munitions factory, so Rhea employed various women from the village to help with such domestic labors.
The floor of the old house creaked loudly as I followed Mrs. Grimsby down the length of the second-floor hallway to my room. Such a view! I could see the entire expanse of the garden and the green pasture beyond, all the way up to the woods of Aldermaston Park. After she had gone, I retraced my steps along the chirping boards. It was practically a nightingale floor! Intrigued, I walked it again several times, noting my silent steps near the Eastern wall, and the equally silent floorboards along the western side if I crossed the hallway after the third door.
I returned to my room in silence, following this route. Looking back down the long hallway I saw Eliza standing just outside the entrance to her room at the far end of the hallway. She was shaking her head, laughing quietly. Then without warning she walked the same path, with a few minor variations. The floor offered no sound. Ghosting forward, she kissed me, and without a word returned on the same silent path back to her room and closed the door.
Dinner would be at the usual late hour but a less formal affair. Aunt Rhea busied herself with the cook. The sun was still well above the horizon, so we explored the garden, and the woods nearby before walking down to the stream about a half mile away. The day remained hot. Eliza led us to a stream at the edge of a cool birch wood where a fallen tree served as a seat. The stream widened here forming a large deep pool.
“I used to come here to swim when I’d visit Aunt Rhea. I spent the entire Summer with her when I was 16 and my parents were traveling on the continent. She took me to London of course, but most of the time we spent here. I already knew how to ride but she taught me to drive as well. It’s too bad all her horses have gone to the cavalry.
“A swim,” I said. “Now that is a fine idea. Who knew England could be so warm? I was spoiled having access to the RAC.”
“Tomorrow then,” Eliza answered. “I wish we had more time, Oliver. There’s another push coming and soon. When I left, they were clearing out the hospitals and sending all the patients to England. Any man who could physically survive the journey, and a few they shouldn’t have moved at all. Every day, I half expect a telegram cancelling my leave and ordering me back to France.”
I put my arm around her as we sat there by the stream. “There’s time enough, Eliza,” I said. I hoped it was true.