Raine - MacAlister emboldened by his time in London? That dance was a very close run thing but bravo for pulling it off. I fear all that time with Oliver may have infected Mac with Winningstad's penchant for saying the wrong thing but all ended well with the fair Miss Bronwyn in George's arms. Spring, and romance is in the air for sure. Her church comment was a little jarring, I must admit. Hopefully Brownyn won't be reading him Job 38:11 come Sunday.
MFair - Those blasted engine fires continue! Tough break for poor Whidman. Did JJ grab Thorpe's extra gear as a momento?
Who Dares Wins, it would appear. Jeremiah bringing some serious cojones going 1 SE v 2 Triplanes! Impressive. Shame about the ill-timed stoppage but congrats on the Pfalz confrimation. How many is tht for JJ now?
Albert - So Jimmy is back with Bill Thaw and Luftbery. Excellent. No more joyriding on the down-low, he's got a mount of his own now. Smart move on Jimmy's part and now he's got the CO's confidence. Next time the fun begins in earnest.
Lou - Droglandt, in all it's onomatapoetic horror sounds like a nasty place indeed. The Ack Ems and Riggers are going to be burning the midnight oil with all these pranged landings.
RT - great to see you back! Superb introduction and as always the historical format only adds to the flavor. That Meissner chap seems to have all the luck at cards. Hmmmmm.
Congrats on the new machine. Weather clearing. Won't be long now.
Fullofit - I'm relieved to see Rudi using the down time productively knitting for the lovely Berta. I was getting concerned about his dissapation with Tybelsky. Something big is brewing for sure. Rudi will have ample opportunity to get 50.
Carrick - Glad Walter got his guns sighted at last. I hope the Camel is the first of many for the effervescent Spatenbrau. I still get an eye twitch when I see those candy cane Albatri. A most timely entertainment to pass the foul weather. Does Walter like the new Pfalz?
______________________________
À la Recherche du Temps Perdu - Part 59 of many1 January 1918Royal Automobile Club
London
These past four days passed in a dreamlike blur with no time for writing. Every moment I spent with Clarissa felt perfect. The world was back in balance and the war a distant memory. My ghosts slept peacefully. I knew it couldn’t last but while it did, I was a willing participant in the illusion.
______________________________________________________Clarissa was gone back to her room when I woke on the morning of the 29th. At breakfast we reviewed our arrangements. The escape plan she’d worked out the previous night would now be put into effect. Being between postings I was travelling heavy with all my kit, so my luggage would go with her. I would buy a ticket to London and be obviously seen doing so. At the same time Clarissa would obtain another ticket for my journey from Wolverhampton to Hay.
“Wait until the very last moment, then debark.,” she instructed. “Wolverhampton is a large station so you can melt into a crowd. Keep your coat on and you’re just one more of the King’s airmen.”
I was late into Herford and almost came to grief, but after a sprint along the platform I caught the train to Hay-on-Wye where a middle-aged man in a black chauffer’s hat approached me as disembarked.
“Captain Winningstad?” he inquired. “My name is Thompson. Mrs. Walsingham sent me to fetch you.”
Marlet House sprawled atop a rise south of the town backed by a large wood. Thompson informed me we were 400 yards into Wales. To the left the ground dropped off steeply toward a low pasture. Behind the vast house I could see what appeared to be an equally large ornamental garden, and three large outbuildings with the look of stables. A light dusting of snow covered the landscape, just enough to crunch underfoot.
The view from the front door took in the entire valley of the Wye and the Brecon Beacons. How this place must look in the full glory of Summer! Clarissa was indisposed when I arrived. I visited pleasantly with her mother and Clarissa’s godmother, Mrs. Walsingham whose house this was. Like Clarissa, her godmother had the uncanny knack of rooting out information without seeming inquisitive. In time the story of my cross-country journey came to the fore and with it the tale of the Seattle poker game. At this, Mrs. Walsingham’s face beamed with interest.
“Well, well,’ she said. “A fellow gamester. You are most welcome, Captain Winningstad.”
When I changed for dinner, I took in the view from my bedroom windows, which overlooked the vast garden to the rear. In the far corner I spied an old-fashioned hedge maze. I tried to plot the way to the center but a large overhanging tree blocked my view.
Bridge after dinner. I knew the game but it was 4 years since I’d sat in with mother’s ruthless circle. After some early bidding missteps, more than a few bad leads and one exasperated “Captain Winningstad!” from Clarissa’s mother, I settled back into the game.
Clarissa came to me that first night, from that absurd secret passage. I was up reading. Gave me a hellish fright when the wall panel opened inward.
“I saw your light,” she said.
“Gods below, Clarissa! There’s a normal door just over there,” I exclaimed. “I don’t even know the location of your bedroom yet you manage to slink into mine through some hidden portal.”
“Appearances must be maintained, and the passage door allows for a far more dramatic entrance,
n’est-ce pas?”
“Only you would bring me to a house with secret passages. Why am I not surprised? Are there very many?
“Oh yes, Marlet House is a veritable rabbit warren,” she said. “Nana showed them to me when I was little. Did I frighten the King’s heroic airman?”
“Terribly so. You’ll need to stay until I recover myself.”
She told me a fable she had from her Russian governess. My attempts at something more she playfully rebuffed. When she left, I examined the panel looking for a way to open it but found no trace of a mechanism. Girls and their secrets, indeed.
December 30th - Some hours in the village of Hay. The single bookshop was a drab and disappointing little establishment. Lunch in the pub. I’d rarely seen Clarissa removed from London’s finest establishments. I was amazed how easily she blended into the local scene. In her plain wool coat and cloche hat she could have passed for one of the townsfolk. We talked about everything and nothing. Her time in China and St. Petersburg, my time in Hong Kong and Vladivostok, punctuated the comfortable silences. The only time she deflected was when I spoke of the future.
After tea, we walked in the garden behind the house. Clarissa led us into the hedge maze.
“Are you often afraid when you fly against the Hun, Oliver?”
“Why do you ask such a thing?”
“Because I know you’ll answer me honestly,” she replied. It was true.
Am I really so transparent?“Yes, quite often, but not so much during the fight. The waiting, the anticipation beforehand, the stalking …that’s what’s most taxing to the nerves. Where are they? When will they come? Then the unforgiving minute after we spot the dots. Huns! In that moment the natural instinct to run screams loudest.”
“How do you manage?”
“I was well trained by Mr. Fairbairn and Smokey, and this war is not my first experience with fear. I sailed the Pacific before I flew for the King. They take a different form at sea, but Phobos and Deimos are old acquaintances.”
“Your typhoon,” she said. “Mountainous seas.”
“You remembered that?”
“Of course,” she said.
How strange it was to speak of such things, much less to a woman, but with Clarissa everything was different. We’d fought together. I killed men with my hands to protect her. She was as much a comrade as a lover. Her inquiry was the hard twist that opens the stuck faucet. Thoughts I’d never articulated now poured forth.
“It’s a rare Hun can outfly or outfight me, and my machine is faster than any plane now flying. There’s skill, too. If I’m smart, if I shoot straighter and hold my nerve just a bit longer, then my survival is very much in my own hands. True, the Hun I don’t see can still kill me, but I fight on my own terms most of the time. I’m not like the PBI charging the guns, or huddling in a muddy trench eating shells day and night. I live a strange life. At day’s end I go home to a friendly mess, white tablecloths, china, and a warm bed well behind the lines. I sleep safe and the fear can drain way.”
“And the dead?” she asked.
“Sometimes we see them die, but we don’t see their mangled bodies. They just aren’t there at lunch or dinner. That’s the hardest part for me, losing my friends.”
“It would be for you,” she said.
I laughed inwardly, wondering if Clarissa would grieve if I went west. She looked pensive in her silence, as if considering each point. We took one more turn to the left and entered the center of the labyrinth. She stopped then and turned to face me.
“Yet, you love it, Oliver,” she said flatly. Her light brown eyes flashed in the grey winter light.
How does she see me so clearly?I didn’t speak at first. She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows in silent insistence. It was true what she said, though I was loathe to admit it. Those who fight it are supposed to detest war. What I had known for many months now found expression.
“I do. I do love it, Clarissa. The battle, the singularity of combat, the fear-stoked concentration, the violent exaltation when besting another man, I love all of it. There’s a purity to aerial fighting, as if all my training, all my faculties, achieve their highest expression in that single instance of man and machine as one. Vaunting forward, into the fighting where men win glory, I never feel so alive…
“I know, Clarissa…
“I know how to storm my way into the struggle of flying horses;
I know how to tread my measures on the grim floor of the war god.”Gods forgive me, I do love it…She took my hand and favored me with a long hard look. She nodded, then inhaled the chill air slowly, savoring the cold. “Proper winter is coming. Snow.”
___________________________
Bridge again after dinner. Last night’s friendly game was merely a reconnaissance. Tonight, the balloon went up on the main show.
“Shall we make things more interesting?” asked Mrs. Walsingham. “Sixpence a point?”
I lost track of the point totals. It was the play of the game which now had complete hold of me. I’d not played poker in almost a year. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the excitement of gaming. It came to the last pairing; I would partner Mrs. Walsingham. We were both down by a similar margin and would need some big hands to close the gap. We gained steadily. On the final hand I held 5 hearts including Ace, King and Ten. King and Jack were two of my 3 diamonds. I opened with 1 heart. Mrs. Walsingham responded with 1 spade. Around we went three more times. When we got back to 4 hearts I was starting to worry. She had a loaded hand and was inviting a slam. Her bids were intended to provide her more information about my hand.
Think, Oliver! Think! What did Mother teach you?!“Four No trump,” I said, hoping that meant I had no queens.
“Double!” cried Mrs. Chandos on my left.
“5 Clubs,” responded Mrs. Walsingham,” with a gleam in her eye.
Gird your loins, Oliver!I tried to remember the proper conventions. My panicked mind ran in circles.
“5 No Trump,” I said not at all confidently.
“Seven spades,” said Mrs. Walsingham.
“Redouble!” Clarissa exclaimed. She smiled gleefully in anticipation of our looming defeat.
Grand slam. Mrs. Walsingham took us over the Rubicon, and she would play the hand. I sat as the spectator dummy and watched a grandmaster at work. Mrs. Walsingham won the trump lead with her queen, ran the A-K of hearts, ruffed the last heart then led all her trumps. She had 7 in total including A,K,Q and 10. Mrs. Covington had nothing and Clarissa was squeezed because she couldn’t guard both her hearts and diamonds. Grand slam accomplished!
Final tally had me ahead by one pound exactly with Clarissa on the losing end by the same amount. She did not look happy.
I was enjoying it thoroughly and my smug expression said it all: Pay up. Clarissa glowered at me.
________________________________
I didn’t hear her enter the room, just woke to her warm body pressed back-to-back against mine. She murmured softly in her sleep as I rolled and put my arm around her. I listened to her breathing for a few minutes then drifted back to sleep. She was gone when I woke in the morning.
December 31 - New Year’s eve party at the neighbors. Usual questions about the birds. The food was lukewarm and oversalted, but the champagne was first rate and dancing with Clarissa even better. I stayed up hoping she would come but, in the end exhaustion took me. Next I knew she was excitedly shaking me awake at 3.00.
“Oliver, it’s snowing! Hurry, it won’t last!” Clarissa stood before me clothed in her furs.
As I dressed quickly, she stoked the fire and put two more logs on for good measure. I pulled on my short flying boots and threw on Coat Comma Warm.
“Softly now,” she said then proceeded to lead me through the passage and down a long set of stairs to the library. In the stables she dragged out a sled and we raced to the crest of the hill overlooking the pond.
Sledding down the hill so many times, Clarissa sitting in front of me. I’d never been in snow like that; the night was so still, filled with unearthly quiet. I was hauling the sled back up for yet another run when she hit the back of my neck with a snowball. The frozen spall shot behind my collar and crawled icily down my neck. I dodged the next projectile and I ran after her. She shrieked as I gently tackled her. We fell to the snow laughing. Her cheeks were flushed. Soft white flakes dusted her sable coat and her eyelashes. I rolled her atop me and we lay kissing in the snow.
“Your ears are cold,” she said with a knowing smile.
The fire was roaring when we returned to my bedroom. The snow had stopped and the emergent moon illuminated the landscape, reflecting silver light in through the windows. Her hair smelt of jasmine and her pale skin shone like alabaster in the contrasting light. No competition, aftermath of combat, or madness of longing drove us together this night. By the glow of the fire and the pearled rays of the moonlight, we joined in the slow, gentle dance of lovers meeting as if for the first time.
Afterward she stayed the night, curled up in my arms.
New Year's day – It was nearly noon when the house stirred. The staff were off and after setting out a midday breakfast in warming trays they repaired to town to celebrate their own new year. Clarissa was right, the late morning sun had melted much of the snow. Ocher patches spotted the frosty landscape.
Time to go. Time to return to the war. Fight the impulse as I might, it was impossible not to envision a future with Clarissa but whenever I did so the course never resolved itself. Any way forward lay cloaked in a darkness which even my wildest imagination failed to illuminate.
As it was with the Lampards in Shewsbury, my time here with Clarissa was like gift to me. Was it also a gift Clarissa gave to herself?
Our farewell felt more like
Adieu than
Au Revoir. We took a final walk in the garden. As we returned to the garden gate, Clarissa stopped me.
“Something for you,” she said, pressing metal into my hand. I looked, it was a sovereign, but not of any recent reign. Worn gold, it had a tiny hole at the rim as if to accommodate a chain. I turned it over and read the legend on the obverse then looked back at Clarissa in shock.
“Gloriana Regina herself,” she said. “I thought it appropriate under the circumstances.”“Clarissa, this is too much. I can’t accept this…”
She stilled my exclamation, putting her finger to my lips.
“Shhhh. One pound exactly. Paid in full. A keepsake to remember me by,” she said. Her face grew quiet. No flash shone from her golden eyes. A look of sadness lingered then vanished abruptly.
I held her close, wishing that the moment and our kiss might stop time, at least for a little while.
I touched the cornicello charm at the base of her throat.
“You haven’t worn this until today,” I said.
“I didn’t need it. I was with you,
mon cher protecteur,” she said.
“You shouldn’t bother writing me for a while, I’m going away and won’t get the letters, but when you hear from me again, I will expect your complete attention.”
“Where are you going?” I asked. “Does this have anything to do with that sashed fellow I saw you with in London?”
“Don’t be jealous, Oliver. Antoine is work.”
She took my arm and we started around to the front.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“You have your war effort, I have mine,” she replied cryptically.
We stood by the waiting car. For a second the mask of her features slipped revealing again the hollow sadness I’d seen yesterday in the garden, but this time it mixed with resolve. I’d seen the look many times before a patrol. It was the face of one standing into danger. Clarissa would soon face a great trial of her own, I was sure of it. But what?
“I’m going to miss you,
mon Aviateur Magnifique.” she said. Her hand touched my cheek, then she turned and walked into the house.